Capri

-Moms.
Ciara gracefully turns around to find a hazel gaze steadily following her movement, and she nearly loses herself in it. Any other day she might have gone the whole way, smiling clumsily at the innocence she still found within them, and the hope long-lost.
-Moms. I'm hot.
She slowly moves her head towards the sky, where a somber patch of light lays, and the realization creeps in. They are way behind the schedule she had planned, they are in the middle of nowhere and now the clouds gave up on her, leaving her to face the frail, but nevertheless relentless January sun. With a deep sigh, she looks back down, her leg twitching visibly. It takes her eyes all two seconds to adjust to the contrast between the sky and the ground, and for a moment her instinct screams to flee. The calmness buried deep fights off the urge and she finally sees the kid in full light.

He's always been just the kid. Of course, he had a name, and a beautiful one, or so she thought when she made the choice. But calling the name out loud, she felt like betraying the bittersweet melancholy of real Capri - no, the kid could never be a Capri. For a long time already.

His soft skin shines red. Not the pink shade, which nearly made her pass out from shock earlier, but a healthy, darker shade of red. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was blushing.
-Okay, let's sit down a bit.- she whispers, and then hesitantly raises her voice up.
-Take your jumper off.
He reaches for the knitted wool, only to let go of it a moment later.
-Moms. No. Not that hot. Orange hot.
Ciara, already mid crouch, does a whirling maneuver that would put to shame a decent ballet dancer, grabbing the kid and then sitting them both down on the other side of the tree. And there is no more dim light, just a thin shade of pure, dark white in front of her, extending further than she can see. She feels the warmth return to the kid's body and her heart skips violently as she is overcome by relief.
-You're fine. Let's just rest.
The kid nods in agreement silently, the hazel wandering off in distance.
They are much further south, she notices, as the tree they had just sat under she can't recognize, its magnificent trunk extending taller than she can see. And this far south, the sun won't go down for a long time - forever, for what it's worth, and the long coming urgency of the situation makes her heart jump again. She leans back, calming it down by punching her chest with a clenched fist that she can barely feel from the frostbites on her hand. Little islands of black in the sea that's her rebelliously pink skin, it was something that she had only seen on strangers which would pass through the village once in a blue moon, and she felt violated, oh how could the ice gods be so cruel to one of their own? The kid, though, didn't have any, and watching his spotless skin remain the same she would jealously curse his gods that had been so merciful. But not even them could save him from the fate, and she snickers to herself in a twisted self-satisfaction.

The kid seemed indifferent about the whole situation ever since the beginning, and it made her worry more than any of the other dangers she could possibly face. He knows, whispered the threatening voice in the back of her mind, the one she didn't listen to anymore for it had been the cause of too many wrong decisions in her past. He knows, it whispered, when she would try to huddle in the sleeping bag in the place that she would randomly pick for that night, and she ignored it, reasoning that she would be long finished if the kid had any idea of what she envisioned. Did he ever suspect anything? Maybe. Maybe it was just the unsettling feeling foreshadowing the doom, the one which tells you it's fine to leave it all behind and run, which he wouldn't know to recognize and act on. But she was aware of how below the stunning innocence, raw ferocity hid, waiting to be unleashed at the command of his peculiar gods, ready to protect each and last one of theirs. And they were angry, angry and determined.

-We have to get going.- she says, surprisingly harsh. The twitch repeats gently while she is standing up.
-Not even a minute!- The kid is reluctant, but he has to follow as Ciara is already leaving.
-Put the hat on.- she warns, and the kid listens.
He puts his hand in hers and she is shocked by the insane difference between the burning warmth of his body and the tender coldness of hers. She grips the hand, maybe a little too tightly, battling the panic she feels fluttering in her chest and makes the first step.

Invisible to a bird's-eye, with only an occasional glimpse of a shadow sneaking on the side of the slender ones covering the infinite white, a movement indistinguishable from that of the leaves moving under the hard wind, they are slow, each new step crushing the momentum they manage to build up, for the snow is just too dense. The hunter's boots wrapped around Ciara's legs, which she likes to think of as a gift from her father, rather than a stolen possession, scream and whine as they step on the thick layer of white long deprived of any human presence, rarely managing to break its resistance to the grey soil below. Behind them is a vast landscape, a desolate desert which you could search for signs of life and the only two you would find would be the pale figures climbing the mountain standing majestically in front of them. Two puppets of the ice gods, greyer and dimmer than their surroundings, their painful irony painted in the picture of the taller one, cold and drenched in sweat, a heavy backpack on the bronze shoulder pads, gasping for air as it leads the way, and the smaller one, hot as the sun itself, yet calm and dry like the sky above, its black and svelte outfit neatly motionless, strictly escorting the dancing petite limbs.

