Reflected sorrows

Chapter 38

She sat for a moment, a crimson-tinted shadow falling over the two sufferers; it at first ticked along, a melody of regret and ineffable remorse that lingered within the shadows in glistening light – the light that expanded the shadow like an insidious hand, constantly gazing upon the lake of shadow and sending a protruding claw across the water, extending the merry go round and mocking those who lay chained to it – just another moment as a beast crept up and the cruel glare throbbed like a flame – it sometimes flickered but it sometimes melted away into a vile river of life that never seemed to end, but choke out light that simply expanded the shadow. Simply the silence that filled the cracks, phlegmatic to the winds that blew or the cloak of a foreboding hand. It always stayed even when the storm tossed a tree, with crimson and amber blood cascading in torrents among the scarlet fangs of rain. Or perhaps they were just reminders that every book has an end – a journey of mottled flame and smoke; one that reigned shadows. A whisper of brooding storm flew in grace and cleared the shadow, silencing it.

"You're still here. He has you within His reach. Why do you not walk away? Why does your spirit linger?" The rasping voice was sinister, sharps and flats scattered throughout dissonance; stale dissonance. It was a rehearsed torture of words spoken simply like the last roses to fall as the walls of the ancient theatre crumble and recoil, the facade perishing with a last breath of disdain; one last breath through this suffocating mask. Just one more – it was always just one more. Just one more glimpse of the shadow that glinted; just one more glimpse at the ashes – or perhaps they were just the hair of the perishing souls, bound by the chains of their own creation; but no. That urn as it shattered; she could feel the shards of reality piercing her skin then, the urn's viper of ash writhing against her voice as she spoke. "I tried; I'm sorry." But the webs of this malady are infectious – an attempt to escape brings upon you anguish of the fallen widow. And the knives may cut you, but the webs will silence you like a crow's wing. Flee my little dove, flee, flee, flee. It will find you. You know it will. As it did them.

She saw the glinting shards, gazing upon them with ardent tranquillity despite the storm that burned above, crows picking at the flesh of the innocent and at times raining down to scrape the edges of the world and send one into a bout of trembling madness that echoes through every universe – every reality. They seemed tranquil, splinters of rain cascading through a maze of labyrinthine thoughts. A strange feeling to feel the air thicken in your hands, feeling like fabric, a veil of grief – but one torn by the shards of praise; those reminders that time still ticks by, and the hand of that clock will quiver within the lapping tongue of the hellhound; the evil chases those innocent doves, and vengeance turns the rain, simply ashes of crows and doves as they fell, to a war; palpable. And that that flame within is weak – no trundling horse, no steed of sure-footed pride, simply a cowering white feather. But surely, they're simply splinters as the cast flee and the play turns to a collapsing set; slowly, surely, the edges blur – great seams torn by the hellhounds held above and their claws. She saw for a moment the shadows of memory, shards of joy beneath the ground – they reached their bloody hands from above and they too felt the air, emerging in a great cloud of sound and life – but for mere moments before something within stirred, and they felt too the palpable war, tension lingering in a breath of wind. And they recoiled. They felt the needles, the glinting splinters in the air tearing down what they were once part of – casting the costumes, facades of joy and prospering livelihoods, full of woe then wavering to a dim light within a smile. They were torn by those growling, quailing, grotesque claws and their skirts were torn to mere threads and seams, full of eyes – a murmur of a shadow that was mixed with the dreary hand of a clock looming over the figure, lonesome and weary, upon the swing. It morphed between laughing nightmares and shivering wakefulness and yet seemed a comforting pendulum of swinging axes. It stirred the whispering spirits, made them restless, and perhaps filled the silence and conflicting fabrics of the air with a sense of life.