Shadows of the Fallen

Chapter 4: the awakening

Why must I continue to sleep and reawake? By this time I had slept more than anyone does in a lifetime, or so it seemed. As I awoke once again, I remained on the marble stairs of the rather large structure. I pushed myself upwards to gain balance on my knees. Pulling down my sleeves I could see a figure in the corner of my right eye. I was afraid to see who it was, but even so, it still remained curious as to whom she was. I stood, taking in some air, and ran my hand through my hair, stalling for what to do next.
I did not want to hear her speak, and nor did I want to talk. I wasn’t sure of weather I could even tone a voice in that matter. I just stood there impassively, wondering what either her or my own next move would be. That is, until I saw her step forwards, only one single step. Perhaps stepping forward more would be considered too obvious for her.
I heard, faintly, what I thought as to be her speaking and her words were so meticulous, I strained to understand their meaning. What exactly did she wish to say by such words?

“A shadow flits around corners
Unnoticed by light.
Secretive and silent it glides
Alone.

Hiding from life
Who would overlook it.
Silvery and transparent, yet
Alone.

Watching sunbeams dance
And fall brightly lit.
A small sad shadow is
Alone.”

On the tip of my tongue was the word, the very word alone; so singular, yet plural. My frail, chapped lips quivered as if trying to make words, to form something they knew they could not. I shuddered slightly as I formed a word, and yet another in an answer to hers. My lips had a mind of the own, as if they spoke them before. Yet, these were words from my heart, words I have longed to tell someone.

“Loneliness is a hole in your heart
An aching emptiness, like a chasm.
Loneliness is thinking about people you know
And being sure they aren’t thinking about you.
Loneliness is when you want someone
To be there, to hold you in their arms
And understand.
Loneliness is when you are in
A crowd and feel
Completely alone”


I have never spoken such things in return to something that was not a question, and even so, it had been so long before I had talked at all. My throat was dry, my eyes shaking with excitement, but not gay, terrifying. My voice, I had not heard it in so long, I was beginning to wonder if it was truly mine. It was so morbid.
I still refused to see the woman to the side of me, but every minute she seemed to take a step forward. I could hear her breathing. There was something strange though. Since my awakening I could hear so many things. First my body aching, then my heart beating rarely, now voices and breathing.

“Underneath those eyes,
Underneath the hate.
Something you cannot see,
Something you cannot comprehend.
Those feelings
That are hidden,
That are not shown,
Are part of the fate that is unknown.
That Fate can twist,
It can hurt,
It can tear.
Life all within itself,
is something without an end.”

I despised answering her questions. I despised her. Were they even questions? The tingling down my spine that had once subsided had now vanquished my spine and shattered it to a freezing stillness. She was doing this. Her words, so morose; I clenched my hands into a fist and slowly turned my head towards her. As slowly as I could, I turned it in fear. Then, there she was, exactly as I had pictured her. Her long, flowing brunette hair, glassy hazel eyes, and her white, ivory clothes, even her cheeks where pale, frozen. She stared at me, as if I was the same way she had pictured myself. Once again, she spoke my name, but she spoke more, more than I had imagined.
Her voice was no longer in riddles, but in lucid lexis. She had a distant tone, not much like the one before, but more genuine. It was so feminine and yet so divine.

