Death is immortality.
Death is your second chance.
Velian Terrashine belongs to a classless society of equality, art and democracy; a land full of creativity and mindfulness. It is in that perfect political system that one wrong movement, one carele...
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SLEEP WAS A LUXURY.
I understood that the moment I lay on the floor, hugged my knees to fight the cold and waited for the tension of the day to fade away. With my fantasy as the healer of my heart, I tried to travel to the lands of the Gap World; to the lands of misery and tediousness, but compassion and loyalty as well. I forced my thoughts to revolve around that giant castle of majesty, the castle with the golden walls and curtains. But most importantly, I directed my mind to cling to the people who dwelled there, hoping I would forget about the place I was now.
I failed. I hadn't fully realized how inconvenient the empty of furniture rooms could be when I'd first come here. I'd hoped that there would be a floor with multiple beds for some of us to sleep on. I'd been wrong in so many different ways. There weren't beds, or mattresses, or even blankets. The dusty floor was all we had, our arms our handmade pillows.
Staring at the black ceiling for countless minutes, I wished for it to magically disappear, so that I could admire the night sky. I wished for the brick walls of that building to crumble, so that I could take a look at the flowing river that I liked to imagine that existed somewhere near. I hadn't understood the momentousness of nature. Probably because the artists of Lantra had done a magnificent work at glorifying it and I had successfully managed to degrade everything they had been trying to present to me as important.
But now . . . I craved for something beautiful and hopeful and pleasing to look at. Maybe it was that sickening sensation in my stomach every time I turned my gaze to Ian that had me feeling so vulnerable. He was sleeping next to me, but I was sure he'd just closed his eyes for me to think he was asleep. I'd done the same thing, but I couldn't keep them shut for too long. There were voices coming from the corridor and the room next to the one I lodged for tonight, words I couldn't understand, words of some long-forgotten language.
Anything could happen. Anyone could walk into that room, do any kind of monstrous thing they wanted and disappear without the slightest punishment. The only solace was Ian and the fact that I'd found someone I could somehow trust in this cruel place. I took a moment to observe him, a moment to realize that maybe all those nightmares hadn't been a curse, but a blessing. For if I were completely alone here . . .
The color of his chapped lips didn't differ from the color of his face---pale, sick. I feared that I looked that way too, even if it was my first night here. My head had started aching. The pain was sporadic but intense, hitting me like lightning, setting me unable to relax. I started examining every strike of pain in my body, from my itching legs to the dizziness in my head, my heavy breathing and the waves of sickness in my stomach. Maybe if I had someone to talk to, I wouldn't have noticed those sources of discomfort.
Now with lips pursed into a thin line and eyes burning from keeping the tears from creating salty rivers on my cheeks, I tried to sleep.
