Imelda’s Dream

It’s been days now, maybe weeks—time blurs in this place. The ruinous land still echoes with the voices of the lost, but Imelda—she’s different. They said she was weak, a burden. I never believed them. They called her a drain on hope, but her eyes, always burning with some quiet fire, never once faltered. She was bound to that chair, but her mind? Her mind soared through the dust.

In a compound built from the bones of old stadiums, the last remnants of a world that used to cheer, she sat—discarded. Left behind in the wasteland’s shadow. But not by me. Not by her. She was something more than they knew. More than even I could see until she spoke.

I remember the first time she shared it—her vision. I wasn’t sure then, but I am now.

She spoke of lands untouched by poison, of fields where nothing burned. Where the skies bled clear, where the rains didn’t fall as toxins, but as a balm. And I knew, deep in my bones, that she was seeing something I couldn’t. A place where war had never touched the soil. A place where the hollow hearts of men could be mended.

She had a way of speaking—of seeing beyond the present. To the future. To something real. To something true. It was almost like she could taste it, feel it in the air. She didn’t just speak of it, she breathed it into me—into us.

Her words were fragile, like petals caught in a wind that could crush them at any moment. Yet they stayed with me, like a prayer I hadn’t known I needed. A soft hymn rising from the rubble, carrying the promise of something different.

I looked at her then—at Imelda, the child they thought could never rise—and I saw what she saw. A future. A world, forged in hope. It was like a light that flickered on in the darkness of my own heart. Maybe we could still have it. Maybe we could still find our way back.

“Take my hand,” she whispered, like she was already calling me to a place beyond this ruin. “We’ll make it,” she promised, eyes sparkling like she could already see it. A seed in her mind, a spark in her soul.

And in that moment, I knew.

Imelda, blessed child. Your vision wasn’t just a dream. It was a truth waiting to bloom. A future we could forge together—if we had the strength to walk toward it.

With her words, the darkness felt a little less heavy. The weight of the wasteland seemed lighter. And for the first time in a long time, I believed in something—something more than just survival.

She was right. There’s something better waiting for us, if we’re brave enough to find it.

In a compound built from stadium ruins, she was cast aside,
A child deemed a drain on hope, left broken by their pride.
Wheelchair-bound yet unbowed, her eyes burn fierce and clear,
In the midst of wasteland sorrow, she dreams of lands sincere.
They called her weak and worthless, a burden in a world gone mad,
But her visions saw a future where life might be reborn from all we’ve had.

She spoke of fields untainted by the poison in our veins,
Of skies where clouds were cleansed by soft and healing rains.
A land untouched by the bitter strife of greed and endless war,
A haven where the fallen could reclaim what they once swore.
Her words, like fragile petals, defied the harshness of our days,
A silent hymn of promise in the city’s ashen haze.

Imelda, blessed child, with dreams too pure to break,
In your whispered prophecies, our battered souls awake.
Take my hand, let’s journey to a place we’ve never known—
A spark to light the darkness, a seed to claim our own.

In her quiet gaze, I saw a future glimmering bright,
A chance to forge a world beyond the endless night.