A Reader…

Days, it seemed as if days passed, and still no sign of that enchanted reader. Eoin felt his heart hardening once more, embracing the thought of his life just a week before, carelessly lounging by his favorite waterfall, going through his regular routine—a life he had become so accustomed—rarely feeling anything at all.

Being touched by a reader, or what he foolishly thought was a reader, burrowed itself so deeply in Eoin’s heart, the feeling of hope and joy was all at once renewed.

Now, to be so internally wrong, bitterness began to seep its way back and reverberate out. He cursed Valez for getting his hopes up, of course no one except Eoin knew the way he truly felt. Valez was physically withered, as everyone knew his feelings on the matter.

Eoin was now curled up on his throne. On the outside, he looked bored and uninterested with the whole affair. As he shifted to get more comfortable, he discreetly caught a glimpse of Adalind on her throne, she was reading, perfectly poised as any real queen would beside her king, which always thoroughly annoyed him—that she thought herself a queen even when no one was reading.

The corners of her mouth ticked up ever so slightly—she had seen him. He cursed under his breath and lolled his head back over the velvet arm rest. Everyone else seemed to be asleep, still at their marks, painfully hungover, but still waiting.

That was enough, they had waited long enough. He’d let everyone go back to where they chose to spend their unread lives, and he would go back to not caring, finding feeling in what he could in his solace.

He swung his legs, hearing the faint cracking of joints that went unused. He wouldn’t bother waking everyone, he’d leave it to his “queen” and “antagonist,” who always stayed in the castle to deliver the news—they didn’t have a reader, and, his heart turned to stone, knowing they would never have one again.

Eoin got up and grabbed his sack—the same one he had so carefully packed on his journey to the end, before his world forever changed for no reason whatsoever. Ignoring Adalind’s once smug smile turned to disapproving scowl, he made his way to the two oak doors that reached the arch ceiling, which he always found foreboding.

This time, he didn’t feel that same consolation of peace spread inside him as he was about to return to his created safe haven.

As his hand hovered over the ornate circular door handles, a familiar pale one was on his sleeve. “Eoin, where are you going, they could be here at any moment!” Valez looked frantic and disoriented—uncharacteristically mad.

“Valez, no one is coming! Now let me go, let the others go when they wake, and we can all go back to the way it was before, the way we all but you want it to be.” Eoin made himself believe every word so Valez wouldn’t see his torment.

“It was a reader. I felt it! There must be one or we won’t survive if we aren’t read, and you know it. Eoin, please, please don’t leave. If you leave, well there won’t be any hope for the rest of us. This is it!”

Eoin lowered his arm, feeling Valez’s fall like lead. He desperately wanted to ignore how defeated Valez looked—knowing he saw his own reflection in Valez. Neither could help the other.

He finally placed his hand on Valez’s shoulder, urging him to look him in the eye. “I’m so sorry, my dearest friend, I know your heart for this, but it doesn’t change the reality of our situation. Maybe fading away has always been our intended fate. All things come to an end eventually.” He moved his hand in comfort. “Come visit me as often as you can before that time comes.”

When Eoin opened the door, his world was as dark as the castle walls, the wind blowing everything in sight—it looked just as it had when he was at the end of his book, which was in the beginning phases of fading.

He solemnly made his way, barely making out the Mealt Falls as mist and fog masked its majesty. He could still see his camp, which was in some disarray since he had left—at least he’d have something to keep him busy for a while, to distract him from the dread that encompassed him.

He made it to the kilted rock, a cliffside aptly named for its ridges that resembled the pleats of a kilt. He looked over across the dark span of the ocean. Oh, how he wanted to be captured by a wave or swallowed by a whale—anything to escape this agony. He turned his head, resigning himself to a solitary life until nothingness took them all.

It was the sudden blast of light that came up over the horizon, illuminating everything it touched, creating colors that didn’t exist without the light of the reader’s world.

Tears suddenly streamed down his face in pure joy—joy he thought he could never feel again in the hopelessness that had slowly infiltrated his entire being.

Eoin smiled against the warmth of the sun. The enchanted reader had returned.