Defy Gravity | The Sequel | Eren x OC

Chapter 26: The Red Thread of Fate

You step into a dark sandy world, step into the dimly lit blue soils of the paths and look out over the vast expanse of your starry sea while the door to your apartment slowly closes behind you. You don't even notice as you're taken by the beauty of a world you haven't seen in 2000 years, 2000 lifetimes.

You look at your ocean, remember being born within it and you smile as you begin walking down the beach, letting your feet be lapped up by the gentle waves as they happily greet you.

You walk through the sands and as you do, you step on something. Your eyebrows furrow as you raise your foot to see a picture; a picture of a couple in the hospital with a newborn baby, their tiny violet eyes looking at the camera.

You pick up the picture and stare at it with confusion and turn it over to read Annelise+Alfred+Rose – July 26th, 1993. You keep reading as you soon step on another picture, this one of the young mother with her toddler, her red hair short and curly as her mother holds her in her lap and plays the piano. You keep walking and come across more pictures, all with inscriptions on the back about a girl named Rose.

You collect pictures of her, her mother fading from view after 1999, her father and brother entering her life soon after. You see her growing up, see her begin her piano and ballet lessons at 7, entering recitals for both at 8.

You see her grow up, dancing and playing so brilliantly. You see her during her preppy high school days when she first meets a boy named Porco Galliard, see a picture of them hanging out together in their school's courtyard. You see her style and demeanour change to that of a goth who gave up ballet when her father died at 15. Your eyes widen as you pick up a picture of Rose and Porco, looking excitedly happy on their wedding day. Rose's wearing a casual sundress she must have bought off the rack, Porco in a t-shirt and jeans; they must have eloped.

You gaze at this young woman, stare into her face that mirror yours. You rub your thumb over her face and sniffle as you keep walking, collecting more pictures of a young, vibrant, good-looking couple who started out so happy and grew apart over the years. As you walk, you slowly approach a beach house, a small light inside. You carry the pictures inside and stop at the door as you see a small empty room with only a tiny kitchen, a piano, a record player, and a mattress on the floor.

In the centre of the room sits a small round table with a burning candle. There's a small locket on the table and you open it slowly to see a small baby tooth inside. There's also a crystal vase with an arrangement of red roses and white lilies inside. There's a framed picture of Rose smiling happily from ear to ear as she poses in a creamy white vintage wedding dress. Her hair is in an updo, her red curls hanging down in pieces with a lily in her hair. She's standing to her side, with a hand on her small baby bump.

You slowly raise this picture, feeling your heart sink and your chest cave as you see how happy she is.... You think back on that small black and white picture of those two children back at your apartment, tucked into your travel chest and your heart sinks to the floor as you put two and two together. This was you... this was somehow you in your mortal life and those were your mortal children.

You look down at your ankh necklace and finger it as you always do for comfort and softly kiss your picture when there's a zap of electricity. A current surges through your brain and you see fragments, fragments of your mother and father and brother. Fragments of your auntie at your ballet recitals; fragments of your wedding day and your marriage to Porco; fragments of of two children who lived and died before you; a fragment of falling into an ocean in a wedding dress and sinking to the bottom of the sea.

Finally, you see flashes before your eyes of an intricate golden key you don't recognize, a tree on a hill with a tombstone, and a beach with a lighthouse where the waves crash in calmly as the sun sets red into the sea.