05.

A - On June 7th 1890, the wonderful ship reached the shores of Japan. The Ottoman commander was to visit the imperial family, in order to express the Sultan’s gratitude for a previous visit of the Japanese prince.

M - So they liked each other?

A - Well... You can say that a kind of friendship began between them at the time. But some other turns of events eventually become the unexpected roots for far stronger bonds.

M - Something else occurred?

A - Yes... On the 15th of September, the same year...

~

The dream faded away as she opened her eyes. Her childhood voice asking questions and a slower and deeper voice telling something like a lesson.

The last thing she could have heard was already slipping away too far from her. As if the person speaking had suddenly left the train, in the middle of a spoken sentence.

Ertu... What was that name again? The frigate which left Japan that day...

She couldn’t quite remember, but she heard of it in the past.

Mary-Esther stood up and withstood a moment of vertigo before leaving the large office behind.

She feared she might have slept for too long again. Reaching the corridors and windows peering outside, she noticed she might have. She could see the sunset lights showing on the other side.

The day was gone unwillingly, and there was little time left before the night.

If she could remember only one thing Scarlett told her here, it was to beware what would appear then.

Something that could endanger her life... From Scarlett herself or nightmares.

She didn’t want to give credit to either of her irrational fears now growing wild. She took a deep breath and chose to go further instead. To push and explore a new place felt more right to her.

Mary-Esther wanted to prove herself she was a little more brave against these odds.

Though it wasn’t a complete surprise, the doors on both ends of this floor were locked. She therefore went back downstairs, entering the third level of offices.

This time, she entered each office and looked briefly around for the precious egg. Every office was looking the same and like one another. Without anything hint at where it could be, she still wasn’t willing to just put every place upside down.

However seeing how much each room carried similar architecture and furniture on every level began making her feel uneasy. There was no clue either that would lead her to believe there might be someone else around, despite the lit rooms and corridors.

Mary-Esther headed further to the eight wagon. Night was falling, but nothing worrying was still to be observed.

In this new space she found a layout very similar to the first one, with two rows of rooms and corridors running along the windows on each wagon’s sides. Another passenger’s car.

Some were locked, some were shut so tight she couldn’t move even the handle. Some were open and empty.

And then, one was different.

Once inside, it looked like the room was bigger than the others. It probably was an optical illusion.

There were colourful paintings on the walls catching her attention.

They appeared really strange to her, as they did no portray anything. They were odd and uneven mixtures of colours that didn’t looked like even remotely to anything real. And yet, they were leaving a strong impression. A vivid feeling came out from these paintings showing nothing clear.

Mary-Esther looked around with more curiosity. This room had more personality than any other, and some interesting things to see. It was lively for her.

She could notice some clothes lying around in a basket, a bin with some rubbish in it.

Some antiquities like a bronze sword were hanged along the walls, between the paintings that illuminated the place like windows to an otherworldly scenery.

On a desk, amongst scattered papers and pens, she found a small raw wooden box left open.

Inside, she found fragments of what might have been a porcelain glassware. Mary-Esther picked a fragment to look more closely at it.

It wasn’t a real piece of egg, but might have come from a ceramic sculpture of one, and was finely decorated.

Looking at it and the others, she could picture a rather pretty object of art, but it was now shattered.

Mary-Esther did not feel especially bad about it. Although it was a shame to see a work of art reduced to broken pieces, she didn’t care that much about it directly.

However now that night had fallen, she began to worry a little about what might now occur.

Since she had found the egg, she chose to bring it back, even if it was in pieces. She took the box under one arm and left the warm room.

She went back quietly toward the offices, under a dimmer light. Nothing happened on her way back through the wagon of offices, nor through the greenhouse at night.

Outside the garden windows, the scenery was now fully into the night.

She walked a little faster through the first floor of the kitchen and through its cold mist.

She passed next to the fireplace where embers still glowed. She was getting closer to the door of the back airlock then.

She heard the sound of the meeting of water and fire, of a pouring poured over flames making noise and smoke, startling her. Mary-Esther stopped walking, as the place was now dark around her. The embers were replaced by a warm cloud. She felt nervous, now holding onto the box a little tighter, feeling concerned.

She thought she heard the sound of someone falling onto the ground somewhere far, really far... Listening carefully in the now dark room, she began hearing another noise.

A strange continuous noise, like the sound of heavy sand gradually poured above a floor.

