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crazkoala

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       This is what it feels like—when time lapses into confusion, when pain is so immense that you sever yourself from reality, when dreams are real and what is real is seems an illusion—this is what it feels like to dwell in a hollow body…

       I didn’t move from where I fell. I defied time, and somehow it was morning after a single blink of my eye. I dared not move, in fear of the numbness that had swept over my body deserting me… if it did, the emotions dammed behind the slender wall of it would flood my being and overcome my mind…

       It would have been entirely possible to remain that way—unmoving, unthinking, unwilling to try—had it not been for Enya. I was vaguely aware that the sun was setting again, sinking below the shadowy horizon, bathing the land in the crimson color of blood. The sound of my name stirred me into consciousness.

       “Ivory?” it questioned; somewhere in my mind I registered the voice was familiar, “Oh my god, Ivory? Ivory?” A figure bent over my face, a cool hand stroked my cheek. Ashamed, I turned my head away; pressing it into the moist earth. “Look at me,” she commanded gently (I had arrived at the conclusion the voice was a she). A coaxing force upon my chin turned my head. Focusing my eyes, I realized the person was Enya.

       The numbness vanished, and a roaring tidal wave of pain rushed over me. Screwing my eyes shut to hold back tears, I felt Enya lift me, and wrap her slender arms around my frame. God, it hurt… Then shadow consumed me.

       Voices, whispers in my ear, in my mind, within me… ambushing my dreams in the darkness.

       “…Found her in the woods. She’d been gone for two days…”

       “…know what happened?”

       “…A messenger came today for her…”

       “…Burned down her village?”

       “...A warrant on her and…”

       “…What news of the Father?”

       The world came rushing toward me, hurtling at me in a blur of color, as I bolted upright from my cot. Sweat coated my body in pearly beads, chilling me to the bone. A great wave of nausea consumed me. Turning my head, I heaved an empty stomach. How could one word hurt so much? My thoughts revolved around the single word, each of the four letters burrowing their way into my skin and scorching my blood. The word dug claws and teeth into the walls of my heart; each individual beat forcing a surging quake of crippling pain throughout my entire being.

       I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to breathe. I just wanted it all to end…