Sitting crossed legged on their bedroom floor Aaradhya threw the scribbled in book to the side. The knuckles of their hand ached from writing so fast.

Staring up at the ceiling, exhaustion was settling in their bones. Everything in them felt exhaustion, Aheyar, whomever this was was becoming quite the issue. Even their cross was becoming heavy. The exhaustion curled into anger or perhaps the anger had always been there as Aaradhya felt their heat beat against their ribs. It was so hard they thought their ribs might break and the anger might seep from their chest.

Throwing their black inked pen to the side, Aaradhya watched as it spun away. In the silence that followed between the ups and downs of their spurring anger Aaradhya noticed that they couldn’t hear the outside. Usually their window was always open so the chirps of nearby birds and crashing of nearby oceans would flow in like homemade white noise.

Standing, the walked over to the window, the darkening day was splayed over Gamal. Lights being flicked off as Aaradhya twisted open their window.

First it started out like a fizzling, where there fingers were no longer, the overflowing of pain created an almost invisible outline of what used to be. Aaradhya stared at each outstretched finger, huffing anger and frustration at their left hand, trying to stretch the muscles where no muscles were.

Beneath the world curled, the floorboards peeling up and twisting into its original form. The water in the glass that Aaradhya had brought back from the bathroom this morning began to flow, brimming the lip and flowing down their side table. Floating bubbles descending beside it.

The water grew as it touched the bedroom floor, spreading out and becoming larger than what the glass had first held. Then, the water stopped. Fattening and rising into icicles of frozen ice. Their tips were like sharp glass, touching them would only draw drops of blood.

Scrambling away from the ice, Aaradhya ran downstairs. Their steps rumbling through the house. Scribbling out a note that said they were going for a walk, Aaradhya sprinted away, towards the dense woods.

Leaves crunched beneath their feet. The deep mud holes didn’t let their runners sink beneath. Leaving behind deep indentations of thick boots like armour surrounded them. With each new step the forest atrophied and modified.

With a sudden stop in the mud dusted surroundings, a blast of uncontrollable power tore through the dense forest. Spindles of reaching tree fiber extended from Aaradhya’s heaving form, like thin fingers that outstretched to touch their waning back.

“Aaradhya? Aaradhya!” Their back straightened, like a rod slid between their vertebrae, keeping it away from Kai.

They could hear his feet splashing and slapping against the ruined ground, “What are you doing here?!”

“I saw the forest…I think the whole town saw the forest.”

A ruined forest. Ash and dust covered the area where elden trees once stood monstrous. Parts of the forest had been destroyed and others had curled into something not seen in millennia.

“Aaradhya, look at me.” Turning, Aaradhya saw the same man from their dreams. His black eyes flickered open, every colour had dissipated into the iris. His head was slightly tilted and despite the black overlaying his eyes, Aaradhya could see the human in him. He was still wearing his thick blue flannel pajamas like he’d run straight out of the house.

“We’ll be okay.”  a dark atmosphere washed over the forest by the beckoning of Kai’s hand. It flowed like thick smoke from his form. Kai and Aaradhya stood still in the shadows. As if floating in onyx waters. A moment devoid of stars, planets, galaxies. Pitch black in the most serene of ways.

“How are you dealing with this so well? You can bend shadows for fuck’s sake!” They felt like a child, frustration, confusion and embarrassment tinging their voice. Throwing up their hands, another drove of trees sliced through the ground. The trees mimicked the rest, curved and grabbing towards the reaching sky.

He gave a hearty laugh despite it, which stopped when Aaradhya threw him an annoyed face. “Because I know at least one other person who also doesn’t know what they’re doing. And PS, I’m not dealing with this any better than you. My freak outs just have a less…visual effect. It’s lights getting blown out or shadow monsters that no one but us can see. You’re dealing with a whole other thing, Aaradhya. It’s not just the dark for you, it's the breath of the Earth beneath us.” Aaradhya took a step towards him.

His warm palms pressed against their round cheeks, “Look at me.” Bright white eyes looked back at him. There was a golden solace in his eyes. Not a trace of a lie, even a little white lie within them. Aaradhya looked at his face, the anger dissipating further as they found something new to memorise. At the tip of Kai’s nose it slightly turned up.

Maybe it will all be fine, Aaradhya thought as their eyes fluttered close. His chest rose and fell alongside Aaradhya’s gasping one. The longer he held them, the more their chest steadied into halcyonic breaths.

Aaradhya pressed their forehead to Kai’s. Eyes closed and hearts attached by a slim red line. Aaradhya didn’t know what they had meant to say, barely having a second thought, the word tumbled out, “Khitarr.” Their voice in the Original Language was echoing between the brittle trees. Lighting the dark caverns beneath them, the voice they had did not die down, slipping overhead until it touched the brightest stars above.

With the world enclosed around them, Aaradhya whispered, “It’s almost beautiful.”

Silence shared a weight between them before Aaradhya switched their words, “It is beautiful.” The weight of the World seemed to become delicate next to him. Standing in the forest like they had a million times before, there was a new definition to everything Aaradhya had ever seen, ever felt or ever done.