06 ~ 10th of February, 1921

She heard the sounds of splashing waves against a shore or something still. Maybe there was a boat obscuring the sight.

A - During the 18th day of September 1890, the ship was overcome by a storm and broke against the reefs...

M - It sank? What happened to them?

A - I recall that five hundred and thirty three lives were lost that day...

M - Was there any survivor?

A - There were sixty nine survivors... Or seventy.

M - ... What happened next?

~

The nightmare was washed with the sounds of an angry sea. A night of screams and painful agonies, overwhelmed by the waves... And a last scream heard as if it was right next to her.

Mary-Esther suddenly woke up from her bad dream.

She had still that painful and clear picture in mind, of a broken ship and wavy waters everywhere at night. There was no longer floor or safety anywhere.

Only pieces of a world that had died, scattering, and leaving its children to die, hopeless.

The world below her feet suddenly betraying her...

It was a terrifying feeling, that sensation of falling into nothing...

She breathed the end of this nightmare away.

Mary-Esther was now awaken, and these painful pictures fading rapidly.

A new day began, and she stood up with a renewed bit of strength.

~

Once dressed, she immediately went outside of her room. Upon opening the door, a bright morning sight blinded her. She protected her eyes for a moment with her arm as she left the dim room behind.

The fiery sky brought quite a sharp light inside the wagon. Still sensitive in her eyes, she began to walk squinting, keeping a hand along the handrail.

She could hear the sound of the rolling train, never stopping nor slowing down. Now that she thought about it, it had never got close to any station in days.

She had already given up on the idea this train would eventually stop in a bustling city with people that would help her. She was locked in this place currently, like in a jail. That was likely the reality.

Her sight adjusting, she began to look with some hunger for freedom outside the train.

The never ending landscape was different from the day before, but it was only British countryside. There were fields and hills, with houses from time to time. Some flocks too. They weren’t in the highlands yet to her surprise.

Toward the horizon, a cold white sky was illuminating and shrouding everything. It was quite a strong light on this morning time. She had never seen such a white blaze before, filling most of the sky and dimming the horizon line.

Mary-Esther was feeling warmer just standing there, the light reaching her face and hands. It was a summer sky surely, and quite a warm one. A summer day... This thought reminded her of a sweet memory from her youth, with her father along with her. It brought a bittersweet smile to her lips now.

She let that memory fade away too, and headed toward the messy restaurant as she called it. The doors were locked this time however. Maybe it was a day off for the children she thought. That day was an odd one already.

Mary-Esther went to the other side and end of the train. The two corridors ended with doors, normal doors. The one she was reaching wasn’t locked thankfully, and she could go to the real end before this wagon.

It was a staircase shaped a s half cylinder, making the two exterior walls of the train merge into one before her.

A marble staircase was heading downstairs following the meeting walls, parting symmetrically from each door on her level.

Looking up, she noticed the ceiling was at its usual height, so the floor above probably held a kind of terrace as she suspected.

From the centre of the ceiling, a heavy looking chain was holding an impressive chandelier at mid height between the two floors. The large structure of crystals was even bigger than she was tall.

There was no window in that place, but the sumptuous and huge work of glass and art was illuminating the place like fragments of the sun would. It was catching her gaze.

Mary-Esther took the white stones staircase toward the second floor, still gazing absentminded at the bright chandelier along each of her steps. She almost fell into the small fountain beneath it, failing to look where she stepped.

After regaining her balance from the bump, she looked around and less upward. Two doors were set below the ones of the third floor. It was probably another level of rooms behind them.

Mary-Esther opened the left door slowly, hearing the noise of the train getting louder. A warm air caught her.

She stepped inside a rather dirty and desolate corridor.

Overall she had guessed right, since it was the same layout as on the floors above. It was the same kind of place, with identical furniture set everywhere. However this place was in no condition to welcome any customer. It was devastated.

The vases, chairs, frames and end tables were crushed against the rotting wood of the walls. Most of the windows were cracked, broken or simply missing. These countless holes left the wind and noises rushing in loudly.

She walked carefully in, stepping onto the damp carpet, with all the colours around her going wrong because of humidity and mould. Mushrooms and other stains were growing along corners.

