CHAPTER L
"The Thread That Couldn't Hold"
Right now, Mon is mine.
She's here — in my arms, her head resting against my shoulder, and for once… everything feels quiet. There's no anger between us. No bitter words. No wounds still bleeding. Just us — sitting side by side on a moving bus, watching the world blur past our window like a memory that refuses to stay still.
We're traveling toward somewhere unknown… but for the first time in a long time, it doesn't matter. The destination is meaningless when the moment feels this still, this sacred.
And yet — even in this fragile peace — something feels distant.
Like we're here in body, but not entirely in soul.
It's strange. She's right beside me, her warmth pressed into mine, our fingers loosely entwined… but in my heart, it feels like we're standing on two distant shores — separated by something invisible, something neither of us dares to name.
And in that silence, our hearts — broken, bruised, but still beating for each other — seem to whisper a song neither of us wants to hear.
> "We couldn't begin it… and we couldn't keep it."
"The whole world teased me for holding on."
"The thread between you and me, my love… it broke."
"Just like a fallen star tears away from the sky."
Those words echo within me.
Like a prayer.
Like a curse.
Like a truth too heavy to speak aloud.
I don't look at her. She doesn't look at me. But somehow, I feel like our souls are screaming the same thing — crying out from opposite ends of something we once built together.
It hurts.
Because this moment should feel like everything. It should feel like safety. Like home.
But instead, it feels like goodbye wrapped in silence.
I want to hold her tighter, to freeze this moment before time and fate pull us apart again. I want to tell her that no matter what happens… she'll always be the name I whisper when the world goes quiet.
But I don't.
Because we both know…
This peace is borrowed.
This closeness is temporary.
And outside this bus, chaos waits — the real world, the one where survival doesn't care about love stories.
So, for now, I hold her a little tighter.
Not to stop her from leaving.
But to remember what it felt like…
To have her, even for a little while.
Because sometimes, love isn't about forever.
Sometimes, it's about the quiet in-between.
The space where two souls meet…
Even when everything else is falling apart.
> "We couldn't start it… we couldn't keep it…
But for this moment, we can pretend…
That we never had to end."
"The Past I Tried to Bury"
The love between Mon and me — it's something that will always exist.
Whether I live or not… whether we are together or worlds apart… the bond we shared won't vanish. It lives in the spaces between our memories, in the choices we made, and even in the regrets we still carry. That love — as imperfect, broken, and complicated as it was — is forever.
It took me five long years to truly understand that.
Five years of running, breaking, healing, and breaking again.
And yet, after all my mistakes… after all the ways I hurt her and distanced myself, Mon is still here. Still beside me. Still in love with me. Still choosing me.
We were each other's first love — and while I may be just her beginning, she is my beginning and my end.
But here's the thing no one tells you: even when you're in love, the heart doesn't always stay untouched.
Because… after Mon, when we had parted ways — after I had lost her and walked away — something happened. Something I buried so deeply I forgot it existed. Or maybe… I forced myself to forget.
Because it hurt too much to remember.
Yes, I loved again.
Yes, someone else had touched the broken pieces of my heart and tried to fit them back together.
The memories are foggy now — shadows in the corners of my mind. I erased them, piece by painful piece, like wiping away names carved in wet cement. I told myself I had to. That if I didn't, those memories would rot inside me like open wounds that never stopped bleeding.
And for a while, it worked.
I forgot.
I survived.
Until now.
Now, in this twisted present where the world is ending — where zombies roam the streets and death is no longer a fear but a reality — those buried pieces are coming back.
The attack is lethal for everyone. For me?
It's not just life-threatening.
It's heartbreaking.
Because everything I ran from — every name, every face, every moment I had tried to forget — is clawing its way back.
I see her face.
The girl I've been running from my whole life.
The one I thought I had escaped. The one I pretended no longer existed.
But there she is — in my dreams, in my guilt, in my blood.
And Mon — my present, my anchor — is here. She's real. She's the one thing keeping me sane.
But there was a before too.
A chapter between the ending of me and Mon and the beginning of this apocalypse.
A chapter I've ignored… until now.
And that chapter?
It began after Mon and I had fallen apart. After I had lost myself. After I had become hollow and desperate for something — someone — to remind me that I was still human.
And that someone…
I may not love her like I love Mon.
But I revere her.
I respect her.
She didn't just touch my heart — she helped me believe I still had one.
Even if I buried that truth under years of silence.
Even if I pretended it never happened.
Because the truth is — some people don't just become lovers or memories…
> They become temples.
And I may love Mon with everything I am…
But that person?
That person became a part of my soul I don't worship with passion —
I worship with silence.
With gratitude.
With awe.
And now, as the world collapses and everything we know fades to dust…
Both my past and present are standing in front of me.
And I'm terrified…
Because I don't know which one I'll lose first.
To be continue....