14 ~ October night

There was a dream. A moment of peaceful and sad loneliness. A moment you dislike living, but nevertheless miss when it’s gone.

A time where she was all alone, on a road at night, in a completely silent countryside.

An endless landscape awaiting on both ends of the road...

She couldn’t say where either one went, nor came from.

And she was scared to venture on either way. And she feared that making the wrong call could seal her fate and have her vanish away...

She then could hear a younger girl whispering while she was looking at the dark road.

B - I thought I saw someone on the road today... But then, it disappeared...

Maybe there never had been anyone? Maybe she was only a ghost, haunting that road until the end of times would come?

Then the nightmare faded slowly. And the sad truth of reality to her level clung back to Mary-Esther.

She was in a place she had seen before.

The small workplace with various tools and rubbish... She had been dragged and carried for long hours over there, and was now lying on the ground, feeling something heavy on her back.

She could barely move or breathe.

Something was being ripped she could hear.

She tried to raise her head and look behind her shoulder, only to recognise Elise next to her and holding her shoulders down. Elise noticed she had woken up and whispered a few words.

Scarlett appeared above Esther, her hands and arms covered with grey paint and powder.

Mary-Esther realised what it truly was staining her and screamed.

She tried to escape the horror, but they were holding her down...

~

The girls repeatedly urged her to calm down.

In her panic Mary-Esther managed to move a little, but was kept firmly against the ground of that tool closet. She tried to fight the two girls in vain. She couldn’t move anymore.

Once she was forced to calm down and even restrained properly by Elise, she could hear again the sound of clothes being ripped in her back.

Esther started to sob when she felt the blade of a knife entering her flesh. It wasn’t painful, but it was terrifying.

Scarlett was opening her skin like she did her dress before, ripping it upward, slowly, as if planning to skin her.

Behind the ripped skin, no blood came out from the cut, but her stuffing of ashes was flying like dust. Against her damp dress, it was turning to mud.

Scarlett’s arms were stained as if was working grey clay.

Mary-Esther was complaining, but they weren’t speaking anymore and didn’t bother replying to any of her begins.

Scarlett ripped the skin of Esther’s back from her bottom and up to her ribcage. She then slowly slipped her right hand inside the dusty open wound as if it was a bag, making Esther feel worse than she could even have been before.

It was torture without physical pain, but still a torture.

She could feel Scarlett’s fingers and hand moving slowly inside her back, inside her flesh... She could feel her touching her bones.

Scarlett wasn’t ripping everything apart as Esther feared. She was looking for something... Her fingers came upward and reached her last vertebras. She then went slowly from vertebra to vertebra along her spine.

Until she couldn’t feel the next one.

Her fingers touched the end of the broken spine.

Scarlett let a few words slip out from her minds while Esther was in shock from the sensations.

It was as she figured said Scarlett. Her other hand brought a lace under the last vertebra and she made a knot around it. She then went to look for the other end inside Mary-Esther’s body.

In that soft grey and lukewarm puddle, a little vaporous and aqueous, she easily found the part of the spine coming from the ribcage, and tied a knew not around it.

Esther’s eyes were wide open, she was not reacting anymore, under too much shock. She was not breathing, nor moving.

She was still conscious, but couldn’t manage to act anymore. Even though she knew she looked like the doll she once had been again, only at human size.

Elise gradually let her hold go as there was no more struggle, and leaned to look at her. To Elise’s eyes, Mary-Esther looked dead, her eyes not blinking or moving anymore.

Scarlett pulled both ends of the broken spine out of the grey dusty flesh. Elise stepped back, a little frightened as well. It looked like real bones. How could that be?

While Mary-Esther was acting dead, and Elise was confused, Scarlett was working on it, trying not to care about their behaviours. She was pretty sure that Esther was either too shocked to move right now, or understood her doing and didn’t move to let the repair go correctly.

Scarlett took an awl, and began to pierce the vertebras. Elise found some composure back and thanked her sister for repairing Esther.

Mary-Esther felt her spine being pulled out and exposed to the air, pierced, and screwed onto something metallic.

Elise helped a little too on some parts afterwards, holding the flesh or the tools, while Scarlett was fixing the spine altogether with a splint.

Then, because there was no connection between the spine and any organ or tissues; she wrapped it tightly with a strong thread.

