09.

These voices again. That childhood memory, once more.

Hearing her mother’s voice had something soothing.

She wasn’t asleep this time. She was recalling to herself that moment, that talk.

A - Gülnihal is very very old. Far older than you or me. Even older than the Ertuğrul ship I can tell you. But I cannot say how old it precisely is... Are you surprised?

M - I thought you knew everything.

A - Well, except for this detail, of course I do! But Gülnihal is something very different... It was for this passion in his eyes that I loved it as well right from the beginning... When we met... It was sweet and full of promises. Now, I love it because it reminds me of him... Your father... I miss him.

M - Dad had a mysterious age too?

A - Goodness no, that’s not what I mean. He had a mysterious family though. Well, not that mysterious, but he knew very little about his parents and his sister.

M - Why?

A - Well, all I know...

~

Mary-Esther was recalling that voice, while walking in another rooms wagon. However that floor was without functioning lamp or lights. Everything seemed asleep in the night, the train rolling at its usual pace.

In the belly of the tireless metallic beast, all was quiet and dark now.

She could remember her mother talking to her in dim lights at her bed side. When she was younger, some years ago, her mother used to tell her bed time stories. Sometimes, she also spoke fondly of the love she shared with her husband.

Her loving parents, years ago...

Something began to bug her about the thought, but she didn’t realise what it was yet.

Something was wrong, but she couldn’t see it yet in plain sight.

She walked carefully, keeping her right hand against the walls and doors next to her along the way. She glanced at the night sky outside. She could see the stars now, so far they didn’t appear to move at all. She could also see some of them below the horizon line, in what she understood to be reflections over a lake or sea... Stars from above head to below the feet outside. It would have been a pleasant dream or time to run around, or sail softly on these still waters... The view was too pretty and it made her envious.

Her urge to go out grew, to run on the ground and anywhere without a roof above. Even if only to gaze at the moon while lying in a field. She wanted to sail even, for the night was so clear and beautiful like that.

She wanted to swim even, although she didn’t know how to. Floating on a small canoe would already be wonderful... Not even far, but at least away from this place, behind those windows as cold as ice. She was melancholic for the outdoors looking through that night. Oh, how much she wanted to feel free outside!

She hadn’t seen such pretty night for so long... She recalled a time when she was running, laughing and playing with someone from her family, fooling with her during a sweet summer twilight like that...

She was younger back then, maybe not even six yet. Maybe it was her father with her at the time, as he was still...

Mary-Esther stopped moving. She opened her eyes widely in disbelief, but did not see anything anymore.

Her shock and realisation was so great and so sudden, her heart felt like it almost stopped.

Blue moved around on her left arm, anxious.

She could recall something that now terrified her. Her meek voice spoke it aloud for herself to hear as well.

M - Back then... It could have been daddy playing with me, because at the time... He was still alive.

He wasn’t dead yet.

Mary-Esther began trembling with a different kind of inner fear. She had one second of panic and a cold sweat suddenly covering her. She felt frightened. What had happened to her? To her memories. Why could she recall her father with her in the beginning of that travel if he was already gone?

Still trembling, she held back an impulse to vomit her searing terror out of her. She only coughed in pain.

She could remember now, how her father passed away about ten years prior.

Mary-Esther left herself slide against the wall to sit on the ground. She wondered now who had been there then, when she had forgotten that loss. Who had been there in here, she couldn’t tell anymore.

A second marriage she never heard of? Or something else entirely.

Just before this long night...

Where was she, who were they?

She now realised she couldn’t be sure. Her father died when she was still so young, she couldn’t recall his face anymore... She believed this recently returned memory over what she knew before, but the doubt could spin around and leave her lost.

She was scared, confused about what could have happened to her. She was lost, and had no clue...

Mary-Esther sat there for a long time, unable to recover her balance and stand again. She still was stunned by what had come back to her this time, and how it toppled everything down.

She was now fearing what else could go crumble even further.

After a while, and gritting her teeth, she managed to move again, very slowly and quietly.

As slowly as a ghost with a frown, she went a little mindlessly toward the other end of the wagon.

She didn’t notice that every room was as decayed as if the train had been abandoned for years.

She was feeling cast away, abandoned even by her past self.

She swallowed that bitter taste and pressed forward with some more painful resolve.

~

Mary-Esther entered another strange place coldly. There was only a set of stairs in the middle to reach the other levels, and some lights here along this time of night.

Three staircases were next to each other in a line from the fourth floor down to the first.

It appeared to be the only thing in that wagon, and everything else having been spirited away.

