She has drowned in the thunder. Not the rain. The thunder.
The power of a thousand steel platforms clapped down on the bare, unexpecting terrain of her fragile resolve. It has beat her will, booming in incessant wave after wave. She curled into herself.
The rain spilt over her folded shoulders, bent in a crescent to protect her own remains, and washed her pleading tears, betrayed by the promises she offered herself. She was drenched in sorrow, but it was the screams of the storm that whittled her down.
She swam through the deluge, without a care for the flashing red of the storm and scoured the rocky waves for a glint of silver.
It’s there, they said.
So she swam faster, deeper into the darkening pits that mocked her with their endless lengths. She tired herself and plunged again, no matter that her missions only dragged her further from her desires.
It’s there, they promised.
So she traced her fingers over every edge that lined the landscapes and every color of each mirage. She split her skin in the depths of her search. Surely, the silver must lie there; she needed to search with every ounce of effort she could squeeze from her aching will. It must be there. It must be there.
It’s there, they lied.
The silver was there, she told herself. And so, the silver was there.
So, she began to see silver gilding the skin of each and every curio she happened upon. She began to weep sad tears of convinced joy. The silver was there, she told herself. And so, the silver was there.
She painted herself in it. Every morning before her gray reflection, she glazed her drowning eyes with that which she had not but that which had materialized with the hopes of which she had a hurricane’s worth of.
It did not matter that the silver did not truly exist, and was not bled from the heart. It only matters that the silver was there, there that she could see, there that she could believe, there that she could lose herself, to inhale fully until she choked, and never resurface for a glimpse of another world again.
For so long that the silver shined its tempting glimmer, the thunderous barrage that hammered her down was bearable, the small shots of the rain were, too.
So, she chased each glint of crystalized reality, knowing the true face behind it, and running anyway.
She has drowned in the silver. Not the thunder. The silver.