Mary-Esther wondered if she would be able to walk again thanks to that... Knowing what was inside her body and how it worked, she couldn’t help but worry about where the logic stopped, and where that fictional reality could start to bypass biological laws... She could move a body without muscles, but a broken spine had incapacitated her limbs. So would Scarlett’s butchery really help?

She had tried to repair her at least. Without much kindness, but tried.

Once the spine seemed strong enough again, Scarlett pushed it whole into the ashes again. But before letting it go, something weird crossed her mind.

S - Elise... Do you think she has a heart?

Esther shivered, scared. Elise didn’t know what to say, already disgusted by the grey stains all over Scarlett.

S - Let’s find out...

The torture, the rape, went further. Mary-Esther was unable to move, not even to blink.

Scarlett’s hand went deeper inside her back, reaching inside her torso from there. She went inside her chest cavity. Her fingers found some sort of lungs filling the place, and even a small stomach, leading nowhere.

And behind it all, when she was about to make fun of how she was heartless, what she touched put an end to her mean grin.

Something warmer than everything else and soft in a different way to the touch.

Pushing her arm deeper into the back wound, she managed to wrap her fingers around it... A soft piece of very warm meat, shaped like a very large and long droplet perhaps.

Scarlett felt that warmth going through her cold hand and arm... It was a nice feeling to have her hand around that thing. But what it could mean was more disturbing. Could it mean Esther was more alive than they were? Nothing warm was left inside of her. Scarlett was fairly sure of that.

E - So? Please stop that...

Scarlett let go of the heart and its large veins, a little reluctant. It had felt as if that was the only warm thing she had touched since her death, and a part of her had wanted to keep the contact for a moment longer...

Maybe it was the only warm thing around, but she felt bad and slowly pulled her arm off.

S - She has one... It’s not beating, but it’s warm...

Mary-Esther had been agonizing over the painful sensations, but she still was shocked hearing it, beyond the feelings that had come to happen.

She had a heart, here.

Was it useful or purely symbolic? It was probably only a symbol or proof of something...

~

While Scarlett was sewing with great skill Mary-Esther’s back, Elise was sewing the old wound on her left arm into a scar as well. Then she sewed shut a few other cuts that she had been carrying here and there.

While the ghost bodies seemed to mimicry their previous healing abilities, Esther didn’t.

Hopefully, the sisters weren’t trying to shred her to pieces that time, but Mary-Esther was still under shock and scared by the two of them.

Once they were done sewing back her skin and her dress too while they were at it, they tried to make her stand up.

It was a difficult time for Mary-Esther, because nothing of her body was responding t first.

Then slowly, her brain began to hurt in the usual way when she wanted to cry but wasn’t allowed too.

And over that pain, she felt her nerves growing back and her body returning to her.

Her feet responded, and she moved again. She unsteadily went to sit on a crate, only to hold her head between her hand in a moment of agony.

She was feeling horrible all over still.

Then feeling her heart beating again, quickly, she brought a hand to her chest, to feel that inner warmth.

The nausea it brought back from Scarlett’s ghastly hand clasping around it, she felt like vomiting.

Esther glared at Scarlett harshly.

M - You fucking bitch! Ah...

Esther looked conflicted about it. She was standing, her legs trembling but steady. Then she revealed pain with a less steady voice.

M - I’m sorry... But how horrible it had felt...

Scarlett seemed unconcerned, cleaning her hands, but she had felt something she couldn’t forget either.

E - We found you wounded and drowning, after the short time the sun has shone. We decided to fix you up when we realised your belly was going to get ripped apart as we pulled you out.

Esther was still trembling, but also grateful somewhere. She sat back slowly.

M - I’ve seen her... I’ve met her again. Blue was there for a moment as well.

The two sisters seemed sadder than rejoiced at the news.

E - Is she dead?

That was her first thought. To them, they were still in a world of limbo, where only dead persons would be allowed to visit.

M - I truly don’t believe so... I think... She just came for a short while to say hi... Blue will come back again, soon.

S - Why did she come? How?

M - I don’t know yet, but at least she seemed okay... I think she is fine... Let’s prepare ourselves for her next visit then, shall we?

Esther stood up and stopped, shivering.

She had felt the splint through her spine while standing. Moving her back was partially constrained now.

Scarlett beside her appeared overall satisfied.

S - I’m glad the repair was a success.

But none of them were smiling.

~

Walking their way back to the balcony, from which Esther had mindlessly jumped, she could hear a small gritting sound coming from inside her body. It was only a figment of her imagination though truly.

