Many years ago, the Les Cheneaux Islands lay steeped in the enormous light of magical summer days. August was biting at the heels of July: for weeks no cloud had shattered the heavenly sky. It was as though Earth was holding her breath, no wind blew upon her sandy beaches, slow wavelets caressed her borders, the sun kissed each crack and crevice of her beautiful face. Those who found themselves alone amongst the cottonwoods and the pine trees, amongst the vast silence, amongst the vast light, felt an unspoken urgency for it was inevitable that this celtic dream would succumb to the cold and grey.
Mother nature only let the children play for so long before they had to return to the confines of the real world. However in that forgotten summer, the incomprehensible sphinx of Mother Nature had ruined the bliss of only two souls. Two souls that had been brought together like anatomical particles and upon chance they collided in a fiery clash. These two particular particles had names: Raymond and Alice. It was one great noon when they crashed, the blue abyss that reigned over the day seemed to yawn over the world more deeply than ever before, then the fire broke out. They say that opposites attract, this is true from both a scientific and social nature, Raymond and Alice were as polar as any proton and electron could be.
The fire in Raymond’s heart was one that young women are told to never touch. This fire didn’t require gasoline for sustenance, rather it ran on pure emotion. It is said that energy is never created or destroyed, if this is true there was no greater source of energy than the heart of Raymond Ezyre. Every soul he caressed he violently ripped it out of their bodies, every mouth he kissed he infected with acid, every tear he provoked left scars that will not fade. He broke their hearts because he liked the sound of shattering glass. He looked beautiful because he stole his beauty from others. He was average in height, but his demeanor begged to differ. He would walk into a room and it was as if the entire universe turned to bare their eyes upon his alluring aura. He was objectively handsome, he had brown hair that was always perfectly styled. He wore generic clothes that on anyone else they would allow one to mold into the background, however on him they seemed eye catching. He had perfectly placed white teeth that when he smiled he could make any women blush. He was charming and charismatic, there was nothing but kind words shrouding his reputation. His eyes had a certain level of conniving intelligence that one could never quite decipher, their color was as ambiguous as the mind that lay behind them.
Alice lived in an entirely different universe. Raymond stole souls, but Alice salvaged them. She was the embodiment of mother nature; gorgeous, but more like an oddity. She was so different from other people, she inhaled music and literature and exhaled adventure. In the sea of atoms that is life, she was Astatine; the most allusive atomic particle known to mankind, she was just as small as Astatine too. She had blonde rebellious hair that in the light it appeared to be glowing, as if it had a life of its own. She had green eyes that mirrored the forest in their pigment. Her laughter was that of sea foam and her walk was as smooth and fluid as the water surrounding their little island. Her smile was bright and warm, it was a smile that simply had to be reciprocated. She was like sunlight because no matter how hard you tried to grab hold of her, tried to grasp her beauty and warmth, tried to make her yours, she would vanish without warning. She could best be described as wildflowers in an unexplored field, she was a little slice of that enormous light of magical days. When these two particles met, life itself seemed to pause.
The music was blaring, the lights were twirling as she danced like a paper in the wind. The piano melody was enchanting, the song was “Across the Burren” by Michele McLaughlin and it was as if Alice herself were crossing that enchanted threshold. Her long hair was flying around her face like a halo, she couldn't see anything, the music guided her to the rhythm of the beat. The music guided her right into him. They turned to face each other, and the word that started it all and would inevitably end it all fell out of both of their mouths. Her lips were so soft and glossy that those 5 letters seemed to slide out of her mouth like jazz music. His smirk made those letters seem as nonchalant as a chester cat, nonetheless those letters came out of their cages.
“Sorry.”
It all began with the simplest of words—“sorry”—and that is exactly how it would end. He would be sorry. He would be sorry for extinguishing the fire that he saw in her eyes that fateful night. He would be sorry for taking away the power that her hands once held. He would be sorry he chose to ignore the signs that she had so delicately put up that read “please tread lightly”. He would be sorry for not understanding that she was too alive to survive without her soul like the other girls had done until they recovered from his disease. The world would be sorry for passively allowing a wolf in sheep's clothing to hide amongst the herd. He would be sorry for stealing the wildflowers that grew in her lungs by cracking her ribs open and ripping them out by the roots. He would be sorry for snapping her spine in half so that he could get a better view over her broken body. He would be sorry for making her love him while he pried her mouth open and poured black paint down her throat. He would be sorry for tearing her apart, limb by limb, with insecurities. The wolf in him ate her alive, and now she is gone. Forever.