in my field of paper flowers; any

[Reuen]

in my field of paper flowers The crimson pulsates, clots and slips from the laceration on my shoulders, my flanks, my ribcage. I've been torn apart, ripped to pieces and patched together with no recollection of anything. All I remember is the leathery face, bared teeth and the snap of words, run. I ran, I ran as fast as my legs could go, as fast as my lungs could take, until I could not take no more. My nostrils still flare, veins in my body pump, pulsate, stark against my rich chocolate body. Each breath feels like iron, like fire. I inhale but it is sharp, painful. My flanks heave with every breath and the fine trails of blood that slip from my nostrils fall to the floor, by my feet. I'm as still as can be, as if a tree, a statuesque oak. Sturdy in my non-moving appearance. Silvery tresses coil in the slight breeze, tainted with scarlet and thickly matted with thorns and brush, I look as though the hedge won, every tree had beat me through my journey. It does not take long before someone notices. My black ear curves, listens to his hoofbeats against the lush ground. My dull eyes watch him move, closer and ever closer until he is right before me. I watch him, can every inch of him, tilting my head to the left, then to the right and then just staring. My mind, blank and nothing, processes everything, but cannot store it. When your mind is empty, what can it store? No memories decorate the vast corridors of my mind. 'Hello.' I mimic him, my voice a fragile, fine glass flute, near cracking. 'Jason.' my tongue rolls over his name, tasting it, chewing it thoughtfully. bleak and hollow eyes then meet Jason and a toothy smile, cracks my strained face. 'Reuen.' All is ruin, all is Reuen. He points his muzzle to my frame, the blood, the pulsing wounds, they do not sting no longer, more or less a dull ache. I cannot remember them not being there, not hurting, not tainting my body. I force myself, looking at the treetops for an answer. The wisps of the clouds that pinprick the cerulean heavens. It was never this beautiful there. There was fire, there was pain, lots and lots of pain. I swallow a breath, hard, like a nodule that refuses to slip down my throat. 'Pain. Much Pain.' i lie inside myself for hours;