In My Darkest Moments
by Den

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When I think back now, I know that there were some things I couldn't tell Stephen, not even in that first horrible day. I couldn't tell him that, as good a friend as Marcus had been, it just wasn't the SAME. Thinking back, I could compare this to only one other time, two - nearly three years ago, when Talia had been so brutally taken from me. I can never forget that day..

The wolf came at night, every night, bringing so many cubs that it became impossible to block out the incessaant screaming inside my head. It felt as though it were a voice. For a short time, the voice had been Marcus', but that had faded quickly. No, this voice is Talia's. She howled in pain, and I feel the pain as well, because I don't know how to stop it.

For the first weeks, my dreams had been empty, only the cold, dead feeling I'd experienced right before I'd been pulled back. Only in the dreams, there was nothing there. After a few weeks, I began to notice a change. The feeling didn't change, but it seemed that something, or someone, was waiting for me as I came back to her body. Every night, she drew a little closer.

One day, after a particularly grueling shift, I returned to my quarters, ready to shoot someone. I was also dead tired.

I didn't know what to expect when I lay down to sleep that night, so I just let it come. No point in fighting it. The heavy feeling came almost immediately. I could feel the weight pressing down on my chest. Then something was pulling at me, pulling me not down into my body, but away from it. Then we were standing in white light, and there was nothing there but me and...

"Talia?"

Her smile was soft and gentle as she stared at me. She didn't speak, instead just wrapping her arms around me.
Her words came across clearly, although they were only in my head. <until the day where we meet again, in the place where no shadows fall>

I woke so suddenly, it was as though someone had fired a gun beside me.

As I walked to the bridge, I could hear her voice, one final time, inside my head.

<Until the end, Susan>

END