Work in Progress: Future Shadows (Sample Page)

Betrayal comes in many forms but I could never have foreseen this.  Despair accompanied acceptance that this particular betrayal couldn’t be fought against, not with so many other lives held in the balance.  And now that my existence was measured in minutes, perhaps seconds, I wondered if this was why I had always suffered an inability to dream of my future.  Why it had always been a void, black nothing.

I stared down the silver barrel of the gun held in the hand of the one I loved more than my own life and asked the question, was he worth it?

The blood rushing up to my head sang out one distinct word over and over.  Yes.  He had been worth living for, now he was worth dying for. 

My gaze travelled from the expression of anguish in his luminous eyes to his lips pulled back in a snarl of gleaming white teeth as his finger tightened against the trigger.   Suddenly it didn’t matter where he had come from, where he was headed or what his reasons had been for hiding the truth.  All that mattered was that somewhere along his journey we had found each other, no matter how briefly. 

Had he known?  Had he known from the start that he would kill me?

“I forgive you.”  I mouthed the words, but he already knew.   He knew me better than I knew myself, and so he understood. 

He understood that had I been given a choice at whose hands I were to die, I would have chosen his.