Finally, I have returned to my sacred home. The place where its quaint atmosphere and boring silence isolate me from the problems of this world. I let down my luggage and left it by the side of the door until I regained my motivation after falling down on the couch.
Even as I am far away from Elizabeth as I could be, all of my thoughts have been terribly plagued by her presence. My mind couldn't stray far from the events of that night and now the guilt of leaving her keeps getting heavier on my shoulders. In order for me to relinquish these thoughts, I decided to get off of my couch and proceed to write another portion of my story because fiction, as always, liberates my mind from everything. I sat down by my working desk, put the draft that I worked on previously onto the desk, and began writing the story from where I left off.
If I'm not mistaken, Sylvia, our downtrodden protagonist, wanders all throughout the world as a lifeless husk. Walking from town to town, she could no longer regain her drive to move on further nor could she remember the faces of Joseph and Mary.
Suddenly, as she walked in the dead of night, she spotted a swamp fully covered in green. The color of it and the aroma from the swamp's flowers enticed Sylvia to enter the swamp. She ventured further into the swamp even as the water rose up until her waist. The blooming flowers and radiant fireflies guided Sylvia to the unexpectedly attractive place which was in the center of it all.
In the center of the swamp, There laid a great and enormous tree that was separated from the rest of the trees by a great length of water. Out of the tree came the shape of a man, a seemingly humanlike man who possesses no outstanding features other than the fact he emerged from the tree's bark. His hair was long, smooth, and golden and his physical features were something to be admired. The man seemed to be attracted to Sylvia for he came closer to her in order to talk.
"I have heard the wailings and sorrows of your heart. Now, I am here to relieve you of those things." The man from the tree stated as if he was granting an offer for her.
"I'm afraid there is nothing you can do to relieve me of these things, even if you are here to kill me, which you probably might be, I wouldn't mind if you were to strike me down right here." Sylvia's dead tone of voice spoke and welcomed death with open arms.
"But there is a source of salvation where all beings rely upon to run away from what they fear, dread, or even regret." The man spoke and extended his hand towards her.
"And what that might be?" Sylvia still refused to be persuaded by his words.
"Pleasure, pure pleasure." As the man spoke, the water surrounding them began to glow with a pinkish color, "For all of this world's history, humans have been burdened with troubling thoughts such as this world's affairs, image, and what they may eat in the next day; yet, they have also been given the ability to relieve themselves from such things." The man opened his arms and a wind current of petals flew around the two.
"How romantic of you to offer me this, but I still can't say that I'm interested." Sylvia was firm in her refusal.
"Is it because you have never felt the warm embrace of another?" The man asked, causing Sylvia to fall into a moment of silence.
"Yes," She answered, "I felt envious of my past friends because I already knew they were in love with each other. Thinking about their relationship back then made me feel distant from them and thinking about it now makes me think that you are right about me. I am indeed in want of somebody's embrace, I don't want to die without knowing the touch of somebody's love." Her speech broke into tears but the man was there to comfort her and wipe her tears away.
The man locked his lips with Sylvia within an instant and as slowly as the pleasure-filled Sylvia's body, so did the glowing pink water rise up beyond her waist until it eventually engulfed her whole body. Under the water, Sylvia realizes the absence of the man and that peculiarly, even though she may be surrounded by water, she did not find it hard to breathe.
The fact that none of her feet were on the ground made her body hard to navigate but she still held a proper sense of what was up and what was down. Above her was the surface world that was still covered with the night sky, below her was a strange group of lights that persuaded her to swim deeper towards it with its intricate patterns. Torn between the two, Sylvia was tasked to face either the harsh cruelty of the real world or the mysterious encounters that await her at the bottom.
With a struggling motion of all four limbs, Sylvia descended deeper towards the lights. Her curiosity caused her to know more of this warmth she felt by attempting to grab these lights with her own hands. Once she laid a finger upon that mysterious orb of light, a group of arms emerged from the ground and reached out to grab Sylvia. Resistance was futile for every inch of her body was held tightly and dragged downwards to what might as well be hell.
Her eyes regained vision and thankfully, the place she came to be in was not hell. Instead, she found herself standing on a plain field with almost nothing but grass to be seen. Behind her, Joseph and Mary were present holding each other's hand and looked idly into the orange setting sun. Sylvia shouted to the top of her lungs in order to get their attention but the couple remain unbothered from her voice. Her legs failed to support her balance and her cries caused her to fall down. No matter how many times she told them to wait, the couple walked further into the setting sun with their shadows cast long enough to engulf Sylvia.
