>>51151333Tourmaline ghosts weave and sway through the blue-gray forest, devouring all who let themselves be caught by the faint wisps. Tears stream down from eyes raw from the snowing ashes. A bright droplet cuts a path through the dry flakes of blood sheathing the boy's cheeks. His wails are wordless, thoughtless, pure appeals for something to end this nightmare.
In the heavens, the angels' trumpets rend the firmament apart, splitting the rightful from the wrathful with thunderous magenta streaks. The trees reach up, supplicating the beings to cease their destruction, but no one hears them. All their leaves have been carbonized by the ghosts, no more can they whisper in the winds. Dead branches sheathed in deader bark are all they have left.
Beneath, the ashy dirt hides a root from the boy, tripping him treacherously. His knees strike the ground, but his arms catch the earth before it can meet his head. The fine white dust coats his even whiter hands. It's still painfully hot. This burning sensation pushes him to stand back more than any will he might still have. Everything is ash, now. Everything except this stupid little box.
The boy hated the box. He didn't know how or why, but that little box had killed everyone, and it was gonna kill him too. Despite that, it and its small blinking green light were his salvation. The boy did not understand this paradox, did not even acknowledge it. He just got back on his feet and kept running. They wouldn't be far behind him, despite his headstart. Their legs were much longer.
Another blinding mauve slash bisected the sky, hitting landside this time. The explosion's tremor made him stumble, and the echoing thunder that followed nearly knocked him back down, but he took the next step, and the next, and the next...
He never even saw them. An arm bigger than he was snatched him off the ground. One gauntlet held his torso with ease while the other carefully picked the box out of his trembling arms. The boy held onto it with all the strength he had, screaming and pulling, but the hulking figure shrouded in shadows pulled it from his hands as though he wasn't even there, a steel claw resisted by a boy made of cloud and vapor. Many more apparitions showed themselves and surrounded him.
It looked at the box for a few seconds before throwing him to the ground like some discarded toy. Then, without missing a beat, it raised a gun towards the boy. Looking down into the barrel of Death, the boy did not feel the peace and belonging his parents claimed should accompany the Good Death. He did not want to die. This impulse took over his entire existence, yet it froze him in place completely, as he stared into the lasgun's aperture.
This instant might have lasted half a second, or hours. Everything beside the weapon's shimmering lens went out of focus and joined the shadowy darkness.
Then, the soldier's head bloomed, as a red flower might. Scarlet petals unfolded from his half-white, half-black visor, delicately extending their crimson tendrils outwards. Ever so slowly, the lasgun turned its gaze elsewhere, suddenly losing interest in him. Finally, the boy looked upwards and saw it. An angel had come for him, taller than mother's house. More lillies blossomed in the azure forest, but the boy only cared about the angel of Death. Red-hot blood poured from a gaping hole in its chest, but that didn't matter. A pink halo encompassed its twinkling eyes, he was saved...
Will archive in something, eventually. Writing dreams is fun, being confusing and ambiguous is a feature, not a bug.
