Where you're meant to be
Pandora reaches a delicate hand out, attempting to grasp the sun, but he’s too scared of burning her. The sun. He’s bright, the brightest star. Casting his light over everyone possible, warming cold hearts, filling voids.
But the sun is just a big ball of flames. From a distance he offers warmth, smiles and freckles. You get too close, and you get burnt. But what happens when you get through the heat? She’s walking barefoot on hot coals, but she feels no pain. She knows of more pain than hot rocks. The sun. If he freezes over. The world will never feel such darkness, such cold. Hesitantly, he intertwines his hand in hers and she feels how cold he is on the inside. How sad and vulnerable he really is beneath the surface.
“Help me.” the sun pleads as he begins to feel himself being pulled away.
“Only fate can decide whether our paths align, little sun.” Pandora allows her grip to loosen, “When the time is right, you will find me.”
Brains are weird. And not just because they’re small and squishy. It’s the fact that they are disturbingly powerful cages that your souls are trapped in. A system that controls the body your souls are occupying. Without even thinking about it, your bodies just do it. Your hearts just pump blood through our veins. Your lungs inhale oxygen like they’re in pilot mode. And don’t get Pandora Rosier started on how you have to physically baby your body by feeding it. What’s the point when it’s just going to come out the other end.
Pandora knows the point, it keeps you alive. She should know that after attempting to release her soul from her body. Though she does believe that the features in her face resemble her soul, so maybe there is a chance she is where she belongs. Maybe evolving was through spirits, and life was created from an energy and into something physical; homo-sapiens.
In other words, she actually did separate her soul from her body, by rocking it out softly. A newly profound feeling washed over her, a perspective simply existing, watching her lifeless body sit peacefully and undisturbed. Happiness was only the beginning of how she felt. A new discovery. Freedom. She could do anything, see anything, be anything. Until she couldn’t.
Something happened. At first it felt good. Powerful. A feeling unidentifiable with words. There were no words for the feeling she felt as she lost sight of the real world. All she knew was that it was a good thing. And after a kaleidoscope of colours amongst this unnamed feeling, she was back with only one thing on her mind. Her soul was gifted to her specific body because only she was destined to follow the path of her human state.
Though others did not perceive it as a gift. They thought she was mentally ill. Sick in the head. They thought she was crazy; schizophrenic. And that is how she ended up in an environment full of misunderstood souls, trapped in an institution, unable to complete their quests. She could feel the guilt and sorrow through the way their emotions radiated off them. The dulling of their auras as they waste their human state in a place they shouldn’t be.
And as much as Pandora desired helping them escape, she knew her path wasn’t meant to align with them yet. Therefore she had to lounge around with them, wishing for fate to come only at the right time, no sooner and no later. Which it did.
They say love at first sight was something you just knew, an unnamed feeling. This wasn’t love at first sight, but Pandora knew it was time when the newest soul admitted to this institution sat with them in their daily circle time. Time for what was unclear. All she knew was he was everyone's ticket to freedom.
As soon as he sat in the old cream coloured seat, across the circle from Pandora, he slouched. His brown curly hair matted and his skin seemed a pale unhealthy colour to his brown complexion. Circular glasses sat wonky on the bridge of his nose, taped together. The only thing Pandora thought was nice was his clean red football hoodie that matched his red converses, despite the marks he’d left on the floor from scuffing his feet.
“Everyone, this is James Potter.” Madam Pomfrey, the head nurse of the institution gestured towards the miserable boy. It was obvious he’d been forced here, just like Pandora was. Though his already darkened aura indicates it wasn’t for the same reason she was.
“Hi, James.” The group chorused halfheartedly, not earning even a glance from him. Awkwardness always seemed to be the breaking point to Pandora, an unsettling tension filling the room, enclosing in on her. She could deal with anger, sadness and anxiety, but the moment something awkward came up, she felt as though she were suffocating.
“Hello, James Potter.” Pandora spoke in her usual angelic voice, earning all eyes except for James. She didn’t mind as long as the awkwardness settled. “My name is Pandora Rosier. Albeit the circumstances aren’t ideal, fate has its odd way of bringing those together who belong. I can see you are where you need to be right now, and soon you will be back on the right path for your human state.”
Circle time ended abruptly and Pandora was taken to the padded room, as she usually was when she welcomes new admissions. Only because it was forbidden to speak of humans as if she weren’t really one. Which she believed she wasn’t. She knew it. She’d felt it, seen it.
“You are not my roommate.” Pandora smiled softly at James as she entered her room which was decorated with flowers and vines from the garden. Her singular bed was made with no crinkles which James respected as he sat against the opposite wall on the floor, where another singular bed should have been.
