3:47 am
I woke up to the sound of a river run captivated by the breeze of whispering trees and the earth that enveloped everything that stretched far and wide. Partial icicles broke off my skin as my body rendered pale by the shivering feeling lost in a tundra.
I could finally feel my feet but it certainly been in better days. Without even thinking I dunked my head by the riverbank, I didn't care whether it was clean or it wasn't, the fact that I was dying with thirst was enough for me to do so.
My eyes wandered through the forest, It was filled with life---completely opposite with the place I woke up before, there was no fire, no dark beings nor entities, no crashing planes nor rapid gunfire polluting the place, no thunder that tries to threaten my very existence nor echoes of a mourning past. But there was definitely a remnant of the past.
A bent and disfigured chunks, the debris of massive metals decorate the landscape from behind these gorgeous treelines, and the tear from the fabric of reality was still there this time it was bigger and still continues to grow as if it was feeding on something, there it lay up in the sky covering the clouds and the sun itself.
The feeling was all to well introduced to me, fear. huh, at this point what I fear most---was myself, for I no longer resemble this feeling towards the anomaly nor this---phenomenon.
Fresh green danced as where the wind blew, moist brown tendered the soil, radiant display washed over the trees as it whispers to the melodies of birds and to the humming of the river. They were all perfectly in sync, they flourished and strived with life---bright, beautiful, life.
Radiant as it was, there was still this shivering cold that blew ever so slightly. Behind me, this apocalyptic sight---this tear that grew in broad daylight was crying, pure white marble dazzled as they fell from the hole above. It was snow.
Captivated by what felt like both compelling sides of a galant painting, that I forgot what was in the center of it all. "CAPTAIN!" Regardless of how cold it was or how my bare feet touched the majestic soil of tomorrow's bloom---I didn't seem to realize nor notice this.
Running through the uncharted territory, eyes shifting, heart beating. How could I've lost him! I ran as fast as I could, examining every bit of detail my eyes could see. The wreckage was massive as the anomaly itself, I turned and ran to what seems like an endless scavange for something that I prayed was there.
Faster---and faster I go. Until my world spun not knowing where to look, I was so fixed in finding him that I didn't even notice that my hands were caught up in a tangle between my hair. No! was the only word my mouth was worth mumbling on.
A white elegant and tranquil aura caught me breathless, It was tall---the very meaning of transcendence speaks of its fur. Its antlers bore flowers that bloomed out of nothing and at the right bore small leaves of perfect autumn---as if I could clearly watch the sunset if I stared long enough.
It shifted its head towards me, Its eyes glowed rich in a blue haze, words come only second to what its eyes were telling me. This creature was whiter than of snow and more gentle than it was, even its antlers gleamed in white as if rays of the sun shined upon a masterful work of an armor. It stood taller by a couple of feet ---pride---certainly, flourished in its strong and benevolent posture.
slowly---it galloped towards me. My eyes filled with its vibrant display as the creature even leaves life behind with each passing step. Pure, innocence, and true, bloomed in its every step. different saplings and a bouquet of flowers blossomed---" such life..." I couldn't even believe that such a creature exist.
The creature looks down upon me as we stood face to face, Curiosity was surely mutual between us---or so I thought. It echoed a sound unlike any that I know of or even heard of that struck the forest silent, then continued its way past me, at that exact moment---I saw captain Rio leaning against a massive willow tree that the river gracefully danced in, as snow partially masks its resting leaves and branches while pure sunlight glitters in its peak.
Relief and a sudden warmth ran through my veins, I couldn't help but fear this mystical creature as it slowly galloped away from me losing sight of it as it passes through the dense forest---for this massive tree wasn't there before and the fact that this forest grew in length, what wasn't there now was, trees polluted the uncharted territory of snow eating away the metal debris that was clearly there but now was barely even seen.
Perhaps, life flourished too much.
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3:47 am
The willowed tree wrapped captain Rio in strips of wood that looked like roots as if he was caught in a spiders web to be preserved, but this was much bigger and thicker too. The wood-like roots were indeed tough giving how enormous this tree was.
I was in shock when I noticed that this tree wasn't just entangled with him---but was eating him whole, this I began to realize. I punched, clawed, and pulled as hard as I could---but the wood-like roots were simply too great, slowly, it consumed him---buried him---until all was left of him was the dirt in which he had laid moments ago, it turned him into fertilizer for life to feed on.
I scraped those very wood that ate him away, hopelessly I knew. Now even those that tangled him made its way crawling between my knees, this little I realized---and little I cared. I drowned willingly, in just by mere seconds I witnessed hope vanished right before where I stood carelessly trying to save it.
The roots wrapped me as I was there own. Strange, during this very moment as I stand in front of death's door, I still felt life---overflowing life. Soon darkness ate away the light as I felt the tree had already sunken me, and here, I face my inevitable fate as I knew was going to be right from the start.
The hills were low from a distance, the clouds were clear, and the breeze was cool. Now the silhouette of the hills stretched long and hard across the field of green. The sky ever so perfect as a flock of birds glided across through the hills bathing on the sunset in a hue of autumn orange, faint yet ravishing, bold yet complex.
My beloved, "Summer," brushed her fingers through my hair causing it truffles as she shot me a smile. A smile that struck me to the bone in a moment of breathless delight. I smiled back--- but could never come close to the same way her smile puts me in. Now I wonder of many things as I lay my head on her thighs.
