Legacy World 5.28
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Bang Bang Bang!

Drey's wide smile stayed on his face as the light in his crazed eyes slowly faded away. His body fell onto the floor like a marionette whose strings got cut.

Austin put his gun down, fired the green flare right up above them, then crawled towards Eva very slowly, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Austin had only momentarily passed out due to the pain yet was awoken by a different pain. It was like everything that touched his skin caused him pain. When he saw Eva fighting with Drey, he patiently waited for the right moment so that he could get Drey for sure, which he did successfully.

Upon reaching Eva's side, he took out the antidote that was in his ring and tried to put it in her mouth. However, Eva kept her mouth shut, and shook her head ever so slightly. He knew that she would rather he eat it than her. He looked at her sadly then put it into his mouth. Eva only relaxed after she saw him swallow.

With much difficulty, he spoke, "I'm... Sorry... I failed... To protect... You..."

What a fool, I'm the one who's supposed to protect you. Eva's thought unfortunately remained unheard.

Tears rolled down Austin's face as he propped himself up with his elbow, cupped her cheek with  his other hand and leaned in to kiss her on the lips. 

Eva's eyes slowly closed as she was prepared to accept death. 

His tongue pried apart her lips and mouth with a little difficulty. 

At this moment, her eyes flew open and her breath hitched in her throat. She had felt something else in her mouth.

The antidote!

After placing it between her back teeth, he quickly retrieved his tongue and instantly pushed her jaw upwards, forcing her to bite on it. 

He smiled while tears continued to stream down his face while she stared at him in utter shock.

"I'm sorry... I can't... Be the one... To give you... The family you... Wanted in this life... I pray that... You'll get the family you dreamed of... With someone else."

Tears welled up in her eyes that were still filled with shock. 

He stroked her cheek one last time before he finally passed out again.

Panic and sorrow filled her. As much as she wanted to free him of his suffering and pain of being left behind, she knew that she could not afford to let him die if he was not meant to.

At the same time that Austin passed out, the guards arrived at the scene along with Edwin and the doctor. While the guards inspected Drey's dead body, Edwin and the doctor ran towards the couple on the ground.

Eva made a strangled sound that drew the doctor's and Edwin's attention. Her panicked and concerned gaze which she then turned onto Austin successfully conveyed her message to them that they had to hurry. So they did.

After placing Austin and Eva on the floor of a bandwagon, the driver whipped the horses to go as fast as possible. The doctor got to work and did whatever he could do for Edwin at the moment, before moving on to Eva.

On the way back, Eva realised that the antidote turned out to be a flop in the end. It did help to mitigate the symptoms but only somewhat.

Now that it was within a slightly more tolerable range, she gestured for something to write on, which the doctor quickly provided. With BaoBao's help in breaking down then components of the poisons in her body, she came up with ones that would counter the effect. One of which required another poison to fight it. The poison they suffered from the trap was different from the one she guessed had been coated on the bullets.

At the same time that she was done, they reached back home. She gave the antidote recipe to Edwin who would know how to make it and where everything was at.

The doctor carried out the treatment in Eva's room so that Edwin could give Austin and Eva the antidote as soon as it was done being made.

While Austin was being treated, Eva decided to write a letter for him in case she did not survive this. However, not long after she started writing, her eyes began to hurt and dark spots started to appear in her vision. She felt pain shooting through her body like sharp needles. Anything in contact with her skin was painful like she was being grated. Nonetheless, she kept trying to write. Finding that she could barely see anymore, she finished up the letter.

Without sound or sight or a voice to cry out in pain, she suffered the pain in complete darkness. Her breaths were uneven and short. After what felt like an eternity, she felt someone feed her something and she passed out moments later.

The next day at noon, Edwin and the doctor looked wiped out, sitting on the chairs at the table near the window. They looked at couple sleeping side by side on the bed.

"Now we can only wait for their bodies to fight against the odds and survive. ... ... ... Austin's pretty stable, but Eva..." Eva's vital signs kept changing. Every now and then, the doctor had to do some sort of intervention to keep her alive and help her body fight to survive.

After three days of constant looking after, Eva finally passed on. Her body was unresponsive to anything the doctor did. The doctor sadly looked at the still unconscious Austin. Edwin shut his eyes and turned his head away, tears leaving his eyes uncontrollably. They could already imagine how heartbroken Austin would be when he woke up only to find Eva gone.

 

6 months passed before Austin finally woke up from his coma. He blinked and was in a daze for a while. I lived...? Where's Eva...?

