PMD: FIRE AND STONE
A Poke’mon Mystery Dungeon Story
Written By:
Shanna (Aka OiOiMeDuckies)
Co-Authored By:
Mimikins
~ CHAPTER 1 ~
<< My Final December >>
[BEGIN]
Bologna, Emilia-Romagna Region
Kingdom of Italy
December 13th
1864
Frost layed lightly on the glass, only partially obscuring the world outside that, though for the greater part shrouded in darkness, shined brilliantly with lights that only a city could provide, like a second blanket of stars settled on the hills.
Distantly, an engine’s whistle sounded off far away, the clank and screech of steel evident even in the warm safety of the indoors.
The radiator creaked lightly, letting off its comforts in the small dorm room, festooned with cloth and decorations, the couch and bed lined perfectly with pillows and the tea set sat upon the table by the door, and all those requisite things that one brought to a residence, all those comforts which begat a home where it would otherwise be a strange and alien place.
The sun had left. All that was here now was evening’s icy chill. Though there was little else to do today, the lights still yet remained on. For there sat one young woman in this dorm room, by herself, for her sister had not yet returned from her private tutoring,
This young woman was…
‘Adelaide Imperator’
My hand stroked across the name scrawled on the tattered cover of a notebook, as I rested against the solid frame of the couch. Its stability was the only force keeping me from slumping down into an undue slumber, a rest coerced by the day’s chill that had worn down my resilience. I couldn’t muster the energy to open the book, much less continue transcribing lines from my foreign literature. A copy of ‘On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason’ was nestled at my thigh, its purpose served for the day.
All I had the strength to do was stare idly at the name adorning the cover. Two years of notes had already been compiled in the yellowing pages… amateur understandings of the greatest thoughts and lines I could collect in my studies. To what end? To impress a suitor, or to fill a slot on a bookshelf, perhaps…
I shook my head to dissipate that haze in my skull. I had only persisted through the tomes and the writings of those higher minds for what it provided me, and no other. Those weaker thoughts always crept in when the hour grew late- I only hoped Piera would be home soon. A dose of conversation would mend the ailments of the mind.
The comfort of procrastination was always ever tempting, without doubt, to leave such matters for the morrow. It came to much relief when the door clicked, that I could be relieved of any guilt for putting off my reading.
There at the door entered Piera at last, a woolly cloak draped over her shoulders with a light frost upon it. Her cheeks were blushed, curled brown locks spilling from her thick and frilled hat. She smiled warmly upon seeing me, a thick notebook clutched tightly to her chest.
“Well, well. Good evening, Adelaide.” She spoke, voice strong and beautiful, a practiced tone to it that she had learned over many years. “I must admit I was not expecting to find you up so late. I fretted the whole way here how I would possibly settle in without disturbing you and yet I find you have spared me the trouble.”
My eyes rose to her level, and my spirits with them. I shifted the worn notebook to my side, as if its presence was going to disrupt the flow of a much-needed conversation. “Well- in such weather, I could hardly find rest while you remained out amidst the frost and forestry. The sessions seem to persist longer each day…”
I attempted to lift myself from the confines of the mahogany-built couch, but found myself simply pressing up and correcting my posture. I hadn’t the energy to pry myself from the upholstery, so I simply supported my dizzied head with a palm. “I hope you’ve been well, dear Piera. What has the evening’s work earned you- anything we could indulge in?”
“Oh hardly anything of the sort. Franz is a horribly dull teacher. I only have endured these German lessons for so long that I might be prepared for our trip to Geneva this Christmas.” Piera removed her coat, hanging it on the rack. “But though the work earned me little for us my tardiness has proven most profitable.”
She smiled, lifting the notebook in her hand, bound in paper and the name ‘Piera Imperator’ written in ink.
But just under the notebook was the object of her surprise: Two little red slips that simply said: Teatro Carlo Felice – Amleto.
