::Broken Dreams::
by Angel#9

"Where am I?  Wait, what happened here?  I knew this place."  The boy wandered through the dead, dismal forest.

He couldn't be called just a boy anymore.  He had grown too much; though, he wasn't grown up yet.  He was in the stage between childhood and adulthood that no one truly understands unless they're living it that very moment.  He should not be called a boy, but he still has those few childlike tendencies that he will only grow out of when he becomes a man.

The boy went the way he remembered, even though the memories were faint from the passing years.  Under tree branches, through dead bushes until he finally came to the place.

"I don't understand it.  What happened?"  The boy had come to a small lake with a large tree in the middle of it.  The rope ladder on the side had been worn with age; its neglect had caused the wood rungs to crack and break.  There were several carvings one the side of the tree.  Some the boy remembered; others, he did not.  He made his way through the water to get to the tree, but it wasn't the tree he was interested in anymore.

"Aklia, where are you?"  The boy ran up to the tree, looking for the girl he used to know so well.

"I'm here."  A small whisper was all that could be heard.

The boy tracked the sound of her voice to where she was apparently hiding.  He kneeled down to where he was at her level so that he could easily talk to her and hear her replies.  "Aklia, what's going on?  What happened here?  What happened to your wings?"  The boy gently felt the fairy's devastated wings.  They had broken off at the tips and were cracked in other places.  Her wings had darkened to black wherever they were damaged, and unfortunately, there was no longer an undamaged spot on the fragile fairy wings.

"You left.  Almost everything died.  In a little while, everything will be dead.  Everything, including myself."  The fairy never looked up, and she refused to cry.  She knew her life would soon come to an end, but she didn't want to show the tears that often came.

"I don't understand," was all the boy could say.

"Every person has their own fairy.  Whenever a person grows up, their special place and fairy dies with the person's childhood.  What I don't understand, though, is why I'm still here.  Why have you let me suffer so much?"  The fairy finally looked up at the boy.  "And why have you come back?  You've grown up so much; you shouldn't have returned."

"You know well enough that I have no control of when I end up here.  I can't help where my dreams take me."  The boy looked into his fairy's eyes, which had turned gray with the forest.  He could tell that she wanted to cry yet at the same time she didn't want to.  The boy gently hugged the fairy, and finally her tears streamed down her face.  "I never will understand you girls," the boy said trying to cheer her up a little.

The fairy couldn't help but giggle.  She looked up into the boy's face, even though she still had tears in her eyes.  "I've seen the one you often dream about.  You lover her, don't you?"

The boy would never lie to the one whom he grew up with and who knew him the best.  "Yes, I suppose I do.  How can I not lover her when she's all I can think about?  Anyways, how did you see her?  You still watch my other dreams, right?"

"Yes, I do.  It's not as if I have much else to do while you're not here."  The fairy smiled a sad smile at the boy.  "It's time for you to go.  Please, don't return."

"But will I ever see you again?"

"It all depends on you.  Please, don't hold on to this place any longer."  The fairy still had on her sad smile as she said the words.

The boy didn't want to make his long since friend suffer at all, even though he already had.  He agreed to her wishes.  "I'll always remember you, Aklia," the boy told his fairy.

"No, you won't."  Aklia, the fairy, watched the boy be pulled away from herself into another dream.  She climbed up what was left of the ladder in the tree, and watched as the last few living things withered away.  She herself was also dying, and so she watched as what was left of her broken wings tear away from her back and fall to the water below.  Her wings gone, the fairy faded into nothingness, and soon after the tree and forest followed.  The last thing left before it disappeared also was the tree branch the fairy died on, the tree branch that said "Broken Dreams."