08 ~ July's night

Arlweyn had been afraid of dying. Yet, she kept Gülnihal dear in her heart until the end, on that dreadful night...

Flames were running everywhere on the ground floor. Her vision got quickly blurry, not because of the fire, but the lack of oxygen. The flame butterflies were spreading in the corners of her sight. She had fallen onto the ground, soon to be dead. Her dress began to burn. Her final sight was of the feet of a child, walking backward, obviously afraid by the sight.

The child ran into the kitchen, and that was over.

A - Forgive me Mary...

~

Esther suddenly regained consciousness. She had a nightmare, she was breathing heavily and sweaty.

She felt cold and was shivering.

And when she realised she felt these things, a delicious shiver went through her whole body, from fingertips to toes. The shiver lasted for possibly an hour before allowed to fade... It took her an hour to realise what it meant.

Her eyes were opened, but she could not see anything. It was the least of her concerns, she could feel her body! She could feel her clothes on her skin and her breathing.

Her hands lied on something soft she couldn’t identify, but she could feel the leather under her fingertips, tickling her a bit.

She lifted her arms, feeling muscles in her shoulders. She slowly brought her fingers to her face and pleasantly felt the touch.

Her cheeks were soft, her lips softer. Her ears, her brows, her hair, her eye lids. She had everything...

But she was not alive yet.

A doubt swelled inside of her, grew and poisoned her. A bitter taste remained on her tongue, the taste of her saliva.

Her right hard slowly went toward her left arm, where a wound proved her before she never was a human being...

Her fingers touched what seemed to be cotton, dirty cotton. A little further, the fingers went deep within a mass of filling of cloth fibres and ashes. She ripped a bit out of her arm, bitter. It was bitter.

She could feel the ashes between her fingertips. Yet she felt no pain from having an open wound on her left arm. She could feel pleasant things, but not painful ones. Her body was not a real one... She was back into the body she thought died, with the only world she ever lived into. The body she dreamt.

The body that could not cry... And obviously not bleed either. Still, it was the most lively one she ever had, and she treasured it sincerely.

How come? How did she suddenly get it back? She could remember being in the nothingness, and suddenly, she woke up, there...

She could touch and bump into things around her, but was unable to guess where she might be. She stood up slowly. As far as she could tell, she probably was still very close to the abyss.

In that darkness, she was still lost. But now, now that she recovered a body, her body; she would try moving away from it...

That would be the plan if space was even meaning something there.

It probably did not, but feeling a body and limbs for herself was encouraging her to move, to use it to go further. Even if the place ahead was ghostly, she would go, with that moving shell.

Something happened, allowing her to be one with it again.

She would not spoil that chance to go further in her dream and beyond thanks to it.

Esther walked, clinging to things beside her, unable to clearly picture what they were. The floor was leaning a little on a side, tilted, but she could walk ahead.

After a short walk, she reached a cold and rusty wall. Inspecting it, she found a rusty door with a knob about to fall.

Using all her illusionary strength, she managed to pull it open. The leaning door opened very slowly, making an awfully loud noise.

Esther watched a step and entered the place. A place smelling like ashes, rust and burnt furniture. A few odd hums of air running in endless corridors could be heard like nearby whispering.

She walked, breaking small pieces of glass in even smaller pieces below her shoes. In front of her, perhaps two feet away, something could be distinguished mildly. Losing all grip from the wall, she walked toward it, a little afraid of the dark without other reach.

She made it a shard of anxious eternity later, her heart feeling as if about to blow out in her chest.

Was her heart an illusion too? She could feel it beating so fast, she could only wonder.

The thing hanging on the wall facing the door was a painting. An old glistening oil painting. Her fingers brushed the slight gloss that could reflect the thinnest of lights.

She tried to read the inscription below, with the tips of her fingers, after caressing the painting itself, trying to picture it for herself.

Somehow, she knew anyway. She was certain. She already knew the painting before her in the dark.

Under her fingers, the dusty picture came back to her mind... Back to life.

M - The Ertuğrul...