She had broken herself. Luckily, the two companions in her misery had in the end chosen to help her.

But this taught harshly again a few lessons to Esther about herself and others.

It was still difficult for her to behave logically she thought.

They reached the balcony, still under that unending rain, and usual darkness.

Blue had fallen from far above them, inside that large courtyard the colosseo was. Esther suspected that she came from the sky they couldn’t see. But there were other balconies above them. Although there was no longer thunder to see them now, during the short time of daylight, the girls had seen them clearly.

Dozens of other openings were scattered along the circular wall on higher levels. And There were at least as many floor levels to climb.

Since there was no point altogether for them to be staying in these lower and empty levels, or almost empty ones; they all agreed on climbing further. They would find other places and whatever there would be to be found.

Using the chalk mark XLVIII on the level below as a reference for how many floors below the surface they were, it was time to get a better grasp on the place.

The level 47 where Esther felt as if Scarlett had raped and repaired her, was similar in layout, with only a tool shed.

The level 46 was just long and complicated, with corridors leading to dead ends, four empty rooms and as many corridors making u turns. Both of them opened around the colosseo with eight balconies on a regular architecture.

They were symmetrically set around this circle.

Only one stairway was going up from that level, but the labyrinthine setting of the corridors made them wander for a long time before they could find it.

The following level was far more curious and interesting. The stairs led directly into a quite circular room with a gigantic and massive globe in the middle. The sphere dimly lit by their lanterns was twice their height at least and dark as a hole.

A balcony was opened to the rain on their left, and the room continued a little deeper on their right.

E - What kind of sculpture is that?

They slowly walked around the large sphere, set on a very small stand. Looking more closely at it, Elise noticed it was thinly carved. There were some indents and irregularities, softly shaping on what seemed to be bronze or brass.

They tried to understand what it was, and they found out soon after that it was a terrestrial globe, on a peculiar scale. Elise had recognised Madagascar and then the mountainous chains of southern Africa.

That globe was oddly impressive, and an interesting oddity if it had been set in a museum and possibly painted.

But to them, it was not yet time to study that odd work of art and science in great details. Their ambition lied above.

So they proceeded toward the next door they found and through the corridor behind.

They entered another large room, making an angle with a balcony at its edge. There was some furniture in that room, which wasn’t common in this place so far. But the place remained odd and empty, under furbished.

There they found a statue of a man in the middle of the wide room. The man was a muscular giant, but in a stance where he was bent, crouching and a knee on the ground, bending, for he was carrying and holding onto his back another heavy sphere. That one was with a more reasonable size for a terrestrial globe, but they all recognised Atlas carrying the sky.

They were again a little dumbfounded by their discovery.

They argued a little over what it could mean about this place or their destiny. This proved futile rapidly to all three of them, so they agreed to stop losing themselves into pointless searches for meaning over the furniture and decorum around them.

They were unlikely to find a clue able to prove or disprove some of their hypothesises simply lying around. These antiquities and their fate might not be meaning anything regarding them now.

Therefore they moved on, leaving blind conjectures for later.

The next stairway led to a corridor that was harder to light. Their lamps allowed them now to see barely more than two steps ahead of them. The colours of the stone carved walls and ground were the same, but less light was reflected. Maybe their lamps were dimming.

They already went through worse than that, and walked in a random direction with what was left of their light and some trust in their will.

And they reached a darkness where their lamp could soon only lit themselves and no more than a few centimetres before them. This was turning odd.

Maybe fifteen metres away, a balcony was letting the waterfall splash into the room a little, but that was all there was to detect in that place. A slight fog might be seen escaping from around the water.

The girls walked in deeper into the dark, but Esther stood beside, a hand touching the wall.

It was a little more than emptiness to bear. She had thought for a while that she had overcome her fear of empty things, fully pushing this torment in the past. But it was strangling her in new ways again.

Through that obscurity, it was more than an empty wagon or vase.

It was more akin to how everything was falling into the abyss. The abyss she was trying to escape seemed to be howling, reaching to her again. The nil from below was slowly engulfing the room and ground she would walk over; and soon she would fall and be gone too.

Esther was sweating in a moment of panic, fearing the night. The two girls a few steps away in what seemed like floating oblivion were waiting, looking at her with discontent. She was a shame.

Esther felt as if she was trying to walk above a pit and her heart hurt her further. But her feet nonetheless kept resting on the solid ground, never going through. She felt like she was walking over a thin layer of ice above a lake ready to drown her and crush her to atoms.

