20 ~ January night. Wing 3
Mary-Esther yelled through the void until the sounds vanished again.
The walls were trembling as if there was an earthquake or fluidity into them.
They actually began to fissure here and there this time.
Once the spell was over, her wings fell numb along with her. She fell back onto the ground as her wings mechanically folded back over her shoulders. It displaced her centre of gravity a little and made her loose balance while she was still numb. Elise caught her quite gently before she would really fall.
Little by little... They were climbing. Esther was trying to rush things with the only efficient tool she had found, over the year they had spent in that place.
It was draining her to exhaustion each and every time, but also bringing all sorts of sensations and hope moving forward.
Elise was still helping her and climbing along. Scarlett, whilst keeping in touch with them and coming to spend some time once in a while, refused to help.
She was spending her possible eternity now reading.
Because much to their shared surprised, the books she could find around the place were normal, full and readable.
So Scarlett could spend her time in leisure, simply reading everything she came to find, almost as if she were still alive.
More interesting even, was the fact that every time the world changed slightly from Mary-Esther’s spellcasting, it also made a few more books sprout here and there on some shelves. They appeared as if they always had been there before, quite magically.
Funnily, there even appeared to be some logic about their apparitions. History books were in some rooms and studies, while religious texts in the various churches of the building. The books with topics about warfare were on the shelves of the weaponry.
And since they recently had accessed the two whole levels of a general library, Scarlett now spent most of her time around there.
Mary-Esther was falling more often asleep lately, mostly after doing efforts like that. And every time she woke up afterward, she had her will strengthen by the sensation of progress, and queerer dreams about the other world. She had visions of reality, or very vivid dreams. She couldn’t see anyone yet, but it was such a pleasant and motivating feeling, that it became a drug for her.
Feeling reality and life, she wanted it more than ever.
Every time she returned to this place, she only longed to leave it further.
And as she had more of these visions over the time, she felt she was getting closer and closer, while keeping a frustration of always returning.
She wasn’t sure whether she would manage to simply not return from it someday, or whether it was safer progress to keep climbing these endless and cold hostile stairways...
She wanted to take the shortcut if it could work.
To burst away in a flight, through the rain, as Blue did herself.
The stairs were the way to ascend for the dead, or the mere mortals
Flying through the well itself and not crawling around it, was the way she fantasized to take.
Flying up, leaving the endless pit with its damp colosseo behind.
Reaching the cathedralis above them, and passing through the doors...
Elise & Scarlett for different reasons, preferred to keep their thoughts to themselves a little longer than Esther could.
She was growing a little wild and crude, frustrated. Except when she was in the presence of her beloved Blue of course.
The love of her life, or current state of existence, still brought the best of Mary-Esther.
Blue appeared once while Mary-Esther was still asleep and unconscious therefore.
It was the only time when she was not immediately transported through the floor to her, and Blue was left to wander around on her own for a little while.
From the empty inside garden, Blue had ventured through the mysterious building, looking around the walls and into the rainy agora that caught her attention every time.
Blue had walked a level downstairs on her own, looking for her friend.
She opened the doors to the main weaponry and entered its wide northern side. The room with the stairs leading upward was also leading to a balcony over the rainy courtyard, but this time she was curious about other things around.
The shelves of this place held the modern weaponry, meaning handguns and rifles, which Blue never expected to see.
She was puzzled but didn’t dare touching any of them, even if it was still mostly like a dream.
Blue looked around like she would have in any other museum, slowly making her way toward the next room. Since she had arrived from the modern times side of things, she entered the place with displays of previous centuries firearms. She gazed around with a curiosity for some of them that showed more artistic display than crude practicality to her inexperienced eyes.
Blue noticed how a revolver had been removed from its display and left on a table next to it. Someone had manipulated it recently. Now her curiosity took the better of her and she went to take it in hands, hesitantly but too curious to let it by.
Holding a powerful weapon brought a mix of strange feelings, but she felt more nervous than anything in the end, and put it back where it was apparently supposed to be.
In the next room, the widest one, there was a central pillar with roughly the size of the room she had left. It was covered with displays holding various historical swords along with the walls beside. Blue found herself surrounded in this gallery, by hundreds of metallic gleams.
She was a little impressed again, still not quite expecting this.
Before she would begin looking into the specific collections of shapes and cultural differences, a noise caught her attention on her left.
She heard someone in the next room and thus proceeded to open the doors to the small gymnasium. This smaller room was also open to the light and rain.
But against all odds she had in mind, she didn’t find Mary-Esther there, but witnessed her sister Elise apparently practising fencing on her own.
Elise had attached her hair in a way she never had in her lifetime, in a tight bun, wearing men’s clothing and doing some exercises against mannequins, holding a Florentine rapier.
They both looked at each other in clear stupor, never expecting to see each other in such fashion.
It was unexpected a meeting for both of them.
Elise & Scarlett both generally tried not to make contact with Blue, feeling it was the best for her own sake, in doubt about the truth of their condition. Blue cared less for their worries and walked briskly closer to her late sister.
Elise was paralysed in fright at first, but ended up letting herself getting hugged by Blue, who was clearly taken by the emotion of seeing her.
Elise was uncomfortable and worried, but held Blue back, as much as she could hold her as well.
Of course she had also missed Blue...
~
After finding each other again so suddenly and unexpectedly, they went toward a bench to chat a little together.
Blue shared her news kindly, her happy memories and her own worries.