He sat up with much difficulty. As soon as he realised that he was in Eva's room, but did not see Eva anywhere in the room, he started to feel like something was not right. Eva would always be in her room. "The library..." His voice sounded so hoarse and his throat hurt a little from talking but he paid no mind to it. He only wanted to find Eva.

Just as he got one foot off the bed, Edwin came into the room. "Your grace!! Doctor Blaze! Doctor!!"

Edwin then went into the room to try and get Austin to remain on the bed. "Your grace, you've been asleep for 6 months! Please wait for Doctor Blaze to assess you befo-"

"Eva. Where?"

Seeing how Edwin immediately clamped his mouth shut and did not dare to look at him in the eye, Austin's eyes glazed over.

"I need to find her." He shook off Edwin's hold on him the best he could but with 6 months of inactivity and the lack of sustenance in his body, he was feeling very weak.

"She's gone, Austin. She didn't make it." The doctor had entered the room in time to hear what Austin wanted to do.

Austin froze and tears flowed. "I gave her the antidote. It was supposed to be really goo-"

"She said that it was still being developed, didn't she? She didn't know all the poisons that it would work on and all the poisons that it would not work on. It just so happened that it didn't work this time."

"Then why am I alive? How am I alive when she's dead?!" He was panting and breathing unevenly, tears falling uncontrollably.

"Her body was far weaker than yours. I tried my best. She did as well."

"I won't accept this. I'll never!" He buried his face in his hands as he broke down. His entire body shaking in his sobs. "I can't... I don't want to live without her anymore. It's too lonely... It hurts..."

While Edwin silently cried by the side, the doctor placed a hand on Austin's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "She left a letter for you." He held out the paper for Austin to see.

Austin stopped crying for a moment to look at the letter like it was some prized possession. He hastily took it from the doctor's hand and started reading. While he read, the doctor gestured for Edwin to leave him alone.

"I'm worried about leaving him alone now."

"I believe that he won't do anything foolish after reading that letter. That girl... She's so special to Austin. I honestly don't know if he'll ever be able to find someone new."

Eva's handwriting in the letter was unstable and shaky, reflecting the bad state she must have been in. Imagining the suffering she went through before her death made Austin's heart break further.

"Austin, I don't know how but you're always saying things that I needed to hear time and time again, even when we were at the doors of our death. Yet here I am about to ask you for something incredibly selfish of me - Please live on. Otherwise, my soul can't rest. I know how you've struggled so much with your parents' death and, if could help it, I wouldn't want to cause you more pain.

I honestly don't know what I can say that may help you feel better, but I can share with you a little more about myself.

About finding meaning in someone's death... I think that it'd be great if that was possible, but not everyone would live to see the day they finally find meaning for their experiences. I can't promise you that you'd have the fortune to experience something like that before you die, but until then... What I think is that that's just how life works. Bad things can happen to even the best people just because. Some people call it fate. Some people call it the work of God, or the devil. Basically, there're just some things that we can't control. 

Somehow along the way, I learnt to accept it along with how much it sucked. At some point, I started to simply go through the motion of things. But thanks to you, I'm starting to think maybe it's not so bad to hope. I felt happier. Things looked a little brighter. Thank you for trying so hard for me, for always being there for me, for everything.

I hope that you can find it in you to take everything in your stride and live out the rest of your days even without me by your side. I look forward to meeting you in our next life."

Austin hugged the paper to his chest as fresh tears started to fall freely from his eyes again. He curled up into a ball and rocked himself slightly back and forth. Eva... ... Eva... ... ... For you... ... I'll live on...

Austin ended up spending the remainder of his life as a single man. Although him hardly smiling was the same as he had been before he wooed Eva, he did not give off the same oppressing ice cold feeling that he used to. It felt more mellow now and tinged with a quiet sadness. Sometimes, people would even catch him spacing out with a look like he would rather be some place else than where he was at.

Every time he felt like joining Eva in death, he looked at the note to remind himself to live on. 

To occupy his time, he decided to dedicate his life to bettering the life of females and the lower class in the society. Not only was it motivated by the fact that it was done in memory of Eva, it was also influenced by his musings about how reincarnations happen and the possibility of her being reborn here. With his help, the cause that Esmeralda has been fighting for made significant progress.

Austin did not live to a ripe old age because of his poor mental health. As if he could feel like he was reaching his end, he made his last visit to Eva's grave and with a final thought, he took his last breath while leaning against her tombstone. I'll see you soon, my Eva...

The wind blew and cherry blossoms drifted down onto Austin's body and Eva's grave.

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