love of mine, someday you will die
but I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
-death cab for cutie

dissipate

Two steps. Her shoe nudges a wet newspaper page; in watery-thin letters some editor gives his unexceptional opinion and a blurry picture shows (oh, so blatant and without one bit of remorse!) a dirty family placed strategically in front of a burning town.

Urgently, his hand tugs on hers and hurries her along. He is anxious.

Fifteen steps. aquamarines drop from her eyes and splash onto the asphalt. She sees decaying businessmen waiting for the train and crying children with mouths so wide bats were sure to wander in, thinking it was a cave.

"Ignore them," his gentle voice tells her and they go on.

Sixty steps. Somewhere in the countryside, Luna's father is preparing breakfast while humming leisurely, thinking that his daughter is sleeping upstairs. Meanwhile, Draco's father glides over to his son's bedroom, ready to reprimand him. A note written in loopy, dreamy handwriting is clenched in his quivering hand.

My lovely Draco is on the front, smudged.

They glance at each other every now and then as their loud and hard pounds slow to the dim sounds of walking.

"We're never going back!" She assures him happily, dissolving into laughter. There was no reason, but for Luna, a reason for laughing was utterly unnecessary. "Draco, no one will ever hurt you again."

Nine hundred and forty-seven steps, and they fade, as smoothly and easily as they came.

slow down

That night, they slept under an old bridge, next to a river. Entwined together, Luna imagined that they were in a cottage far away, and there were no monsters or dragons. And they weren't exhausted adults, but beautiful and simple children. Her mother smiled down at her daughter benignly from a cotton candy cloud.

In reality, they were surrounded by pieces of trash and the air smelled like cigarette smoke. The streets were dim and uninviting, dirty and loud. Somewhere close by, a car alarm sounded.

In reality, she was only a starry-eyed girl, too scared to let go of her own world, and he was only a lonely boy who had experienced too much pain for someone his age.

Beside Draco, two empty pill bottles roll down towards the water.

"Soon," she mumbles when she feels his ice-cold fingers grasp hers clumsily.

"I love you, Luna, and I always will."

The both of them were so tired and lethargic. The adrenaline was gone, there was no strength in them to even lift an arm anymore, and with every minute their eyelids were getting heavier and heavier.

Before Luna could whisper something back, pallor mortis set in.

And they were gone.

fin.