She stepped onto a myriad of glass pieces from the windows and lamps. Along the corridor, the doors to the rooms were all broken or rotting down. Some walls had holes wide enough for someone to look through. The wallpapers inside the rooms were coming off tattered.

That place was a ruin. An old ruin. Though for once, she wasn’t feeling much discomfort because of where she was. She remembered playing along the ruins of abandoned houses in the neighbourhood when she was much younger. Abandoned farms or semi industrial suburbs, surrounded by endless fields. After decades of wind and rain without anyone to care, these places always had a certain charm to her.

Also the air was warmer in there, nicely cooled by the wind. Along with the bright light of day coming in, it helped her feel a little warmer inside. She wouldn’t say she felt safe in there, but this was still bringing back some nostalgia.

She didn’t find anything especially interesting or useful among the wrecks of this floor. She looked around whilst continuing her way rapidly toward the next airlock. She was reaching the floor below the messy restaurant.

To her surprise behind this door was another opposite of the floor above. This restaurant was clean and tidy. In that one, no kid had been set free to go wild she thought. The tables were laid neatly and the light was sparkling across every glass, silverware and bottles. Clean and crystalline glassware and shining cutlery she didn’t dare disturbing herself. It was a pretty welcoming place, which only lacked the properly groomed waiter. His absence made the place look somewhat haunted to her eyes, giving the scene an unexpected gravitas.

She had no reason to stay there, feeling it wasn’t a place for her and so pressed forward. Mary-Esther opened cautiously the door leading to the stairways compartment. There was no evidence that any ash fiend had ever got there at all now she saw.

She didn’t look around too much in details, as she needed now to muster her courage to go across the fragile looking suspended corridor. She had to from where she was.

She first tried the doors on the first floor, but found them both locked tight, forcing her to cross that bridge to go elsewhere.

She took her time to steady her breathing, and then getting some confidence, looking at the bright sky waiting outside. Finally she walked ahead, holding the handrail rather tight.

Nothing happened as she walked. By all she could observe it was a normal and peaceful day.

She reached the door of the pitch-dark floor from before. In there it was the same as before.

She knew there was nothing to fear in there and therefore went more easily through.

Following her steps from the previous day, she went through the kitchen and then the greenhouse. That bright garden was now feeling much warmer and dry. She continues retracing her steps rapidly through it and then the wagon of offices, however this time she tried the end door from the first floor.

It was not locked, and through this airlock she reached the eighth wagon and its rooms.

She had taken a detour but ended up making a similar journey from yester.

She continued this path looking forward to reach new places and passed the next airlock at the end of the floor. There she found greener sights.

Mary-Esther entered the garden with a slight worry and indiscernible shiver.

As if the air had suddenly turned slightly colder. The walls were mostly made of glass again, with only the thinnest of metallic frame like in the greenhouse. But it was still mostly fresh air surrounding her, as she was walking over fallen leaves. What disturbed her more than being in another greenhouse, was how much colder the air was in there, and the colours bluer. The trees had no leaves and the few shrubs were looking prepared for winter.

These colours around her were the ones of Autumn.

Looking around her, turning over in this garden, she could see the depictions of brown hues, dry reddish leaves and cooler tones. She could see the flower beds empty, and walk on dry leaves and darker earth around.

Mary-Esther thought for a moment she heard a different music of wind flowing through grass and hills, but it was probably coming from a gust outside.

Everything in here was still and calm where she was. Only the landscape behind the slightly foggy glass walls kept changing, and nothing inside.

Still slightly concerned about this difference with the first garden, she headed toward the door at the end again, only to find its handle broken and unable to open. From this dead end she headed back to the stairs of the offices wagon.

~

Mary-Esther tried to reach the garden wagon on the second floor, but here too the door meant to access it was either locked or jammed. Since she could remember another door being locked on the fourth level as well, she had to go through the only one left to proceed further.

Passing close to the room where she had found the broken egg, she didn’t pay attention to it, not thinking about it anymore truly. Right now she was only curious about what next lied ahead.

