26 ~ February night. Wing 4. Jörmungandr.

There was a sad music in the air.

Small sounds following each other in disharmony initially, and gently turning to melody.

It paused often. Maybe some violins went softly along in strings during these quainter times.

It sounded like a funeral music, with a sad yet strong play. The music depicted the fall of a great one to her ears.

The walls were always thinking aloud, and whispering. That part of them all, which made that place as it was, it was still worried and shivering.

Although it kept raining in the colosseo, although everything was quiet elsewhere for now.

The sound of slow but strong heartbeat echoed through the walls like giant but faint drums. It was low and slow, but strong enough to keep whoever was left feel ever uneasy.

She could guess behind her hear of the outcome, that a new promise had been made. She had felt that shift in the air. A new rose was meant to change the outcome in the end...

The lights of a new day began to appear in the air. Another dawn was rising in the colosseo.

Another heart was still beating.

And slowly, as the sun was illuminating the well down to its bottom end, the rain slowed down quietly, until it stopped almost entirely.

The rain stopped under that different light, and when thunder struck down the ground and waters one last time, this new day was settled.

Amongst the mists vanishing, on the cleared square with the ruins of a pontoon, she appeared.

She found herself breathing and standing in the middle of this wide place, shivering slightly.

She looked upward toward the sun, smiling to the invisible Isha behind. She waved at her mechanically as to a dear friend she couldn’t see.

She then looked down at the still water covering the floor tiling, seeing her reflection along the elaborate marbling.

That ground was now partially as a giant mirror, reflecting everything with a partially noticeable elaborate drawing.

The ground below her feet felt like a thin grid in the middle of a twice as long tower or tunnel, between a sun above and its bright counterpart on the other end.

She felt as if she stood in the middle of an endless tunnel between worlds, above its mirroring filter.

She breathed deeply, closing her eyes, between a vertigo, the thrill, also the shivers and even a few tears trying to escape.

Being there now, it meant a lot. Being able to see this place with her own eyes, it meant far more...

And beside her a little further, she found the lying corpse of Esther, abandoned there unceremoniously as if it had been a time of war. It was painful to see.

Mary-Esther’s body was there, soaked for too long and livid. Her skin had been drained of colours. Her wings had been stripped of most feathers over time. Her dress was in shreds. A large flesh wound was left gapping in the middle of her chest.

She got slowly closer to the body she hadn’t expected to find so disgraced. She was feeling pained as anyone else would be walking closer to the dead body of a dear old friend.

Esther looked awful, as if she had suffered a terrible agony. The wound on her now porcelain skin was visibly too deep. She had likely bled to death.

Her face was looking much older than her witness would have expected. Esther looked old like a hag, severe and in pain.

Bits of her flesh and skin were missing by the side of her eye as if ripped out, but no blood was left to stain these. All of this meat had been washed until she was exsanguinated. She had been kept cold and places of her body had swollen somewhat from the humidity.

She got another step closer to kneel in piety in front of her.

Rose brushed another tear away, feeling sorry.

For years, she had wanted to meet her...

For years she wanted to thank Esther, for having saved Blue in the past.

Years of expectations, of kindness, of doubt, worries and eventually fear. All of that, all these dreams and difficulties, all the challenges to reach an eventual conclusion, to just meet her lying dead like that...

It was painful in the end.

To find the one she was still indebted to lying there as if she had drowned by the side of a road, with no one to help her, alone.

She had been forsaken and abandoned by the ones she had loved and helped. No matter what had followed, it was a painful turn of things for Rose.

This corpse of a winged woman she couldn’t recognise seemed to be all that was left of her. Lost in the bottom of a hole where she might never really decay or be seen again... She would never have the tombstone she deserved, to prove her deeds or even her existence.

Esther would remain in these shadows of an old dream, eventually vanishing even from their memories.

It was such a sad fate to meet, that at least Rose cried for her.

R - I’m sorry it ended in such ways... It could have been otherwise... It should have been different.

Rose truly was sorry for Esther.

The sun barely was drying her body and clothes now.

They were so deep inside this hole that even the sunlight from above barely felt like a sky above their heads at all. Rose was experiencing firsthand the suffocating claustrophobia from this strange prison deeply buried into some uncertain grounds.

The light appeared strong, but it was still so far away and cold that it brought only a mixed feeling of hope and despair, not a warming presence entirely.

Some fifty stories were towering above, between this end and the invisible opening far above.

