Clutching The Darkness

Chapter 29: My Flight

The change in setting immediately attacked my nostrils. The scent of ventilated air! And the roasted coffee smell of addicted university students! The cozy hint of apple cinnamon air freshener in the hallways! The touch of soft, CLEAN, walls and comforting rugs! I was back in a normal environment, far from all the decorative horrors of my psyche.

I heard a few mumbles and sounds of door locks clicking while other students roamed out. Many of them sported gym attire. So early to be up (if it's still early, who knows how long I've been out), guess they're trying to get the worm.

With growing anticipation, I reached out for the doorknob. But my hand stopped. If there was always a version of me in my other realities, is there one here as well? My fingers lightly tapped and rubbed around the doorknob, hoping that whatever cold touch I was sucking away from the metal would soothe any worry.

Eventually, I opened it.

The sight of my room almost cold-cocked me to the ground. My books! My french learning books! The dog-eared pages of my textbooks! My collection of posters! My desk is messily organized with labelled random papers!

But then I saw him on my bed. He was still wearing the daily clothes, and sleeping in them, as I often did because I usually never had the energy nor care to slip into anything comfortable after hours of studying. He shifted in his sleep, his white collared, long-sleeve shirt crinkling with him. My eyes spotted the discarded red hoodie, wasted at the bottom of a laundry bin. He didn't need it anymore.

He was pure. He struggled with the same sense of studious struggle, but yet he remained pure. He was innocent. Dressed in the colors of man's benevolence. White. He was sweetly sleeping, peaceful, yet living. He had no need for the colors of human rot. No need for that red hoodie any longer. He was beautiful.

I smiled as I stared at him. I felt a strange sense of pride. But then that was replaced with a sudden strike of faint sadness. Only one of us should live in this reality. Two would only make for confusion. For a lack of daily life. It made sense, it really did. My whole journey was to get to a point where I could make my choice to live. He has to go...

I lifted the blade of the pocket knife. I felt my eyes quiver with a watery substance as I stood above him, near his bed. I stuck the knife slowly and gingerly through his neck. His eyes shot with a low gasp. I couldn't hold the waterfall anymore. My other arm rushed his head and gently wrapped itself around it.

"It's okay! Trust me, it's okay!" I sobbed, "I'm sorry it had to be this way. You're so beautiful. You're loved, you know? You're going to be okay! You're going to be okay. Shhh, you're going to be okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It has to be done. But, you'll be okay."

My hand stroked his hair while some of my remaining fingers tried comforting his skin. His eyes went wide, and yet, as if returning to the same sense of peace from before, stayed still. He had died, yet miraculously not a single drop of blood stained him.

I stood crying for a bit. I'm sorry...He was beautiful. He WAS beauty. He was purity. My eyes hazily glossed over to the clock on my nightstand. It was nearing six-thirty in the morning. But...I shouldn't lament this. I can become pure. I can live. For him and for me. And for all the other Cali's.

When it came to my coursework, I knew I'd have to pick up the pace again. Studying to a healthy degree, yet this time my memory would not cease entirely and continuously due to reality shifts. But about money? I can budget, I can figure it out. I WILL figure it out. This was my one shot at life to try again and truly enjoy what it meant to live.

'Live or die, it's your choice. But never forget that you're alive. That you've faced your fears'

I wiped the blood off my fingers using my jacket sleeve. I spent a minute writing this on my forearm, and spent another minute writing it on a corner of my wall. In time, the effects of the reality shift will settle in, and I couldn't risk losing my memory entirely. But as well, in the future, perhaps the blood of my wall may dry and crack, or maybe it will dribble and spread. I worried about that.

I looked at Calidris again. A somber expression upon my face. It battled with the sense of hope emerging from my lips, knowing that I could live.

After thirty minutes, embers of the rising sun trickled through. My jacket was stained with dirt and grit, and my hands were blistered from handling the shovel. Walking out of the cemetery, I knew that in time the body would be found. Or maybe it wouldn't, this is a world of my cognition after all.

I walked in the chill of the morning, awake and alive, yes, alive! I beamed with emphatic joy. I passed a group of homeless men near a sidewalk. With remaining money, I entered a grocery store. Bought prebaked goods and sandwiches and chatted with the employees. I was smiling the entire way through. Emerging onto the sidewalk again, I gave them their needed fill. I made sure to look at them with tender care while I shook their hands and fed them. I passed by a group of fellow students from my econ class, they gave me a shortwave and I responded with an effusive wave of my own.

I was beginning to get tired. My eyes...they feel heavy. My stomach is growling too. A rest near that tree by the hill might do me some good.

I perched my body against the sturdy bark. I sat there with slowed breathing, my body beginning to settle with exhaustion. I heard a chirping and I turned my head towards its source. A northern cardinal stood tapping away on a branch with its nimble talons. He noticed me, and bowed his head. He sang me a tune of his own, before flapping his wings at the emerging sunlight. He flew off, into the shine.

Fly little buddy. Fly and live your life. Live, because you deserve it. Fly high and touch the sky.

My harmonizing trance was disrupted by the reminder of the existence of my friends. Nasima, Benilde, Isaac, Nine and...Zay. I wonder how they'll act in this world. Regardless, I won't fear them. I'll love them. I'll love them for who they are.

But Zay...It's time I apologize to you. Burnt bridges will forever be burned, but under the glow of the sun, time will come to allow a new bridge to be made. Perhaps not as strong or of the same fashion, but a bridge CAN be rebuilt. Romances for the both of us have been long dead. But in friendship, we can prosper.

For a moment, I swore I heard that song again. I had heard it before, and it rang again for a time when I was in Joan's Produce. It was a song that the more it played, the more I recalled it. Zay loved that song. It was a song of melancholy. Of the bittersweetness of the world and of socialization. I could still hear the solemn, drowned voice of the young woman who sang it.

My hair fell heavy across my face. My eyes caught a visage of the flowing glimmer in the sky. My hands tried to grasp unto the disappearing shades of the purple-black of dawn. Fears will abate in the sunrise, while they often spread in the sunset. I have no need for the sunset no longer. The troubles of my mind will stop, for the peace in my heart I will fight for. I will live. The fate of the cosmos.

I sighed with glee. True happiness in my lips.

I tried to clutch the fragments of the remaining darkness, but recognizing the uselessness of it, I then began to embrace the sunlight.