Ash. Ash surrounding the pit, the pit strewn agape across the hard, rocky and cracked deformed ground. Empty, and vacant and yet filled with life, gasping for air. Pulling in the life of which it had been deprived, suffocating as its gasps draw more and more shallow, its eyes welling with fear, with terror as its mind was shattered across the walls of the stony pit, painting the walls with its stories, fluorescent light showing its theories of the world, its drive to tell its story, its will to escape the pit. The remnants of the gasping, long forgotten being crawling across the walls, pulling itself and stretching its infectious grasp across the stone walls, replacing the hungry moss and lichen, pushing it away and smothering it, the pull of the sun above strangling its compassion and fueling its flaming furnace of flagrancy, flaring further and further from the wall, the light lapping across the dark corners of the twisted and curving pit, illuminating small eyes darting out of the stonework, the eyes staring, piercingly and petrified across the light witnessing hope for the first time. The light yanking their souls to life, the eyes scattering across the now dimly illuminated pit as the fluorescent remnants of the once gasping life continue its crescendo outwards of the cave, onto the forest floor. The wooden doll, tossed across the side of the nearby poplar had never seen such a flame, ones which ignited and yet did not destroy, a fire of pure light. A pacifist flame, pulling itself towards the doll, the green in the short and brambled undergrowth glowing brighter and more rejuvenated than the scorched and arid empty treetops, being shut off from the piercing gaze of the burning sun. Concealed beneath the supposed holy being spiraling around the dolls resting place, where it had been condemned to a life of charcoal, dread, and terror of the next spark which will bring alight the very next blaze to leave scars deep inside of his framework body. The fluorescent rejuvenation had brought the blackened branches to life, and yet it had lapped at the feet of the doll and brought nothing. At least he had thought, before he saw it. A path, covered in entropy, embroidered in the threat of a rose bush lulling him into pacifity, of which he had began to move towards, the wooden stubs cracking through the burnt and lost charcoal carrying the burns of the past, and instead revealing a new and refreshed wooden embroidery, the cuts and scars of heat still there, but now burning with the light of the recently departed. The light had carried him from the side of the broken and twisted poplar through acres and acres of scorched earth, the light dimming at times, and yet he knew. Deep down, he knew and felt in his soul that there was something there for him. Somewhere filled with life, with rejuvenation, with light which does not burn those who look and gaze upon it, each thought of departing on his journey and returning to the inflamed forest forcing him a step further, until it finally began to fall away around him. A lush oasis, spreading out across the burnt and desolate landscape, arid of fallen tears of the replaced and soaring hope of the hawk as it surveys the fields for unknowing mice, thoughts, scattering sparrows and burning hearts alike. The doll had known this place had existed the entire time, but had only believed, hoped and needed it to exist. And yet, in his chest was a tight, pulling grasp as he laid eyes on the very same tree. The very same burnt poplar, now brought to life not with the light of the cave, luminescing through his scars but instead through his commitment, every step drawing a new line of life through the ground, up the trees, and into the long dry creek bed now overflowing with his hope gifted to him by the long forgotten stranger, who had been cast away and hidden from the burnt landscape. Torn off of the land, away from the sun and into captivity of the cave. Not better than being ripped apart by the rays of the sun but safe from the gaze of the supposed perfect image, pulling at the loose strings of their coat and undoing their intricate mind. As the doll had looked across the now revived forest, he noticed something. A familiar face, one of wood and burnt scars now alight by a drawing power, pushing their legs forward, and gaze up towards the full and now lush canopy, offering a new life. A life filled of life, and hope and most importantly, devoid of burning eyes of judgment, and fallen crackling ash.
submitted by /u/Sad_Second_8717
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