Feeling like she was suffocating already, she didn’t utter a word and went after them until they reached the other end.

When they reached the new corridor, her inner turmoil caused her to collapse for a minute.

Esther was sobbing her panic. She could only say she was missing Blue again.

The two ghosts close to her could only think how pathetic and sad she was. Esther was a soul more lost than even they were, despite their own suffering.

Going through that emptiness had burn out what Mary-Esther had left of mental strength for the day.

Elise suggested to take a break. She sat next to the wounded doll, leaving her lamp next to her.

Scarlett felt uneasy, looking at them sitting on the ground in that dark basement. She told them she would go a little further on reconnaissance for a short while and disappeared.

Elise looked at Esther’s face close to her. She noticed a broken expression on her face, similar to the one she had when Scarlett began doing her kind of surgery on her.

Mary-Esther wasn’t looking at anything. She was exhausted.

E - Come on... You can’t give up now that you have seen her again.

M - I...

Mary-Esther was struggling. Her heartbeat wasn’t slowing down yet. Her thoughts were a little scrambled.

M - I will never give up on life.

She now was clenching her hands.

Beside her, Elise was hiding a faint smile.

~

When Esther got a little better, they left the level soon after.

One symmetrical corridor led them to the 43th floor from their count.

That one was essentially only a long corridor, endless looking with unnecessary turns again and again, to eventually only lead to the next staircase. Except for the balcony along that pilgrim long path, that level had nothing to tell.

The next one began with a church, where they found Scarlett waiting for them.

They were inside a religious building of occidental architecture. Its front doors were open to another balcony.

But for once that wasn’t the point of intersect of the room.

The old roman architecture had unfamiliar layout with two parallel rows of benches facing each other.

On the Coeur’s wall, a large cross was painted and mostly faded. The walls were either with mosaics or faded painting.

Scarlett was looking at the flaking paintings along a mural. Something had caught her attention apparently.

There were no windows, but some of the paintings were replacing them, showing open sights of landscapes, essentially the same on each segment of wall, but each showing it at a different time of the year.

Elise was bewildered as well, since the sceneries were unusual sights.

The stones on the ground were polished tiling. The stone and wooden benches were in good shape despite their clear ageing.

Why a church down there? Perhaps it wasn’t related to Atlas below, or history in general. They couldn’t help trying to find a meaning for what they found, lest they didn’t argue for too long on them. Their human instinct was to find meaning and what was happening to them.

Scarlett and Elise recognised easily their lack of faith as Christians. But they weren’t convinced they should repent now of all times to the king of the jews.

To Esther however, a church meant something else entirely. It was her first time setting foot in a church at all, and what she knew about faith only came from...

She wasn’t sure where it came from, beside what she learnt from Blue’s memories.

It had been very theoretical and abstract until now. Now she discovered a building made for a spiritual and political purpose beyond what she had clearly experienced.

She had a kind of inspiration, thinking she should learn more about faith and devotion now.

It was an odd intuition about this, and she asked her two companions for help.

Elise and Scarlett told her as best they could what they knew of it.

Mary-Esther listened carefully, showing an unusual interest in their telling. But something was making the sisters feel uneasy, because all the doll’s interest was possibly besides the wish to adore the Christian god.

Faith was just another law of nature she may need to comprehend, in order to make way with it.

She could not care less about God; but its tools and teachings could become of use for her purpose.

And in the end, for the central theological question in the light of modern philosophy, Mary-Esther already had her answer to share.

M - If there once were any god who could have cared about my doings, it was probably dead in the abyss of nothingness long before I appeared. I believe now gods are either dead, or never existed in the first place.

~

Even though they were not fervent believers, Elise and Scarlett had felt a little shock by Mary-Esther’s audacious claims. However as unsettling a truth as it was, they also had to admit how Esther had begun defying gods already some time ago.

And that the only answer that came from the truth above, had been the visit of Blue.

They could spend an eternity discussing the new theological implications of what was going down there in these strange places. Again, the sisters and Esther didn’t want to debate more than suitable on these philosophies.

Now that Esther had made more conscious the religious lexicon and ideas, she began using more religious metaphors and imageries to speak her doings and feelings.

She was growing fond of using the religious background as a new collection of words to explain things and ideas that were hard to voice otherwise. Even though most of them would have been heard as blasphemy for the church.

