Crescent Moon

Chapter 4: Empty

Chapter 4: Empty

I sat there.

Legs hunched up to my chest, arms wrapped around my legs, holding myself together as I rocked back and fourth on the tarmac playground. How could I have let her slip away so easily? The dark blanket of midnights shadow blue covered the sky, as dark as the bleak loneliness that killed me softly. I'd lost the energy to cry. I'd lost the energy to move.

I looked up.

The moon refused to hide behind the clouds that would shroud it's glow, instead it beamed down into the park, into my lost soul. Raindrops fell past, cascading down and spattering against my tear stained cheeks.

It was hypnotizing.

I couldn't stay here any longer. I'd lost hope that the tree would suddenly appear back in the centre of the park with Summer skipping away from it and into my arms. I got onto my feet and followed moonlit path which led me into the forest.

I'd been here before with Summer, the memory made me smile slightly. It had been a leafy utopia with woodland creatures galloping through the mystic valleys, I remembered the faint smell of pine trees and pond weed, the brown leaves crunching under my trainers, the birds whistling sweet songs of autumn into my ears, the comforting shades of yellow, red and brown as we wondered through aimlessly.

It was different now

The trees were twisted and misshapen as the wind whistling violently, swaying them back and forth. The grey smoky clouds seemed to sweep the life out of the forest as they crept across the sky. The eerie chill in the air would have made a shudder tingle down my spine if I hadn't felt so numb. I kept moving, I couldn't stop, I didn't want to think about where I was going. The trees seemed creep closer till I felt the twigs reach out and scratch against my bare arms, ahead the tiny specks of moonlight shone through, only too be consumed by the monster, darkness.

The forest went on forever.

I suddenly couldn't bare to move anymore, to see anymore, to hear anymore, I dropped to the ground and let out a sob.

"Kellan" I cried

His name seemed comforting, warm. His name seemed like hope.

"Kellan" I sobbed again "I need you"

Then I fell flat on the ground, my face buried into earth which absorbed the last of my salty tears.

At some point that night I heard footsteps against the forest floor, dazed I looked up from my dreamless sleep.

Kellan lay next to me, stroking my face, pulling out leave entangled in my hair. I closed my eyes and reached for him and he cradled me in his arms, his cold hard chest welcoming as I lay my head against it.

''Kellan'' I whispered "She's gone"

"Shhh" He replied holding me close "Its ok, we'll find her, now get some rest"

I closed my eyes again; holding onto his shirt a he picked me up and carried me back through the forest. Where was he taking me? Home?

Then I remembered. I didn't have a home.