Chapter 220 – Icarus, Helen, ah

  Icarus:

  The world was dark for me. I drifted in and out of moments of crity, slippiween a void of dreamless sleep and a suffog sciousness. My mind would simply go dark, like I was fading away. In the few lucid moments when I mao open my eyes, I saw Helen tending to me. Every time I caught a glimpse of her, she was g.

  “Drink… please!” she whispered, bringing a cup close to my lips. I could barely part my mouth to accept the liquid.

  “Don’t leave me,” she murmured, cradling my head in her p.

  It had been days like this, days of unbearable pain c through every nerve in my body. Even though I had thrown up the berries, part of the poison had already seeped in, taking hold. These were the worst days of my life. The pain was all-ing, each breath was a battle, each exhale an impossible feat. My vision was fractured; sometimes I could only make out faint shapes or blurred tours.

  “Icarus, please… don’t leave me. I ’t lose you,” Helen pleaded, spooning water into my mouth with trembling hands. It took a moment for me to uand her desperate i—she was trying to keep me hydrated. She had prepared tea, stolen milk, and even sged gardens for medial leaves.

  She was doing everything she could to keep me alive.

  “You said you wao stay with me forever… was that a lie?” she asked, her voice thick with tears.

  With what little strength I had left, I shook my head, hoping she’d uand my answer.

  “Stay with me, Icarus,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

  Outside, I could hear the sting and rain pounding against the world above. In that cramped hideout, Hele fighting to save me, p all her energy into keeping me from slipping away.

  “Helen…” I whispered. The sound of her name cwed through my throat, the pain like fire. “Let me… die…”

  She wept even harder, her despair raw and unguarded.

  “It hurts… it hurts so much…” I murmured, the words barely audible, drowned in the pain.

  “Icarus, we made a promise. Don’t leave me here… I have no one else. Please,” she begged, still trying to spoon water into my mouth.

  She g to me, trying to y fever with a damp cloth, pressing it against my burning skin. I was freezing oside, but my body felt like it was afme with fever.

  Tears slid from my eyes, each drop tearing its way out, intensifying the pain as they fell.

  “I was happy…” I murmured. “Don’t worry…”

  I closed my eyes, surrendering to the darkhat ed me once again, pullio a sleep without dreams. A sleep from which I wasn’t sure I’d wake.

  “Icarus, stay with me!” Helen screamed, but I was already drifting away into the void.

  I found myself in a sea of darkness. This was where my mind took me, where I would slowly disappear. Soon, I’d be part of this bck o, gone.

  I don’t know how much time passed, but when I opened my eyes again, it must have been another day. Helen looked worn, utterly exhausted. Her eyes were swollen and red, and her hair was tangled and u. I watched her, silently g as she wrung out a cloth.

  She soaked it in water and came closer. I y shirtless, my body frail and weak.

  My eyes barely open, I could only watch through slits, unnoticed as Helen tio se me with the damp cloth, silent tears streaming down her face.

  “I won’t leave you,” she whispered, her voice crag as she took care of me.

  And as I slipped bato darkness, I closed my eyes, hoping I’d fihere when I woke again.

  "Please, Icarus. Don’t give up! You’re all I have." Helen buried her fa her hands, her tears flowing silently as she sat beside me.

  My vision blurred once again, and I was swallowed by the vast sea of darkhat had bey reality.

  I lingered in that shadowy abyss for what felt like ay. Even as I drifted in and out of unsciousness, moments of crity came, and with them, the painful awareness—I was slipping away.

  "Icarus..." a voice echoed, pulling me back from the void.

  I found myself cradled in Helen’s arms, her embrace trembliender.

  "I love you," she whispered.

  I tried to open my eyes, but my body betrayed me. The darkugged at me with relentless force, threatening to e what little was left of me.

  "e bae," she pleaded, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead.

  Helen tio hold me, iightly in a b as if her warmth alone could banish the cold creeping through my body. Her fingers ran through my hair, soothing, even as I heard her quiet sobs echo in the suffog silence.

  Amid the oppressive shadows, I summoned what strength I had left, f my eyes open, knowing it might be the st time.

  "I’m sorry..." I whispered weakly, my voice crag uhe weight of my pain. "It... hurts..."

  "Don’t leave me," she said, her forehead pressed against mine. "Stay with me. I want to grow up with you, to keep sharing this cramped little space, but together. Without you, there’s no reason for me to go on. If you die, I’ll go with you."

  Helen’s tears flowed freely now, her words heavy with desperation. I wao stay by her side, but the agony was unbearable, and I yearned for release. Every breath felt like knives slig through my lungs, and I often found myself gasping, uo draw air.

  "Will you marry me, Icarus?" she asked, her voice crag as tears streamed down her face. "We’ve never had anyone else, but we be each other’s family. Will you?"

  "Yes..." I whispered, the word barely audible.

  "Then we’ll stay together until the end," she vowed, her voice firm even as I saw her reach for one of the poisonous berries, ready t it to her lips.

  "Stop..." I rasped, mustering all my will to beg her not to do it.

  She kissed my forehead again, her lips warm against my feverish skin.

  "Without my sun, there’s no reason to live," she murmured.

  Fatigue overwhelmed me once more, and I felt the pull of sleep dragging me under.

  "I’ll save you," she said as she rose to her feet. "Don’t worry."

  "I won’t give up on you," Helen decred, her voice filled with unwaveriermination as she ran out of the room, leaving me behind.

  I closed my eyes, surrendering to the restless sleep that felt more like drowning tha. The familiar darkness weled me back, but this time it was different. It was alive, hungrier, as if it sought to devour every fragment of my being. A suffog weight pressed against me, making it impossible to breathe.

  When I opened my eyes again, I had no sense of time. The void around me was vast and silent, its emptiness pressing against my thoughts. Helen was gone. She was somewhere out there, fighting for me... far away. But I wasn’t alone.

  A figure stood nearby, watg me. Its presence was heavy, almost tangible, as if it were a part of the very darkhat surrounded me. Cloaked in bck, its entire form was obscured by the flowing fabric. The shadows of its hood cealed its face, yet I felt the weight of its gaze pierce through me, reag into my soul.

  I turned my head with great effort, my body stiff and unyielding, and locked eyes—or what should have been eyes—with the bck-cd figure that seemed to scrutinize my every breath.

  " you see me, little ohe figure asked, its voice eg from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

  I tried to respond, but my throat was dry, sealed shut by exhaustion. I couldn’t speak. I could only stare, my gaze fixed on the figure whose presence was both distant and oppressively close.

  "Ah, I see. My apologies." He took a step forward, his movements so light it seemed as though he was floating. "You’re in bad shape. It must be difficult for you to even move."

  He leaned in slightly, and a soft chuckle, almost casual, escaped his lips.

  "You’re not afraid of me? How peculiar. Most people soil themselves at the sight of me." His ugh echoed again, this time carrying a hint of dark amusement.

  Without hesitatio down beside my bed. The bck cloak draped around him like aension of the surrounding shadows, blending seamlessly into the darkness.

  He stared at me for a moment, and though his face remained hidden, the iy of his unseen gaze made me feel as though he was reading every part of me—my thoughts, my fears, even the secrets I kept buried deep.

  "Pleased to meet you. My name is Charon," he said, his voice low, yet imbued with an inescapable weight. "But you mortals... you know me as Death."