As I gently grazed the ice her skin had become long after the emptiness consumed her, I could hear the faintest echo of my life. My ears must've silenced the world, including my own thoughts, because I was dumbstruck while the burning rang throughout my body. The tips of my fingers singed the bond between us just as it marked her skin. While I felt her ice stab and burn me back I did not recoil. To feel that electric tingle again was invigorating. As I stared at her perfect paleness, I soon realized the ruin I'd caused. While her sleek, long black hair contrasted so perfectly with her snowy complexion, I did not fit right beside her at all. My mark became her first and only imperfection. The mark she left on me seemed so perfect, but only for a second. It was as if a glimmer of her purity had rubbed off on me, but was only to be consumed quickly by the mess that is myself these days.

I want to say that I regretted it so, but I mustn't taint this record of truth with my lies. I've caused enough ruin for several lifetimes. Yet, that does not mean I repent. For many years I denied it, but I must come to terms now with the truth. I enjoyed staining her. I enjoyed it so greatly with every foulness that I breathed unto her beauty. For others, I have ruined her, but for me, I have only improved her. By ruining her I made her human again. For me it was as if I had brought her back to life. I only commit to the word 'ruin' because I have been thrown into it so many times that it has become my favorite of words. I try to use it as much as sense will allow even though I haven't got any left according to the young doctor that now tends to me.

It was he that suggested I keep this book close to my heart so that I may write my thoughts, my dreams, my feelings, and my actions. I decided to humor him, since he would never see into its pages. He is such a naive one. It must be because he's so young. I swear he must be fresh out of college. Still, I am stuck with him as determined by the court for an unknown amount of time. I suppose it's for however long it takes me to get over Her. Although, I know for sure that I never can. No amount of this new age 'therapy', nor grieving can erase what I feel towards her. The fact that so many people want to take her from me is unjust. Can a man not be free to love?

Although, according to the court, I am no man. I do not deserve the rights to happiness as others do. Yet, if I'm not a man then why should I be held up to the same standards as men? Why should I have to obey the same laws and suffer the same punishments if I am not deemed worthy of manhood? I feel I am worthy. While the lowest of men prey upon their fellow humans and feed off of causing misfortune the only thing I needed to satiate myself was her. It still is her. I will not be satisfied until I have her again. Just as she knew she could never be satisfied until she had him again. Until she had me again... because I am him. I am Jung Taekwoon. I am a man.

As I resealed her casket I did not cry as I thought I would. I smiled really, because at that moment I knew that our story would not end there. It could never end. As a man it is my job to take care of her. Her passing was only an ailment. I knew I would nurse her back to health again. Then one day everything would be alright  again. I laid face down upon the concrete slab that sealed her away in her carriage to heaven. I wrapped my arms around it the best I could, as if to cling so tightly to her that she could never escape me. But as I pressed my ear against the slab to rest my head for the night I heard the cry of an infant. A tear finally did come to my eye as I fell weak to the thought of the one that she had come to bear in her final moments, only to be born without a start.

I knew that my mind must have tricked me into hearing the sound. Undoubtedly there were no children in the crypt this late in the night. Yet, the distant plea for help entrenched itself deep within my mind. It tore at me so that when it stopped I became worried. It was as if I was hearing her last breath all over again. Even though I knew that the cry was just the cry of myself wallowing in the dark over losing my guiding light, I still stepped down to uncover her once more. I thought it would not be fatherly to neglect the child I had grown so attached to over the past nine months.

When I gazed upon a sure gift from God laying against her I knew I must be insane. Leading up to that moment I had thought that I was in merely the throes of grief, but to hold the inexplicable in my hands was only a madman's dream. I picked up my son and thought that Lucifer was the only proper name for a baby born of the dead. I chose the name to be coy. I did not truly think him to be a devil child. I saw past what other men could not. To me he was my son, and that was all that mattered. I left his beginning as just the inexplicable. I would not try to waste my time questioning it, because at that moment I needed to get Lucifer home. The boy was shivering, barely breathing, and starving surely.

In the nine months of waiting for young Lucifer, Luce, I called him for short, I regretted that I had left Her to reading up on how to feed and care for babies. Thank goodness though for modern technology, because without it the boy definitely wouldn't have survived much longer in my incapable hands. Not to mention that I wouldn't even be alive without it, but that is a tale for another time. I'm sure she could tell it much better than I whenever she eventually wakes, because there is still a large gap in my memory of the time I was dead.

Anyways, after many internet searches and a frantic 2 AM trip to the grocery store, Luce was finally content. I placed him in the bassinet that her parents had sent as a baby shower gift. For the rest of the night I stayed awake in an armchair beside it. How could anyone sleep in such a situation? I was so stunned by the miracle that I did everything I could to protect it. I did not rest until Luce was given a clean bill of health from a doctor five days later. My precious Luce was not a figment of my imagination. That is what I was most relieved by.