despair

Acqlimia rushed through the trees. Her once pristine white gown was now covered with scratches. It was torn. Her face was streaked with dried salty tears and mud. Her once silky smooth hair was now scratchy. Her eyes were red. Rimmed with tears. The forest was dark. Her vision was blurred. Her heart heavy. Above, she could hear the elements fighting over the world. She knew it was coming. She had failed. She was losing her sanity.

She had tried so hard. She hadn’t known, but she had thought maybe it would work. The prophecy had suggested that all she needed to do to play her part was to protect the sites with her dancing. All she needed to do. It seemed simple. It was hard. It had been incredibly difficult. She had devoted her life to it. Long before she had known. Her parents had. Her parents. Tears streaked down her face. Maybe they had been wrong. But how could they have been. Her father had been consumed by the shadows, her mother had been taken by them.

She rushed through the forest, branches whipping her face. Red scratches forming on her once youthful smooth face. There was something she could do. There was nothing she could do. She stopped. And gasped. The exertion taking a toll on her body. There was nothing she could do. She placed a hand on a tree and closed her eyes. Silence. This was not it. This forest was dead or dumb. They all were. Nothing remained. There had been two sites and they were both gone. Tears, hot and heavy began to fall from her eyes. It had all been for naught. Those years of hard training. Losing her parents. She almost fell against the tree, her knees buckling as she thought of her parents. She sometimes thought she could hear her mother’s voice. Imagined her mother being tortured. She saw the fear in her mother’s eyes as she had been dragged away. They both knew, Acqlimia was barely a teen then. She had hid. She had been scared. The shadows had not found her. Or they had not bothered. She was ashamed. But she knew it had been necessary. Now she didn’t know. Not anymore. If it had all been for naught, why hadn’t she tried to protect her mother then. This forest was dead. All of them were. There had been only two sites.

She walked on wearily. She found the clearing. All of them had one. All the old forests did. She began to spin, arms outstretched. It was all she knew. She wanted nothing more than to lie on the ground, and close her eyes. She wanted the shadows to consume her, to suck her into the ground, or drag her away. Maybe she would meet her mother. But this was all she knew. This was her purpose. Even though it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t make a difference, this was what she would do. She opened her eyes from her musings and saw a squirrel carrying a nut slowly, warily scurrying towards her. It reached her and touched her. Her eyes opened.