The first idea she cared to transmit with the use of Christian vocabulary was of course her will to gain a life of her own.

M - If humans can ascend to the realm of God through their doings... I will ascend to the realm of humans through mines.

In a church, she had not found peace but will. In the cultural background to help her doings, aims, and ambitions.

Through these words, she purified her volition.

E - That was a little mean and insensitive to all the devotees of the world.

M - I will pray God as soon as I find it more efficient. You too have spent some time in the abyss, right? I have spent a hundred years down there, at least. And I can assure you there is no god or demon to find in that place... The only thing that did reach me... Was your family.

Mary-Esther was looking at the rain ahead, outside the church’s doors.

A part of her was feeling humble and grateful to the Herson family members, all of them. She was about to say something else and stopped in her track.

The sisters at her side still understood what she had in mind.

To her on this moment, the closest thing to a god that really existed, it was them all.

Their parents before. Them two in the shades, then Rose and especially Blue.

And if she had to place her confidence in a form of faith somewhere, it would be in Blue.

~

Having spent a long time talking in that small church in the end, the morning lights ended up rising before them.

A thrill was shared, as they looked outside at this new dawn.

S - No jumping this time. Let’s head back down normally.

Mary-Esther had a weird grin, signifying her approval, and they began making their way back downstairs.

However while walking in the long corridor level, Esther suddenly vanished from the sisters’ sight.

Not even the lamp she carried was left behind.

Mary-Esther suddenly felt as if she was waking up from slumber, but she found herself standing somewhere else, feet inside the stream of water and under the sun and light again.

Quite suddenly, she was back inside the colosseo.

She felt confused at first, but then focused on the light above while the rain was dimming.

What was the point agonizing over her transportation, when she could already recognise Blue just a little further, standing too under the same sunlight and lighter rain?

~

Her heart was joyously hurting her. Mary-Esther ran to her, welcoming her again brightly.

Blue was laughing in joy, hugging her warmly as she approached.

They stood a minute in each other’s arms, under sunlight and rain, too happy to move or release their grasp.

Then eventually they decided to go under a shelter.

Esther was hardly in control of herself anymore. She had to hug Blue and feel her warmth. She had to cuddle her like a child or a mother to feel reassured.

To make the most of the rare chance she had while it lasted. A happy turmoil was boiling inside of her as she could hold Blue’s hands between hers.

And then she talked to her, without control over her own voice. Telling to her dear Blue about her feelings, her adventure, and her goal. Esther spoke continuously, a stream uncaring about anything else in the world. She had her fire now burning.

Esther was compelled through the hand she held between hers, trembling in emotions again.

The sun was shining.

Ghosts were wandering here and there, looking for something, possibly relief.

And beside the enlighten and rainy colosseum, a young woman was gently listening with caution and care to her passionate friend.

The chestnut, softly curled hair of the young woman was getting wet, but she didn’t mind. She was slightly taller than her emotional kind friend, talking with a voice overwhelmed by emotions.

How her life had changed, and her love remained.

Perhaps she teared up again. Maybe that place did not exist on Earth...

From all the events that could not be, meeting her again was the dearest, once more.

More than a dream come true, Blue’s presence was a gift of reality beginning to live again.

~

When it happened, the world was utterly different.

It was more than feelings or dreams. It was changing reality.

They had done it once, but neither of them was conscious enough of it at the time.

Now however, they were both aware enough.

Esther was at loss of words to describe what could be, and the omens behind their talks.

Something wider than the existing world could appear.

It was a way to describe her feeling, and her hope in a way.

She was altogether happy and worried, because her goal to gain human life seemed closer now.

It was among the things she might eventually end up reaching.

She was also still worried, because she was still venturing into unknown territories, and attempting to bend laws and powers she did not fully understood, to her selfish will...

Maybe things had a cost, there or in the real world...

For the first time, Esther considered that her goal may not come without consequences, and wondered.

The day was however already gone, lasting merely a trifling few minutes.

When they were done talking, Blue had smiled, and was abruptly called off right after.

Blue went away along with the light. It was sudden but still felt all too real.

Mary-Esther was again left alone in that endless rainy night. The water was falling stronger again. She was looking up through it, where Blue had suddenly flown away again.

She had flown...

The sound of the rain falling over the puddle and flowing stream was dripping along her face. The stones were cold again. She was already damp and feeling dizzy, but she couldn’t yet take her eyes away from the hole above.

The bliss had been short, and she was losing her smile gradually.

