08.

That tale meant so much to her...

A - In a far, far eastern country, there is this legend saying that if an item has been kept precious and loved for over a hundred years, it will gain a soul, and a life on its own.

M - Truly?

A - Well... That is what your father told me... When he gave it to me.

This is what he believed in.

M - Gülnihal? But then, how old is it now?

Another voice’s echo was asking the same question a different way.

How old is that thing anyway?

~

Mary-Esther remembered something she had forgotten for a long time. It was a name, an oddly important name. The name of that boat she kept seeing paintings of, all around this place.

She woke up suddenly with that remembrance, saying it aloud while her heartbeat of surprise hurt her.

M - Ertuğrul... Blue, I remember it now. Blue?

She looked around herself. She wasn’t in the airlock anymore, spooking her.

Mary-Esther found herself lying in a dark green grass with bluer tones. It was a cold garden, with white mist floating above and darker looking plants. The lights and shadows were making stronger contrasts than ever.

Mary-Esther was finding herself in an autumnal garden as she sat, but not in the one from before. It wasn’t the ninth wagon.

There was no tree at all here, but a few metallic arches covered by then climbing brambles. Green claws or sharp but still tentacles, covered with thorns. They were rosebushes, though without any flowers nor leaves. She could only see these plants frozen in slumber around this garden.

Mary-Esther stood up with difficulties, her back from shoes to hair now soaking wet. She saw she had unknown bruises and scratches too here and there. She coughed and felt like she was about to vomit from unease.

How she got to that place scared her being unknown. And more importantly, where was Blue?

She called it, now shivering and scared. She had never been in that wagon yet she also thought. Where was she?

Thankfully Blue appeared, standing on an arch behind her. It shrieked and jumped its way toward her. In a short flight that made her mood rise at the same speed, it landed on her risen arm, flapping its large wings quite strongly to stabilise itself.

She was smiling with relief at first, but the pain of the talons strangling and piercing through her cold arm was making the smile harder to keep. As much as she wanted to stay strong for this, she had to find something to protect her arm.

Mary-Esther coughed, fighting off a marine nausea, and talked to Blue happily.

Although it couldn’t respond, she asked it where they were. She was more thinking aloud than seriously asking the bird though.

She turned around, discovering again fully this cold garden, with lines of empty bushes against the walls, biding their time for a spring that would likely never come. The arches were all covered with climbing species of what was very much likely roses. There was an amusing difference between the tidy knee high bushes, and the ever stretching climbing ones.

Mary-Esther asked herself what could have brought them there. She had hoped not to live the painful of experience of waking up in a place she had no recollection seeing before. It was awful to realise it had happened to her.

And now that she coughed, she thought her body possibly caught a cold because of it also.

Mary-Esther got closer to one of the windows covered by a dense layer of fog.

She wiped the misted glass of the window close to her using her free hand and sleeve to look more easily outside.

She wasn’t sure about how grey the sky colour was because of the glass, but the weather had apparently turned.

The landscape outside had changed slightly, now showing some pine trees. As they looked almost the same all year long, she couldn’t tell for sure what time of the year it could now have been outside.

With a closer look at the height above the ground outside, she could at least guess she was on the first floor of another wagon. But which one?

She slowly recalled and numbered every one of those she had visited. She was whispering what she recalled doing so, looking absent minded at the humid grass between her shoes.

She counted the places she knew, the floors and wagons discovered. She had not been yet on a few floors for some of them.

Before she had last fallen after the rain on her, she seemed to recall seeing a stairway after that airlock space. Maybe she was below the sawmill, or even further.

Before resuming her journey toward the front of the train, she first wanted to return to a place she already knew.

Making this connection would reassure her a little.

She coughed and walked toward the rear door. The grass was freezing her wet feet. She was glad the door was opening at least. But she couldn’t help but wonder with a shiver what or who had opened the door before to allow her in...

She was worried it might have been herself.

She was hoping it wasn’t the case, but she also hoped that no one would be evil enough to carry her around like that while she was unconscious...

Given the circumstances, she felt there was no possibly satisfying outcome.

~

Passing the airlock, her chest continued to hurt her. Her heart was really painful physically. Had she hurt herself? She recognised that kind of pain as the kind you get from overworking and too little rest... But that couldn’t happen for the heart muscle, right? This soreness.

Mary-Esther pushed the heavy door that led to the fourteenth wagon, unaware. It was a new staircase wagon linking every floor. It was very similar to the first one, except that the door she just used was locked back there. So she guessed it could be another wagon.

