The forest appears dim and hazy, as if viewed through the bottom of a dirty broken glass. Looking down, the girl notices a triangular shadow beginning beneath Cloud at the front of the formation. This black point opens up to end under Color and Wood walking behind.
The girl walks in the middle.
Something about the moving black triangle on the floor feels hypnotic. No swirling, no turning, merely simple forward motion. Simple, yes; somehow, though, imbued with a slim sense of elegance. The girl cannot take her eyes off it. “Don’t take your eyes off it,” says Cloud to the girl. “Just stare. You got this.”
And stare she does. For a while. But in that while, one of the shadow’s points in the back begins to strobe erratically.
The girl’s gaze lift upwards to Color’s hazed expression. The eyes of the once-bright and scattered sister now seem dim and dismal. “Color? You alright,” asks Wood after noticing the girl’s stare and following it. “You okay?”
In response to this, Color drops to the floor. As her body slams into the ground, a loud crack blasts around them. The sharp snapping echoes trail off throughout the forest. The triangle dissipates instantly.
All the chaos of the forest eagerly descends upon the sisters.
They manage to lift Color up to her feet, crafting a lightly flopping, small three-sided shadow around them.
“She needs propellant,” says Wood calmly. “Fuel. You need to get her some. Fast.”
The girl’s expression goes blank as if to indicate shock.
Why her?!
All three sisters point down to the dying shadow.
We understand.
And so the girl finds herself once more running around in the violent forest, grabbing clumps of color from the cutting air. She manages to make a clump and gets it back to the triangle. As she hands it to Color, who instantly perks up, the girl’s gaze turns to Cloud. Of course, she thinks, and Cloud starts to spin.
The girl runs out again, this time forming a clump of cloud and one of wood. She brings these back, handing one to each sister.
“Thanks,” says Cloud with a light smile. “But keep an eye on the shadow.”
After a moment, the shadow thickens and blossoms in its blackness.
“You can’t be serious with this.”
“What now?”
The black triangle now suggests excessive energy as it begins swallowing both speed and subtlety.
“The propellant,” answers Wood. “It’s too much.”
“But if we throw it out, we won’t be able to move at all!”
“Then don’t throw it all out,” says the calm Wood.
“But then how much? And which?”
“Try for balance,” says the cloud.
It takes a moment for the girl to realize they’re all talking to her.
And so the girl finds herself shaving off edges of wood, color and cloud from each of the clumps. They become rock-like things, flayed clusters of context and thought.
She hands these back. Each sister seems satisfied with their rock.“These clusters are much better.” Yeah, that’s what I was saying.
Each sister now walks with a cluster thing in their hands. The clusters remind the girl of misshapen heads, or perhaps watermelons that have been raised in a bad neighborhood.
“Huh,” says Color. “So it is a fairy tale after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, the one with the bears and the little girl?”
“With the porridge?”
“Yeah and the beds.”
“Right. Except we have a triangle made of shadow.”
“And little clusters of propellant.”
“I sure hope no kids are reading this,” says the self-aware Cloud. “Might mess’em up for life.”
“Reading what?”
“Nothing,” says Color.
Cloud stops walking, stopping the entire group.
“But that,” says Color pointing to something up ahead. “That is not nothing.”
That not nothing could be one of two things. It could be the colorless canyon of complete void between the end of this path and the other side.
The second option is the thin strip of what appears to be some twine between the two sides.
“Eh,” says Color. “Sure. Why not.”
“The clusters need to smaller,” says Cloud, apparently unconcerned with the threat of total death. “Shave them down to a coarser level.
The exact meaning of her phrase escapes the girl, but she wastes no time in carrying out the action.
Whittling away, the girl’s mind shoots back and forth. She tries to think of things that matter. Failing this, she attempts to resuscitate memories that might calm the nerves. This fails as well. Finally, she resolves to just do the best she can, where she is, with what she has.
“That’s Roosevelt, right?”
We turn to Color. We are fairly certain she cannot see or hear us.
She smiles.
When the last of them crosses the non-bridge, they stop at the sight of a waterfall. “Are you serious right now?”
Here, right now, at the edge of the forest, stands a serious and mighty waterfall.
Not just any water falls.
A sharp waterfall, like knives.
It is too wide to find an end to, and there is no other place to go.
She realizes she cannot pass. When she turns to her sisters for advice, Color tells her that she doesn’t have to go. “Maybe it’s a sign that you should stay with us.”
The girl crosses her arms and shakes her head no.
Color snaps. “Or maybe it’s a sign that you should stay selfish and ambivalent about everyone else’s safety and needs and keep thinking only about yourself.”
The girl breaks down in tears.
And we find our self at a loss for words.
What, indeed, do we make of this? What exactly is it that we think is going on?
Perhaps the girl is just tired. This has been a long and arduous journey, and now, mere steps away from freedom, she comes up to yet another obstacle. Perhaps this is about the fact that there will never be an easy way out?
We think about this.
What if she could speak? Maybe she would scream at them. “You think I WANT to do this?! I need to do this. I can’t not do it.” Maybe something along those lines. "I might be making the biggest mistake of my life,” she might continue. “But at least I’ll have MADE my own mistake and not swallowed it whole from someone else!”
But of course this is not what happens. Instead, she cries wordlessly as the silence hugs her.
When she opens her eyes, the sisters are gone.
The waterfall is still there, but she is alone and has coarse energy.
So she decides, and does, enter the falls.