Live For Me

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. His window. His. How long had she been there alone, clinging to the ghosts that filtered through the light day after day?

When the world had gone to hell in a handbasket they had done it all together. Marauders, raiders, militias, and more had tried to stop them but only one had succeeded. The sickness. Mysterious and thus far- incurable. You can run from other people but fleeing from the failure of your own immune system is impossible.

Her heart constricted painfully as his vision fluttered in her mind. Her soulmate, Roman. With his warm caramel eyes, calloused hands, and gentle soul. She had lost count of the days that had passed by since his death. The days since the others had taken his body and left her there.

“For the group’s safety Faye.. you understand..” Dawn’s hand had rested on her shoulder as two of the men carried the empty shell of her love away. Dawn had come back later to say goodbye. Faye couldn’t go with for fear that she was also sick or carried the sickness. That was okay, she had died that day too. The fight that had once burned so brightly in her had been extinguished as Roman had wasted away before her eyes.

The dusty dark curtains on the window billowed from a passing breeze. Dust gathered and swirled through the air. Two figures formed and danced in the room. A tall rugged man and a thimble of a woman with flowing hair. It was so real to her that she could almost make out his crooked nose and curly hair. Slowly she stood, joints creaking in protest. She had to go to him.

“Roman..” her voice was foreign to her, cracking from disuse. Her arms naturally stretched toward the dust man, temporarily forgetting that he was still gone.

“Faye, my love,” his disembodied voice deepened the mirage.

“Roman!” her voice cracked again but this time with a sob. The dust had never spoken to her before.

“Go out Faye. Go out and live for me,” his voice fading out the window as the dust settled.

“No! Don’t leave me again!” she cried and rushed to the window. The ledge cut into her abdomen as she slammed against it and threw her arms out trying to catch the intangible.

“Go and live..” the breeze whispered against her skin. She gripped the window ledge and stared out at the world for the first time in what could have been years.

There was silence, the moon, and the stars. They had made home in a long abandoned neighborhood, the cars sitting dead in the driveways and doors busted ajar from raids. It smelled fresh and undisturbed. Lawns had grown unruly and begun to take over the porches and the road.

A bird twittered somewhere in the distance beyond the houses and one nearby answered, breaking Faye out of her reverie. She gasped, heart threatening to beat from her chest as it warmed. Somehow Roman had reached her from beyond this world. Someday she’ll see him again. Not today, someday.

She knew nothing of this world. She didn’t know how to survive without Roman, but she’d try, for him. Before the darkness in the pit of her stomach could draw her back in, she climbed onto the windowpane and jumped out.

She wasn’t leaving him. She was leaving the shades of gray her world had become without him. She was going to find the color again. She wasn’t leaving him, he was and would be with her until they met again.