On the right side of the crooked path they - no, she - makes for them, right before the ascent is imminent, Ciara spots a dark stain, her eyes just a bit quicker than her nose which lifts her hungry stomach up in a desperate gag as the rotting stench hits the receptors. She takes a closer look, forcing her stomach back in place, and right before her eyes are remnants of an animal, a lone castaway damned to roam the wasteland till its death, banished from the herd. She curses softly and continues, noticing that the kid is already a few steps in front of her, not recalling that she let go of him. She catches up, grabs his small, but firm shoulders to hold him back, and puts his hand back in hers. His hair spins around as she pulls him closer, and she feels a stream of melancholy take her away in thoughts.

Ah, the hair. Of course, it was the first thing she noticed back then. Blonde tresses curling around his beautiful neck, ocean waves at the top breaking apart at the slightest of touches, and the way the parting lined up with the lines of her soul; it was all enough to sedate her in the blink of an eye. They were many, but he approached her, and she had never been as grateful in her life. When her thoughts would later wander off to that period of her life, the memory of him and the wonderful adventure they experienced that night was as sweet as much as everything that came after was bitter. And yes, he was certainly her best lover. His touches soft like the finest silk, they made her alive. And when their bodies joined each other, his soft bite on the back of her arm and her legs clutched around his, craving the completeness of conjoining that was just within the reach, she felt him entrapping her soul in a special heaven, made just for the two of them, forever. In that moment, none of what was going to happen mattered. It was just him and her, young gods at the height of their power.

A sudden breeze makes his body silently disintegrate on top of her and everything is white again. With each gasp, Ciara's heart skips a beat and she desperately prays that it does not fail her now, for that miserable ending she feels she does not deserve, having beaten everything that stood in her way. Despite the tiredness and the cold, she can't afford stopping, the time is viciously passing by in front of her eyes, and she curses for all the seconds she wasted earlier. They climb the mountain, their pace no more uniform than the one of her heart, and she notices that trees here are more dense, and that for a while, she won't have to worry about hiding in the shadows. She opens her trembling mouth to instruct the kid to take his hat off, but her efforts are in vain as the only thing that comes out is thick vapor, words lost before they even reach the vocal cords. He is faster, and she doesn't have to go through the trouble again, for the hat is already in his free hand. She suppresses the sudden sensation of paranoia and the feeling of his mind warping around hers, and picks up her pace.

He disappeared after that night, unsurprisingly. The first time she laid her eyes on him she knew that men like him don't stick around, a little fun they have on the side to be kept a secret forever. But this one, he left a gift. So when she had no other choice but to search for him a few weeks after their magical encounter, symptoms already quite assimilated with her body, she was met with accusing blank stares and head shaking, but not a single look of recognition. He was no one, and for what it mattered, it was only her world that he existed in. Furious at first, burning from the betrayal of the one she admired so much, but knowing that all the rage would vanish if she was ever to take a peek at his beautiful hair again, she had to slowly come to terms with what her life was going to become. She was going to be a single mother of a bastard child and not a person in the world that would empathize, not a soul that would understand.

-Moms.
Ciara is startled by how loud the kid's voice is, compared to the sound of their feet stepping on snow. The forest has now got thicker and she realizes it's almost as dark as at the other end of the year. They must have walked six hundred, maybe even eight hundred feet on this forsaken land but everything, save for the sky-high trees, still seems the same - vast and unreachable. Ciara reaches for the map in her pocket, just like she had done a couple of times already, but in these circumstances it's as useful as a box of matches in hell.
-Moms.
The kid cries and her bowels nearly loosen instinctively. She quickly turns around, holding her breath, and cries herself. At some distance, hidden in the woods behind them, a giant figure emerges quickly, too far for her to make out the nature of it but close enough that she can tell it's charging at her. She feels the adrenaline rush nearly knock her out and suddenly, her mind is as clear as ever. Racing, a million solutions run through her mind. Hide, run, climb, drop. Dismissing and accepting all of them at the same time, she dances for her life as the decision is not final. The figure races faster than all of her thoughts, halving the distance in a blink. But she doesn't panic, for a magnificent thought materializes and she makes a decision. With an easy move that doesn't take longer than a second, she takes the heavy backpack off her back, and with no regard to the ice-cold water and leftover chunks of moldy food inside, throws it in the way of the figure, which she can now tell is a grizzly. Her hope lasts not longer than the flight of the backpack, as the bear barely notices it, its course and victim unchanged. Forgetting all the options, and almost ready to let go and meet her end as bear food, she decides to follow the instinct and run, with no real hope of salvation awaiting. It is no more than twenty feet after that she finds herself in a dead-end, facing three broad trees, and with no space to run behind as she would fall in the arms of the bear. This is it, echoes through her thoughts, as she hears the growling grow louder, expecting to feel the warm spit on the back of her head any second. This is it, whispers the voice, and with it whispers everything around her - the bear, the trees, the snow, the sky. This is it, whispers Capri, and a single tear sneaks from her eye, not having the time to run down her pale cheek before she lets go.

