Page 43 of Bonds of Starfall

At least he knew it would not be the end.

Please,he prayed,let it be quick for her. Let it be like a flash. Let her be gone before she can feel it. Don’t let her suffer this end.

Not like she had in their last life. Two lives they had spent together. And it seemed both would come to a swift end.

The large, domed window looking out into the expanse of their galaxy vibrated with the force of the distant, exploding planet. Colors shifted over the side of Rin’s face and turned her brown hair into a mass of deep purples and blues and greens. Her lower lip trembled.

Kit grabbed her, holding her fiercely to his body and pressing her face into his chest. The tight black suits they both wore kept their skin covered. He wanted to touch her—more than anything in these last moments. Wanted to feel her skin against his. The softness of it. Trace the shape of her one last time. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to. Their time was slipping away.

He settled for holding her. Her small body quaked with sobs against him.

"Kit," Rin cried, "I don’t want to go to the Stars yet. My parents—" She tried to turn and look behind her at the window, but he only held her tighter.

"Don’t look," Kit said. "Don’t look."

He would look for both of them. She didn’t need to see. Didn’t need her last memories to be clouded with fear.

Debris hurtled through the galaxy, the mushroom-like blast of black, red, and lifeless grey spreading outward—toward them.

Lights flashed over his face, reflected in his eyes as he thought of their last life together. Another tragedy, another life where she had been taken far too soon. He blinked, just once, as a tear escaped, falling from his lash line and trickling down his cheek. Unshed tears clung to his lashes, and he didn’t want them to fall, didn’t want to feel such anguish when his time was coming to an end in this life. But it was so hard, now that he was faced with death.

"Kit, Kit, I love you. Please—" Rin sobbed against him, each piercing, anguished cry like a sick punch to his gut.

"It’ll be okay," Kit lied, holding her head to his chest with a firm, unyielding hand. "We’ll be okay," he lied, again and again, to her.

The Stars beckoned, winking at him as they wrapped around their ship like a mother embracing a lost child. His limbs started to shake. Oh god. He was going to die. He couldn’t stop it. Nothing could stop it.

A pit opened up in his stomach, an endless, yawning mass of regret and sadness, and a fear so terrifying it was hard to put into words.

They were going to die.

Their ship started to rattle. The emergency lights flared red with warning, but then, they flicked off, casting them into a deep darkness.

Kit’s skin boiled beneath his suit as sweat broke across his body. His chest ached; he couldn’t get a deep breath.

The oxygen valves must’ve been hit.

The shaking of the ship was so violent that his teeth rattled in his skull, the air vibrated around him, and his lungs seized, sweat dripping down his spine.

Rin whimpered, and Kit pressed his face into her hair, blocking out everything but her as it all?—

Ended.

Throughout it all, Kit held Rin and never let her go. Even when their ship exploded into hunks of metal and their bodies were ripped outward into the cold, dark sphere of space.

Floating, frozen, lifeless.

Kiton clawedhis way free from his nightmare, a strangled sob lingering on his lips in the darkness of the living room. The ceiling fan whirred slightly, sending cool breezes down on him, where he rested awkwardly on the large couch, his head at a painful angle, his arm tingling with numbness.

His fingers flexed, brushing over something cool and soft.

Rin’s hair twined around his fingers, her head resting against his chest.

The anxious fear left him in a heavy breath. He was okay. He was alright.

Breathing, living.

With her.