burn for a second || { silas }

This story began a very, very long time ago, when a girl named Lennon Greer closed her eyes to this world and opened them someplace else. It was empty space: a white void, and she was alone for quite some time, floating there. She passed the time by watching her son's growth, smiling until her cheeks cramped. From there, she still got to hear him the first time he laughed, got to see him take his first steps, got to see him hold the teddy bear she'd gotten him close every night when he went to sleep.

She was there, but he didn't know it. A ghost, fixated on the mortal world she would never again be a part of. Lennon grew prone to melancholy, stopped watching as much because it began to hurt when her own mother had to raise another child in her absence. It began to hurt when he learned the words Granny and Pop instead of Momma and Daddy. It hurt when he cried at night, because she was so close that she could reach out and pluck him up, hold him against her until he fell asleep again. It hurt, and on those days, the white light she was immersed in was not so bright, a gray mass of broken memories and loneliness.

She didn't know how to explain it, but she realized one day that she had the opportunity to go someplace else, someplace further. It was not quite so easy an answer, though, because in the same way that she knew she could leave, she knew seeing her loved ones so often would no longer be possible.

Still. She mulled over the options in her head for an eternity and a second all the same- time was irrelevant where she was. She could stay, and be alone, and watch. Or she could go, and let him become a man without looking over his shoulder when he felt her presence, only to look right through her.

She was going to leave; she's embarrassed to admit. But just when she had decided, a portal appeared, a light within the light, she heard a voice that was not her own, and everything changed.

Andy brought a forest with him and, somehow, the space felt more alive. The trees went on forever and ever in most directions, all except the edge, a cliff side that met the white light. It was an exit and a window into the mortal plane, but also an entrance, it turned out.

She did not speak to Andy for quite some time. She would occasionally catch him looming in the distance, peering at her from behind a tree and wondering who, exactly, she was, and what she was doing there. She could also hear him whistling as he skipped along the forest floor, spinning with his hands stretched out and his head tipped back.

Others came with time. A boy named Drace brought the mountains he'd grown up in. They sat nestled miles away from her white space, too far for her to cross paths with him for the longest. And then she heard him speaking one day, to Andy. Their voices were approaching but she could not see them past the treeline. All at once, their voices became quiet, and she guessed they must have seen her there, floating in the nothingness.

"You can come out, you know," she said at last, "I won't bite."

For the first time since arriving, Lennon stepped on solid ground and looked away from the past, to look at the new life she'd born.

"I'm Lennon."

After that, existing- or, not existing, maybe, was much easier. She could always go back, always check on her son when she wanted, but she realized more and more that he was okay without her, that it had always been her who needed him in the end.

A girl named Magenta brought birds and they built nests in Andy's trees. A boy named Gavin came and suddenly they had home- the feeling and literal buildings for each of them. They could tell when someone new would come from then on, because a new home would appear in anticipation of their arrival.

They would all meet up at the edge of the world and wait from then on, a growing group of souls who'd loved and lost and been loved and been lost. A boy named Lex brought the beach so sometimes the group would swim. Even more so after a boy named Dustyn brought the sun with him- it was bright and hot and the water was nice to cool off in. Dane brought the changing of the seasons, though, so sometimes the water was too cold and they would all just stand at the shoreline.

Reese brought empathy- they'd struggled to know what, exactly, it was he'd brought until they realized how much more they all understood one another. They could look at each other and see everything they'd been, everything they were, everything they felt, even everything they wanted to be.

Raven brought the meadow, a place so quiet that not even Magenta's birds dared to sing. The flowers were plump and smelled beautiful. It was their quiet place- her quiet place, but she never minded sharing with the group. Tobias brought music that seemed to come from the sky itself. Beautiful piano ballads when the winter came, upbeat guitar come spring.

Myrcella brought the night. Or, rather, the moon and the stars. She and Dustyn had taken quite some time to work out a schedule and even now, half the time night and day were one in the same. Harper brought the rain, which brought vibrancy and renewal to everything: Andy's trees, Raven's meadow, even the souls themselves seemed refreshed after the rain.

Lennon's place, once filled with loneliness, was now so very full of life and love and friendship and happiness. There was never a day where she felt alone. Somehow this place, this infinity that was neither here nor there, had become home to so many, all because she'd stayed, or maybe because she'd considered leaving, and now it was not her place. It was theirs. All of theirs.

And it was wonderful, until the newest house appeared and Andy's forest caught fire.