‘Glass’.

I find glass to be a most interesting thing. I do not quite understand what it is. It is hard, like the face of a smooth rock. Yet it is cold and transparent, like the depths of the great-water.

- Very interesting.

I like glass.

Burch does not seem to like the glass. Much like she does not seem to like water anymore. Or crystals. Or gems, which are often hidden behind the glass of the city.

- An oddity.

I notice that my friend, Burch, simply does not seem to like to look at anything that might reflect herself. Perhaps my negative thoughts about her appearance have finally reached her, after all of this time?

I lean downward, slowly pressing my stem against the back of her head.

Do not worry, friend.

I was mistaken.

You are not a horrible, disfigured monstrosity. There is nothing to fear.

My friend does not reply. But she does nuzzle her head from side to side, her long hairs on the back of her head, rubbing against my stem.

- A token gesture of acknowledgment.

Ah. Success.

Burch looks up towards me and smiles a smile, which seems unusually heavy on the corners around her cheeks and beneath her eyes.

Hmm.

I do not find it as pleasing, as I have found her other smiles. Perhaps I am just being selfish, however? After all, I have gotten a free smile.

What more could anyone ever want from life?

Burch turns back to look out over the city that we still remain in. Weeks have passed since our arrival and the attack on her.

- If my friend gives me a good smile or a terrible smile, perhaps I really ought to be grateful for both?

Just like I am grateful for the shine of the sun, even on a cloudy day like today.

Only a little of its grace reaches me. But I am thankful for even that. So, thank you for smiling, Burch.

I am an appreciative sunflower, imperfect, but beautiful.

- [Sunflower] -

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 217/310 EXP (Burch): 36/240

While I do find it all most fascinating, I still do not quite understand why we are here?

The city is an amazing thing, abuzz with life and with things to see. There are hundreds of new things to see every single day. New concepts, new faces, new colors and new gifts of creation.

- I feel as if I could sit here for a month and then another month and still not run out of new things to see.

But.

We do not wander.

We do not progress.

We do not crawl and claw and fight our way towards paradise, as I have become accustomed to us doing.

My friend has found a way to sustain herself; the metal disks, which she harvested from her violent attacker. Somehow, she seems to be able to exchange these for food.

And the food is most strange.

It is not an apple.

It is not a piece of flesh.

It is not a fish.

It is… a combination.

The food here is very complex and, while I do not eat, I must say that I also do not care for it. The mixing of such ingredients and components all together into various creations, while creative, I feel does overshadow the beauty of the single individuals.

An apple is an amazing thing. Firm and crisp and whole. But when it is covered in some flaky brown mass, we can not see its ruby splendor, the glistening of its skin, the density of its core, the sweetness of its cold, trickling juice.

A fish, sleek, fatty and soft is divine in its creation. Simply perfect. But, cut into small pieces and drowned in a brackish, salty water and all of a sudden, all of that natural beauty is gone.

- Too complex.

I find the food here too complex. I find the city, while interesting, too complex. As Burch’s friend, I feel that she would be better off just eating an apple, a tuber, a fish, all as they are, perfect, ready, nourishing.

But Burch has become strange in a familiar way.

And now I realize what ails her.

- The sickness of comfort.

Ah.

- [Sunflower] -

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 224/310 EXP (Burch): 43/240

The old specter has caught us once again.

Remember, back in the grotto, oh so many weeks ago? Remember, the cave in which we hid? The cave in which she feasted on fat fruit and crystal waters, as we hid from the not-birds?

She had thought that she was safe there. That sense of safety bound her in place, like metal fastenings. It would seem that she has fallen into the same trap once again.

Our journey has been frightening and hard. There were many times of hunger and thirst and times of cold and warmth and times of fear and rushing blood.

- And here, those times are foreign. Here, the easy numbness of comfort is all encompassing.

Oh, Burch. You silly thing. I do adore you so. It is to be expected, I suppose, naivety. She is still young, after all.

- Perhaps however, she is not being naive? Perhaps she is simply in denial?

