The Azure Orchids

Three years before Judgement

"As days shorten and chlorophyll production decreases, the yellow and orange buried in the leaves appear, as the green fades. But red and purple leaves are different."

"As Winter approaches, most trees attempt to conserve their energy, but some trees do the opposite; instead of surrendering, they expend extra energy producing antioxidants to turn their leaves red and purple hues."

"These colors protect them from sun damage before their nutrients can all be used, and may also be a defense against insects, a way for the tree to communicate that, 'Yes, I am in part dying, but not without a fight. I am still alive."

"Observing these Melancholic Autumn colors, I perceive their stress, but the bigger the fight the tree puts up, the more energy invested, at the very end, their colors will be."

"Winter will eventually come. But the brightest, most remarkable hues come from enduring."

It was no secret, knowing the end had arrived, painful, agonizing, slow, with no purpose, alone, submerged in hatred and disgust, the pursuers' voices clear. 

Grateful, at least perishing underneath the stars within the deciduous autumn forest, still running injured through softly raining leaves of stress, with an engraved blank expression, holding his right arm.

Woosh

The stinging pain worsens with the arrow piercing the ground, his right ear shell impaled on its bloody arrowhead. The crashing saltwater waves of the lake ahead invite his mind peacefully into serene vacation memories, carrying him from the colorful hues of the forest onto the forest edge.

Ahead lay the expanse of the lake, seeming almost endless. Woosh, another arrow passes his head, the flat grassland space liminal to the forest and the lake welcoming him, running on.

A warmth then crept into him, his eyes having invited it in, immediately observing as it comes into view over the small hill, at the banks of the lake, stretched far across the banks, a field of flowers.
 "The Blue Orchid field?" the man sighs. "How bittersweet that you led me here, fate, after all this time searching," he speaks to himself, the pursuers not far behind.
 The flowers are magnificent, blue orchids releasing a cloud-like pollen which glows like star dust. He tramples the flowers, running ahead, "The Immortal cloud, it stings." His mind takes note of itself shutting down, his lungs unable to take in any more air, the hunters knowing not to enter the field, nor close in to any single flower.
 Within the suspension of the light blue glowing sea of pollen, like a faint transparent cloud of azure, there persists no life, only preserved death.
What remains of his consciousness forms a string of memories, the murderous flowers, producing death, and perfectly preserving it, the last thing going through his mind is how, maybe thousands of years from now, his perfectly preserved body will be discovered by those who know nothing of him, or his time.
Or that would have been true if the last thing that really went through his mind wasn't a bullet, bursting out from his forehead, painting the flowers below red.
For a few moments longer, his body endured, stumbling twenty or so seconds longer, until collapsing forward, not onto grass, but onto a pair of soft, lifeless breasts.

A sweet, flowery scent, like perfume, crept into his nose from the flesh pillows wrapped in the white shroud, her youthful, smooth face and flowing white hair fine as smoke, despite having perished before she could enjoy it. But, lying there dead, the sun and the moon continue their elliptical journeys, dragging with them day and night.
He lies peacefully, protected and preserved by his undoing, as ten moons come and go. Ten more moons come and go, one particular full moon night being otherworldly beautiful, the new year's arrival, his jaw tightens, his teeth sinking into her left chest.
Five more moons pass, Clench, a strengthened bite, chomping a piece from her chest. His unconscious mouth was painted red. With the passing of one hundred more moons, her chest and internals were long devoured, within the passing of days, his arms and legs having positioned themselves around.
Twenty-three moons took her neck, Fifty-five took her face, hair, her eyes, and brain through the eye sockets. Ninety-nine more moons, his empty lungs taking in no breath, no scent, only devouring, his arms and upper body now moving along with his jaw.
Beginning with her thighs, only her legs were left for him. As if his limbs were slowly waking up, one by one, bodily control came crawling back, oh great was its lethargy.
Flourishing, swaying trees greet the ascending morning sun, its rays shooting through the canopy of deciduous foliage, falling upon the blue orchid field, like a great carpet of wisteria wrapped like a belt around the lake, only this morning, like a blood stain visible, are the gore-painted flowers.
Dried saliva coats the woman's naked skeleton. A figure emerges from the flowers, standing straight. The clear heaven's light shines back at itself, through his eyes' reflection, not only having slept after a year, but having opened his eyes now once more.