The painting of a ship on an agitated sea appeared before her gaze. It was gradually becoming more visible. Her fingers could be seen, still dark as tar, hiding the colourful grow that reached from the painting...

And then, slowly, some light came back to the place.

Around her, various lamps started to blink, twitter and get lit.

She always knew where she was.

She had never left...

Beside her, the corridor appearing was one of the few places she knew more than anything in the world. The first corridor of the train she spent countless days within.

Around her, the wooden walls and floor with crimson carpet reappeared to her...

It was dustier than before, but it was the same nauseating crimson as before...

Mary-Esther looked at her green dress and shoes.

It was the ones she remembered.

She was in the first wagon of the train, again... It was leaning a little on starboard, but it was the same. Behind her was one of the two doors she had been unable to open at the time, leading to the stern balcony...

The first wagon of rooms, fourth floor. She could picture herself on a map she had imagined. She knew most oh then already. But this time, she was not there to save anyone. The train was not rolling and the windows only showed utter darkness.

Behind her, the nil was her starting point. The end of the journey for the others... did it mean that the prow balcony far ahead still held a way out? Did she only had to go one more time to the other side to find the way to reality open?

Would it really be so easy? She was cautions, but she would anyway go first of all where Blue was once able to leave that place... The place...

Mary-Esther shivered so much she fell on her knees. Her feelings were still frail. Recalling herself that moment, she felt weak and sad.

Under that sky, looking in front of the train, she had realised the more frightening truth she could have imagined... If she had come in time and pain to fully accept it by now, remembering the shock was still a hard time for her.

The trauma she experienced then was fully revealed only now.

She was still in this circle of limbo.

~

She felt her heart beat at a higher pace.

She felt her non-existent blood rushing to her head, blurring her sight, burning her ears and lips. She breathed heavily, submerged, drown in that post fear. A shackle reminding her of what she was and what happened there before.

She could sob she could spit, but she could not cry. No matter how scared, sad and shacked she was, she did not lose a single tear before. Somehow, being unable to cry made her even sadder. She moaned, she screamed her pain, but she didn’t shed a tear.

That was awful. She had saliva. She could find saliva in her mouth, between human tongue and teeth; but she could not cry a single tear... Even when dust was in her eyes before, she did not tear up. It was only symbolic, but still painful for her.

Her voice scrambled, moaning as if she was crying with might.

Mary Esther pulled herself up. Her sight blurred by dizziness came back. She wanted to laugh from sadness and disappointment.

She had forgotten something... Probably.

But what she lived in that train before was still clear to her. She knew where to go for now. She simply would go to that place, where truth was unfolded, where she thought she died.

Where everything went back to nothingness, and someone escaped this place.

The train burned, but not completely it seemed, and she died, but not fully either...

Where everything seemed to end before, it was her current goal, until she could find better.

~

Mary Esther missed Blue.

Whether she was herself or as a bird of prey.

She left the painting and its sad memories on the wall and went toward the door at the end of the corridor. The door she used to get aboard, once...

She could remember the mind against her when she was climbing the ladder.

That memory, among the other ones she made there, it was her own. It was only hers. It was belonging to the real person she was. She existed. She had memories defining her story and personality. She was someone.

The door did not open. Esther tried her best, in vain. Behind the window was the same infinite darkness.

Judging by the floor, slightly leaning toward the right, and that door so, the train probably crashed? At least, it had stopped. She couldn’t hear that sound of its constant faint rummage. But where it had now stopped was as surreal as the previous endless landscapes.

A train would not stop on its track and be leaning on a side though. And from what she recalled at the end... Well, did it matter? This world was not obeying all the laws she knew of the real one.

That also was why she was able to be in that one.

Mary Esther didn’t try to find the most plausible explanations as to why the wagon she was in leaned like that, like a ship ashore or stuck in ices.

She walked in the corridor dimly lightened by the various lamps. At least half of them were broken.

Only one window was fissured however reminding of something harsh happening before. But something worse happened there, when she first went through that corridor.

She could picture herself coming from the other end, opening the doors of every cabin. And on the one she was approaching... She made an awful face, just thinking about it.