Mary-Esther turned around and began to walk backward anxiously toward the door. Behind the large shrouded fireplace, she could almost see something moving.

The sound of falling sand, or waves of sand rustling around, it became louder before it suddenly stopped.

Something spooking her was walking toward her, getting closer.

She was almost at the door herself.

She saw its silhouette drawn in the dark and began to panic.

The colourless ashes had taken life, now as if light did not matter to it.

It looked like some large chicken or bipedal creature with stumpy legs, walking clumsily toward her one strange step after another.

It had legs wider than they were long, making her think of stuffed animals for children under more normal circumstances. But as she was in the childish nightmare, she felt the cold shivers of terror gradually coursing her back.

She didn’t wait for the thing to come closer and left hastily.

The next wagon behind the locked airlock door was as pitch dark as before.

But she wasn’t feeling oppressed by that darkness, so she could swiftly jog across, following the faint glow above the other end door.

She went into the noisy following airlock and began to feel a little safer and relieved.

Mary headed toward the stairways without paying attention.

Only she suddenly realised those grey chicken of a sort were already around and everywhere, invading the place like a swarm of gigantic bugs. She screamed and dropped the box.

They were moving all over the floor and stairs ahead of her, everywhere. She clumsily bent and looked for the box with her hand in a moment of growing panic, while looking at those moving things.

They were a slow swarm, moving clumsily between and over one another with their strange legs as teddy bears would.

She grabbed the box and decided to run her way through the only path still mostly open, toward the door above.

These things didn’t look feral or dangerous like wild animals, without arms, claws or even jaws to be seen, but they were monstrosities still scaring her a lot. Because these things couldn’t exist. And they reminded her of bugs in their awful number.

She was feeling sick enough to vomit and scared enough to begin running, managing to hold herself up.

At each and every step among and between the growing number of crawling things, she was feeling her heart painful as if it was about to burst within her chest.

Each step echoed through her heart. In her panic, she felt as if she was crossing a little more of a dripping hell released there.

And if she would be unlucky enough to collapse or even die there, she would be tormented again by these things for ever and ever... She would remain trapped and suffer in this hell for ever if she were to stop.

Even though she didn’t know what they might do and what they really could not, she was too scared to think about it rationally.

The climbing of the stairs was almost done. She felt her blood boiling and couldn’t hear anything anymore, panicking. She might have imagined it, but had the awful impression they were all shrieking around her, a crescendo to petrify her. The sounds were growing so close, it was almost getting inside her head.

Mary-Esther tripped and fell on the ground near the door.

Her hand crushed one of the things without feeling any flesh. The thing turned on impact into a pile of dusts, spraying smoke into small clouds over and around her.

There was no blood thankfully, or horrendously.

Mary-Esther coughed in the smoke, feeling more disgusted in a way than if she had indeed crushed a real animal.

She crawled and stood up through the smoke and filth covering her clothes and face. She had inhaled some much to her horror. She would have screamed, but rushed to the door instead. Her eyes stinging from dust, she opened the door with her free hand and managed to leave and lock the insanity behind her.

~

The box partially crushed from her previous fall below her arm, she burst into the messy restaurant in a puff of smoke. She was breathing heavily and leaving trails of scattering smoke as if something had been burning behind.

She staggered slowly toward the chairs in the middle of the place, hardly able to breathe properly.

Her eyes were hurtful and her awareness hazy. She couldn’t see nor quite say where she was.

Mary-Esther fell close to the chair she had briefly figured out. She crawled onto it, thankful to realise she was away from immediate danger here.

She tried to get her breath back while she could.

She was about to cry, but no tear ever came, her eyes feeling painfully dry and hurtful.

While she was blinking over and over again, brushing her eyes and coughing her dust, she gradually got more glimpses of her surroundings.

Eventually she realised someone was leaning against a table, contrasting her silhouette with the white tablecloth. Scarlett was gawking at her just there.

Mary-Esther felt a cold chill running through her back when she realised Scarlett had been there.

Maybe she had been waiting for her.

She waited until Mary-Esther was able to pay attention at the very least. Scarlett was looking down on her.

When she finally spoke, her voice had a ring betraying many uneven or conflicting emotions. Mary-Esther couldn’t say which one was prevailing.

S - Look at yourself... How could you be so late and so dirty? What were you thinking! I told you to come back before the night!

M - So it was... because of those things?

S - Yes!