After what happened only shortly after our arrival here in the city, I would assume as much.

Ah.

Poor thing. She had so much hope for this place. I realize now why she avoids her reflection. Its gaze would prove to her that which I already know.

Lifting my heads up towards the cloudy sky, I wonder, when will she see it too with eyes as clear as glass?

- That we are not safe at all.

Just like back in the grotto, it is an illusion.

Burch.

My dearest friend.

You have already realized, like I have, yes?

That there is nowhere in the whole, entire world that is safe. Ever. There is nowhere here where we can hide and nowhere anywhere else, except perhaps for the gardens of paradise.

There is nothing to do, except to keep on walking, to keep journeying or to perish, as if we were beasts in a drought, traveling across the wastelands towards the only hope left.

- Paradise.

I whisper its name greedily in my mind.

- A scream.

Another scream.

Screams fill the air of the midday world, carried together with many signaling chimes from far off.

People run and Burch and I turn to look towards the front of the city from high up on our perch, up high on a hill in the heart of the city.

We look, as the mass, the swarm, the flock of hobgoblins, breaks out of the nearby forest path and charges towards the city, a thousand and then some in number.

- Wow.

What a view.

We watch from atop the heart-hill, as the blob of silhouettes, gray and green, charges towards the walls of the unprepared city.

We watch as the streets and the doors and the glass, once translucent, are all painted red as the tide rolls in through the open gates.

Well.

Perhaps I really did just need to complain? Life can be funny like that sometimes. It seems that our time here, in the city, has come to an end.

Good.

- Shall we?

Burch shakes and cries as she struggles to rise to her feet. Her body doesn't want to do what her mind tells it that it needs to.

What is the matter, friend?

I lean over her shoulder and press my head sideways against hers. This seemed to bring her joy when I did it to her book, many weeks ago. Perhaps it will work now too?

Why are you upset?

- Look.

Hundreds of people are dying.

Who has ever lived to say they have witnessed something as rare as this? From a vantage as perfect as this?

Truly we are blessed. We are the lucky ones that life has gifted the treasure of novel experience.

Screams fill the air as a fire begins to erupt from the entrance to the city, engulfing houses and people who fall, flailing, like fireflies in the day glow.

Blobby masses of silhouettes move through the streets and the alleys, flowing like a creeping poison, rotting everything away, as it drips towards a slowly striking heart through channels of veins.

- We are blessed beyond compare.

Be happy.

- [Sunflower] -

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 225/310 EXP (Burch): 44/240

Be joyous.

Be excited about the prospect of more experiences like this to come in the future.

Isn’t it the best?

Watching a family being descended upon by the swarm and killed with sharp knives of many forms, Burch then turns and finally runs.

Yes.

- There is so much more of the world for us to see.

Howling men and smoke consume the day that we leave in our wake. We run through the streets, through the alleys and past many doors and windows and I watch as others make the mistake that we have avoided.

They try to hide in one place for too long. In a place that is comfortable.

They close their doors. They close their windows.

- But such things do not bother the fire. They do not bother the hobgoblins.

We run and we run and I feel the wind grace my petals in a nostalgic fashion. I listen to the densely spaced, frantic beating of Burch’s heart, striking in a manner that brings me back to days now gone, I listen to the thudding of her feet, as they slap against the ground, as we run for our lives.

For the first time in days, we are truly alive again. The thrill of the hunt continues.

- And I am grateful to the hobgoblins for rousing my friend from her deep slumber, for waking her from the illusion, the spider's web of comfort.

Comfort isn’t safety. Comfort is a trap that leads to complacence. Complacence leads to being eaten.

One would be wise to remember this.

The odd things that she had worn on her feet, she has discarded in the forest and now, without them, Burch runs faster.

An hour has passed, but Burch still runs, following not the roads or the paths or the ways, but rather, the setting sun, which sinks down in the west.

It sinks down now, closer than ever before and as we stride towards it, I realize that the red of the setting sun looks just like blood on translucent glass.

What a coincidence.

- Isn’t life just fascinating?

This is the best.