08-14-2020, 11:46 PM
For a few moments she does nothing at all - even after he has spoken again through his pathway to their minds, given new directions to follow. He even laughs once, but she does not find him particularly funny. It turns out laughter is not as beautiful a sound as she had imagined it to be all these many quiet years. Sound itself seems to be the same way. He’s too loud and too commanding, and she finds that all she wants to do is fade back into the silence she knows so intimately. It does not feel like an absence any more.
She is obedient now, because she knows what it is to be broken, understands that her life is no longer her own - not even her afterlife. This soul belongs to him, belongs to death and perhaps, if he is right, something beyond. There is absolutely not a single ounce of curiosity urging her forward as those delicate violet ears swivel to catch that sound of distant buzzing, still just a drone at this distance. But the closer she draws to it, following the direction he had shown them, following distant tails as they disappear entirely into the fog, she finds that the sound is climbing to a new pitch.
It makes her feel like her heart is racing, like panic is reaching a crescendo in her chest, a clash of butterfly wings that never settle.
She feels almost nauseous with it.
Despite her obedience, she pauses when it is her turn to slip into the fog. The buzzing is loudest here, an almost ringing in ears she keeps pinned to the dark of her mane, keeps buried. But the sound is as much inside her head as it is in her ears. The urge to go back nearly overwhelms her, she is afraid of this thin-spot, of the fog and the buzzing, afraid to be alone in this death. But there is nothing to go back to. Nothing except Him, and she does not think he will welcome her disobedience.
So, like the rest, she slips into the fog, immediately uneasy with the way it brushes against her awareness, the way she cannot see more than two steps in any direction. She imagines she can hear more than the buzzing here - disembodied voices, imagines there are faces in the fog that do not look entirely equine, entirely anything she can readily recognize. So she looks down at her feet instead, and her skin crawls with a fear that trails cold, skeletal fingers all across her delicate spine.
She is alone, and she is certain something is watching her.
Her eyes stay down for longer than she has any concept of - she encounters no physical obstacles, no rocks or trees, nothing but a strange gray footing and the fog that swirls. It is as though she has somehow left the place He put her, as though she has come dislodged from the afterlife, from the in-between, and she will be walking forever. For eternity to the sound of this buzzing drone in her ears. She inhales sharply, suddenly panicked, suddenly hyper-aware of herself as her dark eyes jerk up to look around. There is nothing to see, just as she knew there wouldn’t be, but she is abruptly aware of a dissonance within herself. A wrongness.
She is aging.
She has been aging this whole time. Not with that impossible, beautiful slowness of life. She has been aging in leaps and bounds with every step she took, and now she can feel that age in her body as she draws to a wary halt again. Is she imagining it? She wishes for a way to see herself, a reflection in a pond or a puddle, a glimpse of a healthy face and bright eyes. It does not ever occur to her that it is illogical to be afraid to die of old age when one is already dead.
It is hard to feel dead while she still has this task.
Is it truly permanent if He waits for them on the other side?
Her brow furrows, transforming her face into a beautiful frown as she glances around with the wariness of being struck for her curiosity. Again she considers going back, maybe this ancient feeling will leave her if she returns from the fog. But there is nothing for her on the other side, nothing but empty beach and the memory of death, of the brutality of sound. So her attention returns forward, and there is pain in her eyes as she takes another step, takes a dozen more and feels that sensation of time slipping past. She isn’t sure how she knows, but the knowing fills her like a pit in her belly, turning her heart into a void.
It is more subtle at first, but eventually her bones creak and her joints ache, and each step is an effort she is losing faith in her ability to make. She is reduced to small shuffling steps, and her lungs make a rattling kind of whisper that makes her feel perpetually out of breath. There is an ache in her spine that makes her feel ancient, a swelling between each vertebrae, a fusing of motion that makes her short stride unsteady. Her eyes start to fail too, gummy and rheumy, shrunken in her skull - but before her sight leaves her entirely, she does not miss the ghostly faces of those she knows to be dead walking in the fog beside her.
At least she will not be alone in this second death.
But she cannot help the way she mourns the loss of every daydream she has ever had - every wish of a young girl dreaming of love and a family and a beautiful purpose. She had a crush briefly, a best friend she could have grown to love, but never love itself. No children, no family to surround herself with as she walked gracefully into these aged years. She had not expected it to happen all at once, and the loss of it feels incredible. An entire lifetime all used up at once. It is all she can think about when her vision is gone and there is only the dark and that wild insectile buzzing that makes her feel as though her bones may come undone. It settles like another ache inside her, as though it is more tangible than simple sound (which she wonders now why she ever thought she wanted to experience), and it erodes away all these last brittle pieces.
She stops when she has nothing left to give, no part of herself held back from this task - because at least there was purpose in this death, if only she had been strong enough to make it to the end for Him. This might all have meant something. But she is fragile and she is weak, and she is not brave. She was not enough even for death.
Sorrow fills her chest until her face is damp with it, with tears that slip from closed eyes. She knows she is crying, but it is a soundless kind of anguish because the only sound that exists anymore is the one that works to unbuild her. It is a perpetual sound, that buzzing, insidious as it wraps itself around all her brittle bones.
She blinks, wincing at the pain of it, and for a moment she cannot comprehend the world that suddenly appears before her, or the way that arthritic pain seems to slip from her body like a cloak. Only her mind remains unchanged, all those years and all that regret, every decade of imagined time passing having carved a scar across who she is. She blinks again, wondering at that heavy dullness inside her chest, at why she does not feel joy or relief.
