A dream? . . . or memory?
He’s standing in water, which swirls around his legs in a lazy spiral before moving past in gentle undulations. Lotus flowers drift past, pushed and pulled by the river. Lake. Whatever this was. There’s water and lotus flowers as far as he can see, lit by a hazy light with no visible source.
Sanzo chooses a direction at random and begins to walk, splashing through water not quite knee height. A spot of pink wafts past, drawing him to a pause as his eyes follow it to its landing. A sakura petal? He turns into the direction it came from in time to see another petal swaying through the air. Without having a clear direction anyway, he moves toward the petals’ apparent origin.
There’s no clear sense of time here, which is irritating. Sanzo’s jaw tightens.
A sakura tree appears in the distance. He’s maybe twenty yards away from the tree when pink stains perfuse the water. Sanzo stops and watches as the pink darkens to red, scattered particles of color becoming a solid, an all-encompassing hue. His eyes track the flow of blood backwards, but no body appears. Only the roots of the tree.
A flash of knowledge and images darts past, too quick to capture, and powerful enough to make him stagger a step back.
There’s the sense that there’s something, an important memory, just out of reach.
