[open] youth would take the blame, any

[Falter]

these days i'm becoming everything that i hate,
my mind is a place that i can't escape your ghost

Silence. It is all she hears. Darkness. It is all she sees. Empty. It is all she feels. Am I dreaming? Falter thinks. Something nudges her. It is warm and wet. Mostly wet though, she decides. It won’t stop though. Maybe if she opened her eyes, she could make it stop. It was getting worse by the second now. Can I even see? It has been dark for far too long. Falter senses she can open her eyes, her determination to stop this wetness—this licking—forces open her eyes. Her eyes flutter open, exposing her nutmeg colored eyes. Her vision is blurry, a dark shadow lingers in her line of sight. “Stop,” she whispers, “Stop.” The licking stops and the black shadow backs away. She blinks a couple of times while her mind focuses on figuring out where she is. Dad? Where are you? The yearling feels the ground beneath her, it is hard, and she aches with every bone that mends her together. I need to get up. She knows she cannot just lay here, not alone at least. A soft growl grabs her attention. She blinks again as her vision becoming clear, and discovers the young black wolf-like creature sitting in front of her. Falter shrieks, she pulls herself up, backing away quickly from the monster in front of her. Was it even a wolf? It was ghastly and haunting with those red and yellow glowing eyes staring back at her.  It barks at her softly. His eyes were warm, not terrifying as she first felt when meeting his gaze. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?” She asks softly. It was a stupid question, but she asked it anyway. The black wolf barks again, but she instantly knows the answer to be no. Strange, she thinks but she doesn’t muddle over the idea of how she knew the answer; instead, her mind drifts to finding exactly where she is and where her father is. Her nutmeg gaze glances around. A dense forest surrounds the dark bay yearling, tall trees reaching and covering the sky. It is late, she observes, there is barely any light escaping through the canopy of the trees. Falter doesn’t recognize the flora—it isn’t the forest she knows to be near her home. Then where am I? Certainly she was still in Beqanna, but she had been on the mountain with her dad. Then the darkness had come… The sound of hooves catches her drifting mind. Falter quickly snaps, her dark ears swivel forward in caution. A sense of fear fills her quickly—the black wolf-like creature growls loudly in a warning. The sound of hooves grows louder, and the darkness begins to fade away as a glowing light emerges. A bright silhouette keeps the darkness within distance, but as the figure moves, the darkness fills instantly once again. “H-Hello?” Falter calls out softly. The approaching light figure becomes clearer in its shape, taking on something between a horse and an angel. No, he couldn’t be an angel. It was too silly. Angels only existed in the afterlife, right? Am I dead? She thinks for a split moment. “Am I dead?” She asks the angel. She couldn’t be. Please don’t let me be dead. Please…

Falter

@Selaphiel