nine
"She has a point."
Ignoring the kernel, again, he considered the situation. The entity continued to exist, laced together over a field of debris by a web that thrived in vacuum and regenerated as the heat of its birth slowly dissipated. It was growing. It was making decisions. Unseen by human eyes, dark tendrils of matter snaked through the cold space.
He saw them. Black on black. He marked the density of something moving through nothing.
The woman's emotions battered at the skin of him. Acting independently, the mote of self attempted to calm her. He tried to ignore them both, his attention held by the slow assembly of matter. Her intermittent panic reminded him of what panic felt like, though. If he had a pulse, it would skip. His breath would hitch. That buzz would be blood rushing, hissing, tingling. The bitter sting of adrenaline. An unknown entity slowly unfolded in front of him. He knew that if she knew, if she could see, her heart would stop.
The fear of darkness was primal. The fear of dark on dark, of something moving through that blankness, forming, growing, whispering…
This had drawn him here.
Purpose clarified, he talked to himself.
"I'm here for this."
"I thought we had already clarified that. What are we going to do about Sunshine?"
Sunshine.
Sympathy plucked unstrung tendons. Lashes that no longer existed swept phantom cheeks. A face formed of memory swam across the eye of his mind; brown eyes, large and deeply absorbing. The shadow of line and lash expressive, even when purposely hard and blank. Windows to a soul that wanted to be seen. Lips, full and red. Always so red. Always. He remembered the way they moved, the elasticity of that mouth. From a tight purse to flat line to up-tilted corners of a wide, wide smile.
Her laugh. He remembered her laugh. The way her eyes flashed like mirrors, the way she invited…no, dared him to share a joke.
A joke.
"I remember her."
"We loved her."
The twist of sympathy became a pain as deep and profound as space.
"We don't have time for this."
And that was why he didn't remember, himself or her. Because he no longer existed and neither did she. What they had—had had—couldn't be. They were dead and he didn't have the time to mourn, just as he'd never had the time to properly appreciate what he'd had.
