chasing her last winds

The ivory never wanted to see Vaelyn leave, and she almost feels the same connection to the walls enclosing her. Passing through the entrance doors of a place she never thought she'd be on the other side of, Vaelyn approaches the front desk with a hint of desperation in her eyes. She finds an older woman waiting to be of assistance to the next person that walks up to her and does something on her computer to pass the time. The faint clicks of the mouse are the only sounds that Vaelyn can make out -- there's no one in the waiting room.

"Ma'am?" Vaelyn stutters to the receptionist. She holds the edge of the desk gently, leaning forward to greet the woman, and hopes that she doesn't recognize the moon trying to hide in her fabrics. The receptionist looks up through a wall of glass, smiles, and stands from a cushioned chair.

"Yes, how can I help you today?" The woman asks. From the gentle look on her face that she likely gives everyone who walks through the doors, Vaelyn is confident that she's well hidden. She smiles back the best she can, awkwardly looks off to the corners of the desk, and tries her best to speak without giving herself away.

"I have a patient I'd like to visit," Vaelyn mentions politely. The woman nods and looks at her computer again. She leans down and places her fingers on the keyboard.

"Of course. What was the name of the patient?" The woman asks. Vaelyn takes deep breaths to control herself as she glances at the same places where her parents brought her into the gateway of her oasis. It was in those chairs within the waiting room where she last saw her parents. She wasn't sure if it was a memory to cherish or to burn, but regardless, it still crawled up her spine and lurked deep in her head. She exhales another time and answers hesitantly.

"I'm here to speak with Vaelyn Courhe," she states. The woman gives Vaelyn a surprised gaze and tilts her head slightly. She looks to her computer again, focusing on typing the name into her keyboard, and spends a moment analyzing the text as it fills the screen. She gives Vaelyn a firm nod.

"She's in Room 410. Can you state your relationship with her?" The woman asks, glancing up from her computer.

Vaelyn stares. "I'm just a close friend."

The woman nods and Vaelyn listens to the clicks of the keyboard. She watches as the woman pulls a visitor badge from a drawer and hands it to Vaelyn in the slit beneath the glass.

"Enjoy your time, but please be careful," the woman suggests, "We don't know how much longer she'll be here."

Vaelyn nods uncomfortably, takes the badge, and hangs it around her neck. It'll be the last thing that does. She walks to the hospital doors that lead further into the hallways, watching the lock as it clicks open, and pushes onto it. She stares up at the beaming ceiling lights again as they symmetrically rest above her head. Her feet press against the same white tiles she's far too familiar with, but her shoes now hold their laces woven in the fabric.

She quietly enters a nearby elevator as the doors open to release several staff members as they go about their days. She passes them, shuttering from the idea of being the one on their side, her wrist without a white band that resembles her shattered past. She presses the button that leads to the fourth floor, and as the door closes, she slides down to her knees.

She holds her hair in her hands and tries her best to stay calm. The ivory is starting to creep back into her pale skin, the light of control tugging her back into her memories, and the concept of staying rising to her choke her throat as the elevator rises from the ground. She knows the risk of leaving her home behind comes at the cost of control over herself. She isn't even sure she has control over herself anymore. The first thing she thought of doing when she walked out those doors was to make sure those breaths of fresh air would be her last.

She must stay in control.

The elevator dings and Vaelyn springs herself up with the help of the silver railing that gently holds onto the strands of her hair. She watches the doors open without anyone to stop her. Her fear of being dragged back to her room still follows in her footsteps. She walks into what looks like the same hallway as before, checking the room numbers for the one where she still rests within. She hears the air vents on the ceiling as they turn on, brushing a soft hum into the corridors, and she exhales heavily another time.

She finds room number four hundred and ten. She reaches for the handle, checking for anything that may be following her, and pushes to open the door. Peering inside, she finds a hospital bed with an old woman lying under a blue sheet. Vaelyn steps inside, the door clicking shut behind her, and the woman tilts her head softly to see a younger version of herself. Vaelyn looks at herself at her old age, or perhaps it's the other way around. The woman softens her stare at the younger reflection, eager to speak to a woman she wishes she could be again, and smiles under the small pipes of ventilation.

