The room is dark when I enter. Drapes cover the only window, pushing the outside world far from the tiny space inside. There is no bed, just a single blanket on the floor. It pains me to see my angel in such conditions. I kneel down beside the body on the floor, eyes catching mine, pleading with me. I forget that I am not supposed to be here, that there is little time for anything but what we planned. Those eyes make me forget everything, just as they did when I first saw them, happy and carefree. Now they are sad, but still I lose myself in their depth. Minutes, hours, days pass. A door bangs somewhere in the building, and I break my eyes away. There is something I must do.
I brush silky black hair over a narrow shoulder, revealing white skin so soft it feels like I could bruise it with a single touch. Long fingers reach out between us, grazing my lips and I exhale, breath ghosting over those beautiful hands and sending a shiver through my body. I loop a strand of hair through my fingertips, and then trail my hands downward. Neck, chest, stomach. The slightest shudder running though that delicate frame has me pulling back immediately. I can't. The angel before me is too pure to be tainted by my hands. I cannot destroy the very thing that saved me, even though it gives itself to me, begs to be saved in turn. Even the thought of what will happen if I don't fails to persuade me anymore. I cannot be the one to hurt my everything. I would never forgive myself. Even if they hate me, despise my very being for failing them so completely.
My hands hold thin arms, even now the grip light, pushing away the perfection, so that may not shatter quite so soon. Tears glisten in those huge black orbs, eating away at my soul. There if nothing I can say to make it better. No words to truly describe the shock, anger and most of all, the over whelming despair I feel as I flee the room, unable to bear the tears my angel will shed, simply because I do not have the courage to save them.
Is making someone suffer by your own hands really more cruel than leaving them to hurt alone, at the hands of someone far worse.
I am beginning to think that it is not.
The hair is the first thing I recognize. It still falls about their face in no particular style. But now the hair is dull, dirty, clumped together and tangled. The skin is next. Pale white like porcelain, porcelain marred with yellow and black, where unloving hands have gripped it too roughly. The eyes are different. Those orbs that once held so much emotion are cold and lifeless. They do not steal away my thoughts and leave me floating in some far away wonderland. My angel is gone.
