Delicate Pulse | Violentine

Splinters

"AJ?"

The leaves are crisp under my feet, crunching on impact. The forest stretches in front of me, lasting forever. I duck under overgrown moss and vines draping over low branches and hop over fallen logs. Dirt flicks into my face and I blink erratically to prevent it from landing into my eyes. There's moisture lingering in the atmosphere, growing thicker as time passes. I have to hurry.

"AJ? Where are you?"

I'm not sure which one of us is lost, for one minute he was here and the next he was gone. The ghost of his absence makes me feel ill, haunting me and sending a chill up my spine. I'm searching high and low to find his smile, to hear his contagious laughter and his questions that he has over every little thing. It's what I need right now. It's what I long for.

I greet a cross-section, many paths sprawling out and circling one huge tree. Its rich roots planted deep within the soil and its height soaring past the clouds. It looms but not in a threatening way, more like a friendly giant taking an afternoon snooze. I see something inside it. There's an opening slit down the bottom, a glint of silver-white, a glimmering flame alone in a dark hollow trunk. Could that be him?

I ran to it, shimmering through the gap sideways to push myself through. The light was not AJ but instead something tremendously more astonishing. The amount of space here was invisible from the outside, it's like I've just stepped into a wooden banquet hall and this hall was filled with crystals.

Theses crystals are clinging to thin strands of string, linking them to the ceiling, hanging like ordainments. Cool tones and warm, the sunlight seeping in through the cracks of the stump illuminate these colours. They bounce around, lighting up the darkness with a twinkling rainbow. It's memorising, hypnotic even. I reach up and knock them, hearing them clatter together and tingle like a huge wind chime.

I notice the bigger ones with engravings of single letters on them. I squint to find more. As I tiptoe around I can see the letters beginning to line up, forming words. Once I'm standing directly in line with the sun, with only the crystals blocking temporary blindness, I can read the message presented to me.

Blurry vision, delicate pulse. These reveries are devoted to you.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Clem," Brody sniffs, nudging me awake. "You slept through the alarm."

I leap out of bed with a bang and scramble for a pen and paper. I snatch an old biology pamphlet with the elemental table on it and flip it over. I swipe the marker Brody always keeps in her blazer pocket. She exclaims in shock. "Hey!"

I ignore her. I have to write it down. That phrase, poem, whatever it was, it had to have meant something. I scribble it and hold it in front of me to read again in my head, repetitively. They are staring at me, including Violet, who has a horrible case of bed head this morning. I must look crazy to them, jumping around like a maniac. I cough and stretch, creasing the message in half. "Thanks," I say, chucking the marker back at her.

Brody fumbles with it before tucking it back where it belongs. She smooths out her blazer before making a flustered exit. Ever since I told Louis off, Brody has kept her distance. We have conversations now and then but they're simple, never progressing beyond the topic of lunch or what we learnt in classes. I can tell I've offended or hurt her feelings in some way but it's better off this way, not just for her sake but for everyone. It's been strangely peaceful for weeks now, deemed strange because I'm always anticipating havoc. Another argument, another misunderstanding or incident. I get the shit-eating and teasing smirk from her occasionally but Minerva hasn't attempted to stir the pot. She barely acknowledges me nowadays, maybe that's her way of torturing me. Honestly, I'd rather suffer silently then make anyone else hate me.