Everlong: (Book One of the Everlong Trilogy)

I don't know when I died. I can't remember an exact time, or point to a precise moment when the lights went out. It wasn't like someone had flicked the switch off and I had ceased to exist. My death had crept up on me slowly, had deceived me, gradually seeping into my skin one molecule at a time. I had no way of fighting it because I didn't know it was happening.

I hadn't seen it coming.

And now it was too late.

It (whatever it was, I didn't know) had eaten me alive like a parasite, had crept into my bloodstream, had taken me over until I felt nothing.

Nothing; like lying on your arm in the middle of the night and stopping the blood flow so that, when you finally wake, the arm is still there but feeling dead and detached, like it doesn't belong to you.

Josh

Death was coming.

I could hear Her rasping voice calling to me from the never-ending darkness.

Her scent - a pungent cocktail of soil, ammonia and lavender - was tumbling around me like a heavy veil of mourning.

But She didn't scare me.

I knew Her too well.

I ignored the violent curses she spat at me; She knew it was too late, she knew that I would betray Her and there was nothing that She could do to stop me.

I was going to save the girl destined to die, even if that meant I would lose my life in return.

I stepped back into the shadows - back into my realm - and continued to observe the girl sitting on the stone bridge, her legs dangling over the edge.

A clock began to strike twelve.

The girl slipped off her coat and clambered unsteadily onto the side of the bridge.

I waited for the moment the girl jumped.

The moment I would save her and my life would be lost.

Forever.

Evie

I exhaled, and watched as my breath turned to ice. The beauty of it always amazed me, like thousands of sparkling diamonds falling from the sky, bursting with memories of my father and those bitterly cold walks to school as we pretended to be dragons or trains. But I couldn't linger too long on those memories, they were as bitter as they were sweet, so I pushed them away, locked them deep inside me, alongside my tears.

I took another swig of vodka. I hated vodka, but it was all I could find to numb what was left of my already deadened senses.

Somewhere in the distance, beneath the thick veil of fog, a church bell began to strike twelve. My stomach lurched with anticipation. I took one last mouthful of vodka and placed the half-drunk bottle on the edge of the bridge; a glass gravestone, a marker, a reminder that I once was here, that I had once lived. I slipped off my coat and placed it next to the bottle. The skin on my arms prickled with goose bumps, but I didn't feel cold.

I scrambled clumsily onto the side of the Old Bridge, and counted the strikes of the bell. I couldn't miss my cue, not tonight. This one time I would do something right, perhaps for the first time, the only time, in my life.

It was a beautiful night to die, the spectral fog making it feel like the souls of those who had gone before were gathering around me, welcoming me into the next life. In the distance I could just make out the spiral of St. John's piercing through the fog's cold embrace. And I remembered my father, lying cold in its cemetery, beneath the frozen ground and out of reach, under a de-robed oak tree, its branches outstretched like a guardian angel.

Soon, I would be with him again.

A willow grieved on the river bank, its trunk bent double under the weight of the hoar frost that was clinging to everything like a second skin. A stray firework exploded in the distance, staining the fog with a diluted splash of red.

Strike nine.

I edged forwards, my heartbeat quickening as the taste of freedom opened up as a promise before me. Soon I would be free of life and the dark and heavy burden that I struggled to carry, like Atlas under the weight of the world. It had seeped through my skin like a morphine drip, drop by invisible drop, paralysing my heart, stripping me of feeling.

Suicide was just the end of my body being on earth; my soul, I knew, had abandoned me long ago and was already floating in the Waters of Forgetfulness on the Other Side.

Strike twelve.

A cacophony of fireworks erupted in the sky as drunken revellers screeched Auld Lang Syne.

And I let myself fall.

Into the water.

Crashing through the ice and into black.

The numbness inside me shattered with the ice, little particles of pain breaking free, and floating around me like snowflakes, beautiful but deadly when they merged together. Darkness engulfed me, the putrid, icy water pulling me down into its sanctuary and I heard the sweet voice of death calling my name.

At last, I was free.

Josh

I could feel Evie's life force slipping away as she sank under the fractured ice, it was calling to me, pleading with me to take it, to release it.

And I should have.

But instead, I plunged into the black water after her.

Evie was hanging in the water like a crucifix, millions of tiny bubbles dissipating around her; her life slipping away into nothingness.

