She gripped the ancient relic tightly, feeling the power running through it with a pulsating false joy that emulated a heavy dose of illegal narcotics.

She, Isabella Turner, took a long drag at her cigarette and sighed out a puff of smoke. A mourning dove was somewhere nearby; its consistent cooing was unsettlingly rhythmic and low.

Isabella turned the object over in her hands, gazing at the dark amethyst crystal embedded in gold. It hurt to look away, but less than it hurt to watch.

Memories of him surfaced like driftwood when looking at the relic- how deeply he cared for her, his dark blue eyes, his kind personality that ended up getting him killed.

Isabella sniffed as her eyes threatened to spill and glanced at the sky.

She could have him back.

All those days they never had would have a reason; all the times she woke up with an image of him next to her would be gone.

The mourning dove wouldn’t shut up.

Insistent cooing filled Isabella’s ear so much that she almost forgot the sound of his voice resurfacing.

She held the relic tighter; it started to feel like his messy hair the longer she ran her fingers over it.

Isabella twisted the spherical object so that the amethyst lined up with the cryptic runes. She started to feel weepy and heavy-headed. Bile crept up the back of her throat and threatened to escape with an aching sob.

“I see you, Isa.”

She startled and tried to look around, but her vision was blacking at the edges. She couldn’t tell if she was standing, or laying on the ground, or floating above it.

“Come home, Isa.”

She couldn’t feel anything, not the relic, or her limbs, or his hair. She was numb, tingly.

She felt like she had to throw up, but nothing would come. She was dry heaving, warm tears stinging down her cheeks while his cooing voice echoed around her hollow mind.

It seemed never-ending, until it did end.

And it was sudden, sharp, painless.

He was there, but they weren’t there. He was holding her head in his hands, stroking tears off her cheek, they weren’t really there.

They weren’t really there.

But they held each other in such a way that it felt real. It felt true, to Isabella.

Isabella Turner and her narcotics sighed, but not really. The only thing that really was there was the dark purple behind Isabella’s eyelids, but even that was gone.

He was gone.

She was gone.

But they were gone together.