She took a deep breath and then finally looked up at him.

He felt her stare go right trough his soul, judging his most private self, and he wasn´t sure if she liked what she saw. Hopefully she didn´t hear his heart racing, like the repetitious sound of an old church bell, that beats faster for the occasional festivities, it was beating like the Bells in winter, to celebrate the birth of a celestial being.

His body celebrated her, but his mind just felt tired after all these years.

Quiet like a bird's feet clicking on a stone floor ticked her heart, like an old forgotten Clock. Sometimes he wondered if her heart was still there or if it had gotten replaced by a stealthy machine. When they were children, he was able to hear it clearly calling him with beats of a drum, but now it´s sound just disappeared somewhere between the way she whispered and the way she looked at him.

He cleared his throat and then stated the obvious, that he had made her breakfast, balancing the tablet filled with eggs, bacon and bread on his knees. She started sitting up in his bed and glanced at what he was offering her.

„It doesn´t even look like it´s made of wood.“

He pulled up an eyebrow and smirked slightly, because he knew she liked his smiles.

„Our wooden food is a delicacy you have proven not to like. So I went for something less conventional.“

It was a bad idea to talk about old times. But she didn´t flinch today. More so, her sad eyes glowed up just a little and a smile touched her cold checks ever so gently.

„Do you remember what Monesch did on that one Party, when you showed him the wooden bread? Looking back, it was very immature. And humiliating for you, popably. But it was also so funny.“

He felt his own heart warm up. There was not one moment he was not excited to be with her, not a moment he didn´t miss her. But it also drained him of his energy and hope, seeing her like this. Feeling her Hate for him.

A slight giggle escaped her mouth, rupturing and shaking her disappearing body.

„Remember when we were riding on that whale? When I threw you guys into the water? And you couldn´t stop turning into your other form? I wondered what happened to the whale.“

He remembered those days as clearly as if they were still waiting for him, a remembrance to their innocence and youth in the air, like all those unspoken words between them.

A slight grip of the Love they once shared held him tightly, the one that still kept him awake at night.

Maybe it was selfish of him to still be in love with her. It was not like he could decide to stop, but he could try to avoid her as much as she avoided him in this broken world, shaken by an ever present sense of war and violence.

By his war. And her War. By the worlds most cruel, shaken, torn....by their war.

The Clock on the wall ticked towards midnight, with every beat nearing the end of their meeting.

„I know.“, he said „I´ll never forget those days.“

But our Story doesn´t begin here. There is more to this story that needs to be told, and I can´t just tell you how it ends. I´ll tell you how it starts. It starts in the Middle.