“Having fun, aren’t we?”

Kaius looked up. A face shadowed by the sun’s glare smiled down at him. He returned it with as much brightness as he could muster before returning back to his hands. The mud felt wet and the few pebbles in between stuck out like sore thumbs, islands around an ocean.

“Yes, Mama.”

The figure sat next to him on a large boulder. She watched him from above. Her smile faded a bit but was always present. That was what mattered and nothing more. As long as her smile stayed, everything would be fine. That was her resolve.

Kaius started playing with the mud again. This time, less messily than before lest she reprimand him. He shaped and molded it. It would hold its given form for a few seconds before breaking apart. He just giggled and remade the shapes over again. Never once thinking it to be futile.

The world disappeared around him without warning. The mud in his hands dropped to the ground fading as they escaped his grasp. He was in a clearing eliminated only by a crackling fire. Mother no longer had a smile, instead a fierce determination he found alien on her features. She carried a long spear pointed at dark figures. He knew they were after him, trying to take him away from her.

“Mama?” he whispered as a piercing pain assaulted his head. He closed his eyes afraid and suffering from this unusual situation.

“Yes, my flower?” she responded. Her voice was distant--barely audible to him.

“Mama?” He said again. His head throbbed forcing him to close his eyes in a struggle. Opening them, he found himself back in front of the mud and his mother sitting behind him. She had a worried expression on her face.

She reached out and hugged him and comforted him. Kept him sane and able to fight back. She rubbed his head slowly taking the pain away from him.

Kaius was shaking in her embrace. Where had he gone? Why did his mother look so scary? Why wasn’t she happy, she was always smiling. He looked up at her--tears at the edges of his eyes--the real her. The one with the wide caring smile and bright eyes.

“It’s okay,” she cooed. “It’s all going to be okay.”

He let the tears fall from his eyes. Embraced the solace and warmth she provided. It was then he knew that this was a memory, how he understood that he did not know. It was supposed to end in a matter of moments, and with a smile, he waited for it to fade away.

But it didn’t.

Time stretched longer and longer as they sat there. His smile faltered as he looked up at his mother’s face. It was not the bright foggy face he expected rather shadows lined her wavering expression. Above her, clouds began to roll in from far away, promising a heavy storm and roaring thunder.

“Kaius,” she said suddenly, startling him. “You know, change is inevitable. No matter how hard we try otherwise, it happens.”

“Mama?”

“Kaius, j-just listen, okay,” every second she spoke, her smile faded away, and the shadows crept closer around them. Grasping at their figures.

“What’s going on? I-I’m scared.”

As though she didn’t hear him, she continued to speak, “Like change, death is also unavoidable.”

Her grip on him tightened, painfully. Yet, that wasn’t at the top of his mind. Kaius felt his head throb as flashes of the clearing showed. Of his mother swinging her spear back and forth. A foreboding sense of loss originated from his chest. He clutched at his shirt as though that would help relieve the pain.

His heart missed a beat, then another. A weight he did not understand burdened his body, forcing him to slouch forward. His tears began to roll down with renewed vigor, though he did not know why.

“I will pass on as well, and so shall you when the time comes. So, don’t lose hope, okay. I-I’m rambling aren’t I...point is, don’t dwell on the bad days and look forward to the good.”

His blurred eyes drifted towards his mother’s face. She was fading, becoming transparent like a ghost. And yet, she continued to speak. Not caring whether her body would lose its physical nature.

“...hurts, it hurts a lot. But don’t give up. Because I will always be with you. Maybe not physically, but always spiritually.”

He reached out to hold her hands only to pass through them. He felt his body sink backward into her. Her body--it had held him up as he leaned against her--was not there to hold him any longer.

She got up, passing through him. Floating in the air, rising upwards. Looking down, she smiled and waved a final goodbye before drifting into the sky above.

Struggling to get up, his child-like body felt unnatural to him. He chased after her, her image slowly getting out of reach. Until finally, he was left alone in the darkness of his dreamscape running without purpose.

The ground under him lost its ability to hold him. With a large splash, he sank into murky waters he could not see through. Only a light far above he could not recognize. The water was deeper than he expected, he splashed and flailed to find something to grab or something to find purchase on.

There was nothing.

Instead, the waters formed hands and limbs to grab him with. They wrapped around his body, ankles, and arms. Pulling him down into their endless depths.

He struggled to get away but found them too strong. It was then he remembered he needed to breathe. That only made his fighting even more frantic.

Darkness crept into his vision as his lungs burned without any air. In a few seconds, he lost his consciousness as he tried to grasp onto the light and maybe reach his mother.