She entered what she would nickname the Spring garden. She stood stunned for a while when discovering it.

It looked every inch the same, exactly the same as the Fall garden. She could recognise every tree, every branch, and every aspect of it. But the season wasn’t the same. The air was softer, the grass was green and everything was in buds or early blossoms. The greens were more vivid and even the smells were sweeter.

The flower beds that caught her attention before were now brimming with various autotrophic creatures.

Most of which were already colourful flowers below her. Some were even perfumed ones. It was a beautiful springtime all around.

Mary-Esther couldn’t think anymore. What she saw was impossible, and yet there she was, struck.

She touched a little everything around, just to make sure that everything was real. Everything she inspected was, there was no makeshift sculpture in anything. It was surely real.

However still knowing these pleasant sights and moment were there made her feel sad.

If this was real, then everything else might also be true...

Clenching on the crumbling stems or leaves she picked, she thought back to how her parents left her behind.

She thought how this never-ending travel in a monstrous wolf train was her world now. Along with the strange girls, and the chicken monsters.

She asked herself how lost she could be, wanting to doubt the sensations between her hands and before her eyes.

She had no one left, and nothing here she truly knew or loved...

Looking up at the garden around her again, she only had the vague feeling that something either incredibly happy or awfully sad was going to happen to her. She enjoyed imagining stories, and was still trying to find the meaning of hers in this place.

Mary-Esther didn’t linger in this doubts of springtime much longer and went further. She left the garden that stirred some unclear emotions in her, and entered the tenth wagon. This was another set of staircases, albeit different from the third wagon.

Here a large tree took up most of the room, its roots covering most of the first floor, while the top leaves and branches reached nearly the doors on the fourth floor. The stairways and catwalks with thin handrails were built to circle around the tree everywhere.

Again a tree within a train, puzzling her senses of logic and wonder.

Mary-Esther had slightly more confidence with those suspended bridges or corridors as they at least had a wall for them unlike before.

She climbed nervously her way towards the fourth floor just above, now expecting to find another copy of the same garden, trying to follow the logic she could guess for this place. Winter or summer?

She found winter. The garden was cold, snowy and shrouded with a thick fog. She could find ice crystals over the windows. The ceiling above was translucent and she almost expected to see snowflakes falling from the sky. They didn’t but it was still surreal.

She got closer to a window and wiped a part of it clear with her sleeve. Her steps over the fresh snow felt real.

Outside however, she could still see the same landscape as before or below passing by.

Mary-Esther finished looking around this place covered with snow and fog, feeling uneasy. It was a little too white and cold for her. She had been getting used to the warmer colours and shades from the guts of the train. Now this freezing winter garden felt too foreign and stretching her feeling of grasping what could be real. She didn’t push this feeling further where it felt wrong and left.

She was not fond of winter.

Mary-Esther climbed down the stairs around the tree down to the second floor. She was curious about the last one now, which should host a better season for her soul. She entered it with some excitement. The happiest moments of her life were associated with summer.

The door from the airlock opened itself to what she expected. The warmth alone and all the smells reached her before she even stepped inside. Vivid colours, charming perfumes and softer things to feel and express.

It was her favourite place now, or time of the year perhaps.

As she was walking with some childish relief and more mature soothing satisfaction in that painting, something happened.

It was hidden at first, in that rich scenery where the heat of every object and living being was melting into the air. She saw it in a corner of her sight, something strange and unrealistic.

Her heart was throbbing unusually faster now, feeling unsteady. Her sight was going a little out of focus or blurry at each stronger pulse. In the midst of this, something was happening to her.

She was looking around the ceiling, wondering if she was seeing it right.

The red glow of the ceiling’s pattern was circling around her sight as if blood was slowly filling her eyes. The pink and reddish colours were getting brighter in abstract manners. She was feeling sickly and dizzy now, probably from the sudden heat after her cooling in winter she thought. However she couldn’t stop looking in front and upward from her, to the colourful flowery ceiling. It was moving to her eyes.

The colours were getting darker and deeper in her opening eyes. Hints of purple shifts from the previous crimsons turned to blue spots, and from there appeared other lines outlining the flowers.

