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A second to think is what I plead; a single breath is what I pray; a blink of an eye to diminish my fear, but too much it is to dream in vain.

I walk with my shadow for hours in the never-ending darkness. Trying to find even a raindrop-sized source of light; hoping I could see what is in this chaos I had lost into.

I don't know where to go; all I know is I'm trying to find my way back.

No breeze seems to kiss my skin yet I could feel the shivering stares of whatever it is which caused me to continue my quest to find something that would somehow give me the justice to glimpse at this pandemonium. My ears are deafening from the endless roars of silence– as if it is screaming, directly in my lobes, something that I cannot seem to understand. My mouth is trying to utter a word but the space seems to eat even a single sound.

I know or at least I hope that there's light in the midst of darkness; there are rustles in the silence of nowhere; there's air to breathe in the realm of emptiness and a soul to behold in the vengeance of wickedness...

Suddenly, a wave of light blinds my lenses. I close my eyes as the sun's blaze race to seek entrance through my eyelids. Then, slowly, I open them and blink a few times to shove the pain away as the place sluggishly turns into a clear photograph from a blurry image.

A twenty-five square meter room finished with plain beige wallpapers, accented with autumn-hued paints, and furnished with maple wood furniture greet my now alive eyes. I roam my sight and saw a circular bed neatly fixed with a white comforter and creatively stuffed with pillows of different sizes and shapes. Beside it stands a foot and a half tall lava lamp on a bedside table.

The babble of voices, from outside the room, wake my ears so I turn around to find a way towards the sound. All I found is a white door.

Something is telling me not to open it and that I should just stay where I am. What if behind it is pure darkness again? What if those voices are only a trap to lull me back to the chaos I came from? What if...

But my feet seem to have their own mind and start pacing towards the door, and before my brain could even decide, my hands open it. Behind the door is a hallway leading to somewhere I haven't yet discovered. I trail the path as the voices fade and a garden of white roses welcomes me. I roam my eyes and saw a guy seated under a tree.

He appears to be so lonely so I walk towards him but then, for some reasons, I stop a few meters away from him and hide behind another tree. I observe him and realize that he is holding a photograph and staring intently at it as if it will vanish, the moment he blinks.

"Why now? We have plans, remember?" he asks the framed photo in between his hands. His face is filled with morose while his voice is as melancholic. "You promised me that you'll be with me forever," he pouts. "I was hoping to see the gorgeous curved smile in your lips as you look at me with those sincere eyes each time I wake up with you in our bed, or at least stare untiringly at your peacefully sleeping face as I cuddle you in my arms," he continues with the same tone as he runs his fingers across the surface of the frame's glass.

I don't know why I feel sorry for him. There is something in his words, in his voice, that sends a tinge of shiver down my spine– maybe because he sounded really sad?

"You haven't even tasted my cooking yet! Yeah, that's right." He smiles sadly at the photograph like he is really talking to the person. "I took some lessons as so I could cook for you each morning. Do you remember the wounds in my arms? I got those from the boiling cooking oil while trying to learn how to fry some eggs," he chuckles as if remembering that very moment he is talking about. "I didn't tell you because I was planning to wake you up with the clichéd 'breakfast in bed'," he says as he smiles genuinely at the photograph.

He smiled genuinely yet the sadness in his eyes never left. It is as if all his leaves left him alone so the winter took pity on him and laid blankets of snow on his branches to give him warmth.

"I know how much you are yearning to taste something I made. I know how classically romantic you are." Then he looks up the skies as if trying to suppress his tears from coming out.

"Gosh, you haven't even heard the song I have composed yet." He bites his lower lip as if trying to absorb courage from it. "You are convincing me to write you a song, right? You wanted me to play you something I originally made, right?" he whispers to the skies like he could see the person he is talking to smiling back at him through the clouds.

Then he closed his eyes while still looking up. "Well, it took me a while to make it because I am neither a writer nor a singer but, it is done now. Will you please come home now so I could play it to you already? I can't wait to hear your laughter and teases because of my bad singing."

I couldn't help but smile at what I heard. Wow! He really loves that lucky girl for him to do things that he has never done before– for him to take the risks. Well, I guess that's how love works, one will conquer everything just to make his beloved smile.

"Please..." he mumbles as he opens his eyes and looks at the photograph again. His eyes are full of emotions I couldn't somehow determine. "I need you here. I don't know how to face each morning without you beside me. I don't know how to smile without you smiling back at me. I don't know how to sleep without you cuddled in my arms," he says as if hoping that the image would tell him what he wanted to hear. Tears began to fall from his eyes. "I don't even know how to live anymore. Please, just please, come back," he pleads in between his sobs as he hugs the frame.

Come back? So, he has been left behind? But why? Isn't he enough? He seems to be so in love with the girl so how dare she leave him? I could feel my heartbeat in fury. She is heartless!

"You promised me yesterday, remember? You vowed! You vowed to be beside me no matter what. You told me, in front of everyone, that you would never leave me and that you'll love me till forever. You promised!" Then he cries so hard as if there would be no next minute to cry– like the sky pouring a gazillion liter of rain.

He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve to be left hanging nor be hurt this hard. Nobody deserves to feel so much pain just because somebody doesn't know how to keep a promise.

I know it hurts. Of course, it does! If only there's something I could do to ease the pain...

"You promised, so please, please come back..." he mumbles in between his sobs.

I couldn't contain it any longer; I want to wipe his tears so I walk towards him. I don't know him but his pain seems to be too much to bear that I wanted to lend him my shoulders for him to cry on to at least lessen his grief.