Only the windows to look at and the night landscape passing behind them, and the few lamps hanging from the ceiling here and there.

The stairs were not too large, and since there was nothing else to see around, that emptiness was overwhelming for her. Darkness would have been far better. In the dark, she couldn’t see the hollowness of things and this phobia could remain calm.

Even if nothing was waiting for her in the darkness, that huge empty room was as threatening as one to her.

Esther coughed softly and took a few deep breathes regularly. She was trying to avoid panicking.

She felt herself trembling, wishing she could just go away to scream this bubbling horror out.

An empty room like that was more frightening than any malevolent monster or person standing there could be.

She wondered about the best course of action to choose, knowing this weakness. Seconds felt like hours meanwhile.

Mary-Esther kept Blue close to her, grabbing a feathery body with her other hand, to feel a heartbeat other than hers. Feeling less alone, she used Blue’s presence to push herself forward, toward the door waiting in plain sight on the other end.

That walk felt like torture to her. As if the ground could suddenly collapse at any second, and swallow her whole with no hope of return. She was scared to death, glaring at mortality, until she finally reached the other door and sighed.

She feared irrationally that making too much noise now might awake some monsters; but it was still nothing compared with her fear of emptiness.

The door wouldn’t open. She began hitting it and cursing it, in vain. It wouldn’t open on this floor. Her best show of strength against the knob proved useless.

She had no other choice. She had to reach and use the stairs to try another door.

She braced herself and went again, now going as fast as she could toward the stairs. She ran down to the first floor, and much closer to the door ahead. Every floor was empty aside for this line of stairways.

Unfortunately, that door was locked too. Mary-Esther couldn’t endure it anymore, it was too much.

She ran away, across that ominous empty wagon floor. Her heart was beating way too fast, as panic grew. She reached that rear door and thankfully that one opened. She rushed behind in relief, barely keeping Blue on her arm.

Inside the previous wagon, she discovered something unexpected even for that train.

That first floor of the sixteenth wagon had probably been one of rooms for passengers like others in a different time.

There were only piles of rubbles beyond ruins now. The walls and windows were alright however .

More than a place degraded by time, this looked like older ruins were brought inside. From some place destroyed long ago, and now all shovelled inside.

She walked over rubbles layered randomly, along bits of broken furniture. She took a moment to catch her breath back and left Blue to fly around. She was still breathing heavily and unevenly.

Esther had a sad grin appreciating once again the red carpet couldn’t be seen.

She wandered around slowly, recalling the empty train and the abandoned station. Although here there were some soot and light dust, unlike within that empty building before were dirt prevailed.

Her fingers brushing some stones here felt the difference while being reminded of it.

At the end of the wagon was the airlock leading back to the fall rose garden, but that side of the airlock was locked as well. She was in a dead end, and obviously not in luck with doors nor this empty space staircase.

She sighed, realising she would need to go through this awful place again. To cross it, reach the stairway, climb to another floor and find another exit...

She had not much strength left nor enough confidence in herself to go through that much immediately. Even if the night was quite clear and the dampness almost forgotten.

Unfortunately, she began to realise that she wouldn’t be able to stay in these crumbled parts much longer.

Something terrible was going to force her away, toward the lesser evil.

It began with that sound of sand falling in streams, as if being poured from somewhere around. A sound of a continuous sea wave, without cycle. An endless noise from which each second made her anxiety grow as it echoed inside of her. The sound seemed to grow to the point it covered every other noise from the train, perhaps getting closer to her ears too.

Mary-Esther was begging for those things not to come. Not now. Please...

She turned around suddenly, to see ashes beginning to fall from darker spots of the ceiling like streams of smoke. And on the ground, between rocks and chunks of wood, the fiends were appearing already. As if they were crawling out of the holes they were nested in, they were sprouting suddenly all over the place.

Esther stepped toward the door slowly. She called Blue back with an unsteady voice. The bird flew quickly, passing through a cloud of these ashes silently. They grey cloudy lines followed it while twirling and scattering slowly.

She wondered whether she just destroyed one of these things.

She was not prone to fight anyway. She only had the will and bravery to flee this place before they would fill it to the brim and drown her.

The door opened as Blue landed on her arm, and she left that pile of wreckage swiftly. The door behind her framed over a crowd of these moving things rising out of nowhere. They were a grey shade clearer than most of their surrounding despite the night time, making them easy to see.

She had a last glance at them carefully, as they didn’t seem to be looking for her yet.