The door was left open. She entered, a little scared of what or whom could be there. Would it be the couple who briefly adopted Blue after her trauma?

A man was inside. Her heart skipped a beat, and as she looked at him, there was no one inside the room. She thought she saw a tall man with large shoulders, sitting close to the small table...

But there was truly nobody inside and everything was silent. She could only hear her heartbeat and feel her cold sweat.

It reminded her she could sweat too oddly. That was frustrating. It was still not what she missed from being a real human. She didn’t want to be human just for that of course, but she truly longed for this ability now, as if reaching it would imply she had won everything related.

The day she would be able to cry might be the day when she would have found a way to truly become alive...

Although right now, she missed Blue. Most of all in that loneliness, she missed her.

She was the one person that truly mattered to her. But Blue would likely not reappear by her side...

Would the other ghosts? Maybe not... Unlike her, they were truly dead, and probably gone now.

Neither in hell or heaven, but in naught.

Mary Esther walked forward, to the end of the wagon.

The airlock door was now covered with rusty patterns. The varnish it once held fell in flakes when she reached to handle the wheel to open it. It opened, creaking atrociously.

No wind nor any natural sound from the outside entered loudly after its opening. It was like opening an inside door, leading to nowhere special.

Behind it, the airlock became visible on this absence of light, as soon as she started stepping inside. Some glows began flickering behind her and across this interstitial space.

Although odd to see things appear as she approached them, she walked forward as if it didn’t affect her.

She didn’t linger on her surprises and opened the door, even rustier and damaged than the previous one. Parts of it were falling as if it had been oxidizing freely for decades.

The library behind was covered with wild moss. The books were reduced to shapeless piles of mud, covered by that green snow. Books were probably scattered as the floor was uneven. It was like walking on a thick and moisty carpet, instead of a crimson one for once.

The shelves were still there, but many of their levels had broken and fallen. Everything was rotten and mushrooms were even growing here and there in the corners.

The windows were stained green by the flora and humidity, as if strong sunlight had previously come freely through them.

Esther remained unaffected. She didn’t care as much about it as before. She admitted it was again a strange sight though, as it seemed to tell that many years or even decades were already gone meanwhile.

How many years? As there was probably no real link between time in the real world and time down there, she thought fair to assume the place had only changed, and not slowly changed as if to reflect the real passing of time.

Making her way across the strange place, she couldn’t help but remember her last time around there however.

She still felt uneasy recalling how Scarlett was then frightening her.

Scarlett had been more talkative than Elise, sounding more mature, but also a little cold or insensitive.

The fact that she felt betrayed by Blue and Ester didn’t help her temperament. Scarlett’s gaze piercing her, making her heart shiver, it remained a vivid memory.

Scarlett said the terrible thing that she could remember how she died...

That very sentence remained frightening for Esther. It meant dangerous things. It meant reality was opening itself to what could never be...

But now it also somehow meant she might be able to fulfil her dream, thanks to this scary reality.

Esther ended her momentary thoughts on the matter upon leaving the place.

Behind the next airlock was one of the things she disliked most in that forsaken train however.

Stairways.

She wasn’t glad to see what she feared most ending up happening. The hanged corridors and stairs had indeed broken and fallen in the end.

Everything was now an uneven and wide pile of rubbles along the first floor, about ten metres below. She was stuck in front of a chasm. She could see the first stair on the opposite side still looking alright. If she went down, she might be able to cross to the other side on the second floor.

She wasn’t sure she could dare to jump down however. Even knowing what she was, she was still instinctively scared to hurt herself. She feared wounds.

A part of her was genuinely and humanly scared by the idea of such a fall. Another part was trying to convince her with quite sound arguments and proofs at hand, that she could not suffer a thing from it.

Looking down at that small abyss, she still felt uneasy. Could she jump carelessly? Should she?

The only other place she could go toward was behind. The darkness behind the stern deck...

She preferred the jump ahead and below, to whatever lied at the end of the dark balcony.

Esther swallowed and sat on the edge. Shards of the broken wood were getting caught in her dress.

