moonlight, pt. i

The forests are dark without an ounce of color to welcome wanderers, but Vaelyn can see through the lush wilderness even better than she could in the day. The haze has rushed to the skies to bathe the moon in its silk, the ocean waves of ink spreading its glow, and it sits in all of its glory above the glass burdens of the world. Vaelyn steps through the broken twigs of fallen memories, passes through a field that once wished to drag her down to her grave, and stares further into the path of the forest as the moonlight glimmers its own beams down into the wild.

The animals are silent. The birds hum faint lullabies of rest. The creatures prowling further within hunt not for prey anymore, but hide beneath the thicket to watch the pale of the moon walk under the branches. The whispers of the wind guide her to a place of peace and her path no longer leads to a night that never ends. A wave of fireflies spark around her like the stars in the sky, the white dust of ethereal bodies warming her in the cold of the night, and her eyes follow the light of distant hope while they face the blurs of human fault. She is blind, but she sees wonders. She never thought she'd see herself better when she was blind. The world is so much prettier when the subtle glints of the moonlight spread into flourishing waves in the sky.

Vaelyn approaches the home where the child had stayed, aware that no one is wandering inside, and looks around to see if Katherine was anywhere close to what was once her home. Vaelyn steps out of the forest, the streets of a nearby neighborhood weighing her footsteps, and she glances around her as she nears the front of the home. She looks ahead to the porch, the flowers next to it blooming gently, and the door ahead wide open.

She stares into the living room from outside the home, approaching slowly with caution, and curious to see what lurks inside. She enters the room and the floor gently whines to her pressure as it creaks beneath her feet. The living room is lit with a single lamp with a note lying over the coffee table next to it. Vaelyn reaches for it, twirling it in her hands to see it has been sealed in an envelope, and looks around the room again in search of other life.

She paces into the hallway and stares at the frozen memories hanging on the wall. She stares at the colors of the images, the faces of the people within them, and backs up to rest her head on the wall. She looks into the eyes of those lost within an image, their moving gaze far from where she is now, and a tear rolls down her cheek. She sees Katherine as she rows a kayak and travels across the waves of life. She stares at an image of her holding badges of academic achievement like seeds of maturity as they weave into habits. She stares at the next picture as Katherine smiles to the camera with a piano sitting in front of her.

The rain of a mental storm glides down Vaelyn's face as she stares at her own memories hanging from the nails of time, her childhood lost in a reality that no longer exists, and she holds her hair in her hands as her tears fall to the floor. She turns to the door that leads into Katherine's room, stepping into it as if she was returning home for the first time in years, and gazes at the old decorations that made her who she was.