7 Into his fate, I exchange it with another man.

ALICE

This is the first time I actually look around the graveyard. The sight of raised tombs made with marble in hues of white, black and greys filled my eyes with fathomless pain. This sight is a reminder. Of what I lost. Because of my foolishness, I lost him. And he is my everything.

Now, I have nothing left.

The emptiness gnawing in my chest is bottling up inside I’m scared it might choke the life out of me one day. The fear of not knowing anything, or whether I can go on with life without him is so suffocating I don’t know if crying or screaming or laughing through the madness will solve anything at all.

Sometimes I just wish everything will end. For me. End this pain. End this loneliness. I wanna be with him so bad, I did all that I could to take away my life. But it’s useless. I’m still here. I still wake up in the morning. Left alone and existing without direction.

The man’s guttural scream swept my ears. And I felt nothing hearing his cries. My feet crunch at the dead flowers carried by the wind, from the tomb of their loved ones. Flowers. Kenneth don’t like flowers very much. He has pollen allergy.

Pets. He loves pets. Especially this white cat whose purring and grinding his cheeks in my feet. The man with red bright robes and crimson eyes is on my heel. I can feel his glare behind my back. I ignored him.

“Mistress,” the woman, Chordinis called out. I didn’t respond. My lips is too hard and cracked to open. My throat is too raspy and scratchy to move. My voice is too thin and low to come out. I uttered more than a hundred words today. I never spoke to anyone for one hundred thirty days. No wonder my mouth and throat aches. I let the unfamiliar words rolled out in my rigid tongue. And it took more effort than it usually take.

“Hey, Chordinis is calling you. Are you deaf?” The red robe man reached out to touch my arm yet couldn’t. I only whispered in dead air, ‘Don’t touch me’. I never told it to, but the strings did it’s work in trapping his right hand. Forbidding him to lay his fingers at me.

“What the –“ I heard him gasped.

“Mistress doesn’t want you to touch her.” Chordinis said. I stopped in my tracks when the ripple in the air, the shadow of the woman, begin to materialize. One second she’s white and transparent, the next I can almost see her white long robe with intricate designs carving her small waist and collarbone.

I squint my eyes at the light reflecting from her robe. She’s glowing. Her red lips, her midnight hair, the bright glint of her turquoise eyes. Even I know she’s beautiful beyond compare.

“Chordinis!” The man in red robe exclaimed and ran to her side. He grasps her shoulders, their eyes locking at each other.

“What are you doing? Why did you come out?” Chordinis averted her gaze and set her eyes at his chest. She’s trying hard to cover the pint of red on her cheeks. Intimidated by the man’s sudden actions to stick close to her. The man’s eyes blinked in surprise when he noticed her embarrassment. He drew closer, hesitating whether this might set her guard up. It didn’t. He became brazen… And slowly, as if they have all the time they need, he gently caressed her cheeks. He cupped her chin and raised her eyes to him.

“Hymen, don’t.” Chardonis put her index finger to his lips. “I must do this. Let me be. I must tell the girl the truth.” The man, whose name is Hymen creased his forehead in worry.

“But you can’t. You do know how much damage it could do to you once you reveal the secrets before her time.” Chardonis lips trembled. Her eyes are still locked into Hymen’s intimidating gaze, like he wants her to reveal everything to him.

“She might be the one. Only this once, I must try. We can’t give up now.” Chardonis sound desperate. Her voice choke at the last word. Hymen’s smoldering crimson eyes still looks determined to stop her. Chardonis shuddered under his gaze…

As a third wheel. As an audience in this sparkling attraction unfolding in front of me, I can tell how much they love each other. Even without the strings. I don’t really know who they are. My only guess is that…they are the supernatural beings in-charge of the malevolent strings. Either they’re gods and goddesses of fates or one of them is, and the other is a servant. That would explain the invisible wall that’s standing between them.

“Please,” she pleaded. The way she whispered those words, set something in him apart. His eyes turned glassy, staring at her. He can’t fight her determination to do what she set out to do.

“Okay,” he relented at last. Hymen let go of her chin. Chardonis let out a relieved sigh. And yet, she didn’t expect him to pull her closer to him and kissed her forehead.

The picture of them expressing their love with a kiss makes my heart race. I catch the red string as it falls into my cheeks, as it floats around the frame of the boy I’m carrying in my shoulders, as it covers me in something much sharper than pain, much raw in torment, and much hazard in shredding loneliness.

I quickly averted my gaze. Watching them pulled something deeper from my mind. I see Kenneth’s face and myself, at the moment when he hugged me in our doorsteps as I welcome him home. His muscles wracked in ache, he always collapsed in my arms when he arrived. With a sniff of my scent he would kiss my forehead and say ‘I’m home.’

Those moments were the blissful peaks of my life. And I found myself always suspended, trap in the glimpses of my memories that will slice through my soul.

“Hm, must be nice. To flirt in a graveyard, I’m sure the dead are envious of you right now.” I said, my voice carried no shape.

They became aware of my presence and put a considerable distance from each other. Face and gestures clearly flustered, Hymen retreated behind me while Chardonis cleared her throat and kneeled before me.

“Mistress,” she breathed. Trying to calm her nerves. I can tell. Her fingers are shaking beneath the wide long sleeves of her white robe.

“Do you understand the responsibilities as the wielder of strings bear?”

“Let people meet their loved ones.” I immediately answered. She smiled and the air around her flutter.

“Yes, and other things too.” She took one tainted with black string and offered it to me.

“Strings are the foundation of Fate in this world. People can’t change nor alter what they’re destiny is, even when they try numerous ways to change their path. If Fate decides you will die today, you will die. But you, my mistress, has the power to change other people’s fates in your hands -”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” I interrupted her. Hoping she will stop spouting what’s impossible.

“It’s true. Remember this boy?” Hymen butted in from behind and kneeled beside Chardonis. “You saved him from his death and push his fate to the man instead.”

“What?” I stared at him, wild eyed. Hymen chuckled and repeated, “You saved the boy from his demise now the man who beat him up will take his fate instead.”

My neck froze in the dead air. I don’t move my eyes from their faces. I tasted the shock in my lips. The fresh oxygen wasted in my nostrils.

“No… I would never -”

“You should have think twice before saying you want to punish the man. Before accepting the strings and deciding you will change the boy’s fate by saving him.”

I vigorously shake my head. My fingers are shaking, my knees are trembling I collapsed on my feet and they caught me in their arms.

“No… I didn’t mean to – I only want him to taste the pain he inflicts on others. I want him to feel the helplessness of degradation beyond salvation…That’s all I want…Not to kill him… No.“

My body is fraught in horror. My stomach tied into knots of how things had turn into its worse possibilities.

“I can’t do this…I’m sorry.”