She grabbed the edge and tried to pull herself down very gently. She was soon hanging over the empty and broken staircase. Her fingers were hurting because of her weight pulling her down. The feeling of her legs dangling, unable to find the ground or a floor was a little exciting and mostly disturbing.

She was holding her breath, looking at her hands shaking. She looked down and saw the third level airlock, and the second one even below... This was too high.

She felt herself falling and screamed.

Everything went dark again.

~

B - Welcome home...

Esther’s consciousness rose upon hearing these words.

She could recognise Blue speaking, making her heart race again.

Moving on the rubbles and floor, opening her eyes, she discovered the place most away from what home should feel, she thought.

It was mostly dark, a little damp, in ruins. And it was still that same place worst of all.

She stretched to get up, feeling no pain from her fall, but an awful dizziness still taking her. She felt sick and uneasy.

She wanted to cry because of how bad she felt on that moment. Knowing she couldn’t tear up made the feeling grow a little worse. Her face a little twisted by the sum of these displeasing pains, she went slowly toward the door on the other side.

She climbed over piles of what was once the stairs and hanging corridor. It had been more of a catwalk perhaps, but now it was rubbish.

The door there was already open for some reason, but nothing she had seen so far could lead to think that another being could be wandering around. And behind her, the doors tended to close themselves up anyway.

She entered the pitch black wagon. There was no candle pointing the way this time, but the darkness couldn’t scare her anymore anyway. She came from far worse, some of it still noticeable outside. The emptiness, the void.

As a human being, or at least its consciousness and thought of it, this led to her phobia of empty things and spaces. She could understand now how it had been an inherited part of her real origin and personality.

She had kept this abstract remembrance and fright, of how far and deep she came from.

Her hands reached the next door so easily now, it felt almost funny to her. Some boundaries were now in the past.

The kitchen was literally covered with mosses and mushrooms. She could smell the swamp it became from the airlock, before opening the door. She quickly went toward the next one without a second thought. Maybe she ought to still preserve her body from some other ways that could wear it.

The next airlock was broken open, the door on the ground behind.

In the next wagon, the door was also broken and down, but one level below. She was looking down at the greenhouse, dim-lit by dusty lamps on the ceiling and along the metallic frame.

The trees and shrubs were dying, but not entirely gone yet. Some leaves and green touches could be seen and remained.

Esther jumped with a little of fatalism.

She landed badly, rolling into the bushes and scratching herself all over.

Yet, feeling no pain, she slowly stood up again. Her bun was undone and her hair now untied. Her dress was ripped and stained all over and muddy like her hands. She no longer looked civilised she thought.

But it was not the most important.

The only thing that mattered now, was to reach the cockpit area and the vanishing point.

Walking a little slowly, she understood why she felt bad enough to act so recklessly nonetheless.

It was a little obvious. She felt that aftermath pain of loneliness.

She had experiences a brief period of bliss with Blue at her side. Now she was all alone and missing her even more...

That made her bitter.

As a doll, was she still close to her? Or as her century over, was she now simply lost forever?

Maybe she had lost her only chance of becoming truly alive, by indulging her duty of a blue rose, before her own wishes as a loved doll with a ribbon.

She could remember that feeling exploding within herself, upon the moment she realised what she truly was. Beyond the fear and shock, there was that love, almost overflowing love, for Blue.

Not as a mean for becoming alive, but as a wish to really be her blue rose.

That wish had been fulfilled by saving her life somehow. Esther could remember the infinite sensation of relief she felt at that moment, knowing Blue was saved, somehow thanks to her as well.

That feeling, that mind of a blue rose, it was the basis of her personality. The wish to become alive for herself was tied to it, but not the core of her will.

However since her purpose as a blue rose was somehow over, what could be left for her to do, but live for herself?

She had made the impossible happen once already, bringing Blue’s soul out of the void and back to her up there.

She would do it again, but this time for herself...

No matter how painfully lonely she could be.

~

The next heavy metallic door fell on the wooden floor behind, and broke it apart, falling down heavily a floor below in a loud ruckus.

Once the noises softened in her ears, Esther simply jumped over the large hole in the floor.

A shred of her dress got caught on shards of the broken floor, and ripped it even further along her landing.

