Silver dawn

It was cold. My breath had withered, as if someone had drained every last drop of blood from my veins. I had always imagined that stories should end in grandeur—in a hymn of triumph, or a song so beautiful it could soothe every wound. But there was no hymn, no song—only a frost that splintered my bones.

I thought, at the end, a sapphire light would pour from the heavens, wrapping me in a warm embrace; that hands would descend from the stars, pressing my shoulders, whispering: Enough. You have fought. Now rest. But none of those visions came. The only lantern left for us, perhaps, was hope—yet even that, I could no longer see.

My hands had slipped from my sight, though I still felt their frozen weight. A sleep heavy as death pressed against my eyelids. The earth bled into colors, each moment redder than the last. I remembered when once I had loved the color red—when I stood upon a stage, the crowd chanting my name, clothed in a garment whose shade I have now forgotten. That day, pride shone within me. But today? All I longed for was sleep… a sleep that might soften my pain.

A vision drifted through me—half farewell, half forgotten memory: A wooden cabin, a small room, a round table on the porch, two cups of tea, and you across from me, surrounded by pine forests whose hands kissed the sky. We were drowned in azure dreams and green hopes, and I watched you dissolve into laughter. I don’t know what happened after that; perhaps it was a memory I wished had been real. I was preparing myself to meet you—but the rest has been erased.

They used to say life was a gift. But why, then, did it always taste so bitter? I tried, again and again, to be strong, to cling to hope. They said hope is humanity’s final fortress. I never despaired—not even when no one saw my worth, not even when I fled from home. I believed there must be an embrace waiting for me in this world. How could it be, in a world so vast, that not even two arms existed for mine?

I wept, again and again. Yet I told myself: surely life owed me one smile—just once, only once.

As a child, I believed that one night someone would come, and purchase all my pain away. I would wait for them, like a child awaiting Santa Claus. Then I told myself: perhaps they do not come because I am awake. So I slept, hoping that in the morning I would wake without pain. But the morning came, and the pain remained. From then on, the nights were not for waiting, but for conversing with my sorrows.

One day I woke and found my head as vast as a world—filled with unspoken thoughts. I looked into the mirror: the reflection was there, but it was not me. I pressed my palm against the glass, but my image refused to move with me. No bruise scarred my skin, but my soul was darker than any wound.

Sometimes I embraced myself, yet my hands were cold—strangers upon my own flesh. And still, I clung to a single hope: that someday, two small, gentle hands would draw me into their warmth.

But now, only a sleep of iron pressed upon my eyes. Voices swirled in my ears—not songs of joy, but the cries of those falling. Not leaves, but human beings were crashing to the earth. The ground drowned in blood. Red—the color I once cherished—now filled me with revulsion.

Leaving seemed easy—like a simple slip, a short fall, a scraped knee. But no, it was not easy. Death was like an eternal trembling, like a sudden rending of the heart. And in that moment, a voice still called within me; a distant laugh echoed, a fading smile flickered. Why did it fade? Had I sinned? Perhaps it was wounded. Yet it no longer mattered. Even at death’s threshold, I was grateful for what I had. I smiled—the purest smile of my life—hoping that vanishing smile might return once more.

For the first time, I felt death not as terror, but as a strange shiver. The cries grew louder. Swallows mourned the fallen. A gunshot—or perhaps the wail of a solitary woman—shattered in my ears.

My head throbbed. I had to sleep—like always, to escape the pain. Perhaps this time another morning would come. Perhaps red would wash from the earth, hope return, swallows rise again, leaves cling once more to their branches— and that lost smile would shine once more.

Darkness had devoured everything. Earth and time themselves had embraced the night, and I was adrift within it, like a drop lost in the ocean—nameless, formless, forgotten. I knew not where I was, nor even what I was. It was as though my body had dissolved, leaving only a spirit without form, wandering in a nowhere-place. I carried no memory, except the memory of remembering nothing. I was trapped within an endless nightmare, one that promised no dawn to end it.

In the void, a demonic shadow emerged—an infernal shape, lurking as though waiting for a single moment to strike. I had no voice; my scream was chained within a mute throat. I had no ears to hear, no eyes to see. Only one longing curled through the hollow of my being: If only someone would take my hand… lead me to a place where the rain falls, the kind of rain that drums against the glass of a moving car, reminding me that something still exists beyond this delirium, beyond this despair.

If only a voice would whisper in this darkness: I love you— even if it were a lie. Even a lie could burn like a lantern upon the sea of grief, a promise that somewhere, however falsely, someone waits for me on the shore. If only someone would murmur: You are not lost. Even knowing it was deceit, still that falsehood might wash the cursed blackness from me.

What was this helplessness? From what abyss had this shame-faced sorrow risen? My life had been built from nothing else but these exhausted feelings. If grief could be scrubbed away like dirt with soap and water, perhaps there would have been salvation. But now, as my sorrows trickled away one by one, why was I not rejoicing? Why did joy flee with them? I was becoming a hollow thing—nameless, senseless, lifeless. I was full of words, yet found no language to shape them. The dark was swallowing me whole—yet I still refused to vanish. For deep within my mind lingered someone, a forgotten face, a yearning so fierce that I longed to see them once more.

Suddenly, a whisper rippled through the dark. I turned. A tender breeze drifted toward me, scented with life. It circled softly around me before settling upon the earth— a fallen autumn leaf, which stirred again into life, and at last took the shape of a woman.

Her hair was silver, her skin crystalline, her stature tall, commanding me to gaze upward. She smiled—a smile like spring sunlight through a window, like a candle in the heart of night, like a song of salvation in the desert of solitude. Her beauty was unspeakable; words themselves knelt in defeat before her.

She was like a full moon behind clouds, a light that carved a path through the black. She was a song for life, a reason to remain.

But her face began to change—shifting through a thousand forms, until she became a small child with golden hair and pointed ears, like an elfin child from the oldest of tales. My heart, without reason, knew: I had always loved this child.

Yet she shifted again— this time into a pale, gaunt man, narrow of frame, sharp of nose, his skeletal face brimming with malice. There was something in his eyes that made my soul tremble, as though a voice had clothed itself in human flesh.

He stepped closer, bowed with feigned humility, and with a smile that felt like recognition—but was not—he captured my gaze. In that instant I knew: no matter how much I longed for an embrace, never would I let my hands touch his. An endless unease seeped from him. I tried to shut my eyes to erase him, but even behind closed lids his presence burned.

Then he spoke. A voice too impossible for any human throat— gentle, exquisite, a kiss upon the spirit. I longed to embrace him, if only I could, but I had no limbs, no strength; I was not chained, but empty—incapable of movement.

He said: “Do you know where this is? Do you know who you are?”

I strained, but no memory of place or self came. Perhaps this was a dreamscape, or another nightmare. Even my own name was gone. It was foolish, yet it was true.

And yet—he remained kind, as though he had expected my silence. Then, with the same soft cadence, he went on:

“It’s all right… you have suffered enough. Now you are here to rest. This is a world without pain, without sorrow, far from every feeling you once endured.”