Their body was the size of a random pet animal, they had a head, perhaps a tail, and four legs shaped as only simplistic cylinders. They seemed soft and light like any other stuffed animals, and their walk was with very little balance. They seemed harmless on their own, but they were unreal entities.

Their skin or surface was sometimes patterned like rough cloth, but most of the time slightly blurry and uneven like smoke or flames. Their lines kept changing and moving softly, keeping them uneasy.

They all began to move toward her suddenly even though they had no eyes to see. Mary-Esther gasped and shut the door before her. She had seen enough and left hastily.

~

She was back inside that awfully empty wagon. She was really unhappy about it. She stood there for a moment to muster her courage, but then she heard the sound of sand somewhere around. She felt the noxious shiver running along her spine.

They were now crawling out from spots of shadows where ashes were gathering.

She began to run, holding her breath and Blue closer to her chest. As it was too unsteady, the bird jumped to fly ahead of her. As she could see the ground and things there, she was able to avoid these crawling things easily and passed through them and across this painful place.

It went better than she expected, maybe because the place felt less of an empty threat of wider void swallowing her, now that these things looking like cats were there.

She reached the stairs that were luckily not yet invaded by these things on that level. Upward however, it was overflowing already.

She rushed to the second level and the door closer to her, but banged against it as it was locked as well. Again, she ran to the back of the wagon. Blue was keeping close to her and following.

Her heart was hurting her as she began running between these things invading all visible ground rapidly, soon about to reach her.

Blue flew against the most threatening and closest one and blew it apart between its talons. Mary-Esther jumped on the side of that cloud in a surprised jolt, continuing to run albeit less steadily.

She managed to reach the door in a gasp, and turned around to call for Blue as she opened it.

The bird was shrieking and fighting the moving swarm turning to growing wave, but was suffocating in that heavy smoke.

It tried to fly away but fell suddenly heavily on the ground a few steps away from her.

Mary-Esther was at the door when she gawked at that. More than shivers, nervous pain ran through her head and back of her skin. Seeing Blue falling there was to her like seeing a loved one about to die for her. She couldn’t leave, she couldn’t leave it to die here!

She ran back toward the only thing left on the ground that wasn’t grey, before it was swallowed there. The only thing left that meant something good in her present life...

It was crawling, trying to escape the growing and clinging cloud of darkening smokes.

When she got on her knees to grab Blue forcefully, her head entered the falling wall of smokes, making her suffocate.

She pulled Blue out, and managed to move back, clumsily and holding her breath.

Dizzy with vertigos and confusion, she made her way to the door, pulling the mostly lifeless body of the bird between her arms.

As she coughed, a few steps only from the open escape, one of these cats had reached it before her.

Mary-Esther was already coughing badly and dizzy for numerous reasons, holding on what was most precious to her.

She had her ears full of noises and voices since the smoke had begun poisoning her.

She couldn’t care less about one monster anymore now that Blue was hurt.

She mercilessly stomped over that thing, crushing it to dusts under her right shoe. It barely felt more resistant than crushing a big empty mushroom, releasing smoke instead of spores.

The ashes continued to spread around. One thing alone was weak enough for her to break, and it felt a little satisfying to avenge Blue in a way.

Behind her, the once empty room was being flooded with grey moving water about to reach the ceiling while getting closer. It was rolling toward them.

While closing the airlock door behind her, she thought that it looked a little as if the train was a sinking ship. And the sea was these things...

She crossed the airlock to open the door to the previous wagon of rooms.

~

The door opened. She was just beginning to pass through it when an explosion could be felt nearby.

Something blew off violently somewhere around, and maybe within her chest as well.

She fell down to her knees suddenly, as if there was an earthquake happening, or her having a stroke.

She couldn’t tell immediately which one was the most likely, but her forces were abandoning her rapidly.

Hopefully that feeling passed quickly. She could then still feel her heartbeat. Her senses were coming back to her and she stood up again. She rearranged how she held the unconscious bird close to her and stepped further carefully.

The wagon of rooms on this floor was in poor shape. Everything was damaged or destroyed again.

Behind her, the things were against the airlock door. A crack appeared on the window, much to her horror.

She began to trot through the abandoned corridor. Things were crawling out of the rooms on her way, trying to grab her ankles or stick to her feet.

The smoke and sea of ashes were flooding this place as well.

She was out of breath and still coughing smoke from before. She felt how what sipped into her was like poison to her. She avoided in her run some broken items lying on the ground of the corridor or pushed around by the crawling things. Continuing to run, she made it in time to the next airlock.