“It would seem that university brings with it more boons that just education!” Piera declared. “An acquaintance has gifted to me a ticket to a new opera opening in the summer…and one spare. Would I be correct to assume your interest, dearest sister?”
In my dreary state, I almost failed to parse the objects she had brandished- but my mind raced with recollection. I pushed myself off of the edge of the couch, hands clasping in front of my chest.
“Amleto… it-” As she said, the premiere wasn’t for months. A weak laugh came from my lips, and with it the faint traces of a smile. It was a task to break the mannerisms I had accumulated over the years- but I was in good company. Piera had never judged me for keeping that stalwart demeanor, and I didn’t strain myself to do otherwise. “You truly are a weaver of miracles, Piera… I would be delighted and honored to attend with you, if you would have me.”
“Well of course I’d quite like to have you.” Piera said to me. “Would I instead have invited Celia, whom I only speak to in passing at lecture? Or perhaps I shall give unto Giovanni these tickets so that he may continue to display the lengths of his desperation for my courtship? No indeed, Adelaide, I should think I would go with you or not at all!”
Piera’s countenance betrayed her cheek, gossiping as she did of her fellow students, a habit mother did so often try to discourage. But Piera was not a woman to often be swayed if there was no profit for herself. Or, indeed, for I, the only other person she seemed to have any mind for.
At once, Piera sat down on the chair with me, a sigh escaping her lips as she finally relaxed.
“But what have you there? School work?” Piera gave something of a polite smile, as though she didn’t wish to offend the book. “I would ask about it but I must confess: I am dreadfully weary of Philosophy for the night. Exams shan’t be for another week, and though I have no mind to disappoint dear Uncle Enzo surely there’s no harm studying another time?”
I brought a hand to my lips, as if to hide the resulting giggle from prying eyes. I didn’t think myself to have the mind or tongue to match Piera’s taunting wit— or perhaps Mother had simply tempered that fiery spirit in me. It mattered little.
“Ah, well… a part schoolwork, a part passion, if one could call it that.” I traced along the hard edge of my Philosophy text, before lifting it from the couch and putting it aside. “Taking what thoughts I can, trying to place my own words to them… more puzzled the more I try to reconcile them. It passes the time and feeds the mind. But—“
I moved my notebook with it, diminishing the space between myself and dear Piera. “I have far more than a dearth of time to spend with such a wondrous sister. The evening is for us~.”
“Well I must say this piques the curiosity. Do tell, Adelaide, these words of your own.” Piera’s encouragement was punctuated with her warmest smile, hands in her lap so daintily that any suitor looking on the girl would be fooled to not see the sharp wit and biting tongue within. “Though I respect these writings I find myself much more fascinated by your thoughts in the immediate sense. You’ve always been a thoughtful and, if I may say so, a very sentimental woman these seventeen years on earth, so I’ve no doubt there’s something or another crossing your mind that you’ve been waiting, with much patience, to air to a captive audience. Do speak! Here she is, Adelaide, for any and all your musings which, I trust, shall prove far more intriguing than any lecture in the whole University of Bologna.”
“Well,” I said, the barest redness fluttering up on my cheeks. Piera could pierce the veils I so carefully constructed with such ease, it almost warranted embarrassment. I sat up straight once more, collecting what I could of the day’s efforts from the recesses of my mind.
“I suppose I… find conflict in the vast uncertainty of the world.” I lowered my hands to rest upon my lap, my gaze oft wondering down or away as my thoughts were processed. “Our world, defined only by our senses, our simple minds… naught exists in our cities and towns but what we give form to ourselves. How closely does this world we have defined- the church spires, the castles on the horizon- how rightly does it sit in the eyes of the Lord? Has He deigned the kingdoms and the duchies to be, or do they live and breathe and war in spite of him? Two kings that slay in His name- could either of them ever create His world? Has the Light of the church illuminated a path towards His world, or is it simply…”
I gave a stern huff, my expression visibly souring.