Her dress, once a pretty green shade and clean cut, was now a rag beyond recovery. Whilst knowing it was the best reality she could get, the fact that she wasn’t along real living things made her become a little insensitive. She didn’t care anymore about what was there, since she knew it wasn’t quite real and she wasn’t planning to stay.

Somehow she didn’t thought caring about even herself was really useful in the situation.

Passing through a long corridor, she found a stairway on the second half of that wagon.

She wondered about it for a moment. She could climb or go back to the first level, but what was next again?

Rooms, and then... The seasonal gardens?

It was where she found Blue as a bird...

She forgot the stairs and ran to the end of the wagon.

She ran through the next one, through the darkness and silence.

The summer garden’s door was smashed opened. The dusty airlock released a cloud in her wake, as she rushed, a little excited by abstract hope.

But as swiftly as it rose, so it fell.

Below her were only dry and dead things now. The bushes were twigs and grey from accumulated dust...

The ground was solid as rock. The scenery was of a nightmarish desolation for a garden. It was only shapes, there was no other colour than black and grey.

She walked slowly, looking around carefully, as if searching for something lost...

She looked at the ceiling, but there was no hint of blue on it. The paint and varnishes were falling apart in dry flakes, discoloured and dusty.

Her blue bird was long gone she thought, without finding the idea funny.

But as the emotions were falling, she saw it. She opened her eyes wider, stopping her breath as she saw it.

It was there, amidst the dead herbs and grass.

She bent and kneeled to grab it. The feather was soft. It was still colourful, and as deep a blue as she recalled it.

She trembled slightly, looking at that small and light thing.

Her lips drew a trembling smile. There was hope.

But her mind was pushed on by a sudden urge toward the feather.

She wanted to treasure it like an artefact or a precious memento, but she suddenly wanted far more and couldn’t control herself.

She was hungry for meaning, or something else from an impulse she didn’t fully understand. She could only feel it as a hunger growing and gaining rapidly control of her.

She brought the feather to her mouth and in it.

She swallowed it suddenly, gobbling it whole.

After it was done, coming back to her senses, she wondered what went wrong with her. What did she just do, what just happened to her?

She was hungry for something she couldn’t name yet, but the urge could become worryingly powerful over her.

Esther felt a little shameful, and moved on with her confusion.

Maybe there had been promises, but she didn’t want to lose Blue again...

~

Without feeling tired, Esther crossed every wagon at her steady pace. Confidently, she was making her way toward the locomotive.

Every place was older, damaged in a way or another and almost beyond recognition. The once luxurious place was now an abandoned wreck, but she still wasn’t clear as to whether that should mean something.

Some of the wagons were leaning, on the starboard side generally, but it was uneven. Overall, the train was now abandoned ruins. For her it was in body and soul, not that a train was supposed to have any soul. But the surrounding landscapes that made it a moving train was gone too, making the purpose null.

She was not on a dead ship, but rather a wreck, and there was no land to be seen around in that quiet turmoil.

Making the parallel with a ship sinking brought back some older painful memories she had tried to forget.

Esther walked, climbed and crawled her way through the train. She did her share of careless jumps too on occasions, to get over a hole or to the bottom of it.

The sawmill following the big tree stairway was burned beyond recognition just like the next wagon.

Next there was a pool she couldn’t remember visiting before. The pool was filling a floor, but the water being now a bog, she was more disgusted by it than anything else.

The wagons were crossed one after the other like passing days.

Following another staircase was now the dead rose garden.

The summer roses and their perfume were gone. She didn’t feel dizzy anymore.

Esther didn’t linger and continued, inhabited with will more than melancholy.

Then there were ruins of rooms, far more decayed than the other aspects of the train. Mould, rust and moss were far more present in there, but still insufficient to stop her.

Then following the empty wagon with a sole stairway, were the more typical train cabins, with rows of benches. She pressed on, looking forward to the end.

Following the coal compartment and engine, there was the last stairway. Reaching it, she stepped a little more lightly, recalling how much fire had coated the place before.

A smell of charcoal was lingering all over the burnt and sooty place. It had held flames and lost decorum, but not entirely been destroyed thankfully.