Rose approached her hand and shut Esther’s eyes slowly. She was cold and still. Her skin had wrinkled from the long exposure to water, aging her even more unsightly. Rose closed her mouth, and made her look at least a little more dignified as she rested there.

Rose prayed for her, to whomever might hear her plea, and take care of the poor soul.

~

The music she could have heard so far, from the combined whispers escaping the walls, they began to slow down.

The place only held afterward the rawer sounds they were thinking, along the wind flowing through the place after the rain.

Rose waited.

She waited for a sign. As everything was still and quiet, she ended up thinking that it was indeed likely over.

Even though she never thought their previous doing in reality could have killed Esther down there in such a horrible way, it seemed to have been the case. Unless something she couldn’t see had gone missing.

Her interference seemed to have killed Esther, and Rose felt sorry for her doom and guilty for causing it so harshly.

She had not predicted such a painful outcome.

Now it seemed there was nothing left to hope for Esther.

Before Rose tried to go away, she spoke the last promises made by Esther as a last prayer. What few of her words had at least reached her on the other side.

R - With one wing, I will bend you to my will. With two wings, I will reach you in the sky. With three wings, I will move even the stars...

The walls were reacting to these promises, recognizing the words and shivering with their rhythm. They were pulsating in echoes, aloud. The heart was beating.

Rose felt the world trembling.

She couldn’t help but somehow smirk. Everything was trembling.

She had been pretty sure that it could not be over in such a way.

~

The bones made strange noises. The doll was recovering her senses. The mechanics of the mannequin were damaged, as the body was in shambles.

But on odd mechanics and strings, she rose and stood up. In a slightly frightening demeanour, she stood up on her feet once more.

The featherless claws on her back were moving like grotesque appendages. Esther’s head was not looking in Rose’s direction yet. She was recovering her senses and spirits.

She began to scream, loudly at first, surprising Rose, but it quickly became an odd silent scream.

The wind was growing stronger for a while around her, pushing even the waters in waves around. Rose felt and saw their very feet leaving the ground for a minute of floating, as did countless droplets of water moving upward in the air.

Everything fell back to the ground in splashes afterward, when Esther’s spell was over.

A fourth wing began to sprout from her back like another stem.

Meanwhile, new feathers reappeared on the other wings as new leaves would on a tree in spring.

Rose witnessed that even Esther’s dress was growing out from her body, like a giant flower bulb would.

The bulb turned itself into her repaired skirt covering her legs where colours had returned.

Above, the fourth wing was now articulated and just as wide as the others.

Mary-Esther still seemed focused on something else however, unaware of Rose’s presence or her surroundings.

Rose stepped forward.

Esther heard it and turned suddenly toward her, showing her rejuvenated face now harbouring a scar of bitemark by her eye.

Both appeared surprised to see each other’s face facing them.

Rose was able to recognise some of Isha’s traits and facial features in front of her, along with the hair that was turning blond.

Mary-Esther was wondering if this was really Blue in front of her, as this person didn’t resembled her. At least this wasn’t Scarlett, so her anger calmed down.

M - Are you... Blue?

R - I’m Rose. I’m please to finally meet you myself, Esther...

Rose smiled softly. The reply had surprised Esther visibly. She couldn’t understand what was happening anymore.

R - I’m sorry to say, Blue will not come again, for her own sake. And... even myself, I came only to tell you... That unfortunately, we’re going to leave you. But also... I wanted to thank you in person, as I never had the chance before. Thank you, again and forever more...

~

Esther felt lost again, like an abandoned child.

Her pain and anger began to swell, and her ominous aura became perceptible. She began looking to Rose as if she was a wolf glaring at her, considering her best time to strike.

She would probably not attack Rose, but seemed on her guard at least, and ready to act violently if needed.

She realised however that it wasn’t raining anymore, and her surprise left her at a loss. She didn’t know what to ask now.

Rose had told her too little thing, far too little. She was hiding something from her. If she couldn’t guess what, Esther could sense it.

M - Rose... Why are you lying to me?

Rose smirked a little, admiring the sharpness. She had expected as much.

That unkind smile made Rose look far less amiable in Mary-Esther’s eyes.

R - Well... The answer alas is quite simple my dear friend. Do you know what a daiûa is, by any chance? Have you learnt it? From Blue or me, from Georges, or even someone else before?

M - A daiûa... Of course I know what they are... Are you implying that is all I am?

