Death has always been in love with Life. He\u2019s known her forever. She\u2019s always been there, so close he can smell her sweet earthy scent every time he breathes. It\u2019s intoxicating. She\u2019s intoxicating. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a beauty about Life that he can\u2019t quite explain. Her limbs are long and gangly, her teeth slightly pointed, her skin a cacophony of colors. Her eyes are the lightest blue, that narrow into a dark navy as it nears her pupils. Stars speckle her cheeks. And her hair grows long, thick, and green. Flowers of all different shades adorn her head. She is clothed in all different textures and patterns. Where one swatch ends, another begins. She bleeds gold. To her core all she is known to be is good and kind and trusting. She\u2019s everything he is not. How could he not be in love with her?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All Death is known to be is dark, and forceful, and all consuming. And maybe he is. His eyes are pits of black. His skin a shade of pallid grey. He\u2019s so tall you cannot tell where one end of him starts, and the other begins. Everything he is, is dark. Everything he loves is light.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Since their first meeting, Life has returned to him once each day, sometimes more if he\u2019s lucky. When their energies collide, Death is filled with an overpowering sense of peace. Silence. He wanted to stay like this, with her, forever. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As time went on, Life\u2019s light remained steady. But occasionally, it would flicker. She was different. That total innocence had slipped from her eyes. He doesn\u2019t know what stole it. She\u2019s haunted. There is always some darkness that lingers in her, trying to escape. Invade. Take over. That darkness. It\u2019s so empty. So deep. That darkness. It reminds him of something he knows all too well. Death can\u2019t help but wonder if maybe Life wants to be like him. To be with him. The thought gives him hope and makes him love her just a little bit more.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Death was her friend. Always just a friend. He didn\u2019t understand. She visited him so often. In the all-consuming darkness, they spent hours and hours and hours together. She has spent half her time with Death, but she always leaves. Always lingering just long enough to convince him that this time, maybe, she\u2019ll stay. But no matter how tightly he holds her, she pulls away, escaping his grasp, returning to her world that is nothing but light. Something he can\u2019t provide.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He thought that eventually she would love him. That if he tried hard enough, he could convince her to never leave his side. No matter how many sweet nothings he whispered into her ear, or how safe and warm he made her feel, she never stayed. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sick of the games and the temptations she so willingly throws his way, he holds her longer and longer in the darkness. He will make her understand that being with him is what she wanted all along. Not the light that she always goes back to. No. This darkness that he lives in, it can be her home too. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But she never stops fighting. So, Death squeezes Life harder and harder each day. Making it more and more difficult for her to pull away.\u00a0 She squirms in his grasp. Begging him to let her go. But he can\u2019t. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One day, he held her so tight, for so long, she had no energy left to give. She couldn\u2019t fight, she couldn\u2019t leave. She was entirely drained. Unable to find the light she called home.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As the last of her light flickered out, he could see it. The defeat in her eyes. She\u2019s staying. Death heaves sighs of relief. He squeezes her limp form tight. She\u2019s here. She won\u2019t leave Death. Not this time. Not ever. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a toxic love story, the one between Life and Death. Death had never felt more in love with Life. But Life felt nothing, for him, for anything. But Death never noticed. He thought this was love. Her staying. It didn\u2019t matter that he had given her no means of escape. That he had drained her light. He could ignore all those things. Because here she was. Because now, for the first time, he was truly happy. He will hold onto her, never let her go. This darkness is now theirs, forever.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abby Jamison Death has always been in love with Life. He\u2019s known her forever. She\u2019s always been there, so close he can smell her sweet earthy scent every time he breathes. It\u2019s intoxicating. She\u2019s intoxicating. \u00a0 There\u2019s a beauty about Life that he can\u2019t quite explain. Her limbs are long and gangly, her teeth slightly Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"parent":23,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-507","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/507\/revisions\/797"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}