It's noisy and bright. I rubbed my grimy hands over my eyes as I blinked them open. Green. Green weeds and foliage. Dark earth, dark bark and inundating light that speckled that chaotic, lively wonder.
It felt real as I used my hands to palpate the ground. Numbly, I rubbed my oil-covered head of hair and then I grinned. No more smoke and numbness, no visions or metal creatures. No more ethical revelations. I stopped at that and inspected my hands. Was that dried blood still stuck under my fingernails? Is it inside the creases of my palm? Is it dried on my clothes?
I was back but I could not stop thinking about it. My things were all there and it looked like barely a day and a night had passed. My makeshift shelter was undisturbed and the strips of meat I had hung off a branch looked redder than they probably were.
It was insane. Nothing changed, yet I kept going back to the visions and how they felt. Was what I saw even real? Somehow I doubted it was fabricated.
I looked at the sky and the hurriedly walked towards a clearing to see the clouds better. Were those trails of smoke
floating to the ground from the clouds' centre? The closest one landed not far away and I made my way over.
What I found, terrified me. The misty vapour carried over tiny specks of white that dusted over everything like snow. The area was covered in a white sheen and as I watched, it faded as if it was dissolving sugar.
The radius of the foggy trail was considerable and I spotted a large number of white trails falling from all the surrounding clouds.
It was surely the same substance that fumed out of the moss after it was cut. That thing had nearly killed me and now it covered everything. They decided to punish us! Poison us! I had really been up there and the visions were real.
I rushed back to the crash site, for what, I did not truly know. There was probably no escape from the undoing that floated down from the heavens. I knew I still wanted to live and be there when it was all over. What would be left of us when it would all be good and done?
