16 ~ November night. Wing 1

Time was just an illusion...

More than an aspect of physics, a major element of reality, it was probably a lie.

A lie to keep them imprisoned.

Time was keeping their prison locked, and surely eroding their minds.

It had begun to creep slowly. The damages were invisible at first, if it even was considered as wearing. No, it was rather a kind of life for them, that slowly evolved and changed. And as incredibly things could happen in a cellmate’s life, even though the environment shared was eternally the same, their time was changing things imperceptibly.

But not the rain, nor the colosseo. Not the cold dark and damp, empty, moisty and middle-ages looking crypt-like corridors...

These blood vessels of a dead titan, of this unrealistic tomb, they never seem to change.

Their jail remained.

It was their new prison since they had ventured in, and since the rain began to pour down without end.

Blue had come to visit them on a few occasions, or rather to see Esther, only Mary-Esther.

On her last visit, maybe because a shelter had been set over the side of the colosseo where she usually appeared, Blue landed on the first balcony instead. Mary-Esther was immediately summoned to her as usual nonetheless.

Esther and Blue spent a darling time nonetheless, sharing about their lives and hopes.

A few levels above, Scarlett could guess them two through the lighter rain and brighter daylight.

She could see Blue, and grit her teeth slightly about it. She could even guess her laughter sometimes.

Then the night would come back when Blue would suddenly fly off, more like a lightning bolt returning to the sky than a free flying bird though.

And this time, the night lasted for the longest time. It was painful.

After what felt like too many days, the three ghosts had reached the new limits of the world, sets apparently by Blue’s last incoming.

They had figured out that eldritch rule over the course of her sparse previous comings. That on each visit, one or two new levels became accessible.

Stairs would simply appear where walls had been before, or locked doors would magically unlock.

The worst case had been a darker hollow where one could fall, and they almost did, the ground giving way unrealistically until Blue visited again. Things were painfully unreal and bound to her.

After endless weeks, they knew everything of the place they could freely meander within, from the colosseo draining ground on level 51, to the labyrinth they had reached on level 38.

Weeks... Months... The time passing felt slow and it was getting heavy over their minds. The unending rain was breaking them. The night and darkness was exhausting them. The absence of sunlight most of the time was wearing them. They were growing restless and slightly hopeless.

They had already spent enough time arranging the living quarters they had found to their liking, or building useless shelters here and there. They lived like scavengers in a way.

But time more than hunger kept pressuring their mind, impatience and despair growing steadily.

The bath and comfortable beds they had settled around on level 39 where not sufficient anymore. There was nothing else to do but wait, and they couldn’t stand it anymore.

At times they were arguing over nothing, and it happened more often. They were spending now more time by themselves in different parts of their world, wandering aimlessly. They were becoming ghosts to each other.

Mary-Esther was still endeared, believing Blue would soon come back, helping them from above.

Still doing her best to keep faith and her sanity up, she was having a hard time coping with her own existential fears. Each heartbeat she felt was a new surge of fear, and each blink reminded her how close below the abyss was.

It was still there, always. The end of everything was invisible but still very close to this place. She wanted to run away from it with all her strength. To fly up without looking to the dark ground behind.

Her primal fear from that full blackness was driving her to climb, but also pushing her mind into panic and disarray.

She still had her blind hope that her light would come once more to save her soon enough. She was trembling. Scratching her head and mind with every possible thought that could likely help otherwise.

They were all trying to figure out good ways to escape from that jail.

Weeks had passed before Elise finally tried to cheat against the rules.

~

Climbing the wall. That part of their inside world, rising like an inverted tower was already set. They could see far above their level from the upper balconies.

So it was actually simple in theory to climb above the known limit to reach a balcony they could already see.

Elise had proven herself surprisingly skilled and resourceful when it had come to climb the cave walls below.

And even she could recall the awful weather foreboding the rain and against her back then.

So how hard could be a few dozen metres of brick wall under the rain instead?

Even if the rain was strong and cold, the balconies over the giant well were not that far from one another. The bricks themselves were hard to break or carve, but the imperfections between stones and mortars could allow someone to climb.

She decided to start one level below from their current top level, because the only balcony otherwise would be a greater distance from the next one above. Elise thought it would be better to climb mostly upward and not sideways for a longer time.

From what they had arbitrarily decided was the southern side of the great colosseo wall, Elise tried and began to climb.

