Serenity

I woke to the constant slapping of the waves against my face.

My head sunken in the black sand, bursting with the biting cold.

 

To one side, the unstopping streams of an unknown river. To the other, trees I had never seen. A world I had never been to.

 

Each breath was a frosty cloud dancing before my eyes. I rubbed my hands together, but warmth was nothing but a distant memory. Up in the North, winter is brutal, and I felt its cruelty in my soul.

 

I stumbled through an untouched trail amongst twisting naked branches. The hissing wind whispered words of fear and doubt. Compelling and unquestionable, I dared to give up. It could have been weeks, months. I cannot say. For time is irrelevant when life slips away on every breath.

 

But in the distance, amidst distorted and twisted trunks, the glimmer of a star caught my eye. And with it, the faint warmth of hope.

 

Every step was a challenge, and every challenge, a new reason to move on.

 

I stopped, not for being exhausted, nor for being drained. But for being amazed. For such beauty, such indescribable exquisiteness, was not from this world.

 

Stillhettre, the tree of hope.

Serenity.

 

Louis of Nutwood

Done