We were both sitting on a porch while we watch the sunset in our own farmland as she envisioned it 6 years ago. My gaze unnerving---I went for a quick kiss. She leaned her forehead against mine "Klaus. Schneider. I think our baby boy would like his own father's name, wouldn't he?" A smile, bigger and wider than what I normally wear bore on my lips as I sat upright beside her. Again I kissed her, this time aiming for her forehead. I was going to have a baby boy...I was going to be a father...
Eyes peeling, gut-churning, I woke up exhausted to the visions of a reality that would never be, this is but one pinnacle of nightmares that I have to endure; a reality, a dream, a life, that should have been but forbade from ever becoming true, such a nightmare that would test what you believed is to be true and false, an everlasting dilemma that hinders me from "living".
The hammering drums that were my heart burned my soul as I panicked and sweat in this elusive phenomenon.
I was alive...I am alive?...the cold bare feeling of hope now clung me in chains---it held me captive in this hell that hid in a facade of green blasphemy, for the devil in all his wroth---bent and twisted what God had given us, as gifts and the very thing that we were set to protect, "Life", as warmth and comfort now inhabit my inevitable demise.
An instinct reluctantly turned my head in search of my whereabouts, I still breathed the same air as before, bathed the same touch of sun, and grasped the same soil. The trees did not sway nor did the leaves danced, early autumn-colored the leaves that already fell filling the ground with a bright yellow gleam.
Tall malnourished trees distanced from each other similar to an atomic bond that of water, they were birch trees coloring the thin trunks with white. standing so very still---slowly managing a strut as I cling to hope that death had already taken me rather than life.
I heard voices from afar, laughter---ever so bright and innocent, another facade I wonder?
Gruesomely, I lumped my way towards the voices for I hear their call, they were of a woman and a child. Closely I listened---and there I heard, their sweet voices, "I'm coming home...my little Klaus, my beloved summer, I'm coming---home."
Home, it changes once you have seen, heard, and felt, the call of something which will make you completely inferior.
I stumbled and plummeted against the ground, my feet ran a storm of pain as my leg felt broken bones and dry blood but we're not. The peals of laughter rang like bells as my body lay upon the dirt---I wept with every sheer hatred that hid behind my skin and screamed as loud as I could hoping that someone or something even with the slightest of chance may feel my sea of wrath.
Fate was toying with me, or so I presume to believe. Again and again, I yelled nothing but sheer anguish as my voice cracked and malformed but regardless of the tremendous pain that it granted, I didn't stop, not because I wanted all of this to go away---but to reverberate this staircase of madness hoping that something---someone---anything ---and everything can feel "me"
The waves of laughter halted and suddenly an old wooden door appeared in front of me. My screams that echoed exponentially in my head had stopped, I stared dead on that door believing that God had finally heard me even in such a place as this---and in that instant, I vomited red hot blood.
Blood-red colored my barely seen teeth and my wrists. "A....H...A..." My voice was no more than of the winds. I tried to stand but my feet jolted in agony, quickly I fell. My whole body was covered in black and brown filth including my hair, beard, and face until I was left unrecognizable but this I didn't realized nor cared. My trousers completely covered in filth as did my boots while I slowly took them off.
Another wave of unparalleled pain shivered my bones and made me scream baring no voice just a hollow O on my mouth while thick strings of blood still clung and swayed beneath my beard and lips. Parts of my skin detaches itself from my foot as I slowly removed my boot, bits, and pieces of white flesh now craters my foot, Pieces of my skin was now visibly glued tight between its surface.
Water was visible in my eyes, face, and body, every part of me cried to the heavens. I felt my existence was starting to shimmer, perhaps this is finally my ticket home...I can feel nothing now. I'm finally dying. The long tiring torment is finally over. My eyes swirling in a pool of haze, I managed a smile---a smile that could never match what my beloved had given to me before.
While on the verge of death many soldiers claim that, that would be the moment, a quick flash, a glimpse of realization, to see the people you truly care for and love. But it wasn't us who'd really watch there fleeting existence, it was them who caught a glimpse of me.
"A..." No words came, only a distorted sound, but never the less---she caught me in a sight far, far away from where I am. She held out her hand in an open palm as I did too, while on the other hand she cradled a baby that slept peacefully. They were in a white glorious home, and she gazed upon me through a mirror.
She threw me a smile that ever glowed like a ball of star in which the universe would hang upon, then said the words slowly but also bared no sound.
" I L O V E Y O U " her words were quickly engraved on my heart as my face putrid and my condition gruesome, still managed to feel joy and prosperity even in mere seconds. I blinked and they were gone, I blinked repeatedly hoping to open some kind of interdimensional gateway no matter how small or vague just to see them once more, but there was none, only leaves and the vast treelines.
False hope, it haunted me---and I, its vulnerable prey. Death and even hope now torment me, I was bound by something that I could simply not understand. My tears were hard and heavy as of rocks, my veins rampant in every part of my body, again pain and hatred turned into lament. My mind rained glass shards while my entirety showered over it. Such an anomaly prevents me from living and even deprives me of death.
Right there as I wept something warm took my attention. It was in my trousers back pocket, a small orb that glowed white and slowly it grew as big as my hand. It was the orb that Summer gave to me from before, the carving of symbols that he knew nothing about glowed in white but they didn't all glowed only a count of eight.
It was somehow magnetized, I can feel something pulling it out of my grip, and as I unhanded the orb---it flew off and gravitated to the door, it clicked and cranked as it now mechanically turns into a square shape. It levitated for a moment then fell flat on the ground, the symbols that glowed earlier was now carved unto the door.
I crawled my way pitiful as I was but cared no less. The square-shaped entity shrunk in size as if to indicate that it was a living thing that also needed to rest. I kept it in my back pocket once more, slowly I turned the doorknob and light lingered past it. Home?...