Prologue

I'd never given much thought to life.

When granted with everything you need to live and breathe, the cost of death becomes insignificant - because life, when given, is subjected to be taken advantage of. That's how it is, why death is an abhorred adventure, because it is chosen to be silenced and feared.

But not with me.

Holding the beautiful, porcelain-like body to me, I could not weep. When life presents only the partial needs for survival, one does not revel in the desire to live. One only looks to the thing, or someone, that keeps them going.

Some packages in life are big - others, like mine, are small, but all the more fulfilling and bittersweet.

That's life, but not how others know it. I knew because I lent down to those warm lips one last time. Always inviting and flawless, but this time unmoving.

I knew and became to understand the missing thread in the warp and weft of my life as the blood issued from his mouth, soaking the dirt floor. Surrounded by our enemies, my safety had become second priority. I knew and finally, after all that had been said and done, my eyes bled salt. It is strange, because despite the hollow ache in my chest, I still clung to him as if it mattered, as if my presence could unwrought what had been done. You could even say it was ironic because it was my very existence that had brought about this nightmare. But once I was gone, there would be no going back, no reprieve from the tears that would stain my face. As I knew they would for him, if they were to flow. And how I wished they could as I lightly traced a finger over his closed eyelids, delicately as if he were not made of the iron strength and will I knew him to be. Everyone has their downfall, and I guess one pays the price for trying to rise above it.

My new founded knowledge was a burden. Because I knew in death, there is no more life. And I'd have given anything to know it before, surrendered my blood to the enemy for the price of his life.

My lips brushed and tasted his as I blew the kiss of life into death, cradling his body in my clutching arms …