It was the bed of wild dandelions that caught my eye. They swayed with each lull of the wind and whisked their petals up among the clouds, to the sky.
My mother's body remained in my arms, yet my shoulders didn't tire. It wasn't until I saw the pale-yellow flowers in the distance that I contemplated carrying her forever. I thought that maybe, if I never placed her down to bury, the realization of becoming an orphan would never creep in.
Putting my thoughts to rest, I took the shovel from my rucksack and started digging into the flowerbed, albeit gently.
The sun brimmed warm hues on the horizon, a seaborne breeze brushed my cheekbones, and the mild buzz of bugs hummed from the surrounding foliage, yet it was here that my mother exited the world. It was in that spur of the moment that I resolved, as all who are melancholic mull, that I could never smile again.
As the sun drew nearer to the sea, I laid out under the dense wingspan of an evergreen, in sight of the heap of dirt in the clearing, and allowed my eyes to rest, hoping dreams would bring an escape.
In my dreams, my mother appeared.
"Andrei, Andrei! My strong boy. How I must mourn your pain, your suffering. This place is not home to just a boy. I am so sorry Andrei....
The mountain plum blossoms you loved as a boy, pink and bright. The whistling wind that masked your cries. As you grew older, they drifted afar, they broke your heart. It was on those mountains that ~_wake up- ~ you travelled so high, stretching your hands, touching the sk ~ WAKE UP"
I jolted awake. The earthy scent of damp leaves and soil filled my senses, mingling with the metallic tang of blood. I tried piecing together fragments of memory. Where was I? How did I get here?
Before I could grasp the answer, a sharp pain exploded across my skull, followed by a sickening thud of impact. I recoiled instinctively, throwing my hands up over my body, yet the blow was followed by another.
Through the fog of pain, the figure above me walked away, joining a group of hazy figures were in the clearing. One of them was emptying out my rucksack. The others, they were surrounding a pile of dirt. A mound of dirt, what was that...a mound of dirt.
My heart sank. "Mother..?" My voice cracked, barely more than a whisper.
"Mother,
mother,
mother,
no.."
"Get..get away from her!" I screamed, my voice raw with desperation.
The bandits stepped out of the surrounding trees' shadows and into the scattered moonlight. There were four of them. They looked young, around my age. The short one stood in the back alongside another guy and girl that looked remarkably alike, and a towering figure up at front.
My head was reeling, yet their faces looked familiar. Which was common in a small town.
"I told you to kill the fucker, Stump. He was sleeping for hell's sake,"
"He stopped breathing Ein- " "Idiot, use the code names." "It won't matter, he's a dead man."
"Then go kill him." "Alright, alright"
I felt blood trickle down from my temple, and the figure approaching me phased into several images. I was concussed. There were four of them. I couldn't. I couldn't protect mom. I couldnt win this either.
As the realization of my predicament dawned, I slowly got back up to my feet before bolting out behind into the dark forest.
A branch broke behind as the boy they called Stump chucked a sizeable rock in my direction. It fell short at my heels as I tried to quickly traverse the thick roots crawling across the ground.
"You can't escape you fucking freak!"
The sound of his pursuit grew louder, as I heard the crackling of leaves behind me draw nearer and nearer. The dense foliage ahead was nothing but a blur now, and streams of blood began to drip in front of my already dazed vision.
Suddenly, as I stumbled blindly through the maze of trees, the ground gave way beneath me, and I tumbled headlong into what seemed to be a ravine. Rocks and dirt cascaded around me, the impact stealing the breath from my lungs.
I gasped from the pain. As the world spun around me, the weight of inevitability settled over me like a shadow. This was it. This is where it would end.
The small shadow of my pursuer appeared up at the edge of the ravine, a dark silhouette against the moonlit sky. His voice echoed down to me, filled with triumph and malice.
As my vision dimmed into complete darkness, my last thoughts were of my mother, alone under cold earth, waiting for a son who would never return.
And among the last moments of my sad life, a voice pierced the darkness.
"Such weakness. Such frailty...
...you've succumb to your own mortality
...yet I can offer you a power beyond flesh
...let yourself embrace the void. I will give you the power to command the might it bestows."