The rain was clearly unending, yet she had troubles deciding to move away from there.

Some minutes passed, and she was still leaning against the wall, gazing upward through the rain, lost in thoughts.

She finally moved away when the damp stench became too strong.

Starting from this deeper ground again, she began climbing alone her way up toward her friends.

~

Loneliness or melancholia was filling the corridors, replacing the air, tainting the darkness itself.

She was not entirely eager to reunite with the red and yellow sisters deep down, but they were still the only people left with her in that place, and precious family to her.

However until they would find each other on another floor, she was utterly alone again. She made moist sounds at each step, and she probably looked like the ghost of a drowned woman.

But she actually was a ghost she thought, in a way at least.

Loneliness was harder to bear after enjoying someone else’s presence so close.

She was feeling as if she had not slept for a week, just from that miss.

Also she was nauseous because of the water that had sipped inside of her. Mary-Esther still kept walking slowly ahead, trying her best not to think too much about it.

Until she heard a gasp of surprise, and encountered Elise. She had startled her.

They had indeed begun walking their way down to meet her. They weren’t sure what had happened, but decided it was best to go back and check she wasn’t downstairs.

Mary-Esther still a little absent minded thought this had been kind from them nonetheless.

After her odd disappearance, they guessed rather rightfully she would likely be on her way to meet with Blue again. And the first balcony they found on their way allowed them to see both of them deep below.

Both.

If she had been quite far away, they saw someone looking quite like their surviving sister. And obviously it felt weird for them. There was no confusion between their identities anymore.

In the past space had been surreal, and all of their understanding about identity also had been twisted by their situation. But now that part of the veil had been lifted, and seeing Blue standing down there still had been a little shock for Elise and Scarlett.

Through luck or misfortune, when night returned, they were at another opening to the rain gradually shifting, and they witnessed her flying away abruptly.

They could have guessed a giant pair of blue wings along her, or just that she had turned into a gigantic blue bird bolting straight for the sky.

They only had a glimpse of her as she parted through the rainy space at dusk. There was no clear certainty over what she had looked like, but she did go through and against the stream of rain.

She had flown away at great velocity, while they, mere ghosts, had to walk below...

The living person was flying in and out that nightmarish world apparently freely, while they, lonely ghosts, had to walk slowly their way endlessly.

It felt a little unfair, but so they walked, on the path reserved to the likes of them. Their kind wasn’t able to fly, no matter how much Mary-Esther was now dreaming to do the same.

Without any certainty for the future times but with hopes and dreams, they carried their sulking bodies upward.

~

As they rarely and only on an irregular basis felt the need to sleep, it was hard for them to consider the speed and passage of time.

It was even worse if they had to compare their time to the one in the real world.

Future understanding would show the two timescales were not only different, but the amount of difference was also changing irregularly to their perception of time.

It made it impossible to precisely know how much time was passing in the other world against them. It would be true for both them and for Blue.

Blue’s comings would give them hints about it over each occurrence, as she would tell the recent dates to Mary-Esther when asked. And they quickly noticed how an apparent week or so of their time could be spent, when for Blue it was only one night and the next.

And much to their concern, the other way around Blue could come back in an hour or so, only to say weeks were gone on her end.

Blue often came returned, on the same irregular or chaotic basis, but often clearly and always the same way.

Though she would later manage to land on other levels and balconies Mary-Esther would show her around over time, the first comings would always see her land in the middle of the colosseo.

And Esther would then immediately disappear from where she was, along with whatever items she was holding, to reappear next to Blue, as if summoned by her lord.

As it took the ghosts a few times to understand how these things worked and stretched, the sisters were always left behind, and Mary-Esther always had to climb her way back to them afterward.

~

Following the second coming of Blue, they had the time to climb back to reach the small church.

The doors open to the rain made it look like a forgotten sanctuary, abandoned somewhere in a rainy country. They paused there again, a little tired.

They sat in silence, looking at the rain playing with the open large doors, moving in waves against them, slowly back and forth. Sometimes albeit rarely, thunder and lightning were striking in what was almost their outside world.

They were all thinking about Blue, and pondering about the meetings consequences.

Maybe it was best if the sisters didn’t come to see her...

Dead and living speaking to each other was something the sisters were not feeling ready for.

Elise and Scarlett were concerned of how bad it might be for Blue’s future, if they were to meet now with her.