As an Angel of Death, I remove the dying person's pain, and wash them clean, before I sever the thread that binds them to this life. I bear that pain, take their life stories from them, to prepare them for their onward journey into the Afterlife.

Not this time.

I flung my arms around her, and as we touched, images of her life flowed through me like a movie. Some were more vivid than others - her first cry as she was born to the world, her father taking her out on her first bike, his warm smile as he read bedtime stories to her, his last breath, the black funeral cars, the dark feelings that possessed her - and all of them cut me to the bone.

I pulled Evie closer to me, battling the leaden fingers of her pain as they wrapped themselves around me. They were trying to drag me down into that dark place in which she lived, they wanted to hold me prisoner until Evie was dead and I would have no other choice than to sever her soul and set it free.

Despite the heaviness invading my heart, I clung onto her and flew upwards, crashing out of the ice and into the blanketed world beyond.

She looked like a porcelain doll as I lay her down on the frozen embankment, her eyes closed, her heart barely beating. With the tip of my thumb I brushed away the matted hair from her face and then I kissed her.

And with that kiss I gave her back her soul.

And offered my life to Death in return.

Delicate threads of sparkling anima travelled through her body with the blood in her veins, winding their way to her almost dead heart. At the same time I returned her memories, her life story back to her, trying to hold onto the sorrow that had hijacked her existence, knowing I would bear it for a thousand lifetimes rather than see her suffer it again. But it was stubborn and cruel, and I couldn't hold onto it, nor stem the tide, and it rushed back into her.

A few ghostly images remained within me (probably from the darkest recesses of Evie's psyche), dancing upon the surface of my mind before they too vanished, almost like they'd never existed at all. They were memories that didn't make sense to me, that didn't seem to fit into her life - small glimpses of parted lips and naked flesh under a moonlit sky - but they were like snow on the ocean and in a matter of seconds they were gone, leaving only confusion and an inexplicable, aching hunger in their wake.

But I had no time to grieve their loss as Death, hissing and spitting, grabbed me by the hair and snatched me away from Evie. She spun me around and flung me to the ground. Agonising pain became master of my body. A silent scream uncoiled from my mouth.

I was to die beside the frozen river, not knowing if I had done enough to save Evie.

But Death did not take me.

Death is cruel and vicious and She wanted me to pay for my disloyalty, so She left me, broken and bruised, on the riverbank to die. Alone. A slow and painful death.

The sound of laughter drifted towards me, filtering through the thick curtain of fog. I had to get away, couldn't let whoever it was find me. I dragged myself into the brush and debris beneath the bridge, my feathers, tearing from my broken wings, left a snaking trail of black; a dark stain on the landscape. I rolled into a ball under the bridge, curling my arms around me to stop the trembling, but fear is a strong mistress and it took hold quickly, travelling through my body like cracks over ice.

I faintly remembered feeling something like it before, a long time ago. I drew no comfort from its familiarity.

There was nothing I could do but close my eyes and let Death take me when She was ready.

I heard my name being gently called through the darkness. There was a small flickering light in the distance - the place from where my name was being whispered - and I swam towards it, knowing that that was where I needed to be.

My eyes snapped open. I was lying naked on the hard ground, my body shaking from the icy cold biting into my skin. The harsh smell of burnt sulphur and charcoal hung on the air, and somewhere beyond the heavy cloud, the day was beginning to break. The bridge arched above me, oozing with emerald green lichen and centuries of dirt, the white-carpeted water, that usually rushed at its feet, lying still and silent beneath it. I saw the trail of black feathers twisting their way across the tow path, my feathers, bent and twisted like broken bones, and I remembered.

Evie.

I tried to stand but my legs were heavy, my body strange; blood throbbed in my veins - I could hear it pounding in my ears - and life pulsed through my body like electricity, animating every nerve and muscle. I stumbled backwards and pain stabbed my foot. I looked down; the jagged edge of a broken bottle protruded from the side of my heel, and my crimson blood was leaching into the mud from the wound.

But as an Angel of Death - an Immortal - I shouldn't have bled.

I leaned back against the arch of the bridge and slowly pulled the shard out of my foot, my own warm blood smearing my fingers.

I wanted to vomit.

I threw the fragment of glass to the ground, watching closely as the deep cut knitted back together and healed in front of me.

My ribcage seemed to constrict around my lungs, pushing my heart into my throat as the truth became clear.

I was no longer an immortal.

But I was not a mortal either.

Because no mortal would heal that quickly.