Epilogue

Cold damp surrounds him. He knows it is finished; he knows he has failed. So, he gently sighs and does not move, waiting.

 Waiting for what?

There is only dark.

There must be pain, he knows, but the cold numbs. Harsh, suffocating the air cannot be breathable, it shudders in his lungs and chest when he must take it in. But, there is no pain, still.

Only memory.

A million stars, a million galaxies, a million souls. And, here, this is nothing ... but himself. It is like peering into a silent room as a child, all the light drained by the night and the moon shining through the window. But there is no moon. There is sky, or, what could be called sky.

He would murmur a word, a plea, a cry; instead, he lies, grounded into the nothingness below, around, smothering him. The galaxy has here fist about him, dragging him down, draining and pulling at the life he might as well not have lived. And all this, and for what?

At last, he does try.

The winds take it, grip it, crush it. No one will hear but he murmurs it again. No thing can be heard.

Does silence have a sound? It must, it rings in his mind. Does wind have presence? No. Then why is it so cold? Can something infinite perish?

He cannot think of them. He cannot think of her. He will not.

A scream racks his crushed form.

Nothing, still nothing; no whisper, no word, no sound. And he'd given up every joy he'd ever felt if only for a word. It mattered not what it mean't, if only he could have it.

And he weeps.

Weeps till what strength if left fails from him and his mind begins to wander, in the darkness ... this terrible darkness.

I could've done it.

This lingering thought, consumes. Anguished fear, dread, longing, all, consumes.

"I could've done it..."

And he does think of them ... of her.

Of all he lost, all he had squandered, all he'd given up for what? Something he could never have. And he thinks of lips, so sweet, and eyes that bound him like a slave for want of their glowing calm. He could never have her, never ...

Then, voices.

Silence claws at him, like a captor, taunting. They are not real, this is not real, he must not think it is. He must not.

On the dead air, again, they come.

Faint, just near nonexistent, still immutably there. Hope, jolts his spent form, and ... hurt. The sound, it hurts, like a knife scraping against stone, pain, worse then he can remember. Louder, harder, so real, so false.

Hands, grasp at him. He cannot see where they come, and he struggles from the bonds that shackle and chain.

Never had he seem them coming, reaching for him.

All faded fast and slipping away, like a dream just done, until he could not remember it.

Nothing, again.