NOTE: This has little to no funny in it. If you like my usual fics for their humorous qualities, maybe this is not the right one for you. It's Raz's last thoughts. Not so cheery, hm?
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I was shoved to the ground. Unable to catch myself on my palms, I landed on my knees with my face in the dirt. I sat up and tried to wipe the grit off my face with one shoulder.
I looked around in the hope of understanding what was happening...
And an angel of mercy appeared.
Lili.
Dressed in a white smock with her hair down, she was incredibly beautiful (to me) and terrified. She had her hands tied in front of her. Lucky her.
She seemed then to be surrounded by a faint, heavenly glow, but that was probably the ill-prepared mind of a man in desperation more than anything else. There were dark circles under her frightened olivine eyes, and she was covered in dust and grime, but in that instant I didn't care. To me, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. So beautiful, and so, so scared.
In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to hold her, soothe her, to brush away that lone tendril of hair on her forehead. Anything, anything at all that I could do, to comfort her.
Even if she survived, she'd never truly leave this place. Even if she made it home to the arms of friends and family, a part of her mind would remain here with me; stricken and unable to leave. A bit of Lili would be locked here forever.
She fell to her knees in front of me. I cannot describe how much I loathed my captors for tying me up with my hands behind my back.
She scooted forward on her knees and kissed me with dry, cracked lips. It certainly wasn't among the most comfortable moments we'd shared, but it was among the last.
When we parted, she was crying.
Tears trickled down her cheeks in silence. I didn't cry. I didn't want to make it any worse for her.
"Why aren't you crying?" she whispered hoarsely.
"I think you're doing enough of that for the both of us," I said, in a weak- very weak- attempt at humor. It was wrong of me to do that, to waste time and breath on something which neither helped nor brightened the situation.
She placed a hand gently on my face, and with that movement she inadvertently pulled the other up beside it. I knew that if things were otherwise, she would have slapped me for my last remark. "You're too brave," she said, angry tears mixing with the others. "You're going to die."
I marvelled at the ease with which she had uttered the last syllable. But then, death was not at all a new concept to one who had been around agents all her life, spent most of her years around people who were both dangerous and in danger.
"How can you be so calm about this, Raz? Get this through your supernaturally thick skull. You are about to die. Forever."
"Don't be so sure," was my rather eccentric reply.
"I know perfectly well you're agnostic. You've never believed in reincarnation before."
"Maybe now isn't a bad time to start."
An order was barked at someone else. Lili was pulled upright and away from me. As she was about to be led away, she turned to face me again and said quietly, "I love you."
"I love you," I returned. I closed my eyes so that her face would remain locked in my vision as the last thing I ever saw.
Now I wondered. Was death forever? An abyss, pure nothingness?
Is there no such thing as magic, no such thing as God? Science would suggest so. But those last few moments made me wonder if there was such a thing as an angel.
An angel of desperation, of sadness and fear, of comforting lies and truths that leave a mind scarred forever and the bitter, coppery taste of heartbreak. But an angel nonetheless. Maybe angels can be scared too. Maybe angels are just humans who change the lives of others. In that case, everyone I had ever met was an angel.
There was probably a different word for people who changed others' lives for the worse.
But maybe it has less to do with what a person feels at the time and more how the encounter changes everything after it.
Everyone I had ever met changed me. It might have been in a very small way, but every one of them made me who I was. Take away just one, and that Raz, the one waiting to be executed, could not exist. It would be a slightly different Raz.
Maybe everything is for the better.
Angel of mercy, angel of grief. What does it matter? Maybe everyone is an angel in some way or another.
Maybe I was an angel once too.
I was pulled roughly to my feet and dragged away just as roughly. They pushed me into a wall that was probably pitted with the marks of countless bullets. I was blindfolded. My eyes were closed anyway. As I heard rifles being cocked, I retreated into my own head and shut off all senses...
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...Wow. I killed off one of my favourite characters.
No, he did not manage to escape somehow.
No, there won't be an epilogue. Also, this document is exactly 1000 words long.