When the Stars Burn

Epilogue

A/N: I guess if Prometheus is here, then Epitheus should be too.

Thirty years.

She had spent thirty years living but not quite so. She lived but she wasn't alive. She was nothing but a shell of the person she used to be. But perhaps, it was to be expected. Afterall, she lost the love of her life just when she had gotten him back. She was angry at the world and what lay beyond. She lost all hope just as she had started to believe again. It was excruciating to be given hope only for it to be snatched away the moment she thought she was finally going to be happy.

She had believed. She hoped. And then darkness.

The last three decades of her half-lived life was akin to a pitch black sky devoid of stars — tragic and lifeless. She often found herself wondering whether the pain would be lesser if she didn't remember. But then, she realized that to forget his smiles and eyes, their banters and their laughter would mean forgetting the one thing that gave her the courage to continue living.

If she were to be honest, she was afraid. She was afraid of dying and spending the rest of her eternity knowing that she had damned him. It would have been a reprieve if everything ended in death. But that wasn't something that was granted to them. There was so much more that waited beyond the black veil. There was a great chasm she didn't want to cross. She didn't want to die.

Frail and senile but sharp of mind, she fought against the pull of darkness. Thanatos had visited her in her sleep one time too many for her to count. Yet, she refused every single time. The underworld wasn't something she looked forward to. Especially since she was certain that she was going to land herself either in the Asphodel Meadows or the Fields of Punishment. She hadn't led an extraordinary life and she was going to be just another soul wandering and lost. She was going to forget everything while Ian suffered the consequences of something that wasn't his fault. And that was what she was scared of the most.

Ian disappeared in front of her eyes. She finally understood the torment he went through after almost saving her. She, too, blamed herself although she knew that he would reprimand her for doing so. It wasn't your fault, she could almost hear his voice saying that in a tone that was enough to assuage the storm that was raging in her heart. Almost.

She didn't know what to do with her life after that, there was no point in living when she lost her chance for happiness. She tried to distract herself, buried herself with work, but at the end of the day, the awards and recognitions, the golden plaques and trophies served only to remind her that she was living a tragedy.

The nights were the worst. The silence used to be comforting when he was around. But the nights that followed were nothing but suffocating and yet, she couldn't bring herself to leave his house. It was the only thing of him that was left to her. If she closed her eyes and thought of him well enough, she could swear that she could almost hear his voice whispering soft nothings in her ear especially after a bad day. She would find herself wandering in the attic and playing their song on his piano with no one but the memory of his fingers tapping on the keys to accompany her. It was where she felt closest to him. It was a sanctuary they shared and only they knew.

People used to say that pain healed all the wounds. Once, she hoped it would. But it never did for her. Everyday, her chest throbbed painfully. It never dulled. It never disappeared. But it brought her comfort. It reminded her that she loves him even if she had failed him. And exactly because she had, she was going to spend the remaining years of her life in penance. The pain anchored her to the world. She couldn't wish it away because for the pain to disappear, her love had too. And she couldn't.