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• Heart of Embers

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She immersed herself below the swirling currents, a star bathing in the ocean. Luminescence led her thoughts, as not merely a mortal, or plainly a god, but rather a concept, a narrative propelled forwards against the curtains of time, endless and eternal.

“Am I but a figment of imagination, born of futile endeavors...?”

The light of the moon draped her phantom cloak, even the living darkness seemed to adore her presence, making way for her spectral stride.

“Who am I but a songbird of the stars, what purpose do I serve beyond this torment in my heart?”

Questions without answers, a familiar predicament.

“Even if I were to tear the heavens asunder, would it rid me of this agony?”

“Answer me.”

A long pause. Long enough for the shimmering night to reflect upon her anguish. Dread slipped through the crevices of her conscience, as the alacrity she once held ceased to take shape.

“…please.”

To whom her pleas were, she did not know. Commanding the stars with little more than a flick of her wrist, space itself bowed down to her will. The vastness of existence was now simply a serene pond of lilies. Clear, soothing water caressed her form, it was indeed her sacred paradise. Weaving torrents and stars, she manifested the cosmos to her side.

“Rose of twilight, to what pleasure do- “

“Save it, I need your advice.”

Unsurprisingly, the entity nodded softly.

“Feeling alright?” The kindled god expressed its concern.

“Do you think it’s humorous? That we are like this?”

The celestial understood, as this was far from the first time she expressed her weariness, and it was invariably caring and intimate when the coldness of the abyss was too much to bear.

It let out a much-needed hefty sigh. “Yes. In truth, we aren’t all too different from the mortal beings we so dearly govern, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I do.” A singular elysian tear merged with the running stream. For a second, the blissful pool was caked in constellations. They served well in conveying the goddesses’ cravings.

“Is it emotion you desire?”

“Yes, between the two of us, you’ve always known me better.”

“Would it be heresy to pronounce light and dark - reality and oblivion as dissimilar?”

“…”

“Hey, I hate seeing you like this…”

It twirled its fingertips in desolation. Solar winds swept away astral strands of which enshrouded a pale, elegant visage. Only dulcet silence could subdue the multiple shades of embers that burned within her. This it knew well. Undeniable tension enveloped every spared cinder of warmth, the sheer tenacity of a sweeping plague. The illusory facade of choice, a mirage it held great disdain for. With great dismay, one veiled behind a merciful guise, the crestfallen divinity would lament where the darkness knew not.

“Before I leave, the flowers, their beautiful. Been busy?”

She managed a smile. “I’m glad you noticed; Their fragrance… a sumptuous homage to the nebulae’s evanescent delicacy. They were much harder to tailor than anticipated – especially the shading – so I’m pleased to hear they turned out well.”

“They’re the best I’ve ever seen! Anyways, be sure to apprise me if you need anything.”

With its parting words, the cosmic being faded from the dimension. Ever dreary, she laid amidst the reeds and lilies. She couldn’t help but ponder a fleeting possibility, one that promised her an ephemeral sense of comfort.

“Mortals…?”

Tearing a rift between realms, she set her longing gaze upon distant obsidian horizons. A city where the colors never slept. Where the streets and skies never wept. Where between drinks and compassion, pure hearts leapt, where the world would never know of sly secrets kept.

Treading graciously, the siren of the formless would be a slave to her own refrain no further.

• Late nights and Twilight

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The streets sang a song of euphony, a hymn of moonlight and sincere melancholy. Ebony fog hung over the atmosphere, enchanting at worst to the city girl that stood amid the shades of ethereal tenebrosity. Her umbra knew no bounds, evidently crossing beyond her sullen silhouette. The vague contour coalesced with the shadows riddling the pavement, bearing innate affinity for the girl's woeful company. Metallic yet vital, an expansive trail of lush, blushing flora within the confines of a thick underbrush lay before her. Viridescent vines ensnared a seraphic reverie, a dream fated to die. Her leisurely stroll was interrupted by occasional hesitation and a cautious glance, as if the world beneath her could break apart with the slightest touch. A sound notion, paralleling the cacophony brewing in her head. She ended her transient saunter on a weathered birch bench, young in regards to the lady and her amity, old enough to understand the passage of time, a neon impasse. The rain performed its elusive dance, a dance which would quench the deity's thirst, if only for an eon. In an arcane fashion, the aloft cascades of cloudburst evaded her dainty frame, striving not to drench her lavish, lavender hair. Fortuitously, no hapless sightseers were on after-hour walks, as the fragility of the human intellect was not on her warpath of obliteration. Opaque puddles waxed and waned without end, a life in constant tension, solemn in tone. They merged as shallow streams, running tirelessly along the rough boulevard. Streaks of light aided in elucidation of the bleak midwinter that was night. The magnum opus of a despondent lamppost, sempiternal to the hues of grey, lingering in isolation as an oasis contrasting the opulent gloom, as a dim spark reluctant to perish. The girl wondered if such devout ardor had ever known of despair.

