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the stars | {reese's end}
Nov 20, 2016 5:55:30 GMT -5
Post by umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars] on Nov 20, 2016 5:55:30 GMT -5
{ reese lachance }
The void was nothing new to Reese Lachance.
For the first several moments, neither here nor there, he had not realized he was dead. He cried. Not because he was dead, not because he was alive, but because he did not know the difference, and he was just there. And he saw the first of the light, not red. White. Pure.
Warm.
But then, to those who have never seen the stars, candles would suffice.
It grew slowly and then all at once as if he were falling in reverse, out of the pit, rather than sinking further into it.
(That is a good thing, right?)
The light was urgent and playful, teased at him to close his eyes with each passing second of its constantly improving brightness. He tested his limits and kept them open for as long as he could stand-- he would want to remember this. Who knew if he would lose his sight again in a second, or a minute, or an hour. Who knew... anything, about what this was.
He heard waves crashing against shores before he could open his eyes again. And he smelled the trees.
Some of the people he recognized. Some of them, he had known once upon a time. Rowan and Gavin were closest to him. She kissed him on the cheek, while he hustled over to Reese, who refused to move.
"I'm dead." he said when Gavin finally reached him. There was no pity in his voice, or anger, resentment. Death was always the only option for Reese Lachance. Now that it had happened, well...
"I know I'm dead. Because I know who you are. And you're dead." Gavin took a seat next to him, brown hair a mass of curls, constantly falling in his face from the wind.
"You are, I guess. If you'd like to call it that." Gavin's eyes stared at the horizon, at the setting sun. Reese stared at Gavin.
"What else would I call it?" he asked.
Gavin smiled. The girls at the Eden Institute had posters of that smile decorating their walls once upon a time.
"Rebirth. A second chance." Gavin said, "Call it what you want."
A girl cut cartwheels far away, blonde hair and a cheeky face. Another boy chased after her, cherry lips parted in a laugh Reese could barely hear.
"There are more of us. We all end up here-- the best of us, anyhow." He nudged Reese in the ribs with his elbow: an action that normally would have left a bruise. It didn't hurt now. It didn't hurt one bit.
Reese looked behind him, at the forests and the mountains and the birds, felt the wind in his hair, the sand under his toes.
"What is this?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer.
"We all bring something with us. The sun, the beach. Timothy brought the birds. A new person, a new piece to our world."
"What did you bring?"
Gavin nodded to the treetops. "Home. I brought home." There, nestled in the proud oaks and the wayward pines, was a tiny village of tree houses. They were connected by bridges. Wooden ladders were built into the trunks.
"What did I--" He worried he had brought something terrible. Disease, pain, heartache.
Gavin pointed at the sky.
"That sun hasn't set since Tiger brought it with her. But look." Reese followed Gavin's finger to the highest parts of the sky. He saw a star. And then he noticed another, and another.
"I think you brought us the stars, Reese."
("You deserve the moon and the stars, Samira Hart. You just don't realize it.")
He couldn't believe he had been so selfish.
"Samira. Ryan. Will they--" "Come here? I don't know. But they'll be okay, wherever they end up."
Ryan was dead. And he knew she would have been waiting there for him just as soon as he showed up so she could scold him for failing District Seven. But if she was not here, she would be okay. Gavin said she would be okay, and he held on to that.
But Samira was not dead. And for a quick second, he found himself wishing he could show her his stars.
(The stars can wait.
So can I.)
He had meant those words. She deserved a world better than the one she had been born into; they all did. But he would wait for her to come. He would wait because she danced with him that night on the roof, and because she had stolen the first and only kiss he had ever given. He would wait because she held his hand when he could not see, and because she did not run when she had the chance. He would wait for her, because she had waited for him: time and time again.
"Can I meet the others?" Reese asked.
Gavin laughed.
"I thought you'd never ask. Come on, they're all excited to meet you."
Reese nodded, and together the two of them walked on to the rest of their forever, free of pain and free of sorrow. Reese was in a place where the blind could see and the sick were in good health and the people didn't want to run away.
He was in a place where he could finally be free.
And he had never felt more alive.
{ the end }
" we will always be the void between stars. ever so expanding and wanting to touch the light. "
-- N.D.
