Not Real. Not Imaginary.

PART FIVE: NINA [The lost village]

Her smile wasn’t the problem, nor was her face…it wasn't…her. The problem was the shadows surrounding her: the shards. So many shards around her…closing in on her. The sight of them just added to the fear that was already cursing through me. It felt like I was seeing these things for the first time, even though I knew I had already seen them before.

The light had faded in that place because they were there. They were stealing all the light, feeding of it…until there would be nothing left there. And when I understood that…I worried for the girl….

She was just standing there, impassible. I wasn’t sure if she was aware of their presence or not, since she didn’t seem to move.

I decided to walk closer, I wanted to see if everything was okay, I wanted to make sure she was safe. But I almost stepped away when I heard the murmuring…the whispers…all around her. A choir of distorted voices… it would be enough to make anyone run away with terror…but she wasn’t running away. She seemed…so calm.

She smiled gently at me, when she noticed I had stopped and was quivering from the coldness around us, and the fear that those…things, evoked in me. Her expression seemed to tell me everything was okay, but the whispers kept going, getting louder, and angrier.

I couldn’t make out what they were saying at first, but after trying to pay close attention, and as they got louder, I started to decipher what they were saying:

“We are your children…?” I repeated and looked at her confused, but she just kept smiling at me, and nodded.

Her expression changed slightly. Her smile seemed brighter, happier, and suddenly, a warmth sensation enveloped the both of us. She looked at me with…pity…and then, she started to vanish. She was decomposing in small particles that got carried away in the breeze…like ashes....

I was just standing there, confused, watching the scene before me without knowing how to act. I didn’t want her to vanish, but I don’t think I would’ve been able to stop it, even if I tried to.

Was there anything I could actually do in that situation?

Desperately, I tried to catch the bits that were flying away. I didn’t know what else to do....

“Wait! Why were you here! What am I supposed to…please…?”

I started to lose my drive in helping her, and in my despair, I fell to my knees. It was obvious I wasn’t able to do it. I wasn’t helping at all; I was doing something basically…useless.

The last bits of ash flew away, and then, right at the place she had been standing on, I saw it again. The black stone: it was there…right in front of me, right within my grasp. This time nothing happened when I reached forward. I was able to hold the small stone in my hand…finally!

The light returned very, VERY slowly.... I was kneeling there in the middle of the path, tightly holding onto that stone, as if I was holding onto something precious. And it might’ve just been it…something so precious, that I had lost…and I had to get it back…but what was all of that?

What was it, that I had just witnessed?

The shards were gone…as if they were there only for her. And she…why was she there? Was she trying to tell me something? What was it?

I tried to replay the whole scene in my mind again. There had to be something I missed, something I didn’t grasped, something…anything, that could answer all those questions.

What those shards were saying…’We are your children’. Those words were important…but why? She nodded as if she was telling me that was the answer…but. I didn’t understand it yet.

Now that all of that had passed, this place seemed much more…dismal. Despite the sun shining brightly and all the colors around me…this place felt dark, empty…lifeless. I didn’t want to be in this place anymore. I wanted to leave…to go back to Greer and to…that lovely home in the woods…with the girl.

That’s the only thing that kept me from leaving now…that and the fact that I didn’t know how to return. But, to remember I was trying to find her…it gave me enough drive to get up, turn back the way I was going towards, and move forward.

My hand was tightly gripping onto the stone. Like I decided to protect it no matter what.

I was still confused and I wanted to solve the mystery and get the piece of the puzzle that I was currently missing, but for now, I would leave it be, and focus on finding the little girl.

The path seemed to have no end. I was certain I had seen a ‘light at the end’ before. But now, it just seemed to keep going on forever. I was starting to feel tired, like my legs were made of jello, like I would fall at any moment; but I couldn’t stop.

“Come on. How long can this path be now? I have been walking for…how long?”

I wasn’t even sure of the time anymore…not that I thought it would matter. In that place…time didn’t exist. And right at that moment, it was much more disconcerting...and despairing. I didn’t know how much more would I be able to go on.

A small giggle snapped me out of my own thoughts of surrender, then, a rustle nearby made me turn my head.

“Not again...” I whispered to myself, as I walked a little closer to the place the sound was coming from. “H-Hello?”

This time, thankfully, I got an answer, an answer that lacked words. The little girl peeked from behind a tree. I couldn’t help but to sigh in relief. I felt my shoulders dropping and my whole body, relaxing; I wasn’t aware of how tense I was until then.

She ran towards me, and clung to my legs.

“You had me worried…”

I brushed her hair with my fingers and smiled at her, as gently as possible, as she looked up at me with the hint of a small pout on her lips.

“It’s okay, you didn’t do anything bad. I was just worried”

She smiled when she heard she wasn’t in trouble, and giggled again as she held my hand in her tiny hand and started to pull me towards the path again.

“Do we really have to? It goes on forever…I’m so ti…red…”

I looked ahead and was surprised to find that, just a few steps away, the path stopped at a wooden arch.

There was something written on it, but I couldn’t make out what it was. It seemed very old and time had taken a toll on the carvings.

She smiled and pulled me towards it with more determination. I followed her, and kept watching the arch, dumbfounded. It was a work of art; it was exceptionally well carved, and I found it…odd; why would something like that be in the middle of a place like this?

I think it was even more surprising that we arrived, to the place we arrived to after following the path and going through the arch; there was a small village, a very old looking one.

The place seemed abandoned. There was no one there, every one of the small houses was empty; everywhere we peeked in, seemed to be abandoned since really long ago. The dust was coating everything inside the houses, and as much as I kept calling, no one answered anywhere.

“Well…what is this place now?” I looked at the little girl, and she just left go of my hand and ran away. “And here we go again…”

I sighed and started to walk in the direction she had ran off to, following the only path that was in sight until, I walked into the village's plaza.

The plaza seemed to be abandoned as the rest of that place seemed to be. There was no one around, and everything in sight, was heavily covered with dust, except for one thing; in the center of the place, there was a big wooden pole....

The little girl was standing in front, looking at it with an oddly serious expression. When I got closer, I noticed traces of ash around the base. It wasn’t covered in dust at all, but there was some damage on it…fire induced damage.

“Oh, no…”

I quickly pulled the little girl towards me and covered her eyes. As soon as I saw all the ‘evidence’, I knew what it was, and what had happened there…her image flashed in my mind, and I felt myself shedding a tear…and I felt the same tear making my palm, against her small face, wet too. I pulled her up in my arms, turning her face away from the scene. And I felt the second and third tears falling on my shoulder.

The image wasn’t upsetting if you didn’t know what had happened here…if you didn’t have the pieces necessary to put together, but once you knew…you couldn’t help but to feel powerless, and ‘slightly’ angry.

In my hand, the stone felt warm…tingly. Almost like it was heating up, little by little. And it didn’t stop, it kept getting warmer, and warmer, until it was completely hot. Until I couldn’t hold onto it anymore. I had to let go. I felt it scorching my hand, like a piece of burning coal.

It fell right at the base of the pole, between the ashes. And then, it got brighter, and a blue flame emanated from it.

I instinctively tried to protect the little girl and walked a couple steps back, covering her with my arms as well as I could. And within a moment, I watched in amazement as the ashes melted together around the flaming stone. Then the smoke rose and covered everything. I closed my eyes and covered the little girl’s against my neck.

I opened my eyes a little, just for a second to see what was happening. And tears filled my eyes when I got a glimpse of her smile.