Her gaze was widely opened at the new hints of that unusual colour appearing. Her heart had stronger jolts inside her chest. Blue shades were growing above her.

Slowly, the crimson and madder had turned purple, and their replacing blue drops were blooming brighter. A blue ink was flowing like smoke up there, slowly growing. The blue drawing was gradually replacing every other hue on the ceiling, but moreover it was also escaping it, spreading into the air below.

Something alive looking was appearing above her.

Mary-Esther was feeling dizzy and stun from the hallucinatory show that occurred just above her head. She felt like the heat had beaten her over the head a little too much, and now feeling unsteady on her feet.

Still she couldn’t stop watching the thing that was now appearing into thin air above and ahead of her. It was like observing the complete blossoming of a flower that would have grown upside down from that ceiling, away from that deep sky of blood coloured rugs.

Mary-Esther was hypnotised, her heartbeat continuing to increase and being felt as if something passionate for her was happening. Her legs betrayed her however and she finally began falling.

Somehow she felt her fall as happening very slowly, silently and softly, as if she had little or no more weight for her at all.

She didn’t fight back, letting herself lie powerless in the grass, still able to look at the colourful puff of smoke condensing into a blue shape.

It did not felt as something unrealistic or hallucinatory happening, but rather as if a long hearted dream was finally being granted to her by god. Something tremendous to her soul was now happening beyond her compression. Something she couldn’t name yet but instinctively understood as being of primal and ultimate importance to her.

Something growing bluer and wider she could not look away from as it appeared. As if her life had been really at stake for that moment.

She raised her arms, feeling heavier than ever, toward the growing thing... She could almost recognise it, beginning to remember what it truly was.

She had parts of herself and her mind growing ever so rapidly now, filled with happiness and hope. A light was growing within her chest she could feel. She was looking toward what was going to hatch with so much emotion she could cry.

Main aspects of the apparition were still eluding her awareness and memories, but it was all reappearing so fast, she would soon know.

She had been separated from it for such a long and lonely time...

It had been too long a time... Far more than days... Maybe years? Perhaps even longer?

The answer would eventually return, but she couldn’t quite control anything from herself anymore on that moment of reunion.

Her body and her emotions were going wild, unable to move or react as she intended.

Yet she felt incredibly happy, her being suddenly overfilled with abstract bliss, a joy that didn’t make any proper sense in this train.

She was losing all grasp with reason she could feel, but in a form of heart warming joy beyond her current cognition.

Mary-Esther was passing out, still looking as long as she could at that moving blue thing.

Her sight became a blur and her mind blank of constructed thoughts. In that silent moment of summer heat, nothing from the train could be felt anymore. Everything had just been purified.

She eventually heard some rustle in the grass near her. Someone or something walking softly, the grass being pressed under these steps and free after.

There was a memory of something dearest to her getting close. She leant her head on that side, smiling like rarely before.

She was so happy it was there again.

She spoke spontaneously, hers words coming naturally. She didn’t realise she even was saying those words before hearing them as well.

M - I’m so glad to have you here with me.

Her voice sounded softer, filled with a renewed confidence and cheer. She didn’t quite visualised yet who she was speaking to, but her heart knew with confidence, for the first real time. Enough for her to speak again softly.

M - I have missed you so much...

Mary-Esther felt like she was about to cry again, even if her sight had not yet returned. That feeling of being finally reunited after an eternity spent apart was flowing inside of her.

M - Welcome back, Blue...

She felt a gentle touch on her hand before she completely fell unconscious.

Whatever Blue was, it had come back for her, at last. At very long last.

Wherever the real destination for herself and this train could be.

Whenever the real time of year she was actually coursing through was...

The most important thing to her very being had just returned to her.

Mary-Esther would wake up next, and where or when that was would be less worrisome than before; since Blue would be by her side.

The girl lied unconscious in the grass of the lush garden. She was still harbouring a smile.

The beak of the large bird of prey near her was poking her hand now limp.

The feathers were blue, from head to tail, varying from ultramarine to Prussian.

The bird stepped closer and sat to sleep as well.

Blue would next awake along with Esther...

~