"Is a light never cold, dim, or alone?"

The deluge of droplets blended beneath the afterglow, losing their fugacious intensity. She loved the rain; it would be a magnificent understatement to suggest otherwise. Salvation without shape, saturation in delay, love in anger, resemblances eclipsed in favor of aquamarine waves. Muffled downpour rang in her ears, gushing candor gave consonance to her shattered nocturne. She would much rather not muse for a second longer. Deliberation was her one true definition of purgatory, a setting she found herself in far too often. The last of her misery drowned in surging rivulets, an act of compassion she couldn't hope to reciprocate.

"Your azure, effervescence... merciful once more, a faultless complexion, of benevolence galore." The wind’s lilting ballad eased the then somnolent nova. Roving gales were not a luxury she had often. Allowing herself the moments pleasure, her thoughts trailed elsewhere, concluding near the precipice of the ether. Tinged with indigo, a canvas of interstellar infinity.

The life of dusk intrigued her, in all veracity. Why the esse of such refined charm, a palette of crimson cerulean lazed over the skyline, even yearned for tomorrow's embrace was beyond her deepest comprehension. Florets blossomed and bloomed, unwinding as twilight veiled the drowsy sky. A reminder to times of vivacity. With dearest regards, she reluctantly left the gardens of velvet evincing her sorrow. Every step of her amble was solicitous without refutation, but even then, she trudged with a heavy heart. Pallid lights, churning car engines and the searing sun sleeping soundlessly. Forlorn figures at a bus stop, a stranger's tender stare from a taxi cab window. Apathetic high-rise panes, distant towards the insipid ghosts, gliding aimlessly along without reason, save for their weak, jejune heartbeats. All frozen in the moment, these were the virtues she took kindly to. Radiant and voiceless, the celestial angel descended from her midnight trance.

Beneath a silent condominium, tendrils of mist awaited her arrival. Distressed, they solely coveted their mistress safe passage. Perhaps, the eroded alleys would serenade her morose nature with empty echoes and snow-white petals. They grinned in gaiety, though how such incorporeal coils could beam in poignance was nearly as evident as to why the elfin damsel ran late.

Sudden, discreet quietude swept her feet off the rough drive. She hovered, motionless whilst plazas and silver-stained streets morphed and distorted into burnished mirrors. She could see herself in a thousand, achromatic fragments. Doubt creeped over her, for who was she if the reflections were to be trusted? The siren quivered. Her most proficient adversary had always been herself. With perfect concurrence, the phantom images vocalized in conjunction. A mellifluous aria engulfed her senses.

"Who are you, young city girl? A prosaic prose?"

"An ebbing vestige of a wilting rose." The apparitions simpered in amusement. It was thoroughly blatant that they were distinguishable purely by the girl's chroma, the sole source of incandescence within an argent sea. She locked glares with the eidola, not more than puppets to her every gesture, slaves to strings of destiny. Where eyes would have rested, bitter Stygian sockets lounged. Whimpering and lachrymose, the girl mustered a feeble plead, arriving at an untimely demise, falling upon deaf ears. Fractals of ice ravaged bygone tendencies. Her pitiful veins would suffer an incessant tundra's fury. Ichor draining from her lips, she surmised her ruination was inexorable.

"Then, who are we? Pathetic tales, damned woes?"

"A broken sonnet I failed to compose"

The panes encompassing her vision withered. Ashen animate grey danced with vigor. She could not cry; her tear ducts were petrified. The girl herself was not much disparate. Whisked away, the waxen flame was met with an empire of terrors she dared not defy.