"I need you. How could I ever breathe without my oxygen? How could I ever love without my heart? How could I ever live without my life?" He looks at the photograph again with tears still running down his cheeks. "You are my life, babe. You know that. You are my world, my oxygen, my heart. You are my 'everything'."

His voice is like a euphony which creates a rhythm for my heart. Yet his cries are like knives which kill my heart in every sob.

I don't know him. But there is something about him that made me feel his emotions.

He stares at the picture so lovingly yet so sadly as words and sobs continued to escape his mouth, "You know how much I love you, right? Wait, no, no words or actions could even measure my love for you. I love you so damn much-- I don't even know anymore if love is still enough to describe how I feel for you." Then he hugs the frame again.

I could feel all the emotions he radiates... all the love, all the pain.

I stand in front of him then look down at him, unable to move suddenly as if all the courage is drained in my system. I want to hush the loud melancholy in his cries; I want to hug him to somehow soothe his wounds. But I couldn't. I just couldn't.

He turns his eyes to the photograph again after eons of pouring off his tears, giving me a chance to glance at it.

"We still have a plan to go to the beach, remember?" he bitterly teases, "so come back now, come on; how could you ever say no to the beach? You know, a blanket spread on the sand while we are cuddling and watching the sunset; that was our plan, right? Plus we still need to make some cute kids! So come home now. Don't leave me yet. I need you. Please, please, not now. I wasn't ready. I am not ready. I will never be ready," he pleads as if it is a matter of life and death.

It is a photograph of a girl in a white dress and a white veil rested on her hair, brightly smiling at the camera while the guy in a white tuxedo beside her was caught smiling at her as he kissed her temples. His eyes were full of joy, pride, and love at the same time– it was as if she was the best thing that ever happened to him and that he'll never be tired of her.

"If I could ever do something to cheat death, or if I could ever do something to bring you back, I will do anything and everything to have you back again. I would trade anything for you– even if it means journeying to where you are right now; even if it means leaving this world," he tells the girl in the picture so lovingly, not giving a damn about my presence.

Then it strikes me-- I know those smiles. Yes, I have seen those eyes before. I have witnessed how brightly she would smile before whenever he thinks of him. I have heard her laugh so heartily whenever he does something funny. I remember how she would look into his eyes whenever she yearns to look at the galaxy. I know her. I know him.

It is she who gives him warmth. But whenever she smiles, he freezes; and then again he melts.

She walked down the aisle yesterday in her wedding gown. She was wearing the most beautiful smile I have ever witnessed. She glowed with so much happiness and pleasure as tears ran down her cheeks as if it will be the last time she would ever cry. She radiated pure bliss that even the people around her and the angels above her couldn't help but smile.

And then they vowed, they vowed their love for each other, to be together no matter what. To care and love each other for richer or for poorer...

"You didn't even give me a chance to be a husband to you even just for a day," he murmurs as he looks up, allowing me to gaze at his eyes. "But it's okay," he adds, still looking at me as if it is me he is talking to.

I felt a tinge of spark when he smiled at me like he is excited to ride a roller coaster of some theme park. "Wait for me!" he pleads as he gathered himself and stood up.

"My heart will always be yours," he promises me as he looks deep into my eyes the moment he regained his balance so we're now standing face to face. "My heart is yours until diamonds turn into liquid: yours to hold as it beats and yours to watch as it bleeds," he vows, still gazing at me as if he wants to take a glance at my core, before wiping off his tears.

His smile hadn't yet vanished, "I know you want me to fight. Maybe we couldn't possibly be together right now. But time will soon allow our love. So, wait for me. Till death do us part..." Another teardrop escapes from his eyes when he walks past me, literally through me.

Tears automatically run down my cheeks. I was her. I was his bride. We made a vow twenty-four hours ago. I walked down the aisle just to promise him that I will be his; that I will be with him no matter what. But my body gave up the moment we set our feet off the church for I was sick. But he loves me so much that he wanted me to be his wife and I love him too.

I remember how I used to ask him what is beyond life, if there really is something after death, or if there really is heaven or hell. I was afraid. I was afraid that when I die, then that's it - no second chances, no new beginnings, and no next chapters.

I used to pray second by the minute that when I die I could somehow talk to whosoever is living in between life and death. I was thinking if we could make a bargain; I was hoping that I could beg for another chance.

Life is so wonderful. Life is so wonderful that people are hoping for another life, another world when the time comes that the body they are dwelling in this world expires. Life is so great that everyone wants a spare.

I want a spare because of him. He is my darkness and my light. He is the stars which form my constellations. He is the moons that dance around my Jupiter. He is all the hues variegated to render my black and white world. He is both life and death.

That's why I am here; I made a deal with God and He let me find my way back – my way back to him.

Now I understand why He let me find my way back to this world. That is so I would know that there always a place for everything: A place for a hope-full soul and a place for a hopeful mind; a place for people who are still writing their story and a place for those who are about to begin another book; and maybe a place for a waiting heart and a place for a journeying heart.

You just have to wait for time to do its work and love to do its dose. You have to trust one's heart – for a mind forgets but a heart does never.

I turn my back to see him walked towards the place he belongs to, to the place I used to belong to.

And now, maybe I should journey again, but this time it is through the light. I should go back-- back to the world where I now belong.

But I'll wait for love to do its job again. I'll wait for my heart to beat again. I'll wait for another hue to color my already rendered world.

And I hope that the galaxy of the new universe I would live in would permit me to fulfill my vow.

Till death do us part...

THE END.

***

'But I can't let go...'

Written by demigodwithacoffee

All Rights Reserved

Author's Note: Yey! I hope you like it. Thank you for reading! :)