Words of Death-Alternate ending, Farenhiet 451

Words of Death

He was crushed by darkness and the look of the country and the million odors on a wind that iced his body. He fell back under the breaking curve of darkness and sound and smell, his ears roaring.

It was too loud, he wanted to escape. He thought about death, the peace, the escape from the ferocity of knowledge that was crowding his mind. The roaring water pushed him down and pulled him along like a puppet on life's string.

He clawed for the surface. Air! Air! he screamed in his mind. Air escaped his lungs just like the words of the books he clung to. He felt he was nearing death, salvation, the end of the line, when suddenly he broke to the surface near a shore. He gasped for life and crawled to the land. He saw a dark forest in front of him, then his thoughts invaded his mind..

He would not give into peace. He would fight to survive. He had to survive. If not for himself then for the books and the words and the discovery they brought. He had to tell somebody what he had learned. He needed a confession. He needed to let go of this pain of the excruciating, appalling knowledge. So, he stood up. He staggered at first, but then started to walk toward the forest.

Montag was alone. He was only comforted by the chirping of the crickets and his dripping wet clothes. Montag reminisced about Clarisse and Faber, the people who are so philosophical in their beliefs. Clarisse, the girl who stole his mask and Faber, who made him a new mask. Oh, how Montag missed them. They had opened his eyes to the truth of reality.

Snap. Montag stepped on a twig. Had something heard him? The trees were quiet. The crickets were quiet. He looked around,turning and turning, looking for something to hear, to listen to. The dark trees and the cloudy night sky blended together, like a whirlpool of darkness. He was spinning and spinning. Chirp. The crickets had started again. The noise had started again. Montag stopped turning. He tried to listen to where it was coming from, but he couldn't focus on anything. He missed the noises: the crackling from Mildred's seashells, the jets roaring across the black sky. Now all was silent. Montag had made everything silent. He had read those books. He had burned Beatty. He had run away only to survive and carry on the knowledge that can change people.

Montag walked through the forest and into the night, through the branches that teared at his clothes and pulled him back and the mud that pulled him down. He would not give up. He would walk a thousand miles if only he could tell someone that the power behind knowledge could tear someone apart. He had to tell someone what he had done and seen. It was tearing apart his mind. He wanted to let go. The fire, the words, and what they had done, what they had made him do. He was tired, so tired keeping all the knowledge to himself. He was hiding the words in the back of his mind like prisoners that had committed a terrible crime and were trying to persuade the guards to let them go.

He kept walking forward. Forward. The only direction he could go. Forward meant finding a new life and new people, a feeling of elation. Montag walked through the dark forest, with trees whispering and yellow eyes following him.

He brushed past a branch and stood in front of a gigantic oak tree. The branches stretched out toward the sky. Toward the rising sun. The sky was filled with purples, oranges, and yellows illuminating the tree, like a solitary person, standing out with their arms reaching upwards trying to catch the beautiful colors.

Montag laid at the bottom of the tree and looked up again. He fell asleep thinking of the sinking sun that had stained the black sky with its colors.

When Montag awoke he looked around, stood up and looked again at the oak tree. It was now bathed in the lights of the rising sun. He walked around the tree and kept walking forwards. The trees were now dark green and whistling in the wind, the leaves and pinecones knocking together in the breeze. He stepped over twigs and logs and came across a river.