Prompt: Into the woods
There's an old riddle I tell to the folks who come tired to the halfway house.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYNIOpWU0ku
'How far can you walk into a forest?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOFGXso8ME1
Some of them know the answer, some don't.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS8Kfzolqpl
'Halfway. Now take your rest.'
The Wood of White Nights was my home.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Ivu2Wvf8l
It was a place between two places where rarely people had a reason to stay. Two poor towns, farming areas, or so they claimed, because the crops always failed and never the baleful cry of an animal I heard.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jy4eWj0wM
People had their own reasons for passing by the Halfway House, and I had my own reasons to live there.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJXniMA4y29
I suppose, if nothing else, it gave me something to do.
It was a hobby of sorts - I had always had a way of talking to people, and at the Halfway House I could learn about a different life every day. All the sadness and - occasionally - gladness that would lead someone to stay at a dying building in a forest full of dangerous beasts.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnC8q8Prg03
For some, perhaps they were seeking something. Tales of lost treasure in the Woods, or old friends who stopped returning letters or calls. It's strange, really - the people who were looking for something were lost themselves.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbVI0Tzq80W
The House provided refuge for others, a place where the outside world no longer mattered, a place where time itself failed to keep composure, a place where they could escape the judgements and expectations.
And I suppose that for a while it kept my interest. Lives and stories were precious things and the knowledge of each one was like a temporary high of intimacy - something that I could never have achieved elsewhere.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJLHF06kjvu
But too soon, I learnt that life was like a loop, a pencil retracing the same track over and over again - I met the same people, the same stories, the same tired faces with eyes of broken promise.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAchURusHIk
There was nowhere else for me then, of course. So I stayed. And with every passing year, I couldn't help but feel that I was looking into the mirror every time I greeted a lost soul into the House. I was running. Away, or to, even I didn't know. But I was running, by staying still.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfUQJjB5C9s
You see, runners inevitably hit a brick wall. For them, it was death. For me, it was an old friend who returned as a stranger under a rain-soaked sun.
'Welcome to the Halfway House.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA1RFPjtebO
The girl was dripping, and the warm rays of light from the sky had done nothing to dry her. She was English - with those perpetual dimples and perceptive eyes - and her hair was dyed an angel white. She was short - and her complexion said that she couldn't have been any older than twenty seven.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuFJRPwVoqx
'You must be tired. Sit, please.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNkYN5RztuH
She remained on her feet, and walked up to me.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRyFG15xZOK
'Do you know how far you can walk into a forest?' I asked her, seeing myself ask myself the same question from the inside of the droplets hanging at her eyelashes.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMpj263ZQS6
'Halfway, you bastard. It's me.' The moment that tears began running down her cheeks and not just residual rain was misty, like a watercolor - perhaps she was crying before she even entered.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdDzvaCyNmx
'Aria!' I embraced her, but only lightly, conscious of my suit getting wet. 'You're looking younger than I last saw you.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiVgo4GHdxq
'Please don't give me that bullshit Al, I'm old. I'm too old for all of this.' She let go, and finally sat down. She never liked being told when to do things.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFORXnySw0k
'Another one?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVYWl4oVDIz
'What do you think? Of course it was another one.' She pulled out a few sepia polaroids from her satchel and gave a heavy sigh at them before handing the stack to me.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfYaybHsOC2
'What was his name?' Aria always picked the ones with the lovely smiles. Here - riding on his back in a park, laughing. Here - him making a mess of the spaghetti. Here - a kiss.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsUmuSxru3J
'Jacob. Jacob Ryans.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNkuDLUc1Nb
'He's very beautiful. You two look so happy together.' Here - both of them asleep on a couch. Here - a walk on the beach with a white dog.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb8OPHgrIjj
'Were, Al, we were happy.' She collapsed into an outburst of bodily fluid again. Crying, bleeding, orgasming, I never really got the differences. There's always the pain and the pleasure, and at the extremities, they merge into the one - like a great circle of emotions. 'God, Al, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK2W6dap7kw
'Don't say that. What you do is a good thing. You give these men an extra few years of happiness. You know that all these people would have died if you didn't come into their bodies.' Us Muses could pass into any dying body and grant it with immortality so long as we stayed inside. She was the Aria - the outpour of raw emotion. I was the Allemande - the noble, the detached.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzMZaDqVOUS
'But you know what I took away? Closure. And not having that - that hurts more.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl8GFpYV2qH
'You can still fix things.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDgXaJXhbhP
'Al, you know I can't do that. I can't tell them, I can't leave them in any way. I loved them all. I love them all.' She took the photos back and took a long look at the one by the beach. 'The dog was called Marbles. You like riddles, Al? Why's the dog called Marbles?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRm9qSqSQki
'You tell me, sis.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIfG3sfnHMM
She laughed. 'He's batshit bonkers. But adorable all the same. We got him from the adoption place in - I don't even remember. But he was heard barking from the sewers. His previous owner left him there.' A corner of the English girl's smile appeared and faded just as quickly like an imprint from the past.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8OACYgM9HO
'I just don't know why I keep making the same mistakes.' She folded the photos.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrpVAtGMGVn
'Well, sis, life is like a loop - '944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzSJlZawZva
'Can you just shut up for once, Al? Not all of your goddamn philosophies are goddamn right. You're stuck here for what you've done, how can you say you know about life?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvfQoOxHSJ9
I stayed silent. She was in a mood.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb6xUWDNAgt
'It's like a spiral.' She said, suddenly. 'You always think you're heading somewhere but you just keep going round and round. You know the funny thing about spirals?' I didn't interrupt her - it was rhetorical, and I would only frustrate her further. 'You can draw an infinite number of spirals. An infinite number of lives. They get close, but the only place they really touch is at the center, at the end. At the end of them all.'
