Chapter 7: More Real than Reality
What is it that keeps you going on the treacherous path you have taken?
Faith!
Whence do you draw this Faith?
Anna drew this Faith from her deceased husband, her unborn daughter, her eschewed abode, the promise of a safe haven and from that God who says there are still pages left in her story.
Story...
And from stories...
She drew this Faith from Stories. Stories of people she uses to comfort herself, and to strengthen.
Stories of people who suffered worse. Of people who fell victim to the hands of ill fate.
How many perished? But what many bloomed? Like Lotus from the mud, like Phoenix from the ashes.
On this fourth day, on her Walk to the shore, after a seemingly long while, her heart ached for those stories.
She longed to be seated in her comfortable armchair or a secluded corner in the library with her nose stuck in a book and her heart and soul stuck in some world that the book was the portal of.
She missed all her books!
She missed those So Many Worlds!
She missed all those adventures and quests!
And she missed the Characters the most!
The Characters who lived only in books so she could live many more lives than the one she was given.
She reminisced the way she felt while reading them, while 'living' them!
But as the ever golden sun shone with increasing warmth of the forenoon, her eyes gleamed and her heart warmed.
It was the memory of the same one of the many Characters.
But as the former tranquil breeze shifted into a dance of soft turmoil, the feel of the memory changed too.
His name was Sam. Sam Cortland. How young was he when he died? Eighteen maybe!
She was Eighteen too, when she read it. She read it so many times that the book was no longer required to recall the words when Celeana beheld his corpse.
"Each step brought her closer to the body on the table. She didn't know where to look first.
At the fingers that went the wrong way, at the burns and careful, deep slices in his flesh, at the face, the face she still knew, even when so many things had been done to destroy it beyond recognition.
The world swayed beneath her feet, but she kept upright as she finished the walk to the table and looked down at the naked, mutilated body she had-
She had-
Farran had taken his time. And though that face was in ruins, it betrayed none of the pain he must have felt, none of the despair. This was some dream, or she had gone to Hell after all, because she couldn't exist in the world where this had been done to him, where she'd paced like an idiot all night while he suffered, while Farran tortured him, while he ripped out his eyes and Celaena vomited on the floor.
Footsteps, then Arobynn's hands were on her shoulder, on her waist, pulling her away.
He was dead.
Sam was dead. "
Anna halted in disbelief. How did her feet remember to stop before she could fall again?! How was she even in the state of such consciousness?!
She was crying, yet again, yet after so long.
Years back when she read it, she cried for a young life was gone. And that too so painfully. She cried because she was Eighteen too, she cried because... she could feel, there were so many things that could have happened, there was so much that could have made his life longer. There were so many years he could have lived.
There were so many possibilities of so many futures!
Now she felt it in a whole different way, when she herself had lost a beloved in real!
She... She could feel it More Real.
And somehow Sam's death felt more deep. She felt his agony throbbing with more life in her own heart and flesh.
It was so real that all realities of all worlds faded in the warmth of sun.
Sam's pain and suffering, Celeana's heartbreak and grief, it was More Real than Reality!
Her lips quivered at the realization of yet another of the innocent illusions of her wee years.
She realized that...
"The greatest superstition we still believe in is that we STILL have TIME!"
Sam might have thought it too. Or had he never wondered that his time could be so limited?!
She thought it too, that she would grow old and grey together with Eddie. That both of them would together watch their daughter go to school, graduate, work out her success and marry. And they would still be there and together to play with their grandchildren.
And see how it all has changed. After all, we too are characters of a story being written from above.
The afternoon rose high, and Anna set up her tarp all in a daze. Because it was all she did again and again when noon would evolve a full grown dragon.
And she laid herself to rest.
As the day finally came to sleep and she woke from slumber, she remembered Sam again.
She remembered when he told Celeana that when would be scared, he would say this, "My name is Sam Cortland, and I will not be afraid", and he would feel better or just laugh at himself.
And so like Sam used to say...
Anna breathed,
"My name is Anna Winston
and I will not be afraid!"
~×~
.
And just as deep my love and passion is for this story, so hard is my struggle. Writing and editing this chapter through nausea and eye strain and an aching arm and yet to continue on was really hard for me. My body is drained out of energy completing this chapter even when it includes just sitting and writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting!
Obviously, I hadn't thought of such agony when I discovered my passion for stories and decided to create my own, but now I am willing to embrace it.
Somewhere, the feelings of Anna were basically the mirroring of my own. You can say I am moving forward to be obsessed with this allusion thing!
But I too have literally shed tears when I read of this scene of Sam's Death Revelation from the book The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas.
I still feel the need for a smooth flow while writing because I am many times just head
-wrenchingly anxious about my abrupt change of scenes, feelings thoughts or topics, so please wish me well.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
DAOISTGREATEL
DAOISTGREATEL When I thought that Chapter 6 was an emotional of a chapter to write, this came.
It was so deep for me and also that I myself am Eighteen when I have written this chapter.
I would be honored and utterly delighted to listen from you all what you felt reading this chapter and book till now.
Please vote this book and thank you very much for coming so far with me, and remember me in your prayers so we can live many more stories in the future.
Blessings, Greatel.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone