Aeternus, Eternus

Ever felt so attuned to someone that even though that person's a few hundred miles away, you can still feel what they're feeling?

Nope? Well, too bad for you.

Some weird psychic thingy. Was what Kanai said. Well, she got that right.

How the heck does she read me like an open book?

Damnit.

No offense to you Kanai. Just a comment at my obviousness.

Sometimes I don't want to think. But I can't help it.

I want to run away from my problems. Run away and never look back. Like I used to. Like I did before. Like all those sad bad mad times.

I want to be like the wind. To keep moving, chasing something. To flow like an unstoppable force, always onward. Never looking back.

Somewhere along the way I stopped running. Somewhere along the way I stopped denying.

I turned and stopped. Watched the tide come, tsunami-like, towering like a great blanket, ready to submerge me under. And I just stood there.

It came. The force of it hit me, worse than any hurricane. It tore me off my feet and swept me away, graet waves battering at my body. Born aloft by the aqua tides, only to be swallowed into the mouth of a blue monster only moments later.

Bleeding. I held up a feeble hand, desperately trying to grasp onto something, anything.

I didn't find it.

Weak hands. Pale, soft, fragile. Broken and bruised. Bloodied hands.

How could anyone bear to hold such a hand?

When the wind meets the sea, I'll be sailing. That's the nice way to put it.

When my wind met the sea, I ended up with a hurricane.

It tore into everything. Me, myself, and all those around me. An unstoppable, indestructable force. Wrecking, smashing, destroying.

I wanted to run. Too late for regrets. Washed up. Broken, beaten, a bloodied and bruised lump.

Floating on the ocean, I see the sky. So beautiful. Yet so very far away. Too far away.

I can't reach the sky. I can't even touch the sky in my heart.

So near, yet so far away. A clear glass, harder than any steel, encased around that cold hard place.

A nice person. A kind person. Someone who smiles. Who brings joy.

A bad person. An evil person. Someone who smirks. Who brings pain.

Torn between two identities. I can't tell who is who anymore.

Maybe they're both the same.

I am you and you are me. One and the same. Dark and light, different sides of the same reality.

Bloody hands. I can see them. Tainted, corrupted.

Who can love one such as that?

How can one reconcile two sides so radically different? How can you get rid of one without forever tearing apart that person?

Incomplete. There would always be something missing. As if something weren't missing already.

A sharp nail running down my cheek. Cold first, then hot. A warm, wet heat, stinging and burning, wending its way down that imperfect face.

I did not weep. Not at my mother's funeral. I ran and played and laughed.

Anger raised in sudden silence. A momentary heat, followed by an intense burning cold.

Frozen inside. No, that's not true.

I could smile, laugh, run and play. I could joke, grin, and have fun.

Never given up running, have you? I chuckle, perhaps not.

I wasn't dead on the inside. Yes, I sometimes feel that way. But only sometimes. Some wonderfully painful times.

I could cry and be sad. I could hate and be angry. I could......not love.

Not dead. Not cold either.

Just a lost, lonely individual. Walking silently in a rose garden.

The paths are small and narrow. They press up against me, thorns seeking and finding pallid flesh.

I keep walking. There's nothing else to do. Just keep walking. Eventually, the path opens up.

It always does. This was a labyrinth. A labyrinth of my own fashioning.

Beautiful, isn't it? High hedges, reaching almost to the blue sky I longed to touch. An illusion, the sky remained aloof and distant as ever.

I keep walking. A beautiful maze indeed. I could walk for an eternity, and never find what I seek. Provided what I seek is within the maze. Which it isn't.

I can't find my way out. Not that I really want to.

Whatever I was looking for, it would either have to find me, or it could just drop in on my head like a failing test score.

And that was such a bad reference that I would never want to ever use again.

So I keep walking. It never looks the same. The hedges change and merge, creating new patterns. New patterns only to my delusional mind, I expect.

And by this time I'm really sick of my maze analogy, so I just snap my fingers, and poof, no more boring maze.

Part of the fun of wandering in your own mind is that you can change the backdrop anytime you want.

I'm no longer walking. Feet hurt from all the stones grazing against my soles. Knew I should have put carpet grass in that maze. Oh well.

Under a tree. Not sure what type of tree. I'm no botanist.

But it's a big tree. Wide branches heavy with evergreen leaves. The grass is long, and I run my hand over their tips, feeling them shyly tickle my palm.

The bark is rough, but not ripped and wounded. I lean against the cool bark, letting myself slide down into a sitting position under the shade.

The wind dances around me, murmuring gently and caressing my hair and skin like a lover would. I close my eyes and relax into a trance-like state. My very own favorite place on the cliff.

A cliff? Yes, a cliff.

For not far from that large, unnamed tree, just ten or more steps from where I'm sitting, was the edge of a cliff.

It was a sharp drop. The end was abrupt, the drop would be quite sudden. Below it lay an expanse of ocean blue. It stretched out far into the horizon, seemingly without end.

