I'll Reach into Eternity

Chapter 5: Nihilophobia

Will you remember me after a thousand years have gone by?

What if it were a million, or a billion? Will you remember me if you lived in eternity? Or would you eventually let me go?

Would you ever come back to me? Or are you lost out there, in space? Never to return. Never to be in your arms again; and it will be just like before: nothing.

No me, no you. No memories of joy or love or peace or even that one obscure Ferris Wheel ride or that sweet I love you.

Nothing.

And so it happens again: the skeletons march forth and terrorize your mind. The blood beneath whisking like a tornado and spiking the inside edges of her skin. The coldness and metal of her bones cracking at the joints, and the endless roof of eternity toying with Wams' breath.

She could feel her heart banging at her ribs, begging for escape. Her mind was a plague of disease that buried her so far into obscurity, she drowned. There wasn't space to breathe, there was just nothingness harassing her mind. It felt like claws stabbing through flesh and bone into the nape of her neck. Noises of nothingness were like footsteps inching closer; and closer still. There were hands everywhere and nowhere at once, with fingers so lacerated and greedy, so damn ready to reap her soul.

There's nowhere to go.

There's nowhere to run.

There's no one there.

There's nowhere.

There's no one.

There's nothing.

.

Then there was that girl made of everything.

It was starting to rain when the Ferris Wheel closed down, and the only rides open that midnight were the Merry-Go-Round and the Tunnel of Love. But Wams sat still on the wet roof of the carnival inn, gazing at the stars and the millions of planets painted onto the black canvas that was space.

Wams' heart was heavy, and her eyelids flooded with tears. The downpour came in, and she could do nothing but shatter and crumble and beg for a less painful way to claw herself out of hell.

There was that word screaming in her head again: Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.

Then April sat beside her. Wordlessly, she tucked her pinky underneath Wams' hand and looked at the stars.

The world seemed to pause; time seemed to stop. Suddenly, there was everything.

And nothing at once.

How could she be so torn between apathy and whatever the hell this feeling is! How could she be so stupid? So sensitive and heart-drained?

The hotness of the tears stung her eyelids like hellfire, and she let go; of her hand, of that feeling. Nothing mattered. So why care? Why care about this wonderful night? Why care about the ferris wheel, or the I love you? Why care about that girl made of everything if one day she'll be nothing?

Why care about yourself?

Wams stood up with her fist clenched and her face royally soaked in tears. She looked away from the concerned face of April, she couldn't bare to look at her again. She stomped away with the drizzles clanking on the roof behind her, the downpour making itself clear.

Or at least, she tried to stomp away.

April grabbed Wams by the wrist.

"No." April said, "You don't get to cry like that and just leave expecting me not to worry about you."

They stayed paused in that position for a while, before Wams' stance softened, and April took that opportunity to pull her in closer.

Both girls kneeled on the cold, rain-carpeted roof now. Wams couldn't see April, her tears so thick and seemingly infinite they rendered her blind. Her eyelids were beaten and bruised by the sting, her eyebrows eternally clenched and her heart floating in her chest.

April pulled Wams into her arms, and the girls sunk into the roof, "What's wrong?" April said softly, "What happened?"

Wams head sank into April's chest. There was a sort of brokenness in her silence.

April hugged her tighter. "Please," she cried, "I don't want to see you like this. What's wrong? What bothered you? You can tell me anything, I promise."

Wams was wordless. April sighed.

"I'll stay here." she declared. "I won't leave until you stop crying. I won't leave until you're not hurt anymore. Whatever it is you're feeling, it's going to be okay, okay? I'm here."

At what she said, Wams nearly formed a smile.

"April?" Wams croaked. "Will... will you come back?"

April was taken aback by her talking. "What?" she said, "What do you mean?"

Wams, like a wilted flower in the sun, rose up from April's arms and looked her in the eye.

"Will you come back to me?" she squeaked, "I know that..." she paused to try and rephrase her original sentence, "I know that one day we'll lose each other. It's inevitable, there's no stopping it..."

"Wams?" April replied, "What are you talking about?"

Wams shed another tear, "One day, you and me will die." she said bluntly. "And I don't know where we'll go. Will we see each other again, in heaven, in hell... or is there nothing on the other side? There's no you, or me, or anything that matters... so why care now? Why care about you, why care about this stupid wonderful life if, no matter what I do, I'm going to lose it someday?"

"Wams..." April whispered.

Wams suddenly wrapped her arms around April. "I don't want to lose you!" She screamed. "I don't want to forget you, ever. Just please. Promise me, wherever we go, whatever happens on the other side, that you'll find me somehow. I don't care if I become nothing when I die, because I'll do anything to become something just for you."

Wams blushed at what she said, the tears even ceasing for a moment just to process what she had said.

"I promise." April said, "But please, don't worry about what will happen, or what will become of you or me when we die. Hah, or even if we die..."

"April!"

"I'm kidding," April laughed, holding Wams' cheek and wiping a tear from her face, "The point is, is that this is the present, and this is the only real thing right now. The future can never change that you and I were best friends. The future can never forget that we were together. So when it does happen, just know that the universe remembers, and whatever happened before, no matter insurmountable the odds may seem, can probably happen again."

Wams took a second to think. "But what if it takes a million years for me to find you?" she reasoned.

April smiled. "A million years to think about what we'll do when we see each other again." she laughed, "A million years of finding things, making new memories, until when we see each other, we can have a million things to talk about."

Wams managed a weak smile, "Maybe." she cried, "But what if I forget you?"

April looked at her in the eye, and a million years couldn't have prepared Wams for what happened next.

April leaned in, and suddenly, on the stormy carnival night, with the infinite lights from the stars that rained its shimmer from above, the two girls sat kissing on the rusty inn roof.

After they parted, April gave one Wams one last peck on the cheek and smiled, leaving the bewildered Wams blushing furiously, clumsily trying to mask that squeal that nearly escaped her lips.

"Tell me," April teased. "Could you forget that?"