Soundless Imaginings | One-Shots

Shallow Breath | Maksimov Echo

I'm losing it.

I've already lost it.

I can't take this. 

I never could. 

The world's falling apart. 

Today it's in ruins, and I'm stranded in the rubble.

Because of that, I'm running away. It's the coward's response to a fool's troubles but I've been abandoned without options for far too long already. To stay is to sign my soul away to this decaying island and shackle myself to a destiny that's less preferable than swallowing hot coals. To go... to go is to leap into the unknown and hope I catch myself on even ground.

Still, anything is better than living out the rest of my days as the echo of Maksimov Leo.

I chance a final look over my shoulder, squinting against the frigid wind that cuts across my face. Through tear-blurred eyes I make out the tiny estate nestled among bristling rose bushes and creeping vines that line the walls like overlong brown, skeletal fingers. From here, across town, only the atrociously red door is perfectly visible; every detail beyond that is conjured from memory alone. Soon, even that will fade, and all I'll be left with is a vague sense of what I once called home.

The trek to the docks is uneventful; few people have stirred at this ungodly hour, even fewer are interested in a fifteen-year-old hunched under a bland tan cloak, carrying only a small traveling bag and an unreadable expression. My hand tightens around the leather strap of my bag as my feet hit the damp wooden boards stretching out over the calm morning waves. 

A dingy boat waits at the edge of the pier, its captain half-asleep on deck; he starts at my approach, the slap of my footsteps enough to draw him out from his half-formed fantasies. He smiles, but tightly, not quite friendly in the expression as he offers me a mock-salute. 

I stifle a sigh, glancing over my shoulder. 

The great gray mountains enclosing the village pierce the low-hanging clouds, practically scraping the sky with their frost-bitten peaks. I can make out the faint glow of the sun's rays straining to surpass them, glinting off the snow and ice in a hypnotic display of white fairy lights. A shiver seizes my spine, and I clutch at my cloak, closing it over my chest. Too many nights here are spent in the shadow of the stone giants - too many people freeze without the sunlight to warm their frosted skin. 

Death stalks this village in its perpetual winter every day of the year. Hell, he's probably made it his favorite vacation spot. And I'm sick of it - I am sick of this cold, this ice. I am done eking out half a life in this frozen hell. 

There has only ever been one redeeming quality on his godforsaken island - well, two, I suppose. I'm leaving them behind but... one day, I'll come back for them. I'll save them from the destiny I'm clawing my way out of. But they're too young to come with me now - I'd be doing nothing but burdening them by asking them to join me. They still need the coddling of a mother, and for now, she's content to give them that, even if she's decided I'm too old for that same affection. 

Hopefully... hopefully they'll have forgiven me by the time I come back.

And maybe Leo and his wife will be dead by then, too.

My eyes flutter closed, though bright spots still dance beneath my eyelids. I draw in a simple, shallow breath, the last I'll ever take while stranded on this isolated world - a world between the living and the dead, where free-will is swallowed whole by the shadows that extend their reach through every house, down every street, strangling every sign of life before it's had a chance to hook its roots into the frozen soil. 

And then I step off the deck, joining the captain aboard his ship, and within moments we've set off - and the howling winds chasing out tails fall away, retreat back to their home, soon after.

Amidst the fresh sea air and the spray of sparkling mist, I take my first deep breath in years, hopeful and excited for whatever lay in store for me. 

And I smile.