Cal opened his eyes. His vision was blurry, barely making out the rubble that surrounded him. Closing his eyes and groaning, he rolled onto his back and lay there for what seemed to be forever to him. In reality, it was only a minute. Opening his eyes again, everything hit him in a full HD view. The hole in the ceiling. The way the moon was shining through. Cal tried to sit up, but the sharp pang of pain hit him and he was forced to stay down. He lifted his arms and felt his ribcage, where most of the pain was coming from. There. Cal grasped the shard of what felt like wood and pulled. He almost blacked out. As his vision began to clear again, Cal could see the foot long shaft of wood, less than half drenched in blood.

Breathing heavily, he closed his eyes and willed his body to heal, imagining the smallest strands of flesh to reach out and start mending. Cal’s face contorted in pain as he felt his flesh repairing. After 10 minutes of pain, he opened his eyes and felt the previous wound. Gone. Cal sat up carefully and looked around. The safe house was in ruins. Everything was trashed. From the once neatly arranged bookshelf, to the weapons rack on the far side.

His eyes moved over the shattered glass, the old planks, the body- Cal’s eyes stopped, staring at the body and he felt like the shaft of wood had once again stabbed him. “J-Jo-Joan?” he whispered softly with disbelief, slowly getting to his feet. The body didn’t move. As Cal rose, he saw the blood stains all over Joan’s body, her face covered with her hair and her arms all scraped up.  Cal walked as if he was in a dream to the husk that once held a soul of someone he cared for. Cal kneeled down, ignoring the pain in his knees from the glass cutting into his skin. Joan was in worse condition that he thought. Her face was cut. Her eyes were barely open, showing her lifeless, dull green eyes that he could almost see sparkling with happiness. Cal just cradled Joan, not crying, feeling as if his world just ended. “We should have been more careful.” He choked out. He looked down at her face, remembering her smile.
     

“It’s okay. Go on.” Cal looked up. Barely, he could see Joan in the moonlight. Cal stared at Joan’s spirit. The ghost showed all the same injuries as was on the body he held. Joan’s ghost smiled. “Just go. We’ll try again later.” Whispered the wind. Cal shook his head. Joan’s ghost walked to him and knelt down and lifted her hand to cradle his cheek. “We’ll get it right again in the future. This time wasn’t right.” Cal started crying. “This was supposed to be the end.” He choked out. Joan shook her head. “That’s why I died this time. I moved to fast.”

“So I just go on? Live a normal life?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. We’ll be reborn again soon.”
“How do I go on without you?”
“Like I did when you died.”
     

Joan’s ghost gave one last smile, kissed him on the cheek and then disappeared. Cal closed his eyes and placed the officially dead body of Joan on the ground. He stood up and walked out of the old house. The warm summer night outside looked so beautiful, Cal wanted to laugh. Laugh at the irony of the actions that occurred for him for this beautiful night to appear. When he was far enough from the house, he raised his hand, and snapped his fingers. An ember flew out from his fingers and hurtled towards the house. The ember caught on the splinters around the building and soon, a steady blaze was fired up.