This time she had ropes tied to her waist and two people securing her line. Using all the useful tools they had found or even crafted these last weeks or so, Elise began to climb.

Under the deafening rain washing her raingear, Elise was already damp and getting soaked. Under her hood, she was still tensed and wilful no matter how hard it was.

She was only a few steps above the balcony she had left below, and already felt her limbs shaking. She pulled herself up, stabbing the wall between two stones with the sharpened screwdriver she held, a little above her head.

It wasn’t holding yet, so she tried again and again. She hammered it over and over afterward, until only the grip was protruding from the wall. She pulled herself a little higher over it.

Carefully, she carved her way toward the first forbidden level. A balcony over her head, so close it already sheltered her a little from the rain.

It took time and it took strength. But everything was meaningless...

Esther kept her sense of sanity and self with her mad wish to become alive. Elise had something else just as strong to motivate her. Scarlett wasn’t sure about anything yet, but helping them was also to help holding herself so far.

They were all sad and tired, but not ready to just sit and give up yet...

Elise made it, trembling. She reached the balcony.

Her hand passed halfway through it as if it was an illusion. She couldn’t tell what it felt like to touch the inside of the stone, as this was just weird.

She didn’t let the surprise stop her and pulled herself onto it, even though some parts of herself were going through the stone handrail and ground, when she squeezed herself behind it.

She stood up, her feel buried in the stone. Either the solid rock was fluid, or she was, Elise thought.

She was vanishing. She watched her hands going through the handrail completely. Something was obviously wrong, but she wouldn’t stop yet.

With her lantern, she tried to look into the new dark level, but she couldn’t see a thing.

The flame’s illumination dimmed drastically and couldn’t show anything but the lamp itself anymore. Without changing size, it was just a weak glow now. The light was less efficient than normal.

This weakening effect of light, and how solid ground was giving way somewhat, it was things they had experienced a little before. But she knew she could push it nonetheless. It was less about the place being forbidden than being not completely built there yet, in a weird way. So she might make it to a more solid place a little further with some luck.

Elise grabbed the rope she had carried to tie it to the balcony ledge, so she could venture inside.

But as she tried to secure her footing, she slipped through the floor entirely.

She heard the crashing sound of her lantern above, getting smashed against the balcony ground while herself was falling through.

She felt the rain for a moment. She saw every bit of her clothing and the rope that had been tied to her turning to shreds along the fall.

It happened so fast and unexpected, Elise just had felt like she slipped perhaps, while briefly seeing the other lanterns where Esther and Scarlett were standing and waiting for her.

She heard them scream as she just passed by them in her sudden fall and untied.

Elise realised only then that she was really falling, feeling weird and stunned.

Soon after, she was gone, leaving Scarlett and Mary-Esther shocked and unclear as to what happened above.

~

They panicked slightly and had begun running downstairs rapidly to find her. The circular atrium was a very long way down, but they had not yet set faster ways to head below through the balconies and ropes. They still had to run through the endless corridors and staircases.

They jogged to exhaustion for hours with an awful feeling grasping their hearts. They feared for Elise dearly.

For now they were stuck again with the many levels to go across. That place was awfully big and stupidly set. There was no main staircase, making this architecture even less logical than what had been the train.

When they finally reached the rainy colosseo, they searched for Elise, calling her loudly. They searched everywhere in that large circular square, and the surrounding flooded corridors.

They searched for her until they couldn’t anymore...

They began to think that maybe Elise was truly gone this time.

Scarlett was feeling horrible and crying silently.

She was still a little surprised to see how much it seemed to affect Mary-Esther also.

Mary-Esther had shaken and fallen to her knees in despair. Exhausted and shocked for sure, and possibly feeling guilty also.

And then, slowly, ever so slowly, Scarlett witnessed what she never expected. She saw it appear suddenly.

In the flood, Esther was beginning to consider with sorrow that Elise might really be gone. Her eyes were wide open in pain. She couldn’t quite cope anymore. A little part of her was breaking down nervously.

Months without daylight. And now she just thought the pit had just gobbled up someone dear to her.

The feelings within her weren’t very strong or exploding somehow. She wasn’t going to scream her sadness or pain, or guilt. In fact she was more on the verge of a simpler crying, which began to make her heart hurt and her head go numb as usual.

