A/N: This is a novel originally written for Nanowrimo, and is very loosely based on the flash game (http://armorgames.com/play/2153/aether) of the same name. However, it gradually took a life of its own that warranted far more time than a month to finish, and so here it is. If I were to give a summary, it would be something like this: a boy, finding the world cruel and deceitful, journeys towards the stars to find his place in the world. Well, enjoy, everyone. Constructive criticism would be much appreciated.
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Aether ~ A Story of Dreams
Chapter One
The field of paper flowers did not yield pollen grains as it should. It stretched out from the reach of his hand to the horizon; small little paper windmills that stood up against the cold, dark wind, never questioning, never resisting, a worthwhile complement to the overcast sky that cast shadows across the land. The monotony was despairing; the longer he kept his eyes on the rolling hills of anguish and uncertainty, the more he felt a despairing anguish in his long broken heart, but he did not feel any grand compulsion to turn away, nor to blink, for this anguish was all that he had, and all that he would ever have. The world was one of a monochrome melancholy to him; everything was made of shattered glass and broken dreams, it had no color of any sort; no soul to speak of, hinting only at a dark foreboding. It had no future, beyond the horizon would only lie more paper flowers, boring and monotonous in their pattern; the world he lived in was as hollow as a rotten eggshell, and all it took was for someone to land the hammer on its miserable existence. He would praise that person, with happiness and laughter that only his vaguest fantasies possessed; that someone would be his hero.
The continuous screeching of dark crows, sitting on the barren tree behind him, became more prevalent as he stared longer and longer at nothingness, going in nicely with a muted growling of distant thunder from faraway. They would inherit the earth like vultures soon, he thought, they would form a black cloud stretching for miles around one day, and strip the earth bare like a swarm of locusts, till little turned into nothing, and nothing turned into aether. They were the scourge who were everlasting, slow and patient, lurking behind the clouds and within the barren forest of trees which had long lost their luster; people of his kind would gradually melt into a dark, concentrated heap of slime through their misdeeds and their emptiness, and then the crows would rise up to take what was rightfully theirs. They laughed behind a thinly woven veil, mocking everyone for their foolishness and their inability to see the obvious, relishing every moment until their impending doom?
? and he felt that he had no other option but to submit in helpless acceptance; the world was dying, evaporating like cackling static. And he could do nothing but watch. The gift of sight was all that he was given, it felt as if he was the only one who could see through the facade of eternal want to view the broken earth for what it really was. But he could not save anyone; the immateriality of his existence in human society was so great that people were deaf to his words, indifferent to his cries. Only the crows could listen in their mocking silence, only the sickly air and the dying earth could respond to him with rain and the occasional breeze of warmth to comfort him. All of these parties, however, knew that he was as powerless as any one of the many leafless trees that stood up in vain defiance against death, just not as foolish, and even he himself recognized this. That biting feeling of hopelessness had long abandoned him after what must have been an endless tedium; he cast such heroic notions aside a long time ago in indifferent acceptance. He no longer had anything left to do.
Vaguely, he wondered as to what it would be like to be one of them; to live a normal life and push toy trains along linoleum floors, to not pick up the smell of burning plastic and happily engage in activities that enrich the body but degrade the soul, to not feel that sense of harrowing emptiness so familiar to him. Surely, would it not be a better life to live than being under this cursed affliction? He gave out a deep sigh as he picked a paper flower from the infinite patch, slowly feeling its sharp edges and its cold smoothness. He held it closer to his face to smell it, but his senses picked up only a dull nothingness; there were no pollen grains, no sweet nectar, just a grayish, paper windmill that just sat in his hand; five appendages and a distinct center, the perfect flower without the flower. A spot of horror filled his heart for a short while, but like many times before, he suppressed it, and continued staring at the morning lily in his hand; it was a morning lily; a purple morning lily, somehow he knew, he remembered, from fragments of memories long disconnected, that it was a beautiful, purple, sweet-smelling lily. He closed his eyes for a long while, the human in him secretly desiring that when he opened them again, he would see a beautiful morning lily; he would see the skies clear, the sun shine brightly down on everyone, vibrant butterflies dancing among colorful flowers and the sound of children?s laughter surround him. Even if it was nothing more than a grand illusion, he wished to immerse himself in it once again; this was joy, he thought, this should be joy. But all he could do when he opened his eyes was to throw the flower aside and stand up, holding back the tears jerked up within him.
