5 a walk in the woods

The black boots of a fresh start step over the tiles just beyond glass doors, and the light fabric of a gray wind coat brushes against breezes of serenity and aspiration. Vaelyn pushes her glasses further up the bridge of her nose, taking in the scenery of her life that was halted three years ago. She tugs on the wrinkles of the black jeans that she entered with, fitting a little less comfortable after such a long time without them, and turns her head back to the entrance.

Gazing upon its heavy lights from outside of its walls, Vaelyn considers what her life would've been if she had never stepped foot inside. If she hadn't entered at all, she's not sure if she'd still be taking in the dawn's chilled breaths today. Her days before her isolation were filled with constant torment, and her nights were spent drowning in oceans of her own tears. Her nightmares had come to life, and the only way out was to pretend that she was in the wrong. Her burdens were gifted by someone else, and her morning beams had been torn by the carriers of distant rainstorms.

Through all these changes in her life, the one that brought her away might have saved her life. Through the ivory of a controlled environment, her light became one of a lie, but it was good enough to keep her awake. She kept herself occupied, studied herself under the whispers of air vents, and skimmed through every book they had to offer.

She treads past the silver sign that mimics her attire and the gates of the world open before her in a dramatic wave of emotion. Her future is now in her hands, and her decisions are as delicate as a blossoming rose crawling from the heavy winds of winter. Her eyes see past the horizon of a distant society, her destiny running into the clouds far beyond. Her life is finally hers again.

She leaves the Daecon Medical Center behind in her footsteps. Her body drifts with the breeze and her hair gently whisks off to her shoulder. The sun follows her like a spotlight, proudly watching over her as she graces the soil with her touch. Crossing the street that circles itself around the entrance, she rests her hands in the pockets of her coat as she dozes off to the forest.

Thin leaves of bright colors swing gently against the wind, waving a warm welcome to Vaelyn as she walks. A chorus of whistles and cheers sound from the depths of the brush, the wildlife greeting her into their homes. The grass reaches for her legs as they stride through the growth. Her movements are as delicate as the newborn flowers that bloom from her return. The trees begin to swallow the sky, and the bright compass above no longer crawls through the lush green over Vaelyn's head. She gazes up at the waving leaves as she follows a path of her own, getting lost into the shadows of the autumn palette.

Following down an easy path that will lead her to the home she never knew, her heart aches at the thought of going back to the people who led the footsteps of her childhood into craters of torture. The light of the moon was her solace as it waved across the night through her window. The stars kissed her goodnight, the crickets sang her to sleep, and the constellations orchestrated her dreams. When the dusk settled into its own blanket beneath the earth, a young Vaelyn once felt her bed was built with the structure of the cosmos. Her home was built perfectly in her head, every corner lush with cotton and wood, but the one that bled through her imagination had never really been for her.

She was meant for greater things before her illnesses were presented to the public, her personality labeled as dangerous, manipulative, insane. She was thrown into a mental prison, locked away from her own interests, and denied any praise for her hard work. Vaelyn almost believes that the hospital gave her more of a welcoming home than the one she had before. As she walks into the world as an adult, however, the lessons she learned have come from a flood of mistakes. Her life has been guided by the hatred of others, and her voice has never whispered beyond obedience.

What would it mean to stay in the silence forever?

Who would find her in the storm if she hid in the haze?

What is left for her in a world she doesn't belong within?

She wanders a forest of beauty without any emotion to share for the scenery. Her stares at the benign wildlife are silent pleas for happiness, and her pace slows into a drag as her feet struggle to keep her grounded over the weight of her hollow world. Her body is numb, her touch careless, and her mind refuses to return to the life that tore her apart. Her dreams are scattered with the fireflies. Her purity rests crushed with the leaves that meet their demise at her heels. Her effort to exist is fading with the light above the many, many memories that enclose Vaelyn in her own forest of doubt and dismay. Lost in her own sorrow, the cries of distant ravens lure her down a path dug from her wishes of escape. She strays further from the sun as her feet press over dry soil, her mind lost with her body as it searches for the end of an everlasting forest dense in malice.