Rose didn’t reply, and Esther was left to realise, beyond feeling offended, how much she had become one of these djinns from the folkloric tales. A dangerous being that could never be trusted, seducing at first and ominous in the end.

Rose did not trust her...

They did not trust her anymore. They would not try to help her anymore. That fate was inscrolled.

Esther looked angrily back at Rose to ask her with more spite;

M - Then... Are you here to try and stop me?

R - Goodness no. I’m rather here to help you realise what happens now, that is all. Which is that Blue and I, we have decided to leave you now.

It broke Esther’s heart, but she kept the pain for her, turning it to further anger. It was fuelled and something more painful was growing out of it.

R - Finding such power to reach reality, you have become a real daiûa, wishing for transmigration onto another plane. And if you know them, you also know what is the safest way to behave with beings like them.

M - I am not a daiûa! I just want to live! The daiûa is... The real daiûa is!

Esther recalled to herself that dream.

That night... That light holding her, and whispering something uncertain to her. A worry, a prayer, something.

A breath blowing her away like a candle wish into the smokes and flames.

The daiûa was there... Opening doors, changing things, playing her fate like a whim.

A golden daiûa...

Mary-Esther was suddenly looking up straight at the light and sun shining, realising.

It had always meant and brought something to her.

M - The daiûa is behind the sun...

Rose was a little agape at first and then smiled, admiring her even more.

R - I’m impressed and you are right... There is a young witch behind that light. I know her. And she agreed to help us. Even if she is the one who made you what you are, she also disapproves with what you were doing to Blue.

M - No... Even if all of you are against me, it won’t stop me. You won’t stop me! This is my life to be!

R - Esther, it’s also ours to protect... And we chose to end our journey and part way from you, here and now. As much as we all loved you...

Mary-Esther began to yell. All her family was abandoning her. One by one, everyone had been abandoning her.

Rose and Blue would be the last, if she had no other heir.

From that angry spell in another yell, Rose was beginning to float above the ground again.

She would leave shortly. Rose tried to be kind a last time, to convey what she truly wished and believed, but her last reassuring words were lost inside Mary-Esther’s wider scream.

Everyone she ever had cared for had now been leaving her behind...

She couldn’t resolve herself to attack Rose directly only on spite, also because she was rather sure that it wouldn’t have changed a thing to her destiny.

Her reunion with her former owner should never have gone in such a way.

She was crying too.

She jumped upward to fly after Rose, clumsily. Someone so dear to her was leaving her behind in that deepest hole on Earth.

Mary-Esther flapped her wings with a surreal strength, jumping against the walls, flying like an odd unsteady butterfly, after Rose’s shadow in the basking light turning to dusk.

She wanted so much more. She wanted to express too much, and to ask even more. She wanted to talk, so much more. Why had everything happened so suddenly and quickly? Why Rose had to give up on her and leave so quickly...

Mary-Esther couldn’t catch up with the fading day and began to fall, already a few dozen metres above the ground.

She was tearing up, wondering whether she had been nothing better than a daiûa.

Maybe it was truly for the better of everyone else if she failed...

She wanted to live so much, no matter how it would have clouded her judgement. Her rash ambition had justified their reactions, but... She still didn’t feel like there had been any other way.

More than guilt, she felt abandoned again as she was falling once more.

She thought she had always been honest and upfront, and she never had tried to manipulate them like a daiûa would be said to have...

She had never lied or misled anyone, and yet, she was condemned...

In bitterness, she thought that a real daiûa might have succeeded where she would fail. Lying their way to reach only their goal in loveless selfishness. Whereas Mary-Esther had always loved them.

That painful irony was a distasteful truth.

Mary-Esther had felt too much pain and cursed them before she hit the ground again.

~

Mary-Esther had landed on her back and wings, knocking herself out.

She lied unconscious as the night was setting itself back in the place, following Rose’s departure.

Rain was late to return however. It seemed the downpour was over.

Everything might be over she thought. The sun might never return in this place if Rose had convinced her daiûa up there not to. But even if the doors had been shut and locked behind, one might still make their way through.

Mary-Esther was accepting it.

Rosemary above might have begun sealing them for as good as she could, to prevent any more leak or reach from Esther’s consciousness to their side. But even so...

Mary-Esther coughed up some bits and blood, regaining awareness in pain from the previous shocks. She was puzzled as she was still lying there in the dark.

