Author's Note: I was a little emotional when I wrote this. Will do dedications later, when the dust settles. I appreciate your patience.
Never Ever After
"Why look for these parallel universes that we can't touch? Because they hold the secret of secrets. They hold the secret of the origin of everything there is" - Michio Kaku
Eugene
Things could have gone completely wrong. The magazine clip in the gun could have been empty. But it was loaded. His hand could have shaken in a moments' hesitation but that did not happen. It was like he was performing a morbid ballet of both violence and grace. He pushed her to the back against the door, and then he was spinning and extending his arm toward the man who had just knocked Algernon Kingsley unconscious. He pulled the trigger once. The bullet hit the man's head clean.
But as an expert in second chances, he knew it when the enemy got his too. Dr. Facilier's holed and bleeding head did not deter the man from moving his hand, which was holding his walking stick-cum-sword towards him. And his other hand was holding an amulet on a chain of some sort.
If there was anything that Eugene had learnt from his previous encounters it was the fact that the things that people hold on to keep them alive, would be the thing that will kill them. Gothel and her writing instruments, he and his delusions. This man, his amulet.
He pulled the trigger the second time, hoping this time the injury will prevent the body from coordinating with its appendages for one second so he could lunge for the amulet.
It worked. He snatched the amulet from the blinded, bleeding man. And with the butt of the gun, smash it to pieces against the floor. This was easy to do when he was already kneeling on the floor. And why was he on the floor?
The thin sword has pierced into his chest as he had lunged to snatch the amulet from Facilier's hand. Strangely, he didn't feel anything.
Meanwhile, to Eugene's satisfaction, Facilier writhed and twisted and turned to dust, along with a horrific blood-curdling scream.
"What have you DONE? You have destroyed every-"
Only after the last of Facilier's living body turned to dust that Eugene felt the slicing cold pain in his chest. The excruciating pain made him lost all force in his body.
"Eugene!" Rapunzel cried his name and got hold of his body before he hit the floor. She slid him gently on the carpet.
"Apply pressure, I'm going to get help," she said and put his hand on his chest.
"No, don't leave me," he begged her.
"I'm going to call for help," Rapunzel said and spoke into the phone on her father's desk.
"Help will come soon," she said to him as she placed him in her cradle. She now placed her hand on his chest.
Eugene tried to put everything in perspective in those blindingly painful moments. The last time this happened, everything was wrong. Rapunzel was desolate and rootless. He wasn't ready. He now knew why he was given the second chance. Unlike the last time, where Rapunzel was alone and helpless, everyone was at where they were supposed to be. Rapunzel had found her parents. His survival would only cause complications as his past was so murky. But he was thinking about her survival as well. And idea formed in his mind.
"Promise me Rapunzel, whatever happens," he said slowly.
"No! You will get through this," Rapunzel begged him in a shrill breathlessness of frustration.
"You must find a new dream," he continued painfully. He no longer had the strength to hold his wound. He was just holding on to Rapunzel's hand, feeling her warmth as he was taken over by coldness.
"I was going to say yes!"
"Promise me, or I'll stop trying," he lied to her. He would do anything to make her promise.
"Yes, I promise."
He was ready. Time to let go.
"What happened?" Algernon Kingsley woke up from the effect of the poison set by Facilier. And saw the horrid scene before him. There was blood everywhere, a bagful of dust and clothes on his desk and office floor and the horrific scene of Rapunzel cradling the bleeding Fitzherbert.
"Dad, get help!" Rapunzel yelled to her father. Algernon Kingsley jumped out of his seat and ran out of the room, yelling like a madman.
"Let me go, Rapunzel."
"No!" Rapunzel gasped and took a pen from her father's desk and began writing furiously on his arm.
LIVE. LIVE. LIVE
"No, Rapunzel. You're free – argh!" Eugene gasped as another wave of slicing pain swept his senses.
"No, Eugene. I love you. Don't leave me!"
"I love you forever," Eugene said in the last of his breaths, almost inaudible.
He closed his eyes and exhaled one last time. His head lolled to one side, chest still and body unmoving. Rapunzel did everything she could, according to her knowledge.
She could not let him go while he was already far from her, in a place beyond reach.
Rapunzel
It was only one week after the funeral that Rapunzel was able to get out of her room in her parents' home. And she knew what saved Eugene at the Pier. It wasn't his time to die that day. But death comes for all sooner or later. It is never tardy nor forgetful.
"Mama, I'm going to the University," she told her mother.
"I'll drive you there," Anna Kingsley offered.
"No. I'm going to take the bus."
"Call me if you need anything," her mother said and kissed her on the cheeks. Then the woman went to a drawer that Rapunzel had never opened in her own room. She opened the drawer.
"Before you go, there's something I want to give you. Maybe it's time for you to have it."
"What is it, Mama?"