Vaelyn steps closer to the woman. She gazes in awe of the life she could've lived if she stayed with the ivory, forever lost to the system placed by someone else, and rotting with the chains of failure. She tries to find the light that is left in the woman's eyes, but the only thing she can find is lost potential. Vaelyn holds the woman's hand.

"Is this a life I want to live?" Vaelyn whispers to the woman, standing next to the hospital bed. The woman takes in heavy breaths and ponders her response.

"You already lived it," the woman responds. She holds onto Vaelyn's wrist the best she can, doing her best to stay strong in the midst of her last moments, and stares deep into eyes that still have the center of a lotus swirling with light within her pupils. "If you become what I am, you'll leave this world without any meaning tied to your name."

Vaelyn shivers. "The world out there isn't for me."

"You haven't seen all of it. There is a place out there for you," the woman whispers with a tear rolling down her cheek. The words almost slip out of her cracked lips as if it were a demand. "You just have to keep searching."

"How can you be so sure of that? This place is the safest place for me," Vaelyn whispers back. The woman shakes her head the best she can.

"Safety won't help you face your nightmares," the woman reminds Vaelyn. "You have to face them if you want to heal."

Vaelyn grips a little tighter. "What if I don't survive?"

"You'll die with more cause than I did," the woman raises her voice. She drags Vaelyn down and shakily holds onto her shoulder. "I'm too numb to feel your touch anymore."

"What do I do?" Vaelyn tears up. She stares into the fading color of irises frozen in time. The scenery never changes, and the cycle always repeats. The woman has lost herself.

"Find the place where you can blossom," the woman demands, "Conquer the world with your beauty, however that may be. I know it isn't easy, but this place is going to kill you faster than you could do it yourself."

"I'm afraid," Vaelyn bites back.

The woman stares. "What happens to the sun and moon when they meet side by side in an eclipse?"

Vaelyn stares back, confused by the sudden question, but darts her eyes around to mimic the thoughts in her head.

"I don't know," Vaelyn says.

"They leave behind a shadow to blanket the earth in their rare beauty," the woman explains, "A shadow just like those made from even the brightest of sunbeams. What would one be if it travelled a million miles and only cast a shadow in the end? It would still find serenity in what it left behind."

"I don't understand what you're saying," Vaelyn states.

The woman sighs. "You don't have to be a blazing fire in the sky to give light, dear. Those shadows help people just as much as the light does. It helps shelter those who can't survive its heat, protects those who are blinded, and guides them to a place of rest. That sunbeam may have been the brightest thing when it sliced through the atmosphere, but in the end, people loved it more for its shade."

Vaelyn closes her eyes, the words of the woman sinking into the pale of her skin, and she opens them again with a realization. She was the moon wrapped in the ink of the night sky, swirled with the white fireflies of distant dreams, and the gleam of her beauty crawled through the haze of floating nightmares. She was shy with her watch over humanity, her light faded in the wake of the next dawn, but tranquility arose with her lullabies as she whispered into the winds. She brought order to the earth with her swing over the horizon, her shadow seen in the same shade of grey that coated the scenery, and her path through the forest of ink never changed. She was in orbit with a planet she never belonged to, but it still called for her presence in every moment the light of the sun rolled off its skin.

"I understand," Vaelyn whispers.

"The moon cradles the earth in its crescent," the woman smiles. "Please, leave something more behind than your skin for the soil when it falls from a branch."

Vaelyn watches her in silence. The woman loosens her grip on Vaelyn's wrist, her fingertips gliding down to her palm, and she releases a final breath to roll in the filtered air before she stares off into an eternal abyss. Vaelyn knows that her final words melted the last of her worries before the numbness of her body consumed her. She couldn't let this promise go. Vaelyn releases her older self and stares down at the remnants of her life. A tear rolls down her cheek as she turns away from the body, leaving it to the light of the window to carry her home.