She was on the first floor as she had guessed. That little truth wasn’t of much help in the wider situation, but knowing she could rightfully guess some little things at least gave her some comfort. She giggled sadly over it. Little things could still be understood logically. Just the little things.

Blue suddenly flew away to her surprise, to vanish up through the stairways. At first stunned by the surprise, and then the pain in her arm, she then climbed up to follow it.

On the third floor, Blue landed on the handrail near the rear door. Mary-Esther got closer to it, slowly catching her breath back, still massaging her left arm with her other hand.

She could see through the window of this door and the other end of the airlock, a tiny spot of muddy and burnt greenhouse. She could recognise the place from out there, that was enough for now.

She stepped closer to Blue and sat against the barrier facing it. The bird was looking around quietly, perhaps waiting for her next words or orders.

Mary-Esther talked a moment to Blue as if she was only stating random thoughts, doing little chatter. She told it that she felt awful with all that dampness sticking to her. She told it that she was possibly now falling sick because of it.

Then after having rested there for a while, she asked Blue if they should continue to look around and further.

Blue let a short shriek escape its opening beak. Esther smiled earnestly, taking it for an agreement.

It was just like it had answered her after all.

M - Alright then... Let’s continue, Blue...

Mary-Esther breathed out for a long time. The pain in her chest was calming itself as the cold air grew a different bite on her. It was truly getting chilly in this place now. She had to dry herself and clothes before her condition would worsen. She stood up unsteadily, seeing the colours of her dress turning darker and weirder because of the moist and dirt.

She called Blue and lifted her left arm, bracing herself.

The bird jumped swiftly toward her. The sharp pain strangely brought her some snappy strength back. That was an unpleasant feeling, but she was able to start moving now. She was a little anxious that she might not be able to move anymore if she were to wait for too long.

Blue was looking up to her face while she was walking toward the door ahead. The bird lifted its wing, making her look at it. Blue let a cuter shriek out. She smiled at it, giving it a caress around the head. She truly loved Blue and thanked it.

A little more of a smile over her strained face, Mary-Esther opened the door facing her.

~

The fifteenth wagon on its third floor was as expected now, the same rose garden as below, but in another season.

It was obviously spring, with almost every flower blossoming or already blooming.

Blue flew suddenly through the place when the door was closing itself behind them.

The bird flew, passing through the different arches set there, between small leaves and lines of buttons.

It landed on the other end of the garden, next to a larger bush. Mary-Esther was feeling slightly warmer and went after it, following the same path, although walking on the grass. Unlike Blue, she was bound to keep her feet on that ground for ever. Was it sad, she pondered. Her heart felt pinched for a second when she began to walk after Blue, as she thought about it.

The scenery was nice, even though like everywhere else she felt a little uneasy.

Among the roses already open were many different shades, ranging from pink to yellow mostly. She had strange feelings passing next to them.

Something was happening to her again. Something making her shiver and feel as if she was losing control of her own body gradually again. Her walking pace slowed down as she tried to hold on and prevent the crisis.

Her head was getting heavier. She felt as if her back was altogether freezing, melting, and turning to scattering dusts.

The stains of pink, yellow and red in her surroundings began to merge to her eyes. Everything was getting blurry and off track.

Mary-Esther was passing through the last rose arch, almost reaching Blue in front of her, but there was only flowing pink shades left in her eyes. She fell on the grass in front of Blue, struggling to breathe as she panicked.

She moaned in despair, feeling sicker than ever. Her hands crawled to reach the bird which she could hear screaming at her. It was agitated seeing her on the ground like that.

Blue was jumping around and screaming, seeing her collapsing. Mary-Esther could only moan in replies. She was lying down, unable to react. She was only seeing pink shadows swirling around her. She could still hear the bird too, and feel it when it was jumping on her back and around her neck.

It got closer to her head.

Mary-Esther suddenly heard a louder shriek too close to her ear, sending a painful spike in her. Blue was calling her with all its might to wake her and help her rise again. But she was hurt and too tired, now unable to bear anything anymore. The sound, the colour...

Blue was now pinching her neck with its beak, trying everything to make her wake up. It kept calling her and turning around. But Mary-Esther felt like she was sinking deeper into a strange slumber, where it all became more and more distant. She was only glad that Blue was still calling her, awaiting her...

That overwhelming dark pink colour was becoming oppressing, whether her eyes were shut or not. That colour forcefully extracted from her another painful piece of memory. Maybe just a piece of a sad time, and another sadness hard to overcome.

