Hope to Die

"You were always there for me," her voice seemed to hover on the edge of consciousness, almost as if her life had already passed him by. Closing his eyes, he braced for the onslaught, cradling his friend even closer.

"I'll never leave you," he returned quietly, stroking the girl's hair with caring concern. It had been a long time since her sickness had set in and he could see so clearly how it had lain claim to her, casting irregular shadows across her dark, sunken-in face. A glimmer of her beauty still remained, for she was young and quite attractive: that beauty shone through in the infinite green of her eyes.

He looked down on her this time, his eyes narrowing in sympathy. He had promised to marry her one day, before the sickness came and took the girl he loved; it had left him with nothing more than the crumbling husk, a mere shadow of what she once had been. But her eyes still shone so brightly when she looked at him...

She heaved a great sigh, closing her eyes as her head fell back to rest against his shoulder. She felt safe there, trusting so completely in the only person who stayed by her side through everything. "Val, I've got something I want to ask-"

"Anything," he murmured, feeling the way her pulse seemed to slow.

"Val," she said softly, "make me a promise. Please?"

"What is it?"

With the little bit of her strength remaining, the girl reached out a cadaverously thin arm, her hand sliding under her pillow and withdrawing a small orb. The ball fit the palm of her hand almost perfectly, though by the way she trembled it seemed its meager weight would break her bones.

Val stared, entranced by the orb. Its surface was a mixture of iridescent and translucent; the ever-changing swirls of colors catching and holding his gaze like a vice grip. "What..." He meant to say more, but the swirling infinity of the orb held him paralyzed.

She smiled, closing her other hand over the swirling surface. "I know it sounds silly," she admitted, a weak smile flickering across her face, "but other than you, this has kept me from being lonely for as long as I remember." She breathed in deeply and he could hear the way her lungs bubbled, sending her into yet another fit of violent coughing.

She was almost gone. Val knew that much.

"So please, bury it with me."

Val smiled at the request, nodding solemnly. "Hope to die."

Perhaps she had heard him; he would never know. A slight smile crossed her face and she sighed softly, muscles relaxing as she slipped away.

The slight figure in his arms no longer held life.

He reached out carefully, disengaging himself from around the girl, laying her back on the bed he knew he'd never return to. There was nothing here for him anymore, nothing except...he took her hand, unwrapping her cooling fingers from around the hypnotic orb, observing with wonder as it seemed to glow.

Looking at her face, he shuddered as he gazed upon her expression. The smile, ever whimsical and carefree, seemed to mock him as he quickly pocketed the orb and fled her dark room.



There was rain on the day of her funeral.

Val stood at the front of the cathedral, staring with glassy eyes at the pristine white of her coffin. Beside him stood her mother and grandfather-in-law, the only people of her family who thought to come by and pay their respects. Her father was probably at home, watching the game, hell, Val didn't even know if the man realized his daughter was gone. He hadn't sounded coherent when Val had called. Her grandfather had died when she was fourteen. He remembered the way she'd cried for hours, begging, pleading, offering anything that she could to bring the kind old man back. Val had comforted her then, so long ago.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

The priest's words faded into a steady murmur of noise, a babbling stream he no longer understood. There were too many of them.

He wanted. One hand was buried deep in the pocket of his slacks, his thumb tracing senseless patterns over the moon-stone surface, his mind singing in a rush of chaos, buried within a thousand tones. Some soothed and comforted, others drove him to near madness.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside still waters.

She trusted you! A high-pitched voice shrieked relentlessly, and the sheer force of it threatened to send him screaming. It beat against his soul, louder, louder still--

--One last chance to do it, to walk up and place the orb in the coffin, she'd asked with her last breath!

He restoreth my soul;
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.

From the din, another voice, pure and sweet as song, rose up and soothed him. She will not miss it...she is dead, dead...

It's all he had left of her. She'd left him alone.

Yea, though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil

Val trembled with fear as the noise rose again, the rushing in his head nearly drowned the priest out completely. His frightened eyes turned to regard the aging woman beside him, the mother with a gaze that wavered with the burden of unshed tears. He felt pity for her, and it was lost just as quickly as the voices crescendoed and then fell away.

-A sudden silence-

For thou art with me.

Heartbeats and footsteps echoing within the cathedral...

He ran.



Two weeks passed, and time was indeed taking its toll on the weary young man. There were deep, ugly purple crescents under his lackluster eyes, and his hands trembled violently non-stop.

Tonight, Val huddled in the dark corner of his room, curled up and shaking in an overstuffed recliner. His knees were drawn up to his chest, pale fingers clutching the equally pale orb. His eyes were closed in thought, humming a tune he could not name. The fascination the stone had first inspired had turned into an obsession, Val seldom moved from the spot he now occupied, strangely content to stare at the object. The tune rose to a fevered pitch, and he swore he could hear her, calling, calling...

His eyes widened as the orb flared brightly, and it felt as if it were searing his hand, though it was ice and so bright-

He thought he heard her crying.

