Starving for the sun

Maroon

There are dancing lights all around her. They flicker like stars and she wonders if they are.

And if she reaches out, lets her curiosity guide her movements, she’s so very sure that she would be able to touch them.

But she never gets the chance.

The world around her collapses like free falling sand, the lights freeze for a second of time before falling - no crashing like shooting stars from a force that yanks them down with no remorse. Colliding with waves of sand, sending sparks of fractured light flying as if they intend on stealing their spots in the sky.

She feels the crushing weight of a breath held hostage as thorns grow from the places of impact, sharp lines and deadly points and everything seems to darken. So many thorns, so many vines.

They twist and turn as if they have a mind of their own, as if they search for something. As if they need something.

She can't move. She can't breathe. She can only watch as the death of stars gives birth to something else entirely.

Something full of greed and anger, desperation.

Something that searches for a need unknown, an urge to ease the chaos.

Waves of sand crash against her calves, pushing her, tugging her. Every which way. But she can’t seem to move.

Not when she’s surrounded on all sides. Thick vines and sharp thorns thrash in what seems like distress, their movements frantic, helpless.

Then, then suddenly they pause, they stop. The waves still, the death of light halts.

There is silence, as if mimicking the calm before the storm. The eye of the hurricane.

And then she feels it. A warmth of a memory. So very close to the real thing, yet not quite there.

She glances down, turns her palm up and there is no surprise when the brightness, the warmth of the sun stains her skin. Bathes her in light as if she’s holy, as if she’s the center of everything.

A exhale breaks free and her eyes flutter a moment and her shoulders drop. She can breathe.

She turns her face up to the light, closes her eyes and basks in its warmth, in the ease of breathing under the echo of the sun.

Then the ground shakes, rumbles in protest and fear as vines and roots tear and break and push to move closer to where she stands.

Desperate things. As if starving for a touch of what she’s found, or more correctly what's found her.

They close in like sharks, a frenzy of movement all around her and she dare not open her eyes as the light fades away. Leaving her in an ocean of sand and thorns and broken stars.

.

.

.

Bella doesn't wake with a gasp of breath, doesn't bolt up like she wakes from a nightmare.

She merely opens her eyes to a darkness that has followed her from her dreams.

She wakes to a pressure behind her eyes and an ache that's seeped into her skull. To a blanket of heat and chilled air, a whirling of a fan sounds but she doesn't feel the breeze.

She blinks against the grogginess of her mind, furrows her eyebrows at the discomfort and turns to bury her face in the soft pillow under her head.

A long moment goes by before she peeks one eye open, her sight fuzzy as she glances at where she knows a glass of water sits on the nightstand, debating on reaching for it or not.