(GE Copy)

Chapter 3: The Desperate Plea of Life

“A skeptic should find cynicism in the insurmountable odds as it's not realistic. What strange odds must be cut for realism until a story should no longer be interesting. Why would the author write about the newt who's whole life should never see the roar of a lion. That if there is intrigue within the world, it is that, that should be retold, the remarkable. The most unlikly of odds. Cynicism is dead.”

The bend took a sharp turn, still rounded, but it shook Aaron off of his grip. Below looked malpleasent to say the least. At the foot of his thorn brazen basin, Aaron could see a congregation of thistles, scantily teased between the moonlit twilight of the swaying forest canopy. It clattered with the sound of deciduous greenery to further his suspicions of how tragic it’d be to fall here. Cursing his footing, he had slid a few inches onto the refuge of his knee, dusting the inside of his boots. Already bent, Aaron began to remove a jagged rock from his boot top, sliding further down as he did. Aaron returned to the rock wall, shuffling along it's edge and began kicking to free the rock from his boot, only to embed it further between his ankle. “Damn, damnit, ff-F. Well, that's just great.” Skidding out into the crux of a slide and fought as he lost ground.

An almost impossibly loose ladder of debris barred him from returning up. He pressed his back against the small loose gravels, and panted briefly. He asked himself if the strength resided in him to conquer the chute, or just to use it downward to abandon the cause and dishonour his missing partner. “I wouldn't put it past her, but... She'll probably show up when I least want it instead. It's all a big mess, all of it. I don't know what to make of it, just so... So... So damn tired of knowing that there is more in this world, things others shy away from... And knowing nothing about it.” His hands gripping his sight, Aaron agonized the defeat of his own strengths. “It's like I've been doing this all my life, chasing the unknown while being too much of a chicken shit to follow through. What I’d give for an inch closer, but I’m here, alone... With nothing, and no closer.”

Inhaling deeply, his short exasperation flooded the frustration out from his temper, leaving himself with just disappointment. Pathetic, self inflicted disappointment. He looked up, and the surroundings of the peaceful night soaked into him. The stars peeking out from the sparing clouds that lit up like blue fire in the sky. Music of the breeze playing a symphony around him in whistle and rustle. Calling to him softly, it's all Aaron really wanted now. The moment captivated him without needing to think about it. He always ruined these moments when his self awareness began chasing for answers. He felt a tingle in his heart; though he could imagine the ghost beside him, she was nowhere to be seen. He was truly, helplessly, obsessed.

Something dawned on Aaron. The gaze that his eyes soaked in seemed so clairvoyant, that he felt it deeper in him than his own senses. “No one talks about the trees,” His mouth wondering the moment like a rounded room, as though separate from his mind; perhaps hoping to replace his thoughts aloud. “Every breath we breath comes from them... Like the purist honey of sweetened air. Up here it's incredible... Like I'm breathing in from the freshest breeze of tree nectar.” Smiling, Aaron shook his head without regret. “That sounded corny... Heck, no one can hear me out here, I can say whatever the hell I want.” Reacquiring the moment, he marvelled. Aaron even shot out an expression that gravely embarrassed him despite his seclusion, and said it again until the embarrassment went away, then relished “I should be terrified, I'm all alone... But it's beautiful. If I could share that...” Closing his eyes “This solitude... The world would think I'm nuts for saying it but this makes me happy. Happy how helpless I am. Happy that it feels like my legs are going to implode, yet that aching makes me feel strong, accomplished... Truly relaxed and at peace. It's really cruel, isn't it. They'd scoff it off, wouldn't they, like they always have... They have Television, and internet jokes. All I got, is lost on a damn hillside, where cougars roam. Be pretty screwed if one poked around.”

He stared out into the peaceful loneliness, his every senses coming alive; and a primal one, flushing his rejuvenated sore skin. His heart skipped it’s beats as a billow of energy built like a bubble inside his stomach, slowly popping and dispersing throughout his skin like an epiphany. Like something subconscious called out to him to notice but he was too distracted to hear it. Slowly lowering his eyes to meet the oddity that swept him emotionally; a light flickered at the chutes’ bottom. A waving, slow strobing light that however dim, shone brightly into him like a ray of something beyond light. It was distant, strong, but sparse. Fleeting without him. He knew what it was, but his body laid there, tying him like a weighted shackle until it would disappear. Aaron shot awake, pushing the away lackadaisical restrain on his soul. His body overcame with adrenaline. It was her. It had to be. He was so close now, and she had to be there.

