The opposite of up was down. The word in itself had many different meanings, but there was only one that worked in this situation. It felt like he was falling, and he wasn't too sure he wanted anyone to come and catch him. But at the same time he knew that continuing on this downward spiral would get him nowhere.
The opposite of innocence was guilt, and that was what he felt. The bright red reminder of his partner's condition lingered on his clothes. He was supposed to have protected her, but he hadn't. And he had come out of that back alley completely unscathed. She, on the other hand, had not. And now she has hanging in the balance, and he couldn't help but feel that it was all his fault.
The opposite of success was failure. He'd even go so far as to call it a dereliction of duty. He'd turned his back for two seconds upon hearing a noise behind them, and in two seconds, his life had been turned completely upside down. He was on his knees now, in the hospital chapel, silently pleading with God not to take her from him. But at the same time, he couldn't help but think that it was his own failures causing this to happen.
The opposite of feeling was numb. After a while, the guilty feeling went away, and was replaced by a cold feeling that soon left him completely numb. He couldn't feel anything…didn't want to feel anything. As far as he was concerned, life would not be worth living if she wasn't there with him. He remained there on his knees, ignoring the silent tears streaming down his face, trying to block everything out yet again. But as usual, after a while, it stopped working.
The opposite of life was death. And that was something he didn't want to think about. He didn't want to lose her. Had never even considered the possibility that one day, he might lose her, because it scared the hell out of him to think about it. She'd told him once before that sooner or later, they'd both have to face it; he'd ignored her, she'd rolled her eyes, and things had gone about as normal. And then they'd ended up in that alley.
The opposite of hell was heaven. At this point, he forced himself to think about the possibility that she might not make it, and it only made the tears come faster. For all the hell that she had been through here on earth, that was the last place she deserved to go after this life. But he had no doubts that she would end up back in heaven…after all, there was no way that an angel such as herself would not. And that was exactly what she had been to him: an angel in disguise, sent to make his life seem a little less lonely than it had been in the years before he'd met her.
He'd spent so much time out in the world that he'd slowly started to doubt God's existence. For all that he had seen, it had become hard for him to believe that there was a such thing as God. But now, that had all changed. And he found himself staring out the window, at the sky, hoping against hope that for once, he had been wrong, that God existed. That there was still a chance for his silent prayers to be answered, still a chance for his partner to make it out alive. He remained where he was on his knees for what seemed like an eternity, unable to make himself move, for fear of what would happen if he did. For fear of what he would hear if he did.
For all the times he'd scoffed at her religious theories, he couldn't help but make himself remain where he was, hoping that she had been right. He found himself silently promising her that he would never say another thing against those theories if she made it out. Promising that things between them would change, that he would finally find the nerve to tell her that he loved her, if only she'd open her eyes to let him know that everything would be all right. He closed his eyes at this point, without moving, still praying and hoping that someone up there was listening.
After all, the opposite of faith was unbelief…and it was this that he could no longer afford.