Shatter

Chapter 23: Burnt Rose

"Hey." 

"Who are you?" I asked. 

"I'm Carmen. Luna's dead friend." 

"Oh," I said. "I see."

The girl nodded. "I wanted to visit you in your dream, just to tell you some things." 

"Go ahead." I replied. 

Carmen held up a rose. It was a beautiful one: one from Aeluin. Specifically, from my village: Xavre. The rose was the colour that was set perfectly between purple, pink, blue, and black. Carmen held up a match, and struck it. She put it gently to one petal of the rose. "Everyone's beautiful at a time," she murmured. The rose started to burn. "And roses are afraid of fires like everything else, aren't they?" More petals of the rose started to blacken as it burned. "They were beautiful before meeting their Fear. And now, look," Carmen held the rose up to me. The whole rose was burnt. Yet it hadn't fallen to pieces, to ashes, not yet. "And now it's met its Fear. And it's burnt, ain't it?" Smoke trailed off from the flower. "It's burnt. It's hurt. And it'll never be the beauty it was before. Yet," she said, gently putting a finger to the rose. It didn't fall apart. "It's not broken, not yet. Correct? But if I burn it again, it'll fall apart. It applies to everyone. You can get hurt once, for example, getting cut by a knife. And then, the next time you see a knife, you'll be cautious with it. But if you get cut by the knife again, you'll get hurt even more because the wound hasn't healed yet. The rose will get more hurt and fall apart next time a fire touches it. But the rose can't stop a fire. It's the same way a human simply cannot stop being afraid. So after a while, it'll stop worrying about the consequences, and the rose will accept that fires happen." Carmen struck the match again, and the fire burned again, brighter than ever. She touched it to the rose. This time, the flower fell to ashes at Carmen's feet. "Fires happen. So do Fears. You can't really destroy them, Zephyr. You just have to let them happen, and let them drift away. Everyone needs to know, including Luna. Luna can't do it alone." She paused. "Let the Fear drift away. The remaining of the rose is smoke. The smoke will be the Fear. Because the fire doesn't have anything to attack, anymore. Do you understand, Zephyr? Accept it, and know it'll attack you. Then it can't frighten you anymore." Then, she was gone.