Aaron slid himself down the patch, feeling the cold and the fresh dirt beneath him under the trees in the runoff cascade. It wasn’t quick enough, and Aaron picked up his legs into a sprint; a sprint that had swiftly cut it’s breaks, leading him to instead tripping tumble down the rocks. A blissful moment caught him again, the softness of his rolls and strength he had regained, Aaron felt invincible, “I could stop myself at any time,” His mind narrated. “I understand, I know how. I can perceive where I will be, in what orientation and how to escape. As I move, my body comprehends where to move... I can stop any time I want, but I choose not to. The body automatically knows how to recover, this is...” His body fell over a small ledge, maybe only a few feet, landing on the back of his neck. The shell shock quickly ending the game of invincibility, and threw him back into a sprint thus also proving his ability to get the hell up. And quickly at that. Still unable to stop or balance along the sharp angle he fell back as the slope became steep again, sliding past a run of shrubberies. Their thorns and dry stems making great difficulty to grip their sharp thin branches. The faint glow dissipated before him at the bottom. Hopefully not due to him.

Without the control to turn, he saw an abandoned water flume. Scarcely slipping into it's passage, as to not break his legs on it's sides, he found instant regret as a pile of debris rested at it's basin. Pine cones, needles and of all things Okanagan thorny raisins. Walking assholes, ‘Prickis, Stickis’. That’s ‘jumping cacti’, for our non-locals. He closed his eyes, resting his head to the flume as he slid in anticipating acceptance. Neither his friction, or limber strength would impede the journey. He was going bound to plow through it. His body braced for the inevitable discomfort of crashing through the shrapnel, but continued it's decent, never halting. His mind thought to the pit of spines but it would not reach him. Shutting his eyes tighter, he whispered a small prayer that went both unheard and necessary; shooting his sight back to the world, his hapless meat sack lost contact with the concrete, reuniting with the ground unscathed at a tremendous speed. His feet caught on a rock, bending his knees in and curling his front forward when they ran out of bend. His momentum folded him forward, skidding his elbows in front at the bottom of the dusty slide below, slowly coming to a halt among the rubble that accumulated. Unable to see much in the dust cloud, Aaron waited for his sight to return, but only came to the displeasure of his new surroundings once the cloud subsided. A pale dark space, one where his remnant lantern of hope had fleeted before him. Looking back, the hill bore no sign of his entry, soon accompanying a rush of material from above that fell into him very unfortunately. Also including one Okanagan hell raisin stuck amidst the rubble.

Slowly he rose, counting his blessing that the prickis stickis caught on his leg and not further along his the runway. Having rid the sting, he fell back down, grabbing his barings in this momentary recuperation. It was quite. The trees were all pitch black with a dark blue sky that seemed illuminated from behind. As though time revoked back an hour. The pines were replaced to house a swath of leafless crickles. Morbid contorting branches of trees that towered in a hollow around the basin. The air, chilled around him. He called out into the woods. “Sophie, if you are gonna show up, now's your cue.” All around him, the air was stagnant like the humid musk of a dead forest. Exhaling harshly, he wiped his lips, very swiftly. Kicking the ground beneath him with an irritated jabbing motion, he turned behind him, then back again. “Hmn!...” He astonished, biting his thumb nail. Inhaling deeply again and pressing the air out of his teeth, he quickly checked to be absolutely certain. Ay, he was nowhere’s even remotely close to home. “Right, I'm fucked. SOPHIE!” The glimmer of ghostly light he chased after, now void from any of his sight as his baring held no sense of his entry.

Stumbling about, Aaron wandered the hillside but no sign of the arid tan soil of home. “You know, I probably hit my head somewhere, in the flume. It seems so vivid from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’, but if I hit it hard enough, I probably wouldn't remember the impact itself, so... Either I am dreaming, my body is laying somewhere else, or I just entered ‘Avalon’ just like the tv show.” The top where he arrived from bore a stern hilltop, bare rock and nothing above it, not even the hill from home. The light beyond, setting, definitely not the same time either. “No corpse, feel pain... Even though you can still feel pain in your dreams regardless of what they tell you... Nothing. SOPHIE!” Strolling down the hill, certain he was beyond reaching the supposed portal which could carry him here, he continued his tirade. “You know, I'm really glad all this happened. I was just complaining about how it was so damn hard to get any answers, SOPHIE! And how everything was so cryptic, SOPHIE! Well, ask and you shall fffffFSOPHIE! SOPHIE GET YOU HALF UNCANNY ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW, I'M ABOUT TO LOOSE ME BLOODY SHIT!” From behind, the neck of his shirt was raised, none to lightly.

