☼ ISHAK ☼اسحاق
"Well time has a way of throwing it all in your face / The past, she is haunted, the future is laced"
"Well time has a way of throwing it all in your face / The past, she is haunted, the future is laced"
Ruth is lost.
You repeat in your mind that she is lost, not that you have lost her. You were against this plan from the start, against coming to this island of metamorphosis. You wish you had argued with her.
Ruth is gone, and you are in a maze of crystal. It is dreamlike; it is terrific and terrible. In a thousand glittering reflections, your face is reflected back upon itself. The wind whistles through the maze with the same sound of a blade released from its sheath.
Here and there, plants grow. You step carefully around them. You know some old rhymes: leaves of three, beware of me and suchlike, but there is no rhyme for this. Besides, watching your step means you look less at your reflection.
And there is so much of you to avoid looking at.
Here, in the glowing arc of a jagged spire clawing at the sky, you are a youth still. His eyes are bright, and the sands of the desert shift behind him. His mane is unbraided, hair falling every which way. Your mother is behind him, mirror unwrapped and resting against her legs — sea-cliffs and sea-shore reflected in it.
You shudder, and you look away.
There, in a squat crystal dusted with snow, your reflection watches you with dead eyes. He smiles at you, at once resigned and soft. He turns and walks away, and the sight of his torn flank and mangled body sickens you. You catch sight of the inside of his left leg, and there is no sun shining there. You are unsurprised.
You keep pushing forward because somewhere in this nightmare is Ruth.
Another you catches your eye. He smiles at you, bright and lively but something is not quite right with the image. There is something about his smile that you cannot place; it is not one you have felt on your face before. (There’s something disquieting about it.) He tosses his head, beckoning you to look past him.
You sway towards the crystal. It isn’t jagged but blade-edge-smooth. You look past him. Your old mentor is smiling widely as she walks up. She nuzzles his cheek affectionately and ruffles the hair where a braid has come undone. She looks so proud that it hurts. Then, she moves aside so you can see better past them. Then, your heart shatters out of your chest.
Ruth is dead. Her body lies against a wall, a bloody scalpel nearby. Her throat is slit, and her blood is flowing in impossible amounts, a river soaking all their hooves.
Your double presses his nose against the inside of the crystal, and you can almost hear him say, “It isn’t too late to collect, you know.”
You lash out at the crystal, a good strong kick, but not so hard as to shatter it. Somewhere, the real Ruth is in this godforsaken maze. You do not want to add “having to bandage you up” to her to-do list.
The sound of your hooves echoes around you. This island is exhausting. This island would drain even the gods.
Around this corner, there’s a you but gilded. There’s so much gold paint on him you are surprised he isn’t dripping, that it was possible at all for it to dry. He winks at you and cracks open a pomegranate, lifting the husk to shake seeds and pour juice into his mouth. He saunters off into the night. You hate him, this you with apparently more money than sense.
Crosswise of him, there is an opening in the row you have been trapped in. You take it, and though there is still a hundred, a thousand, yous in the prismatic grove, these seem less inclined to interact.
You’ve had enough.
“RUTH!” You yell out, hoping against hope that she can not just hear but find her way to you.
“Ruth, Ruth, Ruth…” the crystals echo back to you.
Directly in front of you winks yet another you. There is a snake twisting in the sands behind him, chasing a desert hare. He looks just like you, but the colors are all wrong. Everything is inverted, and when he points his muzzle at the path to your right, you take the left instead.
Damn it all. You want to go home.
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