Fantasia

A wishful ending

Brett sat on the branches, looking over a field with a gingerbread house. And a thin boy, gorging on a chocolate roof topped with sprinkles. 

Brett was horrified when Eddy disappeared after being swallowed up whole by the dark thorn trees. Eddy never returned to the forest afterward. Brett didn't know what that meant and woke up sweating, fearing that Eddy might be dead. 

When Brett finally spotted Eddy months later, feasting on a newly baked gingerbread house with nothing on his mind, he didn't know how he should feel. Reassurance came first. However, it was clear that the boy turned to something different to punish his body, and Brett wasn't sure if this was any better than the sharp thorn bushes of the forest. He would never invite Eddy back to the woods, of course. Maybe, this was the best ending after all: Eddy forgetting all about the forest, about Brett, about the promises they made. At least, the gingerbread house seemed nicer than the red jagged lines of scars the thorns made to his arms and legs. 

So Brett kept his silence in the forest. He looked over the gingerbread house every night, seeing Eddy grow day by day. He would have stayed in the shadow forever, if not for Eddy calling for help to escape from the dream, getting dangerously close to the forest. 

And Brett knew he shouldn't have wished for this, but he couldn't help but intrude on a dream of a boy who didn't remember a thing-

"Just say that you invite me to your world. That is all I need."

That maybe they could escape the forest and this damned gingerbread house, together. 

***

"The witch is coming! The witch is coming!" A shrill voice of an owl screeched from the branches, waking Eddy up from the shock.

As soon as the memory flooded back to him, Eddy slowly stumbled back, looking at a massively frightening shadow of the forest twisting and turning like a live animal. Brett was in there, somewhere, crouched like a small animal, waiting for the forest to consume him, at last. 

"The witch is coming! The witch is coming!"

Eddy glanced up at the owl flying over his head like a warning. This was a cue for Eddy to run away from his own dream, but instead, Eddy faced the gingerbread house, knowing full well what he must do. 

Eddy took a small step toward the gingerbread house. Then a bigger stride. Then larger, until he was running full speed to the door, out of breath. He clenched the doorknob tight, taking a deep breath. 

The door opened with a deafening creak, showing a long shadow of a person waiting for him in front of a sweet candied fireplace. 

"Welcome home, dad," Eddy whispered as he walked in, greeting the witch he avoided for all these years. 

***

"Eddy," a soft voice called him from the corner of the room. 

Eddy weakly looked up to see his dad, tuning his violin as he always used to do after dinner.

"Hello, dad," Eddy replied, his voice cracking. 

"You know, I have a really good feeling about this audition," Eddy's father continued nonchalantly, repeating the same sentence that Eddy heard on his last day. "This misery should end someday, right?" 

A silence hung low in the room as Eddy's father continued tuning the violin. A flickering fire from the fireplace made an eerie dance across the cookie wall. 

"Dad," Eddy gently walked towards his father, looking up at a face he missed for all those years. "It is alright. The misery already ended. You are free."

"What do you mean, son?"

"I always wanted to tell you-" Eddy clenched his lips, holding his breath. A stream of tears flowed from his eyes, landing on the floor in droplets. "-you were the best violinist I've ever met. You didn't need to let music consume you whole to prove that." 

"Eddy-"

"I'm sorry, but this misery must end," Eddy took the violin from his father's hands. "And it shall end because I don't need music to prove myself that I'm worth living anymore."

Eddy threw the chocolate violin into the fireplace. As soon as the violin hit the flame, the wood exploded into splinters and fireworks. Eddy stepped back, seeing the flickering fire consuming the gingerbread house whole, melting the chocolate and the candies, burning the cookies and the waffles. 

"Goodbye, dad," Eddy walked out of the burning gingerbread house, leaving his mere imagery of his father and the violin in it. 

A torrent of smoke and fire rose up from the gingerbread house, spreading to the field and the forest of the knives around it, burning the whole dream alive. The red and the orange danced as they nibbled on the sharp corners of the thorn forests, with black smoke rising up to the sky. The forest writhed and screamed while it burned, leaving nothing but ashes and the blackened soot as the flames licked through the trees. 

And in the middle of the forest, Eddy could finally see - a small boy with a cape and a silver mask lying alone in a burning forest - 

"Brett," Eddy softly called out as he walked toward the phantom, kneeling beside the small body covered in ashes. "I came back." 

Brett didn't resist as Eddy slowly pulled down the silver mask and a black cape, revealing a face and a body ornated with countless jagged lines of red scars. 

 "You remembered finally," Brett whispered. 

"We can go back home now."

"I cannot," Brett covered his face with his hands. "I don't know the code." 

"Sure you do," Eddy shook his head. "You are the one who taught me. I can help." 

Eddy held Brett's hands while he chanted the things they both liked, starting from bubble tea, and favorite food, music and to Brett, Brett Yang. Eddy, Eddy Chen. Brett closed his eyes as he listened, waiting for this nightmare to end, finally.

A wishful thinking passed him like a breeze that someday these broken lines of scars will become the map to point where the lights will shine through, like a cracked glass ceiling of an abandoned church, awaiting salvation. 

And Eddy prayed with all his heart as the thorn forest kept blazing through the night.

THE END

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<Author's note>

Thank you for reading! I'm sorry if the story was a bit confusing. I just had the vague idea of what to write after watching Fantasia and I hope you had fun reading it :D 

I'm planning to start a new chapter of Enchanted afterwards, if you like reading more of my breddy work! See you there. Be happy, be safe.