The Last Flower on Earth

The Place Where Wishes Come True

(Minor Content Warning)

I burst from the treeline into a vast plain, though to my surprise and concern everything is still grey and desaturated. "Emma! We're really here!" I spin around with a wide smile on my face.

"That's... great... fantastic." She stands a distance back, under the shade of the trees with tears forming in her eyes.

"Em', I have had something I've wanted to give you since we left the arena." I reach into my bag to draw the ring. Emma stands perfectly still.

"Connor..." She reaches out slightly, I couldn't hear Emma under my anticipation to propose.

"Emma." I turn to face her, not noticing how far away she is.

"Connor." She says again, equally quiet.

"Will you marry me?" I notice the position we're both in.

"I'm dead." Emma takes one step forwards.

I clap the box shut and run over to her.

"What? How! How have you been dead the entire time! I don't understand!" I trip and fall in front of her, I notice the faint glowing magenta forcefield stopping her from getting any close.

"I... I pretended to be alive so you could come here, I'm... technically a Hate Demon." I stand up to look Emma in the eyes, we were both on the brink of bawling our eyes out. "You could say, I'm a... ghost."

"You can't be a ghost! Those freezing nights together where we bundled up and cuddled, the nights in the bunker where we ate meals and laughed until we cried. Our kiss in the mall on the ice rink, was all that not real?"

"All that was very real, the sensations of touch. Ghosts aren't like those in the movies." She places her hand on the force field. "Only living beings can enter this place."

"Why did you lie to me! You said we would live here happily!" Tears begin rolling down my face.

"I had to so you would come here!" she begins crying as well.

"I love you Emma!"

"I love you too Connor! But lying was the only way! The only way you could stand right here, doing the one thing I can't!"

I pull out the ring again as Emma reaches into her pocket as well, we fiddle with the objects as I present mine first. "I came all this way and followed your dream so I could propose to you." I drop to one knee and open the box, "So please, make me the happiest man alive. Even if it's only for a second."

Emma reaches out but can't reach the box, I stretch my arm out more so she can grab it. Emma pulls the ring out and slides it onto her right ring finger. "It's beautiful, it really is." She begins crying more. "Thank you, so much. From the very beginning, I knew you were the one who would do such a thing for a girl you just met, this means everything to me, Love."

I rise to my feet. "Emma, you mean everything to me, and yet..." more tears pool in my eyes. "You cant..."

"Don't cry Connor, you can... no... I can't tell you to do that." I tell her to say it anyway. "I know it sounds selfish, and that's not what I'm trying to sound like. You can wish me back to life."

"But the Hate Demons, they won't hurt you, will they?" Emma stays silent, sniffling away the remaining tears.

"Connor," Emma says quietly.

"Yes?" My voice was coated in desperation.

"I want you to have this." She holds a packet up with her right hand, as I reach out to grab it the sound of a whip cracking shatters the air. In a split second, I see Emma's head cleanly separate from her body as her torso is sliced in half with surgical precision. Her skin and body disappear with light blue sparkles leaving only ripped clothes and a packet of flower seeds.

I scoop the bag of seeds into my palms and try to hold back the tears as much as I can.

Everybody I love is dead, that thought runs through my head as more tears form to block out my vision. I fall to the ground and cry into my palms knowing now that I truly am the last person alive on this grayscale planet.

I cry knowing that I am truly alone again and that everybody and everything I love will die in front of me.

My family was reduced to nothing, less than memories.

Lisa hung herself from the ceiling, I cut them loose.

Jaiden slit her wrists in the bathtub.

Xavier was stabbed to death.

Nelson died twice in front of me.

I killed Neil in cold blood before I hit double digits.

And Monica, the only person I really felt like I could tell anything. She helped me through some of the toughest parts of my life. But I broke her.

And now Emma joins that list of traumas I'm cursed to live with until I join them.

I pull the pistol from my back pocket and shove the barrel in my mouth, I point the gun up, so it passes through my brain. With one final breath acting as the timer, I hold back the hammer and pull the trigger.

The painfully stagnant air ripples with two clicks and a small explosion.

The roof of my mouth feels like it's on fire for a fraction of a second with a great force pressing against it. I slowly open my eyes to see that I'm still alive, I'm still alive in this hellish world. I press the trigger countless times knowing that only one bullet was loaded.

I spit out the crumpled bullet and cry into my hands again knowing that not even death will let me leave this painful existence.

Only nightmares come true in this place.

I fall onto my side in the freezing snow, I curl up into a ball and sob into my hands and arms knowing that I'm stuck in hell and there is no way out.

I'm truly alone.