Nothing But Ashes #LWC2015

Chapter Two

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I would never fall for another woman ever again. At least, that is the lie I chanted in my mind until it became second nature. Despite my vow, there were many times I tried. But no matter what woman I saw, or what country she lived, what language she spoke, no matter what happened, my walls would not allow anyone else in. The walls only grew more as the years continued. The bitterness seeped its way inside until it became a darkness that blackened my soul.

I remained in slavery for the next two hundred years. It was not until 12 B.C. that I managed to escape, only by pure luck. I traveled to Jerusalem and it was there I witnessed many things in the next two decades that brought hope back into my life. In the year 27 A.D, I returned to my homeland, China. I worked there, and eventually I could have been happy.

For years, I thought she had died. It was hard, but eventually I thought I could grieve and move on. I saw her for the second time in my life after I had returned from my service in the army, which had been required. I became a work-laborer on a poor farm in the rice fields in the country. She was the farmer's daughter and at that point, she was sixteen years old. I learned that a strange man had brought her to them when she was just a baby. They wanted a child, so desperate that they were even willing to take a girl at a time when it was more honorable to have a boy. At the age of four, like any other girl in the country, her feet were bound, making them deformed as she grew older.

I tried to ignore the feelings that welled up inside me when I saw her again. I wondered if she knew who I was, if she remembered me. But when she gazed at me, I knew in seconds that she did not recognize me. It was inevitable that we fell for one another once again. Despite that somehow Tarik changed her looks, she was still the same determined, compassionate woman she had always been.

And just like before, she turned to ash.

It was not until later that I discovered she was not dying and coming back to life. If only it were that simple, or easy.

No, Tarik cast a much darker spell on her. Like with me, he controlled her time, only instead of freezing it, as he did mine, he continuously reversed it, making her an infant again. It forced her to regrow, to relearn, with a new family and a new life. The spell naturally erased her memories, so the only life she knew, was the new one he placed her into.

I traveled around China, hoping to escape Tarik, but somehow he always found me. Sometimes it was sixteen years before I saw her again, other times it was a little less or a little more. Sometimes she fell in love with me, and other times she didn't. There were even a few when she hated me. I was more than okay with that, hoping her hatred would mean that she could continue to grow and become an adult.

That was not the case. It did not matter if she loved me or hated me; Tarik still reversed her time. I spent decades trying to figure out if there was a pattern to when her time would reverse, but there was none. There were a few times that we touched. The first time our hands briefly touched sent shivers down my spine. We did not hold hands until fifty years after that. After Tarik took her from me that time my hands felt too empty without hers. There were some times I got to tell her I love you before Tarik took her from me, and yet in others the first time I looked her in the eyes was when he took her.

I could never predict when she Tarik would reverse her time, because there was no pattern or reason behind it. Tarik did whatever he could to make my life nothing but sorrow. What friends I made he killed. The family I once had as a child was long-sense dead. Anyone new I met, whether friend or acquaintance, they would lose everything they held dear before he would kill them as well. There were times he killed her entire family, leaving her completely alone, and afraid. The moment I brought her comfort, was the moment he reversed her time once again.

Eventually, I stopped trying to get to know anyone. I stopped trying to make new friends, and I accepted that my life would be spent alone, outside of the brief moments I got to spend with her.

Once I left Japan in 551 A.D, I sailed back to China, hoping Tarik wouldn't follow me. He did. I began ignoring her and pushed my feelings back, hoping that hiding them would prevent Tarik from continuously reversing her time.

We were in southern China, and it was her twentieth birthday. Her father was a rich merchant. He was slightly more lenient than other patriarchs, and threw her a huge celebration to honor the event. The moon was high in the sky, with the stars twinkling overhead when I finally had a moment to pull her away. We found a secluded spot at the edge of a small pond in the back of her father's property. Because of her deformed feet, I helped her walk to the edge of the pond, where we sat down on a stone bench.

"You seem to be in high spirits tonight, Ju-long."

I smiled at her, gently tracing the outline of her jaw with my finger. "It is your birthday, Shu. Of course I am in high spirits."

She nearly leaned into my touch.

I pulled my hand away.

She leaned her head back and looked up at the sky with an awestruck expression.

I watched her closely and could not help but smile at her.

"I love the stars. There is something about them that is so alluring. They are so far away, and yet they give us light and beauty," she murmured softly.

I glanced at the stars. "They are stunning."

She giggled and glanced at me. "Ju-long, it is cute to see you try to be poetic."

I shook my head. "I was not trying to be poetic!"

She nodded, laughing. "You were!"

"No," I said, though I was laughing with her.

She stopped laughing and just stared at me with a smile on her face. I met her dark brown eyes with my own and took in the moment. I took in everything about her; the curve of her cheekbones, the twinkle in her eyes, the arch of her eyebrows, the stray hairs that the wind had blown out of the way it was bound. "I am drawn to them. They make me feel so tiny and insignificant, and yet... I cannot help but wish I could stay under them forever." She closed her eyes and there was a peace on her face as she felt the coolness of the breeze caress her face.

I longed to put my arms around her, but I stayed frozen where I was. I settled with only watching her, and allowed the peace of the moment to bring me into a moment of happiness with her.

As I had learned, all happiness comes to an end.

I looked away from her and gazed back up at the beauty of the stars. They were the only witness to the pain down below.