Scarlett had shouted as if she was in despair.

M - I thought you were... Only trying to scare me... Or threatening me.

Scarlett’s face ashened. She wasn’t showing any emotion anymore, but clearly had them in turmoil within herself.

She replied calmly, slowly.

S - You think I would like it to watch you die? You’re disgusting Esther... And no matter what you think of us, no matter what you say... You’re still precious and dear to us...

~

The mood improved slowly after. Scarlett at least seemed to have her inner turmoil settling down.

S - Anyway... Why were you gone for so long? Where have you been?

M - I’m not sure. I got a bit lost you could say. This place is queerly huge.

S - You will get used to it, don’t worry... Is that what I think it is?

M - I...

Mary-Esther lifted meekly the box toward her hands. Scarlett too it softly and opened it. She gasped.

Mary-Esther was looking away, embarrassed and sorry. She noticed how dust kept falling around from her clothes and hair at each of her movements and breath.

Scarlett was trembling.

She screamed. She yelled at her. She lost it and cursed Esther by painful names.

She who apparently broke her egg. She who had to play with her precious memento and break it.

Before Mary-Esther could find a way to reply or explain, Scarlett had begun crying, still yelling at her. She then didn’t hear the meek replies. Esther’s replies grew more timid as they were crushed under aggressive denial.

Scarlett accused her again, with rougher anger in the voice, breaking then into tears in front of her.

Mary-Esther was unable to move, stunned by the violent outburst and display.

Scarlet rushed away, keeping the box with her, still crying.

When the door closed and her silhouette vanished, Mary-Esther was left alone again, confused and sorry.

She was still trembling, and a cold sweat had grown to cover her skin meanwhile. She remained sitting for a few more minutes before she tried standing on her shaky legs.

She tried to make her way to regain her room as well.

~

With the night outside the train and the calm around her, there was nothing else than the quite distant rumble of the train to hear. For a moment it felt actually so quiet and still, that she thought she wasn’t in a moving train at all.

Somewhere else at night, where you could scarcely hear a train passing in the distance.

Somewhere else... As she opened her eyes again, she wished she was somewhere else.

The flower pattern of the ceiling looked more orange with that dim yellowish glow. It was warmer. She was feeling something she couldn’t describe nor really understand.

Lines of colours would have magically floated through the place, from points in a wall to others, filling the place with vivid random threads, she would have felt the same. A touch of concerning surreal floating around her.

A mixed feeling of wonder and fear. She had the feeling she didn’t truly know anymore what was real or who she really was. She felt as if she was forgetting things, but wasn’t able to realise what she had forgotten.

At least she could still recall her name.

She was Mary-Esther Herson. And she was born on the 27th of November 1906. And her parents had abandoned her weirdly a few days ago...

Had they forgotten about her? Was this place doing something to their memories? Making the mementos of the past they had brought ever so more important and precious.

Her parents did seem to her as if they had simply forgotten they ever had a doughter...

Maybe there was a medicine to cure that she hoped. She felt able to cook any medicine if it ever existed. She was pretty confident in her cooking skills. All she required to succeed were the proper tools, ingredients, and the recipe...

Mary-Esther was feeling sleepy, realising her mind had already wandered off into dreaming about cooking various fantastic things. The kitchens of her meandering thoughts turning into alchemical laboratories from East and West.

Before returning toward her room, she went back to the shower room, unable to bear the amount of filth accumulated. She undressed herself there and found her clothes as dirty as if they had rotten in a rocky field for years maybe.

It was hard to believe that only one poultry fiend could do so much damage to clothing. The same dress had looked pristine in the morning, and now good to turn into rags.

She cleaned herself from the remains of ash stuck on her hair and skin, but didn’t bother trying to wash the dress. She was too tired for such hard work now. She had her old dress waiting for her there anyway.

Soon after, she finally entered the room that now was hers. It was still an uneasy feeling to think of this cabin as a form of home now. After entering it and locking the door behind, she noticed something was there on the small bedside table or tiny desk. She didn’t understand why Scarlett’s box was there. Opening the lid, she saw the broken egg still lied inside.

Mary-Esther was puzzled about it again. Why would Scarlett leave that in her care? Was it a sign of forgiveness or despise? Unfortunately she couldn’t tell and only doubt. It felt like that was often the case with Scarlett.

The cold fire girl was gone with the answers.

Mary-Esther sighed and gave up, closing the lid of the box.

~