Amazing Grace
He goes down with the currents.
He makes a choice, and the river follows. It is the flow of his own words to trap him there, in the middle of the last scenery, without mercy nor hope. There are no compromises in this future — no pacts can be made, not between his redemption and his voracious drive to live. There is no other way; under the touch of dear hands he has to drown, both in patience and suffering.
And while he expects penance — a torture that will never be enough, not even in eternity, to fully erase what he has done — the twirls of water do not seem to stop. They spiral in green and brown, painting a farther sky each time; they keep descending when he has no breath anymore, when his eyes become crystalline in their transparent depths.
What he finds then, where the last waves stop moving, is too different to believe. He has whole darkened years to leave behind before he can see — years clouded by terror and resignation, years of dark promises and eternal flames.
The absence of punishment in his death dazzles him, making his soul float in circles. He roams the bottom of this ocean like an overgrown field, with no direction to follow, the flow of time by now unnecessary.
Eventually, in the translucent light of the horizon, he starts seeing roads in the distance. there are archs of light, windows, golden-tiled paths to explore; they are worlds free from illusions, promises of peace.
However, he already sees farther than them — out of a thousand possibilities, he understands he still needs to wait.
Each fiber of her being, from godlike to powerless, bends to defeat.
There had to be a point, sooner or later, past which she would be too broken to move on. What harms her now, in the streams of blood lining her clothes, is seeing how long ago she went beyond that.
A swarm of questions dims her mind, one for each irregular heartbeat — whether hers were mistakes or blessings, the rise of a demon or a simple pawn. In some seconds she finds a greater purpose in her death; in others she doesn't, and falls prey of despair.
That is when she knows she always was both, the daugther of a prophet and a daughter of darkness. Just as she was destined to shine, she had to live and die in obscurity. It is hard, now, to find peace in her eyes — the weight of her effort falls too heavy, but light enough to pass unmarked.
She wonders if it was truly worth it, fighting to preserve this world. She sees herself now, drenched in her pain, against a terrifying scenery — one where fiery rains purify mankind, and her eyes are those of a terrible goddess.
She has to give in like that; unsure, eaten by unanswered doubts, by chances that will never be. But her heart doesn't let go of that moment — she holds close the taste of redemption, as a girl and the sweetness of her voice help her fade to black.
They are reunited on the edge of the light. Suddenly, in a memory of clouds and pure air, their long separate journeys feel like one again.
Hand in hand, with all loose ends tied behind their shoulders, they join their eyes in recognizing the pattern.
Their future is familiar, woven in the same fabric everything else is made of. The expanse they dwell in now is nothing more than a passage — new doors are theirs to open, each one leading to a different face of the same truth. The outcome does not change; but the little things, the details that matter, are all at their command.
Bright and complete, their looks mirror their new state of being. They let the light shine through their minds and limbs — they are blissful and complete, oblivious to what shadows used to mean on the other side. There is no space and time for them in this dimension. Most of what they used to be is gone — guilt and untold regrets, too heavy to follow, have all been washed away.
They forget the barriers, and walk on to a universe that needs no words.