Sylpher

[loner-kid]

There are some things that we cannot escape. Things that will forever haunt our past, present, and future. It's these events that make us, guide our choices and reactions down till the day we die. Some would call it destiny, but such a word denotes some guiding power, some higher cause. Even in this world of gods, there is no mind behind the ever turning wheels of fate

***

The world was dark. One great mass of oily blackness that streached from horizon to horizon. Not a single light peppered the endless expanse of darkness that hovered overhead with a delicate fragility, as if the slightest touch would cause it to shatter like shards of brittle glass. Beneath this bleak and opresive sky lay a surface as featureless as the night, a mirror stoicly reflecting whatever lay in its path. But there were differences, unknowable in this world where sight had no meaning. The ground was a blanket of snow, so thick that all definition had been lost leaving a pristine layer of purest white. But sticking from it, random and without order, were branches. They littered the landscape, small enough to be overlooked yet creating a contrast so blazen as to tear your eyes towards them. Obscured by the darkness as they were however one would never know the world was anything other than the ever present darkness, and the bitter chill that soaked up through ones feet. But there was one more thing. It lingered in the icy air, the steady crunch of trodden snow.

The girl walked slowly, her feet dragging in the thick snow, forming a shallow trench through the unforgiving white snow. She walked with the air of someone who no longer cares where it is that she goes, the monotomous pace of one who has lost all hope yet knows no other way than to keep walking. Her body is broken and torn, covered in a mass of grubby bandages that wind themselves losely around her tattered frame. They extend all over her body, covering even her face and hair with their dirtyed white form. Some hang, coated in the deep red of dried blood while others lie shredded as if they were ripped apart from within. Other than the almost transparently thin blanket wrapped inexpertly around her shoulders this is all the small girl wears. She appears like a ghost, almost as white as the silent sea of snow in which she has been stranded, with a shock of silver hair leaving a spectral trail in her wake.

Her breath was hoarse, panting slightly, leaving small puffs of condensation in the air before her face. She shivered almost constantly now, and her skin was icy to the touch. She stopped, her legs no longer able to move through the dense layer of snow, her feet tinged with the pale blue of frozen soles. With a morbid grace the small girl collapsed to the floor. She lay, spread eagled on the snow, her arms slowly moving as if trying to lift herself from the cold ground. In the snow a head of her came a shallow plop, the sound of something light landing on the already disturbed snow. Groaning the girl raised her head to look towards the sound, her eyes widened and her hand flailed in an attempt to scrabble across the snow. Slowly her movements became more sluggish, winding down to a sudden unimpressive stop. Her body lay motionless on the frozen ground. A few feet from where she lay was a small wooden figurine imbeded in the snow. All that could be seen was the hunched form of a crying woman, her tears the great dripping red of fresh blood.

***