Promise of the Wind

Promise of the Wind

         The arctic landscape all around was nothing but a vast, desolate kingdom of glistening ice, boulders, and snow. The snow of this unearthly wasteland shone blue-more blue than the raging waves of the ocean. The night sky above this peculiar setting was even stranger, as there were no stars hanging in it. Instead, there were what had to be thousands upon thousands of little, fiery orbs of light, which looked much like will o' wisps, dancing in the heavens. The truly extra terrestrial and somewhat sublime scene was one that straddled multiple worlds; that of depression and loneliness, hopelessness and sorrow, and in a way(most likely to those who appreciate the finer qualities of life), beauty and mystery.

         In the middle of this unbelievably august landscape was a teenage girl. She had to be, without a single doubt in the whole expanse of the universe, the most beautiful girl on the planet. Both her long, curtain like hair and her skin were a bizarre mix of black and white, and her eyes were a mesmerizing swirl of silver and gold. The girl's pants, shoes and hoodie were also two different colors; bright pink and dark blue. She was easily the most exotic being the stardust paintbrush had ever painted onto the canvas of existence.

         The wondrous teen seemed to be completely oblivious to the fantasy around her. An explicit coating of cold, heart numbing sadness emanated from her hypnotizing eyes, and the cause of this appeared to be an object erected in the ice right in front of her. That object was a tombstone with one word engraved into it.

         "FRIEND"

         The area around the stone was littered with almost unrecognizable bits and pieces of a plane engine, and the tombstone itself was decorated in hundreds of empty lockets. Even in the perfect paradigm of surreal settings that surrounded it, the stone slab seemed so out of place.

         As the girl continued to stare blankly at the tombstone, relentless tidal waves of memories began surging through her head. She remembered all the times her friend had been there to provide her solace after every intense altercation the girl had with her father. Whenever he had either verbally thrashed her or had left her a beaten black and blue mess on her bedroom floor, her friend had been there to fight for her. Whenever the boys and girls at her high school had treated her like a freak because of her looks, the girl's friend told her that she was beautiful. All of those times her friend had been there, and the girl never once said thank you.

         Now she would never get the chance.

         A gentle, chilling icy wind began to sting the girl's skin like a thousand angry wasps; but she didn't seem to be affected by the elements. All she did was continue to stare at the tombstone, apathetic about everything else. It was as if she had forgotten how to feel and react to pain. Suddenly, a grave, whispering female voice could be heard; but there wasn't anybody other than the girl around, and the voice wasn't hers. The voice was that of the wind.

{indent}"This wasn't how it was supposed to be". The wind said. As it spoke, a lone tear began rolling down the girl's cheek. The almost microscopic teardrop quickly froze, and upon hitting the ground, it shattered into dozens of small ice fragments.

         Not faltering, the wind continued, "Why did this have to happen? There are so many doors left unopened, so many mountains left unclimbed. Now what will happen to everything beyond those? Are they just meant to simply fade into the void?"

         Now the remarkable teen was sobbing uncontrollably, tears flowing down her face like raging rivers. She had never felt like this before; so sad, so lonely, so empty...so broken.

         Something suddenly slammed into the girl's side, knocking the breath out of her, and throwing her a good twelve feet. With a grunt, the girl crashed into the ground, the blue snow acting like a cushion for her fall. Shaking the impact off, the girl rose to her feet and turned to face her assailant. What she saw didn't make any sense at all.

         Standing where she was just standing moments before was a shadow; her shadow. It had somehow become a three dimensional entity, and was now staring at her like a predator watching its prey. The look in it's sanguine eyes sent a wave of pure terror coursing down her spine.

         After a few moments of inactivity, the shadow let out an awful, bloodcurdling shriek. Before the girl could react, the shadow unleashed a sonic boom that went flying at her. She didn't even have time to brace herself before it struck her and knocked her off her feet. Not giving her a chance to get up, the shadow sprinted forward (closing the distance between them in three strides), and slammed it's foot into the girl's stomach.

         The impact was so strong that the girl immediately coughed up several drops of blood and struggled just to breathe. Her shadow continued to show no mercy by proceeding to assault the girl with a barrage of brutal kicks to her stomach, back and head. After about a minute the shadow stopped, leaving the girl a black, blue and bloodied mess on the cold ice.