There is only quiet inside her despite this impossible noise as she looks out across a view that is eerily unlike anything she has ever known.
She is obedient now, because she knows what it is to be broken, understands that her life is no longer her own - not even her afterlife. This soul belongs to him, belongs to death and perhaps, if he is right, something beyond. There is absolutely not a single ounce of curiosity urging her forward as those delicate violet ears swivel to catch that sound of distant buzzing, still just a drone at this distance. But the closer she draws to it, following the direction he had shown them, following distant tails as they disappear entirely into the fog, she finds that the sound is climbing to a new pitch.
It makes her feel like her heart is racing, like panic is reaching a crescendo in her chest, a clash of butterfly wings that never settle.
She feels almost nauseous with it.
Despite her obedience, she pauses when it is her turn to slip into the fog. The buzzing is loudest here, an almost ringing in ears she keeps pinned to the dark of her mane, keeps buried. But the sound is as much inside her head as it is in her ears. The urge to go back nearly overwhelms her, she is afraid of this thin-spot, of the fog and the buzzing, afraid to be alone in this death. But there is nothing to go back to. Nothing except Him, and she does not think he will welcome her disobedience.
So, like the rest, she slips into the fog, immediately uneasy with the way it brushes against her awareness, the way she cannot see more than two steps in any direction. She imagines she can hear more than the buzzing here - disembodied voices, imagines there are faces in the fog that do not look entirely equine, entirely anything she can readily recognize. So she looks down at her feet instead, and her skin crawls with a fear that trails cold, skeletal fingers all across her delicate spine.
She is alone, and she is certain something is watching her.
Her eyes stay down for longer than she has any concept of - she encounters no physical obstacles, no rocks or trees, nothing but a strange gray footing and the fog that swirls. It is as though she has somehow left the place He put her, as though she has come dislodged from the afterlife, from the in-between, and she will be walking forever. For eternity to the sound of this buzzing drone in her ears. She inhales sharply, suddenly panicked, suddenly hyper-aware of herself as her dark eyes jerk up to look around. There is nothing to see, just as she knew there wouldn’t be, but she is abruptly aware of a dissonance within herself. A wrongness.
She is aging.
She has been aging this whole time. Not with that impossible, beautiful slowness of life. She has been aging in leaps and bounds with every step she took, and now she can feel that age in her body as she draws to a wary halt again. Is she imagining it? She wishes for a way to see herself, a reflection in a pond or a puddle, a glimpse of a healthy face and bright eyes. It does not ever occur to her that it is illogical to be afraid to die of old age when one is already dead.
It is hard to feel dead while she still has this task.
Is it truly permanent if He waits for them on the other side?
Her brow furrows, transforming her face into a beautiful frown as she glances around with the wariness of being struck for her curiosity. Again she considers going back, maybe this ancient feeling will leave her if she returns from the fog. But there is nothing for her on the other side, nothing but empty beach and the memory of death, of the brutality of sound. So her attention returns forward, and there is pain in her eyes as she takes another step, takes a dozen more and feels that sensation of time slipping past. She isn’t sure how she knows, but the knowing fills her like a pit in her belly, turning her heart into a void.
It is more subtle at first, but eventually her bones creak and her joints ache, and each step is an effort she is losing faith in her ability to make. She is reduced to small shuffling steps, and her lungs make a rattling kind of whisper that makes her feel perpetually out of breath. There is an ache in her spine that makes her feel ancient, a swelling between each vertebrae, a fusing of motion that makes her short stride unsteady. Her eyes start to fail too, gummy and rheumy, shrunken in her skull - but before her sight leaves her entirely, she does not miss the ghostly faces of those she knows to be dead walking in the fog beside her.
At least she will not be alone in this second death.
But she cannot help the way she mourns the loss of every daydream she has ever had - every wish of a young girl dreaming of love and a family and a beautiful purpose. She had a crush briefly, a best friend she could have grown to love, but never love itself. No children, no family to surround herself with as she walked gracefully into these aged years. She had not expected it to happen all at once, and the loss of it feels incredible. An entire lifetime all used up at once. It is all she can think about when her vision is gone and there is only the dark and that wild insectile buzzing that makes her feel as though her bones may come undone. It settles like another ache inside her, as though it is more tangible than simple sound (which she wonders now why she ever thought she wanted to experience), and it erodes away all these last brittle pieces.
She stops when she has nothing left to give, no part of herself held back from this task - because at least there was purpose in this death, if only she had been strong enough to make it to the end for Him. This might all have meant something. But she is fragile and she is weak, and she is not brave. She was not enough even for death.
Sorrow fills her chest until her face is damp with it, with tears that slip from closed eyes. She knows she is crying, but it is a soundless kind of anguish because the only sound that exists anymore is the one that works to unbuild her. It is a perpetual sound, that buzzing, insidious as it wraps itself around all her brittle bones.
She blinks, wincing at the pain of it, and for a moment she cannot comprehend the world that suddenly appears before her, or the way that arthritic pain seems to slip from her body like a cloak. Only her mind remains unchanged, all those years and all that regret, every decade of imagined time passing having carved a scar across who she is. She blinks again, wondering at that heavy dullness inside her chest, at why she does not feel joy or relief.
There is only quiet inside her despite this impossible noise as she looks out across a view that is eerily unlike anything she has ever known.