“Is it simply another fault of man, another beacon of falsehood leading us into yet darker lands? Certainly, a Pope who bears his faults so brazenly is no guide to His ideal world. Even as we reach toward the Lord’s greatness- even as we leave worlds behind, we bring ourselves with us, without fail, and it seems to damn us at every turn.”
“My, what learned musing from such a delicate woman. How ever will you find a husband with that sort of melancholic talk?” Piera turned up her nose in faux-admonishment. “Why, when your sister, your mother and your uncle can no longer care for you all that fanciful pontificating will get you is barely affording a crumb of bread as a governess, if you are lucky, or I dare not say, if you are not. And to speak so ill of his holiness! I shudder to be in the very room as you!”
Piera huffed and crossed her arms. Her lecture had been a near pitch perfect imitation of the talks the both of us would receive from our tutor, Belloza De Luca, whenever either of us got too clever than was befitting a lady looking to not be shunted off to the poor house.
I let her verbally prance along the routine, failing to keep in a laugh as she mentioned his holiness. Even when my mind dallied in so dark a place, there was light to be found in such good fun. I let myself recline into the comfort of the couch once more, my eyes trailing off to the eastern corner of the coolly-lit dwelling.
Indeed, Piera could not stifle her giggle either.
“The Syllabus of Errors still has you in bad humor, dear sister? I know well you often fret over topics of faith.”
“I suppose it has tainted the purity of my former understanding- not that I would pursue purity over clarity. I simply could not conceive of a Pope so self-serving, so errant as Pius the Ninth.”
I stroked upon the tattered rim of the notebook, a sigh escaping my lips.
“And it has cast such doubt upon all manners of faith, in my eyes. What Pope has truly served the Lord, if a Pope himself is not innately attuned to the Lord’s light? And, if he cannot speak to the Lord’s machinations, what parish or minister could hope to do so? I fear the Bible’s wisdom will be lost, if not perverted by weak, unholy men.”
Piera did not answer at first, only letting her eyes wander toward the window, her eyes lost in a deep rumination on those words. Indeed, though Piera counted herself among the devout, she, as much as myself, was a product of an uncertain world. Though parents and grown-ups would often not understand what it was like; where for them war and upheaval was a brief lapse in human rationality, for the Imperator sisters it was the foundation upon which our minds sat upon for our vision of the world.
“I do wish you not tell mother…but indeed I’ve, in time, come to see Pius IX as more human than holy man.” Piera sighed. “I hear often, around the campus, those that would count Rome as the next to join the Kingdom of Italy, and I would agree, to say nothing of Venetia being wrest from the Austrian’s filthy hands…but whenever students suggest the Vatican be taken as well…I always give pause, uncertain. Surely that most holy place must be exempt from merely being just another acquisition of state. Surely that place must be, in some way, above all these matters of unification.”
She gave a pause. Her elbow leaned upon the end of the sofa, finger delicately stroking her chin, a pose and face she’d never dare show around mother, to reveal herself as a woman that was so deeply contemplative everything around her. Yet it was that contemplation, in secret, that brought the attention of others to Piera. Although she graciously tried to be sure to share that attention with me as well; she refused to accept me being merely the passed-over child, even as the world obstinately insisted otherwise.
“It seems I’m in the moods for confessions, dear Adelaide, for I must say this: I find the pause I give when it is suggested the Vatican join the Kingdom of Italy to be shorter every time it is proposed. More and more I seem to nearly welcome the idea. For if the Papacy continues to impose its will on state matters, such as in Perugia, I fear we may trade one Austria for another.”
Peira’s face darkened ever slightly, a melancholy to her words that she would only ever let slip when alone with I and I alone.