“Aud, this sophie, it gives me head pain.” His deep groans stiffening Aaron solid, as the beast lift him off his feet. “Ay, ur mern folk, mern taste good with bogslime. You come wid'me.”

“SOPHIE! SOPHIE! SOPHIE! SOPHIE!”

“Fie!” Throwing Aaron to the ground and grasping his ankle. He could scarcely make out the beast in the dark, mostly the rounded bits of it’s dark skin. It seemed to walk on it’s two feet though hunched like it had back issues. Even staggering a bit, though he could vaguely smell a fermentation between the musk and the stank. The long black soil path tore his clothes and numbed the scrapes along his arms on the mossy bumps. Smoke, could be smelt in the distance and soon the flicker of it's red hue. “Erdol, make him quiet.” Sliding Aaron forward into the epicentre of the camp, his captor took a seat on the other side of Aaron than the rabble, proudly demanding recognition

Another tall, dark skinned creature arose by name to the sight. His bold muscles were contrasted with a skinny figure of malnourishment, but fearsome in scale. Fire glimmering in front and behind his eyes below a large wrinkle that stretched from ear to floppy pointed ear. He danced up with excitement from the party, stumbling to the chair where another one slept. “Corgon, CORGON, you lazy sack of piss.” Cuffing the sleeping mess to his feet.

Corgon rose, raging drunk from the startle like a bad PTSD. “Darlets, I’ll smite ya, I’LL SMITE YA! Everyone ya taberhanks, we be war! Bawk!” Looking around for the supposed siege. “I got the spit in me, where at? Fek is'em? I’ll... I’ll...” Looking to his feet. “There's my gourd...” His anger subsided in a quelled disposition for his grog. Erdol cuffing him a second time which went unnoticed. “Fliken dry!” unphased the beast turned to his assailant “h'And me anudder ale.” Coughing the phlegm from his groggy wind tunnel.

“You blunder'head, get ya scrap up.” Erdol reprimanded, trying to show Corgon their prize, with an unmet reception.

“Draug me, take a pike.” Reaching for another gourd.

Grabbing Corgons's neck, he dragged the sorry drunk. “Get ye.” Tossing him ahead a way.

Gazing up, Corgon saw behind him as Erdol saw. “Mern, mern child! S'pecking on a log, fire, fire, char and mire!” Getting up to grab Aaron.

Latching the drunk's leg, Erdol yanked the beast back. “Fie! We eat dirt lest he be sell’en.”

“The flesh, moist the flesh,” Corgon frantically begging for the snack. “Fark to your slop! We feast fresh, the blood still sweet.”

“His head or three sacks... Roll you, ROLL YOU!” Defending himself. “I like slop, slop keeps us fed!”

“I'll shet the sack.”

“Your hide’ll line my wall! Sacks for his head. Shet in your gourd and drink it!”

“Shut your cram!” The largest of the beasts pipped up. A figure which appeared as merely a large pelt until rolling over to cast he eyes upon the ‘mern child’. “Darlets, pikes, Frreaaagh, moor me with a knife! Take your shettles beyond the pond or I'll log you both over the damn thing.” Lifting himself to a seating position “Boy, speak! Mark your arrival.”

“Do-do I have to?” Aaron replied

“Hie! Gropple for an ale. He is marked for sale, boggle off, and let be with me. Fark!” Leaning forward to grab his unfinished drink among the circle of dormant innibriated creature who sat by the fire, glazed with the night's concessions. Their bodies to this point still stiff and unchanged. Not even their eyes.

“So be.” The original captor answered, dragging Aaron to the pen. “Nen! Nen if this one ups from ur gobbet, so be’em meat instead. I'll opp you like squealing swine child and throw'em the bones.” He threatened, returning to nurse his hangover. “Ye stay yurself put.” And finished off the lock before returning to the fire.

“Mogger, spet!” One oaf dismayed, gripping his sight before the view of an unkempt drunk. “Ur hangnail's floggen, sticker back in ya slosh pale. Can't even bleed your own pipe without yur own 'ead floppen about.”