• Spectral Waltz

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She found herself atop glissading isles, levitating against the abysmal attraction of a fathomless chasm. Stone pathways leading to and from one another. Staircases that led downwards and upwards simultaneously, arched doors with no conceivable destinations. Unnerving scenery, tearing away at the girl's doleful aspects. Had she not possessed her hold over nihility, the reaper would have claimed her prismatic persona in one fell swoop. Coarse voices hailed in eerie dissonance, the poet's worst phantasm. Streaking comets illumined the monotonous black in their spectral waltz. An abrupt transition she was, at the least, appreciative of. She saw alternate mirages of herself, amethyst apertures lining the rather deceitful demeanor of a pearly glass firmament, dwindling in the dark. A lone life in a vast myriad of shapes, haunting, grand, urbane, sophisticated. It was but a somewhat, fanciful respite, Elysium's mendacious blessing. The specters would not allow for repose. They emerged instantaneously, writhing, wretched souls basking in their charcoal winter. A force greater than the cosmos could summon tugged at her poor, pristine soul. The amalgamation of her apprehension – a ruined, wan queen - stared into her very being. Nothingness having structure was an anomaly she considered to be quite ironic, the wraith seemed to agree. A slight interlude, a faint glow, a flux of vengefulness. She was losing consciousness swiftly. Direful vexation seeped through her saccharine silence. A dreadful phantasmagoria flashed before her jaded eyes; a play of tragedy, a chronicle of cataclysm.

“It’s gnawing away at your form, the inferno within you - is that not apparent?” Conflict plunged her course of thought into madness. Her mind was her ivory tower, an inescapable prison, yet it was her sanctuary, the only person who was willing to listen to her confessions. Could she trust the image before her? Would a misstep lead to calamity? She was afraid her answers had left to pursue a peaceful vacation at a far off, tropical haven where daylight reigned supreme.

"Daylight... idyllic, is it not? Warm, enchanting, an ardent companion..." The pulsing glimmer grew ever fervent, resonating with the anemic girl and her every inspire.

"I believe we've had this exchange a few hundred times hitherto. But my response remains identical." A faint scarlet flared over the deathly specter, either a morbid cerise of mirth, or that of sanguine savagery.

"I'm happy to hear that, I really like your taste." She was torn between passion and resentment. Her thoughts had been all she had known, but it would not be wrong to suggest that they were a gradual poison, a snake bearing its fangs, priming a lethal lunge. She was at a crossroads with no palpable destination ahead.

"I know you do; we are no different."

The spry girl delved in dubiety. "Is that true, is anything true?"

"Go on..."

"If the present is but a fraction in time, a distant memory for the future, a frame in which no deeds can be initiated or undone, then do our actions have any effect? The motions we perform, with each passing eon, a tedious cycle with no distinction in the slightest. A merciless plight, it culminates in my imprisonment. A victim to the cruelty of stillness. Insanity, it is insanity."

"The edge of night itself shifts with time. Time is our master. As for us, we live to serve."

"I refuse. This curse, perpetuity, could be the splendor to our empyrean. I could rewrite the stars with my bare hands. They will be sore and I, callous, when I am done, but I refuse to falter. We stand sempiternal against all there is and all there will be. Time is not a limitation. We could spend forever in lilac fields, with caring breezes washing over us as a sinking sun touches the earth and her rolling verdant hills in vibrant vermilion and tangerine. Eternity within a vivifying hollow, with reeds and lilies, cosmic flowers and rejuvenating currents. Any reality, any dimension, any story, until we fade to ash and dust, a day that will never arrive."

"Is this... this pleasure you seek, would it sate your divine hunger? When you lay, sprawling, entranced within your felicitous mauve meadow, caught beneath a lazy sunset at eventide, is it contentment you will find? Or will it be the gaping vacuity of your broken heart, mania without cause. Would you shed a snowstorm of tears knowing that how you feel is assured, preordained?"

"I don't know..." Through her composed veneer, she showed hints of humanity, a consequence of the weeks spent in the city or of her own volition, a subtle touch that staggered the mist-strewn maiden. It was utterly unlike the celestial to abandon her rigid stance, cold and uncaring as the sovereign void that swallows all in due time. A revelation shook the transcendental spirit. A strength able to rival her steadfast soul had usurped her crown of thorns. The relentless rose, etiolated, prevailed unmoving. Utter perfection dwelled within her pastel cheeks. The girl saw beauty in every verge of existence, but never from herself. The reflection murmured a muted chuckle.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, it’s just... you've changed a lot. For all I know, I may have doubted you." It opened a ghastly palm. Untold possibilities sprang forth with newfound exuberance, akin to the legion of shapes across the bleached, chrome welkin.

