[SP-F06] Killers Have Nightmares Too <<Calming the Soul>>

[Pinball 1]

It was evening. There was life in the forest: squirrels darted up trees and rabbits scurried across grass and roots. Bugs and birds alike were chirping, joining their voices in a song that praised the golden sky. The shadows danced in the orange, dappled sunlight, for soon night was to come and they'd have free reign of Aincrad. And the wind whispered to the trees: 

"There's a dead man in the woods." 

The roaring of a great waterfall drowned out the quiet crackle of the campfire. Finn sat kneeling beside the rushing river, taking a small drink of the cool, relaxing water that, like all things, inevitably slipped through his fingers. He shook the droplets that clung to his cupped hands and then stood. He ran a dirty sleeve across his lips. 

He had been staring at that waterfall for a while now. He had thought about it through the entire time it had taken for him to set up camp, and he was still thinking about it now. What was this feeling? He felt drawn to it, almost. His eyes would graze across the rest of his surroundings and then lock back onto the waterfall every time. 

Sadness? Anger? Tranquility? Fear? He didn't have the words to know, but the feeling washed over Finn in uncomfortably persistent waves. 

Finn had only just taken a step back, but now he took a hesitant step forward, into the water. It was cold - cold enough to bite straight through his clothes. The water in Aincrad had always felt weird, but the temperature felt real enough to send a shiver down his spine. He took another step forward, stumbling a bit as his foot sunk deeper into the muck below than he had anticipated. Finn kept walking. Forward, wading through the river towards the waterfall that somehow demanded all of his attention. 

In the back of his mind he remembered hearing about a quest that started like this. Something having to do with meditation? He couldn't quite remember, but he didn't really care right now, either. Finn had never heard about how people were drawn to it. 

Was it just his imagination, or was the water screaming his name? 

Finn was in front of it now. The water from the river was well up to his waist, and the splashing caused by water hitting water sprayed his face with a never-ending barrage of little pellets. "Meditation, huh?" His soft murmur felt raspy, and dry, but it was, like all other sounds, drowned out by the sound of the crashing waterfall. There was though, conveniently, a rock directly under the dump - almost like a seat. 

The lanky teenager hoisted himself onto the sleek, mossy boulder. He could barely lift his head under the force of the water. But Finn persevered. He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.

And then he felt himself being thrust into darkness. 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Pinball

[Pinball 1]

When Finn came to, and both the sound and feeling of the waterfall directly overhead had faded away, he opened his eyes. 

Black! 

All around him was inky blackness. There was no roof and no floor. There were no walls and there was nothing Finn was standing on. He floated on nothing in the middle of nowhere, and his footsteps sent ripples of shadow crawling across the room as if he was stepping in puddles. Despite the darkness, though, he could weirdly see himself perfectly fine. But something else was drawing his attention, and when he finally took notice of it his breath caught in his throat. 

In the center of the miasmic nothingness - because surely something so beautiful belonged solely in the center of the void - was a magnificent tree. And it was the biggest damn tree that Finn had seen in his entire life. 

The tree trunk was of such great proportion that three school buses could line up horizontally against its trunk. It then stretched up and up and up into golden brown branches that had to be five times as thick as Finn's entire body. Its roots were wide enough to comfortably walk on without having to worry about balance, and the plant was topped off by vivid, bright green leaves that sometimes fell from their branches and drifted lazily to where the teenager stood. 

And it was glowing. The whole tree was basked in this golden light, emitting this heavenly aura that illuminated the abyss without fail; a true beacon in the darkness. 

This was God's Tree. 

Just as Finn took a step forward, hoping to approach, a soft voice spoke to him. It was only one word, but the voice was powerful enough to stop him in his tracks, yet kind and gentle enough to bring tears to his eyes. It shook him to his core, and Finn suddenly felt soft and weak and shaky all over. There was a tint of sadness behind that voice, and it, for some reason, made him want to fall to his knees and cry. A single word filled his mind, devouring all else without exception: 

"Regret." 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Pinball