No end, no beginning. The sky was all one piece. We all stare at the same sky, no matter where we are.

It was a peaceful place. But I could not stay. Something in my soul stirred, like a wild stallion rearing against the foreign touch of a halter and headcollar.

Sighing with some regret, I snapped my fingers again.

This time, a sand-blasted wasteland. I frown. Did this really have to be next on the list?

Under a blood red sky. The sun, if it could still be called a sun, glowed with sickly radiance, more show than substance. The rays that did touch the land were weak, and did not bring warmth.

Standing tall on another cliff, rough red stone beneath unshod feet. The cracked and parched land gaped open like a dying man in a desert, desperate for nourishment.

Nothing grew there. In that blood-drenched field, only death reigned in all its eternal glory.

Silent as the grave. No sound was heard in that neverending red landscape. No sound, save that of my own heart beating. Slowly, deliberately, almost taunting and mocking in its steady cadence.

Pieces of a broken blade lay not far from my feet. I did not look at them. Didn't have to. Every inch of that accursed thing was imprinted more deeply in my mind than any red-hot brand could onto fresh new skin.

The sickening stench of charred flesh and tortured screams emerged at that new analogy. I pushed them back into that iron prison where all nightmares were stored in the vault of the immortal soul.

My hands were folded behind my back. I did not look at them. I knew how they would appear in this land of battles fought and lives ended.

I smelled an old, familiar scent in the heavy air of this place. It was coming again. The rain that the land craved and abhorred, all at the same time.

It came. First a drizzle, then an all out downpour. Deceptively warm, and in no way refreshing or liberating.

It sank deep into the red soil, adding its color to the one already there. The dry caked land suddenly seemed awash with the oceans of blood that once flowed across its verdant plains.

I stood immobile. The blood rain would stop soon. And it did. It made no difference. The land needed real nourishment, not a reminder of the sins of its past.

Double-dipped in foulness. That's how I looked. My hair was plastered limply against my face, glued there by the sticky fluid that would dry into a crusty red mask.

A mask over the ones I already wore.

At least, drenched in blood as I was, no one would notice the blood that stained my hands prior to that shower. The blood that stained my hands, the blood that refused to be cleansed, everytime I stepped into this hellhole.

It won't come off! Was what Lady Macbeth said. I've said it before, and have given up saying, or even thinking it.

No matter. Hands still resolutely behind my back, my fingers snapped, a dull wet sound.

Into a cool darkness, almost opaque. The red stains flowed off me like a thousand sins as I submerge myself in that icy liquid.

Rising up, my head broke the mirror smooth surface, sending ripples across that miniature lake.

Quietly, I rose from that dark little pond with nary a sound. The water fled from me back into that quiet little sanctuary.

A silent cave. A dark, silent cave.

It was a wide cave, with a very high ceiling. God knows what I would have done in a cave with a low ceiling. Probably go mad, but that's beside the point.

The true extent of the cave is unknown. Shadows lurking at the edges prevented me from finding out. Not that I needed to find out. All I needed in that cave was what I could find in my immediate distance from that shiny little pond from which I had just emerged.

Bare feet padded quietly across uneven ground, only to stop in front of a mirror. A large mirror. Certainly large enough to contain one such as myself, even at close range.

That damnable mirror. It had repaired itself again.

I stared at the foreign reflection in the looking glass. It was me, yet not me. Not quite.

It only showed half of who I really was after all. Or less actually. Part of me, large or small? Not too sure.

Damnable mirror. I thought I'd ruined it the last time.

Well, I could always do it again.

The sensation of breaking glass against a bare unprotected fist never felt so satisfying. Spider-like cracks threaded across the perfect surface, starting from that center of impact.

I didn't remove my fist, at least not at first. There would be the initial stage of numbness, which would quickly fade into a burning sensation as warm red blood trickled from the cuts and tears on that corpse-like flesh. Staining the perfect mirror. The now not-so perfect mirror.

With a sense of detachment, I removed my fist to properly inspect my handiwork. Not too bad really. There was a deranged kind of symmetry in those hairline cracks. Almost like a work of art, if I didn't know better.

Ironically, it could still show my reflection. Well, a very distorted one. Perfect.

Every little shard showed a different side. A different little me. Cracked and distorted.

Just like the little pieces of me.

A small smirk twitched at the corner of my mouth as I turned away, fist still dripping. That wouldn't last. It never did.

Damnable mirror always repaired itself with every visit.

And I never stopped, I reflected with a grim amusement. I just kept smashing it, only to have the accursed thing magically become whole again later. You would think that I would have given up, but I didn't. Persistence of the worst kind, and under the strangest circumstances.

But I needed that truth, that release. To see the broken shards that so reflected my inner being.

So no matter how many times the mirror becomes whole, I will smash it.

If only to see the truth that lies beneath that mask. If only for a few moments.

Just a few moments more. It never lasts.

It never does, isn't it?