"We found this in Eugene's backpack, along with his dissertation. It's a diar- a journal. I have a feeling that this is meant for you."
Rapunzel let out a gasp. But she had done crying so there were no more tears from her eyes. She looked at the book at she put it in her satchel. She didn't want to read it in front of her mama. She knew how she would end up no matter how strong she pretended to be.
"Thank you, mama," she said. She put on a white slim long coat and covered her head with a white beanie. She set out for the University. In the bus she began reading the leather bound journal the size of a man's palm. There was a red ribbon placed in its spine. Eugene used number of days instead of dates. As if he wanted the journal to be timeless. That it could go on without being bound by time.
Day 1
This is the story of how I died.
Scratch that.
This is the story of what happened after I died. This isn't a fun story and even though it is my story, it is most importantly a story about a girl. Her name is Rapunzel. But just to clear things up in the beginning, I just want to say that this is NOT a diary. This is a journ
Day 2
This is a journal. (Is this thing gonna keep on going like this?)
Anyway, this isn't my idea. This is Miss Walker's idea. She gave me this thing. Left it by the bedside with a note. She had been trying to get me to write diar- journals for years, actually since I was in elementary school. She said writing to myself can" free me from my demons". Whatever that meant.
I hated the idea. Then I got into stuff. Really complicated stuff. I completely forgot about my demons. They become me. I hide behind my demons.
But now I'm in this hospital bed. Hurting like crazy but completely luc
Day 3
Hey Punzie,
If this diary ever falls into your hands you must be asking why on earth did I not finish every of my last sentence. That's because of the morphine. It has a soporific effect. I could just fall off like that.
As I lay here bored to death, completely lucid but unable to get out of bed, I have asked myself many times. Why do I deserve this second chance?
Because I know I don't. If you have known me like Miss Walker did, you wouldn't want me to survive this.
But I think there is a reason for everything. I live to make you free. I could not die that night because my purpose is not yet done. You were alo
Day 4
You came and waited for me again. I wish I could jump out of bed and do a jig or a somersault to make you not worry about me. But I'm getting there.
They didn't find Gothel's body. I hated that. I know you needed to see her one last time even though she had you hurt bad.
For me, it's nothing personal. You know those horror movies about psychotic killers and in the end they thought they have defeated the psycho but they never found the body? No, I bet you don't. But let me tell how they all ended. Like when they have shot it and it ran into the woods, bleeding, and insides pouring out? Or when they shot at it and it fell into the water? Or they thought they had torched the building he was in? It's like that. In the final frame, the bad guy just came back from out of nowhere brandishing an axe at you. That suc
Day 5
Where was I? Oh yes, that sucks.
I still want to discuss about your Mother not being found. Maybe my last entry was a bit over dramatic. But still, you needed to see her one last time. The thing is, what if she will never be found? How will you make your peace? I don't know. Because I've never found mine. If I could spend my lifetime with you, I hope to make that peace together.
And I'm thinking if I could list statements that will hel
Day 6
List of statements that will help us find peace:
Rapunzel: I have no control over what had happened to me, Mother.
Mine: I have nothing to do with the reasons of you abandoning me, Mother/ Father.
Rapunzel: I have done nothing to wrong you, Mother.
Mine: I have done nothing wrong to you other than existing, Mother/ Father.
Rapunzel: I forgive you, Mother.
Mine: I forgive you, Mother/ Father.
Honestly, Punzie. I think you will do better than I'll ever
The bus stopped at the University gates. Rapunzel stopped reading and closed the small book. Unknowingly, a tear slipped from her eye. Rapunzel got off the bus alone. She remembered the last time she boarded that bus with Eugene, they were not talking. They were in comfortable silence. If she knew the future, she would talk to him all the time, pry his deepest secrets, make him laugh, let him make her laugh, tickle him in the goateed chin, etc. Etc. The list could go on forever.
If only, if only... the bane of all thoughts, she sighed.
Rapunzel walked on to the Lawn, near the river, in front of the Registry Building. When she got there, she sat on the grass, under the shady tree they had breakfast during Medieval Weekend. It was cold but she was dressed for cold and cold was nothing when she was missing him. It was like getting a paper cut when one was already being slit at the throat.
She sat down and flipped through all the pages he had written. He had written for sixty days, in short, small vignettes of thoughts. She had the urge to read them all at once. But then, she decided against it. She would read them, one day of his life for each of hers. And when she had reached the sixtieth day, she would repeat the cycle, finding new meaning, and new angles in which she could interpret his thoughts and then put their meaning into her understanding. In the spaces he had left, she would leave a line of conversation for him, as if they were talking.
Rapunzel got out her pen and opened the first page. She began writing.
Day 1
You didn't die, Eugene. You never did and never will.
Let's start this over. We had not been properly introduced.
I am Rachel Kingsley. But you can call me Rapunzel.
THE END