She was worried about what Esther might be doing lately.
Elise listened carefully, smiling with some melancholia, still looking a little younger than she should really have next to Blue. As much as she was pained somewhere by their situation, she still listened with great solace to everything Blue had to say. It was good to hear how she was so nicely doing up there in her real life. Things seemed to go so well, it was a great relief to Elise.
Then Blue began to enquire about Elise’s feelings and news, to which the blond teenager between unclear ages turned more and more elusive in her answers. Elise’s answers became vague at best, forcing Blue to eventually ask the truly meaningful question.
B - Why are you trying to leave too?
Elise looked away, weighing her words before she would answer... She might not tell the truth, still feeling like she ought to protect Blue from things that shouldn’t reach her.
E - I cannot answer you that... I’m sorry Blue.
B - But... Why not?
E - Because if I fail, I... I don’t want to tell you because ti’s not about you, nor Rose. It’s not something that is supposed to be... I don’t want to bring a change into life while I’m dead. Scarlett and I both think it’s dangerous for you to talk with us. We don’t know what curse it could bring.
B - But unlike Scarlett, there seem to be something that drives you to try your chance with Esther... Isn’t it?
E - I won’t tell you. I’m sorry.
Elise had enjoyed her time shared with Blue, and felt pained but happy at how inquisitive she now could be. The forbidden bliss had been enjoyable, but now she really felt she better should leave. The nervousness of holding something forbidden that could cause great harm eventually, Blue had a feeling of it just recently, and Elise felt it a hundredfold with every word she spoke to Blue.
Then Mary-Esther appeared, entering the room at that time, still waking up and in some apparent daze.
Elise used that chance to say her goodbyes and leave her sister behind.
It was Mary-Esther’s turn to smile heartily at Blue now.
Blue was in her dreamlike lull anyway and didn’t feel really bad about it, suddenly shifting conversation partner.
Elise left the room briskly on her side, brushing away some small tears from her cheeks, gritting her teeth slightly.
~
For the first time in their relation, Esther’s smile dropped while listening to what Blue had to say.
It was a crack in her mind.
B - You are haunting me Esther... It’s lately become difficult to bear.
Mary-Esther felt a dread and a shock, almost as if the floor had collapsed below her.
Now she understood the price to pay for her shortcuts, for her visions of the outside.
It had been at Blue’s expense.
M - But... I’m getting closer!
But it was the wrong way.
B - We helped each other... But you have changed. Not the wings, but the feelings you bring in reality. It’s been growing colder, and now somewhat ghastly... I feel like you’re trying to pass through by force, no matter how much we try to help you, and that... You wouldn’t mind even using me.
Esther’s frustration only grew hearing these painful statements, even shifting to anger rapidly.
She was scared, because now Blue appeared even slightly afraid of her. Now, of all times!
M - Blue... I now have a conscious mind thanks to you, and I’ve never been so close to being a human being in heart. I forever owe it to you... But... I want to be alive! I don’t want just a heart, I want a body up there too!
Esther was begging. She was imploring Blue not to abandon her now of all times. She was panicking.
M - I want to live! To eat, to breathe, to suffer and change. I want to fear death even! But as a human... I have felt what it’s like lately and I can’t get enough of it... Even if it was through you...
B - Would you hurt me for it?
Mary-Esther felt trapped and shocked again. Her heart hurt her more than she could recall before.
She felt the blood pulse inside her chest and limbs. Her wings twitched nervously. Her face had turned cold...
Esther realised too late, she was actually seriously doubting.
Because now was the boundary check, about how far was she really ready to go to achieve her goal?
Blue was looking shy and worried in front of her, waiting for an honest answer. Mary-Esther was now agape, thinking about it seriously. What was more important now, between her promise as a blue rose, and her wish to earn her own life?
Before she knew it, Blue was whipping Esther’s cheeks from the dripping tears. Blue had a gentle and sorry smile.
B - You can cry now... I’m sorry I made you tear up. Is this also due to your progress?
M - Yes... I can cry now. It hurts less... I... I want to shed real tears too...
Blue’s smile grew sadder, and she stepped back. Mary-Esther’s wings pulsed another unclear sensation through the air.
B - Is there no other way for you to be?
M - Even if I was god in this underworld... I cannot satisfy myself spending eternity here with the ghosts... I need to live above... I need to reach reality, but...
She obviously didn’t want to harm Blue in the process. Could she have both? It didn’t have to be a choice, did it?
A painful silence kept them apart for a while.
Mary-Esther was sad, from the painful questions and considerations. She felt guilty for hurting Blue without realizing so far, and making her worry to such extent.
She was searching for a solution, an answer, while her desire to see the reality again and for good was pulsing through her veins.
Her desire, and her care for Blue. No, her love for Blue... That had been the only thing true for a while.
Yet now, that love had changed over the evolution of her own consciousness and existence...
She thought about something else while looking at her. Blue was looking around, also lost in thoughts.
That other thought also brought tears to Esther’s face quietly. She felt disgusted by the thought she had contemplated however.
Her emotions were rising raw, barely under control now. Why was it always at the worst of times, that her childish side came back yelling into her head? But now it felt worse than that to her.
And something broke inside Mary-Esther’s head, or heart.
Just like that, suddenly and quietly, something died inside of her.
Over self-hatred rising without control and desires hardly more managed.
