rain

The sky is a soft grey and I feel a gentle breeze grazing my skin, beckoning me forward. Showing little hesitation, I move forward, feeling droplets of rain tenderly fall against the exposed skin on my arms as I quicken my pace. They feel warm as they fall, but quickly cool my skin. The earth below my feet is soft and begging me to lie down and let the soft dirt and damp moss swallow me whole, but I know I can't let it, though im not entirely sure why.

I push on, feeling what was once a warm breeze quickly shifting to cold wind. As I continue to run, feeling twigs snap under my exposed feet, I realize I've been here before. A long time ago I remember happily walking  through these woods, hand in hand with my mother. The sun was shining through the leaves and I remember the fondness in her gaze as I stopped in my tracks to admire a little black lizard on a nearby stone. I remember the way the light fell onto the rock, swaying like the surface of a beautiful lake. So pure and beautiful. The sunlight and my untouched heart and my mothers gaze and the smile that tugged on the corner of her lips seeing my childlike wonder. It was all so perfect. What ruined it?

That beautiful light is nowhere to be found now, as I'm sprinting further and further into the woods, the raindrops stinging my skin. I'm not sure what I'm running from or where I'm running to, but I know that even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop my feet from moving in their thumping rhythm. The soft earth becomes sharp stones and I continue to run, my feet stinging as they hit the ground. I'm running and running and I'm at a point where the pai doesn't even exist. I'm so cold and so numbed to it. So numbed by it, that i can't feel a thing.
All of a sudden I see a tender ray of golden sunlight falling onto a beautiful mossy clearing.

This isn't giving me hope. If anything this is making me feel worse, because just like every night, I'm certain its unreachable. It will only continue to look so close, but be forever unshifting in its distance from me. Forever be just out of reach. But for the first time ever, i seem to be closing the distance. Scratch that, I definitely feel something laying my eyes on that. Feeling so close to it. Feeling the first hope in what feels like years of constant running, too terrifying to be monotonous, too constant to feel strange anymore.

Is this real? Am I finally closing the distance?
I close my eyes and run. I run like I've never run before, sprinting through the woods until the raindrops feel like needles piercing my skin. Until me feet feel like their , until tears are streaming down my face and my joints ache to a point beyond comprehension.
Then i feel it. The ground softening under my feet. The sun hitting my face gently. I slowly come to a stop, feeling moss tickling my aching feet. Feeling heat finally seeping deep into my body. I feel a warmth somewhere deep inside me. Some kind of completion. Ibleeding open my eyes, and that's when I see her.