sun-swept waters [wonder!blitz]

A gentle breeze rolled by and made his bronze locks flutter. He closed his eyes and savored the temporary relief from the scorching sun leaning his head backwards against the thick bark. Nature soothed his senses; the chirping of nested birds, the fresh scent of the meadows, the winds caressing his tanned skin and tickling him like feathers. He opened his eyes once more and spotted ripples in the pond water - from the breeze, perhaps. Suddenly he was tempted to glide into those waters and submerge himself until he was completely encased within his own bubble. He wished that he could breathe underwater and use it to escape - to live beneath the surface for the remainder of his life. Like a fish.

An unfamiliar figure entered his peripheral vision. It was a boy around his age wandering into the perimeter with his gaze focused on Fabian and his oak tree. Fabian blinked a few times to make sure the heat wasn’t creating hallucinations in his head, and narrowed his forest green eyes. The boy was silent, and Fabian figured that he was merely enjoying a pleasant stroll through the wilderness. It was not an uncommon occurrence in district ten, after all. It was a district that was alive and thriving with plants and animals and fields. The boy would probably mind his own business and pass by. Fabian would acknowledge him, but he would keep his lips sealed. If the boy wanted to speak to him, he would - simple as that.

Perplexion was the best way to describe Fabian’s state of mind at that moment. ”Did you know that you’re dead?” The ribbon of strange words drifted through the breeze until they reached his ears, and as his forehead wrinkled and his irises flickered with confusion he wondered if the sentence had been distorted somehow. Perhaps he had not heard correctly? The boy was probably saying something completely different - a simple greeting or a question regarding his presence most likely. People didn’t just appear out of thin air and babble nonsense like that - not unless Fabian really was hallucinating.

He uncrossed his arms and let them dangle at his side as he pushed himself away from the oak tree, however still remaining within its protective shade as if it were a force field defending him from harm. He didn’t know how to respond to the boy - he had misheard, after all. He made a mental note to clean out the earwax in his ears when he returned home.

Unfortunately, Fabian had not misunderstood the boy’s puzzling words, nor had the constant gentle breezes disrupted the sound waves that glided through the air into his ears. You’re dead. The logical part of his brain - all of him, actually - told him that the stranger’s words were nonsense. Crazy. Insane. But the sympathetic side of him - that feather in the stack of needles - pleaded him to empathize with the boy. Not to judge him by his mere words, but to press on the subject further to try and understand. Fabian was not the judgmental type to begin with, but the situation was possibly the strangest he had ever encountered. And strange predicaments never ended happily ever after.

The stranger offered a plausible argument, but Fabian was not convinced. Death? There was nothing dangerous in his life that could possibly lead him into death. The Hunger Games, maybe, but he had never been reaped, and never planned to. As blurry memories turned crisp and threatened to haunt his conscience, he shook his head and ran his fingers through his sweaty, bronze mane of silk. He pondered about what to say next; the boy was obviously losing his senses from the pill he had just consumed. It wasn’t uncommon to find a poor soul addicted to drugs - to them, it was a escape from the hardships of life through visual hallucinations and fabricated hope. Fabian would never understand the sensation of feeling high and overwhelmed, but he could imagine the need for freedom. There were things he wished to escape as well - things he could hardly stand to bear without lapsing into mourning.

"Have you ever touched the sky?”

Fabian began to wonder whether the boy was speaking metaphorically, or literally. Was dead truly dead, or did he mean dead on the inside? Did he mean to reach up and touch a solid blue blanket in the sky, or did he mean to reach up and aim for limitless freedom? Either way, Fabian had no logical response - only judgment to place. The stranger was being affected by the pills, and that was that. Still, Fabian would not judge his character based on this behavior. He was just a stranger, after all, and nobody had a right to judge a complete stranger. Who knows what the boy could’ve been through?