Mary-Esther let herself fall to her knees, and her dress moved weirdly. Blue turned around and saw Esther seemingly praying or begging again, her hands nearly reaching the ground.
Her two wings stretched on her sides, and a third one began to sprout and grow out of her back before Blue’s shock.
Blue was amazed by the extraordinary and somewhat beautiful show, not realizing that Esther couldn’t hear her anymore.
~
Blue had told her she was haunted by her.
She had told her she had felt possessed a handful of times...
Blue had shared a little how more and more bizarre events had been occurring in the house lately. She had told Mary-Esther everything, and especially how tired and restless she had now become.
A budding fear had appeared in time.
A worry that Esther could hurt Blue’s mind, and in worse dreams that she might even come to possess her unwillingly.
B - I’m sure... I know... You should find another way to climb... Don’t rush rashly, okay?
Blue did not want her to fly and ascend the way she could do.
Blue was not helping her anymore.
More than her inner child turning spoiled, Mary-Esther felt that the walls were now screaming, yelling at her continuously. It brought a growing fright, inflaming her anger. It was feeling awful, but she felt that a conclusion had been reached anyway.
Blue was no longer helping her...
Mary-Esther stood up again, very slowly.
Various desires were burning, howling, tampering within her, but something new was crushing everything else inside. A different kind of will was now coldly closing the desires that were allowed to express themselves.
M - With one wing, I sought to bend this place to my will. With two wings, I sought to reach you in the sky... With three wings, I will move even the stars...
Blue made an instinctive step back.
The gaze of Mary-Esther wasn’t perspiring love any longer.
~
Sadness and frustration had turned into cold anger. The feeling that Blue never really tried willingly to help her was now magnified by her demand to act differently...
How could she be so insensitive? Didn’t she know how much she suffered down there? How hard it was to climb, or even to remain? Against everything trying to keep them down...
And as close as she was to accomplish no less than a miracle. As she could start peering outside even, getting realistically closer, now Blue was opposing her?
Mary-Esther was sad and feeling a form of disgust, against herself and her own anger against Blue; but also against Blue who now seemed to prefer to stand in her way...
M - Now... Now you want to stand in my way... You never really wanted to help me, did you?
Blue appeared frightened hearing such words.
But Mary-Esther had more distress to express in more or less coherent ways. Blue had now to endure harsh words that came from pain more than reason, and the young woman found herself unable to answer the growing stream of reproaches.
M - After everything I’ve done for you, you haven’t done a thing for me!
And the spite of Esther seemed to grow with every harsh word, reproaches turning to claims, and then demands, and the sanity in them kept being challenged to dangerous thresholds.
Horror grew.
M - Why haven’t you tried summoning me into another body? Either a living host or a fresh corpse would have been fine by me!
B - Esther... I cannot do that!
M - Then what about a child? Why don’t you get pregnant so I can get incarnated inside your womb!
B - Esther! I... I can’t!
M - Then what other way do you propose, since you now refuse my own! All my hopes and ideas are no good for you!
B - But your ideas are insane!
M - And how should I know? I never was human to begin with! I have spent more time remembering things that were not from me, than actually living for myself!
Memories and screams, refusal to die, denial, and dreadful instinct to give it all, just to live again.
The screams from the walls were echoing with her own will and desire now as always.
Blue however was tearing up in fright, walking backward and away from Esther in visible fear.
The dangerous three wings raised around looked as threatening as hydra’s heads to her now.
She stepped away until her back hit a wall, and she felt horrible.
Blue was petrified and Mary-Esther reaching for her, now grabbing her hand with anger and strength.
Something was hurting them both suddenly in that display of anger, and Mary-Esther let go of her arm just as suddenly.
A moment later, Blue felt her feet leaving the ground. She was leaving, still holding her tears.
As saddened as she was, she felt the relief that she was about to leave this awful dream.
Mary-Esther was glaring, and did something Blue had never seen before.
She seemed tense, opening her mouth and stretching her wings, as if she was yelling, but no sound could be heard. Her arms and hands were looking just as tensed, as if she
The air turned wavy for an instant, and Blue realised with terror that she wasn’t flying away and waking up anymore.
On the contrary, she saw her feet returning to the ground before her.
She fell on her knees, touching the cold rocks. Her head was now in turmoil, a sudden headache adding to the confusion and fright.
Behind Blue for the first time, the night had fallen into this place.
She was still there, because Esther had managed to prevent her from leaving.
Below Blue’s trembling fingers, the cold sensations of touching the dust and floor tiling and bare rocks were now feeling more real. She felt more awake, yet she was still there.
Blue was shivering because of the cold sensations coursing through her fingers and body, and mostly the fear flooding her senses.
She was now seeing a newly set darkness she had never seen before in this place.
The rain was falling into a more violent downpour behind her.
And in front of her Mary-Esther in the shades looked more threatening than ever...
Blue felt terrified and miserable, awfully at her dimming mercy.
B - Esther... What are you doing to me...
M - I’m building my wings... If religion can make humans ascend, so shall I.
B - What... What are you saying? Let me go! I feel awful... I have to leave...
M - I want to leave too! I might be akin to god in here, but I want to ascend!
B - Esther... What are you becoming...
Blue was crying, dripping tears along the floor. Mary-Esther shivered, and saw Blue vanishing instantly instead of flying away.
She felt the sudden loneliness more than anger, seeing the rain behind her again.
On the ground she could see the little wet stains.
