Blood Moon

Chapter Five - An Exploration

Nina was still holding her hand.

For years, Lilo watched them hold the still body but it got boring. Something like her hand stretched into the universe, it plucked a string and time rang out.

The world went black. Originally her soul just darted around the clearing, hopping on the flowering mushroom heads. Then tenderly, she burrowed into the ground, enjoying the coolness as she stretched through the roots. How far could she go?

Her soul spread out. Then, realising, the potential of this vast network that was both her and not her, she ran. To her tree, which gently greeted her. To the garden of her house, the park. The network stretched further still though...

Her soul now stretched so thin, it became threads and so she shuddered as the Earth knocked into each one. Full of pure ecstasy she continued skipping into the unknown. She was on top of a mountain, perched in the crack of a rock. People passed, their movements lasting only moments now. At some point she had lost her grip on time.

Did it matter? There was so much to see. She blossomed and spores escaped filling the night sky. They would land and once they had grown old like her they would tell their own stories. The wait would not be long.

Lilo had never been more than five miles out of her town, had never really needed to. Now though, now this almost Lilo has been everywhere. Curiosity swelled inside her, pulsed through the mycelium and hundreds of questions fought for an audience. What is underneath the ocean? Why do the same creatures not visit me? Who am I now? How did I come to be?

Something else was in this place with her and it took the opportunity to speak.Now darling, don't get ahead of yourself. You came to be in an entirely boring way. Screaming, if I remember rightly. How did I come to be though? Would you like me to show you?

She tried to nod but realised she had no neck, or at that no head to do such a thing with. Then grimacing she tried to speak and met the exact same problem. It was hard to feel terrified without a heart to beat but she managed that at least.

Where was she? Pieces pooled together and she reached for them. Her almost hands grasped onto the fragments of her soul but they slipped like soap. Then broke into grains of sand which flew in the wind in any direction but her.

Where was she? She searched the oceans, the sky, the earth but she had been everywhere. Time which had seemed to stretch infinitely, convulsed and spluttered.

Where was she? When the dinosaurs fell, a piece of Lilo hid under a rock. A greek had picked and fried her. She had been tasty. Another time Lilo had been the poison for a king. A love potion, a mighty medicine.

In other words, Lilo was lost.

Why so quiet? No worries I will tell you anyway.