Participants:
Scene Title | The Rose |
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Synopsis | By the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time. |
Date | August 13, 2010 |
Lower New York Bay/The Atlantic Ocean
…Water…
Hubris has always been his enemy.
Once again, it has led to his misfortune.
At first, the fire was bright. Blinding. Searing colors swimming in his vision, in his mouth, in his stomach, all around-
He burned for some time, covered slick with gas until the bay swallowed its new son whole. Then, it was water, squelching foreign fire and rinsing it into a stream of smoldering mess, to trail behind the current leading to the ocean. It was nothing, compared to the orange fire coming after, far on the horizon. He never saw it. He could feel it. In his metaphorical bones, heat sinking through the ground, vibrations rippling into the deep waters of the bay. Nature contesting the wrath of man, the ocean cradled her treasures close.
No reason to fight it. Water is life, in the most determined sense of the concept. Ice, perhaps, is a snapshot of this purity, this element that sustains life. It has surely sustained him, through the burn and shatter of his physical form into the tunnels of Staten Island. All roads lead to the sea.
All roads lead to the sea.
Many sensations are lost to him, but he can feel the water sloshing around him like a giant bowl; floating, in limbo, the warm water turned frigid and flaky with his presence. There is not much of him in one place, the explosion saw to that. It also saw to sending him downriver, and even though the damage was done, initially- it canceled itself out the moment he touched back onto the surface.
It takes him a long time to realize this. Long enough.
Long enough.
This must be how they feel, when they turn into intangible smoke, and into the dark of night.
The dark of night?
It is sunrise, eventually, he realizes. The arms of Sol reach high over the watery expanse, tickling dirty clouds and filtering through the musk of destruction hovering over a faraway island. For a few moments, he pauses to remember the events preceding his current state. Possibly, it makes him angry. Or disappointed. Maybe resigned. Perhaps all. The water around him has frozen near, clinging to the mangled formation dragging over the bottom of the dirty bay. He picks up some of it, ground coloring him muddy brown and terracotta red as the current bobs. It was his first real test. He has passed it.
Something is missing.
Something is missing, that he finds quickly- it floats far above, a linear shape between the twinkling, wobbling lights coming down through the surface.
She floats, as much ice does. As much corpses do. Flesh and blood, nail and bone. She was perfectly preserved for so long. Now, Nature washes water over the back of her skull, black, brittle hair spread in a choppy halo. She looks down, as if to greet him when he moves up, up, up-
This is no place for her. And she has no place with him. Not anymore. Not that she was ever really there. A year is a long time, to literally cling to the dead.
Not anymore.
It is a testament to his existence, that this singular thought pangs terrible and sad, needling through his sentience. Needling through his heart.
One thing, that nobody believes he has. Or ever had. Contrary, however bittersweet.
Bittersweet.
Ice forms around them, swallowing them into a murky berg, shifting, floating- dragging out towards the ocean. He waits, for the longest time. Longer than he can tell. There are no clocks, no stars. Only the sunrise that pulls them closer. It never gets any nearer. The landmasses to the west have long since become dark lines and jagged edges. This is a lonely place.
Such a lonely place.
It will not be lonely forever. One is one, two is two, and the second only wishes to gift the first. The berg splits through, a great crack webs over her face, and ice splinters apart. A craggy, frozen coffin emerges from below, bobbing out of the rippling current and lapping against the ocean as quiet as a mouse.
He watches it until it disappears.
Until the sun is high, until his gaze is casting across the clear cerulean morning.
Nature's womb overtakes him once more.