Something once sweet, and pretty like a flower. That thing had changed over time... That sweetness had rotten into something sour. It had betrayed its original purpose, and was now paralysing her instead of giving her hope, strength and happiness...

A story old as time. What helped her survive in the past was now a hindering ghost for her future.

Was it something she had once loved? While she introspected forcefully under that painful colour, Blue was calling her. It was begging her to rise again and trying anything possible for her to return...

Nonetheless she still lied there as if dead, because of an ancient and vague feeling reanimated by the sight of these roses. Something she wasn’t deciphering the origin nor meaning.

Perhaps, long ago, it had meant the world to her. Making her as happy as having Blue by her side now...

And yet it had become so much bitter sorrow, she was sinking into it.

A sea of woe rising inside of her, because she had been surrounded with roses for a moment...

She didn’t like that kind of sad poetry or irony. She felt as if she was drowning and it was awful. Outside, Blue was still there she could tell, calling her relentlessly.

Yet there was a burden above her shoulders too heavy for her to stand up.

A monster of sadness like an invisible beast now seemed to be dying over her, crushing her under its weight.

She felt terrible, but she clung to the hope of seeing Blue again...

The sorrow holding her down began to crumble down after a while. The ghost ship she could almost picture crushing her little body on the ground, it began to fall apart.

She survived, and with the scattered pieces of nightmare, the flow of pink melancholia eventually sipped into the ground...

This haunting was gone as rapidly as it had come.

Mary-Esther was slowly, very slowly pushing herself up into a sitting posture, where she could witness the last waves of pink colours swirling around her. They coiled around and then vanished around into thin air. The environment gobbled what was left of this ghostly apparition.

Only a few shades were left, small dots of pink colours survived, into the flower petals and button they maybe came from...

At least as she caught her breath back, it appeared the bad dream was over, and she couldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary around her again.

~

Mary-Esther could feel the rumble and distant rattling of the train along the rails. The discreet sensations that they were moving across some lands. She almost was glad to perceive them anew. Mostly what reassured her was to have her bird back, jumping on her lap and cuddling to her like a cat would have.

She petted Blue, smiling weakly, but already forgetting the sad feelings that crushed her before.

These sensations vanishing reminded her of one story her mother had told her before. The story of that unfortunate ship... Being in the midst of a tragedy, with sprawling death around the waves. She could recall a few more things about that time when her mother was reading and telling her stories like that.

Usually it was stories and tales about friendship, and love...

Mary-Esther felt again as if her normal life was long lost, as if years had already come to pass.

Her mother now had forgotten her, and she herself could barely remember what her face looked like already.

If there was no way to solve the situation, she would find a way out of that god forsaken train.

Blue was with her, she could not fail.

Mary-Esther stood up. Outside, the night was falling now.

Behind her, from one of the rare fully blossomed roses, drops of rain water were falling onto the ground. She glanced at it and then left.

She opened the airlock door, coughed and entered. The spring rose garden was silent, silent as ever, standing behind still as if it was frozen in time.

Everything was living the days as any normal days, but the time was moving back every night for an entire day. That never ending spring was only a day unable to come to an end. That rose garden was a memory unable to forget itself.

For the young girl she was, perhaps still too much of a dreamer, the present time in those areas like the gardens was more of a sad thing now.

No machine she heard or read of could fake seasons like that. Time itself could not change as fast. She was sure of it. Time could not be played with, tempered or corrupted... Right?

Tales shouldn’t change between one telling and the next...

And those places out of reality, these gardens, they were not magical places set up by someone else for her enjoyment. They were forgotten things that had died. Things that were unable to follow the course of time normally. They were more like dead leaves that had fallen away from the course of history.

Mary-Esther tried to walk out of these concerns growing out of her head, but in the end she could hardly believe any longer that train had been built by an industry. It was something else, that only happened to look like a train.

She began walking away, trying to forget that sea of sorrow haunting her in this garden.

It stained, it itched like a scar from a tragic and terrible accident.

A moment left behind the real occurrence of time, mostly lost by now.

That whole place was worse than forsaken she thought, letting this feeling continue to grow. It had been forgotten or lost aside from time, in a form of limbo.

And somehow, she had found herself being trapped in it, with this quite odd memory.

At least Blue was with her in that prison now. That changed everything for her, but she definitely had to leave that place someday. And she probably should do so as quickly as possible, if she wished to go on living and sane...

When she entered the next wagon, the night had fallen again.

~