Prelude to a kiss

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Chapter 2

The chilled air around me is soon settling, so much so that it hangs over me like a shroud. The stars shine rhythmically, as do the cackling of the flames before me.

In one night, my first at the city, I find myself cascading down a loandslide of varied emotions. It's dazzling. The stars. The city itself. His eyes...

I look around, my sight seeking his. He had to do a routine check of the camp, so I was left alone bar my brothers almost lifeless state.

I hear the sand shifting slightly, so I turn to find him heading nearer to me, an emotion on his face that I cannot identify with. It is neither placid nor anxious.

He sits down heavily in the sand next to me. I prod the fire as I have seen him do with a stick numerous times before.

He wraps an arm around me, and I let myself fall against him.

It is surreal yet perfect, and I find myself enjoying every second.

I want to stay this way; to enjoy the company of someone other than my brother. To have finally felt accepted for the way I am, for what I am. To stay covered underneath the stars radiant glow, under the moon,two souls left in a vast emptiness. But not alone, because others too have been here, thousands of years ago and to be a part of that is breathtaking. His touch against my skin sends goosebumps all over me. I shiver.

"Was everything okay? Are those nasty americans asleep?" I ask without thinking. The americans had been, um, rowdy to say the least earlier. Drinking booze they stole from a camel caravan no doubt.

"We're not all nasty y'know." I look up but his grinning. Debonair, but there is a sadness behind his eyes that draws me into them. They're blue at first sight, but as you look closer you see the grey, and you know that those poor eyes have seen things they'd never wish you to witness.

I find myself nestled against him, so daringly close that I cannot believe this is not a dream, not a figment of my imagination.

All throughout my life I felt rejected. My parents loved me as did my brother but I always longed for something more. Something was missing. And the sadness that I see behind his eyes is in likeliness to that which I see locked behind mine on days I wish I could be different. He's sitting and staring into the fire with those eyes that I long to know what they conceal.

I watch the flames, and feel the cold breeze. I cannot take the emptiness away, but perhaps I can fill it. She can replace that piece of me that I lost when I had to kill men, replace the piece that was stolen from me when I was younger. It isn't something you'd get me admiting, that's why I keep them to myself.

I think she can save me.

It's not very macho of me to admit, but I have been searching for something for so long, something that I have no idea what it is, all I know is that it's not there. It's not where I've been looking.

My body feels like it's slowly draining. I'm exhausted. I slowly rise and go over to my side of the fire. The warm glow has comfortably warmed my bedding. I lie down, pulling a woolen blanket over me and letting my head rest on some rolled up material I bid him goodnight. I'm suddenly unsure of everything. There's a million doubts in my mind and I'm scared. So scared of what will happen, and so scared of what will not.

I must be dreaming,. So tranquil and peaceful, so empty yet ridden. It must just be an anxious dream. I'm running away, then I find myself running back...

"Goodnight Evelyn." I say, noticing her behaviour. I watch her sleep until I'm sure she's dead to the world. I prod the fire, lost in thought, and then I look at myself. I have no mirror, not that I need one, but I need to look at myself. Look at what I can offer her. And look at what will hold her back.

Hours pass like they are going out of fashion. My thoughts are still with me. Jonathan still snores. The odd american grunts. A strange breeze swirls through out the city just as Evelyn mutters.

I leave my stick next to the orange flames, the familiar burning smell probably etched upon my skin and clothing.

I sit next to her, half unsure of whether I should. She struggles in her sleep, her face contorted into fear. A recognisable fear that I have seen on many mens faces before. Before they died...

In a panic, I quickly wake her up. I shout her name a little too loudly and Jonathan grunts and rolls over.

She sits up, her hair a beautiful curly mess. "What? Where am I..."

She see's me and jumps.

"Hey, it's alright. You must've been dreaming." I tell her, steadying her left arm. She turns to face me from looking dazily at the fire, shaking a little bit of sand out of her hair. She blinks at me. Long,, steady blinks. Her eyes are enhanced by these blinks and I can't help but wonder what she's trying to distinguish.