Corrupted and ruthless was the state of the world, it had long forsaken him; it would never forgive him and it would carry on tormenting him? the morning lily was a patch of garbage, a painful representation of the Earth that had been tarnished and trampled on. The sight of it was so repulsive, so discomforting, that he felt that an intangible part of himself die away as he let go of the flower through reflex; everything in life was a disappointment to him, they had to be cast away to the dark wind that plagued the earth and be forgotten. Suddenly, he violated the principles that he upheld ever since he saw the ugliness behind the facade, his impression of strength; hardiness in indifference, seemed to collapse, he showed his emotions that he had locked away and cried. He could not save anything, he felt, he was just as useless and insignificant as the people he despised, as the people who simply did not know what was happening to them. The squawking of the crows started to fade in yet again; he could actually see them flying towards him, and for the first time, they seemed to be in a kind of frenzied anger; a stark contrast compared with the mocking quality their laughs had not long ago? he could see their malevolent red eyes, sharpened and angled, staring back at him with a kind of intangible ferocity as they bore their claws and their beaks and started to strike and bite him. But he neither moved nor resisted, half of him was indifferent while the other half was numb with cold fear, not of the crows, but? he could still see the flower in his hand, wilting into dust at his touch, night fell over the planet but still, he slept in indifference, attached to the values of the past; he was horrified at himself, that was what he was scared of, that he was a pawn to the crows themselves as well, and that he had been deluding himself with the correlation between defiance and indifference. No such thing, no, he had to?
The dark wind hit him with full force; eventually, he could not take any longer and fell prone to their assault. But he was only very vaguely aware of this; the same blank expression of horror was still plastered stupidly on his face. He was still fighting with himself, in fact, and the truth was that? they were winning. Any sense of urgency that would have prompted him into motion was quickly doused with cold brazenness, and any attempt to get his bearings, to focus on his senses and take control, was similarly rejected. He suddenly felt a great pain erupt from his chest, he saw them pierce into his skin, he saw the colorless twilight turn into a curtain of the night, a bleak starless night. He tried to scream, but he felt his consciousness fade away? he saw them clasp his heart between their beaks, and then...
The momentary feeling of sadness and despair seemed to disappear immediately, however, as disappointment was something he had contended with for many painful years, and darned right if it was going to make him weak again. He patted the dust off his pants; he viewed the fir tree for a moment, seeing its barren branches reach out towards the sky. A pair of crows circled around in the sky; he viewed them with a certain fondness, to cease contact with a world he hated for the moment and take flight. He walked away from the field and beyond the tree. There was no need for emotion in such a frozen world; indifference was all that he was permitted to feel, after all. He walked for an indeterminate distance (it did not matter to him), back to his house, past the wrinkled pair of repugnant demons that argued incessantly, speaking gibberish and slobbering and panting and baring sharp teeth, and dived into his bed, ready for sleep, his only comfort, to whisk him away into sweet unconsciousness.
With every moment like this, the young boy withered further and further, marking a slow, awful transition from a vibrant lily to a paper windmill. There was nothing left for him to live for, nothing left for him to care for in a mute world of effectual silence, and when such occasional occurrences appeared, the crows simply took them away from him, they blinded him, deafened him, they made his blood as black as venom. Whether or not he was the one being disillusioned, he began to die a slow death, unstoppable by any means, as his soul rotted away into nothingness, revealing a sad, empty shell of a person who only knew how to watch.