Prolonged
Keyframe
n. a moment that seemed innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life—set in motion not by a series of jolting epiphanies but by tiny imperceptible differences between one ordinary day and the next, until entire years of your memory can be compressed into a handful of indelible images—which prevents you from rewinding the past, but allows you to move forward without endless buffering. (from the dictionary of Obscure sorrows website)
Prolouge
I never thought it would come to this, that there would be so much death and despair. I never thought so many things, and yet they were all true. I wish it hadn't come to this, but it always did.
I sunk against dry and rough bark, whines falling from my mouth, and I pressed my cold and shaking fingers to muffle them, but stopped at the sight of crimson smeared on them. I have never been so wrong. My heart hurt, like it was contracting in my chest, closing my throat. My leg burned, gaping up with blood pooling, the wind making my skin cold everywhere else but where my flesh was broken apart. I couldn't hold my body still, it twitched and shook and I swore it was falling apart.
I guess we were never meant to survive.
How did it come to this? Tears slid down my closed eyes, I couldn't bear to see the broken bodies of my clan around me, or how embers burned slowly at the grass that threatened to make everything go in flame. I didn't care, why should I?
I opened my mouth and screamed, screamed for all the pain, the betrayal, the lies. "HOW COULD YOU FORSAKE US?! AND WE DON'T DESERVE THIS!" My throat became raw as smoke rose up, flames flickering to life. I pulled myself closer to the tree, sobs wracking my body. I couldn't let my eyes wonder over broken bodies of the children, the helpless elders, or the brave ones that died with their bows in hand. I could let myself die here, they were. They were all I had, all I was. I wanted it to be my time.
"Get up." I opened my eyes, not expecting to hear anything, everyone was dead. I checked, I poured my magic into their bleeding bodies, their skin cold underneath my shaking hands, their lips becoming blue. "I know it hurts, I can't make it stop hurting now. It feels like fire ants are crawling in my leg, I can feel the smoke in my nose burning down into my throat."
I moved my head to look at whatever was speaking, coughing as the flames became bigger around me. What knelt before me was a man, his skin lighter than I ever saw, his hair like straw over his face that looked like death was hovering over him. A hat that looked like it was taken off of a shemlen's contraption that kept birds from their crops covered most of his face. His fingers were cold as they wrapped around my wrist and pulled. I couldn't hold the scream back as my weight fell onto my leg, and I slumped against the man. The world spun faster and faster, the heat of the flames falling behind as the man ran, my legs feebly trying to move, though I would rather have stayed laying with my clan and die.
How did it come to this? I questioned as the world slipped into blackness.
Look at that, I edited it. . .
