The Golden Fields

Cevin leans out over roughly-hewn guardrails. The pine needles above and around him rustle as wind passes out of the Golden Fields into his tree line. Yes, it was his. It had been weeks since anyone he knew had left to investigate the pillars of smoke. The smoke had since

Trouble treads carefully. They know what will happen if the other Reapers catch them here. There’s too much at stake, they think to themself. I have to keep the dream alive. The risk is worth it. Crawling to the top of a shallow rise, Trouble looks over the swaying

Antwohnette… the name sounds so familiar, like the memory of dream you can’t remember. The young woman’s extended hand emerges from shadow, a harsh line of darkness slicing across her wrist. “Caliban, come. We’re looking for a new home. I think we may have found it.” Home.

“Fox, do you think there is a place beyond these fields?” the phantom had asked one day, a time long before Reapers had dominated the Golden Fields. “I’ve spent my entire life here and haven’t found an edge,” the fox had answered, eyes glinting with something sharp and

Caliban darts between golden stalks. He knew it would come to this, he just knew it. His small, agile frame is hard to track in the dark, but he still worries the rustling grass will give his position away. Not much farther now, he thinks to himself. He bursts into

“What d’you think’s out there?” Antwohnette sits on a rickety porch propped up on makeshift stilts, staring out across an endless sea of amber grass. Caliban curls up next to her. “Trouble,” he says. Antwohnette runs her hand through his black fur. “You think it’s worth it?

At long last I came to the Golden Fields. I expected feelings of relief and fulfillment, but instead felt a gnawing hunger. A Reaper approached me and handed me a scythe. Reaper: Welcome, Watcher. We have long expected you. With this tool you can reap to your heart’s content.

I’ve been gone for a time, fellow travelers, wandering the aether. From irrational beginnings, we take our first steps into strange worlds. Pieces of ourselves can be found strewn about. We struggle for meaning. The journey continues… Meaning is a marathon. It is nurtured, found in fragments not wholes.