A million lifetimes flash before my eyes.
Stood in the forest. Sat in my home. Waiting in a cold marble hall, golden light pouring through the stained glass windows.
A jagged wound across my chest, everything going dark.
Snapping out of my musings I spy their approach. The appearance of a child, yet so much more. My eyes snap across their form, looking for the tell tale signs of what they were.
Countless encounters. From a wide open smile, to a cold impassive face, to a wraith draped in the dust of the innocent, leaving trails in the air like smoke.
How long have we been trapped like this? How long has this creature held the keys to the future? Time as a metric has lost all meaning. Days, years, centuries? What use do they have when they never progress? If I had ever assigned a number to the endless passage I had long since forgotten it.
A half hearted attempt at a smile pokes at my face as I recall the happier times. Jokes, food, laughter, friends.
Family.
I chance a glance behind me, they are all still out there, all of that could still be to come. But never for long. I have had my hopes raised and then pulverised too many times to expect anything else. I do my best to cherish the times that pass, enjoy the warmth and camaraderie while it lasts, the feeling of sunlight warming my bones. Sometimes, against my logic, against my better nature, by heart still dares to dream. Is this it? Have we reached the end? Inevitably, the same thing always happens.
The tissue of the world twisting, and everything goes spirallingbacktohowitwasandmymindbleedsandtimelosesallmeani- lying in my bed. A lifetime dissipating into ashes in my mind. Memories falling into nothing, sand sculptures being undone by the tide of wrongness that this child leaves in every footfall.
Yet I never truly forget. A whole runaround, a moment, sometimes just a single glimpse. But even if that didn't stay with me, the sheer sense of age that persists would never let me forget what has happened. What they've done.
The child is close enough now for me to make out their features. Their eyes are as impassive as ever, but there is no blade clutched in their tiny fist.
I prepare myself to emerge from the treeline, quelling the shivers that run through my frame.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I don't matter.
No matter how this ends, it will just loop again. So why bother? Why go through this whole charade, this whole rigmarole? Why subject yourself to endless suffering and hope and failure?
Fear.
The repetition has broken me, but broken me like an animal. I fear the whip, yet equally I fear the hand that holds it. If I change too much, what will happen? Who next will suffer? If I change too much, will we ever get back to what is now? It can always get worse.
My eyes go dark. No. This is what has to be done. For me, and for everyone else.
As they reach the bridge, I wonder if they have noticed. Moment by moment, time by time, as my smile became more fixed, my grin more painful, my words more rehearsed. Are they so wrapped up in their own world that they don't notice my agony? Or are they aware and march on regardless?
So much of who I was is gone now, all that is left now is a facade, a cheap front of myself . I lost more and more until all that remains is a husk of the man I once was. SOUL eroded away until all I can do is adhere to the script as I extend my hand and monotone…
"Don't you know how to greet a new pal?"
...
..
.
...Don't you remember me, old friend?