Rose Blumen ~ Exogignesthai

(Rose)

There is something in the air that rises from the jungle below. Something like a smell that triggers some reactions from instincts, while your consciousness struggles to notice anything. I could feel something. I’m just not sure what.

R – Did you feel... That?

N – No.

The weird floral egg slowly and carefully follows us along treacherous paths. We’re climbing down from the steep mountains acting as geological continental dams, toward the delta still far below.

I sniff and breathe slowly, even closing my eyes.

I’m trying to identify what a part of me unused to speak reacted to.

Nightmare sees that I’m acting odd.

Her wings stretch out and burst away in the sky to investigate.

The odd and immense bird will fly and have a look around.

The day goes then quickly as we proceed slowly down toward the real jungle I’m eager to see.

~

We eventually make it at nightfall. It’s noisy and eerie. The trees and other plants make a blurry city of sounds and smells.

We build ourselves a little camp. With the little T.I. running through our body, we spark the campfire on.

Then we fall asleep.

I know what my brain will do...

~

That signal I couldn’t hear awake, it returns at night, much louder.

It hurts my head. Because it comes from a memory that isn’t technically mine; or only by stretching generously the concepts of identity.

It’s from an encounter years ago, between another me, another rose, with a wild beast. A monster that smelled different to common and random daiûas, even aggressive ones.

A sharp remembrance of pain ran along my right arm and hand as if they burnt into a kiln.

I don’t quite see the face of the beast, but I connect some clues.

It smells the same.

Somewhere around here lives a beast, no, not a beast exactly... An intelligent demon lives, whose purpose in life is to kill humans...

Nothing like a common daiûa who doesn’t care about humans and their life. There’s one thing hell-bent on erasing our existence from the surface of the world, and maybe not that far from here.

As morning comes, I share my fears with my family.

Family, hum? Well... In the end, yes.

They are actually more puzzled than I expected hearing my worry.

N – We cannot smell anything like ourselves around here.

R – Hm... It was probably a real smell, organic, not a magical aura.

Nightmare’s sense of smell is maybe not that sharp. Blume will stretch some kind of ferns on top of the boulder that is the wrapped egg, to better capture the smells that come around.

But they’re not convinced by my bad dreams fantasies.

~

We enter the jungle where it’s light enough for us to actually walk through. Maybe an ancient trail.

We’re only going toward the shores for now, only a few kilometres away. We don’t head right away into the unending depths of the river lands.

Carefully. They are still many bugs of all sorts and kind around here, and I wouldn’t be surprised some are more noxious than before.

The warmth is still okay but it feels like Summer to me. I’d hate to be around in six months when real summer will strike.

Nightmare’s wings hover at good altitude above us, scouting the area and paths.

There’s a sunken city by the shore, we couldn’t see it from the mountains. It’s been swallowed by the jungle, the sand and the sea, I mean the ocean.

The ocean...

Even today, even at my age, it makes something to me...

I shiver a little as I gaze at it, absent minded.

My sister’s hair is caught by the wind. The sun is so bright it makes the shades appear black until you reach them closer.

The sand is warm. The ocean is just there. My heart aches, just a little.

It feels so unreal... My mind is struck suddenly by a sharp pain, as if a needle pierces my brain through.

The pain isn’t real, it’s just another thing my memory struggles with.

That sight, it’s hard to describe the feeling it creates in me. It’s painful.

Nightmare looks at me as I almost sat there, wondering what is happening to me. I’m unable to reply as she calls my name.

I’m brought back to a time of childish fears, of anxiety, sorrow and despair.

At night, once upon a very distant time, someone at the end of all hopes and despair, knees down in the mud. The night, home, rain icy cold.

Tears of despair.

Giving up on living.

I’m returning to myself as Nightmare holds my shoulders firmly under this bright sunlight. I’m tearing up and shivering.

I hug her.

Unlike that person, I’ve survived. Unlike that forgotten and long dead girl, I’ve survived.

Unlike my past selves, I’ve lived on.

I’ve made it this far, incredibly far, thanks to them, thanks to me...

And just by looking at the ocean this day, I’ve made something impossible to even dream of in the darkest days of my kin, an accomplished reality.

I don’t even know what her name was, but I know we were related. She could have been me. I might have been her...

It takes me a few minutes to brush my tears of mixed joy and bittersweet emotions, along with these far icier shades. I’m in front of the ocean.

And because of how far I’ve come and been through, I shiver at the thought and sight.

I’ve made something impossible to even dream, a reality... I smile at the thought.

The ocean is... so blue, like the sky.

I laugh alone on the shore at my so personal joke even Blume might have troubles getting it. I laugh, and I tear up again.

~

Vacations.

Swimming in the ocean.

While the weirdest of flowers and its colossal fruit of blood blooms somewhat.

A headless bird watching over in the sky.

I laugh with Nightmare, sister Night. My skin ages and tans.

Being alive can be so nice. I enjoy it.

Whatever tomorrow brings.

I shall see.

~