There was a feeling of hopelessness, of nihilism creeping in. Although there was nothing that dreadful or unusual happening on that time. Mary-Esther was feeling sorry, and worried because it seemed like nothing was of consequences.

She felt tired, closing her eyes for some respite, as nothing they had done seemed to bring any breakthrough to their situation. They were running around in this bottled world. And now Elise was gone.

She felt it wrong and this only made the pain in her head grow.

Mary-Esther fell to her knees. She was looking in a mixture of despair and higher awareness at the flowing waters below her.

Her mind wandered between her grief, slowly, trying to realise something a little higher, to make something better rise from all this pain. Until the thoughts blended together in a soft internal miasma. She was losing some of her her conscious self in that moment, feeling swamped.

What survived it was her previous will. The one that denied the laws of nature against herself. Her previous will that was ready known science, biology and theology...

Her will to rise. Her will to climb up to the world and claim her own life.

Her burning desire...

Her will strong enough to dig her own way up to reach reality.

Making her way... Until then she had walked through gaps between nothingness and there... She had crawled her way in existence so far between the frailer loopholes of reality and more. But now however, she realised she had found a true wall blocking her path further. An obstacle in this place she may not find a way to cheat like she had so far.

It was time to show her will was still there and not just in words. Being shrewd only got them so far, now progress would require further interactions...

She was trembling a little, beginning to get angry at herself.

She had known all along nothing would be easy. She had known she wouldn’t be successful without setbacks.

Elise’s disappearance felt like a tremendous slap and wakeup call; which made Mary-Esther get angry against herself for having taken the situation and reality far too lightly.

She had been lazy since Blue came around to see her, and had been waiting and relying on her help. She had been counting on it as the primary mean to success. That had been a painful mistake that even Elise herself had attempted breaking through.

What had happened to Esther’s strong will from before? The will that sworn she would pave her way against every law to reach her goal? It had fallen asleep in this place, under the bliss of being temporarily reunited with Blue.

Now Mary-Esther was waking that will up, feeling furious.

Once more she was digging through the embers to reignite that fire out of herself and grow it once more.

They had fallen against that wall, or rather ceiling, that new strong obstacle.

So she would find her way around or break it.

Through trickery or through power, she would make her way.

Faith and prayers had been her way to become lazy, but it was over. She decided it was time to change the world by herself again.

~

Under the pouring rain, feeling exhausted and sad herself, Scarlett had seen Mary-Esther fall to her knees in the water, muttering to herself.

Scarlett heard her say she was done being lazy, and that she would now start to change the world itself.

She talked about the world they were currently in of course, hopefully. At first Scarlett got a little closer to help her getting out and away from the rain. But then she began stepping back, because something unnatural was beginning to happen before her.

The rain stopped. Over Esther first, and slowly it stopped everywhere.

The silence, along with Esther’s new stand started to worry Scarlett. The air was quieter, but now also quite heavier.

She was changing something. That world, like the previous train, partially came out of her memories and will. Maybe she just realised she did hold some power over it beyond what appeared to be.

Mary-Esther’s back began to crackle. Scarlett stepped back in the misty pool, seeing worrisome shapes and shades twirling around.

Softly, Mary-Esther’s back blossomed, and her hair grew along there, flowing longer to grow a new arm. An auburn hair new arm grew out of her back, getting taller and taller. The brown colour fell in ripples from it into growing feathers.

Softly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, a huge wing was growing out of Mary-Esther’s back.

A large wing lifted to the cloudy sky...

Everything was remaining still, except for the twirling fog. Scarlett was somewhat petrified, as she didn’t know what to think about that she just witnessed.

Esther had just grown a wing. Her first wing...

~

When she realised it herself, Mary-Esther wasn’t sure about what to think or make of it. But she was more decided to break free from their jail... They would build ladders, pierce tunnels, carve the walls.

They were done playing nice with this place.

Mary-Esther was obviously angry at herself, but wanted to put that feeling to good use.

Scarlett looked at the large wing the same colour overall as her hair, and then at her eyes. Esther was clearly more resolute again.

Growing a wing as useless in itself, but proved them both she could alter their current world a little, if only in weird ways. This was only the beginning.

It was starting to rain again.

S - So... Where should we start then?

Esther was looking more wilful to get things to change, and Scarlett was ready to follow despite her grief as well.

They were moving on.

~

It had been weeks when Elise disappeared.

It had been months when they managed to put down a wall blocking the access to the next level.