She squints. Looks confused and tired and then bites her lip. I notice tears swelling in her eyes, threatening to spill over and cascade down her pink cheeks.

"Are you comfortable?" I ask.

She shakes her head and more sand departs from her tresses.

I feel drunk with sleep, but plagued with dreams. Something bad is going to happen...

But maybe I am being paranoid. How can dreams dictate the future? I force myself to ignore the inceasant voice in my head.

But it's too hard.

He looks at me, his gaze never wavering. He looks like he's trying to figure something out. I look away, fighting the tears that I don't want to share.

"Evelyn," He says softly. "I've seen far too much to forget. Things that I wish I never had to see. I tore myself apart over it and you're doing the same I can see it in your eyes. What's haunting you?"

I take a deep breath, shocked at the tough mans revelation, shocked at how he could read me like a book and shocked for allowing my emotions to be visible. Here I am with a stranger, about to spill my heart out to him, yet all along I feel something. I know something is there that I can trust.

The tears spill. I look away. I feel guilty. Partially for the man I killed, but still...there's something else. Perhaps it is for something I am about to do I cannot be sure. But the guilt is there for many things. It just so happens that now has been the time they all come together, to plague me. Relentless, hard and cold.

In a crowded room I feel alone, yet in this mans company I feel like every eye is on me.

I take her in my arms, holding her close, letting the tears fall onto my shirt. She tells me things I could never have imagined she had locked up inside her head. Her past, her present...why she wanted her future so badly.

Her parents had died before she got her first Bembridge scholarship reply. It was a rejection. Ever since then she has tried. Tried to get in to make her father proud. Jonathan dealt with their death differently. He was too young to enlist when the first war came about. She was fourteen. He was sixteen. The recruitment was eighteen and plus in age as long as they were unmarried men. He could have gone, but he wanted to protect her. They went through air raids, they abandoned their home and eventually their aunt told them to go to Egypt as they would be in neutral, safe ground. Jonathan couldn't be forced to enlist and Evelyn wouldn't be forced to marry early. She could study, Jonathan could provide for her...

Ever since then they lived in Cairo. They seldom went back to their family home. Their family were all dead bar them, so they stayed out in Egypt.

So she wanted to be an Egyptologist. Follow in her father's footsteps, learn about her past as she was half Egyptian. But people always held her back.

Would I do that? Could I do that to someone?

I pull away from him slowly, wiping my eyes on my rough black gauze sleeve.

"I'm sorry..." I sniff. "I'm probably boring you. You didn't want to know all of that."

I'm just about ready to die of shame. All these things just came flooding out of me, so much that I now feel hollow. It's not a much better feeling that what I was suffering from before.

"Funny." He says gently. "A while a go it might have done. Then again, everytime you talk to me, I suddenly have the urge to listen."

She looks at me vacantly, then her eyes shine as though she's found something, something greater than anything that she could have dug up. She smiles gently, her full lips gracing her face and crinkling her nose.

"Thank you." She tells me earnestly. Her hair is framing her face, the fire is lighting her cheeks and the stars are giving the place a silver lining.

I can't help it. I kiss her, I kiss her with a passion that I even didn't know I could posess.

She clings to my arms as our lips gently caress the others. I pull away, seeing a sparkle to her eyes that I hadn't seen before.

I gently move a stray stand of hair, one of many, that are in her face. And suddenly, all I want to do is protect her and be there for her.

I don't care if I've only just met her. There's more to this than that. Something much more.

There's a fire in his eyes, greater than that of the fire. This man has something hidden behind them. Behind his stormy blue eyes.

He knows what I have locked away, and I long to find the key to his.

I watch him intently. Longing to know more about this man, longing to know if I can help him.

The sand blows all around us, threatening to engulf the fire. The curiosity is threatening to engulf me. It's forward and not at all like my usual behaviour, but I'd like to know. Afterall, he knows so much about me...

I've sort-of already started Chapter 3! If you'd like me to continue then please leave a review. Any ideas of where you'd like me to take this, let me know. Oh, and this is going to jump to certain points in the film, the end, and afterwards...