“Enlighten me, what be the world? How do you perceive it?” She questioned as if mocking me, as if knowing I loathed even the slightest murmur of those irrelevant lives.
“The world is dull, flat, and lifeless. The color drains away like water-colored paints. My life is not worth the pain of existing. As I see through gray eyes, screaming, but my screams are lost in heartless eternity. Why do you suppose I try when all I do is see through gray eyes?”
I answered, but in return with a question. I tested her, seeing if she had any answers and if she did not she was of no importance to me. All I wanted to do was push her away along with her arrogant questions. I had a feeling she to was testing me, but I did not know of what significance it had.
“I must refuse that answer in saying you’re eyes are not gray, but a blissful orb of life itself. Darkness is frightening cold, a form of visual silence; even warmth yet untold. The cold enigma has sinister eyes forged by emptiness; a dormant light that cries. But, when the all-seeing dark disappears strength shines through defeating your unclear fears. We can all find the light in the dark, the search for truth, the simple journey to embark. The light exists in ones mind. Re-capture that strength to leave doubts behind.”
Her words were like poison. They seeped through my very essence, strait to the bone. My heart was racing, my pulse beating as migraines infected my head. My sense of hearing had become slightly keener than before, now with a shriek of pain, an intense ache I could not even begin to describe. I clenched my ears, trying to end the bustling.
“Do you still hurt so bad you must turn your head from me, or is it that you are discovering that of which you really are?”
I stood firmly once again, upright in a position facing her, ignoring the nuisance. I did not of which she spoke of, and I became engrossed again in what she had to say.
I answered her, not too quickly, but as soon as my orifice had quenched itself enough to need fluid. “It’s deafening and it hurts me, but I believed I had no pain because I am invisible. I have always been, I will always be. I can’t breathe air. It shimmers around me in clouds. It likes to taunt me because I’m never going to breathe it ever, but I do not care. Dreaming is for people who do not like to face reality; reality must be evil to me. Maybe if I pretend not to exist, maybe something will come out of this, as it has not always done. If I rest this burning, yearning urge I feel that haunts me will come back. I feel so alive and yet I think I am dead, but surely I can’t be dead. Everything feels like it is never going to end.”
She closed her eyes, revealing the tainted plum shadows that cascaded across her brow that were so daintily shaped in an arch. “How can you say you are not of existence, even though you stand before me? Perhaps you are not dead, but a figment of what you truly are. Not everything you believe is as it is.”
“Perhaps you are a dream, and my mind is still swirling in the continuum.” I said, trying to imagine this as all a dream. I closed my eyes and thought about this conversation.
She walked towards me. I could heed each step, each trod as she came closer, something I did not desire, something I dreaded even more than her voice. I turned my head away from her, rotating my body with it. The woman placed her arms around me and leaned forwards ever so slightly, whispering in my ear tenderly.
“Standing there, like some burnt out soul, full of candle lit despair, gazing out to a sea of sky. Painting your rainbow kissed nightmares across a hazy curtain of stars in hope some poor glitter eyed person would notice your pleas for help. Smiling at the chances you missed something between the clouds of epiphany, the circle your fallen angel head, just noticeable enough for the mirror shredded rain to pass you by, as you stare into the life that you made for yourself. Now you are just another burnout, another one of life’s stars hung out to die. In nothing more than a celestial darkness you went too fast, burnt to bright. The sorrow you once played has swallowed what little soul you had left and there is nothing in your eyes but celestial darkness.”
I shoved her away not wanting to hear her painful words anymore. She knew me all to well, and to be sincere, it petrified me, terrified me enough to turn my face into an insipid hue. My eyes were sore, watering with anger, but I had a hard time figuring out whom I was exactly angry at.
I stared, vacantly, at the altar with its many candles. I began to step towards them, the woman watching, confused. As I approached I rode my hand slightly, waving it across the altar, knocking all the lit candles away, blowing them out simultaneously.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Stop destroying the temple!” Her voice creaked only once, her rage abiding, I grimaced at her.
I struck the cross off the altar and stared at it, stomping, breaking it in two. “You tell me to stop, but all I hear is solemn whispers saying you are not real. If you are real tell me how you know my name!” I yelled, trying to sound grave.
I gazed at the cross; on top a candle melting slowly as the flames devoured the wick. So many things had been fluttering through my mind, things that would take me a lifetime to explain. My eyes were flaming, blazing in a hot disaster waiting to descend from the stars. Each star crashing in the back of my retina was like a pin dropping on the floor.
She bowed her head. I could tell she had no idea what I felt, but in some instance knew what was wrong with me.
“Were you the one,” I said, “were you the one her healed me, were you the one who brought me back?”
“Indeed, my ladies and I consumed your injuries and filled you with the breath of life. And your name, that is for you to know later, now is not the time.”
“Now is the time! You play games with me! I detest you; I am disgusted at every inch of you!” What did she not understand? Her games were pathetic and her eyes were unsanitary, the dirty melancholy itself.
“It is not the time nor the place. Head to the center of the temple; your answer will be found there. When you arrive wash your hands in the basin provided. Consecrating yourself will make you welcome. Remove your sword; it is not welcome in the temple. Kneel at the altar and await an arrival.”
I shook my head, believing it all as nonsense. “What part of my words did you not understand? I loathe you. You make me ill. The way your eyes shift, the way you seem, as if everything is well.”
“If you want answers you will go.” At the instance, that very moment as I lifted my head, she had vanished. A feather fell, dropped to the floor unaccompanied. I closed my eyes, feeling somber. I shifted myself to the corridor in the temple, placed my hand on the hilt of my sword, bowed my head and walked.
I felt misplaced. I felt isolated from everything. My eyes shifted back and forth between the many artworks hanging from the wall, but the one that caught my eye enough o my time stand still was one portrayed of Hell. The agony of the men being tossed in a pit of fire, men lying on sharp blades of misery, some loosing their organs. As gruesome as it was, the painting was stunning, but still repulsive.