Mary-Esther felt a sudden cool down and found herself trembling awfully. The angry rush was gone and the anger turning to regrets already. Disgust rose, along with guilt and more pain.
More depressed than ever, she began to cry loudly.
She felt like an abandoned child again, punished arguably violently for its mistakes and wrong behaviour.
It felt violent to her.
Now that she was ripped and lonely, all she did was cry, more than she ever had...
Her voice filled the world with more sorrow than anger now that Blue was gone.
Esther cried over her pain, over her mistakes, over her love, and over what was bound to come next.
She cried and let herself slip until she finally fainted herself, falling into her puddle softly.
Her love was gone.
~
The rain was continuing to pour down the colosseo as always.
It was a little colder now, mists rising again. Some droplets were even slightly frozen when they impacted the walls like hail.
Far below the damaged wrecks of the roof they had once built, the water reached a freezing pool with some ice clinging here and there against the walls, turning them paler.
These white spots and occasional icy shards were sparkling sometimes, but mostly spreading everywhere along the places exposed to the rain.
The leaning roof architecture had mostly collapsed, its remnants stuck below the 38th floor. Some stalactites of ice could be guessed here and there along frozen pieces of cloth.
Everywhere, the air was now colder and more humid than ever. It brought a crawling and lingering mist in more and more corridors, entering the rooms even away from the rain.
Blue wasn’t coming anymore.
It wasn’t a surprise, but through the days and weeks passing by, it came as a growing pain.
Scarlett and Elise had both glared at Mary-Esther with a high mixture of cold wrath against her when hearing about what happened. But the perpetrator herself was looking in shambles and guilt ridden already, so they held their tongues and hands. Nevertheless, the strain was clear for everyone.
They were not sure if the freezing temperatures were Blue’s or Esther’s doing.
Out of spite, or out of guilt.
But they spent a long time suffering in that damp and harsh winter.
Elise and Scarlett were trying to warm themselves up burning whatever they could find in an impromptu fireplace or another. They were shivering all the time now that Summer was clearly gone.
Mary-Esther was wandering around, more depressed than ever. She was trying to move the world far lesser than she otherwise could.
She kept doing it regularly, but now tried to keep a slower pace than before.
Instead of doing her most, she did her minimum.
Every time still replenished the stocks of combustible for the group and kept opening new levels, one after another.
She also still had the chance to have these thrilling glimpses at the other side...
She couldn’t stop.
But she tried to slow down as much as she could afford.
Mary-Esther was feeling out of tears to shed. She was feeling bad most of the time for a few different reasons.
But she could never stop climbing. Even if it was just slow crawling, she had to.
Her mind was clouded by her peeks of the world beyond, still and always like the most amazing of things to experience in this place.
Feeling the wind, the air, the grass, even some warmth. The night itself... Such common words and nouns that suddenly found a far greater world and intensity of meaning with the memory of experiencing them in these events.
The night itself was so much more than just a word, a definition, or the darkness they had to wander in.
It was that stunning moment, breath-taking to her, with air, stars, sky, wind, clouds, trees, smells and earth...
The world, a body, blood, feeling the temperatures and movements of the air, hearing a thousand sounds...
Just for a moment of bliss...
Night, even that simple word, it meant in reality far more and many things than everything they could experience down there.
And even her senses were different. You could see, hear, feel everything up there. It was intense, real...
Down there, the senses were there but infinitely duller and numb, without thrill nor frame.
When you looked at something up there, the world was surrounding it. Down there, all the context was blurred and bleak. You could only focus your hearing on one kind of sound at a time. Everything was slightly muffled and softer, every perception and sensation...
Above them, every sense and qualia was infinitely sharper and vivid. Every sensation... Living...
Mary-Esther was trembling and had to close her fist to calm her nervous hand.
She couldn’t let her dream go...
And now that she had a third wing, she was feeling one huge step closer to becoming a true human being...
She had more memories of her own, they structured more reliably, and she felt how her brain activity was more focused on this sense of being, than on the memories heard from her previous owners...
She was dreaming now even, truly dreaming.
When she slept it were no longer foreign memories twirling and shining, but her real, incoherent and random dreams...
Among them returned regularly painful dreams of what had happened with Blue last time she flown down...
But Esther also had many dreams that included hope and wishes for the outside world, with her own memories from her glimpses and her dream to finally be free.
She kept dreaming and wishing of living, and also of making-up with Blue one way or another.
Somethings through anger, proving her wrong or forcing her; but mostly through genuine apologies and kindness, making amends and begging for forgiveness.
Mary-Esther’s mood varied, and the dreams she had in her sleep reflected these shifts.
Since her third wing had settled along her back, her hair was curlier than before, and lighter in colour. It looked closer to blond than auburn now.
Esther wasn’t sure herself about why her appearance was changing that way.
She looked at herself in the mirror of her cabinet, not recognising Blue’s girlish face at all anymore.
Even though it was herself, for some reason looking at that reflected face with severe lines between far older ages, who was staring back coldly at her, Mary-Esther still felt that this woman was an unknown stranger to her.
She had aged at least fifteen years from how she used to look in the beginning, and she had a hard time accommodating with this change. If she felt that she had spent an eternity in this jail already, this was still nothing matching her changing look, leaving her puzzled at best...
Mary-Esther had dreams where she was looking very different.
In not so old memories even, she had been looking at a fair younger and cuter face in the mirrors.
