The Wings Of A Caged Bird | First Draft

chapter 53: dream of dawn

14 August, 2019

As I'm wandering amidst the tall cedar trees, I realize there is a purpose burning deep within me, an aim akin to the central point of a dartboard, a desire to reach somewhere, to find something.

Or someone.

So I walk and walk, looking all around me, touching the barks of the trees, my feet stomping over the fallen leaves. And then I spot him.

"Dawn!" I scream, seeing a wide smile bloom in my face. The happiness is so pure, so natural, that it makes me feel awed at the simplicity of the emotion. He is leaning against a tree in the distance. I know which tree it is, and I know he is looking right at me, and he is smiling as well.

So I run over to him, like all the times I would when he would return from his village at the end of Christmas vacation, my heart soaring in joy, beats more rapid with excitement. This time, I will catch him. This time, I won't let him disappear from sight. He is right there, right within my reach. My Dawn. I will hold him in my arms and tell him how much I love him, how grateful I am to him, that I am not mad he chose to hide so much from me, that we can finally be together again just like we're meant to be.

I reach him and he is still right there, smiling at me beautifully like he always does: his radiant, innocent Dawn-smile. His green eyes liven up the greenery of this forest—it's all so vibrantly green that I feel as though I am in heaven. I am so happy, so happy that I could die.

"Cedar," he says, in his soft, tender, thin voice, "you have come so far."

"Hmm?" I don't really know what he is talking about, but it doesn't matter. As long as he is there, I don't care about anything else.

"I hope you will always remember that there are so many people who love you."

I see my smile slowly drop. A sudden fear crawls in at the tone of those words, the hint of a farewell in between the lines. My chest tightens up.

"And even if there aren't," Dawn says, looking at our initials carved on the bark of the tree, "just remember, always, that someone named Dawn Ambers loved you very much, his whole life."

When I look at the bark of the cedar tree, I find the letter D almost faded, while the C & is carved deeply and clearly.

"No," I whisper, my hand slowly raising, my fingers trying to reach him, like that stormy October night, when I saw his eyes for the last time.

The last time.

Why . . . is he here? He is not supposed to be. He is-

This is not real.

"No, don't go," I beg, and try to hold him back, stop him from leaving me again, or leaving me in general—but he fades away. I move my hands in the empty air, as if trying to grasp whatever particles of him that may remain, as the letter C from the tree also begins to fade . . .

---------------------

When I blink my eyes open, heart drumming violently in my ears, I find the room still enveloped in faint darkness.

There are tears rolling down my temple, the pillow under my cheek wet. I feel something icy cold wrapped around my waist, as well as pressed against my back. For one, hazy moment, I imagine myself frozen inside an iceberg, pale white skin, my body stuck in time, endlessly young. The thought fades away. I am in his arms, and time is a fleeting bird of melancholy.

For a while I just lay there, gaze fixed on the wall, nearly holding my breath, savouring the feel of his presence with every inch of my skin, every fiber of my existence. I raise my own arm and place it over his on my waist, gently interlocking our fingers. The longer I stay that way, the more I feel a smoke of insanity diffusing slowly from a corner of my mind. This feeling of him lying beside me, holding me close, in the serenity of dawntime, inside this tiny hotel room—it's awfully beautiful, boundlessly ethereal. I didn't know anything in this world could feel like this.