No. 6 The Chromatic Compendium of the Rainbow Ringmaster - The Ascent
She tried her best to shut her eyes. She closed them tightly and repeated to herself "Go. To. Sleep." She held jester so tightly if he could breathe she would have long ago suffocated him. She tried her utmost to get to the doorway but the more she tried the harder it was. Finally she gave up and opened her eyes, she held jester and watched the heart shaped clock tick. A second, then another, then another. She pouted feeling frustrated and dejected she crossed her arms resting them on her chest tightly again squeezing the life out of jester had he been alive. She took a deep breath, then counted with the ticking of the clock and after a moment she felt a calm wash over her. She kept counting slowly with each tick that tocked. Then after about a minute had passed she tilted her head because in the blink of an eye, the clocks third arrow had appeared. Upon noticing the arrow she jumped out of the comfort of the couch and propelled herself off the cushions which to her excitement were floating in place. She jumped like a frog on a lily pad and made her way to the rolling hills before her.
The humming stopped, the buzzing began and the clock’s third arrow struck midnight loud like a bullet shocking her awake, Seemingly it had found its true north, pointing directly at the heart of the canvas. Elara felt weightless, with her jester and her floating memories in tow, she drifted towards the frame. She was more than just a spectator to the world that stretched out before her now, she was a small ethereal visitor, a guest invited into the living peice before her.
For years, she had perfected the art of floating, a quiet, blue soul drifting through a world of dullness and noise. Tonight she floated not to escape her world but to arrive in another unscathed. Her consciousness, no longer a ghost in her own room, was a small, bright beacon, drawn to the promise that sat against her wall. That vast canvas of rolling green hills and endless blue sky became a doorway into a world so unlike the one she knew.
She drifted effortlessly, her hand, a soft hue of blue, reaching forward into the canvas as an act of trust, a final, definitive choice of reason. The canvas, which she had only ever looked at, now felt like a living breathing thing. The breeze that swayed the grass caressed her gently. The air around her hummed with the same quiet energy she had felt in her dreams.
She passed through the glass-like surface of the canvas, knowing she was about to find the peace she had only ever hoped for.
It wasn't a solid barrier but a gentle membrane, a veil that parted for her and her alone. As her spirit passed through, she felt the last remnants of her old world fall away, the heavy quiet of her mansion, the echoes of her father's absence, the uncertainty of her mothers embrace, the coldness of her loneliness. Suddenly it all vanished and soon into the canvas she did too.
