There he stood before her, just the way she remembered him to be. Against the backdrop of an ocean of rain that spanned far beyond the reach of her eyes, there he stood before her, in the ash-coloured sweater that she had knitted for him for his most recent birthday, the very same one that he wore each time they went outdoors and into the meadow.
In utter silence, she stared hard into his eyes, a stare which he returned with an expression so genuine, so sincere that it was impossible not to understand the emotions that were coursing through the deepest recesses of his heart.
His slightly furrowed brow so familiar, the one that gave him away each time he was feeling sad, and his lips, subtly pressed together tighter than usual, like how he always used to do whenever he felt sympathy for something or someone; she could read them all as though they were begotten of her own emotions. And there she stood, with her hand in his, perfectly still, incapable of any words or thoughts, and for that moment and that moment alone, it felt like Time had stayed its hand.
Unshifting in his gaze, he gradually loosened his grip on her wrist, and as though knowing that he did not have much time left, whispered a single word into her ear before fully releasing his hand from hers. Like a balloon separated from the hand that holds it grounded to the earth, he began to float into the sky in opposition of the falling rain, and further and further away he started to grow from her.
Still in a state of shock but not wanting to be apart from him again, she began to chase after him, fighting through the torrent which had now grown stronger and more merciless than ever before, with her feet running along the surface of the floodwaters as though it were a mere plane of reinforced glass.
Toward the heavens she stretched out her hands, her fingers begging him not to leave, but no matter how fast she ran or how high she leapt, she could not reach him and was only able to look on powerlessly through blurry eyes as he ascended higher and higher into the clouds until finally, he could no longer be seen.
Crushed by the unbearable sorrow of his inevitable departure, she felt her energy to continue the pursuit quickly fading, consumed by the emotional void that had taken root within her. Like a house built upon shifting sands, she crumbled down atop the waters with both her knees pointing inward, a vivid replica of a doll severed from the strings of its marionette.
With fists clenched so tightly that they began to turn pale from the lack of blood, she gave a loud wail which subdued and echoed over the sound of the roaring rain, and for the first time since she had lost him, the shine of a tear appeared in full at the corner of her eye.
For the heartache of not ever being able to have him by her side anymore, she screamed. For the pain of never being able to hold him in her arms again, she cried. And for all the things that she wanted to say to him but never had a chance to say, she wept.
Streams of tears began to flow forth from her bright, blue eyes, streaking down the sides of her face as she called out into the sky for that which she had always held most dear, and shifting not a single inch from where she sat, on and on she wept like never before in that state of utter brokenness, for no greater pain had she ever known since the day she was born.
Meandering along the skin of her cheeks, her teardrops gracefully trickled their way down to her chin, where momentarily they suspended themselves like stalactites hanging from the inner canopies of a cave before finally falling off her face and into the waves which she so divinely sat above. But in her darkest hour of grief and despair, a miracle beyond her wildest expectations began to unfold before her once again.
As the first of her tears plunged down toward the ocean, skimming the water’s surface, a faint light started to form where both waters met and joined, and as more tears found their way into the ocean of rain, stronger and brighter the light continued to shine and flourish until centred upon her body, a pillar that rose all the way up into the sky it became; a sanctuary of light that enveloped her entire being and shielded her from the storm.
And at that very moment, although she could no longer open her eyes in the midst of the blinding light, she knew with full certainty that an exceptional change had already began to take place with far greater things trailing in its shadow.
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