Common

The morning was quiet around me, the silence broken only by the intermittent singing of a few feathered early risers. The sky had only just begun to shift in color, the deep velvet black of night going soft gray, tinged gold at the horizon. In the months since leaving the Thicket, I had grown accustomed to waking early in the morning and walking through dew-tipped grass until the sun was high overhead. I thought it was perhaps something to do with missing the dark greenery above my head, the womb-like protection I had felt in those shadowy depths, but I knew it probably had equally as much to do with my loneliness.

I missed the siblings - Heartbreak and Anathema - and Naydra, too. I hadn't thought I had grown so attached, but in the absence of their company, I felt adrift again. Not nearly as terrified this time, but just as unmoored. As transient and temporary as a dandelion seed in a summer breeze.

I wasn't sure why autumn always intensified these feelings of loneliness in me, but it had happened too routinely for me to ignore. And when the solitude grew too heavy to bear, my feet always seemed to find their way to the Commons. If there was nothing else I could count on in this world, the Commons at least provided me with a surefire way to find somewhere to go. I would know, considering this was my third trip around. Third time being abandoned.

I shoved the morose thoughts away and refixed my gaze on the horizon, letting the pink that spread at the horizon warm my heart. A sunrise was hardly a promise for a better day, but I thought that perhaps if I just believed in it hard enough, it might become something close enough.

thicket . loveinspired