God's beloved creation breathes in the free meadow, where summer's benevolent orthoptera stir life into song,
harmonizing with the musical murmurs of a river nearby.
Before this fallen world jolts the little girl awake—a living nightmare crawling out from her darkest night terror.
Terror racks her body as her world collapses into the ferocious growl of a rottweiler, tangling and deforming her hushed prayer to her Heavenly Father.
She retreats on trembling legs, the growls ringing in her ears—harsher, angrier—as it prowls nearer with silent, feral intuition.
"Fa—Father…" Hot tears spill down her cheeks, the brittle twig in her shivering hands, provoking the snarling beast.
Her breath turns ragged, aching through her ribs as the growls drive sharper, deeper.
Her foot slips on a rock, a yelp breaking free as she slams hard into the earth.
She freezes as the monster looms closer, muscles coiled, beneath a twisted, snarling face—an impending apocalypse.
Saliva streams from its jagged, hollowed mouth.
A bristling roar tears the sky open. The monster lunges. She cries out—white flashes, a force shutting everything out.
A loud thud—hard against flesh. A pained shriek pours through her soul as she tenses, clutching tight to her unsullied faith.
The air swifts. It doesn't hurt—
It… doesn't hurt at all…
Warmth radiates close—so… so close, close enough to protect her, pure enough to cleanse her, mighty enough to renew her.
Running footsteps rise through the whooshing wind, over chirping birds and the rottweiler's tortured, echoing howls.
A whimper slips past her lips as tides of relief crash over her. He is here—the only one, a miracle wrought by her Father at the precise moment she needed it most.
The same boy, who accompanied her to revel in the charm-work of fireflies at day's close. He'd been lost to her for what feels like bitter, hurtful hours of forever ago.
"Neva, don't worry. I will protect you," he says, voice tender as honey, his body firm and steady as stone.
He clenches his fists, boyish yet resolute, shadowing her in protective stance.
"Ish—Ishmael—" Neva chokes on her tears, her heart hammering like a caged bird, the beast's crude, monstrous barks rising again.
Earlier, Ishmael had wandered off to pick wild berries in the little forest he'd discovered days before.
He promised to return in the blink of an eye, eager to bask in the sweetness of her joy at berries now ripe for picking.
But the sweet and sour berries scattered as he emerged from the wilderness, his stomach plummeting at the sight of a wild beast menacing his Neva.
Shrieks slice through the sky as Ishmael hurls rock after rock at the wild rottweiler.
His heart tightens in fear. He scrambles for more rocks as the wounded beast bares its fangs, snarling aggressively, even as blood streaks its tan-and-taupe fur red.
Breath ragged, Ishmael fights with anything at hand, the wild rottweiler still fierce despite its injuries.
Rock after rock, the earth trembles under the beast's charge. Its thundering roar, scar slicing its eye, cuts through his hammering heart like a blade poised to strike.
Yelping, the rottweiler stops dead. It recoils, then flees.
Ishmael freezes, stunned by the rottweiler's sudden, inexplicable change in behavior—as if some unseen force had terrified it.
A quiet sob tugs him back to reality. He turns, his heart softening at the sight of his little partner's trembling lips.
Neva's cries only grow louder as Ishmael pulls her close, patting her head softly, grounding her shivering in his embrace.
"I—I was so… so scared…" she cries, and he only holds her tighter, letting her racing pulse soothe the chaos in his own heart.
"I'm here now," he says softly, "be afraid no more."
"Y—you left me," she accuses, pulling away, tears streaming unceasingly.
"I won't do it again," he whispers, softly brushing them from her rosy cheeks.
"Promise?" she asks in a small voice, the sweetest sound he has ever heard breath out.
He places a hand on his heart, a bright smile lighting his face. "I promise."
A shy smile tugs at her lips, and he blinks, heart racing against his chest, though there's no threat, no monster looming them.
"Look, fireflies!" she exclaims, pointing, her doe eyes sparkling in the evening sun's warm glow.
She leaps from the gentle grass and runs toward the riverbank, where fireflies twinkle among deep green foliage dotted with pale, blurred daisies.
Her laughs ring through the hushed world, the breeze teasing her curls as she hops and twirls in summer's golden glow.
His hand presses against his chest, powerless against the euphoria blooming inside him, like flowers catching the last blush of the fading sun.
As the world grows quieter, dimmer under the spell of evening, he's struck by an urgent need to protect her—
to hold even the faintest traces of her shadows safe in his hands.
Before the black of night consumes her, before she fades away—slowly, surely—this cruel awakening from a dream shattering her... her musical giggles pierced by the stinging cries of mockingbirds.
His reeling consciousness drifts toward the shadowed space looming above him, elsewhere from life rippling in the meadows.
Even as the glow of dawn creeps through the curtains, his soul sinks deeper into the cold, echoing shell of the fallen world's colorless depths.
For a colourful life is a far dream, fading memories held close to his heart, the present a void he scarcely believes exists.
He sinks to the edge of the bed, fingers digging into his scalp as a shaky breath escapes him.
A blistering agony consumes him, a wound that festers not in flesh, but in spirit, devoured by worms no shield can ward.
"Where are you?" he whispers, voice cracking. He swallows against the lump clawing at his throat, mentally bracing himself for hours of wandering, burying himself in work to dull the ache.
But each waking dawn only peels the wound wider, the last trace of his life gradually drying to dust.
For he refuses to cling any longer;
the truth of the One, who alone shall be the only reviver.