My eyes widened, but instead of tears, blood spilled through them. It was a mixture of sweat and hot, salty tears which filled my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I gasped loudly, unable to stop my crying, while the images of my past continued flashing through my brain. Memories of the day my father and my mother died, the memories were torturing me, burning me alive, tearing apart everything that was left in my memory, burning me until nothing but ash could be seen. I clenched my teeth tightly to keep from screaming. I clenched my teeth so tightly that my nails cut into my skin, drawing blood. Pain shot through my hands and arms as my fingernails pierced my palms repeatedly, drawing blood.
But the pain didn't bother me. I welcomed it. The pain kept me awake. I felt alive, alert, and aware. Like my head was cleared like my senses were heightened like I was more alert than I had ever been before. The pain gave me a sense of clarity. It allowed me to focus my vision on things around me, to take in every sensation, to remember everything I remembered, just so I wouldn't forget anything ever again.
Everything around me was moving, and the ground beneath me was shaking. The flowers around me were dying, dying slowly, like the leaves of autumn decaying. I couldn't tell where they were dying or why. I knew that they were dying because I sensed it in the air, I knew that they were dying because, without the flowers, without those beautiful, colorful, sweet flowers, this place would be dark. I could hear the wind rustling in the trees, I could see the snow falling lightly and covering the ground. But all I could smell were the roses. Their scent was stronger here, stronger than everywhere else in the universe. I could hear it whispering against my ears, wrapping itself around me, caressing my skin. It was the most wonderful sound I've ever heard.
All around me, plants that were previously covered in snow were now dead and withered. Their petals were no longer red, their branches were bare. I watched them in slow motion as if the earth itself was trembling in front of me, waiting to crumble to pieces underneath my feet. This scene didn't seem real. Everything seemed unreal, almost impossible. As if the flowers and the earth were nothing more than dreams or illusions. But this dream was real and terrifying.
I could feel my heart beating harder than ever before in my chest. I was running, walking, jumping, running, running... It was the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline that woke me and brought me back into reality. But then it all started happening again. The images flashed around me once more, filling my mind. The flowers died, their branches withering away, turning into black ashes, falling, burying themselves beneath the snow. The snow fell, covering the whole forest, covering the sky, covering everything it touched. The snow froze, the ice crystals forming, sticking firmly to everything they touched. Trees were frozen, frozen in their place, unmoving, not even budging an inch.
It was winter. It was the season of rebirth, the season of new beginnings when life was reborn and new life came into existence. When the world was reborn. The seasons were always different and the seasons lasted forever. Even though I hadn't been born yet, and my memories were still very much fresh, I could tell that I should know what time of year it was. Or at least I thought I should, but that moment passed, leaving me confused and confused as to where I was. Where was I exactly? I looked around, searching for some sign of my location. I searched for any hint to tell me where I was, whether or not I lived somewhere within this vast expanse of space and time, but I saw nothing. No sign of life. Just space and time, endless space and infinite time, stretched out around me, all around me, and there was nothing else. Not a trace of anything else. Not even a drop of water. Nothing existed except the cold darkness surrounding me, surrounding everything me. I had to find a reason, something familiar. Something I could understand. Something that would allow me to recognize the places around me. I closed my eyes, concentrating hard, thinking hard, searching for a clue that would explain it all to me. And suddenly, all at once, I realized that there was something I understood. There was something that made this place look familiar to me, something that led me to know that, wherever and whenever this place was, it was not my birthplace. That it belonged to someone else. Someone whose name I didn't quite know. Someone who had forgotten it had forgotten about it. And yet, this place remained the same. I recognized it, despite having lived it so many times already. Even as I opened my eyes and looked around, searching for any signs that might help me know where I actually was and how I got here, I still couldn't see anything to suggest that it had changed. Nothing. Only endless void. My eyes swept over the landscape of the landscape, trying to find any sign of familiarity anywhere, even in the middle of nowhere. But all that I found were endless white. Snow, snow, snow. Everywhere I looked, I was met with the same sight. Snow. Nothing more than snow.
