? ⊙ ? ⊙ ?

  I am dead. I am certain of that.

  But I didn't really know you could think and open your eyes after being dead. My eyes open to a blur of dark blue right before my sight. I can still feel myself breathing in a slow rhythm. I can still smell the comforting scent of land after the rain. It's good. And it has always made me feel alive.

  Except for now when i am supposed to not exist anymore, it feels uncomfortable.

  My sight settles and I can make out what I am looking at now, clouds, dark....heavy with moisture but they are all dark blue. I have seen dark clouds before, I have loved them. For some reason they also make me feel alive. Everything that makes myself whole is present right before me and I don't even know whether this is reality or not. Is this the heaven humanity glorifies and prays for? Or is this the real face of hell? The real face which gives you everything you have ever wanted until you lose your mind over what's an illusion and what's a salvation?

  I exhale a long breath. I try to sit up, expecting pain to appear again at any moment but surprisingly nothing hurts anymore. I remember my ankles being twisted, I remember my wrist getting dislocated, I remember the claw tearing through my back, yet right now nothing hurts...which is weird. So I am really dead. Because pain is only meant for the people whose souls still follow them everywhere they go.

  Straightening up I am met with a very familiar surrounding. My house's garden, a place where I have spent most of my childhood in. A place where I have cried more than laughed in. A place tied to so many memories that my mind has a special place for it. But right now it is different, everything is in a shade of blue, comforting blue.

  Wind caresses my skin and there is a very faint angelic hum in its whistle. I close my eyes to focus on that that melody. A memory flashes upon me and I realise that I have been here in this peaceful blue world before.

  Yes, I remember now, I have had this dream before. When I was a kid. So this is all a dream?

  The memory fades away just as quickly as it flashed when i hear my name wishpered instead of the pleasing melody this time.

  "Ariyene"

  I open my eyes to see a beautiful woman standing before me. Her skin is pale like moonlight, her hair is also blue and it appears like a waterfall, her eyes, however, are all white but for some reason those attract me the most.

  The woman walks closer to me, gracefully and confident in way that sends a pang of terror through me. I can't move and now her beauty is starting to terrify me.

  "Are you scared, sweetheart?" Her voice pierces through my skull. It is soft. It is convincing. It is unlike anything I have ever heard before. There's an echo in her voice that only seems to ring in my ears.

  "Who are you?" My voice finds itself before I could as she firmly places her hand on either side of my face. Her hands are warm but then they suddenly turn cold and I snap into my senses. "Who are you? Where am I?" I ask again, stepping out of her touch.

  She chuckles and I fight my mind not to spiral. The whole concept of her seems to be luring me and that sounds like a very bad idea right now.

  "I am whatever you want me to be, darling. And as for where you are, you are in your own headspace, something you created without even realising." She answers, smiling softly and staring right through me with those lifeless eyes. My own headspace? The one I created? And what does she mean she is whatever I want her to be?

  My voice is quieter now as I speak, looking down and avoiding her gaze as much as I can, "A place I created? I don't....understand. I am dead, aren't I?"

  She lifts my chin. She is even closer now and this time something in me warns not to pull away. "Look around you and you will undertstand."

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  I do. I look around me, acknowledging my surrounding once more and then it all clicks. What I feel in here is peace and if there is so aching I have wanted more than anything in my life, it is peace. So this is really something I created for myself.

  I am pulled back from the void of my thoughts by the woman's gentle flick of fingers. "Intelligent, aren't you?" She says. Were my thoughts too..loud? "This is indeed a creation of your own desire, and i only act as a mere being in here."

  "So i created you too? Are you also my...whatever this is?"

  "No." The response is far from the angelic tone she was using all this time and I do not think there will be a better time than this whether I have fucked up badly or not.

  "W-why am I have then? I am dead." This time I don't frame my death as a question but a certainty and perhaps this is what she was looking for.

  She slowly tilts her head and speaks, her tone is colder than before. "You see, my Ariyene, i have watched you since you were a child. You reached out to me and i have had my eyes on you since." She steps in closer and despite my better judgement, I don't move. She continues, "you had such a fragile life. The great angels must be weeping for your soul and it breaks my heart but this isnt the end, love."

  "What do you mean?"

  "What i mean is that you, Ariyene Mysts, are the key."

  "A...key? To what?"

  She chuckles..again. "The key ..to a change. The existence has collapsed, my dear and its only a matter of time until every being perishes."

  "I am sorry but i am neither a knight in shining armour nor a pathetic hero stupid enough to think that they can save the world alone."

  "It isnt about the world." This time, its me staring into those lifeless eyes. ""It is about you. You think I don't know what you have always desired along with peace? The silence you wish for is something you only want within the boundaries of your priorities. And I know that there is a part of you that would not hesitate a blink to ruin the world. You don't want power....you want strength to protect those you love."

  "Strength." I repeat. Maybe she is right. This is exactly what I have always wanted. This is exactly who I am, who I have always been. "I am nlt alive anymore. If i had strength, i would have lived, i would have survived."

  "How selfish of you to die without even having a singwle last thought about what would happen to the ones you love after you are gone? So let me get this straight, my sweet destruction, you can either die and prove you time being alive and dreaming foolish dreams worthless or you could let me give you the power you need and go back to living. Protect those you admire and open the gate to the change of realms." She halts out the palm of her hand and I stare at it. I need to go back. I can't leave my parents in that doomed world helpless, I can't leave my brother like this. He needs me more than anything in this world. They will ruin him.

  I raise my hand without another thought in mind but just as I am about to place my palm atop hers, the place distorts and starts to darken. The woman's face changes into fury as she notices it too. She moves a step towards me, maybe to kill me because that's all my instincts tell me in the span of a second but she doesn't reaches me. Her scream, however, does. When I open my eyes, which I didn't realise I had closed, I see a dark, shadowy rope wrap itself around the woman and yank her into the darkness but not before she manages to touch the tip of my fingers.

  I don't even register the terrific event that just happened before the gravity shifts and I suddenly find myself falling through something that feels like an endless void. Something is pulling me, gravity doesn't feel like this. It all finally stops and my eyes open to a reality.

  ~☆~

  I am laying in the middle of the ruins of a building I once used to call my school. The air smells of smoke and steel, and something ominous settles in my heart that it feels heavy.

  I breathe slowly just to make sure I still can. The clouds above spits to reveal the sun but it feels wrong. Too bright. What's happening?

  And then I realise it immediately as soon as the sun gets hidden behind a dark Spence, shadowing the world. I blink ones and then I feel heat burst on my back. It starts to burn so bad that I hiss sharply.

  But the burn fades away quickly and cools down like it didn't just happen. The solar eclipse ends and I sit up to look around. It is a mess, the building collapsed and those who had somehow managed to survive that thing are now dead. How did the building collapsed all of a sudden? But most importantly, isn't witnessing a solar eclipse directly through your naked eyes supposed to damage your vision or something? I can still see. Well, if it's a miracle then I am grateful because the last thing I want is to lose my vision for good.

  All my wounds are healed, I notice. Like they never existed in the first place and considering everything that happened up until now, this doesn't seem too out of the ordinary.

  I am still clutching the gun, I realise, and I raise it. But then I hear a helpless sound from not too far away. It it the same creature from before. And it is injured very badly.

  Looks like it is living its last moments

  Poor thing,

  And then I shoot it until I run out of bullets.