She could still remember the fire quite too clearly. The flames rolling along the walls, sparkling in fireflies or red iron butterflies. The dancing and flowing fire had been mesmerising and deadly.

She climbed slowly.

The stairway was as black as tar, and made her thought she was in some darker castle from another nightmare.

Esther headed toward the fourth floor directly.

On the back end of the wagon at that level was a fountain she had no recollection checking on her last stay. Ahead of her, there was the other door to the end, the exit to the roof ahead...

But as much as she wanted to push ahead, the fountain caught her attention. And this time she had the time to look at it, probably.

Esther felt some curiosity or bewilderment, mixed with abstract worries altogether. The small mural fountain was functioning, making a small music of falling water. It was flowing gently, out of a little feminine statue’s amphora. The basin was looking clean before it, unlike the rest of the surrounding place.

What was up with this thing? Esther couldn’t figure out whether this was supposed to mean something, and then what. But she still felt a little sad looking at it, albeit unable to tell whether this sadness was hers or someone else’s.

She brought her hands closer to the stream, planning to touch the water. She then noticed the accumulated filth covering her. She had not been kind to herself. Her filthy gloves...

Memories of Elise sprung back a little painfully. Her hands were like gloves she now painfully accepted, holding her hands together. Her human skin was like an imitation, a wrap, or camouflage even...

Esther had claimed to be someone she was not.

She could remember boldly claiming being human, and being alive...

Somehow a sense of shame now finally appeared in her.

Whatever they really were in that place, Elise and Scarlett had suffered because of her... That much had been a little more than animated memories truly.

M - Did I really made them suffer beyond their death?

If it was true, it was useful and interesting to know, but also very sad.

Esther wet her hands and washed them carefully and quietly with the cold running water.

Little bits of dirt were falling off and disappearing within the stone sink.

She needed to wash, as if to wash the shame and remorse away.

It was stupid, but knowing it didn’t make the desire weaker.

She washed what she could, starting with her own arms.

She went more carefully around the various scratches and open wounds. Wetting her fillings would be a mouldy hazard she wanted to avoid. This simply felt too much like reigniting a much older salty wound.

The cut skin was not healing, obviously, as it weren’t bleeding either. She would need to stitch herself up if she were to remain. She could suture herself like mending a dress, or a doll...

There was something beautiful and ominous altogether to her, about the idea of a giant doll repairing herself up.

It was the paradox of animation and her own self being illustrated.

Esther washed her face, took a sip, and finally left.

If she had some time to get lost in thoughts, the expected exit was now just behind.

Feeling the coldness going through her throat, she went toward this last door. Once more she thought. When she was reaching the truth, last time, everything was catching fire behind. But now that she knew more, everything was remaining still.

When she opened this door, she could understand it, even further.

The train was gone, the journey was over. No more rummage, no more ghosts, no more fire...

The door opened itself onto unending darkness and silence.

The sight was the same as from every other window she had passed by. There was no sky, nor end, nor way to escape.

It had simply been foolish to hope that this specific door could lead to something else.

Esther made a few steps on the roof, barely lit by the soft glow coming from within the train behind her.

There was nothing to see nor hear, nowhere...

What if... She never had really succeeded in making a step forward toward her goal, waking up around here?

Maybe she didn’t rise toward this place, and was instead still in the depths of that void from before?

The train simply happened to have fallen to the same place as her...

She couldn’t tell what was true from her own perspective.

Esther screamed in despair.

All her hopes felt crushed and stepped upon, reduced to dust. Her heart felt more painful than ever. She yelled all she felt, struggling and bitter.

She then fell, sobbing weirdly. Her loud and mighty scream had not made any echo. She was shivering and unable to think properly anymore.

Esther let herself fall on her side and curled herself up in foetal position for a while. She felt unable to think for a while. Her eyes might remain wide open, looking at nothing.

There wasn’t much more to be done, making nearly all hopes gone... Her body was a sinister joke now.

Her mind felt a little broken, just like her heart. She felt broken and lost.

And yet still no tear could appear.

~