“How long would it be before it is the Papal army marching down the streets of Milan, I wonder? Would I sit in a darkened corner, clutching baby Adelaide to my chest as I did when the Austrian soldiers drove away the rioters and arrested father while all my friends fled for France and Sicily, watching mother tightly clutch the box with Father’s revolver, wondering if the soldiers would burst through our door for us next? I should very much think not, dear sister. No, more and more I find myself thinking it better if the Papacy’s power be snuffed out, kept from inflicting cruelty only a man of flesh and bone can inflict…in spite of his god.”
My gaze fell down to my lap- not to show disrespect or disinterest, no. To let myself sit quietly, to indulge in Piera’s words without need of formality, it was merely a sign that I could feel at peace around her, even as she delved into matters most foul. My fingers flicked idly against each other, finding no purpose that could dispel the pain evoked in my core.
“I find myself reluctant to agree, though I do indeed agree. These false men of God- they bring no peace or mercy, no righteous justice. Were Father still alive, I shudder to think how long he could persist in the Papacy’s nation. No doubt some innocent goodness in his heart could find alignment in the Syllabus of Errors, and hellfire would be brought upon His most devout. No different from the Austrians.”
I shivered in my frustration. “Would Mother be dragged to the streets next? Would Pius find mercy for us children in ‘error’? I cannot imagine such goodness from so cowardly a man. Each day, we would perhaps stand near the door- revolver in one hands, cross in another’s, waiting to have judgment brought upon us.”
Each word grew weaker by the moment, and my eyelids cast themselves over my sight, leaving only a blurred visage of the floor beneath me.
“Vatican’s king or Austrian Emperor… horrid men take to Milan’s humble roads, seeking to correct that which bore no fault. It is sickening in no small degree. To take the Vatican under the rule of man- such a thing seems unholy. But to leave it to its own designs, to let its power grow, would be to let black-hearted men subjugate others in God’s name. Better to subsume it within Italian rule and accept man’s evil nature, than to let it reign, and mistake selfishness for righteousness.” I slumped down again, despair hanging off of my lips. My heart ached to show such bitterness to Piera- but I would prefer clarity over purity, of course.
“Oh, now, Adelaide, I did not mean to further upset you. Though I see you’re as conflicted as I.”
Though Piera let her smile remain I could clearly see the discomfort in the way she seemed to look through me.
“I should think the lord might strike down women as wicked as we two. To suggest that the mouth of god should have not the authority to rule nations. That this sordid talk might invite retribution, plunging us into our pyre, with all gnashing of teeth.” Her voice caught, a trait of Piera’s when she felt herself and her words going too far. “Were it I could be a silly and young girl again, now, at this moment. I wish I did not have to grow up listening to the distant sound of cannon and gunfire far off from my bed room. Were it we could be like our parents, merrily frolicking in gardens and talking of young suitors with whom we were to be wed. But, alas, we’ve not been afforded such. So now I sit with doubt, unsure whether this thinking is temptation or clarity.”
Piera let another sigh escape her lips. At once, she attempted to banish the melancholy atmosphere. Her fingers traced the opera tickets snugly tucked into her notebook.
“But, then, I shall endeavor to at least make this moment, now, a sight better than it was for us before.” She said at last. “If the world is naught but what we perceive then perhaps I should perceive better things.”
I brought my gaze to her again- I could cling to any number of her fearful words. I could let bleed my heart and pontificate on the nature of our impure souls, that we should think to know better than kings and parishes, let alone His Holiness. But, with the eve growing late- with the gloom that we had already shared, I had neither strength nor need for more agony. I nodded to Piera, a smile returning to my lips.
“So it is. What world we have here, between us, it is one we define. I should quite like to define it an ounce brighter, with you at my side.” I pushed away the books whose intellect had poisoned me with sorrow… my eyelids still drooped into their place. I had used up much of my vigor in such dire conversation, and again my mind dipped into exhaustion. “I’ve lost track of the hour… are we to bed soon? I should quite like to reach this summer as quickly as I can…”
“Yes indeed. The student life waits for none, least of all foolish girls fretting needlessly over faith.” Piera’s voice regained its warmth, the woman speaking with a firmness, a finality, that offered no space for opinions on the contrary. “Do not worry, Adelaide. Remember always that where men fail God and his son shall not. There is always that safety to retreat to, the final bastion in times of crisis. But we are not in crisis, and I might venture to say things are more optimistic now than they ever were in all my life. Take heart in that.”
