Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics and are being used for non-profit entertainment purposes only. The story belongs to me.
>Note: Looks whose back to writing. Man, oh man, but it's been a rough semester. But I think this turned out okay. What do you think?
Better Left Unknown
by Magik
I woke up too early this morning, before the sun had been given a chance to rise. I stared out the window for an eternity, trying to imprint the image on my mind, wanting to capture it and hold it in my view forever.
It's strange the way the world looks during that gap between true night and true day, when it's caught in the span of hazy gray and the first dancing rays of dawn, the slight blue tone to the sky. Things become less tangible in that situation, they become less permanent, and you begin to see, to really see the truth behind things.
The truth is not pretty it appears, as the old cliché though, and, while I have never been one to believe in clichés, it does apply here. The truth is so stunningly brilliant sometimes that it can blind you, sear your eyes and leave you crying from the beauty of it all. Other times it is so dark that you can feel your soul being ripped away, pulled into that black hole that just opened up in front of you.
The world glittered fresh and new before me, a thing human eyes should not see. It was Mother Nature's ultimate rebirth and it was being played out in front of me. I felt awkward, like I had violated the most scared of sanctuaries and now I would be marked for life, an outcast, forgotten, adrift in the winds of time and change, forever apart from everything. I wanted to run as far as my feet would take me, flee and tear my eyes from their sockets, cleanse my mind with the most potent of acids, forget everything, wipe the slate clean.
I was just about to close the curtains when something reached out to me, brushed its fingers against my soul, calming me, reassuring me. And it had been so long since I had felt a mind-touch, the warm, pressure of another conscious pressing down on you, that I leaned into it, tried to infuse it into my mind so that I would never be lonely, so that the void would remain filled.
There wasn't a voice there, nothing substantial, nothing conscious, just a sensation of being alive, and the fleeting touch of something on another plane, a higher plane than mine. And it decided to lower itself to my level. It reached down from its great heights, tenderly soothed my soul, tried to make the emptiness go away, and whispered in something that wasn't a language but got through anyway, "Hello."
Tears streamed down my face, a flood of salt water that blinded me for an instant, blocking the beauty of the truth from my eyes, giving them a slight reprieve. I wiped the tears away, my hand shaking from the overwhelming emotions flowing into me, through me, from me. "Hello," I whisper back and I can barely breathe, my throat closes up. Oh God, I'd forgotten what it felt like to be something other than empty.
It flickers around, this tendril of something, this silken thread of life. In my mind, it smiles, feeling around, asking permission. I give it and gasp as the gossamer fingers run through my memories, my fears, and every little part of me. And, oh, I had forgotten about that.
Then it pauses, draws away a little, something like fear radiating off it but combined with curiosity. It pokes at the lock box in my mind where the Shadow King dwells. The hinges start to come undone, the door begins to swing open and I, paranoid git that I am, rush in and slam it closed, lock it down, turn the presence away, like a mother scolding her child for being too close to the stove.
Pained, it turns away. Shocked and stunned by my rejection, by my secrecy, betrayed because it offered me so much, everything, the chance to be whole, and I chased it away, I could not be open with it. I tried to make it conform to my rules. I tried to break it, to own it; the way all humans try to conform nature to their own standards. It leaves me, untangles its fingers from my soul, and departs, leaving me emptier than I have ever been in my life.
I opened my eyes, unaware that I had even closed them. The morning sun spills through the open curtains, making me wince from its brightness, its harshness. The truth has fled from me and I know, as the tears slid down my cheeks and the hole in my heart seems to expand into infinity, that, no matter how early I get up, it will never come back.