Love Beyond Death

Christine was not what Erik had expected as his soulmate. But how quickly she had become the axis around which his world turned. Her quick temper and impatience should have bothered him but they didn’t. After all, her many wonderful qualities outweighed the less-than-wonderful ones. Despite what others might say about her, he now knew she was an angel made for him. Her words might have sometimes been as icy as her blue eyes but there was a sweetness in her that only Erik recognized. The 4 years of their relationship had flown by in a blur of intense passion filled with love, laughter, and…fights of fury. Erik was ashamed to remember how he had been willing to give up on their relationship on the 4 year anniversary of their first date. He had it all planned out. They were going to go out to a lovely Italian restaurant for dinner and just after dessert, Erik was going to end it. There were only so many fights and heartbreaks he could endure; he had surpassed that number long ago. His relationship with Christine had become a hollow, burnt-out shell of what it used to be. The only thing to do was make a swift end to it. Like a mercy killing. But things had gone horribly wrong. 

On their way to dinner, their car had spun out of control violently, jerking both Erik and Christine in a brutal manner. For a while, everything went black. When Erik regained consciousness for a few seconds, he realized he was on fire. And then all he could register in his mind was the pain. The searing, white-hot, all-consuming pain. The next few days were a haze of doctors, nurses, concerned friends, and family hovering over his hospital bed. His visitors came and went but the one thing that remained was the pain. In those moments he had fervently wished for death’s cold embrace. When he found the strength to speak again after what felt like an eternity, the first thing he did was ask about Christine. Before the doctors even told him of her demise, he knew it by simply looking at the sympathetic look in their eyes. He had died too that day. The man he used to be was gone. His soul was dead. Now, he was resigned to walking on earth as a living corpse. He had crawled out of the fiery wreckage of his car only to be denounced and forgotten by the world. 

In the past 2 years of living in a world without his dear and departed Christine, Erik had understood her value in his life. His love for her was vastly intensified by her absence. Every second away from her was like a million stab wounds. Erik’s new appearance kept him distanced from the world and his only source of refuge was the lonely apartment that he once shared with Christine. But not anymore. After intense research and numerous pointless meetings with hacks, exploitative psychics, and mediums, he had finally found the real deal. Someone who could reunite him with his old love. In the deep woods of a tiny village, Erik had found an old fortune teller who was rumoured to be a half-mad witch woman by the people in the neighbouring areas. Stories about her varied but one fact remained undeniable: she had real powers. Hope flowered in his heart as he entered her tent filled with strange-smelling potions and candles that flicked with absurdly bright flames. He should have known right then that reversing nature’s laws was a bad idea but the thought of being with Christine again drove away every bit of rationality in his mind. If the wood’s witch was intimidated by his burned appearance, she gave no indication of it. Somehow she seemed to already know he was coming. Her jowly face had omniscient green eyes that made him think she already knew what he wanted. Using a twisted iron dagger, she drew blood from Erik’s thumb and mixed it in a potion while also humming a spellbinding tune that put him in a trance. This will reunite you with the one you love, the witch’s croaking voice echoed in his head. 

On the night of the full moon, Erik went to the graveyard where Christine rested for the very first time. He could never bring himself to visit her before but now it was a necessity. Erik’s heart skittered as he stepped closer to Christine’s grave. He attempted to recall her beautiful heart-shaped face but he could not. All he saw was the permanent expression of malice on her face and the blackness of her heart. He shook his head as if hoping to dislodge the bad memories from his head. Erik had come too far to give up now. Will she remember how dreadful our relationship had gotten? Erik wondered. What was the statute of limitations for being a terrible boyfriend? A sharp pang of heartache tore through Erik’s chest. He toyed with the hem of his jacket. No, he couldn’t show any hesitation now. Not when he was so close. As instructed by the witch, he splashed the potion on his Christine’s headstone and murmured an ancient spell as his mind tried to conjure up his best memories with his love.

His reverie was broken by the sudden crumbling of soil near Christine’s gravestone. Little tremors began erupting from the ground beneath him. Erik’s heart blackened with deep terror. A hand rose up from the grave. Then another. Slowly, a head tore up with a ferocity that it threw chunks of soil all over Erik. His chest began hammering faster and faster. He drew a sharp breath of fear when he saw the head snap up and stare back at him with icy blue eyes smoldering with anger. Christine’s eyes. Her face was carved with disdain. Christine’s flawless alabaster skin was now both rotten and burnt. Erik felt shivers down his spine as her body jerked in a reckless motion with the bones in her body cracking like dried twigs. Her eyes held the utmost loathing and malevolence. They seemed to be accusing him of the accident. As if he had driven their car off of the road on purpose. Erik had never told anyone but…it was true. It was all true. He could barely admit it to himself. It wasn’t planned, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. They had begun fighting in the car that night and he was just frustrated beyond anything. All those years of being hopelessly in love couldn’t end in a simple break-up. They both had to die. Isn’t that how all grand old love stories end? 

Regret had come flooding in as soon as he made the car swing into the ditch that night. But it was too late by then. The fire from the wreck had enveloped them entirely. His tragic plan had a tragic end. Christine left for heaven without him and now he was all alone. A life marred with endless fighting with her was still better than one without her. Christine’s absence had taught him that. But now that she was standing upright before him as one of the undead he couldn’t bear to look at her. Her mouth began to crank open. A deep and low cry rumbled out of her throat, quickly thinning and rising and turning into an ear-splitting scream. Nothing like the crystalline sweet voice that used to enchant Erik before. She stopped, sucked in a hoarse breath, and began screaming again. All her screams were endlessly rising and swelling into furious waves that crashed against Erik’s sanity. He tried stumbling away from her but couldn’t make it farther than a few feet. His legs suddenly had failed him.

Christine took long, loping strides, stretching her legs out, one after the other as much as her body would allow, while her arms dislocated from their sockets, twisted and writhed behind her back, even as she never stopped screaming. Paralyzed by abject terror, there was nothing Erik could do. She grabbed him by the shoulders and ripped into his torso like a starved predator, sending chunks of viscera and an aerosol mist of blood all over the surrounding gravestones. Despite it all, Erik couldn’t help but smile even as he felt the last bit of life draining out of him. At least now, he was back in the embrace of his one true love.