Can you imaginary being a shadow with no reason to exist? Can you imagine being a flame deprived of oxygen? I felt all like this.
I longed for the end of the hall. I was tensed, shivering. This woman frightened me in a way I could not explain. Not terrified as in shocked, or horror, but frightened as in curious, emotions racing over the back of your head. Perhaps I was just excited. I blinked.
There before me a golden enshrouded in haze appeared from nowhere. My rubbed my eyes, making sure I was not delirious. The knob was cold, freezing as icy as the winter’s war. Turning it slowly, I peered over the brim of the door. Inside lie as she had spoken. The basin stood a few feet before the altar. I stepped, ever so slightly to the bowl, slowly unbuckling my sword, removing my cloak and placing it beside me as I knelt before the basin. I rolled my sleeves up and dipped my hands into the balmy water. I cupped a handful and speckled it athwart my face. It felt fine on my skin, a sensation I might as well longed for. I stood and knelt again before the altar, bowing my head before the candles. Behind the lighted array I could see a statue of Mary and it shocked me to see blood streaking from her eyes. This had always appeared to be a myth of some sort, but as it goes she cries for suffering. Was she crying for me?
I turned my head at the footsteps lurking in the foyer. I continued to quickly remain bowing. The door opened and with a thunderous blow, closed. I could not hear any more clatter, so slowly I turned my head around and saw zilch. I took a deep breath, feeling relaxed that I could wait I bit more, but to my surprise as I turned to face the candle-lit altar, she was there. Her eyes were scorched on me, as if never to leave for a mere second. She waved her hand, motioning for me to arise. I stood; lowering me head back down, not wanting to look into her eyes.
She picked my hands up into her own, examining them. “You are purely clean. I am, how do you say, impressed? I have not seen anyone get this clean in awhile.”
I jolted my hands away and grimaced at her. “I came here for some answers, not for you to inspect my hygiene.”
“Hmm, you don’t seem interested in anything. You are just like him. Right, so you wished to know how I know your name. Amethyst, I know everything. I am the angel of logic.”
“I don’t appreciate jokes,” I said as I began to walk away. “Jokes are for those with no answer as you told me you had one.”
“This is not a joke, Amethyst. How do you think you survived that fall? How do you think you could all of the sudden be alive when you felt that much pain?”
I stopped, covering my face with one of my hands. “How do you know what that pain felt like? That pain was death. That pain was so unbearable everything I felt over time became all that pain lit ablaze. What could you possibly say to know what that pain felt like?”
“I was watching as you fell. I could see your eyes light up in fear weather you choose to believe that or not. This is reality not only in our eyes, but as clear as day in yours. It is not I who make decisions, but yours only to believe in what you ask.” Plain as she had said it made it more confusing than I could bear, her intolerable insults and so much more.