Blaze never found an opportunity to say a silly phrase such as this, but right now, she found it most appropriate.
"It happened in the blink of an eye..." She thought bluntly.
And it did. just seconds earlier, Silver and Blaze were headed towards a distress call from somewhere in the city.
Only to find the distress had gotten to them first.
Iblis was never something Silver and Blaze grew afraid of. It was really more of an infestation, just annoying. They would always fight that monster, the least being once a week. It was a routine for the three.
But it seemed like today, one of three wanted to end this long torturous cycle for good.
"The more we fought it," She thought. "The smarter it got. Iblis caused a ruckus on purpose. It knew we were coming..."
Saying they were ambushed was a simple way to put it. Iblis was waiting for them, and as they grew closer, the flaming rock hard creature sprung out out of nowhere and rammed it's sharp arms straight into their stomachs.
Blaze felt no pain, but she cried out in shock when she physically felt the rip through her body. She did hear a silent but audible gasp from her best friend beside her. And just as quickly as it had come, Iblis was gone.
As she looked up at the night sky, Blaze took a good thirty seconds to comprehend exactly what had happened to them.
"Idiot, we were stabbed. We're going to die here-"
"We're going to die." She said quietly. It finally hit her. Even though she was losing more blood with each pump of her heart, it began to beat faster. Silver must of not heard her, he didn't say anything.
She tried to speak, But her usually steady and clear voice came out weak and small. Blaze hated being weak, but she couldn't help it. She was scared.
"Silver..."
He didn't answer. Panicking, she stuck her hand out beside her, patting and searching the floor for Silver's hand. She was too scared to look beside her, she wasn't ready to see him gone yet. Her golden eye's remained glued to the stars in the sky.
"Silver...?" She silently cried her voice cracking. "No...no." She thought.
"Blaze..."
Weak and barely above a whisper. But he was Alive. She breathed out in relief and grew more desperate in search for his hand. Her own trembling. He was searching for her's too when Blaze felt the brush of his hand. They went back towards the direction they touched. She felt fingers, the palm...
They found each other and clasped there hands together. The way they always did when they were scared.
"Blaze."
They both finally turned their heads and faced each other.
Her heart ached.
Silver was deathly pale, and his face already gleamed with sweat as a strand of his ivory hair clung to the side of his cheek. She wanted so badly to brush it away, but she couldn't move. His dark pupils were strickingly wide against his golden eyes, and his dark eyebrows were scrunched together in pain. Blaze shifted her eyes towards the injury.
Red. Blood.
So much blood. Blaze couldn't find the gaping hole that Iblis had made. It must of been underneath all that blood. She looked back at Silver's face. His pupils wide, pale faced and blood everywhere. He looked at her with worry and sadness in his eyes. The exact same way she was looking at him.
"I must look like that too." She thought.
They bore their twin golden eyes at each other for a moment longer. Blaze knew, and she was sure Silver knew as well...
They weren't going to make it.
Finally, after a long silence, Silver spoke.
"Come closer..."
Blaze wasn't strong enough to move earlier, but now, it was almost like an invisible force gave her the sudden strength to turn her body to the side. Silver did too. They turned sideways facing each other and slowly scooted closer, their hands never loosening. They were so close, their breaths stirred their hair.
Little did they know, they were going to stay that way for the rest of their night.
"Do we...Are we supposed say our goodbyes...?" asked Silver innocently. An odd thing to see coming from someone like him. Silver was stubborn, determined, and an over achiever. Blaze almost forgot that they were both still children. Only fourteen. Confusion and innocence was supposed to be normal.
"No," answered Blaze quietly, "I don't want to leave yet."
"Me neither."
Blaze looked down at their clasped hands.
"Silver?"
"Hm?"
"Remember the time you got me that souvenir from Vancouver?"
"The snow globe?"
Blaze grew silent. Prepared for something she should of told him a long time ago.
"I lost it..."
Silver looked up at Blaze, his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. It was adorable when he made that face.
"You lost it?"
"I'm sorry."
Silver only chuckled.
"Blaze," He said smiling faintly. "That is the last thing on my mind right now."
Blaze managed to smile back only to have it quickly fade when Silver coughed into his free hand. He looked down at it. Silver then clenched his hand and looked tragically into her eyes. They were running out of time.
"Silver?" Her voice cracked. Blaze couldn't stay strong anymore. There was no point for it anyway, no one was coming to help.
Her vision blurred. Blaze finally spoke. Her voice came out hoarse and desperate, and it only grew the more she spoke.
"I don't want to be alone again..."
"Don't-"
"I can't go through that again."
"Hey."
"Please don't leave me, please don't leave me...!" She whispered frantically.
"Blaze."
"You promised to stay with me forever, you promised! Don't leave me alone-"
"Blaze."
Her tears began falling long before Silver tugged at her hand he was holding and forced her to look at him. Dispite his own tears already falling as well, his face was masked in sudden anger.
"Don't say that." He seethed. "I'm not leaving you, You hear me? I'm not going anywhere."
Blaze gulped down a sob.
"But-"
"Look," He cut her off, his face softening. "I don't know where we're going right now, but I do know this, We will still be together."
"But how do you know?"
"Because we always manage to find each other." He said. Blaze only stared at him.
"Remember when we both got separated back in the Olympics with Mario and his friends?"
How could she forget? As much as she didn't want to admit it, She was scared that day when she couldn't find her best friend in Vancouver. And yet, they managed to find each other. On that day, it felt like she was physically drawn to him like a magnet, Then she found him.
"I remeber."
"The universe keeps pulling us together..." He said giving her a small smile. "We can't be separated. You know that."
