When Silver Met Gold

Prologue

"When it's dark enough, you can see the stars." -Persian Proverb

I felt as if my body was filled with smoke. She ran with no idea where she was going, like a ship without a set course. She sprinted as fast as she could, lungs burning and legs aching.

This is the only way to get the smoke out of my system. Running from the darkness inside her by running through the night outside, her fingers trembling, and her heart soaring. Terrified and alone.

She was alone too... She lived alone like you would... died alone like you will if you stay on this path, just like her.

She grew tired, her legs dangerously close to giving out and buckling from the exertion. No, I have to keep running, she thought to herself. I have to run to quench this thirst. I have to let this smoke out, or... I won't be able to breathe, and I'll suffocate within the confines of my body.

She tripped and fell, but she got up and continued to run. Her elbows are bruised, and her ankle had been twisted many times, but her feet didn't stop slapping the ground in defiance to its harshness.

No one to watch, no one to call for help. Her thoughts faltered before she let her mind drift to a darker place. But there's no one to hurt me anymore.

She started panting harder and running as if death is on her heels now, a shadow inching, climbing up her leg, slowly-- just like it happened to her...

Her lungs burned, her chest feeling an inextinguishable fire due to the shortage of breath. Her brown hair whipped around her and stuck to her sweaty face, making it difficult for her to see, her eyes blurry.

No moonlight to guide her. She looked up at the sky and immediately fell to her knees, losing the illusion of actually hoping to reach the destination, even though she didn't know where exactly she was heading. Kneeling, she felt the sudden urge to see a beautiful sky, filled with shining stars, filling her being with serenity. The urge is hope, a prayer for things to get better.

"Why!?" she roared in pain, her inner demon free with its claws numbing her aching heart. "Why doesn't my sky have any stars?! Why is there no light?! Why?! Why! WHY?!"

A girl cried with swollen eyes in the middle of an empty road. She sat surrounded by the towering shadows of trees, shading her from whatever light that may have gotten through. In the deep hours of the night, she stayed there under the impression that nobody was watching her.

But who knows? Someone might be watching.

The one who watched everyone. He, who was always listening, every second of every day and all the time in between.

Some said he was "from above" or "from the skies.", while others said, "He is always with you," Some even believed, "He is in you if only you just seek."

She agreed with no one.

But who knows? She was the one, for He was commanding His angels, telling them to fill her life with all the happiness she desired, bestow upon her the light she sought, and return to her the hope she lost long ago.

Her head hurt from all the conflicting thoughts. Her voice was caught in her throat. The wind chilled her tears, making them freeze to her cheeks as her knees ached from kneeling on the hard charcoal road.

Feeling a certain weight lifted off her shoulders, after crying to the point that there were no tears left, she stood up and folded her arms around her shivering body. The biting wind decorated her skin with goosebumps. Teeth chattering, whimpers escaping, she wondered: What now?

She made her way back home, where she knew nobody was waiting for her.

She didn't look up again because she knew there wouldn't be any stars.

She never looked up and never got the chance to see the twinkling stars that were waiting for her to raise her chin and see their shining faces, beaming with the light she so desperately sought from them.

She never looked up, so she never knew the clouds had parted in her portion of the sky to reveal those shining stars, cutting through the dark like a blade, aiming to give her hope.

She never looked up.