She comes to a moment later, a pair of hazel eyes staring inside her soul and she lets herself dive in, carefully and just for a moment, without any signs of recognition, before her mind fully awakens. She sits up quickly, almost losing balance before she realizes that there is no firm ground beneath her, but rather a thin branch that she can barely sit on. Some snow falls off as she repositions herself and trying to see it off in its gracious descent, she nearly slides off the branch, vertigo wrapping around her head violently. The kid stops her, and she is taken aback by the force in his grip, the heat illuminating considerably stronger.
-I got you, moms.- he says, his voice cracking at the last word.
It's sweet, she thinks, and she would probably feel like the worst mother in the world if she hadn't lost sympathy for the kid long ago. The irony of her salvation that would prove to be his demise makes the corner of her mouth curl in an attempt to smile, but her muscles refuse to listen. She hugs him tightly, but more from a need to stay warm than a wish to show affection.

The true nature of the constant fevers that were constantly pestering the kid, and more than anything, Ciara herself, wasn't revealed until she had already come to peace with the fact that strange stuff happening around her son is a part of her life, and there was not a thing she could do about it. It must have been the most vicious winter to have ever struck the village because Ciara vividly remembers spending the endless nights in the assuring warmth of her little home, leaving it only to restock the logs laying motionless in the living room, awaiting their turn to sacrifice themselves for her luxury. The kid was unusually hot that winter, and had the old body thermometer not been broken, she guessed it would measure at least twenty degrees above what doctors deemed impossible. The evernight was nearing its end when her father paid her a visit, one she hadn't been honored with in over a year. He barged in more excited than she remembered him being, and she immediately sensed something was up. The newspaper he was carrying had a single picture, and although the facial features of the man painted on the portrait were barely distinguishable from text on the paper worn down from the amount of hands it was exchanged through, she knew. It was the face you see once in your lifetime, and you remember it. Connection with the strange occurrings didn't click immediately after she read the headline, for the shock was too great. The pieces only fell into place later, as her father drunkenly cheered about the final win of their people over the unholy heathens they had been cursed to endure for centuries, and the greatest extermination he had been blessed to witness.

That was four years ago, and all the love she used to have for the thing she couldn't stomach to call her son anymore was replaced with the rage that ultimately lead to this trip, which was to be the end of everything for them, good and evil alike.

The kid's now turned cold as a stone, and she pulls away from his grasp. All the strength it took to climb all the way up here, bringing what would be his undoing along, must have made him weak. Faced with a new set of circumstances, as she has no more food and water as the bear must have devoured the backpack she threw at him, combined with the already never ideal situation; too many variables that she would have to keep worrying about, the uncertainty of the destination and their - no, her - ability to reach it, Ciara concludes that this is the best chance she will ever have. Chills creeping up her spine make her shiver in a weird euphoria and she tries to contain the twitch she can feel building up in her leg, but to no avail. She looks down again, where a thick network of branches hides the ground from her view, and she estimates the height to be just enough for both of them to not survive the fall. She reluctantly raises her hand up, putting it back down quickly, as if she's afraid of getting caught. The kid is leaning on her shoulder, his shallow but calm breathing affirms her assumption that he's clueless to the imminent Armageddon. Trying to convince herself to just go through with it, she is hesitant, for she feels that the kid deserves an apology. Her heart whimpers as it skips two beats, and she must admit that after all these years, she can feel sympathy for the monster. And more than anything, she's sad; for herself, for the kid, for their destinies, tragically intertwined with each other, and for the misery she will leave in the world.
-Kid.
He lifts his head up, but his eyes do not meet hers as he stares in the distance.
-Capri. I'm Capri, moms.
Ciara hears a distant sound of a bird chirping somewhere in the distance, and with a light, but firm and determined movement of her right hand she pushes the kid off. His fall is elegant, she thinks to herself as she keeps her eyes closely stapled to his silent and still indifferent body making the most beautiful maneuvers, the most natural thing she has ever seen. It's no less than two seconds later that his elegance is broken by a large branch, his body folding over it and changing its course as it disappears from her eyesight. After a moment, there is a loud thump and another tear makes its way down Ciara's cheek as she prepares to inflict the same fate upon herself.
-Capri.- she whispers, looking up at the sky with steady eyes, her view blurred from the tears she despises for she knows they make her weak.
And his body comes to existence again, the ocean waves of his hair as powerful as ever, his bite absorbing and draining, yet most gentle, and his body of god ready to unite with hers. She feels his light kiss press against her frozen lips as his hand makes its way to her chest, slowly pushing her backwards, until she's at the point of no return. She suppresses the reflex to grab something, one last time, and she's now a puppet at the hands of the gravity, wind and the branches, meeting her makers in the embrace of the only religion she has ever known. She feels her body break as it hits the first branch on its way down, every next hit hurting just a little bit less, right until she is devoid of pain, and the only thing that remains is the eternal white. As she hits the ground the world spins around, and the white becomes all the colors of the spectrum, all beautiful and twisted in a way she can't describe. And then it all disintegrates before her eyes, leaving only the void.

--------

-Moms.
The spectrum fills the void in agony, as the colors scream in pain and insane laughter. But for Ciara, there is only one color, the one which laughs just a little bit louder for it's her beginning and her end, her creator and her demise. And it celebrates her defeat. The spectrum disintegrates again, but the void is no longer black. It's hazel.