When most people hear about what I am, they run. They think what I can do is terrifying, so they sprint in the other direction. Mellie was never like that. She looked past the vampire and into my heart, and I loved her for it. It was the two of us, together, and it was supposed to last forever.

We got closer each day. Immortality seemed like a gift with her in my life. However, I noticed that Mellie began to miss her family, so I let her go see her parents one Halloween night.

Now Mellie is gone.

Her skin is as pale as a dead man’s. Her eyes are lost, staring past the sky, past the world, past me. She is colder and stiller than a barren landscape during a snowstorm. Her brown hair is red. She’s the subject of a portrait, a face frozen in time, with an illusion of life on dead paper.

Now Mellie is gone.

***

I remember the day clearly. Mellie had asked me if she could see her parents that October night. I let her leave. She deserved to be happy, after all.

The clock struck midnight. Mellie still hadn’t returned. She would have returned by now…

I connected her conscience to mine, and screams started to swirl in my head. Terror was spiraling in my stomach. My limbs began shuddering violently and my legs went weak. Mellie. A searing pain sliced through my neck. Mellie. I heard barbarous yelling as it drowned out a shriek of agony. Mellie. Her name was in my brain as often as my heart beat in my body. Mellie, Mellie, Mellie.

But her heart wasn’t beating at all.

***

I don’t remember how I got there, but I remember being with her, leaning over her, holding her, as reality took its final stab. I remember her pallid skin. I remember the red that covered her neck. I remember her glassy eyes, lost and unfocused. I remember the stillness that overcame me. And I remember the Coldness.

It felt sharp. It felt heavy. It was everywhere. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t feel. All that was left was my thoughts as everything got blacker and number and quieter.

Mellie was my world. Now Mellie is gone, and my world is a realm of darkness.

Something flashes in the black. Something brown and green and blue, something white and red and yellow, orange and purple, grey and pink. It fills my mind, and I see. I hear. I feel.

Mellie.

I see her. We’re at home, watching a horror movie. She’s smiling at me, holding my hand. She says something. I respond.

Somehow, I’m with her again.

I watch the characters frolick on the screen and hold Mellie closer. One of the characters turns her head.

“Wake up, Valerie,” it says.
Then all the characters turn their heads.
“Wake up, Valerie,” they chant.
Wake up, wake up, wake-

I’m in the darkness again. Black stretches for miles and miles, empty.

“No no no no NO!” I wail. “NO!”

Mellie is gone. I was with her and now she’s gone. They’ve taken her away from me.

She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone.

Another light flashes.

It’s Halloween. Mellie is sleeping next to me. I gently shake her awake.

“Mellie, wake up! Its Halloween!” I whisper.

She mumbles something that should have been incoherent, but I hear it perfectly.

“Wake up, Valerie. Mellie is gone.”

And once again, I’m shrouded in darkness.

Mellie cannot be gone.

This must have happened a thousand times. I couldn’t let go of her. I trapped myself in memories of her last living day, Halloween. I was doing this to myself, hurting myself. Mellie wouldn’t want that.

The darkness faded. I woke from my trance. Mellie lay next to me. I picked up her limp body and we went home for the last time.

Together.