He ripped his face away with a shattered wail. If only I could see Jillian, he thought. I need her. I need someone.

Kayden slammed into the door. Isaac crushed the room and his mother. He threw himself through blinded by tears.

The rickety fence struck him, and he flipped over it. Air whooshed out, and Kayden coughed. Above him, among the sane stars, another reality had defiled it. Dead nebulas scarred the heavens. They searched the desolation below. A blizzard ravaged the Dream Land, yet there was no cloud above. Fat flakes drifted down. Sound of the world had been muffled, choked by gentle snow. The groan and gripe of shabby trailers slipped through the calm. Kayden wiped vomit from his lips, which was little more than drool. Blood and meat stench was buried deep in the arctic chill like an animal, half ravaged, that had died in the cold. A heavy fog rose from his lips to be beat down by the snow. Each landed with a prick, before they melted. They ran over exposed skin like a cool slash. His heart slowed. The rush of blood in his ears stilled.

Beech wood eyes moved back to the door, but Isaac was gone. They moved over the trailer court, which could have been any in the county or across the country. Most were only a half dozen, but these cheap hovels went to the boundless ends of this land. All were covered in snow, half hidden. Bruised purple light peeked from windows. Each held the memory of hope lost, prosperity forgotten. A dog house set in one yard, occupant inside, but the flies still came, despite the cold. A tricycle leaned to one side, wheel gone, and the tassels of silver shimmered in the calm. Veils of snow shifted, and the hovels were a phantasmagorical illusion.

A hiss scrapped over the snow, swept below smothered trailers. Clicks echoed of icicles, and each thrummed for a brief moment. Under snow, the slither of scales was a whisper. Kayden looked about the desolate court. Shadows lingered at windows. Darkness peeked from under tilted hovels. Out a long, split tip tongue poked to taste the air. It pulled back with a delighted hiss. Snow shifted as things slid below the pure-white, and laughter sucked at the air to leave little pits. He saw more swam below.

“Kayden,” a voice cooed.

From the center of a circle of trailers, a hovel was bold to rise above the others. It was covered in a thin, green slime, where the snow was unable to cling. The porch drooped, leaned to one side. Just beyond the door, a couch set in the derelict. A light form rested, head tilted back.

“No,” Kayden whispered. “Can I have nothing?” He fell to his knees, and cold bit into his legs. “We were happy once.”

I’ll find you again; he thought and looked into the trailer. His mind knew yet his heart denied. After the triumph of love, the heart soared upon wings of hope. So bright was this possibility, it blinded those fortunate to find it. It was a bulwark against the disappointment and bitterness. It held back the darkness and hate. He prayed to anything, everything, for its return. So tight he held this prayer, it had held resolve, but it had faltered. Love, in the end, had failed. The absence had left a hole, which drew in all happiness to drown it, before it could fly. Gone, it would never come back. You can’t save that, which is gone, dead. No amount of love could raise it. All the pleas or pledges would ever resurrect it.

Kayden covered his face, “I love you. I have nothing. I’m lost!” Tears fell from his strange eyes, which held a bruised purple light.

Hissing rose from the darkness beneath the snow. Dead eyes like cleft, vile emeralds appeared in the snow, though held the same alien glow in Kayden’s gaze. Snakes of a fleshy hue poked up into the air. Molded skin was covered in sores, lesions, and pustules, which bled a thick, midnight green ichor. The smell crashed upon the still air, sharp as a skunk, and was salty upon the tongue. Eyes found him, which ran around the head in a ring, though all wore hate. All rose from beneath the foot of snow, and he felt the ground beneath him shift. They rose into the air, faces towards the sky, where the dead cosmos infected the dream. Mouths split flat heads into four. Up from the bowels of the frozen earth a new horror arose, bulged the serpents’ necks. Disgorged from toothy maws, lengths of spinal columns slithered out of the serpents’ gullets. Each of them was tipped by bloody skeletal faces of Isaac, Andre, and his mother. They were shriveled, eyes sunken, but all bellowed their torment.

Those horrors fell away, as the center trailer split open. Jillian stepped out into the snow, bare of skin, adorn by blood. About her the skin was outstretched like a flayed angel of sorrow. Steam rose from exposed muscles, but if she felt any pain, there was no sign. Each foot was placed before the other in regal step like a queen before adoring subjects. Serpents crawled up through the snow, so she could tread atop their heads. She opened her arms to embrace him. The swirl of bruised purple light held a dead world, his Earth, in it.

Kayden looked into her eyes. No matter how much he punished himself, she was gone. “You’ve passed,” he searched Jillian’s eye, but there was nothing of the woman left. There was little of her at the end, he thought.

He covered his face. The world fell silent. Cold, which bit into his legs, faded away. Hiss of snakes slipped faded. Only his cries filled the darkness. Kayden thought of her every smile and laugh, tear and curse. Their nights of passion and fury lingered in sweet and bitterness. All their hopes were spent, dreams forever fanciful. Jillian was gone, but her love would remain, though the years would sweeten it.