It seemed like only yesterday that everything had been alright.
Was it really so long ago?, I couldn't help but wonder. What ever happened to the days where everything was wild and free; when there was a whole new world ahead of us just waiting to be discovered together? The days of gently rolling plains, while the slow, tranquil perfection of tall grass swayed beneath your scampering feet. The sky was all around us, surrounding and immense. It was a world without bounds.
And then, there was you.
It was you with your light-hearted laughter, full of pure, unadulterated happiness that only children possess. Your laughter strikes my memory so vividly, accompanied by the lingering image of your petite self, calling loudly for me to hurry up as you clumsily ran ahead.
It was you with your bright, blue eyes, always so filled with wonder for this great big world around you—a world that I had seen too much of. Your eyes had no reign, like an ocean with a life of its own. Those clear azure pools could so effortlessly reflect what was in your heart: the laughter, smile, and joy you felt, as well as the fear, sadness, and guilt. You had no restraint. You were free. You were so unknowingly innocent, it stunned me.
Your life unfolded before me like a fairytale. After all the years I lived through and everything I had seen, I had come to forget that such things as miracles existed anymore. You lived in a world that I had grown so disconnected to. In some way, I had never felt so relieved. Somehow, you—with your indecipherably special ways—had set me free. For the first time in centuries, I had sincerely—not bitterly, not at some bawdy joke, not at the expense of someone else—laughed with all my heart. And it was because I was with you.
But now everything has changed. That world I had come to cherish has become terribly distant once more. The blood and rain pooling around me is proof; knowing that the boy in front of me—young, defiant, and... remorseful?—is you is all the proof I need. I know—am painfully aware—yet part of me won't accept the truth.
Were those days really all over? Not to come back? Never?
I've given up. Resigned. With the rain pounding on the ground, trying to wash away blood that would never fade, I lie on the ground, one cheek against the wet dirt, the other exposed to the cold rain. My eyes drift shut.
I want to go back to yesterday.