Teinshi did not show up this year.
I looked for him, I called for him, I prayed for him, I shouted his name from the highest tree I could climb on.
After a week I lost hope.
I feared the worst.
I feared he might have disappeared for good.
I kept hanging out in the forest.
Every part of it remembered me of him.
I sat on the shore of the lake, the exact spot where he told me how we first met.
Apparently my mother gave birth in the lake. Teinshi and the other spirits were there, watching over us, watching over me. Teinshi told me that I gave off a weird aurea when I first opened my eyes. It was «the brightest thing he'd ever seen» but there was a dark, cold shade to it.
«It was like blood.» he told me
«Blood's warm and gives us life, but to humans it is seen as some profane taboo that must not be mentioned. That was your aurea. Full of life, but a profanity.»
I found out that year that I was adopted. My real mother abandoned me outside the woods and my aunt found me.
I knew nothing about my mother, and even less about my father, but it was alright, I guess.
I wouldn't have cared either way.
I couldn't stand seeing the lake anymore.
I got up and walked to an open space inside the forest.
I remember two years ago talking to Teinshi there.
We were looking at the clouds, trying to make figures out of them.
We talked a lot that day.
«What's bugging ya?» he asked.
«I wonder... aren't you ever scared, Teinshi? Of what comes next, I mean.» «Should I be?»
«I don't know. What's around the corner can be scary. Leaving can be scary. Dying can be scary.»
«Can you avoid it?»
«Avoid what?»
«Can you avoid the future? Can you avoid being abandoned? Can you avoid dying?
Death is not scary, it is a part of life. That's how things go. We are born, we live, we love, we hate, we hide, we hunt, we become rich, we become poor, we are black, white, yellow, we are a rainbow of colors, we are a storm of emotions, but in the end we all die. Death is not something that divides us. Death is the only thing that keeps us together, because we all die at the end»
«Maybe you're right»
«So don't think about the future, don't think about being scared. Nothing can scare us because nothing matters anyway. Enjoy what you have now, live your life to the fullest, and when death comes, you'll be going with a smile»
I whispered
«It still terrifies me.»
The forest started to feel suffocating.
I went back to the apartment.
I smiled.
For the first time I noticed how difficult it was to smile.
It felt like trying to hide a bad lie.
I noticed how painful it was to smile.
It felt like trying to stitch a wound.
I smiled anyways.
A week later I drove north.
I came back home.
I never came back to that lake in the forest.
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𝔉𝔦𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔩𝔶 𝔉𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔱
FantasyFor anyone who doesn't know me, my name is Sam Thanatos. I was born and abandoned on the shore of a lake in the middle of a forest inhabited by ghosts, spirits, gods and other creatures. I was adopted by Lexi and Luke Thanatos, the couple who foun...
