On the first page of the book was the author of the book, enigmatically named 'The First Children'. On the second page was a strange illustration of a man with grey skin, cloaked in white fabric. Above it read the author of the contents of the book, below it was the name 'The God of Planetarium'.
Moving to the table of contents, there were a variety of chapters. About the creation of the universe of Planetarium (which I was still trying to grasp was this alternate world I was in), the role of the First and Second Children, a map of the universe, and much more. However, I began with a chapter titled 'To Live Amongst And As An Immortal'. I had no clue what was going to be written, but I certainly did not expect a blank page with only a single sentence written.
(Place your hand upon the page.)
Hesitantly, I did just that and slowly, but surely, did words begin to bloom on the parchment. It looked as if someone was writing, like a ghost behind my shoulder – making 'ghost writer' more than just a figure of speech, really.
(You who are foreign, you who holds a heart weighed in its heaviness, you who holds guilt, you who have loved deeply, and you who have lived your years. All the things you have seen and all the things you have done and will do. We have estimated, based on the horrors and beauties of your memories, that you have lived to approximately seven hundred years.)
'Seven hundred years?' I thought to myself, bewildered.
(Would you like to heal?)
I just stared, caught completely off-guard.
(Would you like the strength to move on?)
I held that page between my fingers, the air stilling as the face of that who I once loved most in the world flashed in my mind. Her light-brown hair still in tight coils, framing her tanned face – her bright amber eyes crinkling in delight from across the room, catching my eyes for the first time that night. And for many nights that came after.
Her hand in mine, smooth hands over my scarred hands, over my the blood underneath my nails.
"Mara," I said to her on one winter night, "I promise we'll have enough to leave one day, just let me take this one – let it be my last."
She looked around the room we were in, a penthouse at the top of a skyscraper apartment. Her eyes were knowing as they turned back to me.
"We will leave when we're ready," she said, her voice like soft bells.
And I knew what she meant, to grow up in my line of work made it difficult to step away. My blood was tainted because of it, and my mind felt like it was beyond the point of no return.
I looked to her once more, pleading.
In that moment of complete vulnerability, she kissed me on my lips and said, "Until then, I'll never be ready to leave you."
And just like that I was crying again. As my tears spilled over onto the paper, the words began to get smudged. Like wisps of ink in clear water, they disappeared into oblivion as if they, too, were on the cusp of realizing something terrible in me.
I felt so sick in the stomach, like there was a cry and pain in me that just wouldn't leave. No matter how much I wanted the hurt to be gone.
'How could I ever move on from Mara?' I thought to myself, 'How could I ever leave her in the darkness of my memory, in exchange for a world of all my childhood wishes? Was she not all of that and more, who came to me when I was at my worst – instead of the faeries and magic I dreamed of?'
As I looked around the room, all I could think to myself was how she would've loved to be here with me. How much she deserved this more than I did, a thousand times over.
"Too little too late," I whispered, wiping my eyes with my sleeve – catching the pitiful stare of my reflection in the stream. A woman with red-rimmed purple eyes, tanned skin, and frazzled dark brown hair, tied behind in a bun covered with a white scarf. Surrounded by all the bejeweled reflected light, bathed in sunlight – I looked nothing like the Lavy I knew. I looked completely and utterly out of place.
Yet just as I did, a figure who looked as out of place as I approached. His ink-black face was reflected in the water. And where the sun hit his skin made it shift into a dark green hue, shimmering like glitter just like his two horns. His eyes, black sclera and evergreen pupils, refracted into prismatic lights around his face as they narrowed in on my face.
I was too tired to even be surprised at that point.
Speaking in a baritone voice, I expected him to ask if I was alright. Instead, he placed a suitcase down beside me and spoke very plainly.
"Your stuff landed in my forest."