Phantom Blood

PHANTOM BLOOD

Dear Brie,

God, I don’t know how to start. It’s hard to express in words how much I miss you. Every day I wake up in the morning, expecting to feel your warm arms wrapped around me, only to find cold air in the space you should occupy. I stumble through my days only half aware of the things going on around me—I almost got myself killed earlier because of it. I feel dissociated from my body, as if you were the only thing keeping me tethered to the world. That may very well be true, honestly. You changed my life for the better, and now I feel like it’s all come crashing down.

Sometimes I still feel the ghost of your hands on mine, the presence of your arm around my waist, the sound of your voice in my ear. I keep turning to look at you, to see you smile at me, but you’re never there. It breaks my heart every time. The knowledge that I’ll never see you again weighs heavy on my shoulders.

I can hear cannons firing outside the camp as I write this. My hands are shaking. The smell of gunpowder is heavy in the air. You helped me alleviate the stress of being out here on the front lines, of leading my colleagues to what could very well be their deaths. Without you… I don’t know how much longer I can take this. I feel sick all of the time. Kannah was killed today; stabbed through the heart right before my eyes. I could have prevented it, but my body froze up. The way the sword slid through her body reminded me far too much of how that soldier’s sword slid through yours. 

It’s hard to imagine how I used to live before I knew you. How I dealt with casualty after casualty without your warmth to comfort me. With each loss I feel as if I lose another part of my soul, and one of these days it’ll be gone completely and I’ll be left an empty shell. Maybe that would be better. Empty shells don’t feel pain, right?

Day by day, more of my comrades fall, and I feel their blood spreading over my hands. Nobody else can see it, but it’s thick and viscous, glowing crimson in the candlelight. It’s dripping onto the parchment I’m writing on right now. Funny, how my goodbye letter to you will be coated in a phantom of your blood.

Every night as I go to sleep I see your death replay in vivid color behind my eyelids. The enemy soldier creeps up behind you, and I go to shout your name, but my throat closes and nothing comes out. I can only watch in silence as he plunges his sword through your back. Your blood splatters on my face, the metallic tang of iron filling my mouth as you fall to the ground. I choke on it. I can’t breathe. It feels like I die with you, out on that barren battlefield.

But then I wake, and I’m still alive, and you’re not. I couldn’t do anything for you as your commanding officer. As your lover. It feels like I’ll never be able to repay the debt I owe you, and my continued existence is God’s punishment for being so selfish. For taking and taking and taking and never giving in return. I know you want me to live—I could see it in the way you looked into my eyes as you died—but this life may be too great of a burden for me to carry. I’m trying, though, if only for your sake.

I’m not the only one trying to stay strong in your memory. You were like a beacon of hope, shining through the fog of the war. Everyone misses you, and I can tell that many of them have been fighting with renewed fervor to avenge you. I have been, too. I can’t remember the face of the man who killed you, my memories distorted by stress and heartache, so whenever I see a soldier in the enemy’s uniform I go blind with rage. Each time one falls by my hands I rest a little easier. I’ve been told I’m being too reckless, and probably so, but I can’t help it. I’ll never forgive any of them. They took you from me, and I will make them pay the price if it’s the last thing I do.

Killing them shouldn’t make me feel better, I know that. You would chastise me for it, tell me to think of their families, to think of the people I’m leaving behind to mourn like I am for you. But I just can’t put them above you, no matter how hard I try. You have always been my priority.

It’s getting cold and the hour is late. I can’t bring myself to get in bed; it's too empty. Everywhere I look I am reminded of you, and the grief hits me all over again. It’s been weeks since you left us, but the pain feels new every day. Ean suggested that I write this letter to you as the farewell I never got to say. He said that it would help me move on. And… I think he may have been right. Spilling my thoughts onto the page is more cathartic than I expected. I don’t think I can yet come to terms with your death, and I’m still not sure how I will make my way through this war without you, but… I’ll push forward, step by step. It's what you’d want for me. 

I’ll leave this letter on your grave tomorrow. I can only pray that God is kind to us and lets it make its way to you in the afterlife.

Goodbye, Brie. I love you.

Raia