08-07-2020, 08:12 PM
Time slips through my grasp once more.
Flickers of awareness, tastes of days that I can't pin down, they flow across my mind with little impact. It's easy to wade through life in this fog, every decision based on some deep down instinct. I think I have met others on my way, voices clouded with vague connection. I huff and grumble when the sounds collide against my awareness, pressing on my barriers so persistently. Until one breaks through.
Then my feet turn to the edge of the world. Where there is nothing but sand and bones in varying states of decay. The world rushes in with deafening speed. I know where I am. The knowledge is a razor edge to my gut, cold and so sharp I don't notice it until it's too late.
He's there on the beach, a stallion like any other until he fixes you in his gaze. Then it's unthinkable that you ever thought him anything but terrifying. A tremor runs my spine, infinities birthing and collapsing in the space between us. The Dark God. A tale to make foals behave to those who don't know any better. A grim reality to those who do.
He speaks, and I couldn't ignore him if I tried. The words embellish themselves on my mind with searing clarity. The well worn blanket of resignation settles on my back, and I find myself nodding grimly. He asks me to die again. Is that all? To find the weakness in the wall, to be his eyes and ears. The corners of my mouth turn down, ears tilted to a petulant angle. Only when he moves in do I flinch.
Death is not something meant to be gotten used to. It is not a mundane experience, no matter how many times it finds me. Each is unique, violent. Beautiful, in its way. That knowing does not prevent the wet gasp that I expel when the Dark God's teeth sink into the length of wood I've been tasked to carry, a pulls it out with a sharp jerk.
The space of one broken heartbeat is frozen as the shaft falls with a dull thud to the sand. Then the dark chasm of my chest begins to overflow. Blood. Thick, hot and arterial, it pulses out to darken the beach and fill the air with my copper tang. Directly from my heart it pours, and with every weakening beat, I feel myself getting further away. The ache is replaced with a spreading numbness, and then I feel nothing at all.
I feel naked without the spear. Isn't that perverse? The shaft of wood that has skewered my heart for days unnumbered is gone, and with it the Voices that filled my head. All is quiet, and I find myself uncertain what to do with the silence. So I focus on something, anything else.
The stampede of souls rushing through the Afterlife is a haze of greys, a river that begs me to join it. Run with them for eternity. It's a temptation I've been offered more than once, and every time been called back. How foolish would I be to think that maybe this time would be different.
Flickers of awareness, tastes of days that I can't pin down, they flow across my mind with little impact. It's easy to wade through life in this fog, every decision based on some deep down instinct. I think I have met others on my way, voices clouded with vague connection. I huff and grumble when the sounds collide against my awareness, pressing on my barriers so persistently. Until one breaks through.
Then my feet turn to the edge of the world. Where there is nothing but sand and bones in varying states of decay. The world rushes in with deafening speed. I know where I am. The knowledge is a razor edge to my gut, cold and so sharp I don't notice it until it's too late.
He's there on the beach, a stallion like any other until he fixes you in his gaze. Then it's unthinkable that you ever thought him anything but terrifying. A tremor runs my spine, infinities birthing and collapsing in the space between us. The Dark God. A tale to make foals behave to those who don't know any better. A grim reality to those who do.
He speaks, and I couldn't ignore him if I tried. The words embellish themselves on my mind with searing clarity. The well worn blanket of resignation settles on my back, and I find myself nodding grimly. He asks me to die again. Is that all? To find the weakness in the wall, to be his eyes and ears. The corners of my mouth turn down, ears tilted to a petulant angle. Only when he moves in do I flinch.
Death is not something meant to be gotten used to. It is not a mundane experience, no matter how many times it finds me. Each is unique, violent. Beautiful, in its way. That knowing does not prevent the wet gasp that I expel when the Dark God's teeth sink into the length of wood I've been tasked to carry, a pulls it out with a sharp jerk.
The space of one broken heartbeat is frozen as the shaft falls with a dull thud to the sand. Then the dark chasm of my chest begins to overflow. Blood. Thick, hot and arterial, it pulses out to darken the beach and fill the air with my copper tang. Directly from my heart it pours, and with every weakening beat, I feel myself getting further away. The ache is replaced with a spreading numbness, and then I feel nothing at all.
I feel naked without the spear. Isn't that perverse? The shaft of wood that has skewered my heart for days unnumbered is gone, and with it the Voices that filled my head. All is quiet, and I find myself uncertain what to do with the silence. So I focus on something, anything else.
The stampede of souls rushing through the Afterlife is a haze of greys, a river that begs me to join it. Run with them for eternity. It's a temptation I've been offered more than once, and every time been called back. How foolish would I be to think that maybe this time would be different.