As soon as her tears fell down unto the shadow-covered ground, the darkness born from that shadow and tears engulfed Sylvia with the coldness of her solitude. In the darkness, Sylvia crawled up like a ball in fear for what may come next. Above her shined another group of lights, but the difference was that it did not entice her like before.
In those vast starry lights, Sylvia could see her joyous memories within each and every one of them. She reached out her hands in order to grab the lights but instead of being able to come closer to them, she began to fall down into the seemingly endless and dark abyss.
She screamed as loud as she could to beg the being that put her in this state. Once her plead had ended, she shouted the names of her parents, friends, and loved ones into the endless abyss so that she may give her final farewells to them even though none of those people were around her. Soon, her loneliness crept further into her mind as she fell. Memories of her time together with her family and friends became more of a blur to her mind as the darkness continuously filled the corners of her mind. Her torture would soon come to an end as a piercing light came through the darkness beneath Sylvia.
Upon falling into the light, Sylvia found herself laying down by the side of the gigantic tree within the swamp. The experience still haunted her whole being as her fingers and toes twitched. The man emerged from the waters to see Sylvia again and offered her the same thing from before.
"Now we both know the depth and coldness of your pain," The man extended his hand again, "May I be the one to give you warmth?" He asked this time with a more welcoming and warm tone.
"Yes," Sylvia replied instantly, "Please, I want you to liberate me from this cold prison of my lonesome! I want to know the texture of another's skin and the warm feelings that come from it!" Her desperation had taken control of her thoughts.
It had only taken a matter of seconds for her to undress her top wear and less than a second to plant her lips upon the man's. Being as her conscience was almost fully consumed by her pleasures and her sense of discipline had been fully destroyed, she did not realize the true texture of the man's lips. For the flowers that Sylvia passed by gave off an aroma that the swamp uses to allude her into her present state and the man whose lips she's locked with is but a root of the giant tree that had been given an illusory shape to feed off of Sylvia's innards.
To Sylvia, it was but a liberating moment for her to be finally rid of her loneliness. Pleasure had overcome her mind and destroyed her thinking. However, her being carried a small spark of conscious thinking. No matter how much she begged for more of the pleasure and ecstasy, a single thought remained present within her. It was the thought of her friends who have passed that still continued to stay within her mind.
As her consciousness drowned, she fell into the same plain where she witnessed her own friends walk away from her. The difference this time was that the sun the couple walked toward grew from a golden shade to a rose-red color. Sylvia already knew of the futility in speaking to them and in doing so, she stood upright and tried to approach them. As she walked closer to the ones she lost, the ground around her began to shake, and out from the soil came chains that bound Sylvia to the ground.
She shouted again out of desperation as the ground became glued to her body. This time, the fleeting lovers looked back at Sylvia with faces filled with contempt. The two lifted their hands and pointed their fingers to the opposite direction they were walking to as if they were implying Sylvia to go back. Sylvia felt disheartened to see her friends push her away even in a world of illusion but eventually, she was able to understand where they were pointing to.
"I understand now," Sylvia said as her chains began to crack, "Of all the people in the world, I'm the one who least deserves to drown in my sorrow especially because of what I've done to the both of you." She shouted as loud as she could to get their attention.
"I promise to the both of you that I'll never forget you." Sylvia's tears rolled down as she spoke, almost causing her to falter, "But I also promise that I'll never live my life for the both of you as well. For I want both of you to witness me fight against this world and I'll let the whole world know of the two people who inspired me to fight this way. Farewell, my friends, I pray that you will smile upon me when the sun rises again." As soon as she finished her goodbyes, the chains that held her captive had loosened. Sylvia looked in the direction opposite of her friends and ran towards the empty horizon whilst the couple continued to walk the other way.
Sylvia opened her arms as she ran and shouted to the illusory world of how she welcomes whatever her cruel fate has in store for her. The ground shaked again and the world opened its mouth to devour Sylvia but she was overcome with fearlessness that she greeted danger with a smile.
She closed her eyes and opened them again to see the true creature that she has locked her lips with. Fortunately, since her saber was still by her side, Sylvia drew her weapon and cut down the root attached to her mouth. As the root seemingly bled with Sylvia's blood, the swamp itself shrieked in pain from regions unknown yet Sylvia was completely unbothered by its pain as she forcibly gagged out the remnants of the root that were still present inside her esophagus.