Piera lifted a hand to mine, grasping it softly, patting it with a sister’s comfort as she stood as though to guide me, as she had since we were both little, off to the night’s prayer. She lifted a hand to turn off the light, taking her place beside me.
I nodded weakly, hand coming to rest on hers in turn, raising myself to follow with her. Beneath her sharp wit and wild mind was a spirit of fire and gold, utterly radiant throughout. She set the world right, when it so easily went astray.
My sluggish steps followed her, until I found myself at the bedside as if by reflex. I knelt next to Piera, my eyes shutting and my hands clasping to my chest… I had not the strength to lead her in prayer. It would do me good to let her share words of the Lord tonight.
Piera stifled a small giggle watching me, seeing how much my feet lagged and my movements were like a drunk.
“For your sake I’ll keep the night’s prayer short, as I worry you might doze off in the midst of it.” She said kindly, folding her own hands to her chest, bowing her head in the dark room. “I trust you remember that it’s Tuesday.”
Even with naught but faint moonlight from the window, I could, at least, feel Piera beside me as she began to pray. In Latin came her voice, graceful as any one could, to recite what we’d heard and said many hundreds of nights before…
“Deus, in adiutórium meum inténde.
Dómine, ad adiuvándum me festína.
Glória Patri et Fílio
et Spirítui Sancto.
Sicut erat in princípio et nunc et semper
et in sǽcula sæculórum.
Amen. Allelúia.
Confíteor Deo omnipoténti
et vobis, fratres,
quia peccávi nimis
cogitatióne, verbo,
ópere et omissióne:
mea culpa,
mea culpa,
mea máxima culpa.
Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper Vírginem,
omnes Angelos et Sanctos,
et vos, fratres,
oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum.
Misereátur nostri omnípotens Deus
et, dimissís peccátis nostris,
perdúcat nos ad vitam ætérnam.
Amen.”
Piera paused, taking a deep breath, as though debating what to gloss over and what to say. Jest as she might, I had to keep some part of myself from drifting into slumber as she spoke- the tranquil beauty that she bestowed on our humble room was a marvel, no matter the years I had already heard it. She was… elegant, and warm. If any could be holy and still so mortal, it was she.
“Canticum Asaph Deus stetit in coetu Dei in medio Deus iudicat.
Usquequo iudicatis iniquitatem et facies impiorum suscipitis semper
Iudicate pauperi et pupillo egeno et inopi iuste facite
Salvate inopem et pauperem de manu impiorum liberate
Non cognoscunt nec intellegunt in tenebris ambulant movebuntur omnia fundamenta terrae
Ego dixi dii estis et filii Excelsi omnes vos
Ergo quasi Adam moriemini et quasi unus de principibus cadetis
Surge Domine iudica terram quoniam hereditabis omnes gentes
Glória Patri et Fílio
et Spirítui Sancto.
Sicut erat in princípio et nunc et semper
et in sǽcula sæculórum.
Amen.”
She spoke the Tuesday Psalm with such reverence, for it was, above all others, her favorite. The one I knew Piera kept closest to her heart (even if mother insisted no passage should be a ‘favorite’ over others).
“Orémus.
Vox nostra te, Dómine, humíliter deprecétur, ut, domínicæ resurrectiónis hac die mystério celebráto, in pace tua secúri a malis ómnibus quiescámus, et in tua resurgámus laude gaudéntes. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum.
Amen.
Noctem quiétam et finem perféctum concédat nobis Dóminus omnípotens.
Amen.”
A short, abridged prayer. It felt almost over too soon, when Piera’s voice finally quieted.
