Glimpse

This isn’t the time and the place to die…

She's had her head down for quite some time now. Just the cold, gray, granite floor staring back at her, meeting her blurry vision. Her back aches from the long hours of being curled in on herself - like an armadillo in defense. Her hands wrapped around her knees, holding them up and stopping them from buckling even more. Fingers gripping the tattered hem of her sleeves, hoping she could hide her vulnerable self from harm.

The ticking of the clock stopped a long time ago. Or maybe just minutes ago? Seconds? She doesn't know. She lost track of time once her tears started dripping on the floor, drowning her curled self. She’s surprised how her tears have not mixed with the crashing waves just outside. 

She's growing weaker by every ‘whoosh’ of the sea. Her back has no wall to hold her up somehow. The room is too spacious, leaving her stuck in the middle, growing weaker as more tears flow.

At least the space would allow for her tears to spread, hoping that it would be shallow enough unlike the ocean outside.

But how shallow would her tears allow her to stay curled in on herself? Will it get too deep that she would get wiped away outside, her tears joining the salty water crashing until she drowns?

It’s just tears so don’t let it drown you. It’s only on up to the floor so stand up. Please, stand up…

“Just have a look.” The voices in her head never really die down. Every waking hour, she hears him. Or is it a ‘her’?

She doesn’t really know at this point because it seems like it’s not just one voice but a battalion of them. Or perhaps she’s hallucinating and all she really hears are the waves? Does it make sense that she hears ‘it’ but doesn’t even know who or what 'it’ is? She hears - let’s call 'it’ a 'them’ - them.

Every day. Every hour. Every second. And even when the sun sets on the horizon? She still hears them. The voice is getting louder. More intense. Or maybe just the waves telling her that a storm is about to come and that she should prepare herself for the possible tsunami that will engulf her along with her house by the sea.

“Just have a look.” She was hesitant at first. The loud crash scares her, thinking that if she looks out, she will only be met by waves slowly eating up the land that her house precariously stands on. 

But  she does just to shut the voices, and maybe because she is also curious on why the voices demand for her to see. She troddled towards the window and finds it locked from the outside. She walks even closer, hoping to see something beyond the glass. But everything was blurry. The only other indication of a possible life is that the sea never ceases crashing by the shore.

She heaves out a sigh, her breath coming out in little white clouds. Her hands gently trace patterns on the window glass as the voices urge her more, “Just have a look.”

She starts tapping the glass with a finger as she looks around her dimly lit house. But her eyes land on nothing but the walls. Feeling like she lost every will to listen, she taps the glass one last time with all four fingers. And as she was about to sit back down on the cold floor, she heard a crack.

She felt a tinge of pain on her fingers and something warm trickling down to her elbow.

She looks back at the window.

“Just have a look.”

She walked back towards the breaking glass, wiping the the bloody tips of her fingers on her dress.

“Just have a look.”

Again, she traced patterns on the window. Her fingers follow the cracks. When she reached the end of a crack line, the window suddenly shattered in pieces. Shards falling on the floor and slicing the skin on her feet. She stood in a small pool of her blood as she looked out. 

Finally she sees.

You were gone and you never saw how I stopped the world from becoming a monster. Don’t you ever wonder how we survived? The world is finally ours...

She looks out the window and sees the ocean crashing by the sand. A sight to behold just beyond reach of her gray walled house.

But it was also a scene after chaos. Or so she assumes. With all the dark stains drying on the sand, a little shimmer illuminated from the moon's light.

The scene outside already looks similar with what's held inside the cold, gray, granite floored room. It is a bloodbath. Rather, it was a bloodbath.

But has it ended? She doesn't know. Probably a temporary cease? And then it will resume when the sun rises.

But for now, she is left thinking. To stay inside the confinements of the gray walls and drown in her tears? Or to step out into the bloody unknown?

Either way, she's already tainted with blood. There's not much difference. Just that she will be the most vulnerable being when she does step out. 

Vulnerable. And perhaps, naive. For the cold, gray, granite floored room never really taught her anything.

It was the crashing of the sea on the sand that taught her.

I lost my shadow to the sun. Is this how it ends? Closing in on the sun, I never thought I could burn.

A new set of tears pool in her eyes. She can not teach herself like before. Or maybe she could? But she knew that she would. She had to.

But it would take time. For the world beyond her cold, gray, granite floored room is vast. Perhaps even endless just like the stretch of sea greeting her. 

It would take time to understand how things work beyond. It would be a challenge as well. For she has nothing but herself in the gray house.

This vast world though? She could see variations of trinkets scattered on the bloody ground while some were floating away from the shore. Trinkets unknown to her. Trinkets she would have to learn about on her own. Trinkets that would have to wait 'til the sun rises as she makes the most out of her vast surroundings.