Buttercup

Chapter 4: Loss and Receiving

Chapter 4: Loss and Receiving

Fourth is crouching on the rock by the nocturnal river, his head buried under his folded arms.

Timeless storms are raging inside him and he can't think straight.

His life has only once taken a turn that overwhelmed him like this. His child soul felt the unconditional love of his mother and was finally buried when she was taken from him.

Since then, Fourth had learned to regulate his own feelings. He knew the word love, but was not ready to allow the scope of its emotional seas. The only force that love allowed him was the infinite spheres of nature.

An openness to the spiritual cycle of life and death.

Loss and receiving.

Only in harmony with nature could Fourth allow the power of love.

A harmony flowed in his veins and no worldly feeling overwhelmed his battered soul.

'Please calm down at last!' he whimpers in his hiding place, "Let the sound of the river calm you!" he tries to focus his perception on the outside.

But he fails at every attempt to regulate these feelings of loss.

His mind is filled with moments and images.

They swirl wildly around each other and create deep vortices in the sea of emotions.

He sees Gem.

How they embrace each other.

How he hears his heartbeat on his chest.

His words and his gentle touches.

He feels Gem so deeply and clearly in his soul.

His senses remember and he suffers agonies when diving into this dangerous sea of human emotions.

He can smell him.

He can smell the scent of his friend.

The warm scent of security floats in Fourth's soul and he still feels the big hands that gently comforted him that night last summer.

Everything collapsed.

Every fortress.

Every control.

Fourth met Gem and lost himself completely.

And now the punishment of loss presents itself to him again.

Again.

He is being pulled down into this deep sea of feelings.

And no force of nature can save him.

This pain, when he sees Gem with Pride.

What nature may have created as a perfect symbiosis makes Fourth's guts boil over and race.

He feels himself burning and the rage overwhelms every fibre of his body.

He has never felt such a dark feeling.

No violence, no monster had ever made him feel like this.

Otherwise, cool composure rules.

Fourth always floated above this sea and the wind swept away every deep emotion.

That's how scary love is for Fourth.

But when Gem came into his life, he just jumped into the depths with him and is now drowning because he thinks he's going to lose him.

And that makes Fourth so furious for the first time in his life.

'I don't want to be angry with you!' he growls mentally, "You just got involved with a girl!" he seeks his inner balance, "That's your right!" Images of betrayal flash through his mind again, "You like the way she adores you!" he presses his lips tightly together and clenches his fists, 'What is wrong with me?' his desperate sound rings out at the river of life, 'Why do I feel this way?' he doesn't understand himself, 'I don't want these feelings for you,' his tears simply run in the sound of the rippling water.