         The heartless shadow then picked the beaten girl up by her throat. The teen made a rather pathetic attempt to break free, but the shadow had an iron grip. It was at this point that the shadow began to choke her. It applied so much force that the girl's vision started to slowly go black after just a few seconds from oxygen deprivation. After another few seconds, the fiery orbs in the night sky above began raining down in a thunderstorm of light.

         She couldn't do this, her shadow was too powerful, The girl thought. She could feel herself gradually growing weaker and weaker by the second. Soon, her arms went limp, and her eyes began to slowly close once and for all. Moments before the end, soul searing regret started running through her. She thought about everything she had done in life, and the universe of things that she had yet to accomplish. There was so much more she could still do, and it was all about to just evaporate. What would her friend think of this, if she was still alive?

         Suddenly, the voice of the wind came back, but it felt warmer and sounded strong this time. "No". Was all it said. As it said this, life and strength began surging through the girl's body at the speed of light, and her wounds started to heal. With the ferocity of an erupting volcano, her eyes shot open, an incandescent glow emanating from them. A bright, golden aura soon enveloped the girl entirely, and the shadow began struggling to keep a hold of her.

         "This is not what she would want!" The wind roared. With an explosion of energy, the girl blasted her shadow back at the speed of sound. The shadow kept going for fifty feet before colliding with a large boulder, obliterating the boulder.

         "This is my promise to her...a promise that I will keep until the day I die!!" Both the girl and the wind shouted in perfect unison. With a fierce battle cry, the girl shot forward faster than a bullet. The shadow had only just gotten to it's feet by the time she was on top of it. Just in the nick of time, the shadow managed to block the girl's punch, and attempted to sweep her feet out from under her.

         The teenager anticipated this though, and gracefully back flipped out of the way. She had just finished the move when the shadow inhaled as much air as it could and shot a wall of midnight black fire at her.

         But the inferno never reached her. Instead of burning the girl alive, the flames were diverted around her body by her aura.

         When the wall of fire dissipated, the girl and her shadow stood motionless, waiting for the other to make a move. Finally, the teen lunged forward, roaring tremendously. The shadow, half a nanosecond later, did the same. Closer and closer they got until their auras collided, releasing a thundering shockwave in every direction.

         For half a minute, the two were engaged in a lightning fast sequence of punches, kicks, blocks and dodges. To anyone who watched from the sidelines, it would have looked much like a dance. The fight soon reached an abrupt conclusion when the shadow stumbled a bit, giving the girl a large enough opening to send her fist right into the silouhette's heart.

         For a brief moment, the girl and the shadow made eye contact. In that moment, the girl smiled, and a second later, cracks of white light began spreading, from the her fist, all throughout the shadow's body. Letting out a glass shattering scream of agony, the shadow exploded into a million little shards of darkness. The battle was, at long last, over.

         But the girl wasn't done just yet. Turning around, she brought her attention to the orbs of light that were raining down from the sky. The girl, still smiling slightly, aimed her hands at the scene, and sent her golden aura soaring into the sky. For a few moments, there was nothing, but then a brilliant explosion of golden, sparkling dust lit up the night. As it rained down over the entire area, the orbs of light began slowly returning to their interstellar thrones in the sky one by one. Soon they were all back in place, and the girl finally breathed a sigh of relief. Now she was done.

         As she looked over the frozen fantasy landscape, her thoughts turned back to the tombstone of her friend, and her brawl with the shadow. In those moments, when she was so weak, frail, sad and broken, her eyes, which had been sealed shut for so long, had finally opened again. It hurt her to know that her best friend was gone, and it would most likely always hurt; but she could not, and would not, let that pain ruin her life. That's not what her friend would want; the girl could see that now.

         At that instance of realization, something genuinely freaky happened. Two beautiful angel wings broke through the skin on the girl's back. One wing was a wonderful magenta color and the other was a dazzling azure. Wit these wings, the girl had become quite a heavenly being.

         Taking one last glance at the barren, frozen world around her, the girl turned her sights to the orbs of light in the sky, and rose into the night. While she was hovering in the air, the voice of the wind came one last time,

         "...this is my promise..." It began. Smiling, the girl took off into the heavens in the direction of the orbs of light.

         "This is my promise to her..." The wind continued as the girl soared away. Tears were streaming down her face again, but the girl actually wasn't sad this time; she was happy. As she drew closer and closer to the orbs of light, the wind said one last thing,

         "...And I will keep it until the day I die." As that last word echoed throughout the frozen wasteland, and the girl vanished from sight, the wind became calm for the first time in so long.

The End
Word Count: 1977