Next was a rose garden. In her panic, she couldn’t remember whether that garden was locked from the other end or not, but she had to try. She didn’t felt like she had any other choice but running toward some safety for now... Toward home or other lights like Scarlett taught her.

She entered the airlock and closed abruptly the door behind her. She breathed a little. Blue was barely reacting to her touch now. She was worried.

The door ahead was already slightly opened...

That was a first she thought. She then realised that something was seeping inside. Some glow, some light?

And reaching her was a hint of scent from roses... It reminded her immediately of the melancholic memories associated to that colour for her. That collection of pink and purplish gradients.

That colour and flower that had meant so much for her once before...

A painful feeling of loss and regret was swelling in her heart now and again.

She put her foot forward. Her legs were hurting and trembling from all she had been doing lately on this horrendous night.

Her lungs were feeling gritty and even her ears were ringing from dust and exhaustion.

Still holding her dear Blue tightly, she pushed the door wider open.

The day light blinded her for a second.

Was it morning already? So suddenly?

She stepped inside the seasonal garden, discovering through the windows that it was a plain day outside...

This wasn’t possible she thought.

~

Outside was a bright day. The sky was blue and clear, with little clouds. The trees shades were dim. The scenery kept changing while staying similar, as if nothing happened.

Mary-Esther was still spooked by the sudden change in apparent time. She treaded carefully.

She was in the summer rose garden. It was heavy with scents and colours, making her feel as if she was also outside, in a familiar flower field. For a moment, the train itself had vanished from her mind.

The pink shades were everywhere, almost surrounding her. The perfume lingering in this air of numerous bulbs was heady...

Sweet, strong, lingering, reminding her of spirits. It was pleasant and slightly intoxicating. At least the mood was peaceful in here.

But she wasn’t, because Blue wasn’t.

She sat in the grass below the first arch covered with greenery and flowers, to look at the bird now lying on her lap. She cleared its feathers of the ashes as best she could.

Blue was hardly breathing and its eyes were closed. Mary-Esther felt in poor shape too, but she was now more worried about Blue than about herself.

She always had been. She would always be...

Feeling powerless to help Blue felt awful for her. She tried her best to help it breathe and wake up, with the growing fear she wouldn’t be able to help.

She called it over and over, begging it to wake up, to get better and return to her. On the verge of crying, she was begging Blue not to die there before her.

Please, come back...

She felt a sudden vertigo. She was still dizzy for many reasons. She pulled herself together and tried her best to think carefully again on the best course of actions.

She had to save Blue at any cost... No matter how, she had to help Blue.

Because of love, and because she promised to do so...

A promise to whom?

She would do anything for Blue anyway...

But the soft headed perfume of the roses was getting to her again. Their growing swarms of colours were beginning to make her feel sick like before.

That scent. It wasn’t rot, but it was as if she was gradually getting drunk from it. She was feeling less and less aware and her limbs as if heavier by the minute. It was already too late and soon, she wouldn’t see anything clear anymore.

All she could do as she fell over was keep holding Blue close to her, as if to protect the bird.

She lied there, trying to hold onto it vainly. Her free hand had ripped a rose or two maybe as she collapsed, hurting her skin along their thorns. But she felt already too drunk to really notice or care.

She was drifting again, she could only feel it.

As if her body was floating across a sea of perfume. A dark sea of roses perfumes, shifting between purple and magenta. Why had the day time returned here? It didn’t make any sense. She wondered why all that was happening as she was losing grasp of the thin threads of logic she had painfully assembled thus far.

Now as her consciousness was melting away, she was just feeling sad, just sad and sorry.

Because she was still stuck in that construct of a train, unable to help Blue. Because some of her memories were incompatible with older memories. Her parents rejecting her was contradicting other things making her sense of self and reality unsteady.

No, her sadness was now slightly different and worse. A worse feeling...

She opened her eyes again some time later, with difficulties. She pulled the hand that had been grazed by thorns closer to her face. A few scratches, and some petals stuck to her dirty skin. The colour of the petals pained her. It shocked her, like a hollow room or box, because of something she couldn’t quite remember...

She was still holding Blue with her other hand, but that last sight made her fall back. She had too much for a time. Her senses had felt too much in too short a while. Her mind had saturated.

Blue was breathing she felt.

That was hope as she fell. Just in time, this was a thread to keep her mind and way back as she fell back into a maze.

Esther fell unconscious into deeper slumber, because she had been overwhelmed by these things haunting her.

The monsters and the flowers. Something the roses were staining over.

Something about roses. Something still hard to remember. Something about that colour.

Something that was not truly over...

~