This is for bellpickle's challenge, 'Snapshot'. This shall be my first time submitting a peice of fiction for a contest here on TheOtaku, so I've put some good effort into this. For this challenge, I chose the prompt: You know that I don't love you.
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Her words drove into his heart like an enflamed needle; minuscule at first, but painful in the long run. Yet, like a ghost he trotted next to her, always trying to divulge his unwavering devotion. His efforts became fruitless and clumsy in the end, and her frown only deepened as the years crawled by noticeably without change. He sacrificed his freedom, turned away from the worldly pleasures of society in exchange for a chance to entrench himself in a loveless relationship in which he felt like nothing more than a petulant fool, fishing for a woman’s diminished love.
But isn’t that what he was? Was he nothing but a hollow shell manufactured by an underlying distaste from this distant woman? He clutched her weak hand, almost affirmatively. Mechanically, she shrugged him off, glaring bitterly into his face, a memory of another person filling her skull. It was now that he grew to despise his visage, wishing to exchange it for something more mundane.
His efforts were nothing more than a distant memory now.
As more years slipped by and a casket became her home, the townspeople still whispered tales of a ghost clutching at the remains of a grave, unable to cope with his mother’s last words:
"You know that I don’t love you."
