eldia

12 | leap of faith

Jean couldn't remember falling asleep. It seems like he could never recall falling asleep nowadays.

The last thing he remembered was sitting down on the log beside you as you both stared into the fire. What was it you were talking about again? His dad?

He lifts one lazy eye open and it takes a moment for his irises to adjust to the bright morning light.

He shades his sensitive eyes from the sun and realizes he's asleep on the grass. Your velvet cape was laid out on top of him.

He sits up and rubs at his eyes and then looks around for you. "Princess?"

But you're no where to be found. He does an entire 360 and there's not a single sign of you. He begins to panic even more when he sees all your stuff is where you left it too.

[play Let Go by Ark Patrol here]

He jumps up on his feet, stars clouding his vision for a second when he gets up too fast and his heart beats a million times faster. "Yn?" He calls out this time slightly louder.

Nothing.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" He curses himself. He looks both ways, back where you originally came from and onward to where you were supposed to go. He had no idea which way you went.

"YN!" He screams louder, much more desperate this time, his hand cupped around his mouth.

Then suddenly, his ears pick up the sound of the most relieving voice. "Jean!"

"Yn?!" He calls back, your name echoing through the forest. He didn't even bother to disguise the massive relief in his voice.

"Jean! Come here, hurry!" You scream back. He could tell now that you went backwards down the path the two of you were traveling down.

He doesn't hesitate to take off running as he followed the sound of your voice.

He ran as fast as he could. So fast that it felt his lungs would collapse along with his legs. The more steps he took, the more his mind conjured up horrid images of you in a situation where you need to be yelling for help like you are now.

He didn't know what he'd find when he finally caught up to you. Would you be tied up? Would you have a gun to your head? Would you be bleeding out on the verge of your last breath?

After what felt like hours of running, he finally catches up to you and you're neither tied up nor bleeding out. Instead, you're seated on the floor with your hands on the ground and back toward him.

He leans forward, both hands on his knees and tries to calm his hectic breathing. "You scared the hell out of me, are you okay?"

You don't say anything so he stands straight again and that's when it hits him.

Everything around you, everything around him...

Was incredibly beautiful.

The same forest that was half dead and abandoned from a recent battle was now alive and thriving.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR2s4cQn/?k=1

The trees were a vibrant pure green color and looked as if they were breathing with the wind. The grass underneath him was just as soft and full of moisture.

It was like the land had never once been touched by the human hand. A forest that lost half of its trees in a war and that once had churned, crisp grass was now fully recovered. It seemed like today was its very first day in this world.

If he had to visual the garden of eden, he'd picture it like this.

If you told him that this exact location was a depressing battleground just yesterday, he wouldn't believe it. But he had saw it with his own eyes, he saw how it looked the exact opposite of what he was looking at now.