stringsofverse

[stringsofverse]

CHAPTER ZERO: GIVEN-TAKEN

“i'm walking to you.”

once, i̶ someone used to spend m̶y̶ their youth dancing in nature. though they adored endless meadows of flowers, sunlight peeking through branches and leaves, the gentle stream passing behind their house had to be their favourite.

they’d lie on the river bank, dipping their fingers into the icy water and threading them through droplets like their mother would with strands of their hair. other times they’d hold magenta roses in their hand and let delicate petals slip through their fingers and onto the surface of the flowing water.

at times like those, the world seemed to hold out a promising future for them to take. the world would give and all they had to do was take. a favourable future was given, a favourable future was taken.

or almost taken.

life is deceiving; it pulled its hand away when they tried to take it, erasing the floor beneath their feet and allowing them to fall into an abyss of what they would realise is endless darkness. a dream can quickly turn into a nightmare. that joyous, adventurous individual used to be alive. oh, they used to be alive. but now, come just under a decade later, they feel as though their flesh is trapped in stone, like it's been layered with marble to mold them into the porcelain figure others perceive as virtuous, as inherently good.

that carefully sculpted statue greets others with the ghost of a smile — perhaps the only true reflection of m̶y̶ their fragile being, because they can’t remember the last time they have smiled without misery lingering behind it.

a pool of water surrounds it, a cool stream falling from its fingers. to a passerby, its artistic excellence, true beauty bathed in all that is good in this deceitful world. but that adored sculpture is lifeless, artificial. and no one can see the real, frightened 19-year-old trapped beneath those layers of marble, trapped in a body they don’t recognise. they don’t think anyone would want to, anyway. they wouldn’t want to.

because underneath that angelic facade, they are more of a sinner. what one perceives as morality in their stone eyes, is blasphemous in reality, is deceitful, is hypocritical, is bad. there is no saving a creature that is so entrenched in sin that they are no longer human.

but if you care enough to approach the fountain the statue stands in, then you’ll find the stone slate laid out in front, with an inscription, a cry, a question for life, that reads:

i’m asking somebody, anybody — am i given or taken?

did the universe craft me as a gift for this mortal world or did it intend for my soul to be taken as i grew up? am i worthy of being a gift, am i a person that gives others a sense of happiness, a sense of security, a sense of belonging? or is all i’m made for to be taken, to be depleted? was i born to suffer the fate of loss, born to lose everything?

or is it both in a twisted sense — am i meant to be given to this world wrapped up in pink ribbons, carved of a marble block, and put on display for humanity to take and take until there is no trace of me remaining?

i’m asking somebody, anybody, perhaps even the god i have no faith in — am i given or taken?

“until we reach the new world.”

[stringsofverse]

信使 — HERALD OF HEAVEN.

SHEN QUANRUI — LIMINALITY.

suspended between infinite layers, suspended between obedience and defiance, suspended between right and wrong, suspended between imprisonment and freedom, shen quanrui is a key reason heaven has yet to collapse.

between two extremes, there must always exist a midpoint. in order to maintain balance, there must be equal weight laid upon each side of a scale. in order to answer your people, you must know what their needs are.

shen quanrui plays the role of all of the above. he exists between every level of heaven's hierarchy, weaving a connection between each that is essential for heaven to exist harmoniously. the knowledge he's collected over the ( several ) years he's resided in this heavenly realm is vast — too vast.

ignorance is bliss. and yet he cannot turn his back on the darkness tainting heaven like the ink running down his neck that, according to the higher ups, stains his purity. knowledge has tarnished his innocence. he knows too much. he knows the trust the higher ups have placed in him is as conditional as the wavering trust ( or lack thereof ) he places in them now that he's seen the ugly portrait they've tried to paint so desperately over.

he's floating in the liminal space between the dream of this realm and the reality of heaven. fate has hung him between his duties and his morality. to question the higher ups is to question heaven itself. but he's past the point of questioning, he's at the point of acting.

suspended between infinite layers, suspended between obedience and defiance, suspended between right and wrong, suspended between imprisonment and freedom, shen quanrui is lost in an ocean of internal conflict. but there will come a time when the tides will pull him over to one side, and he'll have to make an irreversible choice.