Crystal's Embrace

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Date Unknown

Location Unknown

Life...death...light...dark...good...evil...why are these words coming to me? In fact...who am I? Where am I? I could see nothing, hear nothing, feel...nothing and yet I am...aware? Yes that’s it, aware of the time that has passed. I had all the time in the world to think and listen to my own thoughts and yet not a single one of them answered the questions I most wanted to know. At one point in time, I was alive and saw a world of light and yet now I can’t even tell whether I’m dead or not. The world around me is an all encompassing abyss of black and from its depth I can feel nothing but sadness, anger, bitterness and resent. I chose to ignore it as I saw a spark of light ignite off in the distant, what could it have been?

Closer and closer the glint of light came to me before stopping below me, it began to grow and from its epicenter I started to feel something. Warmth, this was warmth right? Around my consciousness grew a body of light, restoring to me the capability to feel, to breath, to see and to hear. Although I still could not speak it made me happy as other figures of light started to appear in the abyss, they were all vastly different from myself. What am I? Who are they? Why are we here? The figures that could move seemed to cower away from me as I drew close to them, while others attempted to harm me. They seemed to hate me or to fear me and yet I had done nothing to them...or have I? What did I do to make them show such feelings towards me?

After days of being turned away by seemingly violent body language or them cowering away from me I retreated the edge of the abyss and curled into a ball. I felt sad and distraught, yet I could not produce any noise or tears to show my sadness. I had only wanted to be accepted in this dark world from which none of us could escape and yet I was despised and feared by all who I would come near. I have no memories of life before this abyss, not even a name to call myself by and from what I can gather, I’d probably like to never know who I was or gain my memories back.

Maybe it’s for the best that I’m alone, even my light shows that i’m not one of them given how dim it is in comparison. This must be the punishment of my past life finally catching up to me, perhaps this is Elysium but I can’t see it due to the misdeeds of the past...or perhaps this is Tartarus? What am I saying...what is Elysium or even Tartarus for that matter? More importantly how do I know of them?

I can’t help but wonder what happened to all of us and yet I have the faint feeling that I, or someone I was close to was the cause of...this. I can’t tell whether we are dead or not, and to be honest I’d rather never know the truth, I just want a fresh start; a clean slate. I don’t want to be feared or hated, why would anyone ever want that?

This existence of mine in this place meant nothing to me nor to the ones that pushed me away. All I can do now is watch from afar as those who walk to and fro go about their days as if nothing had changed. With every day that passed, the world around us expanded and the light slowly became colored with many different hues allowing the scene to be painted. The buildings within the empire became crystalline in appearance with differing hues of blue and purple. The creatures that walked its streets became different colors but were each defined by a certain mark that was found on their rear end.

As for me as I stood atop this large hill on the outskirts of this empire of light I was a flowing mixture of black, purple, and green. The very air around me was a light black mist that contrasted against the beauty of the bright green landscape around me. The tree I stood against was a light brown at the trunk that was contrasted by bright pink leaves at the top that flowed pleasantly like a river in the summer sun.

I stayed on top of this hill for many years to come simply waiting, but not knowing for what. One day after centuries I finally received my answer as a creature approached the hill far below, I had thought it to be one of the denizens of light from the empire but something felt off about it. Slowly it climbed the steep hillside with its gaze locked on me the entire time, as it got closer I started to realize what was off about it. At first glance it seemed a normal creature bathed in a fuchsia light but it was anything but that as across its body black and green flowed in spirals.

I continued to sit as they stopped in front of me staring deep into my eyes seeming to wait for an answer. I reached my hand out to it but the creature still backed away from me although this time it was different from the others, it wasn’t from fear or hatred but surprise. I lowered my hand away or at least I had attempted to as the creature lurched down with its head and moved forwards to cuddle up to me and my arm. I sat there astonished as this creature, one that I had thought to be like the others showed me love and affection undeterred by the darkness that plagued me.

That night I realized that not everyone had thought me to be evil but rather mistaken for someone else. As the creature laid there against my side I felt the darkness that plagued me for so long slowly start to fade away as if it had never been there in the first place. My body was replaced by a turquoise light that just as their was dotted by black, purple, and green spirals except for my left hand and forearm which remained stained by the darkness.

Perhaps that darkness wasn’t evil but something that marked me as someone who had lost something. Perhaps that’s why this creature chose to approach me, to tell me that despite the situation that not all is lost, that there is a purpose to why darkness thrives in all of us at some point in our lives. Those who have not been stained have not known the loss that we both have felt and seen. We stayed close to each other for many years before the sky started to crack  and give way to a light so bright that the world around us was turned to nothingness once more. As we drifted apart from each other we reached out with our darkened limbs to try and stay together but it was simply impossible. I swore to myself and to them that one day I would find them again even if it took me the rest of this life or the next. In that moment the sky erupted and the empire of light disappeared back into the darkness as fast as it had appeared.