Matthew Lane

“Your life is more precious than mine!” He pounded a fist against the ashen dirt. “Your dreams; your hopes; your desires — your future are all so precious because you aren’t just living for you or I: you’re living, breathing, dreaming and being for Harmony!”
She nodded, and finally, fondly touched her hand to his cheek. He pressed into her palm, crying bitterly for he already knew what was to come. For a moment they remained this way: his cheek tucked into her shaking hand; his shoulders buckling beneath a weight like ocean fathoms. Then she murmured the words he feared; the only ones she had left:
“Live, Hugh. Live for us both.”
― Matthew Lane, Aeon Book Two: The Wretched Bloom