Two arrows thrummed against the cylinder that contained them as she sprinted across the forest. Ducking under branches and sweeping past tree trunks, her senses absorbed the area for telltale markers: the crooked tree, the vines that turned crimson in the afternoon, the call of ghost-birds near the bushes…and the particular scent of demons in the heavy air. She felt it, the nearness, felt the arrows’ bouncing match the pace of the undergrowth, match the pulsing in her souls.
She stepped onto a fallen tree and pushed deep into it; she leaped into the air and pulled out an arrow from her back. The woman touched the ground with a bending in her knees, immediately in an offensive stance as she strung her bow. She snapped her brown eyes open, dark as the ebony of her skin, and met the gaze of countless men and women. Their eyes, pure white irises with a rim of black, all blinked in unison. The one in front, no more than sixteen winters, crossed his arms. He wore two new necklaces, beads of white and black that rested on his collarbone and clattered noisily together, scraping past each other to escape him.
“Are you trying again?” he sneered. Three warriors moved in front of the boy, bows and arrows at the ready.
She knit her eyebrows together, just slightly, and set her mouth in a grim line. “I see the elders do not trust the prophecies.”
“It is not that we do not trust them. We do not trust that they must come to light. Something foreseen to overtake and end this world can only be made of evil.”
She laughed, scorn seeping into every sound. “You all are so arrogant. This world is made of nothing but evil. What ends it can only be good.”
Her souls stirred and stretched towards them, crying for starvation, temptation. The warriors took a step back, surprised at her power, at their power. They dropped their weapons. There was no way to match this, whatever this was– What exactly was this power? What was its name?
Then they heard the sharp gasp of the young boy. They looked over to him, saw an arrow lodged just under his collarbone, white blood seeping out. It had cut the string of the necklaces and the beads began to hover rather than drop to the ground. Some tried to look back at her, but she was already running towards the cliff side. They ran, but none could catch her before she jumped into the canyon.
The sky sucked away her breath as she fell and she watched the beads, one by one, take their place in the heavens and dissolve into the blue. She closed her eyes, a gentle smile on her face as blood followed her down into the river.
A newborn just arriving from the womb opened its mouth and cried. The workers on that floor of the hospital all stopped for a moment, as if hearing a song they once loved. The child, covered in blood and so much liquid, reached its hands outwards, its fist clenching tightly, as if grasping for the sky outside. The night sky revealed the multitude of stars in the sky, shining and tiny like small white beads.
The mother, her eyes soft and dark, smiled at her baby. Although the hospital smelled sharp and cold, the distinct lack of heaviness in the air and the fact that she could only hear the pulsing of two heartbeats responding to one another reassured her tired soul. “There is so much love here,” she said quietly, and the baby continued its crying, so sorrowful and yet so jubilant.
We’re connected at each and every place so
when I think this word, you’ll already know.
“Connected” by Ayumi Hamasaki
