The Lost Goddess

I opened my eyes and saw glimmers. Everything was so fuzzy. I sat up slowly with my hands pressed to my eyes, trying to let the pounding feeling in my head go away. As I took my hands off of my eyes, everything slowly became visible. It was a stream in a little clearing. I slowly stood up and turned around, looking at my surroundings. Peaceful. Everything was so peaceful here. The stream had the afternoon sunlight reflecting off of it, and it looked like stars on the surface of the water. The wildflowers that were scattered around were full of pinks, purples, blues and reds. I walked over to a beautiful bunch of them and the scent of the flowers was delightful. I sat down and began picking them. Turning them into a little headpiece I could wear. As I placed it on my head, a familiar feeling came over me. I was trying to remember something, but it just wouldn’t come to the surface. What happened to me? I realize I feel empty. There’s nothing there in my mind, no memories whatsoever. I could feel the emptiness of them. My head began to pound again, my breaths coming and going so quickly I couldn’t tell any of my surroundings apart. I stumbled, trying to regain control over my breathing, over anything in my body, but nothing helped. Suddenly there was a large splashing sound, and I was cool… and very wet. There was this beautiful sound that made me feel warm inside and I realized it was me. The sound came from my mouth. Joy! This sound meant I was happy. I’ve done this before, but what is it. My face became wet, and a different sound came from my mouth. Terrible sadness. This was crying. I was crying over whatever it was that I'd lost. I don’t know what I lost, but I can feel the emptiness where something once sat. These memories I have lost, I don’t think they will ever come back. As I cried, I crawled from the stream over to the base of a tree. I lay down with tears still streaming down my face and let my eyes close as sleep took me away from these feelings that I couldn’t come to terms with. The coolness of the night woke me and I stood up. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. So I began walking. I walked from the little clearing I had found. There had to be somewhere I could go. It wasn’t far and the ground changed under my feet and the scenery in front of me changed into endless water. So much water that I’m sure it could consume the world if it felt like it. I turned to my left and then my right. Choosing to go right, I walked. Following the edge of the sea it had to take me somewhere. I walked until the sun rose and began to beat down on me. Stopping here and there as the creatures around me stirred at my presence. Birds flying from their lunch spots picking small crabs from the sand. The crabs scurrying into the waves. I had walked for hours with no signs of anything but the wildlife. Then I saw a disturbance in the sand ahead of me. I began to run towards what I knew had to be footsteps in the sand ahead. Someone else was here, and I could get help to find out what happened to me and why I was so empty inside. My feet pounded underneath me and I made it to the footsteps. Then tears began to stream down my face again as I looked at the footsteps that came from the forest and went to the right… They were mine. This was it, this was the entirety of my existence now. I’m stuck on this island that took me less than a day to walk around. No, I refused to accept it. There had to be something here. Somehow I found myself here in this place that had to be more than the wilderness it perceived itself to be. I spent the next days hiking along the island looking for something other than this isolated wilderness before me until I stumbled upon a cave. It was empty. Completely and utterly empty. But it was something other than branches covering my head. I gathered some huge leaves from the surrounding trees. I gathered sticks and leaves and moss and inside this cave I made myself a bed. I wove the leaves into a blanket that was thin but could at least keep the breeze from my body while I slept. There were berry bushes everywhere and fruits hanging from the trees. So this is what I ate as I was stuck here on this small island surrounded by water. I slept and I slept. With crying and eating in between. The days passed. Then weeks and months. So long now that my yellow waist-length hair was now down to my thighs. I had been here for years now, probably the same, and it occurred to me that the water must have swallowed up the rest of the world, leaving me alone. Alone. It made me wonder what I did to be cursed to this lonely existence. I sat where the stream turned into a clear pool, looking at my reflection. My hair yellow and long, full of springs and curls, giving me some appearance of life, with the points of my ears sticking out. I touched my ears feeling them and loving that they gave me some sort of appearance at the least. My eyes so dark that they could swallow the night sky. My skin is as smooth as a stone from this stream. I sat for the next few hours just pondering over what I could do to be free of whatever this island is.