Spoiler
Just a little back-story on what this is symbolically about. It's based off of a dream I had, and the basic idea is about giving up innocence and overall who you are to belong and be safe. Please feel free to criticize. Also, thinking about extending it into a novel, so I'd love some input on the idea.
It is dark. The winding labyrinth lets in no light, sight only possible through the faint silver gleam that seems to emanate from the earth. I know why; this was once an enchanted, otherworldly place.
Above my head, stars refuse to shine and the moon is never company. Somehow this makes the sky seem less expansive and eternal, and the stratosphere presses in with a claustrophobic presence that breathes a chilling air down my neck. My breath forms puffs of fog; it rolls down to gather on the floor with the large pools of smoke that ebb and curl like an ancient sea.
My heart pounds; the golden timepiece beneath my cloak reads seven minutes to midnight.
I have to always wonder, why midnight? Why, always at this time, at this point that’s been spoken about so many times in history? I don’t know if it was my own subconscious or truly a phantom voice that speaks, but it answers, It’s the time where all can change. No longer night, not yet day. Time comes to lapse, and the stitches of the quilt unravel if they are merely touched. Midnight, and even an immortal is not eternal. My footsteps suddenly seem to sound a hundred times louder, resonating through the endless maze until it doesn’t sound like there’s one me, but dozens. There’s something about it that makes my skin shiver. I know I’m truly not alone.
But I have to find her!
I only hope my clothes are dark enough. Covering everything but my bare feet and face, the cloak drapes around me to mimic the surrounding darkness. I press myself against one of the decaying gray walls, hands clasped onto some of the shriveled remains of hanging ivy.
There’s silence. Still, I know they’re following me. Whoever “they” happen to be.
There is no longer any real sense of time here, not anymore. The only thing to remind me that there is any such element of time is the gleaming golden circle-shaped object braced to my side by its leather strap around my waist. I want to open it up, to peer into the glowing inside and watch the meticulous black hands wind their way around the antique face. The rhythmic tick-tock is almost comforting. It reminds me that, yes, time goes on. In fact, life goes on. Even when you are gone, the hands will climb around and back again. Others will inhabit your past footsteps, without even realizing what it is they do.
Time doesn’t end, no matter how much it bends.
And the fact is, time is of the essence, and at this moment not bending to my favor. Like the hammering in my chest, it‘s moving at double-speed.
Still, my core works like a magnet, the deeper pit of my stomach compressing as I draw nearer. It’s right. Materializing from the mist are thirteen black iron bars.
I know I should be as silent as before, but now I scream, running to the rubble-rotted prison with the winds at my feet. “Ava!” I scream. “Ava!”
There are such long seconds of silence racing by, that I so quickly lost hope in a reply. But as I press up against the bars, clasping them with my paled, frozen hands, I hear a soft and shaken voice reply, “Pip…”
“It’s me!” I answer, then pull a hand to my mouth. My voice returns to a whisper. “Oh, Ava, it’s me!”
There’s the sound of clanking metal, and she drags herself from the shadows. Ava’s long blonde hair’s grown since I’ve seen her, and now it falls over her as she crawls on the ground. It trails down her back and over her feet, and only when she tilts her head to let it fall over a single shoulder do I see her frail body. As long has it’s grown, her golden hair doesn’t glimmer anymore, looks dim and dying. Her skin’s lost every ray of sun that’s ever touched its surface, and her deep green eyes now look as decaying as an autumn leaf as it loses color and turns to gray. Her jawbones are so prominent that even with the look of hope in her eyes, she looks forlorn. Blood marks her face and fingers like rivers of red.
For a moment, she hugs me through the bars. Instantaneously, her necklace links to mine. Hers is a sun-pendant, and mine a crescent moon. We both glow a little inside, although she looks too weak to fully smile.
Then, her frown is truly intentional. She pulls her necklace from mine and slides nearer to the shadows once again. “You have to go, Pip.”
“No!” I say quickly. “I’ve been looking all over, all over, and now I found you. Ava, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I--”
She lifts a hand to stop me, and automatically I do. “I know Pip. It’s okay. I don’t hate you. But now…” she shakes her head, “I’m hardly even part of you.”
“That’s why I have to come now. At midnight--”
“The stitches of the quilt unravel,” Ava says chillingly. “But not these ones. Not this night.”
I’m crying, and she stares at me knowingly. She hugs her stomach with an inner pain we share. I say stupidly, “It isn’t fair.”
“I know,” she says. “But you gave me away. And now you’re safe. With me, you’ll always be in danger. You’ll never find a place in this world; you’ll be turned away and imprisoned within yourself. This was meant to happen. I was born even before you, Pip, though I am you. I am who you truly are. Just remember, and maybe we will meet again.”
Before I can say anything, they come. Black shadowed figures melt mist-like from the shadows, pooling into inky human forms that saunter towards us. The closer they come, the more Ava fades.
“No!” I cry, knowing there’s no point. I slam the iron bars, grip the horrible lock.
“There’s no point,” she whispers. “You abandoned this place, like you abandoned me. And now we disappear. Like the memory of a dream. I love you, little sister.”
It’s true. The Shadows slowly but surely engulf her, diminishing Ava from all existence before my eyes. Then the Shadows race around me, taking me in and forming me into one of them. This is the price, I know, for the safety of belonging.
I close my eyes and for a moment see this place for what it was. I remember when Ava and I were one person, and though she was inside me she was often perceived through me. Her home place, my chest, no longer made any living sound.
I hear it, the faint tick and tock of time. I’m instantly left longing for the mingled rhythms of that and my heart, but it is gone, gone, gone.
This was once me. My world. Once upon a time, this place was beautiful. I let it be contaminated. And for what? Acceptance from the same shadowed creatures who’d darkened it in the first place. They took Ava from me, forever.
My eyes reopen. Somehow the darkness has changed to familiarity. The cold still freezes my skin, but I no longer pay it any heed. My brown eyes have changed to black, I know.
I am one of them.
