03-02-2020, 09:19 PM
Sabra
Dark, it is so dark.
With gritty eyes I'm trying to focus, to think past the constant aching in my chest. To catch my breath. For a handful of suffocated moments I am caught in terror, the dark pressing in from every side and holding me frozen in place. Death is better than the depths of hell I know, and hell is the crushing dark.
(Are you afraid of the dark now? Coward)
My heart gives a painful lurch at the voice slipping past my ear. There's nothing, no one, and yet I know what I heard. A shiver borne only partially of the cold slides my back, the touch of ice and fear. I could still be trapped miles beneath the sky, surrounded by the weight of the earth and dwindling air and my own ragged thoughts and I don't know how to escape! No way out, no way out nowayoutnowayout...
The miserable swaying of my bruised body halts as a foreign sound registers. High pitched. Fluting. My ears lay flat against my skull until the memory returns. That's a bird I'm hearing. A thrush, I think.
It's a surprise when the sob breaks out.
There are no birds below. No cold breezes that smell of snow and pine. Hot tears have begun to stream down my face, and I couldn't stop them if I tried. Either this is some new trick, or I am finally, finally back. The sobs are ugly, wracking things that shake me from head to tail, but I feel nothing but relief. When at last I blink away the murk from my eyes, a cry of wonder parts my bloodied lips. There, barely there, the horizon is taking on its predawn light, thickly laying clouds glowing from the inside. The weak light is just right for my deprived sight, and the tears flow again when I make out the shape of a winter-bare tree, the outline of a familiar landscape.
Even with wounds so fresh that they're still weeping, with a rod of smooth wood piercing my breast so that I am intimately, constantly aware of my heart's every pulse. Even with the gnawing voices that have not stopped murmuring since I opened my eyes. I am alive. I am here. There is a thrush singing, and the sun is rising.
I wanna be Immortal, like a God in the sky
I wanna be a silk flower, like I'm never gonna die
Photo by Kareva Margarita