Run, run, run(Sequel to Test the Waters)

         The feeling of sweat enveloped the room. Matthew lay gasping on his bed, grasping the sheets as he laid on his side. He had run a marathon, something close to sixty laps. His head was spinning, as he reminisced on his cool sheets. The race took place in the world that bore his wildest dreams and could never seem to die.

         The land was flat, a rolling plain of pink grass that matched his leg warmers. He ran on the concrete sidewalk, the street next to him lined with a dotted yellow divider. His head was downcast for the first few minutes of the run, with him realizing the world around him only when he lifted his head. Every house around him was tinted with the purple of the sky, and each house looked perfectly alike.

         His eyes roamed to the back of his head, seeing the world behind him evolve and dissolve. The trees at the front of each yard grew, while the leaves fell off. Slowly, kids came out of their doors and shed the skin off their faces, turning to stare at Matthew with their muscle and sinew. His eyes traveled further up the back of his head, hiding themselves in his hair.

         His eyes roam to the top of his head, the pale skin underneath his hair contracts to open his eyes to the sky. The purple limits above are turning shades of pink, with light blue clouds beginning to pass over the long trees. Finally his eyes return to their place in his skull, and he notices the trees growing more close together, and houses fewer and far in between.

         A forest opens up to replace the neighborhood, with only the concrete path ahead remaining from the world behind him. Matt lowers his head to face the path once more, realizing with each step that it’s slowly gotten smaller. The diminishing concrete continues on for a few paces, with Matt barely keeping up. By the time it took Matt to fully understand it, the path was as wide as his foot.

         Matt trudged on. It seemed silly now, as he relived the scene in his crumbling sheets. He knew that if he stopped he would never see the rest of the path beyond him; he would never know where it trailed off to nothing. He kept running the distance, one foot in front of the other. His sweat rolled onto the bed below.

         There were no sounds in the forest. Besides his own breathing and the odd way the moon sang, Matt heard no animals. He felt calm for it, and never took his eyes off what was ahead. The path was still getting smaller. He was barely clicking his heel to the ground, letting the tips of his toes do all the running. His hair bounced, catching the shift in the breeze.

         Matt could hear the faintest sound of the wind. This was wrong because the forest had no sounds at all. Still, he continued running. The wind tampered with his hair, lifting the curled mess and letting sweat fly off him. He didn’t consider it bad, as this continued on. It felt better than seventeen hands caressing him idly, or the invigoration gained from red bull™

         Matt kept his head to the sky, trying to garner stray pieces of the wind. He only saw the ends of the trees, the crowns up above the rest of the world and the darkening sky. Then, there came a moment where all those ends stopped. The trees were gone now too, as were the houses. What was left?

          When Matt finally wanted to look down, his eyes wouldn’t let him. When he tried, his two eyes diverged into one, sitting atop his forehead like a horn as it grew it’s mast to a lofty cylindrical shape. All Matt could see was the thick clouds in the place that wasn’t the forest, and the place that wasn’t the old neighborhood. The clouds were dusty. His steps sounded hallow.

         His horned eye kept to the sky, no matter how he moved his head. It was a beacon. A distress call. Matt was worried, confused, wishing he knew why he would die. It wasn’t worth it if he didn’t know why. His mind melted with the sweat rolling off him, brain matter coming off into grey droplets. It was then Matt noticed the wind in his ears.

         The breeze had became a steady stream capable of drowning him. The wind forced him to take a step back, even as he tried to run on the narrow path. He couldn’t breathe, his nervous steps trying to find the path finding nothing but air. A third eye opened at his chin, the collection of sweat there had morphed into a new dripping eye.

         Matt was on a tightrope. He was in the middle of a chasm that had no bottom but the black and grey below. If he strained his neck until it hurt, he could see the forest beginning again on the other side. His eye was still growing, farther than a baby tree and echoing out for help. The wind seemed to come from the chasm. It screamed at him, ripping at his skin and clothes and using it’s claws to ingrain messages onto you.

         It worked itself into his skin, the wind. It latched onto his fingers, swirling delicate storms until it moved for him. That was how Matt made it across. As the wind tore into shreds of him, making his clothes sharp enough to cut his arms. His feet moved with the little storms of the wind. Matt listened to it’s shrieks, unable to do anything but let it cry.

         Matt was halfway across, with the wind leading him toward the end when he felt it. The wind had a light tug on him, dragging him further than the tightrope. It wanted him down below, it wanted to share him with the other voices below, deeper in it’s depths. Matt was straining to break free. He grabbed hold of the tightrope when it was barely above his neck, latching on. He screamed, as he remembered his eyes.

          The eye on his forehead was needle sharp, longer than the tall trees of the forest. It reached the singing moon, and prodded for it’s attention. It sank itself deep into the moons skin,

          It wasn’t his needle nose eye that alerted this change. It was his dripping eye, focusing on the cavern below. He watched as the space below got farther and farther, having released his tired grip on the rope moments ago without noticing. His horned eye was lifting him above the trees and the wind. The breeze cried for him, caressing his face with a wispy palm.

         He was reaching the moon at a steady pace, sure to collide against it and it’s melodious song. The singing was something like his mother’s voice, he realized. Something between that and a bird. He clutched at his shirt as the eye continued to drive forward. He was reaching the point past the sky, goodbye green sky. He could feel his heart in his throat.

         The collision with the moon would hopefully kill him. Hopefully, hopefully. He tiredly let go of all stress, of his tense grip on his shirt. He let his eye drag him on with little restraint. He hit the moon, and woke up in the middle of his room. His two eyes seeing perfectly for the first time in hours. His heart hurt, beating faster and faster like a plea. Why didn’t you kill me?

Now he lay in his sheets. Maybe he could relax, take a bath. Maybe he could just sleep.