Taint, Time and Tangents✔️

≑ Chapter Eighteen

To Jusha15 (jo) for giving me a wonderful banner. Cheers! xx

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

 C H A P T E R    E I G H T E E N 

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁ 

CALLIE 

I guess rubbing my fingers too vigorously was not doing me any good. Charcoal and bits of pencil lead were still underneath my nails, daubed on my fingers and palms- appearing worse than they should have been if I only had left them there.

A small black charcoal lay deftly on my lap as a crisp breeze of late September caressed my face and bare arms. Mild sounds of stirring slowly engulfed me when pile of leaves in various shades of yellow and red lifted from the ground and held hands with the gliding wind.

I stared at the specks of light tumbling on the dirt as the setting sun attempted to force itself in the tiny spaces between the wilting leaves and dry branches of trees behind me. 

Autumn. 

If I was not mistaken, that was what the mortals called this season- the period bounded by two extreme weathers, a transition phase from a bustling to a dreary, lonely environment. Confined in an eerie place bordered with woods while bizarre events kept occuring one after another, this was the only time I appreciated this particular season. 

The world possibly just viewed autumn as a brief diversity from the usual. But oddly, I found it alluring, sentimental even. Draping the world with melancholy, every parting words, every tears waiting to be shed, every feelings that lingered, every goodbyes ready to be spoken- this season absorbed them all. It held endless promises and hopes for sobbing hearts. 

I peered at my fingernails darkened with black lead. I had been scrubbing them with soap and water since last night but they wouldn't come off. Now that I was sketching again, they just intensified, making my hands looked filthier than they were supposed to.

Reaching for my pencil along with the kneaded eraser on my lap, I was startled when a brown material appeared before my very eyes. A momentary chill brushed my cheeks and nose as I tried to restrain my surprise and focus my vision.

Before I could perceive it properly, it was gone in a blink. Looking up, I spotted it partially melting on the hands of a guy who unexpectedly become a friend of mine.  

"Penny for your thoughts?" he said, beaming, as his dark skin tingled beneath the afternoon sun. His gray, hooded eyes glanced at the cone on his hands before drifting back at me,  "I mean, ice cream?"

I smiled at Tim, secretly pleased by his company. "Hi."

Two days had slipped away since we arrived at the Whispering Falls, a small town at the foot of the mountains on the Northwestern part of the country. It was a rather remote place- very ideal for those who need silence and placidity.

In those long couple of days, I was like a zombie. 

I studied, ate and slept without being mindful on what I was doing. Few people kept on approaching me and trying to strike a conversation but, with my mind was in a large whirlpool, I isolated myself thereafter. Now, all I have as my company was the nature around, my pencil, and my newly self-established guardian, Tim.