Visions of Candlelight

As the beams of holy light rain down from the sun and shatter around the top of the hill, the horizon stretches across two distinct figures.

They meander, gliding across the effervescent foliage toward a pond laden in a dense thicket. The environment warps, buckling and twisting around the chrome reflective images of a featureless girl, and a mirrored horse.

The sound of leaves rushing in the wind. The frogs bellows saturating the air as the girl bends down to reach her hand into the water. She watches the light refract onto the reflective surface of her skin through the glistening water, scattering it throughout the little pond. She recognizes she can feel life through her hands. A mini experience machine running in the background clouded by visions of candlelight.

Past her hand she spots a frog sitting on the floor of the pond. She reaches out and grabs it, gently pulling it out of the water.

‘A thing, a living thing. Am I living? What is living?’ she thinks.

The frog’s twin mirroring its actions in her hand, creating a fractal along her entire body.

She stands and drifts over to the horse.

A rabbit, seemingly not noticing the two of them, hops in between catching the girl off guard allowing the frog to jump out of her hand.

As it stands between the two it refracts, cascading into an endless infinity of labyrinthine reflections. The cloud of experience of each one fills their heads. Every internal machination of every one of them being fed into every sensory organ at every moment. Unlike before, the candlelight is much more vibrant now.

‘There is no experience of my own.’

The rabbit starts to visibly ache from pain. Flooding their minds with desolate isolation, brooding self absorbed disdain of worthless life. The rabbit thrashing on the ground makes the internal torment turn to screeches. Echos of weeping angels ring out as their flesh tears apart. The rabbit slowly putters out its final death throes. The candlelight burns the images crowding their minds as they stumble away, burning away her silver wings and existence of every reflection. The horse collapses under its own weight, crashing into the ground. The girl, torn and battered, falls to the ground as she stumbles toward the pond. Digging her fingers into the ground, dragging her body with all her strength pushing for every inch closer.

‘Just one more, only one more. That's all I need, that's all I want.’

Breathe of life dissipates under the holy light. The candlelight dims away into the empty wind of the night.