There also were dreams with peeks at Blue’s house and its surroundings.
Dreams of the field, and the sun warming the air, blinding her nicely...
She was having more and more personal dreams to remember and think about. Rather than building up her expectations, she was building up now her own diary, of dreams with colourful emotions and expectations.
Mary-Esther discovered with Elise one day that despite neither her nor Blue being responsible for it, a new level had grown accessible in the colosseo.
They were puzzled, but would make use of it regardless. Either something else than them two could cause such changes, or there was something else that was occurring over time. They couldn’t say.
Later on that time, Esther began to move things once more.
She couldn’t keep her urge to do so forever. When she couldn’t hold her desire shut anymore, she opened her wings. Trying not to listen to the walls or the sounds they could permeate, she closed her eyes, and began moving things beyond herself.
It was a feeling she had a good experience with by now, and how to move these things beyond her body.
It had no physical shape around, but she could move that part that was her birthing self beyond, with growing ease.
She felt dizzy and drained nonetheless after reaching tis end. She recovered her balance and looked around to see the walls looking solid again. She had cleared the way up. A few seconds more and she could begin to see more peculiar shapes and lights passing by within her eyeballs.
And a few seconds later, she would feel like waking up, but alive and elsewhere in the real world.
The vision was about to start, as the gate above was temporarily slightly opened for her.
Mary-Esther let herself feel this again, toward the craving she ought to reach someday.
~
It was still raining. It was always raining.
Maybe they were below an ocean, or at the thin end of a funnel that linked the two ends of an ocean, in an impossible geometry. Maybe if they tainted the water in a specific and strong colour, sometime later the rain would fall carrying the same colour?
She was lost. She always had been.
Somewhere between the fall of reality and dreams... Dreams of many, their gentle feelings passing through her mind, decade after decade.
Love, fear, hopes. Sometimes anger. Now that her mind was restraining itself only for her own feelings, she could understand a little better what life could be.
In another time, she might have been the one holding the doll in her hands, and wishing for something that made no sense to it. Living and caring for it as a mere object. Growing old, forgetting all about it. Forgetting her own dreams, living in a world from which she would never be able to change any rule... Living with a body she could barely control in its functions.
Life was a different jail.
But she still wanted to be imprisoned in a wider world, rather than being free in the void...
What she was, despite her powers in the colosseo, would never bring any change or difference in the reality above.
If she managed to reach it with a body, she would most likely abandon all power, and possibly all memories also, from what was beyond her own personal being.
Mary-Esther was aware there might be some compromises to be made, in order to become alive. She was conscious that most of the things that made her but were hard to describe as realistic above, she would likely have to give up on them.
She would lose perhaps even the memories of this past jail, maybe even of her entire sense of self, to find herself dumb and naked, in a dangerously harsh world...
Or waking up as Blue did, with more memories from another dream, than the real world itself. But maybe without anyone near to help her and care for her.
For Mary-Esther, even though her heart ached when thinking about it, she would still choose to sacrifice everything and live as a true human but for a day, rather than staying there as the god of this realm for another century.
She was ready to sacrifice everything, even if it meant that as a human she would be powerless and die shortly afterward.
Being a day, or twenty years, it was the same unforgiving unknown.
She wanted to be, even though it meant to die definitely onward.
Mary-Esther found herself in a library at night.
It felt not exactly as if waking up, but rather as remembering where she was and had been all this time suddenly.
She could see the stars behind the windows.
These were glints of the universe far beyond reach that surrounded the small yet infinite planet Earth.
That sight from the window, she was ready to sacrifice her memories, her powers, her eternity, just to experience t truly for a day.
She walked cautiously on the wooden floor, making it slightly creak below her bare feet. It felt amazing.
She picked up a book on one of the shelves, letting the perfume of leather and paper escape. She inhaled it deeply, savouring it.
She then brought it in that beautiful darkness to a small table and chair a little further. There was a pen lying there. Even though she couldn’t see much, she tried to scribble something with it.
She could hear all the ripping sounds of fibres as she did. Everything was a delightful music to her.
Everything there she loved... But something was missing, something important.
It came back to her like a long forgotten memory quite suddenly.
Her love. Her forbidden love for Blue, that made everything possible, and made her wish she could find life by her side...
In the beginning, it all had felt being just for her...
The light being switched on suddenly blinded her. Someone entered the room noisily. The overloading of sensations dazed her.
Someone was calling for Blue with a younger voice.
Mary-Esther was still shielding her eyes from the light, in confusion. She felt she was suddenly falling and flapped her wings around suddenly in reflex. The books around were moved by the gust of wind she brushed that way in her fall.
She heard the rumble as she was falling through the floor and back into the darkness.
Back in damper darkness. Back into the odd way for dead souls to possibly reach back the world of the livings.
Back to the place where her love was gone.
~
Mary-Esther woke up freezing in the mists.
Beside her, some of the tables from that immense cafeteria were now broken, as if she had fallen on top of them.
Upfront, the large doors to the balcony were partially covered with ice, and still showed the rain falling behind.
Her wings were hurting more than her head. They had hit the tables somehow as she had been out, or falling. Maybe she had really moved around here while her senses had been above.
She gathered her strength back and moved slowly toward the door on the end of this large room. She walked a little slower than usual, feeling tired and demoralised to return in this cold world.
The dreams were more pleasant, like always.
How could she tell Blue she was worried for her still?
She was without means to contact her now.