“By the looks of it, you have no roommate.” James mumbled, not taking his gaze off the peony he spun in his hands delicately. Pandora knew he’d picked it himself as all her belongings remained in order. His expression was dark, tired, and she could feel nearly no energy from him.
“It is best to find freedom by oneself before inviting others along. . .” The small girl gently sat on the edge of her bed, facing James. He noticed how soft and angelic her features were. Her flawless skin was a shade or two lighter than his known, but her platinum hair made it look darker. Though one thing he couldn’t decipher was the colour of her eyes. He wasn’t sure there was a name for the colour. Or even if her eyes had a colour. Her voice was soothing as words flowed from her soft lips, “Acting too soon will lead them to dead ends, but acting too late will set them too far behind you, interrupting their own path.”
“Okay. . .” James furrowed his brows, attempting to grasp what she was saying, but the words silenced in his brain as quickly as they left Pandora's mouth. “Uh, what did you mean when you said I am where I belong? Because at first I thought you were calling me a psycho or something— and I was really angry. . . but then I forgot why.” His voice trembled and he sighed in annoyance at himself, running a sweaty hand through his messy curls. Taking a slow quivering breath, he attempted to calm his rising anger.
“Though your human state only has enough capacity to remember this lifetime, your soul has memories for lifetimes, James Potter, and our souls have aligned in the past. You find comfort in recognition, don’t you? Can’t adapt to big change, and despises any interruption to your daily routine. Of course, you’re scared of this place, but you find comfort in some of it.”
With any other ‘human’ James would have cast a silly grin after a snarky comment offering he didn’t believe in spiritual stuff. But something about this girl, her raw angelic manner, the way he can feel her wisdom radiating off her like her aura, which he couldn’t see. Do auras even exist? He wondered. He wasn’t sure, but he knew he shouldn’t mess with her at all, at least not about this, because he knew she could see straight through him. It might have also been because he hadn’t the energy to argue. For all he knew, this was the not too soon, not too late state of his life and she was his guardian angel who was set to guide him back to his feet. But how could she when he felt like he didn’t have feet to hold himself up anymore? Instead, he kept quiet, prompting Pandora to continue talking. Because something about her voice soothed him, it smoothened the edge he was on.
“How old are you, James?” She tilted her head slightly to the side and her long platinum hair was practically a cushion. He wasn’t quite expecting that question, so simple.
“I’m seventeen.” The words sounded silly, distorted in his mind. Brows furrowed, he couldn’t figure out why that sounded wrong. He wasn’t seventeen anymore, but maybe that was the last time he felt sane. In all honesty, James couldn’t remember how old he was, what the date was, let alone the year. “Or. . . eighteen, maybe?”
Pandora knew James wasn’t seventeen, or even eighteen. He had lost four years of his life to his mental illness; she'd overheard Madam Pomfrey informing another nurse. James was bound to be twenty two in less than a month. But his mind, his soul, was sick, and he needed to be healed before he completely lost himself.
What do you remember, James?” Pandora softly urged. Red ward socks James now wore matched with hers, though a lighter colour would suit her better. “What do you dream about?”
Bringing the peony to his nose, James inhaled the scent and it tickled his nose. His elbows rested on his knees and he dropped his head back against the wall. Thinking back to his seventeenth birthday, James remembers laying on the roof outside his bedroom window, alone. Watching the stars, or one star specifically. He didn’t know why but he felt drawn to one singular star in the sky. Each night, from what he remembered, he would watch the star and talk to it. Soon enough, the stars knew more about James than he did himself, and they became his best friends.
Looking at Pandora, she reminds James of the moon. How on some nights, the moon would talk back to him. Enough for him to ask for help, and she spoke softly, just like Pandora did, and she called him little sun. When the time was right, the sun and moon would align. And if Pandora was the moon, and she called James the sun. Maybe he was in the right place afterall.
“Are you the moon?” Not until the words left his mouth did James realise how stupid he sounded, but not a single look of judgement crossed her face. Instead she smiled and shook her head with a small sigh, and the small amount of hope that had slowly built up inside him, deflated. “But I saw you were the moon, you spoke to me! I’m not crazy, I swear!” His temper was quick to heat up. He didn’t need anyone thinking he was crazy, because he wasn’t. Was he?
“James Potter, I am not the moon, and you are not crazy.” She stood from the bed and looked out the window. A light drizzle of rain kissed the garden and a smile crawled onto her face. “Fancy a walk in the garden?”