It only took Blaze now to realize how right he was. When they stayed in a hotel back in the olympics, they were booked into different rooms.
They couldn't do that.
Silver and Blaze never slept more than three feet away from each other, and just the thought of them being away from one another for more than two hours was enough to make them uncomfortable. Silver and Blaze were always together.
Over all, They couldn't stand being apart.
"...You're right." She finally said, her voice growing quieter by the minute. "Where ever we're going, We go together..."
"There you go..." He said that just barely above a whisper, but all his focus was still on her.
Thats when Blaze realized: She wasn't scared anymore. She didn't care what happened anymore. As long as she was with her other half, she was ready for what was coming.
Blaze heard and audible gulp come from Silver. She noticed, it was getting harder for them to breathe.
"Blaze..." He said his voice hoarse. "I just realized...I've always wanted a good future, a perfect world, an absolution..."
She continued to watch him, as his chest continued to rise and fall slowly. So was hers.
"But...I can't have a perfect world...If you're not in it..."
Blaze didn't need to look at his face to see his emotion, she already felt the warmth go through her body. She smiled and looked at him.
"You are my absolution, Blaze."
"You're my absolution too...Silver." She choked on that sentence, and finally, she let it all out.
"Thank you for being there when I needed you." She whispered. "Thank you for being my friend, my hero, my brother..." It grew harder and harder for her to speak. She finally choked out her final sentence, hot tears pooled from her eyes.
"Thank you for being in my life."
"And thank you Blaze," he said slowly. "For sticking by my side, helping me with my struggles...Taking care of me."
"Thank you for being with me."
They were getting worse and they knew it. It was nearly time.
That was why they scooted closer, there noses nearly touching. There eyes struggled to stay opened as they stared at each other.
"Blaze." He rasped. "You know...we don't see each other In a romantic way."
"Hm." That was an agreement. Blaze couldn't speak, She tasted blood in her mouth.
"But because you're...My best friend..." He kept exhaling with every last word, he couldn't breathe properly. "And I...care...about you a lot..." His eyes began to flutter. Blaze was finding it harder and harder to stay awake.
"I want you to know..."
It hit her. She never saw Silver in a romantic way either, but she cares about him, and he cares about her just as much. They never want to be apart. Blaze knew, at that moment, that they didn't have to be a couple to say it.
Blaze's vision grew dark, Silver's eyes fianlly fluttered closed.
She spoke breathlessly just as he did. At the same time.
"I love you..."
They used their final strength, to squeeze each other's hand,
One Last Time.
The Next Morning
Picking up stray bodies was the norm for Maxwell and his team. The world was a rubble, all because of that fiery rock monster, It killed anyone that got in its path.
They couldn't leave to bodies there.
Maxwell and his team walked aimlessy around the dirt covered area. The area in which that monster was last seen by civilians. Maxwell hoped that there wouldn't be that many bodies today. He was tired. His back began to ache already at the thought of having to bend over and having to move more bodies to the stretchers they bring with them. He was getting to old for this type of labour work.
"Nothing here!" called out one his men from a couple of feet away.
"Nothing over there either." Said another one.
Maxwell didn't see anything either. Just as he was about to call out and send back his team to the hospitalization camp from which they came from, Maxwell rounded a corner from a large piece of rubble.
He found two still figures on the ground.
"Guys!" He called waving a hand. "Over here!"
As they quickly went over, Maxwell knelt down and checked for a pulse on the two. Nothing. As always.
Maxwell stood back up and finally got a closer look at the two.
A wave of sadness suddenly washed over him.
His team of young men grew still and quiet when they reached their boss. They all must of sensed the tension as they only stared. Maxwell has seen hundreds of bodies, but none were as devastating as these two.
They were only kids. They layed together extremely close, there pale faces only inches apart, their dark lashes kissing their cheeks. They each had a large gaping hole in their stomachs, The blood was dry, yet there was so much of it. They looked no older than fifteen, maybe younger, but the biggest tragedy Maxwell saw about them were their hands. They were holding hands.
"Even in death," He thought. "They managed to stay together." They looked like a piece of art. A beautiful site his old eyes needed to see before his time was gone. These kids were probably the one good thing in this mess of distruction they called 'earth'.
Maxwell felt the need to leave them there. He didn't want to touch them and separate them into different tents, a procedure they had to do back at camp. Oddly enough, he found it disrespectful if they were to pull them apart.
One of his team mates was the first to move after a long silence and headed towards the two. Another followed with two stretchers. Maxwell finally spoke up.
"We only need one stretcher."
The two boys didn't question the odd request. It was almost like they silently understood for the need of only one. Everyone thought the exact same thing.
These kids needed to stay close.
Maxwell's team finally began heading back towards camp. They carefully placed the two on the the stretcher. The white haired boy was layed first, they placed the young girl above him, her cheek pressed against his chest. Almost the same way a couple would sleep.
"When we get back, I don't want to see these two no more than three feet apart. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
His team began moving. Maxwell was about to depart as well when something caught his eye. He turned around to look at the spot where they found the kids.
His brow creased in confusion.
Right there, were two flowers...
A large white one, and a little purple one. Maxwell took a closer look. Then he saw it.
A small vine stuck out from the two stems and were intertwined with each other. As if the two flowers were connected...
What he found even more strange, Was the fact that absolutely no plant life has grown anywhere on earth in over a hundred years.
"They would of been crushed underneath those two kids anyway..." He thought Slowly.
Maybe the world was just finally changing after all.
Maxwell shrugged off the oddness of the random flowers and began heading towards home. Leaving the two flowers behind.
Leaving Silver and Blaze behind. Together.