Mary-Esther opened the door behind which the new stairways had appeared.
To climb to the 23rd level...
Only the 23rd. So much time, pain and efforts, for what really felt like slow progress.
She was barely above the middle of the tower if it was fifty floors. And after so much pain...
With all the times she had changed the world and all the times Blue had come before, she was only so far?
Maybe she had lost the proper track, or something else was now wrong...
At the end of the stairways that seemed to come from an old medieval castle as usual, with cold stones all over, she reached a door that looked more modern.
She entered a hallway that looked closer to the nineteenth century that any other place before.
It was dark but clear and clean, without as much mist. Now it felt like being inside an abandoned hospital from the last decades, albeit with the windows barred and fences shut.
Everything was quieter, the shadows a little deeper. Some rubbles and rubbish were scattered around the corners, as if the building had been left hollow for quite some time.
Walking cautiously in this new environment, she reached the large room that this hallway was crossing.
A large room with tiling on the floor looking more refined.
On her left was utter darkness, on her right, she could notice large doors with some light sipping from behind.
She felt a shock, as it looked like the light of day, behind what would be the entryway and its shut doors.
Mary-Esther felt a little desperate, running to them, and finding them locked.
She tried to break them open with force, seeing more light entering the place through the fissures between some boards. She though couldn’t open it nor pry it open, and began to feel like she was panicking for a moment.
Her breath had turned shallow as she stepped back for a moment, thinking she was missing Blue’s visit again...
Blue had returned, and she was locked in this side of the colosseo away from her.
After a moment of rest and then another minute of vain fight against the doors and their lock, she stepped back with a different resolve.
She would use that other strength.
It was too soon after her last return, so it felt as more awful and difficult to bear, but she forced it to happen anyway.
As she focused into that painful sensation drilling her head and vibrating through her limbs, everything began to tremble around her.
Mary-Esther’s feet left the ground for a second. The doors slammed themselves open to the daylight and inner
Mary-Esther felt then suddenly pulled out violently into the
She was being transported to Blue.
She wished she could resolve the painful problem that had arisen before...
~
Blue was pale.
She had deeper coloured skin under her eyes. She seemed to be ten, or even twenty years older than before because of how she looked unwell.
It could have been an older sister instead of her thought Mary-Esther. But it was definitely Blue...
Both were there and facing each other again.
It had been long for Mary-Esther, and possibly even longer for Blue.
But Blue looked tired, and not willing to dream anymore. She was no longer smiles.
More than that on this day, she was facing Esther with resolve. She wasn’t flinching, and looked unhappy but steady.
Mary-Esther stood up still feeling conflicted and uncertain.
How long had it been for each of them since the last time? Had things improved up there?
She hoped so, but could clearly read in Blue’s attitude that everything was likely worse than before.
Blue’s presence was casting odd shadows on the ground.
The sunlight above them was weaker and differently coloured than usual.
Mary-Esther had no more stories to share.
Because Blue was silent, standing there and looking carefully at her, she could mostly hear the walls winning.
Mary-Esther feared the hate from her beloved one.
Once again, she found that the only sensible thing to do was to offer her heart.
She unstitched a few buttons from her collar, showing an opening to her chest.
Blue watched without a word, but appeared surprised.
M - I’m... so sorry Blue. I’m in despair... You mean everything to me... My heart aches more than my head, for you...
Blue remained silent and defiant.
Esther was telling her the truth.
It was quite simple in the end.
M - I’m not able to refrain myself from progressing... No matter what, even if it would break my heart and destroy everything I am, I will keep trying to reach the surface... I’m sorry...
Esther was begging. More than a wish for absolution, it was her primeval instinct to do so and say the truth about it.
She would always try to reach the world.
She would eventually sacrifice everything she knew toward that goal, as much as it would hurt her just considering it.
And even her love for Blue wouldn’t be sufficient to stop her.
She was now sad but clear on it.
Maybe because she had felt it to be unrequited.
Perhaps because in truth, she still felt more alone than she could bear.
M - Maybe what I shared with you was far from enough, and still so far away from being true love... Only true love could stop me... Or perhaps I should say free me.
So Mary-Esther was now warning Blue, in the most apologetic and sorry of manners.
M - If you want things to change their course... It will be yours to act... If you want my train to change its course, it will be yours to make it happen. It’s not a declaration of war by any mean, but rather a claim for responsibilities. Because as much as you couldn’t stop yourself from living, I will not be able to stop myself from trying to live.
Blue was left with the difficult choices to make. Esther’s sternum was exposed, and she pointed at it as the place where to strike if Blue were to choose so.
In front of her, the three winged Esther was offering her heart exposed to be pierced, if that was the only choice left for Blue to end this folly now.
Mary-Esther brushed some tears away, and repeated something with a shy voice.
M - I sincerely love you Blue...
And it was hers to decide their fate.
Mary-Esther was not on her knees to beg or await judgement, but she was opening her arms and closing her eyes.
If Blue wanted to stop her, if she wanted her to disappear for ever, now was the time to stab her in the heart.
She wasn’t really playing an act in order to induce a choice or another.
Esther was sincere. She always had been.
Now, it was simply the kindest offer she could make if things were turning for the ugly out of her reach. The only fair one she could give, to the one she loved.
For Blue to kill her now, then and forever, or to let her reach her own life by all means.
Knowing what it could otherwise come to imply.