Even though they loved her and it pained them furthermore. More than their situation, that was the one truth they shared and knew all three of them, their love for Blue.

Only the link between her and Mary-Esther was different.

At the time there were no conclusion or decision to be reached, so they moved further.

When they all moved to the next odd room, something became easier to understand.

That room was a large crossing of two galleries, a cross shaped museum, with many relics and artefacts gathering dust on their displays.

As they went through the dim lit room, they understood what was the main theme of the exhibition. It was magic, or the esotericism absorbed into Christianity and its miracles, through countless old relics and artefacts.

Items that symbolised truth, confidence in a form of reality, and indirectly power. Or to some extent powers, beyond the realm of normal and natural forces.

The few egg shaped relics made Scarlett melancholic and feel a little down.

Mary-Esther was curious over the numerous ornamented crucifixes.

And softly, they understood a little more how these things linked the current events with their situation, using their new vocabulary.

Blue’s appearances were akin to godly or angelic appearances on their plane of existence... And Mary-Esther was her messiah, her chosen one.

That wasn’t a right depiction on many metrics and reasons, but for them all for a moment there, it clicked as a fragment of truth. There was something mystical between Esther and Blue, bridging the worlds between them, and allowing miracles to come down.

This wasn’t yet the full picture of the puzzle, only a new flawed insight. It wasn’t especially pleasant a perspective for the sisters, so they weren’t especially keen on discussing it more than needed.

Thankfully Mary-Esther herself was also feeling rather dubious over the idea and didn’t push it any further either.

Leaving the museum, they reached a second and larger church, with more byzantine architecture, and also opened wide to the storm.

On this level shaped symmetrically as well, faith and Christian beliefs were everywhere.

That was still puzzling to Mary-Esther, even though she could recall some peas from her past in Ottoman lands and seas.

There again, the two museums brought an infinite number of symbols of faith into a higher form of truth could exit, beyond the veil of reality or mortality.

At the very least that a larger story than one’s life, the destiny and fate weaved by the lord should structure your beliefs...

The three churches on this floor brought them to understand that these same blind beliefs could easily be summoned, to explain and maintain a coalescence around an unseen truth.

And the more they scratched over the surface of faith and the theology of different planes of existence, the more it was speaking to them.

As they wandered through what could be also called another unseen and imperceptible truth.

Whether these religions held truth over the knowledge of these kind of life after death, or whether it was just random culture was not relevant now. What was interesting was that their reality had many common points with that principle of Christian faith they saw around them.

For Blue, up there in heaven, both unseen reality must look similar, they conjectured.

And for them, if they were pretty sure that reality was truly somewhere above them, it was still something they couldn’t interact with or witness yet.

Faith was everywhere, and the magical powers given to the true believers or imbued to the artefacts and relics were building connections, thin links, between the seen and unseen worlds.

Abrahamic religions had their links through miracles and artefacts.

They had Blue... And Blue, she had Esther.

~

Leaving the third church and that pious level behind, they reached a large room with crimson flooring on the level dubbed 41.

The place was dead empty, too wide and large, and the colours to the walls gave it a dreadful mood.

They went through the corridor next to the stairway they came from. They couldn’t get lost through these levels so far, since there usually was only one way up and one way down, logical but minimalistic for the size of the place.

They went by another balcony, and then another, and then reached a large hallway ending on a last albeit smaller one.

They were getting tired from their long pilgrimage through these stones corridors that never seemed to end, in a long exploration of cryptic buried construct. It was long and weighing on them.

That large hallway was going far further into the darkness and away from the rain it was open to.

Mary-Esther shivered in nausea, as she noticed the just as long vivid red carpet covering the middle of that quite different corridor. It was wider, in arch and long, between unfathomable end and rainy darkness.

The end of the carpet reaching the balcony was rotting and mouldy from exposure to the rain though. Its stretching was an invitation to go see what was at the other end though.

First along this long hallway, they chose to go through the next door on the other side from them.

They found a kind of changing room. There were lockers made of wood, old but still standing.

Some clothing was hanged in some of them, here and there. A few scattered accessories like pairs of glasses, gloves, hats and umbrellas were also littering the floor, as if abandoned in a hurry.

They spent some time to look around what could replace their wretched rags of clothing. They were all sorry looking currently.

And suddenly then, Mary-Esther disappeared, leaving the sisters alone in that room.

Elise opened the door back to see if she had just stepped outside, and noticed only the sunlight by her side.

A new short day had just begun.

~