Chapter Text
This time I awoke to a painter leaning over me with a concerned scowl. The warm, dark shades blended together as I came to and forced my eyes open despite my world spinning like crazy.
I needed to warn him, to scream and cry about the coming fate of everyone in this hell and with the collapse of their only life support, the floating city would be no more. After all it was one hell of a miracle that anyone was supposed to live in this wild, harsh environment. Once I sat up with the only remnant of the dizziness being the rather pounding headache, I took in the always breathtaking view before me.
It was autumn. Truly autumn, with the fresh scent of the rain and the leaves lingering in the air, along with that comforting coolness. The trees were adorned in reds and golds, like many young women on their grand day, ready to face their beloved for the rest of however long their promised eternity would be. Their families would be there to celebrate. The husband’s - for the wife to join the family, the now wife’s, to weep their lovely daughter now being a part of the other family. Perhaps those were tears of joy. Not even the painter knew. The sky was a dark grey, nearly black blanket with only the faintest light of the moon. Yet, it was illuminated. Like a stage of a talented performer, a spotlight that shone more to the center – the overgrown shrine long forgotten by the people who once honored the god belonging to it. Perhaps they had forgotten what they stood for or perhaps it had been the one to abandon its people.
A thousand times I have seen this happen. A cruel purgatory, a curse by a cruel tyrant. I cried out in the sudden shock of pain through my body when I made the attempt to get up, the dry grass poking into my palms. My ribs were near certain broken. It felt as if I had fallen back. Truthfully, it was kind of the case, yet not as much literally.
-’It was unfair.’
Was my thought as I felt warm tears stream down to my face, to my palms. Like a child, I cried salty tears. I did not want to bring myself to do what had to be done. To relive the absoulute hell I had been going through for a thousand years. I wanted to be selfish right now. To crawl back into the security of slumber.
I couldn’t.
As I took another look around, I saw something new. Travelers. They weren’t human, of course. Their appearances were those to decieve those who did not know much better. Exchanging a few words with the old painter in a language long forgotten, I understood why they were here. They were going to take me to the floating city, where the events would repeat themselves. All those lives would be lost again like some leaves being whisked off a tree, to die and never to be seen again.