I dreamt of you last night, as I have every night since I heard of your death. Last night however, was very different.
I stood at the foot of your grave. The long stretch of soil still freshly turned despite you being buried more than two months ago. Your grave was the only one in a vast field of neatly cut grass. No matter which direction I turned, nothing broke the horizon. Nothing at all. Dim emerald blurred into the swirling violets and cobalts of a starry night sky, making it impossible to find where Earth ended and Heaven began. A sudden impulse took me and I stepped forward.
I fell.
The ground gave way to a murky body of water that was hiding just below the surface. All sense of direction was lost and I flailed uselessly, searching for air. At the bottom of the water, or at least what I perceived to be the bottom, I noticed a faint glow, so weak that it would have been easier to miss.
I swam as fast as I could to the glimmer, praying that it was the surface. It reminded me of you, but I can’t say why. Every inch I swam, the light retracted by a foot. By the time I realized how hopeless the chase was, it was too late. I gasped and was forced to breathe in the bog, the last of my breath foaming out. When my lungs were full and my arms had stopped obeying me, the glow flared brighter with a brilliant flash of lime and the water began to roil all around me. Suddenly, my head broke free of the marsh, but I was no longer at your grave.
This new and strange place had skies of solid ash gray, only interrupted by storm clouds with a bloody glow emanating from their cores. The constant flat fields were replaced with broken mountains of obsidian that shined like glass shards when enough light managed to strike them. There was a shore nearby composed entirely of pitch and brick colored sand, swirled separately in some parts and mixed perfectly in others. This beach was imprinted with countless tracks that seemed to originate from the water and lead inland. As I studied it, still puzzled with how I arrived there, other heads began to break through the water. Unlike me, they showed no confusion or hesitation. They simply rose and swam to the beach. Once the water was shallow enough, they walked, with no urgency, onto the sand and disappeared over a dune that hid the rest of the shore. One by one, I watched half a dozen people make this trec before I felt brave enough to follow.
My feet weren’t even on the beach before the stench of decay swept over me with the breeze. I hadn’t smelt anything that putrid since my father found one of the neighborhood stray cats rotting under our porch steps. Fur and skin devoured by a thick coat of maggots to reveal gray muscle and cream bones. The sight, and smell, left a permanent imprint on me. A perfect depiction of decay that comes to my mind every time I hear or think of the word.
I covered my face with my arm and pushed forward over the sand bar.
On the other side I found a crowd of people all standing shoulder to shoulder. Not one of them spoke, but so many wept and groaned that the air was filled with a constant hum, rising and falling in waves. I had no idea what to make of it. All I could do was watch over the crowd, my eyes unconsciously falling on and studying each face. Every single one of them was either confused or terrified, as was I. Even then I was motionless, until my eyes found you. You, standing right there in the middle of this unending congregation. It was just the back of your head, but I knew it was you in the pit of my gut. I charged forward.
Unlike the others, you were moving. Weaving through the crowd to a place I could not see. Fear that I would lose you for a third time pushed me to a near hysterical panic. I dove into the crowd, stormed between the ghouls, and leapt to make sure I could still see you over them all. I didn’t pay much mind to the people I passed, I felt as though something. . . awful would happen if I looked too closely at them. In my heart, I was afraid I would recognize one of them. I didn't feel that way before, but being so close to these beings made them feel more real.
I was gaining ground on you. I no longer needed to jump, you were just ahead of me. It was still just the back of your head, but the sight of you made my heart ache in a way that I had never known before I saw your obituary. Even hearing from a friend of your passing I refused to believe it. That changed when I saw your picture and name with a birth date and a death date. I have lost family members to disease and old age. Was left by lovers that I wanted to hold onto forever. But you? Losing you hurt more than anything I had ever experienced before. It wasn’t loss, it was dismemberment. A permanent wound that bleeds fresh every single time I think of it. You, you were my closest friend, closer than anyone has ever been to me before. I held you when you felt lost, and you stayed up with me when I couldn’t be alone. Everyone else could leave, everyone else could disappear, but you? You couldn’t, not to me.
The hardest years of my life were the years that followed my ignored text messages and unanswered phone calls. I couldn’t reach you because you didn’t want to be reached. Why? I don’t know, you wouldn’t answer.
So I waited. For years. For almost a decade. I waited for you. I had always hoped that someday you would come back to me. That we would meet at a bar, pay for each others drinks, catch up and laugh at some stupid misunderstanding that had been separating us. How differently would my life had gone if I knew I had you at my side? If you and I never went our separate ways? I waited for the day when I would get an answer, but now that day will never come.
You were only a few people ahead of me.
I could have been there for you. I wouldn’t have left you alone. I loved you. I still love you. All you had to do was send me one message and I would have ran to your side, knocked the gun out of your hand, and wrapped my arms around you as tightly as possible. I would have saved you, if you just would have given me the chance.
I grabbed your shoulder and spun you around. For the first time in eight years, our eyes met. Tears streaked your face just as tears streaked mine. My mouth opened to speak. To ask you every single question I could possibly imagine.
Then I woke up.
Your image lingered for a moment before fading into the reality of my darkened bedroom. My trembling hands tried to force my eyes shut so I could return to you, but it wasn't enough. I had to see you. I had to.
It took two hours to drive here. It went fast since no one else was driving this late at night. Nearly another hour of wandering between headstones passed before I actually found you. On hands and knees I test the surface. There may be no grass over you yet, but the soil is solid. There is no water beneath this ground, only dirt, a casket, and a body. I guess. . . you're not here after all, are you Logan?