Chapter Text
~*~
There's a forgotten church, tiny and white, tucked away in a field of purple wildflowers.
Gulls cry in the distance, waves roll and roar.
Tall grass kisses her fingertips as she wades through the green sea, tangy salt twines around the tip of her tongue.
A child giggles, plays hide and seek (Come find me), races ahead unafraid. Her hair lifts in the gentle summer breeze like pale ribbons of yellow silk, catches on the blades of grass, clings and lets go in the span of a single breath.
The sun is warm, bright. It wraps its arms around her in a loving embrace as she lifts her face to its gilded brilliance. She closes her eyes, lets the peace of the moment absorb into her very soul, breathes it in, like starshine and the wordless songs of angels. When she opens them again, she's staring into eyes wary and wise, and time stretches, slows, and she's simply mesmerized.
Come find me, a child's voice sings.
The deer startles, leaps into a forest, thick and green and secretive, blends into the sulky shadows.
A shock of red catches her eye, a ribbon dancing along the breeze, playful and elusive. It curls around her fingers when she captures it, smells sweet like youthful innocence and love. She smiles, watches the green sea ripple like water around her, part as she nears the church, finds a cheerful bouquet of daisies on the bottom step, lifts them to her nose.
They dissolve into dust, swirl away in a mischievous breeze grown bold, and the sun disappears behind an ominous gray thundercloud as the air grows electric, charged with tightrope tension.
The trees in the forest bend and bow low to the ground, cowed by some unseen, malevolent force.
The waves pound and punish the rocky shore, and the gulls scream in fear.
The church's doors blow open, its stained glass windows shatter, and lightning sizzles in the air.
Darkness descends, and she sees the little hand, just before it is wrenched away. (Come find me!). The ribbon winds tight around her bloodless fingers, and terror touches her heart with poisonous intent. Then there is nothing but blackness and her own galloping pulse, and a void that swallows everything, everything until she fears even she will disappear, like the daisies, like the child.
The silence, impossibly, maddeningly, echoes.
Charity wakes, choking on her own hushed screams.