I uttered a quiet and reverent “amen” after her. My eyes pressed open, and my weary lips returned a smile for the last time tonight. Studies would resume, the wars and tribulations of the greater world beyond them… and we would persist.
But it was the final prayer of the day. No more to be said or done, not a single peep from either of us with that final ‘Amen’. Piera unclasped her hands wordlessly, turning to me.
It was hard to see any of her in the faint, silver light, but I was sure if I could see her she’d be smiling. She gave me a final pat upon my hands, the silent promise to greet each other in the morning.
With that fleeting moment, Piera stood to let herself to her bed.
I rose after her, my body vanishing from the moonlight, as I drew back the covers, and nestled down to reach slumber so desperately needed…
The world around me was dark, and my closed eyes made it darker still. In the silence I could faintly hear Piera’s breathing and her occasional shift. I could hear the distant sound of an engine’s whistle once more, like a far off lullaby to sooth me to sleep.
The engine’s whistle came again.
And it’s hard to say when it finally left me when the world shifted into a darkness.
A deep darkness.
For the world was now silent. The empty black surrounded me on all sides.
Eternally.
The warmth of the radiator had faded. Vanished.
My soft mattress became as cold as stone but held no texture.
There was no longer the weight of blankets.
And, most puzzlingly of all.
I’d just woken up.
…I tried to shut out that stimuli. Let my weary mind find solace in rest, let the numbness drag my consciousness away. I found no respite.
My eyes shot open like a peal of thunder, and I forced my body to rise- yet no motion joined it, no pressure of the calm air and no weight from my own limbs.
…had I expired in my slumber? Or was this another nightmare, clawing into the depths of my mind as I awaited due punishment? My mind raced in the emptiness.
I did as I had always done in these hollow spaces. A voice echoed from my feeble throat.
“Piera…?”
My voice did not echo nor was it met with reply.
My voice simply died in my skull.
My open eyes were just the same as closed. Entirely dark. There was no stimulus to my body at all. Neither floating nor lying down, simply the uncanny feeling of merely existing, as though my perception failed me now and, thus, the world ceased to be.
Nothing. Nothing around me, nothing of me. I worried and wondered fruitlessly on what ailment caused this- no, what fate wrought it. Would I be sweating, shivering, if I had a form to enact it with? Did I deserve even to quiver in this wretched space?
And all there was, for an agonizing, anxious time…was pure
dead
silence.
…
…
“…care…anyone…do…”
…a voice. A voice, anything beyond this emptiness and blankness. I glanced to and fro with my unseeing eyes, ears strained as if they could even exist here. I yearned for something, no matter how flimsy and simple it seemed to be.
Sounds came to me, though I had no ears to hear with.
The voice had been faint and fleeting, gone in a matter of moments, leaving me in silence once more.
Was that shuffling? Or was it my sensory-deprived imaginations conjuring phantoms in lieu of any stimuli? It was impossible to tell in this pure maddening nothing.
“…better than nothing…”
It was now I noticed my mouth was dry…as though my tongue had not touched water in centuries. My heartbeat was roaring as though roused to life for the first time.
“…stabilizing…this one worked…”
White.
A blinding white light exploded in front of me. My eyes stung, having never adjusted before. My eyes seeing the first light I’ve ever seen. My lungs drew their first breath.
And there, in the vast darkness…a single orb of light hovered.
My mouth was full of water. Hydrating water.
And as that grand light burned upon my skin…I heard a voice.
Deep. Rumbling. The letters dragged as though every syllable were divine and of utmost import.
“Can you hear me, my child?”
As soon as I could- as soon as there was form to let it happen, I took a deep gasp. I choked down water like the sweetest ambrosia, grasping, struggling, searching- senses I had taken for granted before that harrowing blackness. I wasn’t dead… or if I was, there was mercy in death. I felt my cheeks grow wet for only a moment, before I snapped towards that overwhelming speaker. My now-beating heart came to a halt.