“Mern.” Erdol crawled up to the cage with great haste. His smile alone backing Aaron off, before even more hassling. “Finger, leg, and pumber, all for a price but deh care not ur tasty ears.” Reaching into the cage, “Those’er, negotta... Negab... Na-gottable... Optional.” Laughing as he finally found the words, taking the swipes for Aaron’s head. Aaron peeled to the back of the cage. The tricky creature smirking slyly, with gull running off his fingers as he fixed the lock that Mogger failed to apply properly. “Mog, he's me bogslime, without'em me bread's just mouldy.” Sympathizing to the feller. “Brings a tear to my eye... He singe a finger, bagging over you, I hunt you myself!”

Wobbling back, his menacing expression sunk into Aaron's skin. Panic started widdeling him, as shadows of drunken ogres or for the lack of a better description, danced morbidly cackling to themselves before the flame. In the dark of his cage, Aaron turned to the cracks and voids. The logs that had been sewn with saplings with scarcely the room to breath through, tied tightly around the seams. However shoddy of craftsmanship, it held firm as the stern wood was cinched tightly and tied twice. Just a few loose vines that were cut short. Aaron reached for the tops, tall but reachable. He could feel the give in one of the standing logs, reaching higher he jabbed himself with a blunt poke to his ankles. In frustration, Aaron grit himself, wrangling the stowaway from his shoe. “I thought I got rid of you.” Cussing under his breath, ready to toss the sharpened stone. Stopping mid throw, he cuffed himself upwards. The chanting continued oblivious to him.

For the next half hour, after Aaron was certain they weren't nearly as hungry as advertised, he made use of his anonymity behind the obscuring shadows. Taking breaks between the weakness in his arms Aaron took to study them, while waiting for the blood to return back to his numbed hands. Then to the grind once more. Along the centre column overhead, the crisscross needlework was lapsed a branch early and the wooded twine missed a turn, which Aaron would soon abuse. Oh yes.

Saving up his strength, his plan took him until the moon cast the rowdy rabble to rest until only the residual rattles of snoring could be heard. Wearily Aaron staggered to stand, stumbling over the wooden bars beneath him. The same bars that numbed his legs during his rest and knocked the sense out of them. As if he could dig his way out anyway. His staggering attracted the sight one visitor, who's steps barely caught Aaron off guard. “Mern, what do you child? Cunning, a mischievous, FACE ME!”

Under the shock and the confusion, Aaron spat out in fear as the loathsome beast slammed into the door. “I'm, I'm taking a fucking piss.”

Curious, it scratched it's head “Oh... Well... No need be fucking rude 'aroud it. Blag, mern an their filthy tongues gabbing filthy shit. No manners.”

Aaron plastered himself to the corner, waiting out the night a little longer.

The sun began to light the sky, not yet touching down to the tree tops, nor the mountains. Aaron arose stiffly, woozy, his body in a quiet panic. Dry and groggy. He got up quietly, shaking, cold and frightened. Cutting the one line that surely would unravel his bars, he hard pressed himself even after his hands gave out. He squeezed them between his legs reaching for feeling. Rubbing what little control he had left, the pins and needles set in. His gripped his sharp stone firmly, praying this time he could make it. His hands gave out again, the stone fell from his grasp and landed between the wooden floor. Aaron's eyes began to tear up. Furiously wiping the impairment from his sight, he fidgeted between the bars, barely nabbing his stone without feeling, it barely hung on between his two shaking fingers that rattled violently. Having to switch hands, Aaron frantically widdled the strength from the dried sapling rope until his hands could scarcely even move. Looking at his tool, the rough abrasions had dulled the soft tipped stone beyond repair.

In desperation, Aaron reached above him, yanking the glorified woodland dental floss from it's fixture, and snapping the rest of it. Tough his hands were limp, only stern by the stiffness of his nonworking fingers, he unravelled the cordage.

Now able to unhitch the joint from the already loose standing poll he could push the top over. The log began timbering further with each push without the elasticity of its dirt bindings that slowly uncoupled with each rhythmical assault. It's rebound halted, and began to tip outward on it's own. Aaron held redundantly onto the noisemaker to softened it's impact before preparing to run; getting flung out of his cage with it's massive wooden weight, to the inevitable crash. Aaron rolled onto his knees, scrambling to stand on the moist grassy soil. As soon as he could get traction, his feet slipped out from under him and he was lifted. In a deep casual voice, he heard his captor speak. “A'ight, bleed the gourd, then off to sellen.” As he chucked Aaron over his back, ass over tea kettle.

