a dream of another lifetime

      you slept in a room adorned with the dusty remains of another life, linens and silks covering the spaces where windows used to be, delicate antiquities filling the tiny space barely bigger than your bed. upon your shelf burns a candle, small, slender, almost absent its perch atop a cake, perpetually burning, though just barely.
      "i need to light this candle," you say, the beauty of your face not lost in your somber expression, "or else it will make things worse for all of us."
      i had known about the spirit for some time. it haunted this house, our strange prison floating in the sky, as long as i could remember being here. yet, for all our time here, you thought the burden of knowing it, of knowing this what was once your friend, was yours alone to bear. but late at night, when your candle must have lost its flame, i, too, saw the vapor trail, its luminiferous wake haunting the skeleton of rusted pipes and makeshift walkways where another home's basement would be, and my light had been enough to return it to whatever place from it whence came.
      your eyes flicker in the candlelight, still the color of raindrops falling upon the ground, of clouds about to burst. the weight of too many days lost to this ceremony pulls at my lips, begs me to speak, as fingers reach deeply into my pocket.
      "you don't have to bear this burden alone anymore," i say to you, relating what i had learned, as i produce a candle of my own. my fingers brush your tender cheek, made softer by the warm light slipping in from the hallway, as but for a moment you lean into my hand, a smile flickering, then lost, in the light reflecting in your eyes.
      "it's not so simple as that," you say, as more of you seems lost in the ancient folds of linen you wear to bed, another part of the ceremony. as my hand falls away, i feel the kiss of a lonely tear upon my skin.
      but it is too late. the wick of my candle is already lit, as you slip under your ragged covers.
      "not this time," i say, preparing myself to leave our floating abode, as the sound of chaos from the skies around us rings throughout the halls. "this time, i'll save you."
      i retire from your room, to soon lose myself in the rumblings on the sky-deck below. i pause only to look at the still-burning candle, not remembering whose it was any longer.

      later i return, our ancient guardians barely keeping their unseen nemeses at bay, as our dilapidated accommodation continues through the air, its bulk rocking with the fury of battle. just before the door to your chamber, one waits for me, matronly at times, but not at this one.
      "where is she?" i demand, remembering all too late about candles and the feel of your cheek in my hand, the oath i swore to save you from this place.
      unblinking eyes meet my gaze, the unmoving stern expression somehow harsher on its metal face. "we used her beauty, her light, to lure our enemies..." it begins to say, but whether it meant the spirit or their rivals, i will never know.
      for a moment, its shattered remains seem to give an unearthly glow, the cracks and fissures in its cranium flickering briefly before fading to emptiness. my hands still tremble with anger, decorated with unfeeling memories where the steel had ruptured my flesh. outside, the battle winds down, as without seeing, our so-called guardians fall, one by one.
      i meant to save you from this strange place, though i no longer remember how we got here.
      the memory of a kiss that never was tickles my lips, before nothingness fills my vision.