I stared into the light, quivering as I once so desperately desired. I felt… terror. I was awash in an oppressive urge to remain silent, but… words passed my lips all the same.
“Is… is that you, my Lord…?”
There was a long silence at my question. The light before me pulsed.
“…I do not wish to lie, but you may think of me as such.”
There was another pause. A shuffling off to the side. What was that? I could almost faintly make out voices amid the shimmering lights that flowed like hazes in the black behind the bright light.
…109 Pulses…locomotion motors 121, 122, 123, 124 underperforming…energy pipeline 01 Organ 04 failing…
I felt a brief pain in my center, but it vanished just as quickly as it started. I was able to breathe again for the first time. My eyes adjusting as the orb came to me again after what felt like years yet no time had passed at all.
[REINTEGRATION…………..RESUME]
“Now then…are you able to tell me your name? Where you are from?”
My tearful eyes darted to the shadowy movements at the periphery, hoping to gain some semblance of knowledge, of security in this horrid realm. My glances had been disturbed by the wince of pain that shot through me, however brief- and my gaze settled anew onto the orb.
This being… this thing that was not my Lord… was it toying with my form? A kind of… torment, in the empty space? A demon clawing at the soul…?
My heart raced again. I could not let it believe I thought so.
“I…”
A weak breath.
“I am Nobildonna Adelaide Imperator de Milan… why have… why have you ushered me into this space, and rendered such strain onto my body…?”
[SET MEMORY COHESION…………………………….OK]
“I apologize, my child, for this imposition…for while I may not be your ‘Lord’ I am, in the eyes of many, a God. It’s to these that I must attend and keep safe…”
The voice was…soothing, which itself was unnerving given my situation. Deep, rumbling, powerful…were it not for what he said I could have been believed he was, indeed, God…perhaps it was fortunate this being was truthful instead.
Another silence followed. My breath felt short.
…2 of 12 BOA intake…energy pipeline 02 Organ 01b underperforming…
I felt as though I were suffocating, but it lasted only a moment. I took in air, a deep breath, letting it flow through me for the first time. My eyes adjusted as the orb came to me once again after what felt like an eternity yet no time had passed at all.
[REINTEGRATION…………..RESUME]
“There we go…you appear to be better…My Child, if I may ask, I have great need of you, a task from a ‘God’ to a mortal. A task of nobility…to save many others, to help and serve…but first, tell me, what was it you were doing before you found yourself here?”
I shut my eyes tight from the weakening of my lungs, ready yet unwilling to accept that each breath might be my last… and yet, it continued. I gasped anew, staring into the orb once more.
I felt… desperation creeping from the pit of my blackened heart. I was at this being’s mercy, as I had always been, as I would always be. Mindlessly, I nodded to the question, before finding strength to answer.
“I was… at my bedside, with dear Piera… w-we had just said prayers for the eve, and were finding ourselves to rest before studies tomorrow…”
I wheezed out the words, worried to put any more strain on my throat, or lungs, or mind.
“What is… what is your task…?”
[SHORT TERM MEMORY CONTINUITY…………………………….OK]
“Good, Adelaide, good…you’re doing well. This will not be long, I promise.”
There was another pause. More and more this felt closer to a medical examination…even as the voice soothed.
…Wave Input 01 Failure…Wave Input 02 Underperforming…
The visage of ball of light seemed…fuzzy and flat. It almost seemed…was I blind in one eye? I blinked, and the abnormality vanished. The light was brighter, my eyes adjusted for the first time. My lungs breathed their first breath of air. I finally woke up after three eternities even when no time had passed at all.
[REINTEGRATION…………..RESUME]
“The task is important…you must go to a world of my creation and walk among those that live there. Makes friends…find the one close to me, Lippi. For it is she that ask me to bring you to her, and so I shall.”
There was another pause.
…stable…system check…ok, full function…
“It will soon be time, my child. You will wake up in a land unfamiliar but you will soon make it yours. Everything will be okay, all will be saved. I entreat you this task…”
…simulation…ok…
“…as I’m sure you’re the only one who could do it.”
