The hospital smelled of sterile walls and wilted flowers. Machines hummed faintly, their rhythm a cruel reminder of the fragile heartbeat they guarded. Elias sat propped against the pillow, skin pale, lips dry, eyes still carrying that same spark you had fallen in love with years ago. The sunset washed him in gold, and he smiled when you came in, though it was a smile that trembled under its own weight.
“Sunsets feel different now,” he whispered, voice thin as glass. “Every one of them feels like the last.”
You sat down beside him, your hand instantly reaching for his. His fingers were cold, weaker than you remembered, but they laced with yours like they always did. “Don’t say that. We still have time.”
Elias’s laugh was soft, breaking halfway into a cough that bent him forward. He pressed a handkerchief to his lips. When he pulled it away, you caught the dark stain of blood before he tucked it out of sight. He leaned back, forcing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“I don’t want you to remember me like this,” he murmured. “Remember me the way I was… the boy who made you laugh under streetlights, who got drunk on your smile, who—”
His voice faded into silence, but your mind filled the gap with memories.
✦ Flashback — The First Night
It had been raining the night you met Elias. You were both strangers beneath the same awning, drenched and shivering, waiting for the storm to pass. He had looked at you with that same mischievous smile that would one day become your undoing.
“You believe in fate?” he’d asked suddenly, voice smooth yet hesitant.
You laughed nervously, hugging your bag tighter. “Do you always open conversations like that?”
“Only when the rain feels like it’s trying to wash the world clean,” he replied. Then he extended his hand, water dripping from his hair. “Elias Moreau. Stranger, until you tell me otherwise.”
The way you had slipped your hand into his, the way his fingers lingered a heartbeat too long—it felt like a beginning. Later that night, when the rain refused to stop, he had walked you home, humming an old French song under his breath. You remembered how he’d stopped halfway down your street, eyes drinking you in as if he already knew he’d spend his life memorizing you.
“I hope,” he’d said quietly, “this isn’t the last night we meet.”
It wasn’t. It was the first of countless nights. The start of everything.
✦ Back to the Present
Now, years later, that same boy was fading before your eyes. Elias reached up with trembling fingers, brushing them against your cheek as if he was trying to capture the memory of you the way you once captured him.
“If love could cure me,” he whispered, “I’d live forever. And we both know it can’t.”
Tears blurred your vision. “Don’t. Don’t say that. We’ll fix this, Elias. We’ll find a way. There’s still hope.”
He leaned his forehead against yours, his breath shaky, his chest rising unevenly. “Hope is beautiful,” he said softly, “but cruel. I can’t let you cling to ghosts when I’m gone. Promise me… promise me you’ll live. That you’ll laugh again. Love again.”
“I can’t,” you choked out. “I can’t live in a world where you don’t exist.”
His lips trembled as he kissed your tears, salt and sorrow mingling between you. “Then live in a world where I loved you,” he murmured. “Carry me in that. That’s enough.”
The sunset dipped lower, shadows stretching across the sterile room. Elias leaned back, exhausted, but his eyes never left you. He whispered your name, breaking on the sound as though it were a prayer.
“If there’s another life,” he breathed, almost too faint to hear, “I’ll find you. Always.”
You held his hand tighter, terrified to blink, terrified to breathe—because the moment you did, the world might take him away.