The Eternal Farewell

We awoke that morning, not gently. Not to singing birds or warm sunlight, like in the stories, but to Truth. Its icy tendrils wrapped around us, digging into our skin, seeping into our blood, weaving its way through our bodies until it pierced our hearts.

The mirror had lost its deceptive sheen. Looking into it, we saw what we really were: hideous, disfigured, unspeakably vile. I watched you cry through the curtain of my own tears. The droplets froze on your mutilated face.

I felt Truth begin to wrap around my throat, strangling me. Breath came out from my twisted lips in broken gasps. I pleaded with you to cry for help, because you were still standing. You would not. A sneer transformed your face from wretched and pitiful to evil. It was watching you harden that gave me the strength I needed. With the last of my air, I croaked out the Name.

I had been taught the Name, heard it from many who had called on it before. So had you. Indeed, we both had even said we believed in the Name’s power. But not until that morning when Truth came had either of us called it.

The ice inside of me transformed into a raging fire, burning in my very soul. Warmth and life spread through my limbs. The mirror rippled, and the face in it-my own-transformed into a thing of beauty. Not pure, but a shadow of what it could be and someday would be. I had seen that face before. It belonged to the Name. No one alive had seen the Name, but I knew it well enough to recognize without seeing. It was inside of me-Truth, the Name, whatever one calls Him. Yes, Him.

I turned to you. Your face was contorted with inward pain, but no scream escaped your lips. You were not breathing at all. Truth had frozen within you because you refused to call the Name. Your heart was stone, you were a monster. Not yet complete Suffering, but a shadow of it, as I became a shadow of Him. You turned and began to run, straight towards an endless black pit. I ran after you, crying out your name, begging you to call for Him. You would not listen until you were over the pit’s edge. Then, it was too late.

I could not follow you. Because He is within me, there is another place I run to in the end, a place of joy. It could have been your home. But you were too proud.

You counted surrender as too high a cost for the salvation of your soul.