Raising his hand to his forehead, pushing his index finger through the widened hole in his forehead that leads out the back.
Withdrawing his finger to his face, he observes not a single drop of blood. Spread across his face is a calm and soothing, widened smile, puffing his chest with air, spreading his arms wide, taking in air, his first breath in over a year.
Singing birds and screeching crickets, the calm crashing waves and flowing trees welcome his sound mind back into the world.
"The engine of a film." His face contorts slightly in confusion, a searing pain surging through his destroyed brain. "Where are you? Who are you?" Exposing his blood-painted mouth to the light of day, making use of his voice once more, though there was no one to hear it.
"Who are you, woman? Ghostly apparition?" His soothing smile does not fade, nor does it show his bloody teeth, carrying his voice to the flowers.
His expulsion from Thai filled with slurs, beatings, and humiliation, barely escaping when his chase resumed, leading to his current location, memories of his own entangle with those foreign, one of a grand female actor, youthful and beautiful, serving her enormous audience of elites on the theatre's grand stage.
"It's you, woman!" The memory plays out snipped, distorted, quickly shifting through many scenes in nonsense orders up to her end.

Even in this limbo state of life and death, his emotions may still be dull, his pain may still be null, but his mind races on, life moving through the countless streams of matter within his mind, on which the army of memories formed of his life flow back to him.
But they aren't alone. Along with them, flows the foreign life, a torrent of mountains of information to the smallest detail, of a life he could never imagine another human being living.

"Artemis Crowley? Artemis? Artemis Briggs?" Pondering, he singles out two names, one of which has the possibility of being his. Starting to think of a third party who could aid him, he remembers the solitude of the large classrooms he taught in, packed with people, but devoid of any humanity.
His mind shifts to documents, any physical proof he may have of his name, pondering further. "Hmm, wait," his mind snaps back, focusing on what's truly important.
"I'm not dead, but I no longer live. Hmm, the liminality between two absolutes." Wandering through the wisteria field.
"By what means do we identify as dead? Beyond what point of the threshold of life am I dead?" He walks along the field's edge, observing.
"No, if this is limbo, does it mean I am still dying? In any case, the orchids are what keep me existing. Hmpf, it seems even they can't distinguish death completely."
He comes to a standstill, observing the swaying flowers. "Not alive, not dead, limbo, subjective flowers, existence." His ears listen carefully, absorbing each word back into the filter of thought.
As he takes his deep breath, a collection of new words is born within his mindscape, the black lettering as entities within a boundless white void.
"Trapped, dependent, escape, life source." His eyes snap back open in a deep exhale, his silent smile returning. "I can see it clearly now," he says, smiling confidently, a glimmer in his eyes, looking across the Wisteria belt.
"The pollen started to preserve me as if I were dead, but I still exist. My existence is fixed to these orchids, to this pollen, leaving means disconnection from them, leading to death." Formulating the final thesis and concluding his self-analysis.

"Should I leave this place, and if so, how would I? Nothing awaits me. Consuming that woman seemed to be my only chance at living again. I've read about the fermented preservation of the flower corpses, but even within my books, their wonders are not this great."
Remaining silent for some time, he ponders, a heavy breeze travelling through the landscape raises his hair, flowing wildly as the flowers dance. His eyes then slowly widen, his face lighting up in both pride and joy.
"I've outwitted you, death flowers," he calmly states out of confidence, arrogantly smiling as if silently mocking the orchids with great condescension, born of what was brewing within his mind at that moment.