A woman made her way through the forest, unable to appreciate the beauty of the world around her. Trees rustled from the faint wind. The moon was a streak in the sky, seeming to barely hang on to its own existence. It made the sky feel hollow and empty due to the lack of light. There was a slight fog that took hold of the air, distorting the surroundings. It gave the forest a mystical property; some power that called to people and made them stop to listen. But the woman was tired and thus seemed to prioritize leaving the forest behind over admiring its enchantment.

The woman’s right arm was heavy and her knees were caked with dirt. That, at least, she understood. What she was not expecting was the emotional fatigue. The task had been much more difficult than expected, and she wanted nothing more than to forget.

It was not long after, when the realization that she was no longer on the path with which she had entered the grounds on made itself apparent. A clearing ahead made itself visible, and since it seemed to be the only option she started towards it. The trees thinned and the woman walked to the edge of the clearing. It was at that time she began to see the ruins. She closed her eyes with such force, as if to erase the scene in front of her. As if to erase the feeling seeping deep into her bones. As if to erase the whole day and start afresh. A moment passed and an eye peeked open. Determination took hold of the woman as she realized that she was the only savior present. She began her descent into the depths. At first, she looked only straight ahead, however, the ruins seemed to have other plans for her. The ground was uneven, and after a couple of steps the woman tripped over a clump of dirt and crashed into a large rock. She tried to push herself up, but felt strange grooves give way underneath her palms. The wind whipped around her, brushing off some dirt atop the rock. Something in the woman’s head told her to stop, to run even, but she was lost in the moment; clearing the rock with a frenzy seemed to be her sole purpose. When the stone finally made itself visible, the woman was face-to-face with its meaning.

A name.

A span of time.

Leaping back and turning away. Escape. Escape was the word in the woman’s mind. She stumbled through the ruins, through the forgotten graveyard, and it was then that a memory from earlier that night began to surface. The weight. The cold dirt. The lifeless eyes. But the woman dismissed the thought. She remembered her goal: continuing to sprint up hills and through gaps in the trees. The woman seemed to have dominated her mind, shutting it down so that she could focus. She did not want to remember, she wanted to escape. So the woman did not seem to notice when the branches got too close, scraping along her bare arms. Blood was freed from the confines of her body.

Finally, the woman saw the forest give way. She sighed with relief and began to sprint to the open space. But the woman’s mind was trying again to voice an opinion. It wanted to tell her that something was horribly wrong. That the whole night was a twisted tale of events. It begged her to think. To think about the night. About the lifeless body and cold dirt. About how she buried the former in the latter. If only the woman had taken a moment to think, she might have been able to be the savior she needed. But the mind was shut down, its power drained so that she could escape everything she was running from. And so she ran until, at last, the forest opened up.

The woman stepped into freedom only to realize that she was right back to where she had started.

Dazed. Walking. Blood trailing behind her; the path of life a stark contrast to the deathly setting. The woman’s eyes glazed over. She looked up to the sky, but found no answer there, so she turned to the ground. At once, she saw her arms. She thought that they looked so out of place. And since she was not feeling any pain, she was not really feeling anything at the moment, she began to swing her arms over the land. The blood was systematically splattered over gravestones: a fresh sacrifice to an ancient world.

And as the warmth dripped out of the woman, her fighting mind realized that it was losing its battle. It let go, stopped fighting, moved on.

A hollow body was roaming late at night in an abandoned graveyard. It stumbled, collapsing into the same cold dirt that had seemed to haunt it so much before. Now it didn’t seem to mind. The body lay in its own blood, a hollow heart still beating. Unable to fully accept or fully escape the world it has come to know…

 

---

---

“Ruins peopled by ghosts who dwell there to taunt us.”

-The Poison of the Blue Rose, Yasmin Maari

It was this quote that held my attention with its dark beauty and inspired my piece above. I was captivated by the idea of being surrounded in such a haunting setting, and began to think of stories where setting- especially a setting that held a feeling of ghosts- was a key aspect. It was not long after that the idea of an abandoned graveyard was begging me to be implemented.

At first, I thought that a dark setting alone would connect my story with Yasmin Maari’s. However, as I began to edit my first, rough, draft I began to realize that they could also be connected by themes, the use of symbolism, and even inspire the same feelings felt by the reader after the last line was read.

I also used little “bread crumbs” dropped by Yasmin Maari in my piece. I used fragmented sentences to reflect the mind of my main character. I tried my best to add her style to mine in this piece by adding more motifs, like the cold dirt and blood, to offer a similar level of symbolism. I made our main character as similar as possible. Both are unnamed, regret decisions they made in the past, have an overwhelming desire to escape, and are kept from that core yearning.

“There can be worse things than death.”

–Anonymous

Death is such a negative concept, for the living. That is what gives this quote weight. It makes a person think. What life would be worse than death? How does one come to think that death is a reward?

At the end of “The Poison of the Blue Rose”, the narrator believes that her life has been reduced to torment. She is devoid of all hope and feels trapped.

At the end of “Descensus Averno Facilis Est,” which translates to “The Descent Into Hell Is Easy,” we see the main character give up. We see her mind shut down, but her body lives on.

Both these characters are living a life worse than death: Death would be a welcome escape. But these characters do not get death. They are forced to live on in their personal hell-on-Earth.

---

Citations

“The Poison of the Blue” Rose by Yasmin Maari

Feature Image

Blue Rose

Cage