Chapter 9

I’m dressed in an aristocratic ball gown, dancing slowly to the heavenly music that plays in the background with a person that I can’t identify. They wear a ghastly mask to cover their face and an ironed suit that is flawless, with not a single wrinkle in sight.

They hold my hand in theirs with a firm grip, guiding me around the dark, empty ballroom that’s lit by a few candles placed around the room, illuminating our features in the little fire’s warm glow.

I feel light on my feet, despite not knowing how to dance. That doesn’t seem to hinder the stranger as they continue to show me the way with gentle sways and twirls, their eyes not looking away from mine ― even when the music slows to a stop for a moment to change to the next song. They don’t stop moving and refuse to halt their movements. They look as if they don’t want to stop, not for a second.

The gleam in their eyes reflects sadness and sorrow, making my mouth go dry in pity but strangely, my stomach doesn’t settle that view easily. It coils in distressed knots of loss and detachment. I can feel a stinging pain in my chest once their thumb caresses the back of my hand, sending waves of emotion that I know too well ― hopelessness. They are nonverbally begging me to stay, to not go. They cling to me with despondency raking their obvious misery. Pitiful misery.

They twirl me gracefully and pull me closer in their broad arms, swallowing thickly as one of the candles in the room goes out.

The suspense is killing me. I want to know what’s to come from this unexpected event with this mournful stranger whose presence feels awfully familiar. The aches in my heart that cause my eyes to gloss over in dejection tell me that this dance isn’t meant to be beautiful and memorable. It’s meant to be adieu.

Our feet carry us around the room again, passing a candle that goes out like the first one. My lips press together to fight the cry that threatens to leave my throat.

Why does this farewell dance feel so short?

And who is this person I’m dancing with?

The music plays in a soft lilt as it fades to its end. My lips part as I whisper the last words to the song. I can’t hear myself say the words, but, subsequently, those imperceptible locutions affect the stranger in a way that makes my mind reel in confusion as their eyes glint in melancholy.

The stranger leans down to my ear and whispers into it, their voice is distorted and unrecognizable. “I’m sorry for falling in love with you.”

My bottom lip quivers. My hand trembles in theirs, trying to find the strength to respond. “I wish… we never came to be like this.”

The stranger helps me do another turn, briefly dipping me with a hesitant look in their eyes before standing me up to lift me in their arms. I land on my feet and glance to see another candle has gone out. Then two, then four, then eight ― until the stranger decides to let go of my hands to back up to the double doors that gradually begin to open for him. They choke out a sob as they do a bow without stopping.

“Wait ― !” I try to stop them but they already left the ballroom, the doors slam shut and everything freezes.

My arms fall to my sides and I let the tears fall from my eyes with my head hanging low.

I didn’t understand why I feel so attached to them.

Why am I crying?

Why were they crying?

Where am I?

Why did their warmth soothe my mind for that moment?

Why do I long for their warmth to return again?

Who are they?

My feet step onto the idyll pathway that has banks of trees that stand on each side of it, covered in white flowers that are identical to the ones covering the path I’m on. There are wooden rails covered in the same white flowers for me to hold on to and soft ground for me to collapse on in case I don’t make it through.

That daydream felt too real.

It felt too painful to imagine.

It looks like I entered a fairy dreamland where there is nothing except the embodiment of the alluring flowers that correlate into a mirage of beautiful pigments that line up evenly on the trees that resembles a Christmas tree. Each and every tree brings out its own beauty with lights that are bedewed all over its branches. The light illuminated off the other trees that concealed me from the other side. The snow begins the fall on my staggering form and ornaments the flowers with its ominous fluorescence.

The walk down the pathway feels like it stretches on and on for miles. My legs are getting weaker and soon enough, I fall to my knees and lean against the rail breathlessly trying to attain back some of my lost strength.

But I know that my body is too weak to recover any strength while I’m awake, still laboring every aching muscle inside of me to move mindlessly without a specific destination in mind, so in the end, I gave into my body’s demands and lay down on the ground. The sweet, lavender scent from the flowers is the last thing my mind needed to lull me into a deep sleep.

Another dream consumes my consciousness.

Except for this time, it collides with reality.

The scenery flickers from trees and flowers to a white rotunda gazebo that stands by a multicolored forest of moths and acres of grass where ― just barely hidden behind one of the pillars ― a stranger holds a small cup with a deformed design on it.

All the dream dwells on was a stranger that holds the libation in their hand as they continue to repeat a mantra to me in an angelic voice.

A mantra that I can’t quite recall for some uncertain reason. My mind erases their voice from my memory, supplanting it with only lip syncs that are too indistinct to hear.

Each time their lips move, a bolt of sole lightning strikes in the background, making my real-life body slightly twitch in shock from the sharp resonance that fills my ears. I fully jolt awake out of the strange dream once the last lightning strikes near my vision, scaring me half to death.

I sigh a breath of relief when I realize it wasn’t real and stand up, preparing to feel the vertiginousness wash over me like a torrent but all I feel is my sore muscles that are slightly throbbing from the swim here.

“I should be fine,” I mutter, walking down the path that still looks endless with infinite sights of flowers and trees. I think that it’s like the woods, it’s meant to deceive me into a state of confusion, but once I see a small house up a steep hill ― My shoulders sag in relief as I walk up to the door. I raise my fist to knock on the door but it swings open before my knuckles make contact.

There standing in his casual attire with a grin on his lips is the man that sent me on this journey in the first place.

“I don’t think I ever properly introduced myself.” He holds out his hand to me. “It’s Mr. Felix―Sapphire, a man that has a lot to unfold before you descend this mountain to the place that will forever succumb you in a dystopian state of mind.”

I hesitantly shake his hand. “Um… Mr. Felix―Sapphire?”