“Quarterteen stacks, fat pig sacks, bottle of ale and a vomit pale.” Their singing lapsed onto another, dreaming of their coming wealth.

“Big hack axe, sack of snacks, hoard me some snails, then I'm gonna wail.”

“Old wood trunk, get me drunk, fill it full of ears, then I'll drink some beers.”

“Big bowl of meat, can't be beat, buy me a seat, then I'm gonna eat.

“Splinters of gold, that I wanna hold. Shiny spoon, that... I'm gonna use...” Embaressed of himself. “QUARTERTEEN STACKS! Fat pig sacks...” Joining in unison.

At least they rolled Aaron over the shoulder from time to time. The blood had piled in his head for so long that he at some points blanked out. Wearily, Aaron just accepted his fate. Wanting to feel some kind of friendship with his captors, he started to follow in with their insensitive chanting, knowing it might be the last spark of joy he'd see for a long time if ever. “Cram your yak!” The large beast who came to be known as Bordog insisted, before continuing his chants; utterly stifling Aaron’s last chance at a warm goodbye. Praying somehow they would not break into a farting contest.

Before his eyes, the sky above him turned an ugly grey. The chill on his tattered arms was amplified by the unbarring brisk skin on his brutish car seat. A storm would be brewing, stagnant, no rain nor thunder. Only the sky, and an air pressure that bogged down on him. Dry, uncharacteristically so that his cold sweats evaporated into a dusty lacquer over his forehead. Behind them, was a darting glance in his peripherals. It seemed to exist only in the thoughts when he retraced the oddities that he had witnessed. Sure enough, they amplified like the cold, appearing more frequently and closer, and of all things brighter. Aaron soon began to feel the caving stern wall he embraced begin to crumble around his heart. A light, literal, unimpeded light, returned to him amidst the shadowy earth under the dome of blackening sky. A light that burned into him, and ushered an unusual terror. His life which had been threatened seemed a pale comparison, his soul now felt it's frail mortality. A very primal fear that scares one even deeper than that of pain.

Aaron struggled, mustering his strength to raise his limp headrushed body back and upright. Bordog, lifting him leg-wise, swung Aaron until landing him broadside over the other shoulder and along his back once more. Aaron clawed and climbed backwards barely able to manage sight with the horror he felt inside that would approach. It was the scent, a strange sort that superseded his sensory. A high frequency, like a living static. The air gravitated towards the clouds and the earth felt heavier, as though a black void was ripping the very air out of his lunges sideways. Unable to feel the breath within him, his eyes caught sight momentarily, erasing the memory as it happened. Death, was all he could understand from it. The concept, bulk, and in wholesale. Aaron felt the fat skin along the spine of his captor lump up and crawl upon it's arrival. It felt like a hive angry sewer rats leaving their home from under Bordog’s skin, as Aaron tried to grasp a footing to pry himself off. The clenched grip that nearly broke his ankles loosened as every hair on Bordog's ugly back lifted and turned white. Fed bluntly to the earth like a stake to the grill, Aaron slithered, crawling rapidly into the middle of the group, who's eyes now bleakly turned to centre mass in grave worry.

From within Bordog's massive hulk of a petrified stature, a dark figure emerged glowing brightly. It shown off the faces like cold radiance, blue, and wavering rapidly. It shrieked, the loud tempest of fury echoing internally, rattling more than just the brain. It was louder than sound, ravaging his mind into submission. Aaron's shaking body refused to move, watching Bordog collapse at his knees, unconscious and beginning to vomit while timbering onto his back. What was black was white, where shadow was illuminated and light of sky only cast shadows upon the spectre. Wrinkled, without eyes, it's face contorted perpetually shifting, rolling it's putrid loose skin taught and sucked into it's orfaces. It's body, oozing a secretion that powderized and blinded from out of his sight. Aaron's eyes, instead, fixated to the ghastly apparition gazing through him. It reached out, gripping him firmly, pulling him from the earth.

