#I started to feel bad for all the shortstories that are rotting away in my folders so the newest idea gets thrown here!

[shining-oracle]

A second try at happiness

“Prompt”: People recieve a second chance at happiness at the cost of losing themselves. With time you learn of various types of happiness and the notion of finding and finding again, while also appreciating the joys that make your life liveable and make you you.  (A/N: I tried summarising this but honestly I don’t think I did a good job at actually communicating what’s this about)  - Imagine a time darkened in greed.  Yet despite the less than kind world you found love. You found someone to share the little joys of being alive.  On your wedding day you decide to share your happiness with a few people close to both of you. The day is wonderful, filled with hope for what life has yet to show you.  During the ceremony two children burst in, visibly out of breath. Your significant other as well as you are baffled, neither of you invited children and you had asked your guests to not bring any. After settling down both of you approach them. The boy seems to be slightly older as he’s a head taller than the girl, who’s clinging to his hand. They explain how they woke up, confused about the whereabouts of their parents, about their own whereabouts and how they found a wedding invitation on their kitchen table. At last they introduce themselves.  You recognise them as the friends your partner used to go to school with. But.. younger. Way younger. Way younger than they were when your significant other has met them.  You do not know how to resolve this situation, no less on your wedding day. Thus you ultimately hand it over to a police officer, still offer the children to come to you if you could help with anything. They nod as they leave with a officer after the wedding ceremony.  The calm days after almost make you forget about the mess. Yet as your honey moon starts, which both you and your partner have planned to journey to various cities, you encounter way more children in the streets. Some people you knew seem a few years younger. None have a clue what had occurred in the years they lost. Your journey yet continued, you still had your love to return to and both of you shared your worries about what is happening in the world with one another.  In the second city you’re visiting, you both overhear a conversation a few tables over in the café you’re having breakfast at. They’re talking about some walking curse, who’s reverting you to the state you last have felt love at.  At first you think it sounds ridiculous, yet the longer you think about it the more it seems to fit. A lot of people last felt love as they were children. Yet others had found their own love during later stages in their life, but maybe had lost it again. That thought continues to linger in your mind as your journey continues and you notice more about the people who don’t seem to have changed.  Your partner tells you about the lovely baker who passionately shared some history of their bakery with them.  On the day you’re leaving town a kind journalist who’s investigating the incident makes you learn of their love for the truth.  A few hours before entering the next village, you encounter a small house with a gigantic garden surrounding it. You coincidentally get to know the old couple living there and they share a few snacks with you and tell you about how proud they are of their garden’s harvest this year.  You learn of the many kinds of love alongside the opposite in the world. The worry in you subsides slightly as not all is hopeless, love comes in all forms and colours.  During the darkest hours of the night you wake, by a small childs crying. Your partner does seem to have heard it too as they lazily rub their eyes.  The squeaky window of the hotel you’re staying gets pushed open as both of you lean out of it, trying to find the source of the crying. Instead of a child you only sneak a peek at someone running, their coat waving after them and the longer you watch them run, the more childrens cries you think you can hear.  So is that the bearer of the curse? You wonder silently before settling back into bed with your partner.  You decide to talk to them and ask them for answers if you ever do. Your partner agrees, shares that even if both of you might not be affected they’d still like to find the reason and if possible protect the happiness, the love these people might have been close to grasping.  Time goes on. You keep an eye open for the intricate coat you saw that night, yet nothing for a while. Yet you’re not frustrated, time spent with your love is not time wasted.  Almost at the end of the honey moon journey, by pure coincidence you meet them. Their head hanging low as they bump into your side, mumbling an apology before hurrying down the main street.  You follow them, hopeful to share that not all hope is lost if a time in life is lacking love as it can be found again.  In an alley they stop, sigh and turn around. Why are you following me? Their posture, their eyes communicate that question without asking. And you start to talk. You share the happiness others have shared. You share the despair you’ve seen and when you’re done your partner takes over. They share their experience as well. While they talk, you notice how out of place this person seems to be. Out of place in this world, yet they remind you of the grayest days you’ve had in your life.  At the end both of you ask why they might be doing this.  Their empty eyes look both of you up and down before at last opening their mouth.  “Sometimes.. lost things cannot be found again. Wouldn’t you like to go back to the time before you lost it?”  And it makes sense in a odd way. You’ve wished before you hadn’t misplaced an item which you then never saw again, yet this person is saying that some people stil in the middle of their life had lost all hope to finding their happiness in life. It sounded ridiculous, like you’ve thought before.  They continue to speak.  “I.. cannot find again, because I never lost. Because I never had. Because I never will find.”  A few slow steps towards both of you.  “But I can gift a second chance if wished for hard enough. I do not force this chance upon the people.”  More steps and you thought they’d stop infront of you, yet they fade through you. Like they exist yet they don’t.  “Because my existence was gifted to me by the people.”  You turn as the person in the coat continues walking back towards the main street.  “Because my existence will the lost through the people”  You blink and they faded completely.  -  The days after were silent. No more people turned younger. No more people recieved a second chance.  This whole experience kept being confusing in your mind, yet you appreciated all memories you made and will continue to make. Good ones or bad ones. Because no second chance would be worth losing yourself over you thought.  -  A/N:  I have no idea what this is. Really. It just occupied my mind for a entire day and I had to write it out. Maybe someone will find and enjoy this... whatever this is I suppose!