My departure from the Great Oak Tree is greeted by the wisp of cool air caressing my cheek and flittering my hair. It had grown too lengthy, and though informed by Ilma on numerous occasions, I've still yet to find the courage to leave this forest and venture to Darlasp to cut it. So I arrived at the solution that I had to cut it myself. Not yet though, not yet.
Seven years ago, I roamed the luxurious legacy of my family, the beautiful red carpets spanning the floor, leaving no wood to the view of the naked eye, paired with ancient tapestries and dangling golden chandeliers. I remember things being different from then; my curiosity was a disastrous trait inherited from my mother, something that made me more inclined to information gathering rather than sparring and governance. Perhaps this was a cause of my father's overly affection for Cleo, sparing little attention for myself. The more I unintentionally enter this route of thought, the more I begin to wonder if I should have noticed that and taken into consideration that I was creating a gap between us, but perhaps I was just too young.
I had two arms back then. Now as I lower the wooden pail onto the green grassy ground, using my left to pull the door back into place, I do so with the absence of my right hand. They only took the right because they didn't know I was left-handed; thankfully, I was created that way. Still, there are instances where I feel my hand in place as if obscured by a translucent sheet, like the mind has failed to process the permanent amputation of this limb, lost seven years ago.
As I veer to the sight of dancing trees, shedding their leaves to the ground from the passing breeze, the soft sound of a squirrel's feet brushing across the fallen leaves, resounds like a distant drum beat in my left ear. In its miniature hands, it clings to its reward, a single acorn for the trails of its days beginning, motionless until my movement prompts its scampering legs deeper into the forest clutches. From my current position, distant mountains smothered by snow, loom high over the entire land, dominating my view as I enter the path, made by Ilma for my own benefit of not getting lost. It is gravel-plagued, lengthening 3 feet from grass to grass, like the day of its creation, the day I was once again reminded of the strength, the unfair advantage that Arphic wields to overcome the insurmountable challenges suffered by those not blessed by the gods.
I had suffered that unfairness long before when my brother Cleo first harnessed his element to wield the first melody of the seven songs. From then on, my mother, who had been slightly intrigued by our shared similarities, seemed to have forgotten my entire existence. "Then my other brothers came," and I was reminded of my bad luck, a noble unblessed, unflavoured by any of the gods.
Along the manoeuvring path, I halt coming to a sudden realization. Ilma believed so firmly I held something special, almost catastrophic, and yet through my years of pursuing an answer, she has yet to shed light upon this matter; instead, she has found numerous excuses to escape the inquiry. "Why? Does she believe I am one of them?" No, my father, who wields the mighty hammer of creation, would have felt the resonance between us, the aura filtering out of my body. "So, why?" I continue.
Within the vast expanse of sorted trees, a great pond glistened the light that poured gold like yolk seeping out of a cracked egg. It ripples through lines of evanescent waves, sinking back into its original form as I pause along its surrounding shore. When I settle the pail upon the moist ground, I hear the soft shudder of a tree limb, pressed down by the sudden weight of a bird now perched upon it. It watches me with red-hued eyes, body enveloped in feathers, the tint of the looming blue skies. Then it speaks, "A man had broken his perfect wings, cracked his freedom that paved paths upon the wind; now he may no longer breach the domain of the skies, stranded on the ground, he must choose a particular disguise." I stepped back in horror before the bird took flight. But before I could fully exercise the thought of what I had just witnessed, a tree far from where I stood, clustered by numerous others, gave a single yet loud shriek that caught birds upon its falling limb and made them ascend in a state of disarray.
As I've said, my curiosity is a disastrous trait I've unfortunately inherited from my mother. My feet began moving to the place of disruption before my mind could register anything that had occurred around me. I wove through trees like street carts, tunneling through the narrow openings until I reached my intended destination, a tree barricading the space forward, and then I stopped. My breath came in hefty, weary gasps that slowly allowed the fresh fog of dawn, to escape as I surveyed my surroundings.
After a moment of softly controlled breathing, I proceeded onward, reaching the large tree obstructing my path. I moved around and, to my astonishment, found a person lying supine beneath the filtered rays of sunlight, eyes staring transfixed upon the vast blue cavernous skies above. "What happened here?" I step forward, a bottomless pit now cropping up in my stomach, as my boots glide upon the grassy surface of the meadows. "Hello, who—"
Nothing could have prepared me for the sickening horror that lay before me—not a man, not a boy, hardly even a human. Whoever it was, it seems they had succumbed to a fate I fail to ever imagine. "No," I step back, in terror, plunging onto the hard ground as the sent of rotted flesh, mingled with the buzzing of flies, was now made aware above the sound of my beating heart. How could I not have noticed them, buzzing about the body like crows feasting upon the aftermath of war? I swallowed. "What do I do? How did this happen? Why did this happen? Do I go back home, do I bury him, or is it a girl, does that matter, I—?"
"There comes a time when man forgets, the horrors that beset the society of their creation, sinking away in the fading sunset and celebrating the overcoming of challenges with the beautiful sound of their cornets. But why must this one suffer while you get to take and gain and usher in your views? No, you wicked, you brutes, undeserving you have always been, and so you will be until corrections are made; for that, we need a new mixture, a new elixir to kill the pain and still the rain." These words echoed loudly in my ears, yet there was no one around to speak them. My hand, unbeknownst to me, started to bleed beneath the fingernails, dripping blood down and smudging the green grass red. "Who are you to dare pursue a peaceful life?" it screamed. "You're undeserving of it; you took his life, and now you'll learn what it means to tread the path of darkness, to lose who you are and be replaced by someone new, today you die and become the truth, the inevitable, the failed system of perusing power!"
I grab my head, screaming in agony. Never had I felt such pain before—pain that grew and grew until my eyes became blurred by the tears that left it. Then it slowed, and all was blank.