He closed his eyes, and when they reopened, guilt shone brightly in his wild stare. And something else there, too, anger and a terrible yearning. He heard her cry once again, and the full brunt of the voices came upon him, full-force; rising and falling in wave upon wave of utter chaos.

Val! Her voice was so full of anguish, and she cried. He could feel the pain as if it was his own. You promised me!

"Traitor! Traitor!" Chimed several voices, "You betrayed her!"

"No-!" He cried helplessly, shaking with the effort of his emotional strain, "I...I didn't...it was...I couldn't help it..."

You promised. Her voice was little more than a whisper, and so sad.

He woke up with a start, his eyes burning terribly from falling asleep with them open. With a shudder he regarded the orb in his hand.

It seemed like a dead thing to him.

Filled with loathing and sudden revulsion, he supressed the urge to suddenly throw it across the room, anything to get it out of his sight. He rose shakily to his feet, leaving the chair to do what he knew he must. His vision swam as he stumbled to the door, yanking his long, pale trenchcoat off the hook and throwing it on, tucking the terrible orb in his pocket. Val practically ran out the door, pausing only to retrieve one item before heading towards the motorcycle-

she loved to ride on it, she loved to feel the wind through her hair

-with a low cry, he pushed away from the curb, recklessly speeding through the night, a shovel slung across the handlebars.



The wind had picked up during his journey to the cemetary. Val regarded the dark, forbidding gateway to the inner sanctum with more than a little fear, and trembled where he stood. Through the wind-whipped trees, a haunting moan tore from the darkness, causing the disturbed man to cry out in surprise.

Everything was dark and forbidding and terrifying to him. He wielded the garden shovel like a weapon.

His mind begged him to turn back, to run from the horrible fear the cemetary provoked, but Val stood, reminding himself that it was his mind that had led him to this predicament in the first place. If only he'd granted her wish...!

With more courage than he felt, Val took a step forward, into the heart of the darkness.

The cemetary gate swung open quickly, screaming as it snapped in the wind. And the young man's nerves couldn't restrain themselves any longer, he ran like a frightened child through the darkness, down the cement and gravel path, running to the grave, to her.

To the one he had betrayed. He wanted forgiveness, he wanted to make it all better.

He dropped to his knees at the foot of the grave, the tears streaming freely from his eyes, though whether they were from fear or guilt, one couldn't determine. He clutched the shovel weakly, calling to her, hoping that somewhere in the next world, she could hear him.

"I-I'm so sorry..." Weakly he rose, shaking violently, the shovel thrust deeply into the ground as the voices rose again.

Sorry isn't enough! Madness, insanity, his mind was wracked with guilt and horror as he swung again, his coat whipping around his legs like a fallen sail. Crying out again, he raised the tool, burying it in the ground, once again. He couldn't see, he couldn't think, all he could hear was the damned voices. Them, and her...

The booming sound of thunder sounded somewhere behind him, and he whimpered, the rain began to fall, cooling against his fevered flesh as the voices crescendoed, frightening him even more.

Soothing, like the rain, her voice was gentle as she seemed to reach out for him, he swore he could see her there. You said you'd never leave me...

"..So...sorry..." he whimpered miserably-

All I wanted and her voice was lost in the frenzied rush of noises-

He drove the shovel in again-

A brilliant flash of lightning struck a tree not far from where he so desperately tried to reconcile his sin...

Fearfully, he tried to back away, and found he could not. Something had a hold of him, he could see her reaching for the orb, moreso for him...

You said you'd never leave me...

The voices fell silent-

Hope to die.

He screamed once, loudly, the terrorized wail of a man dealt too much for a single heart to handle.

The world went black for Val. Her, the orb, the voices...none of them mattered anymore.



An old man leaning heavily on his cane limped through the cemetary, one hand clutching a bundle of half-withered roses. His wife had died years ago, and he'd come to pay his respects.

At first, he thought the pathetic figure sprawled on the grave was simply mourning. He'd seen it before, with the young, they couldn't quite grasp the idea of having their special person gone forever. But as he'd come closer, the person hadn't moved, hadn't breathed, even when touched. Upon closer inspection, his eyebrows raised at the sight of a garden shovel protruding from the ground, disturbed by what that most certainly signified. The figure's pale coattail was stuck deep in the ground, held in place by the shovel's curved tip.

Worriedly, the older man dropped the flowers, rushing over as fast as he could to the stilled person. "Are you all right?" he asked nervously, kneeling beside the body.

When he recieved no answer, he gently took hold of one shoulder, rolling the body over on his back. What he saw sent him reeling back in stunned shock, crushing the flowers beneath his feet.

Val's face was contorted in an expression of sheer terror, his eyes rolled back completely up inside his head. The old man could see his mouth, frozen permanently into a wide "O" of horror, as if having witnessed some terrible scene before his death.

Nauseous from what he'd seen, the old man slowly placed his jacket over the hideous face, turning to go for help.

Something caught his eye. The old man noticed a single object, just out of the dead man's reach, and stopped to pick it up. Upon inspection, however, he saw nothing more than a curiously round, dirty grey stone, an object just as quickly cast away to lay hidden in the tall wet grass.

-fin
Notes: Another story written in high school. It blows.