Fairytale

Once upon a time,

There was a field of wheat, so golden that it felt like a painting. We met at the edge of a cliff, hiding from each other. We exchanged a playful gesture.

The water reflected the warm gold. The air was clean.

Eden stood a few steps ahead of me. She looked at me, and then her smile stopped. I could see her face clearly; the joy of the moment was there, but there was concern in her eyes.

She took a step closer, the wheat rustling as she moved. "Taro..." She said, "What's wrong? Whatever it is, you can tell me."

Another step. She was close enough that I could see my reflection in her eyes.

"We can fix anything," she said, her belief in what she said absolute. "Together." She held my hands.

I stood there as the world broke.

I looked at her, at this beautiful, kind, flawed person who was offering me a future. And all I could see was her demise.

I tried to focus on anything around us: the sky, the field, the sun. But it was all just background compared to her.

I saw the line again; the yellow was worse. It's growing faster in real time; it's spreading.

"We can't." The truth escaped me.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Taro, what are you talking about?”

Her concerned expression stayed, and then she had a small frown. She didn't understand.

I looked at her, and I finished the thought. Those words felt like the cruellest things I have ever said.

"To fix it... I have to kill you."

Eden's hand left mine. Her warmth was gone.

The words didn't make sense. They were a language she couldn't understand. She stared at me, her eyes wide with pain.

I expected shock, fear, and her starting to think that I've gone crazy. But I received none.

When I finally found the strength to meet her gaze, her expression was not one of betrayal but of a deep, heartbreaking understanding. She understood it completely. Why was I distant all those days, the way I looked at her with profound sadness? She knew it.

Her gaze moved, filled with pity not for herself but for me. She smiled, trying to hide everything. Then a single tear dropped; the sun reflected it. Looking like a falling star.

"I see," she mumbled to herself.

She knew. She knew what this truth meant.

However, she also knew one fatal flaw in it. I couldn't do it.

She accepted her role. She wouldn't be a victim waiting for her end.

Her hand trembled. Moved up, and then she formed a blade of blood.

"Please, do it." She asked me calmly.

Then she strikes first. It was fast; it destroyed most of the golden field. Making wheat fall in the air. I stumbled back, out of panicked instinct.

She didn't wait. Her expression darkened as she slashed again, the blade coming dangerously close, yet never quite touching me. I felt her talk to me through each attack.

Please.

She spun, the red blade in her hand almost hitting me. I threw a clumsy wall of wind to slow her. However, it didn't stop her at all.

You have to do this.

She flowed around my pathetic defense, her face full of sorrow. The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes what is wrong with her. She started thinking back to Wonder.

She wasn't fighting me. She was fighting the love that stopped me from attacking, the weakness that was built on our connection to each other.

I couldn't defend, and when I did, it was just me doing the minimum. A spell against the inevitable.

She started attacking me, not looking at my eyes. I took the attacks, letting the force of her slashes go through me. Not a single spell of mine stopped her once; they were all nothing.

I didn't make a single spell to attack. But I knew that she was more hurt than I. Yet I was the one who didn't want to end her pain.

I can't. Not you. Please, just one more second. Let's go around and laugh. Let's go and eat. Let's play chess. Let's read together.

The golden wheat kept swaying around us, flying everywhere. Making it look like a beautiful, tragic painting. The sun kept going down, the light growing colder.

She wasn't stopping, her pain only growing. She gave me no time to think. No time to grieve. She kept attacking, her slices perfect.

"Kill me, Taro!" She cried out, her voice cracking, still not looking at me. "Don't you see? Every second you wait, it will only make it worse. Every second, the pain of both you and me will only keep growing. And this will just make it win; I don't want to turn into it. Don't let it take this from us!"

Her words hit me harder than any strike she used. She was right. I could feel Wonder spreading faster and faster. And the pain in my heart is growing by the minute.

Grief turned to anger, an anger at Wonder, at the world, at myself.

I lunged, my eyes blurry. I didn't know where I was hitting; I just did. It was clumsy, desperate.

It was a plea for everything to stop.

It was the only attack she hadn't expected.

Her guard broke. The blood sword dissolved into harmless red mist. She stumbled backward, her eyes wide with surprise, landing softly in a bed of crushed wheat. She looked up at me, and through the pain, she smiled—a soft, loving smile.

The fight was over. Just like that, one strike, and she didn't try to regenerate or anything.

I stood over her, the golden light of the sun painting the world grey and purple. My hand trembled as I raised it; the air around my fingers was focused. Ready for one last strike.

She looked up at me, her red eyes soft. A faint smile was still on her lips.

"I've had some of the best moments of my life with you, Taro." She whispered, her voice mirroring that of the sea. Hearing my name from her just made my hands tremble even more.

She saw the tears finally coming down, moving into my face. She saw the utter destruction of me. The man she had come to love.

"It's okay," she said, her voice calm. "Please, smile, laugh." She didn't want to see me like this in her last moments.

I did it.

As the air around my hand condensed, one last spell. Air bullet.

The crimson line of her soul flickered and then began to fade. My throat was full, but a sound came out.

It was a laugh.

It was not one of joy. It wasn't one of madness. It was a choked, broken sound. Full of agony that stretched over the golden field.

I laughed and I wept, doing my best to do what she asked me. The force on my knees was too strong. And I fell into the wheat beside her still body. The laughter turned into sobs.

I stumbled back to my feet, my body shaking uncontrollably. I looked at my hands, the hands that held her and the hands that ended her. Then I looked at the world, and I saw it all.

The beautiful and the terrible. Lines from across this planet are all moving in the sky.

The gold from the sun was now dying slowly on the horizon. The deep blue of the sea. And the space where her body is.

It was beautiful.