(Rose)
I'm starving on an endless road. The countryside does look nice and peaceful though now that I left the dead zone.
I survive by eating grass and leaves like an animal lately. I can't digest it like I used too with Blume, but I still can, better than most humans could.
My new skin itches, especially on my chest. It has odd coloured spots here and there like freckles. Most of my wounds from before have healed sufficiently now. It was quick. My skin, and my face, look much healthier, though still slightly uncanny. I still miss an eye, an arm and some ribs. My lungs can hurt when I breathe in too deeply.
I might try to return to my friends' house now that I'm alone again, and still recovering from rather serious injuries. No matter how quickly I've healed so far.
The flowers from Blume have dried and turned to dust many days ago. I stopped carrying the dead bouquet since.
I'm not convinced that she truly died, but she certainly was wounded and isn't with me anymore.
I wish she'd come back...
I hope she does one day. I don't know how or where I could look for her. Unlike you, she came from another world, a place I cannot reach or grasp.
This world itself is already tough to grasp, even if the maps are the same as before, even without her influence.
My white hair sometimes glows slightly at night for no clear reason. My tummy hurts, from the leaves and fruits I've eaten. I also feel an ache that forecasts my periods for tomorrow.
Meanwhile I walk slowly in the general direction toward the city where my friends live. It's rather far away from where I am.
And I try not to overreact at the weird things my remaining eye now can see.
~
It began just recently, the day after I left the dead area I think.
At night, I saw some swarms of bugs crawling silently around me. It scared me at first, but as my hair began to glow and revealed the truth, I realised the bugs were in my mind.
Light shattered the illusions, but in good darkness like night, I began seeing odd things everywhere. Swarms of bugs, flying jellyfishes. All silent, just discreet shadows within the night, but I clearly saw them.
Every leaf on a tree was a kind of bird. Rocks turned into pulsating pupas, or giant spiders' nests, or eggs.
Everything I had around me became alive one odd way or another. Every branch or root was a snake or a tentacle waiting to spring to life. Weird long insects like flying combs slowly swam through the air. Every plant of grass was something else.
One night I didn't slept very well, and waited in the end by a new fire for the sun to rise before I could rest.
These illusions were mesmerizing but didn't help to sleep.
The next night was similar though I managed to sleep despite these obvious hallucinations.
After all, my skull was still healing from a previous shock, so I was willing to accept that none of them were real.
But then, the insects and silent translucent animals or plants began appearing during the day too.
And since then, I see everything turning into a lifeform of some sort, imprinted over reality.
Clouds are gathered into and around sorts of whales and killer whales.
I see flying ribbons and scarves moving close to the ground with various translucent patterns and colours. I see little swarms of round living things inside my veins, flowing with the blood inside.
My skin when I look closely is also covered with similar intense activity.
I see coloured or colourless stripes running through the sceneries, flying or crawling, silently like the rest of these hallucinations.
I saw clouds of spores from mushrooms by a damp cave along the road. I saw them spread in the air, and dig into the grounds.
I saw the flight path of an odd bird with way more than two wings, as if it was painting the air with the tip of its feathers along its migration. I was able to follow it for a mile after it had flown away. Its presence lingered as it scattered.
I don't know what is happening to me, but since my head is healing and doesn't hurt me anymore, maybe this is for the better. I still am missing a fair part of my skull though, but the skin is getting thicker over it.
~
At night, the milky way is radiant in the sky.
And when I close my eye and look down instead, I can sometime see through my own body from the inside. There's a red, warmer underground milky way down there. With vessels, muscles, organs. It feels as if I were looking at the stars above, but I'm looking at parts of myself within.
And when I open my eye again, a silent and slow whale is flying high up in the sky. Meanwhile, swarms of feathered insects or furred tiny snakes have fun playing around me where I can see.
I try to grab them but they're not real, they vanish with light, and like smoke when my hand reaches out to them.
The same goes during day. They mostly are in my peripheral vision. When I look directly at them, half of those vanish before I can truly see them. The remaining half vanish if I get too close or try to touch them.
They are different kinds of illusions.
The ones that modify something real, where branches appear to move and behave like worms. I can grab the item and it shatters the illusion. The second kind has no physical support and they cannot be touched, and they are more various in species.
Everything has slightly changed around me, but I mostly focus on myself. It is more difficult to walk steadily with only one eye, and everything slithering away around as I go.
And doing everything with only one hand is much harder than it seems or would have thought.
Finally, I start to feel uneasy in my tummy and I don't like it.
~
My lighter starts the campfire for the evening.
One could follow me with the small camps I do every day when I chose to stop and camp.
There's a pond by a broken short bridge along the road. I fill up my flask and drink the water a little. I spit it immediately. I fill then an old can I kept for a few days and put it on the fire. It'll probably be better after being boiled, though I doubt it.
I sit by the fire beginning to grow. I sigh, tired. My whole body aches. I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I still try to grab things with my left hand before I realise or remember it won't work.
Then I remember the sight of the dark thing over me, eating my arm in a matter of seconds, cutting through flesh and bones in single bites.
Then I recall my monster, my flower, whom I miss. This makes my chest hurt in more ways than one.
Which reminds me of the pain from losing you, in more ways than a single one...
The new world is beautiful though... It's sad you can't enjoy it. You would have loved it.
Looking up now, the sky is so clear tonight that even by the fire I can see the milky way.
It's sad I can't enjoy it with you by my side...
I dream you were there just as I last saw you at the station. Though in a way, it is a dream.
It might have been true for you the previous me, but it is nothing but a dream for me...
I'm... I'm literally a dream come true. That flower's dream.
And now she's gone.
This wonderful world given to me, free for me to explore, is less attractive and fun without her.
I'm not a lone wolf at heart. Never were and never will be. I need some company in times of peace, even though I'm able to do my fights or defying fate alone.
I feel complicated.
Life sure becomes complicated when you lose the world you knew and discover a new one you never thought could exist.
I see the odd lifeforms dancing silently around me. They can be funny to look at, these ghostly things.
My tummy hurts. I've eaten only fruits, berries, leaves and grass lately. I would love to roast any animal that comes by, but I unfortunately doubt I would be able to catch any, given my condition.
My chest itches and I scratch it badly. The lower parts of me also hurts...
In a few weeks or so, I should be able to reach my friends' house hopefully. I know I could rest and eat properly there. I can do it. I can make it.
Meanwhile I will remain obviously drunk on reality.
I feel rather sad because of my objective and pragmatic situation, but this is still a rather nice drunkenness.
The movements of things and colours I somehow see are curious and funny. And I know my flower used to see them in her own way. That's how she saw things and trails I couldn't, I'm beginning to understand it. It's as if a second eye was exactly where mine is, only different, only seeing these whimsical things instead of normal ones. A magical eye I probably inherited from here somehow.
I don't remember everything she said about her life and death, but I still have the feeling she couldn't die completely just from being pulled away from me. I want to believe it.
I sleep another restless night, with more or less pleasant dreams. About loss and reunions. I experience joy and sadness. I cry and laugh during the same night.
I wake up cold by the long dead fire. I'm so sore. I grab the can left in the ashes and drink the water inside. It tastes like ashes. Not that bad actually. I've drank coffees that were worse than that. This makes me laugh.
I stand, pack the few items I have, gathering them slowly as it's difficult.
I answer nature's calls as they say, and I leave. I resume my journey.
It's a bright new day. I'm confident, reasonably, and I smile.
I still have a world to explore, and no other aim meanwhile.
~