The Valley

Journey of Life

Darkness surrounded her as she laid flat on her back. She welcomed the way the dirt was sucking her into the ground. After all it had been her secret wish.
I want to die, she had always thought. She welcomed the peace that she hoped death would bring her. But there was a kind of tug that made her want get back up—she could see the small opening where the light had cast down. It was inviting but what she wanted an out. It was dark there. It was peace. The way everyone acted around her, how things seemed to unfold, everything was chaos. Each decision anyone made was a ripple effect.
There was no won dering about where she would fit in there in the dark; out there she felt out of place. Whatever kind of control she tried to have slipped from her—or maybe she never had it. That was the illusion of what was up there. No matter where she looked there was always some kind of suffering; she was only one person and wondered how to fix the suffering. It was in nearly everything that was around her.
She was deep in the dirt. She could feel the pressure constricting her rib cage. It was getting just a little harder to breath. The dirt made her legs and arms heavy and difficult to move.
The further she went down, she thought how much pain would no longer be a thing she would experience. She would no longer pay the price of life and love. She would no longer feel flutter of excitement. Or the suffocating feeling of anxiety. Free of the constant paranoia. No more color of the world for her brown eyes to absorb and process.
And that was fine. She was finally getting what she wished.
"Get up," a voiced called down to her. "You're not done here."
The pressure of the dirt stopped and she started to feel light as air (something she thought death would feel like). The light above got bigger and brighter. The heat of it warmed her skin.
She attempted to thrash around but her limbs wouldn't corporate. At the entrance of the hole, rough hands pulled her on the ground. She stood face to face to—well she wasn't sure what was in front of her. It looked like a man, but there was something that she couldn't place about it. His face looked familiar but it wasn't.
"And who are you?" she asked.
"I am who you want me to be," he answered. He was dressed in a long robe and a sash tied around his waist. He held one arm out, reintroducing her to the valley just in front of the mountains.
"I just want to rest," she said.
"I know," he told her. "But like I said before, you aren't done."
She stared at the mountains and turned to look back at the creature, but he was gone. She let the fragrant air fill her lungs just so she could scream in frustration. Her brain started to let her eyes form tears. Even though she wanted to fall to her knees there was newfound strength in her legs that hadn't been there before. She walked to the mountains.
The birds chittered and fluttered around her; they were always gossipers to her flitting about. She was once again covered in clothes and shoes magically appeared on her feet. Once she was at the base of a mountain she stopped.
"How do I keep going?" she said under her breath. She felt a surge of energy fill her and she balled her fists and began punching the mountain. The pain of the jagged rock sent a shock up her arm; her knuckles were cut up and dripping with her life. Nothing was more painful than shuffling through the rest of this thing. She would be touched with grief, excitement, sadness, and rage. There was nothing to stop it.
"How come you won't let me go?" she whispered. She cried—the snot and tears released with no sign of stopping. And when she felt like she had done enough, she wiped her face with her shirt and she noticed the noise of the birds and bugs got louder until it completely stopped. All she heard was the sound of her breath, now finally slowing to normal rate. With her eyes closed, the lack of sound and no light able to form her mind's picture, she felt peace. When she opened her eyes, she saw an illuminated path that led further mountains.