13 Years Ago This Day

Well...it has now been 13 years since I first went to the Academy. It is also the first time I laid my eyes upon her. You know of whom I speak. For I have mentioned her numerous times in my stories and missives. Sure, I still use a ficticious name for her...but it would be the same if I used her name proper.
13 years ago was the start of my dissolution from life. The beginning of the end of my career. The beginning of the end of the only girl I would truly love...my soulmate. The shortness of the whole affair only deepens the conviction of my beliefs. How could so much time have passed already? Old age is stalking us...slowly...but as surely as the night falls. Time is slipping away for us...for me and her. As the years turn into decades...so it is that the lives we have led are counting down to the end. How much time is left? I don't know...that will be up to fate to decide.

I know that I do not want to go to my grave holding the guilt and regret I feel. To be tortured in the next life...if there is one...for mistakes I had made in this life would be like an eternal hell. Out of all the wrongs I have ever commited, out of all the people I have ever hurt, out of all the sins I have been accused...the one thing that bothers me the most...is the pain I caused her to suffer 13 years ago. Knowing that I will probably never see her again, never talk to her again and never to hear her forgive me for what was done...is the worst punishment I can imagine. I would rather spend an eternity in a lake of fire and brimstone...than to know that I will never be forgiven my sins of the past. To know that we shall both pass from this world at some time in the future and turn into dust...without so much as an "I'm sorry" passed between us. To know that I will never again get to look into her eyes and touch her soul. To know these things and wait for the harbinger of death to claim me...in what...10, 20, 30 years? Who knows...I could get shot tomorrow and she would never know. Would she even care? After 13 years...I doubt it.

But I care. It bothers me that this is the path that has been laid before me.
It bothers me that I can do nothing to prevent the hands of fate from passing this judgement upon me. It bothers me that the world is so cold and unforgiving. Yes...it was 13 years ago...and it still bothers me and haunts my very life. Day after day, month after month and year after year. Time flies by at increasing speeds...hastening my old age...and draining my life force. It is like a vampire who must feed on the blood of the living. Such is my legacy..my life...my ambitions...my dreams...my love...my victories...and my failures. And to think...it all started so innocently 13 years ago this day.

Sigh.....