I loved him. I really can’t quite explain what love is anymore, much less anything else.
But I know that I loved him.
  Against an oaken tree, two young souls had crossed paths. The young Maeve had lied, lost within her own temple of binded word, and an open Lincoln came falling on top of her as he ran past. As he stood, up he laughed, “om my, I’m so sorry about that, guess I should look where I’m going!”
“It’s fine”, the solemn girl replied, merely leaning against the tree and continuing on her written quest.
Looking around, Lincoln gave a sigh of relief before sitting next to her.
As some point something began, there was a “spark” as you would say, a connection of sorts. A sheltered girl, a fleeing boy. The two seemed to pull each other back and forth, whether to find shelter within or safety about. He ran, and soon she followed.
“A Kiasu?”Maeve asked, looking around the wooded path the two treaded. A chorus of nightingales began as Lincoln pulled her forward, quickening his pace.
“Yes.”
The two continued in silence for a while, before Maeve spoke again “but why is it after you, why now?”
Pausing, Lincoln turned toward her, his eyes glistening against the cool air, his hands pressing hard into her shoulders. “Have you ever felt something so strong that it controlled your every action, that even though you know it will only end in despair, you follow it?”
Feeling the heart beat in her chest, the chill as the familiar form in front of her grew distant, Maeve nodded.
“that’s what this thing wants. It finds a feeling it latches onto it. It waits, waits for the moment that all its prey can feel is that fear, that pain, that longing, and it takes it, leaving nothing but a shell of who used to be there.”
She really didn’t understand what he meant. What was chasing them? Why had it chosen him? But this boy had cared for her, more than anyone had before. And while the boys so called “love” might had been powerful, the Kiasu that seemingly lusted after him soon hungered for a feeling more vast, more powerful, and all the more bittersweet than the love of a lonely child.
His eyes dimmed as she clutched his limp form, holding him against her breast. He still breathed, but each inhale was empty, meaningless.
“No” she choked as her body was overtaken with violent sobs, each gasp echoing against the resounding night. Looking onto his fallen body, Maeve was empty, empty of the love she now knew, the pain she had once called home. Empty of all that she had known before, leaving her engulfed in nothing but the empty threat of fear. She had grown eerily silent in the moments while her love slipped away, and as dread overtook her, she looked onto the looming shadow before her and said “Take mine instead”.
I don’t think anyone really knows what this thing is. What it can do.
Maeve turned, embracing Lincoln for the last time, and as her lips melted against his stony hearth, shadows appeared to dance in her eyes, blinding her tears from the world around her. Cold stone turned to warm fire-
  “No- Eve- what are you- NO!”
The lost boy’s outcry scarcely reached her ears as invisible tendrils constricted her, seeping away any connection to the earth around her.
Each breath was forgotten in her throat; every seizure was met with numbness; every light that attempted to embrace her only turned to shadows within the night.
…
She lie still. Where were once clenched burgundy eyes now turned grey, fisted hands of anguish came to unmoving ice, and lost outcry’s were no longer uttered, yet alone heard.
…
Nothing.
I felt Nothing.
I feel Nothing.
That boy still knelt beside my new form, seeming to await my awakening. He reached for my hand, but as he spoke naught came, but the ringing I have ever known since. The boy appeared broken, lost, alone. Another piece of him seemed to fall with each step we took as he lifted me into his arms, carrying me far, far away from that place.
But why. For years I watched as he struggled around me, until each glace my way caused him pain. He was broken.
Was I the one breaking him.
I had nothing for him, but the emptiness I had felt since that night. But I had loved him. So I stayed. I now find myself upon what I had last felt of this boy, a stone, cold and gray.
But I don’t love him.
I don’t feel for him.
I don’t think I can.