Strangeland

What is a starchild without dreams? Without glitter to hypnotize behind her closed eyes, without heights to soar upwards to, without an adventure to aim for? Hope is the wings of gossamer and webs, dew-covered aspirations that she could fight for, the song of the soul to offer to the stars and the bright smile of the moon.

Without dreams, she is just a small human girlthing, trapped in her own head by threads that she fears hold the beginning of madness. Apathy is the iron that burns her skin, makes her want to cringe and shrink away. There is no magic dust, there is nothing but this heart that is shrinking within her chest. Ivy is growing over this ribcage, heavy thorned limbs to keep the world safe while it falls to sleep, dreamless and safe.

But there is no safety, not in her skull. There is a lack of desire, lack of clarity, lack of emotions other than fear. Fear is her companion, those fingers wrapping around her ankles to draw her down into the swamplands, sinking further and further until her lungs draw in quicksand instead of air, silt against her teeth to silence the screams. She has been sinking for a while now - she was just too blind to notice.

There is no magic anymore and maybe there never was. She can't find even a glimpse of it now. Once, she used to dance. She used to go out and adventure, frolick like the faeriechild changeling she claimed to be, searching and claiming and seeking to sate her curiosity. She used to create, she used to write - the words used to spill off of her fingertips in a wonderful dazzle of letters and gems. Now, the words are stagnant and meaningless, only emerging when she opens a vein to slake the thirst of her quill. She used to make wishes on stars and cupcakes and rainbows and flowers - now, she doesn't have a single wish inside of her body. She searches in vain. Hope has rotted into emptiness.

So she withdrawls inside of herself, retreatss behind these walls and far away from those who might see the truth, who would despise her for the loss of her magic, for revealing the face of shadows and the weakness and losing all strength to fight for something - anything - once more.

The world has turned grey. Trapped in the mists, cold and lost and unable to cry out. All has turned to dust - crumbling marble and edged with cobwebs, fading and dying and turning into nothingness once more.

This is the present. This is the future.

It was always going to end up this way.