can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars,
I could really use a wish right now;
She had never had nightmares until that day in the forest.
She had known there were monsters; she had known the world was not the illusion she thought it to be. Her rose-tinted glasses had been shattered when she was a little girl, when she had realized the love that existed between her parents was not what she thought it to be. It was real — she knows it was real. But it was fractured beneath the surface, and realizing this had caused the world to lose much of its charm.
She had been born of love, but that love didn’t seem to mean anything to her mother. She isn’t sure what that says about her, then.
But being afraid of love, and being afraid of being alive were two incredibly different things.
Her skin was scarred where the alien acid had burnt her, where her skin had been torn open by their blows. She could still hear their feral, other-worldly sounds, still thought she could feel their hot breath on her neck. She didn’t know what had happened to her sister after that. Casimira had saved her but disappeared, and Evenstar was too afraid to go back into the forest and find her.
She never went into the trees at all, actually.
She stayed at the river and the meadow, always lingering close to others, but trying her best to never draw attention to herself. Sleep never came easy, except sometimes during the day. Her mind and body were weary, but every time she dared to drift off the snap of a twig or rustle of the grass jolted her wide awake. And every time she closed her eyes all she saw was the two black, armored faces, with the knife-like tails and depthless eyes staring back at her.
The edge of the river offers some kind of peace. It’s not much, but she listens to the water as it rushes past, noticing the way the moon and the stars reflect off the surface of it. There are others nearby, as always, but she never looks at them. She simply stands, silent, fighting every urge to sleep even though the lullaby of the night does its best to drag her under.
I'm praying that this stairway leads somewhere like Heaven's door,
and when you get there don't look down