Vaelyn's body is numb from a war that no one knew. A sun basked in smoke watches her as she peers out from the brush, witnessing every hesitant step that the woman takes in agony. Her path began from the stone stairs of her prison, her name once a number, and ended at the same destination that held her hand as she was dragged to the endless voids of her mind. She watched the stars dance above her window with a dream to sink into the space between them, dipped in ink like a dull pen. She studied the orbit of the earth in her own time, trying to find her connection with her purpose as the planets did for the sun. Her eyes had always searched for what laid beyond her reach, outside of her stone cages, eager to explore the distant pleasure the world had to offer.

Vaelyn slows down at the edge of a cliff sitting across the field where her white heaven of eternal refuge sits on the other side. She laughs to herself in reminiscence, her body in the same place where she stood when her world lost its gravity. The clouds were much heavier on the night she tried to rise to them, shifting the weight of the world to pull on her neck until she was sure it would snap. The storm leaving the city was crawling to bless the forests with its faint sprinkles of hope. The thunder tried to plead to her that night, begging her to find a light that was buried beneath its cold tears. The grass reached for her ankles as she rose up the stumps of broken life, fitting herself into her flawed destiny. She looked up to the skies before they vanished, hoping that she'd cross to the other side, leaping over the storms of her past. Her body would sink through the smoke, the lightning striking her into a new paradise, and she'd never have to be chained to the burdens that lurked beneath the soil of her own nightmares.

She looks up in present time to the same rope that failed to bring her to the same place she always wanted to be. Coiled around the same branch, the rope she trusted with her life still remained in the same place it was used three years before. It surprises her to know that, after such intense manipulation and assurance that her life still had value, she didn't hold onto that claim when she left the place where it was said. Her life ticked by without a memory to hold onto, a dream to catch, or a light to follow. Her only consistent thought that followed her to the end was her wish to lose the last thing she had: her existence.

She reaches for the end of the rope, her hands wrapping around the loop as tight as she did when her palms were greased in dirt. She unwraps the cord and releases its aging grip against the wood, limping itself to hang from the branch with gentle swings. She meets the eyes of her closest friend again, tearing up from the view of its untouched woven fibres. The Medical Center fills the center of the loop as she holds it, and her countless memories of the lessons she attended every day warm her touch. She looks to the rope in disgust, ashamed of what it has done to her life, but grips harder from the guilt that rushes up to her throat.

She lets her tears escape from her eyes, and they chase her lips as they quiver with anguish. Her legs fail to keep her weight above them, and she kneels in her own storm to cast over her sunrays of freedom. She cries to the wind, and her sobs echo to send the birds away from their nests to find help. Her loneliness catches up to her, her torment unrivaled, her gazes to the world that birthed her no longer in awe. Her face becomes a mountain where waterfalls reside, her hair basking the ink to bury the shine of the rivers. Her eyes are craters of sable, and her irises are frozen in the cold of her skin. Her teeth grind with canyons, her kingdom cracked in fault, and her chains drag with her as she leaves her domain. She is a world of hatred, and she can no longer find it within herself to uncover the haze that hides her euphoria.

She holds onto the loop, climbing up its swirls with heavy hands, desperate for a savior to end her suffering. She drowns her voice in her chokes. Her eyes are blinded by her tears. As she tries to tie her skin into the rope, her head slips past the loop, her neck being tugged lightly by the hanging line. Her attempts to end her life have always come without success, but Vaelyn finds confidence in the last moments of her despair. Her dreams have only ever been to walk the clouds in peace, floating adrift with the shards of planets that circle a lush star, to touch the people that needed her the most with doves of purity. She felt her body was no longer hers the moment she tried to lose it, and she believed that these visions were the only ones that no one could take away.

She was the only one that could take herself away. A life she wanted to exist within was one beyond the skin that was grown for her. She no longer wanted to be named, titled, numbered, or labeled. She wanted to be judged by the ones who knew that what they saw with their eyes would never be what they fabricated in their heads. Reality was no longer bound to the rules of man, she thought, if she only cut herself out of the skin that had defined her as one of them. Still, after all this time, her true purpose has never changed.

She wanted to be the one that anyone could look up to, drowning in their own tears as she is now, so she could be the one to sing them a lullaby. The stars listened to her in silence, but silence rests with the buried. If she makes it beyond the void, she'll use her voice to heal others from the beams of a night star, carving its shining crescent into the shadowed landscapes. She'll be the radiant bliss to others, and maybe then, she may relish in the glistened streaks for herself.