His mind had shut off, stiff, Aaron couldn't remember leaving the dirt beneath him. Mindlessly following the Shepard. He felt a warmth that he would have otherwise called a cold embrace. Another flesh of sense, speaking in his name from within; that beyond his mortal fear lied a comfort that culled all of his being into sight for only a moment. Aaron felt a memory. Early. It was deeply forgotten. A thought, or perhaps a desire. One that drove him to divide from the choice of pain and that of pleasure. Perhaps his earliest thought he ever known. The moment he understood that as his cells now grew, he was slowly dying, and that he accepted this solemnly in awareness; that his life would end, just as it had began. This horror, now bliss, dry, and haplessly pleased without a care of his demise. Her skin, now prime, he looked up slowly like a child onto it's mother. The rosy freckled cheeks smiling back onto him without sight though they both knew. All the land, white shadows without definition, soft as the clouds, and the blackened sky now a wispy ocean of lights streaking within the void. Her luminescent hue was a pale blue. Black strands of hair that never tangled. A life, for lack there of, guiding him through the abyss of a strange world.

His heart was calm, each living pulse running along his veins in slow motion like fire. Her's no longer. The fear of her death fell upon him like news of great tragedy. “You're...” He began. “No...”

“Yes. Morn me not,” She spoke, “I have already died many lifetimes ago. You still run the course of icor within your veins. These moments are truly precious, you should not dally your life within the realms outside. Your place is with them, where they are...”

“What were they going to do? They wanted to sell me.”

“You would have been caught in the deep. A circle where life is a tool that runs their world.”

“A slave...”

“Precisely.” Her stern voice instilling the seriousness into him, but soon forgave him. “Though, partially you already knew this. You ask... Thus, you are blind, yes?”

“I see... White...”

“Your eyes, are very special, but you fear them. Denial alone will not change your world but bring only darkness to it as you do. You know the life that you would have one day... This fear divides you from your sight. You would be as puppets, a life submitted to a devil by a black mark decree. You would have no choice of life.”

“In a mansion, yes? I could escape from that?”

“If you have already surrendered to that will, then to run is to break your vow. The sin of a deceiver. Let me take this burden for you.”

“Jacob never gave much into the honour of his slavery. Twenty one years and he ran out with the guys whole herd. Sounds pretty minor to what I'd be doing.”

“Understand, there is more of law to the soul than of man. There may be hope for your soul to pass on where mine has banished such hope long ago. To save yours from that path is the only token I can offer in my pitiful existence.”

Peace passing onto him, he casually snickered. “So ghosts do actually only have regrets, huh?”

“No, only the wrong ones.” Chumming back to him. “Funny isn't it that even knowing this, I cannot find the will to change my ways. I am as I have made myself.” A weird joy overwhelming her.

The connection they had without words turned another page as she opened herself. Her life had been without company for some time now. Looking up at her, Aaron could see into her once again, even reading from the pages of her heart. “Your life...” A strange circumstance, as though seeing the every crevice, he could not retain much of what he had seen.

She shunned away, stricken with fear. “What you have is what I cannot look at, for fear that I will cease to exist. Which is why you are so important to hold sacred. The spirit that dwells within you, could make many wonders appear, or a great undoing. Even the dead, have much to fear for what binds us here.”

The whiteness of the world began to seem more apparent, and strange. The tranquility seemed as though fading from his mind and the air itself hummed loudly as his ears opened up again. Before them was a dark gradient, a doorway of sorts that approached much faster than their footsteps had carried them. Footsteps that Aaron had forgotten about, feeling his legs return, and the intent thought of keeping their sore heels moving. A choice which he had been making before waking up to her company.

“A path exists to one willing to take it.” She mentioned “There exists as these, places where thoughts have voided. The memory of these realms faded into the obscurity of blissful distraction. The gates open nearly everywhere, though usually with purpose. On occasion a soul may be found wandering in without such cause. I am one who have damned themselves, peacefully. Since my decision I've taken to this land as guide between the realms and seldom lure those such as yourself into the madness. You're kind does not remember how to traverse these infinites and perhaps this is for the better. Life is precious, within the safety of your walls you bare your opportunity to survive in ignorance. So to as a thought of sanctity should arise, it would be apt to foster it.”

Pressing against the urge to shoe him off, Aaron begged. “This everything here, it is incredible... Why is it that so few ever see a ghost or another world?”

Guiltily, the ghost pulled back to answer, “You have avoided the fate of your brothers and sisters. You chose to keep your eyes lit, the fire you will see again one day... The next time the world reveals itself to you. Are you willing to take it in or will it scorn you to volitiously blind yourself as they have?”

