“Same Time Tomorrow”

SHE:

When the sun rises, everything ends. I have ten minutes.

Darkness and light have never been friends, nor allies. They exist only to keep the balance. We humans are different. We are both darkness and light. Right now, I am the darkness. And he the light.

He’s chasing me, and I know that once the sun breaks the horizon, he’ll catch me. And then, I’ll have only one choice:

To die. Or become the light.

I choose to run.

Not because there’s anywhere to hide, but because I won’t go down without a fight. I see nothing ahead of me, and yet that’s my advantage. I am darkness. I blend with the shadows. I become everything. The trees blur as I rush through the forest. My lungs are burning, my legs ache, but I don’t give in. The scent of pine surrounds me, filling me with a strange kind of courage.

Still, I feel him. His presence. He’s waiting for the first rays of light to fall, so he can reach me, take me, and turn me into something else.

Something I can’t even imagine being.

I don’t stop running. I don’t give myself even a second of rest. I am everywhere and nowhere. Born of a moonless night, I slip through cracks, cross rivers. Behind me, nothing remains but a graveyard silence.

I’ll hold on to control for as long as I’m allowed. Because everything must come to an end. And after the end, there is always a beginning.

HE:

When the sun rises, everything ends. She runs like she doesn’t know it’s pointless. She runs like I used to before the sun set. It has always been this way. It always will be. I no longer know where she begins and where I end.

There’s something beautiful in her in the way she wraps around the earth and brings stillness. Cold… but exquisite. I can’t help but admire how the more she realizes there’s nowhere left to go, the faster she runs.

It’s always darkest just before the dawn. My favorite time.

There’s not much time left. So I prepare to reach her. I inhale deeply, take in her beauty one more time, and step forward.

The first ray of sunlight touches the earth, and she screams furiously.

“I could have gone further,” she mutters, pouting.

I take a step toward her and smile.

“Next time,” I say gently, though I know it won’t help.

She is a storm, silent, still, ominous… but a storm nonetheless.

“So now what?” she asks, and her white teeth flash in a grin.

“Now… you change.”

“What if I don’t want to?” she challenges, but her smile remains.

“Do you really have a choice?”I answer her question with one of my own.

She says nothing more. Slowly, she steps toward me, wraps her arms around my shoulders, and looks into my eyes. We stay like that for a second, allowing me to admire her some more, to feel her slowing heartbeat from the chase, and her warm hands around my shoulders. Perfect, she is perfect.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asks playfully.

“When have I ever said no?” I smile back.

She nods, closes her eyes, and as the sun rises higher, she can’t stop the transformation.

She is light now. And soon, I will be darkness. The game never ends. Forever we are bound to this dance, this cycle. But I wouldn’t wish for anything else.

As long as she is beside me, and I beside her, I am willing to be darkness and light, the cycle and the balance, whatever fate decides, as long as nothing ever tears us apart.