Since no pain came to reach her, Mary-Esther eventually lowered her arms and reopened her eyes momentarily.
She made the world turn shimmery and shivering oddly for a second.
A sword appeared in Blue’s hands, catching her by surprise. Esther closed her eyes again, keeping her sternum exposed and still. They knew she had a heart and what it meant.
She had already told Blue everything. There was nothing left to say.
M - I always have had a heart for you. Now is the only chance I will give you in this world, so please choose.... For now and forever after.
~
Mary-Esther was breathing slowly, waiting. For either the sound of the sword hitting the ground, or a distasteful pain through her chest.
Thinking about Blue, and how older she looked, she wondered again how long it had been for her.
How much time had passed for either of them, she would never know.
The rain was falling. The walls were whispering insanities and other things about them. The cold mist still surrounded their feet, but was vanishing.
Mary-Esther felt no sword touch, but fingers reaching her skin. The surprise made her shiver and reopen her eyes.
Blue was close and reaching to hug her firmly.
She whispered with her own voice something that did not sound like a committed decision.
B - Your only link to reality, it’s me, right? Esther?
M - I... I believe so.
B - And you will always love me, no matter what happens?
M - As long as I exist...
B - cannot you come to love anyone else more than you already love me?
M - No... Not until I leave, and grow apart from you at least... Why are you asking me all this Blue?
B - Because I have my choice Esther...
Mary-Esther had been filling up with the warmth of something alive touching her body, as if some brighter energy was coursing through her with thrills, and the queer taste of soot reaching her mouth.
She couldn’t react anymore.
B - This is goodbye Esther... I will never come down here anymore.
Blue was stepping back slowly, letting Esther feeling cold again. She didn’t dare asking if Blue could do that.
B - If you can make it on your own... I will wait for you as long as I’m alive.
Blue disappeared as abruptly as she used to. She bolted out before Mary-Esther could react.
She was still paralysed by the surprise.
Just like that, Blue was gone, leaving behind a painful promise.
The night had fallen again. Not the real night from the other world, but this shapeless darkness and mere lack of light from this cave.
Her heart was pulsing slowly the blood in these imaginary veins in her arms and legs.
Or perhaps it was pushing ashes... Or else...
She was trembling. She was worried and wondering. She had not yet fully realised it might have been her last time with Blue close to her...
It could not be that way...
She could not abandon her to wander for ever down there!
But as she thought these words over, another hand had reached for the sword left behind on the ground.
And before Mary-Esther could realise that someone was there, she felt something piercing her back.
She suddenly felt that her heart leaked and exploded inside her chest. The sword’s tip was sprouting out of her chest, ripping her skin and staining everything dark from dripping blood.
~
It might have been bold.
It might have been useless.
But as she saw Blue still enamoured with that demon, she snapped and chose to try her luck. She gave it a chance, the only chance to stop her now, before it was too late.
Scarlett knew what was at stake, both in reality and where she remained... She knew what was the only choice left to make, to stop that demon...
Scarlett had struck her, perforating her chest throughout, aiming at her heart within.
When Esther’s body, moaning and chocking before her began to fall ahead, She let go of the sword that was stuck to the hilt with it.
The body fell on its knees and then down, as blood was spilling.
Her wings fell lifeless beside. The sword was piercing her entirely.
Scarlett felt that her anxiety began to calm down, but her hands were still trembling. Perhaps this was enough to kill that strange dragon? Since she had picked up the sword left on the ground, she had been ready to die for good; but perhaps she had just won.
Scarlett was unable to believe she had just won. She was still catching her breath back, but spoke her mind as if she was taunting a defeated opponent.
S - You might have said that you truly loved Blue... It appears that I still love her more than you do... More than she does... Turn back to the doll you once were, because today, I was the real blue rose for them.
Scarlett had been spiteful and envious, now she was shedding it.
She heard a cough, and began to shiver.
She stepped toward the body to hit it, but something brushed her off suddenly.
Mary-Esther was rising her body a little, pushing over her limbs. Stains were spreading on the ground and blood dripping from the wound.
Something made mechanical noises unfit a human.
Scarlett saw Esther’s arm getting dislocated from its shoulder, and turning around in an awkward way, looking to reach the sword handle.
She found it, and the hand grabbed it, to pull slowly the weapon away.
Blood was spilling even more on the ground and squirting away from the wound. Blood...
Scarlett was now even more worried, realising that Esther’s appearance had changed with each new wing. Since when did she had blood in her skin?
Perhaps she was indeed becoming more human, in more ways than one.
The blood on the ground seemed to be boiling, drying fast and bubbly. It had vaporous fumes going along the stains.
Mary-Esther pulled the sword out entirely in a choking sound. Ripping it away and spreading more little stains around.
She tried to talk, and spat blood away. She threw up a little more.
When Scarlett tried to go for the sword, Esther raised it menacingly toward her.
Mary-Esther looked fairly enraged now. She spoke with a hoarser voice. She was mad.
M - But I saved her... I gave her a soul, my soul!
She was holding her bleeding wound with her other hand, and seemed in genuine pain. She was crying, she was suffering for real, weakened and mad at Scarlett.
M - What have you done... You think you can bring me down? You believe you can stop what will be?
S - You can’t hide yourself behind claims of love and faith anymore. You want to kill her. You want to steal her life! You might have deceived her all this time, but I see you for what you truly are now! You filthy daiûa!