“Knowing this exists... How could I ever turn my back to it? This is so much more than our petty lives watching TV and gossiping, or even drugs...”

“I suppose a ghost is unfimiliar to your kind, it's a visceral reminder of something we've all forgotten. Life seeks to distract itself though seldom successful as life returns again in time and before death. That distraction, like a golden idol of endless youth, it will only sustain you until you have fattened yourself on the grain of it's contempt before reaping it's crop. A sweet savour addressed to a different host. Though I know this, I too struggle to maintain my sanctity... When you pass, you're fate will be different from mine. I can foresee it. For you, a great awakening shall claim you, one...” Stuttering to speak, “Which, the subject is too grave for I to even look upon.” Grieving, her tears erupted down her white skin “I have left that path long ago and chose this existence selfishly. If my soul could bare it, I would relinquish this existence for it, but the guilt is too much. The time will come, when we shall cross paths once again. Though that, is in another life. Please release me before this happens.”

“I don't understand.”

“And you won't, it's a fools dream. Carry the gift with you, it will avail you much. But if they see it, the truth that you see, they will wish to kill you and rend us into illusion.” A stirring well of emotions began to chip away at her, the demeanour failing to uphold it's composure. She graced his back, nudging him forward, clearly unable to continue their conversation in casual contenment. “If there is life within you, certainly, you can do it from your safety...”

Feeling obligated, Aaron looked behind him, watching her uphold what little was left of her. Knowing her fate, he walked through the medium. He parted her a final word, knowing his adventure came to close. He got to see her again, and that she saw him originally through so far away. “Thank you... I'm glad this isn't the last time I'll see you.” Her form distorting from his vision. Though nearly out of sight, he turned one last time with a loose cord in his throat. “You're very beautiful!”

Choking up, she smiled warmly. Colour returning to her cheeks. “You idiot, you know it's pointless to compliment me.” Fixing her hair needlessly, she stood to bare the passing embrace of pleasantries, unhappy to see him go. “Alas, we prolong the inevitable. The joys we feel drives compassion... Compassion that he may break of his tire and rest amidst the storm. A distraction as a means to it's end. What bliss should his death be in ignorance but the boy will see no rest in the future, He... ‘It’ will be making sure of that.” Leaving, she caught herself again, to hopelessly look into the blank space “I wish to accompany him, but I have seen too much. He will have to carry this burden alone and yet I wish I could be of more use... My pride... Is a worthless thing...” Fading into the aether.

His feet tickled with the soft return of grass. Pulling out from the dark bleak of a bush. Bushes that grew within the tunnel. He could hear the ground, stern and echoing the noise from his scuffing, ever faintly. As his mind returned to the thoughts of where he had been, the smells of his surroundings returned as a full bodied aroma. He could feel the stars above him though he hadn't sight of them. Merely the memory, and oddity of it flushing back into him without his control. A thistly veil blinded the exit. Cool moist air seeping through the sides. Aaron pushed aside the bush, revealing the blinding glimmer of the moonlit night. A night which humid heat lingered though the breeze chilled his being. Where the dry earth ripped the wet from the sky and the trees and the flora, taking all it's aromatic essence with it. “Unmistakably... This is home.”

Skipping his way down the hill, he regained his balance. Dislodging his shoe from it's holder, he cleared the crud from his footing, taking the time to massage it. Every aching muscle, and every bruised bone coming back to life with a numb sensation that was surprisingly easy to tolerate given it's tender response. Recalling the moments, his mind began to wonder why the difference in time between the realms was not such a huge surprise. As though it was instantly accepted as fact, and then questioned such seamless nature as foreign. Perhaps something in what she said became apparent. Somewhere, somehow, he already knew the answer, unable to see it, or rather to want to. He perked himself, hearing the wild steps of a staggering animal. He could relish once more that his senses were truly alive.

“There you are,” It accompanied. Sophie's voice comforting him greatly, despite her sass. Holding some make shift tools in her hands “You wouldn't believe how many funerals I've given tonight waiting for you!” Slapping the next corpse off her cheek.

Never had he felt his whole body give out as it did. His dreams did not arrive that night, merely waking up the next morning sore, and tired. He risen, ate breakfast, the day went on as normal. It had been that way for a week, recovering by the third day, and life dully boring in comparison for the rest.