Black Mantle

(a short story)

Tristan ran his fingertips over her legs once more, his touch lingering as he savored the texture of Elizabeth’s skin. She hadn’t been able to shave the past two days, so it wasn’t quite smooth, but it wasn’t so bristly that it turned him away from the sensation. More enticing than the feeling was the warmth that lay underneath. How he coveted that warmth. He truly loved nothing more than to hold it close, and feel the heat of her life mingle with his own. Long ago, perhaps such a thing might have been necessary for survival. It made perfect sense as to why it brought him a sense of fulfillment and belonging. It was instinctive, something that developed to reinforce the behavior. But he didn’t care about the reason or how it all started. It made him feel whole. Trusting those instincts, trusting his nature, he didn’t tend to overthink about complicated things like that. He preferred to live out his experiences in their fullness, to perceive everything as it was.

He just wanted to be close to Elizabeth, to share her warmth. It was that simple for him. It wasn’t that he was incapable of mentally conjuring such explanations for his behavior or the things that he desired in life, he wasn’t unintelligent. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He made it through life on minimal effort in almost everything he did. And it somehow brought him here, to this straightforward, pleasurable existence. He’d come this far with the one person he loved more than anything. He considered himself fortunate. Having this, he was happy.

He wanted her to see the ocean, to feel the spray of the sea breeze on her face. He wanted to watch her hair twist and billow gently in the wind. They would hear the same shorebird calls and the same lulling of breaking waves, they would witness the birthplace of all life on the planet, and perhaps hardly even consider the gravity and the history associated with it. They would be in their own world, sharing time and space. At the thought, Tristan’s eyes traveled from the restraints that bound Elizabeth’s hands and feet, out over the cliffside. Watching the swell of the bay rise and fall brought peace to his somewhat unsettled mind.

But he had come here for something beyond the wonder of the rocky, limestone cliffs—beyond the wonder that was the gentle sea. Today, he would free Elizabeth. He no longer wished for her to toil and suffer, bleed and sweat under the yoke of life. The world, although beautiful, could be terribly cold and cruel. It was no place for someone as kind and heart-wrenchingly beautiful as Elizabeth. Her soul was too pure for him to allow her to writhe and fester any longer amongst the filth of pain and struggle. She deserved better than that. She deserved so much more than that. As Tristan grew lost in his musings, he hardly noticed when his love’s eyes widened to behold the scene around her.

“Tristan…?” she muttered sleepily, having previously been enraptured in the numbing embrace of drug-induced sleep.

Kneeeling down by her side, Tristan stared deeply into her beautiful hazel eyes. He loved seeing her face after just waking up. There was something entrancing about the range of human emotions, he always thought, even more enchanting when they emerged from the one person most important to him in this world. With a tender smile, he reached down and stroked her cheek, running his fingers through the strands of chestnut hair that framed her face. He shushed her softly and ran his thumb over her lips, brushing them ever so lightly.

“What do you think? Isn’t it just as beautiful as I told you it would be?” he said, his voice just barely above a whisper.

Elizabeth uncertainly turned her head to the side, taking in the sight, sound, and smell of the ocean. Having never seen it before, a longing welled up within her. “It’s so much prettier than I imagined… I wish I had more time. I’d like to swim in it.”

But to that Tristan shook his head sadly, tossing his long dark hair from side to side. “You know you can’t do that.”

Knowingly, Elizabeth returned her gaze to his. “Mmm…” she hummed in agreement.

After some time, she looked back at the ocean with a distant yearning. “It scares me a little.”

“What does?” he said, lifting her head to rest it in his lap.

“Do you… will you be alright?” she asked, her blinding kindness shining through the moment.

As always, Tristan thought, the last thing on her mind was herself. With a small laugh through his nose, he began to stroke her head. “I’ll be fine.”

“You always say that when you aren’t fine. I’ll bet you came up with some big reason not to cry,” she said wistfully, watching the clouds lazily drift by.

Bolts of pain echoed through Tristan’s chest. “If you say something like that now, I’ll really start to cry…” he said as heat pooled behind his eyelids, and a disconcerting pressure rose in his throat.

Just when he thought he couldn’t hold back the feeling any longer, Elizabeth raised her hands to his cheek. “Be brave. You said it yourself, didn’t you? There’s no other way.”

