[습작] Until the Day I Die
Until the Day I Die
Chapter 1: Always You
The world had always been gray for Eli. Not in the melancholic, poetic way—just dull, lifeless, stagnant. But then, there was Vera. She was the color in his world, the laughter in his silence, the storm in his stillness. She walked into his life like she had always belonged there, and in many ways, she did.
They were inseparable from the moment they met, a pair of misfits tangled together by fate. “Birds of a feather,” she had said one night, lying next to him on the hood of his old car, staring at the sky. “We should stick together.” And he had believed her, with all that he was.
But time is cruel, and love—love is unpredictable.
Vera was slipping away. Not in the way people drift apart, but in the way the world pulls you under when you’ve been swimming too long. She was drowning in her own darkness, and no matter how tightly Eli held onto her, he could feel her slipping through his fingers like sand.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered one night, her voice barely audible over the rain.
Eli turned to face her, his heart pounding. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she said, voice trembling. “I—I don’t want you to save me, Eli.”
His hands clenched into fists. “Then what do you want?”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “I want you to remember me like this. Before I’m too far gone.”
His entire body tensed. “No. If you go, I’m going too.”
She shook her head, laughing softly. “You always say the dumbest things.”
But she didn’t know—she didn’t know that to Eli, she wasn’t just a person. She was his beginning and his end, the only thing that made waking up every morning worth it.
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Chapter 2: If You Go, I'm Going Too
She left in the middle of the night. A note on the bedside table.
"Don’t follow me."
Eli woke up to the emptiness, to the silence that rang louder than anything. His hands trembled as he held the note, his mind screaming at him that this wasn’t real, that she was still there. That she had to be.
But she wasn’t.
Days passed. Then weeks. And then months.
And Eli? Eli rotted away.
Without her, there was no color. The world was dull, lifeless—no, it was worse. It was a shadow of what it once was.
People told him to move on. They said it wasn’t healthy, that he was wasting away.
He didn’t care.
Because if Vera was gone, what was left?
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Chapter 3: ‘Til the Light Leaves My Eyes
Eli found her on a cold autumn night, in a city far from the one they once called home.
She was standing on a dimly lit street corner, cigarette between her fingers, looking lost in thought. She looked different. A little thinner, a little more tired. But those eyes—those same goddamn eyes—hadn’t changed.
“Vera.”
She froze. Slowly, she turned.
Her breath caught in her throat. “Eli.”
There were a million things he wanted to say. A million questions, accusations, pleas.
But all that came out was, “You left.”
She exhaled sharply, a mix of regret and relief washing over her face. “I told you not to follow me.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “You left, and I stopped existing.”
Her expression twisted with pain. “You weren’t supposed to wait for me.”
Eli stepped closer, voice barely above a whisper. “I told you. If you go, I go too.”
She shook her head, blinking rapidly. “Eli, I’m broken. I’m not—”
“I don’t care,” he cut in. “I’ll love you ‘til the day that I die.”
Her breath hitched.
He reached out, gently brushing her knuckles with his. “So, tell me. Do I stay? Or do we go together?”
She looked at him then, really looked at him. And in that moment, she knew—he had always been hers.
Maybe she had been running from herself. Maybe she had been running from him. But if she was being honest, she was tired of running.
And so, she did the only thing that felt right.
She took his hand.
And together, they walked into the night, not knowing what tomorrow would bring—only that wherever they ended up, it would be together.
Until the day they died.
