Chapter Text
it's strange—how swiftly the the world can shift, like a candle blown out mid-prayer.
one heartbeat, you were smiling so wide it actually hurt. and alongside, existed giggles echoing bliss beneath the patchwork canopy of saplings, harmonizing with your father's words which could easily be mistaken for poetry, rivaled the gentleness of a zephyr, appearing to blend with umber branches as though each phrase were a birdsong.
one moment, you were dancing in circles with the only companion you've ever known as leaves floated in a ballet around you, forming a halo that seemed to bless you with the essence of nature itself—free as wind in a hidden glade tucked within a kingdom gilded in steel.
one breath ago, there was silence—the tender kind; the kind that wrapped you in the sun's embrace, filtered through molten-laced light, a warmth that kissed your skin just right.
always perfect. always safe.
there were rainbows then, too—not just in the sky, but in every glance, every laugh. they bent over your world like ribbons of promise, convincing you that peace was forever—that the rays that bathed you, the comfort of it all—was something eternal.
imagine, once, the only burden you bore was choosing between sweet juicy dewberries soaked in starlight or bread glazed with honey and spiced cream for breakfast.
your biggest question; how many stars you'd count before sleep folded you into dreams that made your cheeks ache with the honest joy of childhood.
a rightful happiness.
a quiet, beautiful life.
or so it seemed.
then came red.
the color of apples.
the color of roses.
the color of—
blood.
red, spilling where laughter used to live.
red, blooming across your world like a curse made visible.
and the cruelest part?
it was because of your hands.
or was it?
guilt is a fog that blurs the mirror, even to yourself.
it convinces you the knife was yours when perhaps it was fate that wielded it.
a trick of the soul—a haunted reflection, tainted by voices in a mind that, perhaps, was never your own.
an innocence that, maybe, never once was, buried beneath the illusion that you could've stopped the storm.
tell me, did a child ever have the chance to hold back that tide?