[PEACE]

I wandered off in an attempt to find my sleepwalking friend in this deep abyss of darkness. The mountains at night appeared creepy, surrounding thick air singing a hymn in murmurs and broken tones. I could feel the phantoms, perhaps, the souls which hadn't been avenged, loitering; desperate to find peace. They could harm us–no, stuff like that only existed in dreams or movies and this wasn't one.

My gaze lingered around the sunflowers growing from beneath the soil of the jagged rocks, nearly dying and decaying at the lack of hydration but surviving to display their remaining refined beauty of each yellow petal although they slouched.

How beautiful is nature?

I began hiking on the trail of the mountain, a half-asleep torchlight in my hand beaming enough way that wouldn't make me slip off the trail down to death.

A little worn out, I kept my calm irrespective of the growing sluggishness that slowly began to affect my movements. My ears held a burning sensation while my lips filled with numbness. Maybe I was anxious.

I paved my way further, the silence loud enough to question my hearing sense, yet making me hear sounds that made me shudder in fear. My eyes then sighted a black figure along the jump of my heart. I then bestowed my nearly dying flashlight on it only to find my friend. Her back faced towards me while she stood motionless, staring at the serenity of the starry blue-black sky. 

Letting out a sigh of relief hinting annoyance, I strode forward and tapped her from behind but received no response. Watching her lost in the pit of how limitlessly the sky deepened, I grabbed her hand and pulled her along to the route of our set tent.

She followed me without uttering a word while we both trekked our way back.

With the next few seconds, tension rushed into me.

Is this really her?

I should have checked properly before holding her hand?

This could be a spirit that has come to gnaw my peace.

Oh lord!

I don't have the nerve to turn around and check now.

So you intend to spend the rest of the night with a ghost staring at you, slowly draining your leftover peace, all while you sleep.

Though walking hand-in-hand, the meeting point of our skin terrified me now.

Whose hand am I holding?

Stop it. This ain't funny.

Okay, I am turning around.

One.

Stop panicking!

Two.

I-

Three.

I swerved around to look at her, making sure to project my deteriorating light on her face. A terrified gasp escaped my mouth in horror.

Shit.

But then I exhaled, relieved. Her black sleeping mask acting as a barrier on her eyes had me thinking someone might have pulled out her eyes from the sockets, leaving her eyeless. Eyes less.

Reaching my arms to her shoulder, I shook her vigorously but she was fast asleep even in a standing mode. Defeated by the outcome, I continued to walk down.

As long as I got the right person.

It was awfully silent with only the insects whizzing until the sonorous sounds of rocks crashing together caught my attention. Surprised, I abruptly looked up to discover a heap of rocks rumbling down the unscathed mountain, ready to crush us flat in any minute. My brain took a fair share of time to define it as a landslide–to make me shriek and run with my sleeping friend who had an irregular, uncalculated pattern of running like a drunkard.

Frantically, I began to descend the circular path of the mountain that seemed never-ending while the rocks were gaining on us. Crushed by the fact that I would be squashed, my hand reluctantly loosened it's grip around her soft palm, soon unclasping it to flee from death while my trembling heart throbbed in my ears.

I paced down alone from there. My feet the quickest, almost on par with my heartbeat. However, at that moment, my head couldn't help but turn to look behind what I betrayed, where she stood, hopelessly blind but staring at the sky, unaware of the fact that her end was nearing. I wondered then, if we near our ends or does the end comes to us?

At least, she wouldn't have to witness the horror of rocks coming at her. Thanks to the black mask.

Specks of guilt merged along with the beating fear inside me, tears threatening to now seep from my eyes. The fact I had just forsaken her to die made me want to spit on myself. But I couldn't go back now.

Never.

I had lost enough distance. Those boulders had probably overcome her bones by now. The wobbly land beneath my feet shook as I persistently pushed forward ferociously, but the rocks tended to be quicker than my little legs. Before that rubble could ever crawl upto me, I leapt to the free open side of the mountain trail, ready to die from a height rather than being mushed.

The void of darkness wrapped around me as the rippling air tore through me.

Sometimes our sins do backfire.

And yet, I wish,

I wish I made it out alive.

With or without her.

PATCH!

A sad music invaded the process of my eyes snapping open, slapping my cheek thereby murdering the bloody mosquito stealing my O+, nutritious anaemic blood. My barely awoken eyes first sighted my friend who was already in my room listening to a heartbreak song mourning from the speakers.

A brain-damaging view.

What I knew was, adventures like that wouldn't happen in my life but if it did, I would betray her in real life just as in my dream.

She was as annoying as the mosquito, draining my peace day by day.

*********