metanoia ; [ n.mikaelson]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀prologue

o. prologue
" 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 "

You don't think about your death until it's kissing the threads of your hair with angelic feather lips, and cooling your skin with kitten licks of despair and trepidation.

I didn't - that's for sure.

But as I lay dying, the water I always adored stifling my lungs and seeping into my pores with freezing little foams I think about it. Because what really is death? No one knows - not the great philosophers like Plato and Socrates. Not the most brilliant scientists like Marie Curie and Galileo Galilei. Not even the ancient gods truly know, for if they had Pygmalion would not have sculpted Galatea in a quest for true beauty, if they had they would have known death is the greatest beauty of all.

Perhaps I sound too cocky, acting as though I have a clue what death is, but at this moment I feel as though I do. It's a tortuously serene symphony, the sounds of adumbrations luring you in, a perilously enticing siren's call to a blissfully naive sailor. Far too entrancing to resist and much too persuasive to overpower.

It's akin to entering this world - or at least the bits and pieces I remember of it. A warmth floods your body and pure white light crinkles like your eyes. A sense of peace and a flame of excitement - and a mixture of fever and fear that a human doesn't have the ability to describe.

So I allow these sensations to wrap around me, tight like a coat and cold like sopping wet socks after a snowball fight.

Snowball fight.

The feeling of being bundled up and kissed on the forehead by your mother, waddling outside in your two coats hand in hand with your brother. Rolling the snow and crunching it into a perfect packed ball. The chill in your spine when the cold hits your face, the sting in your hands when the wet soaks through your hand-knitted gloves. Then the warm hot chocolate that floods your blood and the giggling fits with your brother, reliving the laughter and fun.

I wish I could hold onto the memories as I sink down further, be coddled with the knowledge my life was full - but a strong hand holds my hand in a vice grip and pulls me to the surface, my skin tingling with goosebumps as the warm air hits my cold flesh. (Which was weird considering I could swear it was SO warm underwater.) Sun blinds my eyes and I allow my eyelids to flutter open just slightly, only just slightly peering around.

It's too much, every sensation in my body scratching like fire ants and soaking under the skin with tips of acid, it hurts and burns with overstimulation and I almost find myself wishing to be back under the water. I felt safe - like nothing could touch me. Even though death was kissing my neck and holding my hand under those magnificent blue waves of saltwater, it still seems better than this.