the beginning of the end

Splashes of white and black moving around like a series of Rorschach images. He was in this world. Without color. Just black and white. All the sensations were slowly fading away, sounds from the forest: the cackling fire, the rajah, the echoes of his scream, all of those things fading away, replaced by a slow monotonous throb in his head. The smells of the fumes, the trees, the wet mud, all fading away, replaced by a fresh smell that felt almost artificial. The taste of the air, earthy, olive-y, pine, oak, a distant memory now. He could see his body, that much was a relief. But it felt like he was light, as if his body were a chalice. Almost weightless, yet with weight. Just not the one he had felt before. The white was endless, if those were walls or just extensions in this place, dragging on and on and on, into the nether, he could not tell. Here, nothing mattered. He could see how all his worries, his emotion, his love, nothing had really ever mattered. In the end, there was nothingness, what you left behind was well, a vessel that was empty of anything else.

He moved around, body felt as if it were brand new. He also sensed something else here. Behind a wall maybe. Locked. Out of his sight. He sensed some energy. Ancient. Powerful. Human?

He walked around, the farther he walked, the more he felt like there was an endless landscape. The surface was eerily flat, and there seemed to be no end. No walls. No roof. Just space, forever and ever, and ever. It was quite a trip.

Not just one. He sensed three beings. Similar energy as her. But also very different. Older, wiser, more in tune with nature. Primal.

***

The other two were confused. She smiled. To some extent, she knew. The other two were confused. What was this being that was prowling around. How had anyone found this space?

***

In the few seconds before he reached the girl, right after the boy screamed, something strange had happened. He had felt a ripple in the world. He hadn’t felt fear since the day before he turned. But this time, he felt fear.

***

She danced on. The world was changing all around her. Her eyes were closed but she felt it in the energy. She felt the fire, she felt the trees. Most of all, the trees were afraid and confused. Something new was happening. Something that even they, in all their wisdom, with all their memories had not foreseen. Something strange. Was it him? She closed her eyes, and she understood. It was in his scream. The pain. The loss. She understood what he felt for her. She understood her role. For one of them, it was the end of the road. She danced harder, fighting back tears. She was not successful. They escaped from her eyes, stronger like the monsters inside Pandora’s box, after years of biding their time and growing stronger. She danced on.

***

In this blankness, Hur gained knowledge. He didn’t like it.