Having Aria around was always difficult, but I know she did it for me.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs8JXP07TlZ
You see - I couldn't actually leave the woods. I had made a mistake, a long time ago. Aria takes photos of the world for me, with an old polaroid that she never found the strength to throw away. After a few decades I had had enough of the cities and mountains and lakes, and I asked if I could just see her life.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRdoW5tGFNs
It was always about the love, for her. I never understood why. But she would purposefully try to find the ones who were in a healthy relationship, the ones whose boyfriends or girlfriends were always by their hospital bed.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFPN6TIkFQj
And once those dying bodies woke again, she would never let those people go, not until she had to leave. She stayed with each one only five, ten years - you see, the bodies don't age once we're inside. To keep us safe, she left before it would become noticeable.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdqjB31N90I
I suppose I should have thanked her more than I did.
'You're still here.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAgf6Mjrpgl
It was morning, and Aria was sitting, the English girl, in the dining room. She had never stayed longer than the night before. 'I need a break from it all.' She sighed.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡApspmE6ciG
'You're at the right place.' I took the place beside her. 'The cornflakes are shit.' I reminded her. 'Have the yogurt.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnYcf32BoHl
'How did it feel, Al?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDbE0USP8AD
'How did what...'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxcClRd12Mc
'To do what you did. To do that to all those people.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0uvaoMan1D
'Why are you asking me this now?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcLJvajkeeD
She laid her head into her palms. 'Because nothing has changed.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWkyKvyaJlj
She didn't want to say it, but I knew what she was thinking. She was tired of being trapped in this world with me.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq6pQac5IGz
'Sis, I'm sorry.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaPchxGlY2q
She looked up, crying again. 'But were you really?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcG0OSljy0b
I couldn't answer that. One option would be a lie and the other would break her heart.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbLdtuYLOO8
I stood.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWWWegCf1AT
'I'll go get you some yogurt.'
'Do you ever wish you could die?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhfgQa5mBLc
Aria was slowly retreating into a shroud of depression.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSioxE6cQUJ
'No. There's so much to live for.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQXQH8iPo8i
'But I've seen it all. There's nothing left.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT1uD0YcJGT
'Don't say that.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbaLDfiYLbo
Even I was surprised at how much she cried those few days she stayed at the Halfway House. It bothered me. I never wanted to see her like this.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMROjdEGEl8
And it was only then that I decided to do what I knew was possible several, several years ago.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ99821z0BcE
'Sis... I can get you out.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaY8AZLOnEf
'...what do you mean?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq5gmlFoNY0
'I can get you out. I can get you back home. But you have to be patient.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdtC3fgrjE3
'...I don't understand.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhnToikUj16
'Back home, sis. Away from all of this.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9zdGqEVSXz
'But how?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiWsYktSptA
The tears had stopped and I knew I had made a promise that I couldn't bear to break.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6vILTswO7S
'You'll understand tomorrow. Sleep on it.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNCT2a8lE3n
She turned away again.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGdIL8pNZUG
She didn't say thanks - reminding me even now how I had mistreated her before.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡer5RohYjGg
'Remember. You'll have to be patient.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxspcT1Jkdh
I wait a few moments for a response before I close her door.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBvLGokKwwL
It was time for me to leave. To run away, to run towards.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPm7UPZySp6
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An English girl with hair angel white, kneeled before the gates of her home.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPBz8kYYDr4
'Father?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl8kcTUUqMa
'Aria. You know you're not allowed here.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv7Lx89w1AW
'It's not Aria.'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRO2GX4TMEk
Muses could go only into dying bodies, of which there were none in the Wood of White Nights, where time itself lay tired.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRmaFm2GCP3
But there had been one - a girl with cancer, who should have died seven years ago, who woke at the brink and came to the woods.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqP8v8R8IMy
'Allemande?'944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxBzliJDsd6
I could feel him, ready to send me back to the forest in a single spin of the landscape.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ070LWu0CLO
'Wait.' I say.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyXMAH6G09g
I know what I need to do to make things right. I know what I need to do to pay for my past. I know how to send Aria home.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6SP3MTGGkS
Because I realized, longer ago than I believed, that I was wrong. Life didn't have a simple shape, an order - life was a mirror, in the corner of the universe, in which you could see eternity, and the reflections of a thousand others -944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVWHwVVCsRP
And so I will suffer the reflection of the suffering I caused.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnOfP9z9Wdr
I had been running - not away from the forests in fear, not to the forests in hope of comfort, but to hide from the forests that festered within myself.944Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1BKuhYsCOj
And when all the pain finally ends, they will offer me the heavens once again in forgiveness - but I would stay only a moment to say farewell - and return home, to the Halfway House.
and then Add to home screen.