…I couldn’t breathe. Not that the fresh air hadn’t filled my lungs, not that I had perished- but the sensation was thoroughly lost on me. I remained in this… ‘God’s’ abyss for an eternity more. I couldn’t breathe.
“Fr… friends, I don’t…”
I trembled at his words of no meaning, his words of great power. I was not one to question him, I had no right to do so, not one that I could discern- none that could wrest me from these depths.
“Will I be… freed? I wish to live, I wish to breathe the air freely, I- I did not wish to sin, I did not wish harm on my fellow man…”
Useless nothings dripped from my terrified maw.
“Will I… be free, if I follow your task, o God beyond my knowing?”
There was a silence again. A long, long silence, longer than the rest.
“You did not wish harm on your fellow man…which is why you’ve been chosen.”
Another pause.
[FINAL CHECK]
“You will be free soon. Only a moment longer, Adelaide.”
[STABILIZED]
…none of what I could proffer would alter my fate. Had I erred, had I misspoken…? Its words felt more taunt than reassurance-
My body…where once I had feeling I now felt numb, locked up.
[DEPLOYMENT READY]
Even my mouth could not scream or talk. Everything felt wrong. My body felt…mutilated…misshapen. But I felt no pain.
I sealed my eyes again with that sensation, those cursed words… I did not attempt another defiance of the ‘god’. Whatever I felt, it was due justice of a being I had no power to deny. I let that misshapen feeling settle into me, I let my body sink…
[DEPLOY FINAL]
All at once, the light ahead of me grew. It grew and grew, encapsulating more of my vision, swallowing up the black void until naught was around me but light. I felt as though I were pulled from myself, now snapped into another self elsewhere.
Everything was alien. Everything was wrong.
And as my eyes adjusted…for the second time ever…I could see around myself…
Blue sky. White clouds.
Wind rushing past me, chilling me.
And in every direction, as I spun in the air…
Land. Green fields. Mountains. Forests. A distant ocean, spread before me.
And I was plummeting.
I stared skyward to the calm spread of blues and whites… my gaze fell across the vast fields and forestry, the natural delights of a world so beautiful yet so unknown. And…
I turned my head downward, to the land’s surface- to some spot where I would no doubt shatter and cease to be. Some part of me screamed in vain to struggle, as though I could sprout wings and soar like Icarus… and yet, nothing erupted from my being. I had already soared against the sun’s graces and warmth, and the fall was upon me. Whatever would become of my miserable self- I had no right to determine it. And so, arms folded across my chest, I shut my eyes once more, descending to the mortal depths to which I belonged.
The fall was both brief and yet eternal. The view of the land below was swallowed by rushing white, a cold and wet feeling on my body as I pierced a cloud.
This was not the place of mortals. Humans did not belong in the sky. Every sensation, every view was nothing short of otherworldly. The cloud was broken through, and I burst from the bottom rather than landing upon it safely as a child might hope.
I felt a harsh gust on my right, putting me into a spin. My limbs did not flail nor could they even move, every joint locked in place and fixed.
But my closed eyes. That I could control. Let blackness retake me…a voluntary darkness, preferable to the forced darkness I’d endured just before.
Then all at once everything changed.
The wind got louder.
Something loudly snapped. I felt no pain.
A deafening splash. I felt no pain.
A patter of falling water droplets. Still, yet, no pain.
Stillness. I could feel something…water, coiled shallowly around my body. Cold, bitingly so.
There was a pause.
No more rushing wind. Only lying there with all joints completely locked.
[BEGIN]
My body relaxed. A breath involuntarily exited me. Like a spell being lifted, every joint unlocked and relaxed at once, a tingle going over my body, almost euphoric in the way it softened the muscles, letting every limb spill out from their rigid positions.
Freedom at last.
~ CHAPTER 1 ~
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