Thin Air

-- Prologue;

--of bristles and thorns...

""I marched through the trancing forest, the manipulated assortments of bright green leaves crunching chillingly beneath my feet. This -- place, yes, this place -- this was our punishment. This is what we earned from our years of taking our world's mercy for granted: the earth took itself back over. It made us the doormat. The defenseless, mute creature that took the bane of everyone's mistakes.

It freed itself from its years of strict bondage to us; it became wild again. It decided to refresh, to purge itself from the impurity that is mankind. It created this place, this horrifying, belittling place, to refresh the system. To undo everything that has been done. To start over. To give itself the life it deserved.

And, with that, the land masses grew, forming a massive, unruly chain of land, whilst turning what once were large water sources into small, overglorified creeks. Trees grew unlimitedly, lodging themselves into whatever unlucky soul stood in their way, as they tore down the monstrous buildings that had encroached on their landscape -- buildings that were once called homes. A word that may never be used again.

The trees were -- different. Organic, bubbly. They grew pointedly to the size of the skyscrapers they pushed down, reaching upwards for what felt like miles into the once-blue skies. The air felt different as well, more green, more natural. The way it should be. The way it was designed to be.

However, everything was also odd. The way the world held itself, everything seeping to the brim with green envy and contempt for the life forms that had proven themselves as unworthy tenants, envy for the way the world had once been. Envy of Eden.

The return to nature's reign didn't come unaccompinied, as we soon realized. Old, rustic myths and superstitions came back to life, soon inhabiting the land that incased us. They lurked around every bend. Chasing us. Killing us, simply for the fun of it. Simply to provide us with the horrible, slow death that we all deserved for our sins to the gracious, green gifts we were given.

My eyes glared out dimly from under their dark curtains, peering around every passing tree -- waiting for something to happen. Quiet is nice, rejuvenating, even, but it is also the worst sound you could ever hear when you're in inevitable, unforeseeable danger.

How I missed the sounds of birds housing noisy small talk from within their petite homes, the sound I had underappreciated all this time, the sound that had left us as a form of torment. As a form of punishment for not realizing what we had rolling in the palms of our hands all this time.

It saddened me to think that the world I knew was gone, but its void brought within me some dull, misguided sense of hope that the next generation of tenants would know nothing of what was once here. That they could stay on the path for which they were groomed, so that they wouldn't fall into the same pit-holes that we had. So that the world would revolve around love and respect, not money.

Ironic, in a sense. The only green thing we cared about was our currency.

I was drawn back into reality as the second set of footsteps that traveled with me in the static of what was left soon slowed, and began to fall softer, calling my attention to Beethoven. His soft, portly face fell under my glance, his eyes widening into a look of fear. The poor boy was haunted with nightmares, leaving him with horrible, dark wrinkles settling under his once-bright, blue eyes. The same, baby blue that clothed the eyes of our mother. He gripped the hem of his shirt, as he released his inhaler from within his pocket. I began to avoid his gaze, I couldn't see him afraid anymore.

The monster in his dreams, that was far worse than anything the end could provide for a twelve year old.

My attention was yet again lured to him as he broke a stick heavily underfoot. He opened his mouth timidly, before deciding to swallow his voice. He rarely spoke, at least not after what he'd seen. His soft, curly blond hair grew out into timid ringlets at his neck, as his mouth always seemed to be tinged into a discontented frown. He had certainly lost some of his baby weight from being on the run so long, his legs and arms concerningly thin with a small amount of muscle strung close to his bones, affecting almost every aspect of him, excluding his face. Freckles dotted his pudgy complexion, giving him a look of innocence that this world didn't deserve.