As the root violently lashed the air in pain, Sylvia dashed as fast as she could away from the tree. Unbeknownst to her, the swamp had prepared another set of flowers to bloom and hypnotize Sylvia the moment she runs past them. The charming aroma had damaged her senses and her thinking again but this time, Sylvia was ever so fueled by her anger and passion to live that the flowers seemed to almost have no effect on her.
Her saber was waved around carelessly as if she was a madman and her eyes cried out blood as she continued to resist the charms of the swamp. The swamp utilized its roots again to form another illusion of the same man in front of Sylvia.
"Why do you throw away the cup we offer you?" Asked the swamp man, "If you were to partake of it, you would have been able to leave your pains and griefs behind and become lost within the day, constantly enjoying the pleasures of life." He opened his arms again for he was willing to persuade Sylvia one more time.
"I understand how beautiful it would be to lose myself within the pleasures of this world; but as surely as the sun rises and sets, I can not lose myself to pleasure always for I must prepare what tomorrow has in store for me and I will continue to toil on in this life until tomorrow no longer welcomes me." As Sylvia stated her convictions with her mouth and her heart, she charged fearlessly towards the man of the swamp and stabbed his torso.
Fully knowing that he was but an illusion, Sylvia pulled out her saber quickly and swung the saber against the man's neck. Her strike was not able to fully remove his head from his shoulders for the thickness of the roots had caused the saber to abruptly pause in its motion. Unfortunately, the saber was not able to be removed from the roots and the only option for Sylvia was to continue fleeing the swamp.
The end of the swamp made itself known as a ray of sunshine descended unto the edge. Sylvia ran faster than she could as the water lowered down to her knees. Just as freedom was only a few steps away, the swamp made its last desperate attempt to capture her by wrapping the roots around Sylvia's limbs.
Her will to live finally met a worthy opponent as her body and the roots struggled for triumph over the other. As the roots' grips tightened, so did her arms and legs worked harder to squeeze out. First, her clothes became torn in the process, then, her skin scraped away against the roots but it was a small cost to Sylvia. For her final tactic, she forcibly broke the bones in most of her own limbs so that she may slip free. Both her arms and her legs were disfigured and covered in red blood, but fortunately for the girl with the willpower of a monster, her left leg retained a portion of mobility.
She smiled despite the overwhelming pain surging her body and limped towards the exit. The swamp itself forfeited to Sylvia's determination for it could not properly digest such a disfigured body.
Feeling the wind blow against her hair, Sylvia's moment of victory soon faded away once her stamina had failed her. Her whole body collapsed because of the injuries she inflicted upon herself. She could not even feel her limbs tearing apart with each movement as her skinless muscles lay bare on the ground. In her final heavy breaths, she let out bitter tears and joyful laughs as her final song against this world. As soon as her eyelids became too much of a burden to keep up, she finally gave in to her injuries and let herself rest upon the dirt road.
Within that one silent moment, Sylvia felt her whole body burn with energy and vigor that she opened her eyes as if she had awakened from a terrible dream. The eerie sound of the wind blowing against a windmill and the sight of tilled ground was enough for Sylvia to know where she had awakened. It was her home, she had awakened from what would have been her eternal slumber only to discover that she had found herself in the place she was raised.
She stood up in a panicked manner for her whole family was not present in the working field. A creak was heard from inside her home and Sylvia immediately picked up a pitchfork beside the front door in order to defend herself from what may come. The door was opened slowly and revealed one tall figure that stood facing out the window. The man turned around to face Sylvia and revealed himself to be the devil that cursed her from the beginning of her adventure.
Once she recognized the man in front of her, she…
She…She…what?
Why can't I think? What happened to me? This odd cloud of thought that has occupied my mind is preventing me from thinking any further. I placed my pen upon my table and stopped writing for a moment. The pain forming inside of my head only grew and caused my emotions to run rampant within me.
Amidst these thoughts, only the face of Elizabeth stood out to me. I felt angry and I felt sadness well up inside of me. These incomprehensible things inside of me soon came into more understandable words that whispered to me: "If only I had not left" and "If only I could face her now" and even, "I have done her a grave evil, it would be justified if she would hate me for it."
I thought to myself that the only way to put this overflowing mind of mine to rest is to sleep it away. In doing so, I forcibly put myself on my bed and did my very best to sleep. I sincerely hope that my sanity endures the night.