Sketch the Stars

Chapter One

I dodged a bullet and walked across a landmine

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It's almost insane how quickly I've grown without knowing. I stepped away from my own mother's frozen body at the age of twelve. I've wondered just how old I am. I still don't know. Perhaps I am a teenager now. I am not old, at least, I do not believe I am. My hair is not gray. Well, it is a little. My hair hasn't been spared the moon's tears. If I am correct, it has been twelve months since my birthday and my mother's death, which means it has been one year.

I am not twelve, I do not believe. I have grown in maturity, and in thought. My speech has not improved. There is nobody to talk to but myself, and I find myself rude. I bring tears to my own eyes. I tell myself I am ugly.

I tell myself to die.

I do not try to, but the whispers get louder. I don't believe their whispers anymore. It is my head; cruel, it is. I wish I had a silencer. Not for a gun, but for my mind. It is louder than the wind. It is louder than the current of these frozen rivers would be.

The moon is my time keeper. He weeps once a month. I have been keeping a tally. Every month- well, I prefer to call them Mourns. The moon must be mourning the morning- or the sun, that is. I cannot say I ever truly cared for the sun. If we are the sun's people, it is not a very good ruler. The sun only sees one part of us. It does not know how we are at night. I guess it's the same way for the moon, though.

No- not anymore. The moon sees us at all times, now. Perhaps the moon murdered the sun. Perhaps it is not the sun the moons weeps for, but it's innocence.

Perhaps my head has begun to run wild once more.

I do believe it is the lack of substance in my stomach that is driving me wild. I do not know how I have made it this far. My water source is the snow I've walked all over. It melts quickly in warm areas, I've learned. I wish I would melt in frozen areas.

I want to settle on the white and misleading and frozen ground and melt so far into the ice that I will become part of it. I want to melt so far into the ice that it can't handle me, and it cracks at the surface. I want to bring back the spring. I want to bring back the summer. I want to bring back the fall.

I want to bring back my mother, and my sanity, and anything that resembled normality back then. I want to be part of the warmth my mother spoke of. I haven't felt warmth in a year now. The last warmth I felt was from my mother in her last moments. It didn't last long, though.

When you die, so does your warmth. I learned that at twelve. I also learned that it's hard to have body heat when you're surrounded by mounds and mounds of snow.

I've learned that insanity can grip you with icy talons colder than the snow and drag you further and further into a void that you'd think didn't exist. it'll drag you deeper and deeper until you are unsure what is real and what is fake. it'll drag you deeper, to the point that you see dead people. Oh, yes. Not only have I learned it, I have experienced it.

My mother follows me. She doesn't look natural. She looks fuzzy; similar in looks to the moon's tears. She does not look material. I do so wonder if I am hallucinating. I wonder if my fatigue has come back to reclaim me. I do not sleep, for I am afraid if I close my eyes for a sliver of a second that my life will fade. I do not know why I fear such a thing. I wish to be with my mother, and letting it happen will grant me that wish, but I refuse.

My eyes will not shut, and my feet will not stop moving. That is- until gravity gives me another hug. When it decides to do that, my eyes slide shut and my body into unconsciousness.