This Will End PV

july 1st, 2024 | this will end | a dream sequence
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Around her, the birds chirped and the stream sang its song. Sereia read her book. The words blurred into scribbles, but she had an idea of what she was reading. Beneath her were blades of grass, damp from the rain that had poured the last few days. There had been a dry spell weeks before, leaving petrichor on her tongue. Damp and fresh and humid all at once. Behind her, the bark scratched at places she could not reach.

Then, the voices.

Sereia looked up and smiled. Her friends were a diverse bunch, as would be expected in a school that accepted people from the larger regions of Oceania and Southeast Asia. But looking at them, she couldn’t make out all their faces. Only a boy with a sharp jawline and scruffy bowl cut and another with a rounder face and slicked back side part. Eric and… who was he? Had she already forgotten the rest of them?

The guilt of forgetting was short-lived, barely an ache in her chest before the world swept her into the stream and the water nipped at her ankles. There was laughter and screams and the cold settling into her bones as someone sent a wave towards her. Not one to give up, she bent down and scooped a handful of water, throwing it at the person closest to her. The boy with the slicked back side part. He retaliated. Warmth spread through her chest.

The joy came as quickly as it went. Sereia doubled down, clutching her throat as she hacked, and hacked, and hacked. Her blood rose and, for a moment, she felt nothing but fear. Fear and panic. She coughed, and coughed, and coughed. The world around her blurred, all the voices muddling into something like concern? Distraught? Distress? She couldn’t tell with the metallic taste flooding her mouth.

When she took her hand away from her mouth (when did she cover it to begin with?), bright orange flowers with a dark centre stuck to her palm. They looked like daisies but… they had the colour of marigolds and were too small to be sunflowers.

Pain shook her whole body again and she fell to the ground, not without landing in a pair of strong arms. In the haze, she made out the hushes and reassurances of a gentler time. It’s okay, they said, I’ve got you. You can rest.

And rest, she did. The way her shoulders sagged was comical. Beneath her, the water cradled and settled her down on a scratchy bed of linen. One deep breath of the fabric and the world changed. There was the unmistakable scent of home that she had forgotten how to describe. Mother always loved that lemon cheesecake candle that the neighbour made.

Then, the voices.

There was laughing and jokes and gasps. These were not her friends. But there was no arguing, no yelling, no accusations thrown across the room like daggers. The next breath she took came easily, and the one after that, and the one after that. They kept laughing around her. Then the arms surrounded her again and lifted her from the couch.

Sereia did not need to open her eyes to know who it was. They reminded her of a better time when life was easy and there was nothing to be scared of. Life then was a simple dance of waking up to the sunrise, falling asleep to the moonlight, and the moments in between. She melted into his skin and he held her tighter. Father always loved that white citrus cologne he had owned since he was a boy. He never bought anything else.

The cotton sheets cradled her next as another draped over her sleeping figure. Then, a wet kiss landed on her forehead. He was there for barely a second. There were footsteps, and the door closing, and for a moment there was silence.

Sereia took a breath. Her heart started. Should I open my eyes? The silence was never a good friend. She expected a sudden drop, a beat to tell her that it was time to fight. But nothing came.

Instead, she heard more laughter from the next room and she melted into the sheets. It’s okay, they told her, you can rest now. There would be times for speaking the day after, and the day after that. She breathed in deeper, consuming the sea salt and lotus flowers that had etched itself deep into her pillow.

And just as she felt herself slipping into the darkness, the world shattered.