It had taken time, to find where exactly the way was supposed to be, but not much more. Since that level was symmetrical like some others, they were able to guess.

More than a bet, there was just a wall blocking the path somewhere, and it was simply for them another attempt at making a way out in their current conditions.

Using the hand tools at their disposal, they took shifts and slowly carved and broke the wall down. It was harder than a mere hole digging since everything was rock or bricks, but they did it.

Esther was working her hypothetical muscles against the wall, bringing it down bit by bit.

And behind was the same soft darkness and loss of solidity of materials they had seen before. It was another dead end, for now. This flowing darkness swallowed light and materials alike, and was likely to consume them if they went in unprepared. But it was changing, and there were other places to try.

It was far from their only plans at hand otherwise.

Among the craziest ones was to build a balloon to rise.

And investing on Scarlett talented sewing skills, they worked on that one as well meanwhile. Some furniture with their drawers removed made a basket first, but they ended up chopping it down for wood with the rest of it. Using every piece of cloth and drapery they had found everywhere, Scarlett was crafting the balloon.

Using the lace mail from their arrival which they went to recover, they also set a network of cables from balconies to balconies.

First setting a line by throwing a rock with a thread, then using a sling or makeshift bow and arrow for greater distances. Then fixing that metallic wire and pieces of furniture together, they had crafted a rope ladder and set it from the first balcony to hang down toward the colosseo. Using it allowed them to skip a few levels of corridors and stairways when they needed to be going up or down. It helped.

Making the place their own had taken a deeper meaning now that they were altering it frankly and without remorse. Mary-Esther had broken some pieces of handrails with a sledgehammer, in order to ease the use of some of the lines between balconies.

And also to have some fun breaking things Scarlett surmised, watching her do so.

Down in the rainy colosseo, using the various rocks and bricks they had kept throwing down there for various reasons, they were now able to build a small pontoon above the water level to ease their walk. It was now leading to the rope ladder instead of the many corridors beside.

More interestingly to Scarlett, they built open half-pipes over the balconies, to redirect some of the rainwater inside the various levels. It was working relatively easily.

If there was no purpose for it yet, they both agreed it might sometime be useful in the future to have that ability.

Controlling flows of water meant they might have water pressure as a new available tool, to break or move things later on.

Mary-Esther thought about melting Atlas’s huge globe and sculpture, and the enormous terrestrial globe in the other room, in order to reuse the metal.

But as they had a very limited stockpile of flammable materials, they didn’t try to work on a kiln to do so. They kept their wood in chunks to feed the upcoming balloon.

~

When Mary-Esther managed to break another wall where they suspected the exit way to the next level could be was pierced, it looked more promising this time. She managed to push a brick to the other side, revealing the hollow behind it, and less darkness than in other places.

They focused on it for a little while, breaking it open enough so they could pass through.

This time it seemed alright, everything was still apparently solid and answering normally to illumination.

They climbed the dusty stairways carefully, realising quickly how much their lanterns lost their illuminating power from a normal level to the forbidden next.

The place felt colder as well. There was a fog lingering and everything was feeling frozen, and darker there.

They didn’t notice immediately how their shoes were sinking into the floor by a few millimetres just yet.

They thought the level below was a labyrinth, they were now entering a real one. The stronger darkness made it impossible to see both walls of a single corridor at the same time.

At least it wasn’t completely abysmal, but this place was still very strange and hostile to them.

Unfortunately for them they made some bad choices and ended up lost before they could find their way back.

They were feeling cold. Esther didn’t seem to doubt, but Scarlett’s forces were drained.

Only then did they realise how their feet were slowly sinking through the solid ground.

Scarlett was sinking faster than Mary-Esther.

She tried to pull Scarlett off, but now their hands were passing through each other again.

The place was swallowing them.

Scarlett fears grew, and in panic growing she became furious.

While her ankles were slowly disappearing below, she just threw all her resentment at Esther in spite.

Scarlett accursed of being responsible for it all. Their doom, their suffering, creating that awful place to torment them even further. Holding them back in that nightmare that knew no end...

Of having indirectly killed Elise and now her. Scarlett was breaking down under this grasp of doom pulling along her feet.

Even if some of the accusation made no sense, Scarlett accused her of it all with a voice betraying a growing despair more than anger.

She spat for Esther to face her responsibilities in their shared tragedy. To face her sins for everything she had done and caused them...

