*The door shut behind her, the blackness seeming to stretch on forever… as the blackness often, unsurprisingly does. Though as the woman kept walking, a soft white light begun to emanate from a new doorway. Far off.*
…Maybe he can’t talk in here?
*She muttered to herself briefly, before picking up into a sprint, running toward the blinding light, as if in a frenzy, huffing heavily as she ran as fast as she could. At first… the light seemed almost to move with her, moving away. As she moved faster, it gradually began to approach her. Til after a few minutes, it began to pick up speed, moving faster than her, toward her. The woman’s eyes widened, as she tried to slow down, though her legs did not respond nearly as fast as her brain had, and within moments, was sent bursting forth from the light of the doorway and hurling herself, incidentally, into the short steps, Her sight of them appearing only just as her skull had made harsh impact with them.*
*Raggedly, she placed her palms flat against the step and pushed herself up to her feet, swaying slightly before stumbling back into the door, her back hitting cold concrete. The woman looked back, pushing off of the surface. There was no door there. Only dark sky. Cloudless. Lightless. She climbed the stairs, legs aching slightly from the impact, yet nothing serious. Quickly recovering with every step. Yet as her eyes cast up to the expanse above. There remained nothing but more blackness. She, herself, the blackness, and the strange circular platform with originless lights that emanate from the platform like stage lights, casting shortly inward at no particular subject aside from the floor itself. It’s light never shining upon her heel. Never upon her hooves.*
This… doesn’t look like a-... starry dome like you said. There’s no stars—... …or dome.
*She swivelled around, as if looking for that voice again*
You there? Nero? Y’ there?
*The woman pursed her lips for a moment*
*No voice. Yet a soft hum began to emanate from the area around her. Like a gentle, radiating note that hung in the air. And at the corner of her eyes, those deep blue eyes… were a soft, light blue glow. The woman turned her head to the source of the sight… Her breath almost constricted in the way her chest tightened… Gentle blues…*
*Rising from the edges of the platform… maybe below, she did not know… where tens, maybe hundreds of small balls of glowing light, drifting and sailing up into the sky above her. Intermingling and lingering amongst one another in a spectrum of blues… yellows… and oranges… like fireflies amongst the blackness. It was like watching the lanterns rise for the departed, hovering amongst the stars… yet it was a starless sky. And yet it was with the feeling of rolling credits. Like on a show’s final episode. Rewatching would never have the same feeling as before. As when you once knew nothing of what to expect.*
*Nothing was gone. Nothing was lost. Nothing had left and gone, distant in the wind… and yet. That emptiness. It was a choking feeling that she struggled to swallow down. Eyes locked on the lights… It was so… so… so… so… much like those lights… the woods. The fireflies. Such a beauty to behold… though even as she’d reached out her hands, outstretched like a wanting child to their mother’s love, stumbling forward absentmindedly. Those lights did not drift through her fingers… they were swallowed. Around them would always be that feeling, that fear that drove the fireflies way. The instinct to avoid in fear of landing upon something that could snuff out its light. The lights didn’t want get to touch her. And she could only watch. Wait. Maybe if she reached up higher she’d get to be with them. Maybe the lights would come to her in time.*
*She sank down, her legs tiring. Maybe they’d come to her. Maybe if she sat and waited. The woman soon sank down further. Lay on her side. Watching the stars for so long. Yet in the eternity of this place… she’d never close her eyes. She waited. Maybe those yellow stars would come for her…*
*One seemed to drift astray from the others. Slightly brighter, slightly larger. Closer. Her heart leapt into her throat. She stretched out a hand, shaking with the care and sluggishness with that, that came with her care not to scare it away… yet as she reached out…*
*Cold concrete. The fireflies drifted in the air as shimmering fluorescent upon yellow, tape-like arrows, yet to her fuzzy blue eyes, they seemed like their own bundles of pure peace… of beauty. It hurt. Her torso ached, her shoulders throbbed. Her legs felt as if she’d shiver yet unable to move them at all. Yet the warmth that enveloped her. That pressed against the back of her head, gently against her shoulders, that cupped her face as her body was limply shifted to her back. The warmth was a distant familiarity. A warmth she so dearly craved… like a mother’s embrace. Yet the face that stared down was not one of motherly love. Love yes… of the purest kind… Those old, tired green eyes gazed down at her, gleaming unnaturally as a human’s should. Sad and glassy and unknown in a way that sent another chill through her very being… His hands gently caressed her face, wiping the crusted red from her jaw, and the sides of her neck, even as his own anguish soddened both her eyelashes and his glasses alike.*
*Did he come back? he was so… fuzzy. Everything in agony. Thinking was like rose thorns in her skull. Every breath felt as if her lungs were filled with a too-strong perfume. Sickeningly sweet, like the kind a senseless person would try, one that seemed fine in idea. Yet choking in action. And deeply regretful in result… like her lungs burned acidically. And ever so gently, she felt a hand upon her eyes… til they were guided closed… And the yellow light was snuffed for good…*
