Anshumi

Before the sky exploded into light there was only chaos. An impenetrable void of misery and darkness. For countless millennia it swirled in a whirlpool of embryonic potential. From its suffering, Ellowyn emerged triumphant, the eternal foundation. Birthed from disorder, her power was infinite. Her soul the guardian of existence. Her delicate hands would mould the darkness.

Her breath formed a lullaby breeze summoning the oceans and the mountains. It was from her golden hair that the first plants sprang, their roots feeding on her essence. Her belly, soft and nurturing, gave birth to the sun and the moon. The purple light of her eyes, the stars and the planets. The sloped bow of her lips the constellations above and the flowers beneath her feet.

She looked around her at all that she had crafted and smiled softly at the beauty she had birthed. But Ellowyn sought more – her heart panging for life. And so, from the loneliness of her imagination sprang animals – pangolins, elephants, tigers, rats, and ants. Dragons and dolphins – each she embedded with a delicate function, a purpose in the garden she had sown.

And from her own soul, she fashioned humanity, bestowing upon them the gifts of intellect and heart, making them guardians of her world.

With her energy dwindling but her heart fulfilled, she sank into the soils of her creation – her body giving rise to the sacred forest. Her delicate arms growing into trees and wild plants, her hair taking root and springing upwards into the sky. Her last breathes a delicate whisper of all that could be. The wind and the rain and the sun and the snow. The sound of the forest.

But mankind in their arrogance betrayed her spirit. Those she had made in her own image, had trusted as the keepers of her creation denied and ravaged her gift. Greed and disregard tore through the earth – angry flames seared through the soils, severing roots and the promise of life. The oceans swelled in indignant rage and the wolverine wind howled in loss and agony.

The sacred forest, Ellowyn’s final resting place, felt the wounds of humanity’s transgressions deepest of all.

The streams and brooks formed from the translucent blood of Ellowyn choked on themselves—the pollution of progress turning their shimmering, innocent waters a dull, listless brown. The air, thick with smoke, wrapped around the soaring trees, its tainted hands choking them into submission. Animals fled in terror, moving further into the remnants of the wilderness as civilization encroached further into their once beloved home.

The spirit of Ellowyn stirred, writhing beneath the shattered earth and her caressing lament lingered in the silence; the tears of her betrayal filtering through the enduring earth and giving power and resolve to the forest.

It had begun to fight back in her name—combining forces to resist the onslaught of destruction. Trees stirred in their positions, their laden branches pushing back the fog. They shifted their roots to protect their kin, their leaves blocking out the sun from those who dared to harm them. The animals, through instinct and desperation formed a legion. The wolves stood at the head, their teeth bared and dripping with the spit of loyalty and self-righteous fury. They would fight for her legacy. She in turn enlivened, her magic and majesty reawakening.

The men beyond the borders of the forest continued relentlessly—pushing forward in pursuit of riches and glory. The minions amongst them arriving with bulldozers and chains. Men bound by work and duty. The foreman, a single father had had little choice but to bring with him his young daughter. She sat beside him in the cab, her eyes alight with adventure as she bounced in her seat with the rhythm of the wheels rolling over the pitted earth.

Stopping, Mahip passed Anshumi an apple, “I’ll be right back,” he said, kissing her on the head, before hopping out to join the men congregating at the edge of the forest to discuss next steps.

Anshumi watched as her father disappeared into the crowd, before her gaze drifted back to the forest that loomed before her.

“Anshumi… Anshumi come, come…”

The trees swayed softly, their arms beckoning her. “Anshumi… Anshumi come…” the wind whispered, carrying the soothing lament of the earth in silken ripples. She felt its pull deep within her.

She slid off the seat with ease. As she stepped on to the dark earth, leaves began to swirl softly around her—gold and auburn and green surrounding her in a cascading whirlpool of light. Spinning, spinning, she reached out her hand and felt the soft gentility of humanity swill through her open fingers. The air shimmered in crystalline streams. The trees sidled aside as the leaves carried her forward in their collective cradle. They placed her gently on the ground of a clearing, burnished light shimmering through the gaps in the towering trees. As her feet touched the ground, the earth began to quiver; in front of her, roots began rising upwards—glowing translucent fronds. They swilled and turned, intertwining and weaving, casting a kaleidoscope of pirouetting effulgence across the floor before taking form.

Anshumi was calm as she gazed in wonder at the beauty before her.

A flash of iridescent light flowed through the rising strands; shooting outwards and upwards in every direction. A geyser of life. Anshumi stepped backward, raising her hand to protect her eyes. A collective shifting and the trees surrounding her bowed deeply. In front of her stood a woman crafted from roots and leaves—her eyes deep and profound, her pupils swirling with the obsidian of the night and the shimmering purple of the cosmos. Her cerulean hair cascaded down her back, flowing like a waterfall into a glistening pool.

“My child. You have come,” her voice a gentle breeze. She held out her hand. Anshumi hesitated.

“Yes, go on dear.”

She looked down to her feet. She was surrounded by rocks who had formed an arc around her—their eyes scrutinising her curiously. A toadstool shuffled forward, “Go on, she won’t harm you,” the voice was kind but weary as she nodded her capped head towards Ellowyn. Anshumi took the hand. She felt a surge of profound emotion and power stream through her body.

“Come.”

As they walked through the forest, ancient trees—their trunks twisted into themselves—straightened in their presence before bowing deeply. Delicate flowers bloomed into life as they walked, covering the path behind them in a glistening rainbow of light and hue. Slowly, animals began to emerge—lining the edges of the path in front of them; a white deer with anisopteraean wings spread upwards, a line of calves behind it. A loris with the deep imploring eyes of the moon. Pigs and dragons and badgers in an array of magical colours. Each docked their head as they passed.

As they walked, a wolf, its coat shimmering with the constellations, sprang into their path. It looked intently at Anshumi before bowing its head to the floor; in a gentle rasp it spoke with measure, “Welcome, child of humanity. You stand in Ellowyn’s realm, the heart of creation. Here, all is one.” The forest repeated in unison, “All is one,” the whispered mantra settling in the heart of the young girl.

Ellowyn’s gaze turned from the wolf to Anshumi, “My child,” the leaves swirled upwards as she spoke, “it is time.” The forest seemed to inhale as it watched the scene unfold.

Anshumi looked up, meeting her gaze and nodded softly, tears welling in her eyes as she fell into the embrace of her mother. As their forms touched, the air around them glowed with a nurturing light—tendrils of green and gold circling around them. Memories and visions flooded through the body of the child. Profound images of the forest in its primeval glory, the delicate, intangible beauty of creation and imagination. All that had been.

And the pain of betrayal at the hands of man stabbed into her innocent heart.

She screamed out. An inhuman siren of despair and anguish that shattered the air. The men readying to do their duty stopped in their tracks. Her senses were heightened—she could smell the fresh dew in the morning air and the poignant sweetness of the frangipani as the energy between them whirled around and within them.

And then all was chaos. Momentarily, Anshumi was encased in a blackness she had never seen or felt before. There was nothing.

Emerging out of the embrace like a crest rising from the depths of the ocean. She was life. She was hope and humanity and all the manifestations of creation.

Ellowyn, her figure now dimmed, smiled with a bittersweet joy as she sank back into the dark earth.

Anshumi stepped forward, the forest parting before her.

As she walked towards her destiny, the sky above her exploded into a mosaic of newfound life.