The desire to be with my beloved ate at me rapidly, consuming my flesh at speed. In moments my clothes sagged loosely onto the floor, hanging from my dying body. I tried to ignore the agonizing hunger pangs as they changed from piercing and insistent to a dull, throbbing ache. Tears squeezed through my closed eyelids and ran sideways down my face to pool below my head on the floor. I gripped Lola’s bones more tightly to me and wished for the end to come and take me posthaste. I was happy that she was once more within the graces of my fickle grandfather, but I couldn’t bear to live on without her by my side again, not in any realm.

But, even after I had lost the ability to produce tears, my mulish heart still kept beating. The cramping spasms of starvation had deadened to an absence of feeling. My lips cracked and split as they thinned and drew back against my face, giving me a corpse’s leer. Yet still, my heart refused to concede and continued futilely laboring on in my chest.

My thoughts came sluggishly. I was confused as to why I was still alive. As my skin gave way and tore, forming sores where my body rested on the floor and where I still tenaciously held on to Lola’s bones, it came to me. My death was being delayed by the conviction that my love for her was returned. My dogged faith in our bond was prolonging my torture.

I would have groaned in disgust at the irony if my mouth and tongue were not so incredibly parched. Though it was true that my empyrean siren loved me, it was beyond foolish to fantasize that any being would turn her back on a place in Heaven to be with a fiend like me in the Underworld. I tried to scowl but lacked the strength.

I noticed my heartbeat was at last growing fainter, becoming irregular. My grip on Lola’s bones weakened, and I felt her ring sliding from my skeletal finger, but was powerless to stop it from tumbling to the floor. Knowing that death was imminent, I tried to open my eyes for one, final look at the apartment where (Y/N), my Lols, and I had found each other again, against all odds. I was only able to partially raise one eyelid, and could see nothing from that eye, my vision having failed. With a shallow sigh, I let the eye close and waited, comforting myself with memories of Lola, both old and new.

I was pulled from numb insensibility by the stabbing sensation of stark terror and anguish. Though I was horrified that death’s greeting should be so brutal, there was nothing I could do, apart from hope that it would not linger too long. However, the impression of tormented panic only grew. Abruptly, it was as though my body was being rolled, then shaken to and fro. I had no energy to protest, saving all that remained of my vigor to clutch Lola’s bones to me. I would not be parted from my final reminder of my beloved, not even by death. It was with that determination that my heart finally surrendered and ceased to beat.

I felt the grim reaper’s touch as it closed its cool hands around my arms and the feeling of terrible, desperate grief grew to overwhelming. It moved to cradling my face in its gelid hands, then startled me by placing a lingering kiss on my desiccated lips and protruding teeth.

Intrigued despite myself, I struggled to open my eyes, instinctively wanting to look Death in the face, but I lacked the power. I felt its cool hands gripping my face even tighter before it kissed me yet again. That was when I caught the faintest hint of a scent. It was unmistakable. The sweet smell of night-blooming jasmine.

I had no way of knowing whether it was a comforting hallucination, a perception spawned from the thoughts of my dying brain, or if my senses were true and the cherished source of that familiar perfume was somehow nearby. My heart refused to concede when any trace of hope still remained, however small. I felt it start to beat once again, though its cadence was weak and infrequent.

It was as I struggled once more to open my eyes, to see what held me in its grasp, that I noticed that the cool hands holding my face were dainty and feminine. The lethargic rhythm of my heart gained some feeble strength, just enough for me to gain some meager measure of sense. I realized, with a start, that the misery and horror I felt were not my own. I was unable to taste them, as my tongue had curled into a useless, sinewy hunk of tissue. Surely the grim reaper would feel no such emotion at my passing? My far-fetched hopes were spurred on even further.

Though my entire body was stiff, cold, and frail beyond measure, I endeavored to force it to give some sign that I was still yet living. If it were, somehow, my supernal enchantress that held me in her grasp, and not death itself, I would not repay her devotion by deserting her. But no matter how I fought, every part of me was too brittle to move.

When soft lips pressed against mine for the third time, liquid fell into the dried crevices of my eyes. It was somehow enough to loosen my eyelids from the gummy globes. Though I still could not see, I was able to drag them both open, then blink a few times.

The small movements had completely exhausted me, but they proved to have been worth the effort. The sensation of terror that had filled me gave way to hope and joy. Though I still could not properly taste them, they flooded me from the inside, lending my body their vigor, and giving me the will to take a shallow breath.

The hands left my face, and I felt the press of soft skin against my cheek before I heard the faintest sound, like a voice above as it sounds from deep under water, “An-y, I----ere, it-------ve--ou!”

Lola! Immediately, my lumpish heart began to race. Though its rhythm was puny and wavering, it was enough to circulate the blood through my withered tongue. With that, I could taste again, and I was inundated with the flavor of yearning and adoration that could only come from one woman. Her energy wasted no time, its dynamism rippled through my veins.

The profound agony of my flesh knitting back together was dwarfed by the happiness I felt when I tasted Lola’s ecstatic reaction to the feeble groan that passed through my lips. In seconds, I could see shadows and light as I slowly blinked. Shortly I could wiggle my fingers, toes, and the tip of my tail.

I was elated despite the pain when I felt Lola’s sweet kiss once more. At last I released her bones, that I could maneuver my protesting, wasted arms so that I might hold her. Though severely debilitated, I managed to place them around her in a fragile embrace. As I grew stronger, I tightened my hold, only to feel the brush of cool feathers against my claws.

Notes

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