Ava entered the graveyard and crept over the forms buried beneath her feet, wondering if those she used to see still remembered her as how she used to be. Time passed in a loop, not once missing a beat, and she moved along with it, unafraid but empty. The temptation to reach out, to seek, to connect grew steadily along with her desire and instinct to retreat.
Flight gave way to agonizing comfort and the need for the unfamiliar made her weep in her sleep. Dark unformed shadows followed her, chased her, barked at her from a distance that spanned years in a blink. Fear held her in life, in death, and in all the moments in between. One lone connection would be enough to douse the fire, satiate the hunger that consumed her when she had been alive and free, just as it did now in her captivity.
Opposite her feet were people that still had their spark, their heartbeats, but no one visited her site, not since long ago, a century ago, an eternity.
Any form of remembrance, fond or fleeting, seemed a slim possibility. In life, she’d kept would-be friends at arm’s length, would-be lovers isolated and questioning.
After life, cemeteries formed bridges, allowed for ties and generated temporary links.
Headstones were like gates, meant to hide, obstruct and keep unwanted things at bay if one so pleased. Gates, however, could be climbed, peered over, and knocked down if need be. Her longing for a connection existed in her skeletal remains just as it did her ghostly body. But reaching into the land of the living was a deed done only on All Hallows’ Eve, as to leave the ashen world of decay and frigidity at that moment would be to cheat, even if she only meant to grieve.
Ava was bitterly cold, icy even, and the warmth lured her forward, towards the barrier of mortality. Her grey presence in the colorful realm was at once unwelcome, for she could feel the shift in the universal homeostasis and the sharp pull of her dismal reality.
Yet, she would walk the vivid world eternally, passing by unnoticed and unseen until a single touch fed her soul and satisfied her craving.
Flight gave way to agonizing comfort and the need for the unfamiliar made her weep in her sleep. Dark unformed shadows followed her, chased her, barked at her from a distance that spanned years in a blink. Fear held her in life, in death, and in all the moments in between. One lone connection would be enough to douse the fire, satiate the hunger that consumed her when she had been alive and free, just as it did now in her captivity.
Opposite her feet were people that still had their spark, their heartbeats, but no one visited her site, not since long ago, a century ago, an eternity.
Any form of remembrance, fond or fleeting, seemed a slim possibility. In life, she’d kept would-be friends at arm’s length, would-be lovers isolated and questioning.
After life, cemeteries formed bridges, allowed for ties and generated temporary links.
Headstones were like gates, meant to hide, obstruct and keep unwanted things at bay if one so pleased. Gates, however, could be climbed, peered over, and knocked down if need be. Her longing for a connection existed in her skeletal remains just as it did her ghostly body. But reaching into the land of the living was a deed done only on All Hallows’ Eve, as to leave the ashen world of decay and frigidity at that moment would be to cheat, even if she only meant to grieve.
Ava was bitterly cold, icy even, and the warmth lured her forward, towards the barrier of mortality. Her grey presence in the colorful realm was at once unwelcome, for she could feel the shift in the universal homeostasis and the sharp pull of her dismal reality.
Yet, she would walk the vivid world eternally, passing by unnoticed and unseen until a single touch fed her soul and satisfied her craving.
