Prologue(Edited Version)

Prologue

I stare into the eyes that I’ve stared into so many times before and were filled once with so much love was now filled with fear. “What is happening”, I ask my voice filing the air like smoke. He does not answer but instead turns his gaze downward and faces away. There is something wrong, because he is never like this. I reach for his hand and he pulls away, pain shoots through me. A shadow goes across his face and he looks up and it’s a mixture of fear and astonishment. I grit my teeth because even when I’m hurt I can’t stand to see him like that, so I lie. “It’s okay”, I say reaching for his hand again but he shakes his head shifting to look away again then stops. Something happens and I feel the ground moving from under my feet and myself being propelled backwards and I scream still reaching for him. And he reaches out also screaming for me, but our hand never meet as he fades away before me. “Wait”, I call and try to stop myself bracing my feet against the ground, but it’s not there.

“It’s too soon”, I say to anyone who can hear.

“Wait”, I call again but he is long gone. Suddenly I come to a halt only to fall on something hard and as I hit my head and smell iron the world goes black.

• • •

The smell of flowers is what brings me back, “But when did I come to a meadow”, I think and then it all comes flowing back to me. We’ve separated. “Wait”, I say sitting up abruptly as his image fading away passes through my mind. A pain shoots through me and I wince. Remembering that I hit my head I hold my hand to the back and it’s wet. I take it away and look down at the blood crimson with sheen in the glow of the moon. I look up and despite myself smile the moon is full tonight but I. I am incomplete.

Looking around I realize where the smell of flowers came from, for I am in a field, but before I was at a beach just by the shore. “What had happened, why am I here, and where is he?” these questions come one after the other but I don’t know the answer and no one is around to tell me. I sigh and place my hand blood and all on the ground feeling the soft wet grass beneath it. I look up once again to the moon. “It’s seems you’re my only company once again old friend”, I tell her but her spirit doesn’t answer for she had long since decided to reside in the world below.

I brush my hand through the grass but dust is what slips through my fingers. I look at the hand with the blood and see gray ash sticking to it. I look around “I’ve done it again”, I think in horror. The once beautiful field of flowers now reverted to mere ash by my own hands. The wind blows hard and everything blows back. The thin white dress I am wearing, my hair only strand of darkness in my already black world, and the ash swirling around me then dispersing back like smoke from a fire. I close my eyes to brace the chill and when I open them I am in darkness, the ash is gone and not even the glow from the moon though faint cast through the darkness that has surrounded me. No the moon is gone I realize and take a quick glance up. I am somewhere else, somewhere like an abyss. So I close my eyes to the darkness and feel the wind sweep over me again and with it carries the faint cackle of a crow. I fall back and wonder if I shall hit my head again but the darkness is void of anything solid and I continue to fall.

The next time I open my eyes I feel as though I am in a jungle. The grass though thin looms over me with flowers blossoming and blooming into a canopy. I wriggle a little trying to move, if I can feel the earth I can assess where I am. But it is no use, my arms and legs are bound, I open my eyes again and gaze at myself. There is a white cloth wrapped around my bodyand I feel different, somehow smaller. My thoughts are halted as I smell smoke and look up to see the wispy top of a dancing flame.

“How strange”, I find myself thinking “the sun is out so there is no use for a fire.” I look around and see a woman her face pale and grave her blonde hair falling to her eyes in a mess. I notice her cheeks are puffy and wet her grey eyes are red, she has been crying, but for what? “Why are you crying”, I ask but she does not seem to notice. Her gaze is fixed on the fire; her stare is intense as she watches it burning the very thing that keeps it from dying out. I take a breath to ask again but my voice won’t work. I listen to the crackle and pop of the flames and breathe the scent of smoke, a scent that does not smell like wood. I don’t want to overreact but panic grows in me. “Why are you crying”, I ask again more demanding and I hear my own voice in my ears. It does not seem like she has heard it and I’m about to ask again when she turns. Her face and eyes are filled with fear and surprise then sadness she shoots her gaze back to the fire and cries harder her sobs loud. I understand now, she has done something she can’t undo but why? As I wonder this my own eyes grow blurry my vision hazed and tear slowly flow down my cheeks. “Why am I sad? What has happened? And where is he?”

My mind is in a whir and I squeeze my eyes shut because I don’t want to see the garden anymore don’t want to watch the fire. I can tell that the shadows have enveloped me and I’m being pulled again. But like last time I stop in between and my eyes pop open. I’m crying but I call out in almost slurred words. “Where”, I yell “Where are you?” I try and call his name but the word so familiar on the very tip of my tongue does not form in my mind or come out of my lips. Instead in its place is a whimper. “Where”, I sob for all I can do is cry. I shut my eyes like I always do to the cruel reality before me and only wish he was here to comfort me. But he is not and I am alone again, then as if on qui the world of darkness stretches before me. I scream but like the memories and voices lost to the dead of the night it is not heard. What I had called was my own name, one that shouldn’t have existed in the first place. “Find me”, I called after it as a message only to him.