Sunflower - Chapter 21 (Patreon)

‘Glass’.

I find glass to be a most interesting thing.

I do not quite understand what it is.

It is hard like the face of a smooth rock.

Yet it is cold and transparent, like the depths of the great-water.

- Very interesting.

I like glass.

Burch does not seem to like the glass.

Much like she does not seem to like water anymore.

Or crystals.

Or gems, which are often hidden behind the glass of the city.

An oddity.

I notice that my friend, Burch, simply does not seem to like to look at anything that might reflect herself.

Perhaps my negative thoughts about her appearance have finally reached her, after all of this time?

I lean downward, slowly, pressing my stem against the back of her head.

Do not worry, friend.

I was mistaken.

You are not a horrible, disfigured monstrosity.

There is nothing to fear.

My friend does not reply, but she does nuzzle her head from side to side, her long hairs on the back of her head, rubbing against my stem.

- A token gesture of acknowledgment.

Ah. Success.

Burch looks up towards me and smiles a smile, which seems unusually heavy on the corners around her cheeks and beneath her eyes.

Hmm.

I do not find it as pleasing, as I have found her other smiles.

Perhaps I am just selfish, however?

Burch turns back to look out over the city.

- If my friend gives me a good smile or a terrible smile, perhaps I ought to be grateful for both?

Just like I am grateful for the shine of the sun, even on a cloudy day like today.

Only a little of its grace reaches me.

But I am thankful for even that.

Thank you for smiling, Burch.

I am an appreciative sunflower.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 217/310

EXP (Burch): 36/240

_____________________________________________________

While I do find it all most fascinating, I still do not quite understand why we are here?

The city is an amazing thing, abuzz with life and with things to see.

There are hundreds of new things to see every single day.

New concepts, new faces, new colors and gifts of creation.

- I feel as if I could sit here for a month and then another month and still not run out of new things to see.

But.

We do not wander.

We do not progress.

We do not crawl and claw and fight our way towards paradise, as I have become accustomed to doing.

My friend has found a way to sustain herself; the metal disks, which she harvested from the man.

Somehow, she seems to be able to exchange these for food.

And the food is most strange.

It is not an apple.

It is not a piece of flesh.

It is not a fish.

It is… a combination.

The food here is very complex and, while I do not eat, I must say that I also do not care for it.

The mixing of such ingredients and components all together into various creations, while creative, I feel does overshadow the beauty of the single individuals.

An apple is an amazing thing.

But when it is covered in some flaky brown mass, we can not see its ruby splendor, the glistening of its skin, the density of its core, the sweetness of its cold juice.

A fish, sleek, fatty and soft is divine in its creation. Simply perfect. But, cut into small pieces and drowned in a brackish, salty water and all of a sudden, all of that natural beauty is gone.

- Too complex.

I find the food here too complex.

I find the city, while interesting, too complex.

As Burch’s friend, I feel that she would be better off just eating an apple, a tuber, a fish as they are, perfect, ready, whole.

But Burch has become strange in a familiar way.

And now I realize what ails her.

- The sickness of comfort.

Ah.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 224/310

EXP (Burch): 43/240

The old specter has caught us once again.

Remember, back in the grotto, oh so many weeks ago?

Remember, the cave in which we hid? The cave in which she feasted on fat fruit and crystal waters, as we hid from the not-birds?

She thought that she was safe.

That sense of safety bound her in place, like metal fastenings.

It seems that she has fallen into the same trap once more.

Our journey has been frightening and hard.

There were many times of hunger and thirst and times of cold and warmth and times of fear and blood.

- And here, those times are foreign.

Oh, Burch.

You silly thing.

I do adore you so.

It is to be expected, I suppose, naivety.

She is still young, after all.

- Perhaps however, she is not being naive. Perhaps she is simply in denial?

After what happened only shortly after our arrival here, I would assume as much.

Ah.

Poor thing. She had so much hope for this place.

I realize now why she avoids her reflection.

Its gaze would prove to her that which I already know.

Lifting my heads up towards the cloudy sky, I wonder, when will she see it too?

- That we are not safe at all.

Just like back in the grotto, it is an illusion.

Burch.

My dearest friend.

You have already realized, like I have, yes?

That there is nowhere here that is safe.

There is nowhere here where we can hide.

There is nothing to do, except to keep on walking, to keep journeying or to perish, as if we were beasts in a drought, traveling across the wastelands towards the only hope left.

- Paradise.

I whisper its name greedily in my mind.

A scream.

Another scream.

Screams fill the air of the midday world, together with many signaling chimes.

People run and Burch and I turn to look towards the front of the city from our perch, up high on a hill in its heart.

We look, as the mass, the swarm, the hive of hobgoblins, breaks out of the nearby forest path and charges towards the city, a thousand and then some in number.

- Wow.

What a view.

We watch from atop the heart-hill, as the blob of silhouettes, gray and green, charges towards the walls of the unprepared city.

We watch as the streets and the doors and the glass, once translucent, are all painted red.

Well.

Perhaps I really did just need to complain? Life can be funny like that sometimes.

It seems that our time here, in the city, has come to an end.

- Shall we?

Burch shakes and cries.

What’s the matter, friend?

I lean over her shoulder and press my head sideways against hers.

This seemed to bring her joy when I did it to her book, many weeks ago.

Perhaps it will work now too?

Why are you upset?

- Look.

Hundreds of people are dying.

Who has ever lived to say they have witnessed something such as this?

From a spot as perfect as this?

Truly we are blessed.

Screams fill the air as a fire begins to erupt from the entrance to the city.

Blobby masses of silhouettes move through the streets and the alleys, flowing like a creeping poison, rotting everything away, as it drips towards a slowly striking heart.

- We are blessed beyond compare.

Be happy.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 225/310

EXP (Burch): 44/240

Be joyous.

Be excited about the prospect of more experiences like this to come.

Isn’t it the best?

Watching a family being descended upon by the swarm and killed with knives of many forms, Burch then turns and runs.

Yes.

- There is so much more of the world for us to see.

Screams and smoke consume the day that we leave in our wake.

We run through the streets, through the alleys and past many doors and windows and I watch as others make the mistake that we have avoided.

They try to hide in one place for too long.

They close their doors. They close their windows.

- But such things do not bother the fire. They do not bother the hobgoblins.

We run and we run and I feel the wind grace my petals in a nostalgic fashion. I listen to the densely spaced, frantic beating of Burch’s heart, striking in a manner that brings me back to days now gone, I listen to the thudding of her feet as they slap against the ground, as we run for our lives.

For the first time in days, we are truly alive again.

- And I am grateful to the hobgoblins for rousing my friend from her slumber, for waking her from the illusion of comfort.

Comfort isn’t safety.

Comfort a trap.

One would be wise to remember this.

_____________________________________________________

The odd things that she had worn on her feet, she has discarded and now Burch runs faster.

An hour has passed, but Burch still runs, following not the road or the paths or the ways, but rather, the setting sun, which sinks down in the west.

It sinks down now, closer than ever before and as we run towards it, I realize that the red of the setting sun looks just like blood on translucent glass.

- Isn’t life just fascinating?