"These are..."

"Yes, they are alternate realities." The projections greeted the dazed girl, all herself in multitudinous fractals. She saw a tranquil girl, with alcohol in one hand and the other relaxed, gazing upon a sable skyline hanging over steel skyscrapers, piercing mellow clouds. A goddess of pure light and her glistening shawl, with the most stunning luster she had ever transfixed her preeminent gaze upon, spinning glinting galaxies from the absolution of glacial nullity. Figures, lines and tones frisked and frolicked, they left her in a saintly stupor she wished not to desert. A vain hope. Light erupted in coruscating beams, a narrow fissure tore past the pellucid harbor of her thoughts. Emerging cautiously, reality paced through.

It was of her utmost ornate design, an elaborate venture to null her conflict. If her resolve was to dither, all materiality would impel her to submission.

A sonorous voice rang throughout the macrocosm. “Tremble before my ire, you who dare harrow oblivion.”

It held out its hand. An aflame, star-laden saber quelled the anxious pall in its immediate proximity. “You shall bear witness to the augury of dawn, my ultimate verdict.” Space tensed, knowing of the ensuing atrocity. The mirror image did not stir. It chose instead to observe the frightened girl.

“This elegy is yours, revise it how you wish.” It’s fair, glass skin warped the permeating sheen. Reality’s wrath was imminent.

“Wait! This isn't right!” The immortal did not vacillate, only it’s stellar nimbus flickered.

“Please!” Unheard cries, muffled screams. The crystalline woman grinned. Gossamer silk obscured her lustrous expression. Astral steel inched ever nearer.

“...Please.” 

No longer would she endure the affliction of a mind lacking lucidity, an ache in the absence of a palliative. The gloaming seethed. Smoldering twilight encircled her; shadows cackled with wicked glee. Nonexistence consumes all creation, structure and reason in its evasive wake. Sweltering brilliance fled her fuming heart. Time glazed over, shackled in adamant, penumbral chains. 

• Oblivion’s embrace

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"Forgive me." The enervated mutter of a cosmic goddess.

"A depthless remark." Exclusively opposed by coarse glass.

"I've none more to enunciate."

She took a seat beside the tainted onyx rivers, her reflection followed. Satin sheets, monochrome in tone, rose and fell.

"Lovely." She declared.

"It is, isn't it?" They sat together in mellifluent unison. Succeeding a lengthy, soundless interval, the balmy girl verbalized her emotions. Her thoughts didn't mind having had grasped them beforehand.

"I hesitated." Secluded, existence pursued its static advance, the subject of her abiding condemnation. The raging blade spurned to be extinguished, a fate she deemed worthy for such grandeur.

"That was rather soporific, to say the least."

The goddess hid her contemplation. 

It found a gleam of grief in her restrained complexion. "It's alright now, don't worry." 

Babbling brooks of mercury poured down her chiffon blouse. The grayscale silk swallowed their brief avidity with open arms.

"I want to close my eyes. For a really long time." Abruptly, tinctures regained purpose, bestowing zeal upon the dull dimension. A magenta lea of luxuriant irises frisked about, availing an overgrown hollow and its petrichor kiss, whilst a rosy evenfall welcomed the pair. 

"Limitless. That's what we are." Proclaimed the girl, petals slipping through her hold alike sand in an hourglass. Her pearly beloved hummed a wistful tune, vaguely resembling regret.

"The zenith of a life that never was meant to be. Is it destined to last?"

It found her sound asleep, owing to both her human form and unswerving vehemence, the origin of her exhaustion. 

"I can tell you're tired. Your triumph is well deserved, may your rest be untroubled. Farewell, sundown rose, see you around." Immaculate leaden shards dissipated into sundown, leaving no suggestion of their pensive exchange.

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Final thoughts :

Throughout, I tried to slip in details of how her thoughts were her greatest enemy yet providing her with some margin of comfort. I see conscience as an intriguing concept. I attempted to explore the conflict of getting lost in one's head here, and how a being capable of all possibilities would act, faced with doubt for her own meaning, the uncertainty of true existence.

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