“The threshold between heaven and hell and all worlds. Do you wish to enter?”
The silence after her question hung heavy between them.
“If you ever see them, they’d try to invite you in. Don’t eat their food, don’t agree to any bargain. They dine on human hearts, they take away souls, and you will wander forever until you fade, no heaven will be waiting for you”, his mother’s bedtime whispers haunting his memory again. But those were only rumors, false stories of those who haven’t been here. The city on the other side, though unseen, promised him everything he ever wanted: Wonder, magic, another way out of the mundane world, all things he hadn’t thought possible, a world meant for him all this time. All his life seems so puny, useless, not a life at all. The woman plucked the Earth out of the space above her, the blue, white, and green sphere fitting on her palm. Other, impossible planets surrounded them: mute, heavy, exquisite as precious stones.
“Yes,” he said, and Earth burned on the woman’s hands, leaving only black dust on her palms.
He entered a heavy door, and saw countless pale fairies inside, their beautiful faces smiling, as if welcoming him home. They danced, ate, laughed, letting him in. A girl with long, pearly hair wearing a spidersilk dress and dragonfly wings held his hands and led him to the dance on the wide, endless forest floor. She smiled, showing yellow, blood-stained wolf teeth. Asper looked down at his own clothes, now a fine black suit with tiny blood-red roses for buttons. He smiled back. He felt magic run through his veins, and curling vines sprouted on the ground where he stepped. “That is Night. She is our mother. We were all human once. But forget about that. We’ll show you everything soon,” she whispered, kissed him, her mouth tasting of peppermint. Soon, after everyone was spent and lying on the ground, they watched the many moons and blazing, red birds in their sky. He felt no regret. This was only the first night of his true life. There was an empty space where his heart used to be. He saw, in the middle of everything, a vast tree with emerald leaves teeming with red fruit – thousands of hearts, now made of crimson glass. Somewhere, he saw his own, still dripping fresh blood. A boy named Asper went missing, and his mother died soon after. Sometimes, during full moons, they see the shadow of someone walking on the black rocks of the empty beach, and the glow of an invisible city like auroras in the sky. But when they get near, the mirage would be gone and would only sea and black rocks after all.
imagine nation
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