The darker the night, the brighter the stars

[GaggedBrain 55]

 

 

 

The world is dark and desolate in the eyes of the blind.

 

Aimée drifted into the depths of the forest, her feet carrying her farther and farther from everything she once knew. A spear hung on her back, and a numbing, desperate need to hide, to disappear. The world had evaded her for so long that the only thing she wished for now was to evade it in return. Once, she used to find solace in her other senses, piecing together the dim visions of the life around her. But ever since she witnessed her friend’s execution, her already fractured world has been torn into pieces entirely. Now that putrid smell of her friend’s burning corpse followed her everywhere, poisoning her lungs. Her heartbeat roared throughout her body like a drum struck in a hollow room; a deafening sound. Everything she ate had a burnt, nauseating aftertaste.

Her frail body was a constellation of scars, from clawmarks to cuts, to a scarred burned brand mark on her left wrist resembling a broken carriage wheel. The scars that never got to heal and were the forever remnants of the past, engraved into her skin; the past she so desperately wanted to leave as a memory. Yet it lingered, seeping into every moment of the present. Every scar and scratch soared with the pain she was trying, and failing, to outrun.

She longed to flee from the past, but what future waited for her? Step after step, the silky grass fields gave way to crunching autumnal leaves, then to creaking snow. Lost, she wandered in circles, the forest shifting around her like a maze. Every step felt like one closer to her own grave. 

And perhaps that was the point. She had dug that grave years ago, the one meant for her and her alone. An empty hole in the soil that waited for her return, to engulf her and chain her away.

 

But she had lost it.

And the forest never gave it back.

Her graveyard of buried hopes.

The memories that set her mind aflame.

 

If she took another wrong step, nobody would even know to bury her in that sacred grave. That thought filled her stomach with anxiety like a meal she could not digest. She had to find it-- unless death found her first. She could sense it creeping behind her, whispering in every gust of wind. Every leaf reminded her of her helplessness, her vanished future, the promises that had never mattered, the world she would never fully understand.

It felt like being human in an underwater world-- forced to breathe what slowly killed her, drowning in consequences she never chose.

As her feet continued carrying her into forest, those whispers were getting louder, those whispers grew louder, rising into a shrill scream that pounded at her eardrums. Her body sagged beneath the weight of despair, her feet sinking into the soft soil. At last, unable to bear it any longer, she covered her ears, collapsing to her knees.

Then, she froze.

For the first time, the vicious voices in her mind fell silent. In their place came an echoing whisper, rustling through the leaves of the deep woods. A solemn dream. A message meant only for her to hear, a vision for her alone to witness.

The midnight cold awakened her, seeping into her bones. She pulled her thick scarf over her eyes and opened them.

And there it was.

The grave she had been searching for stood before her, only steps away.

 

She climbed into it and watched as the sunrise painted the sky blue, and the stars faded into daylight. ”The darker the night, the brighter the stars,” she whispered. Then she pulled herself out of that hole, reaching for the shovel. And she breathed, truly breathed, for what felt like the first time.

 

Because the world had returned to her.
Because she had returned to herself.

And because blindness was no longer what defined her.
Seeing was.