I'm standing on the edge of a meadow. A clearing. It's smeared with late sunset, the winter grasses stretching into the purple clouds. I watch the few surviving snowflakes swirl wildly, racing each other around the perfectly circular space.
I drift forward a couple of steps and collapse into the grass.
It seems like an innocent enough place.
Beautiful, even.
But it has a strange edge. Like the feeling you get when you walk into a room where someone was murdered. Chilling.
I lay my arms down, and it stings. The grass—it cuts me. And then I can suddenly feel the red sky burning my skin, making my entire body blaze from the inside out. A stronger, more violent breeze comes, ripping through me.
The grasses and the wind are whispering in my ears, jeering at me. I can see their smiles, big shiny teeth. Full mouths. Their leafy eyes twinkle at me, malicious.
I gasp, astonished, and clutch my arms around my stomach. What is this place?
The wind laughs at me mockingly.
I watch, as a final ray of sunlight slices into a falling raindrop. The water glitters like crystal, splashing rainbow in my eyes.
And then I know.
I can feel the hole in my chest. It's there; it's very there. Deep, and bloody, and ghastly. I can feel the sting of it, piercing through me. Everything is hollow; my entire body, echoing.
My skin feels miles thick. Inside, I'm closing up, my throat getting smaller and smaller…
The hole sprawls out, stretching towards the edges of my body. Swallowing me up as it goes. Trying to turn me inside out.
So I rest my arms against the cool ground, and I let it.
I don't fight it. I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to fight ever again.
And then there are throbbing tears on my face. A single droplet slithers its way across my cheek like a slimy serpent, falling upon an upturned leaf below me.
I can't see anymore with all the water, my eyes are drowning it in. My face is drowning in it.
My cheeks are raw like open wounds.
My heart begins to pound painfully in my chest, a wild animal, smashing against my ribs. Trying to break free.
I'm afraid to move. Could it? What would happen if it did—would my insides come pouring out along with it? Will it empty me out completely until I'm nothing but flesh and bone?
Can you own heart betray you?