Harsh light masked by clouds baked the feeling into his mind; encrusting the emptiness into a tangible feeling, into something he could feel and see. It had been too long since the tangible was so readily available. All around were the sounds of agony and despair, but even with that horrific torrent of noise there was silence -- silence in the stillness of the ocean in front of him; silence in the acknowledgement that he was forgotten. Not forgotten by his family or by the world at large even, but absence of mind from himself. The loneliness was birthed because it no longer felt real; none of it was worth it to endure, and nothing would stop him from taking the final step.
Being isolated for so long from his own mind had drained what little care he had for the world. The stained white, caustically sterile walls haunted his memories and flooded the few he had of life before with pain and misery. Even within his shell he could still see the eyes of the woman he loved, the face of his own son, but there was nothing inside of him that told him to act upon those sights. Nothingness -- emptiness -- was filling him up again.
–That’s odd…†his voice was calm and strong, but he knew to another’s ears it was hollow and told nothing but gibberish. It was so odd to him that the only thing that he could feel anymore was the lack of existence. What little was left of him had evacuated long ago, but this new and brilliant feeling of total barrenness of mind topped him off, and he did not understand it. How can a man exist without the bare necessity of life, or even without being himself? How long could his second skin keep him alive before the hollow inner-self tore out of the shackles around it and showed its true colors?
Back into the ocean his eyes tore, not wanting to think about the possibility of a relapse into sanity. The Healers always said that it was possible for him to be normal again, but what did they know? What did they think was ‘normal’? The shattered mind of the woman you love lying in a heap before you or the son that you could never tell you loved dearly, with only the recognition of yearly hospital visits to remind him of you? Yes, that was the normal life he had to look forward to, the life he was supposed to want.
The waves began to rumble far beneath his feet, crashing against the rocks like his own mind against its own walls. He carefully traced the way the waves would loll up against the stone cliff he was perched upon, gliding between the intensity of nature’s fury and the somber stillness of the dead twilight. Following the movements seemed to give him a moment of clarity, allowing his mind to seep through a small crack in the impenetrable defenses set up previously, before the movements themselves would distract him with a flurry of incomprehensible noise and white waves in his head.
Distractions were everywhere now. He could see the ships avoiding the hazard of stone; he could see the people avoiding the treacherous hike to the peak of his cliff. He could feel the wind pushing him into the water; he could hear the voices carried on them telling him,
–Jump.â€
The chilling breeze enveloped him in its arms, but did not push the matter further -- it wanted to feel his strength, it wanted him to feel something before the plunge. Furthermore, it wanted to carry away with it what shreds of reason he had left in him; it wanted to release him. Sanity had become cumbersome to him and the sleepless nights of painful recollection were overwhelmed by the desire to escape, and the wind itself was ready to carry him to peaceful oblivion.
Soaring above the earth was perhaps the feeling he needed before ending it all. The floating weightlessness might be the cure to his ailment, but would it give him hope before the resultant blackness? Would he be ready to be gone? Questions like these plagued his mind every second he spent staring at the crashing froth, and answers spilled forth just as frequently.
–Yes.†He would think, crawling around for as much as a scent of reason.
–I don’t need to be here. I’m through. Nothing is worth the wait. Just have to do it myself, then.†Were all frequent answers, answers that seemed…better to him. Nothing was better than the illusion of something, and the end would be better than the recognition of complete emptiness. Movement was incredibly simple and elegant, with almost no force of his own required, and he could feel the blaze of… of something inside of his chest.
Without looking back he took the final step.
And as he fell into the crumbling stone he looked up to the break in the clouds, up at the brilliant warming light that sunk into his bones. The dazzling orb’s rays did not seem to act as arms of resistance; arms that didn’t rejoice in his agony nor did they mock his cowardice. They were the simple, warm feeling of a mother’s touch. Somewhere inside of him it all made sense, and he could taste the bittersweet of victory; victory over life, victory over his own mangled remnants of sanity, but most of all the triumph over feeling.
Sunlight, at last, had been the savior. It was the light in the black promising a new existence; a place where he could wait for his wife and a place where he could wait for his son. It was a promise of relaxation and peace that he could share with those he once loved; it was a place where he wanted so desperately to go. Maybe this was the grand plan all along? He dearly hoped so and somewhere in the back of his mind he just hoped the light was able to back up its promises.
Sunlight, At Last by opti
Chapter Notes: A/N: I hope you enjoy this one. I left the identity of the 'man' up to speculation, but it should be fairly obvious. I'll give you a hint though, it's my first foray outside of R/Hr ;).
Chapter Endnotes: This was almost a non-fiction piece but luckily I have writing, readers, and reviewers to keep it purely fictional. Thanks to you all, and of course to Jo for letting people like us kill her creations off willy nilly.