|
I couldn't remember how long had it been since that day.
We ascended the stairs, but there were more steps before us.
I touched the wet cold wall.
"!" Sunddenly, I saw a dim light.
"Exit?"
But the beam of light came one after another.
--- Oh, dazzling. My eyes are aching...
I couldn't stand the light, and turned back.
"Lina?"
Her eyes were glittering red in the dazzling light. I saw that the red color was trembling.
"Ze... l..."
She reached out for me.
I reached out for her white fingers, and my fingers touched her hair...
"! ! What? What is this?!"
The red color flashed out from her hair, and enveloped my arm like a fire.
"Lina!" I shouted out.
But I couldn't see her, nor the wall of the ruins.
I looked up slowly...
All I could see was in red. All I saw were in flames. "Oh, is this fire?"
The red color was trembling continuously, and many red strings raced upward against each other.
"It's not hot. It is rather..." I thought.
"This is THE PLACE IN WHICH ALL THE THINGS WERE BORN, AND TO WHICH WE WILL GO BACK."
Graduately, I fell half-conscious... I felt no pain. Rather, I felt like to be filled... Oh, I want to go... !
"Ze... l... You are... Zel, aren't... you?" A voice came.
"Is it you..., Lina?" I thought.
"Oh... my will... I WILL," I said in my mind.
"I WILL STAY HERE!" I shouted out.
The flame stormed! I couldn't feel myself. Oh, had I been burned down?
"Here I am..., thinking, considering, and willing... I CAN'T GO BACK NOW!"
"... What was that?"
Suddenly, my fingers could feel. "! Lina? Is she alright?"
I found her lying by my feet.
I knelt down and combed her hair with my fingers. Her lips slightly trembled.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
"Are you okay?"
She looked at me with vacant eyes, but she DID look at me.
"Ah... uh..."
She hardly spoke. She raised her hand and tried to touch me, but I saw her fingers were shaking.
"... I... s... saw..." She said.
"No, don't hurry."
I held her in my arms. She tried hard to say something.
"What happened? Speak slowly," I said.
"I... saw... fire." Lina begun to talk. "A flame. The blue one. It was so beautiful. I had never seen such a beautiful fire. So... I wanted... to touch it... I did... because it was so beautiful..."
She dropped her face, then raised it again.
This time, she stared at me.
"When I touched it... I felt pain... I felt sad... But, I could have very gentle feelings for it. And..."
"?"
"Zel... I felt you!"
"... You seem to be alright now," I said.
"Yes! And Zel, you, too," Lina smiled at me.
I looked up the exit and found the round moon. Was it one night or two nights before a full moon?
Lina run up the steps and went outside. She seemed not to mind what had happened.
"Come hurry!" She said.
"Alright. Let's go now. Night is the time for us."
|