“Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells, Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust, such heaps of broken glass to sweep away, you’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.”

So she pranced around the bits and pieces,
floating towards a heaven created by her own imagination.
She was old for her young age. Her blonde pigtails and scattered freckles the only indication
of a lack of experience.
Her mind was sharp, always aware of her surroundings.

The curious type, she decided to wander down the hill of daisies behind the lodge, and into the forest who’s variations in greens had always seemed to beckon her. There was something about the cool grass beneath her toes that soothed her, relieving the tension she’d felt in her forehead earlier. Pulling on the two pony-tails, she threw the two pink elastics aside as she shook her head, releasing wavy tresses of blonde hair. The sun was still shining, but only in varied spots where the foliage above her failed to block its light. Only here were rays able to peak through and create spotlights along the path. With each step she took, her skin grew smoother, milkier, and more taught. She grew in height, stomach flattening, breasts filling in. Her eyes, once glowing blue embers, now streaked with yellows and greens pierced through the distance, as her brows drew in, creating an intense appearance. Her jaw-line became more obvious, and her nose developed a slight bump on its bridge.

            Feeling an adrenaline surge now pulsing through her veins, she began to run. Lean legs allowing the muscles in their calves and thighs propel her over broken branches, tree trunks, and random debris on the ground. She ran with a fury that had her arms pumping at her sides, as her white linen dress and hair flapped wildly in the breeze she was creating. The animals of the forest watched her thunder through their home, some of the tigers and jaguars attempting to challenge her speed, and in the end, collapsing of exhaustion and defeat.

She never stopped. She never looked back. Her feet just continued to pound in the direction her wildly beating heart was leading. With each stride, she grew further away from the lodge back beyond the hill of daisies. Shedding layers of frustrations… layers of guilt and anguish, of confusion, expectations, failures and deceit. All the things that frightened her, that kept her running.

But what increased her velocity, what made her develop at such an alarming rate, were the things she could no longer bare. They were the things she needed to run away from the most urgently. It was those waves of success, of excelling. The rush of comfort and love, of trusting the ones she was surrounded with. It was what the forest offered to hide, to keep her safe from. They were her greatest fears, what she was most afraid of losing.

Drawing in ragged breathes, she finally stopped, throwing herself on the dirt. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears. Her lips were chapped, dress torn at the ends and each and every muscle seemed to cramp after being released from the control she’d managed to keep them in to reach her destination. It was a pleasurable ache that seemed to surge in and out of her in varied frequencies.

Slowly, she began to stand. Now a young woman, her blonde hair a slightly darker shade than the one her infancy had bestowed upon her and much longer at that. Lips fuller, hips more visible, muscles tight and strong, purring softly beneath the billowing pieces of dress she had left. Tear stained cheeks, there were smudges of dirt all across her body, a light layer having been formed around her feet.

She’d come with the thought of achieving peace. Of finding tranquility and holding on to it for dear life. Her childhood had been confining her in its shell of fantasy and wonder. Her only experiences included running after butterflies, picking flowers and receiving millions of kisses and hugs from mommy and daddy. Bruises and cuts were instantly healed, as if she possessed some super human strength.

But the innocence that was once so obviously held in her eyes had now been replaced with an inexplicable mixture of emotions. It was as if in running through the forest, past the rows and rows of sheltering trees, she had opened Pandora’s box, only this one, containing every feeling she’d ever missed out on. With each step she’d taken, a new experience, a new emotion had been revealed to her for the very first time. She saw the success she was always exposed to, but with it the failure that could come instead. The same with anguish and joy, clarity and confusion, but it was the last two that’d made her walls crumble. The last two that finally made her inner dome of heaven come crashing down in raining shards of sparkling glass…

She saw the trust and love she’d always given her parents, her friends and significant others. The smiles it placed on her face, the way it lit her eyes and aura. And in a flash, the placid images her replaced with deceit and it’s consequential emotion of hatred and mistrust. She had never, in her wildest dreams, imagined that people, especially the ones she’d taken the time to let in… to observe and conclude that no malice could ever penetrate a fiber of their being, could exist.

Realizing a sharp pain in her hand, she looked down to see blood leaking off her fingertips. Opening to reveal the palm of her hand, she saw a small shard of glass, now tinged slightly in pink, dug into the surface of her skin. Pulling it out, she looked into its maze-like lattice of crystals…millions of scenes containing people smiling, laughing, crying, kissing, yelling and screaming, hugging, hitting, and loving flashed through her eyes. She looked up, down the path she had come from, and smiled.

And with this revelation she began to run. Run, with nothing but burning embers of passion as her eyes.