With a reluctant nod, Tristan lowered her to the ground. His heart was in his stomach when he mounted her torso. As she looped her bound wrists around the back of his neck, Elizabeth stared up at him with wet, courageous eyes. The look she cast at him spoke of fear, but behind it was a greater understanding. Locked in her gaze, he slowly wrapped his fingers around her neck.

“I love you,” Elizabeth said sternly, making certain he knew that it was true above all else.

“I love you,” Tristan said weakly, wishing that the last thing she would hear would be those words from him.

As his shaking hands tightened their grip, Elizabeth smiled warmly and caressed the back of his head. Tears, hot and painful stung Tristan’s vision as he watched dread overcome the immeasurable strength of her composure. Her smile vanished as terror replaced her stoicism. Her nails reflexively clawed at his scalp, drawing blood and skin under them. Unable to speak or even breathe, she pleaded him to stop with her eyes. Her legs, although tied, kicked up dirt and grass as she desperately fought for her life. Foam, spittle, and vomit leaked from the corners of her mouth as she arched her spine in vain attempts to wrench herself free. It wasn’t but another three seconds before her windpipe collapsed with a crunch, and she slipped into unconsciousness. Even so, Tristan did not let go. He strangled the life from her with all his might, as she stared blankly through him, seeing nothing.

Once her pulse disappeared from beneath his hands, he’d had enough. That precious warmth and light that had belonged to him and him alone, was gone. Unable to hold himself together any longer, he embraced Elizabeth one last time, screaming and crying for her to come back to him in mad hysterics. In a fit of sheer panic, he administered chest compressions and futile rescue breaths, begging for her forgiveness as he tried with all his strength to bring her back. But the only thing he managed to achieve was cracking through her ribs. No agony in his life compared to what he felt as he cradled her lifeless head against his chest, weeping bitterly for what he’d lost, for what unspeakable horror he’d committed. His soul had ripped itself to unsalvageable pieces, his mind was breaking apart, and his heart was fit to burst.

He cried until he was nauseated, and threw up until he was dry heaving over the side of the safety railing that overlooked the bay. As he watched his vomit blown about in the wind, the thought to join it over the side of the cliff overcame him. It was likely to end in an instant. There would be the crippling fear of abandoning survival, but only in the time it took for him to reach the jagged, promising rocks below. It would all be over. His suffering and the memory of it all would be over. It was his fault that it ended up like this anyways. After all, he’d never even intended for her to wake up. She was never supposed to see the ocean, even though he knew it was something that she’d always wished for. He let love dictate his reason, and allowed himself to see those beautiful eyes one last time. They had already said their goodbyes, there was no point in doing what he did.

“Elizabeth…” he muttered to himself as if in a trance, “Elizabeth… Elizabeth… Elizabeth…” he mumbled over, and over, and over—unable to shake the mental image of the way she looked at him.

The way she begged for her life in a way only he could know.

“To think, you would actually do it…” said an airy, hollow voice like the creeping mist of a sepulcher.

Tristan had forgotten all about it. The reason for everything, the reason she was dead, and why he did what he did.

“Why did it have to be like that?” he hissed, frustration boiling inside him, yet still blanketed by his anguish.

Only a few meters away, a figure draped in faded, tombstone gray cloth rested nonchalantly against the concrete railing. It had no visible features to speak of other than its garment, perhaps apart from the swirling, impenetrable darkness that lay underneath its hood.

“The proof of your resolve. It had to be with your own hands…” it said with its hollowed-out voice that seemed to pierce the very boundaries of Tristan’s mind.

Had he been deaf, he found himself thinking, he would likely still hear its words. “How could one hope to bear the mantle of Death, were they not able to destroy what is most precious to them? Fear not. You are free. You are not yet bound by greater destiny.”

The very notion that Elizabeth could have died in vain was utterly unacceptable. “There is nothing left for me. Without her, I have nothing…” Tristan said emptily, as he cast a shameful gaze at the corpse off to his left.

Her enchanting hazel eyes no longer stared blankly through him, but into the sky, watching the clouds lazily drift through the rays of sunlight.

A dry laugh escaped the figure, sending trails of shadowy fog out from beneath its hood. “Come then. There is much to learn.”