While Mary-Esther was listening to her, unable to focus, the stream of spiteful words stopped with a last whisper.

On the ground before her were lying Scarlett clothes, next to her fallen lantern.

This was how Elise was gone before, she realised. Painfully, she was now gone, falling through the place and probably further below into nothingness again.

Esther leant to pick up the clothes, but her hand went through it without touching anything.

Was it over then? She was going to get eaten and die like them?

She was returning to the abyss, only this time to fall into nothing for good and forever?

She stood there, worried for a while, lost in the darkness.

She had spent days, weeks, months, currently stuck in this forsaken place.

Before that, she had been stuck for years, decades, and likely a while century...

A century of hope and patience, just to get a taste of the real world.

And even before... She had memories far older, of the sand, warm, back in a Mediterranean country where the sun felt like it could fill the sky.

She thought that she came from the land where the sun itself was born...

And that she had made it too far already, to just give up now!

Mary-Esther felt as if releasing a roar.

She contracted every muscle she knew. She forced everything from her body and mind to react against what was happening. She forced everything she could reach or control to react and fight back this reality.

Her voice covered the noise from the rain in her ears.

Something more powerful than a vain childish tantrum was flowing out of her and vibrating through her ears.

She was moving more than sound in that moment of wrath. Something more real from herself than all she could perceive in this shell and damp well. As if all the colosseo and her small body became smaller and smaller next to her outburst, and that it all fitted in the head in a darker and smaller corner of something much bigger lost in nothing. Structures far bigger and beyond were slightly perceived through this moment of defiance against everything.

She was making that truth of herself beyond the dream itself move slightly...

Even if all her senses were locked down into that minuscule reality, she was yelling and reaching ever so slightly all that lied beyond in that moment. A part of her will was reaching out for herself what was already above, shaking everything below.

From within that dream, she moved reality, if only just a little; during her longest and fiercest roar.

Her wing had opened, filling the dark corridor now shaking below and around her. She made this dreamt underworld shiver and react again. She knew it and felt it, beyond every senses twirling around her sense of self and physical identity locked in there, she felt herself shaking this limited reality to reach out and beyond.

She could feel the movements of the surrounding air through her feathers, feeling as if she was hearing through it the thoughts of the walls, the shivers of the place and wider space all exterior.

The dream was shaken by her will.

Her wing could now hear the worries and fears from the walls surrounding her, through the slighter changes in the air and fluctuating thoughts. It was quite a new sensation akin to a new sense of perception opening to her. A new sense of hearing, discovered by scaring the place itself...

Mary-Esther heard she could scare the place in that moment of exhilaration and anger. She could finally shake something meaning to react and resist to her will, but this odd moment was already over.

She was catching her breath back, sweating and dizzy all over.

Everything was dark again, but it had felt for a second as if she had even seen some light glowing above.

Perhaps it was only her brain lacking oxygen for a while, but she wanted to try doing this again.

In her moment of widened sensations, she had guessed the path or seen it from outside herself, toward a balcony near and ahead in that place. She chose to go for it, trembling over her legs.

Her feet came out from the ground naked, leaving her shoes and socks lost beneath. She stepped on the ground firmly this time.

Her bare skin now was lying in cold and dirty but clear contact over the ground. This level maybe was now more solidly anchored in reality.

She reached the opening ahead and the balcony that incidentally was the one where Elise had fallen and disappeared.

Some of her clothes were still there, abandoned and damped.

Mary-Esther didn’t lean to try recovering them this time, focusing on other priorities.

She had felt for a brief moment that she could move something beyond what she could perceive here.

And she had heard the place’s fear of her doing so... A fear that she might do it. A fright that she might have the strength or more to bend reality...

She took a deep breath, opening her arms and her large wing to the rain. She had to try again.

She was going to wake up something beyond.

Her wing clashed against the wall.

Her yell deafened her, hurting her ears and throat. Everything began to shake, just a little around her.

A kind of light, different from the usual sunshine appeared softly in the colosseo’s space. Everything that made her perceived reality was in slight turmoil.

Mary-Esther couldn’t see it yet, as she was howling against everything, forcing her being to grow and act beyond her localised perception and body. Grow further and beyond, against everything...

M - I will be...

Her breath was cut short, as she was almost passing out from exhaustion after this new exercise.

Still Esther was beginning to carve that new law into what she could reach of reality above herself.

~