Just an Illusion

 

by Sai Pratyusha (21067) grade 10

I lay down with my head on the lush green grass, eyes trailing the...

whisper of clouds in the practically clear sky. The grass is a cool finger, caressing my arms, tickling my toes. The wind whips past: juvenile, refreshing. The sigh I let out mingles with the breeze, floating away into the distance, travelling lands unknown much before I could. I wonder what it would see in the world. I wonder when I would be able to travel its paths. 

But for now, I see the immediate world around me. So beautiful, so alive, so full of promise. It makes me smile, makes me want to shine, to be worthy of a world so full of hope.

That is when the illusion starts to break. Through the cracks in the blue spills the inky black. Horror-struck, I scramble up. My head snaps down to my feet, only to find tendrils of darkness seeping out through the withering grass, snaking slowly, lazily around them. Chains of air, as solid as any made of steel. I look up to find a mirror facing me. No, not a mirror. Another person. Another me, staring right back with its cold, unfeeling eyes. She smiles. The sharp curve of her mouth, the cruel gleam of her face, both send a shiver down my spine. Instincts begin to stir, warning me, urging me to run.

 

I stand rooted to the spot, held there by chains I am too foolish to realise are of my own making. 

The girl raises her eyebrows and laughs. It is but a breath. Yet it clouds around me, surrounding, blanketing, engulfing me in darkness. I scream, but my cry is a silent whisper. Hands reach through the darkness, gliding towards me. I feel my heartbeat quicken with every inch the hands move. In a desperate attempt to evade their grasp, I stumble backwards, into the ever-embracing arms of the darkness.

 

I don't even have a moment to rejoice at having broken out of my chains when I begin to hear the whispers. The whispered memories of names, of places, of prayers. The very words I had so faithfully uttered in what felt like another lifetime. The very words that had led to my doom. Our doom. It is so hard to remember there is another. No, was another. 

I hear the memories of the life I once had. The one I had so briefly glimpsed moments or hours ago, I couldn't recall. A dream before the reality caught up to me again. With a dull start, I realised I was running. Again.

 

I promised her I wouldn't run.  

There was another and I promised her. 

I promised. 

My feet stop, stubbornly disobeying the order my brain shrieks at it repeatedly. Run, run, run. I tilt my head backwards, let the awaiting darkness wash over me. 

The hands, I can feel them. The gentle brush of a touch with which they stroke my hair, the delicate motion with which they slide over my tear-stained cheeks. I do not know when I began to cry, whether I had cried or was crying, whether the tears are mine or owned by this illusion. This illusion, or this reality.

 

Was this the illusion or my reality? 

Has there ever been a difference? 

A sound somewhere between a whimper and a sigh escapes my lips. I marvel at the resistance my brain offers as I take a step closer, the one step back into those arms. Why had I not wanted this? Why had I stayed away for so long? What had kept me from this eternal love? 

Love, the voice whispers, and I feel the disgust it tries to keep hidden. We do not speak of love. We do not even think of love.

 

Absently, I nod. But something tugs at me, the very core of me. The moment I choose to acknowledge it is the moment I feed it. The moment I give it power to nag at me, to grow and slowly encompass me. Now, I can feel it coursing through my veins. I feel the hands’ grip tighten on my shoulder. But at the same time, it's as if every grip that ever held me has loosened.

 

The force continues to grow. It is now screaming, calling out to me, begging for me to understand, for me to remember.

 

I don't remember. 

It's growing stronger and stronger. It's a hurricane, feeding off of the winds and storms that surround it, that surround me. It takes me into its ever-shifting embrace. With it, I churn, body toppling over the debris of memories left behind. I try to grab for them but I am moving too fast. They slip through my grasp. I tumble forwards and inwards, head over heels over head over heels over head over heels.

 

Over head. 

Over heels.

Suddenly, everything stills. The roaring winks out of existence. All that’s left is peace, quiet.

 

The silence seems to scream at me. Remember. Remember. 

I can't remember. 

The wind picks up again and this time, I brace myself. But this time, I remain still, feet planted on solid ground. Around me, the pieces of past forgotten, futures untold, float, swirl, turn and churn just out of reach. Yet, I remain still, captured by the eye of that hurricane. 

I do not know where it came from, maybe I never will. But once it hits me, it is all I can do to remain on my feet as the breath is sucked out of me. I look up and it all happens at once. Every fragment that slipped through my fingers is now embedded deep within my bones. Every emotion that ever made me human, that was drained from my soul, slams into me with the weight of a million shooting stars. Every face that had fallen over the edge of that cliff, into the depths of the abyss of the forgotten, floats back into the spaces that were always theirs.

 

I remember. I remember now. 

I was afraid I would tumble onto my knees, the weight of those memories too great a burden to hold alone. But I could never truly have fallen, for I could never truly have been alone. Not when they were always there to catch me. Those blue, blue eyes, always waiting to catch me.