Brilliant, fiery splashes of ruby and garnet
Cooler, calmer, yet no less colorful oranges and tawny russets
Rarer: the diamonds in the rough. Liquid golds
Melting and pooling together in a fantastic patchwork quilt
Of dawns, and sunrises
Lemon yellows
Shy coppers
Mother Nature's firework display of color
Brilliant leaves framed by a blue, blue sky
Soft, puffy clouds
A warm sun
A deceptively calm feeling of security and serenity
I lie, surrounded by billowing grasses,
Frail, thin reeds of golden cream
The sun washes over me like honey
My hair is sprawled in a halo of deep brown,
My body twisted in a comfortable position
As I stare through the skybreak to the sapphire blue
Bird calls, a running stream, all is gentle
Calm
Tranquil
Surreal, even
I close my eyes to the beauty, and dream
No nightmares, for there is nothing to fear, not at first
The grass is warm around me
Protecting
Sheltering
I sleep
And I dream
In my dream, I walk
Then run
Something chases me
A nameless, faceless horror, wrapped in cold
Things die as I pass
Once brilliant colors of autumn, now turned brown in death
The trees are stripped of leaves,
Ugly skeletons framed by the black, black sky
Silhouettes
Shadows
The Ice nears, and I trip
With a cry, I hold out my hands,
Already poised for the brief pain of impact
It never comes
I fall into a hole in the middle of everything,
And keep falling
I grasp the once-warm, once-alive grasses that had once enveloped me
Only to have them snap and tumble with me
I fall
And keep falling
I fall through the sky, and as I near the ground
Of another, otherworldly place, I am jolted awake
An icy wind slinks past me as I shiver,
Curling around my unprotected limbs
My breath is a white curl that dissipates rapidly
The grasses are stiff,
Lacy wisps of frost make exotic,
Deathly beautiful patterns
I am the only thing of color in a world of grays
I stare at my hands as if they are not mine
Ice breathes at my fingertips,
And as the ice spreads,
So does the Nothingness
My skin turns a calm, cool, emotionless gray
I turn, looking in horror at the changes
As the colorlessness inches down my body
My eyes flash as I cry out in...
In what?
Rage?
Welcoming?
Hate?
Love?
Emotions are foreign as the winter takes over
I brush a frost-kissed blade of grass,
And it breaks, falling to the ground
I watch it, wanting,
Hoping,
Praying
For a reaction
For a simple emotion
For anything
I sink to the ground with it,
My arms wrap about my body, too cold to shiver
As a cursed, blessed, hated, loved emotionlessness takes over
I pray for the spring that will never come
The spring that cannot break the spell of ice
Ice conquers even the powerful
Stripping them of everything
My breath slows, then stops, as my will to live fades
The spring will never come
The Ice has won