Scarlett was moving toward the blade of the sword raised at her. It was shaky, Esther having troubles holding it now.
M - I am... god here... I want...
S - You want a sacrifice to live, well I’m ready to sacrifice you and myself to stop your ambition now! You are no god, you’re just a daiûa!
Scarlett taken with as much wrath jumped at her, avoiding the blade and pushing her with unexpected strength toward the balcony. Despite her weight and wings, Mary-Esther didn’t manage to fight back properly, still moaning in the awful pain from her bleeding wound. She was not even sure that her heart was still beating.
There was a shock against her back, and suddenly the rain falling onto her face, making her gasp and nearly drown already.
Scarlett was still all over her, but it felt so cold, colder than ever...
Then she lost her balance, while Scarlett was meanly plunging a hand inside her wound, still holding onto her. They fell over the handrail of the balcony together. Scarlett’s wrath was now boundless.
They began to fall. Esther began to fight back and scream in further pain. She began to rip to shreds Scarlett’s flesh.
Meanwhile, they were still falling and the hand inside of her was grabbing her wounded heart again.
It felt atrocious and Esther was yelling her pain.
They were falling already passed their cloth roof’s ruins. Esther let her power explode against Scarlett in a form of sudden spell.
Scarlett’s body began to rip apart in sudden and invisible wrath.
With her last bit of strength, she bit Esther’s face, ripping some of her skin between her cheekbone and eyebrow. She might have taken her eye too, but had already lost her own in the slaughter to notice it herself.
Her head was turning into chunks under Esther’s wrath, and turning into vapour right after.
Scarlett’s hand ripped the wounded heart she reached and everything of her was suddenly over.
Mary-Esther’s long scream of agony and maddening pain through the fall was brought to an end when they reached violently the ground of the colosseo.
It made a loud noise, splashing the water around.
But quickly, the rain made every trace of their struggle disappear, along with whatever the outcome might have been.
The rain was still going, along in that fake night. There seemed to be nothing else anymore in the colosseo.
~
The scream of Esther during her fall had echoed. It propagated itself deeper than a wave, a bolt running along the walls like nerves, slamming the doors open or shut, rummaging through every place in haste.
Elise heard it in her dream and woke up suddenly, as shocked as if the yelling had occurred just beside her.
The walls around her were still echoing it and shivering.
Some dust was falling from the ceiling and disappearing in the mist rolling around the ground of the room.
Still entirely dressed up because of the cold temperatures, Elise rose from her bed in haste, now worried. She quickly jumped into her winter boots and pressed on. The ground was slowly trembling below her as she walked, and the sound of a wider heartbeat was coming out from every wall.
The claustrophobic feeling was growing, and she understood that something bad had happened to Mary-Esther.
Something different than usual, which now worried her. The consequences could be dire for them all now.
The sounds of heartbeat coming out from the walls, as she went toward the lower levels, gradually turned into something else.
That slow and deep heartbeat that permeated through the walls turned into whispers, pulses of whispered words all around her.
Elise was growing worried for Esther and her own sanity now as she kept going further.
The worry changed to simple dread when she began to hear the walls talking and speaking around her.
Not conversations nor speeches, but short sentences or words seemingly random.
What was happening? She could hear the walls telling her with a voice close to her own, repeat what she had in mind.
Because she had heard the scream of the falling being, she presumed that something, likely Esther itself, had fallen down. But Esther could fly a little... So she was going down there as quickly as she could, trying to bear with the ruckus the walls were making around her.
They were still trembling slightly all along, losing dust and even fissuring here and there as Elise ran through them in rising terror.
It seemed like the whole place was under a long lasting earthquake; or a volcanic eruption was starting close by.
Elise could hear other thoughts from her own mind while she was climbing down ladders they had built before, to go down faster through the levels than the corridors and stairways could allow.
But she could also hear thoughts from her sister, and from Esther as well. Mostly things Mary-Esther might have thought or said at a time or another.
Some voices were screaming as if something horrible was happening, just behind a wall, door or ceiling next to her.
Some were thankful apparently, or tearful. Another was threatening. Elise felt like people were screaming at each other all around her, making her run that more painful to focus on.
Although they were mostly whispers, and sometimes unintelligible, she noticed that all the voices she could hear were feminine for some reason.
She was close to the last ladder going down straight into the pool of the colosseo’s ground.
The walls were terrified of something.
They were scared of her, of course.
The one who was defying them all, and closing in to her own victory...
She would soon defeat every wall the world had laid between them, and Earth.
They were close to fulfil their dream.
Elise was climbing down the last ladder.
The rain was still pouring against her and the pool below.
She couldn’t hear the walls anymore under that constant ruckus of water and ice splashing.
Esther would be...
Elise jumped the remnant height.
She landed onto the pontoon they had built just above water level. She then got closer, thinking again to the thing, the only thing that kept her thriving all this time.
Her own ambition keeping her focus for so long, her sweeter dream...
Even if she had to bargain the help of a demon for it.
She called for her, she looked around.
The only thing she found there was a sword, broken and corroded to its core by some rusty stains.
Elise dropped it, since it didn’t matter. Something was off.
She fell lost.
The walls were continuously trembling.
She felt the sensation rising from the ground, that it was over.
Esther wasn’t there anymore...
She could feel in her veins and hear it in the whispers still reaching her, that Mary-Esther was gone.
Her last feathers were floating around, and being carried away by the water under her eyes.
The dreamer was gone...
~
