Under the Surface

by Diana Urban

Keeping my spirits up among six million corpses isn’t exactly an easy feat.

But this darkness is stifling, the kind that creeps up your nose and down your throat and burrows in your bones, that siphons all hope you’ll ever see light again.

It’s no wonder he never remarried—she didn’t have the kind of shoes other people could fill.

It explained why he spiraled so hard whenever I came to him with my grief. There’s only so much you can buoy someone else up if you have no life raft of your own.

“You never think lightning is going to strike twice until it does.”

Julien grips the lower half of his face, considering her. I bet he wishes he never met her at all. He never would’ve gotten lost if he hadn’t left the party to meet her. If Selena hadn’t rushed down that well and fallen. If I hadn’t raced ahead to find her.

But we did this together, and now we’re in this together.

This better not be the last time I see them alive.

Maybe being so afraid of losing the people we love most is exactly what drives them away, like some self-fulfilling prophecy.

We’re this moment. And the last. And every memory we’ve ever made. Every recording. Every note. Everything we’ve created and the lives we’ve touched. We’re our choices, our bravery, our sacrifices. We’re forgiveness and strength and the tears we’ve shed. We’re the friendships we’ve built and the love we’ve shared. Time might go on without us and our cells might wither to dust, but that doesn’t diminish our existence. We all leave a mark on this world.

Les Gardiens des Morts, a secret society sworn to protect the Empire of the Dead that morphed into a necromancy doomsday cult in Stefan’s desperate attempt to maintain numbers and power.

But beneath the smile I plaster on my face, I have so much healing to do under the surface.