God's beloved creation breathes in the open meadow, where a girl stirs a song to life, her voice weaving with the summer's benevolent orthoptera, the music of birds, and the murmurs of a river nearby.
A sweet breeze lifts her long, unbound curls as her tiny fingers weave a wreath of wildflowers with effortless grace.
She flinches when a low, unfamiliar growl snaps the delicate thread of the wreath.
This fallen world shattering her awake as she faces what looks like a rottweiler.
Yet something far more monstrous in its twisted, snarling features.
"Fa... Father—"
Hot tears spill down her cheeks as she staggers back on trembling legs.
She whimpers, her heart beating wildly as saliva drips from the creature's slavering jaws, drawing closer and closer and closer.
Her foot slips on a rock, a yelp breaking free as she slams hard into the earth.
Black terror freezes her as the monster lunges, its roar tearing the sky open.
She cries out as white flashes—
A force shuts everything out.
A loud thud. Hard against flesh.
A pained shriek trembles her soul.
The air rushes past her ears. It doesn't hurt—
It... doesn't hurt at all..
Warmth radiates close—so... so close.
Close enough to protect her,
pure enough to cleanse her,
mighty enough to renew her.
Running footsteps rise through the whooshing wind, over chirping birds and the rottweiler's tortured, echoing howls.
A whimper slips past her lips as she opens her eyes.
He is here—the only one.
A miracle wrought by her Heavenly Father at the moment she needed it most.
The same boy, who accompanied her to revel in the charm-work of fireflies at day's close.
He'd been lost to her for what feels like bitter, hurtful hours of forever ago.
"Neva," the boy pants. "Don't worry. I will protect you." His voice is tender as honey, his body standing firm and steady as stone.
He clenches his fists, resolute, shadowing her in protective stance.
"Ish—Ishmael—" Neva chokes on her tears, her heart pounding so hard she fears it might burst from her chest.
The crude, monstrous barks rise again.
Earlier, Ishmael had wandered off to pick wild berries in the little forest he'd discovered days before.
He promised to return in the blink of an eye, eager to bask in the sweetness of her joy at berries now ripe for picking.
But the sweet and sour berries scattered as he emerged from the wilderness, his stomach plummeting at the sight of a wild beast menacing his Neva.
Growls slice through the sky as Ishmael hurls rock after rock at the wild rottweiler.
His heart tightens with fear, his breathing ragged as he scrambles for more rocks, hurling them at the wounded beast baring its fangs.
The beast snarls even more viciously, blood streaking its tan-and-taupe fur red.
Ishmael has never seen a Rottweiler this big—this monstrous.
Rock after rock, the earth trembles under the beast's charge. Its thundering roar, scar slicing its eye, cuts through his hammering heart like a blade poised to strike.
Shrieking, the rottweiler stops dead. It recoils slowly—
as if some unseen force had terrified it.
Ishmael freezes, stunned by the rottweiler's sudden, inexplicable change of behaviour.
With a final, screeching howl, the beast turns and flees, disappearing into the wilderness.
A quiet sob tugs him back to reality. He turns, his heart softening at the sight of his little partner's trembling lips.
Neva's cries only grow louder as Ishmael pulls her close, patting her head softly, grounding her shivering in his embrace.
"I—I was so… so scared…" she cries, and he only holds her tighter, letting her racing pulse soothe the chaos in his own heart.
"I'm here now," he says softly, "be afraid no more."
She pulls away, tears streaming down her beautiful face. "Y—you left me!"
"I won't do it again." He softly brushes the tears from her rose tinted cheeks.
"Promise?" she asks in a small voice, the sweetest sound he ever heard breath out.
He places a hand on his heart, a bright smile lighting his face. "I promise."
A shy smile tugs at her lips. And he blinks, heart racing against his chest, though there's no threat, no monster looming them.
"Look, fireflies!" She points, her cocoa eyes sparkling in the evening sun's warm glow.
She leaps from the gentle grass and runs toward the riverbank, where fireflies twinkle among deep green foliage dotted with with pale, blurred daisies.
Her laughs ring through the hushed world, the breeze teasing her curls as she hops and twirls in summer's golden glow.
His hand presses against his chest, powerless against the euphoria blooming inside him, like flowers catching the last blush of the fading sun.
As the world grows quieter, dimmer under the spell of evening, he's struck by an urgent need to protect her—
to hold even the faintest traces of her shadows safe in his hands.
Before the black of night consumes her, and she fades away, slowly, surely.
This cruel awakening from a dream shattering her... her musical giggles pierced by the stinging cries of mockingbirds...
His reeling consciousness drifts toward the shadowed space looming above him, elsewhere from life rippling in the meadows.
Even as the glow of dawn creeps through the curtains, his soul sinks deeper into the cold, echoing shell of the fallen world's colorless depths.
For a colourful life is a far dream, fading memories held close to his heart, the present a void he scarcely believes exists.
He sinks to the edge of the bed, fingers digging into his temple as a shaky breath escapes him. A blistering agony consumes him, a wound that festers not in flesh, but in spirit, devoured by maggots.
"Where are you?" He swallows the lump clawing at his throat, his voice cracked and weary.
He braces himself for hours of exertion, burying the ache beneath motion.
But each waking dawn only peels the wound wider,
the last trace of his life gradually drying out.
For he refuses to cling any longer;
the truth of the One,
Who alone shall be the reviver.