Them sealing doors to her realm didn’t erase everything behind.

If they had had the power to push her further back to the abyss of nil, perhaps they would have done so.

If they had been able to let her fall until she was nothing again, they would have...

Maybe they couldn’t get rid of her.

But looking honestly back, she didn’t get the impression they wanted to kill her; only to get her out from their lives. They were trying to seal her away for ever and nothing more sinister.

However she would slowly fade in time as a tale above, and she would struggle to remain whole down in this hole. She would keep struggling to remain herself and focused, eventually rising or luckily one day, someone else would open the fateful tomb again...

Either way, she would find her chance and bid her time, but eventually leave for good.

Even if it were to take another hundred years from now...

For now she was still there, still trapped in that inanely huge prison about just for herself. She was still unable to leave, always brought back to the beginning.

She was still a stain reality couldn’t get rid of. She would never accept it, not until she would have a life on her own with body and soul in gains.

Even at the cost of being a curse for them... Her very existence...

Mary-Esther steadied her painful breathing and stood up once more.

She was trying to hold life the only ways she could. There was not much more but rationalising to it.

She would never stop trying to reach the other side so long she could think, since she didn’t realistically breathed just yet.

No matter the cost. No matter what she would require to become, in order to squeeze through the other end.

There would be no real stopping her...

Her sadness grew however, now feeling more alone than ever. She was not as insensitive as the others alleged her to be. As far as she could tell, she had been kinder than other daiûas and even humans alike...

She had done her upmost and gave everything she had, only to be dismissed in return. Maybe that wasn’t entirely fair but in the end, so she remained.

Now everyone who once held her dear and poured some consideration or love through what she had been were gone. She wouldn’t gain life to reach Blue anymore, but she would keep fighting her way up, until she could leave out of this hole for real...

Until as Rose said, she would be able to transmigrate into the reality of the world.

Mary-Esther still tensed up with resolve in the dark.

Someday...

~

Her sad reunion with her long forgotten but still ever so dear Rose had marked her.

Two thing surprised Mary-Esther during the ensuing times, taking her mind away from that sorrow.

First was that glimpses of glow that looked like stars were still visible in the sky, as the bottom end to that well above her. It was as if the hole to the other world above had been eroded over time and passage.

Maybe the door wasn’t closing as well as it ought to anymore, and the required maintenance was lacking.

She thought that Blue, Rose and the other daiûa with them would have proceeded into repairing that thing.

They might not have wanted or been able to push her downward to nil, but they ought to have been reinforcing her escape route at least to keep her at bay.

Queerly nothing else seemed to change in the air as she looked at it.

Only like in the first times, it was not raining anymore, to the point that she could feel the early wind in the colosseo again. They had shut the door, but didn’t repair its pre-existing cracks.

Maybe they didn’t realise it, maybe they couldn’t see them from above.

From where she stood however, the faintest of distant glows was still as mesmerising as any other star.

Since it wasn’t raining anymore, Mary-Esther was allowed to venture down once more into the undergrounds, to reach back the well leading to the forsaken cave. Nothing had apparently really changed down there, but it was certainly not leading to another exit. Her instincts were pushing her upward.

As Esther was slowly climbing her way up through the levels, the next surprise was to bump into someone else again.

She had been climbing slowly the stairs, trying not to count the thousand of steps, until they saw each other.

It came as a genuine surprise to find Elise again, although she seemed to be wandering aimlessly.

Mary-Esther had nearly forgotten about her with what had happened recently, but the blond ghost was still there.

Elise still looked the same as before, but something further in her mind was now seemingly broken or eroded.

She wouldn’t give a straight stare anymore and wouldn’t answer even the simpler questions.

The young woman now lost in spirits was only left glaring at the walls beside them. She barely spoke anymore and wouldn’t make more sense than the walls themselves ever did.

Elise now more of a shade of herself kept scratching nervously her belly for no reason, almost to bleeding point, gazing around in confusion.

She couldn’t hold still, however in her madness she still seemed to notice that someone else was around, and wanted to follow them.

Esther found herself in pain and weak, unable to help much. She could make sure that Elise didn’t get lost following her and hold her hand so she wouldn’t gouge her belly out sometimes.

It was painful to see this comrade’s sanity gone, making her now behave closer to a pet following its master, rather than an intelligent human will.

Elise had been reduced to this primitive thing by their condition over time. Mary-Esther was pained for what she had become, and felt a little relief nonetheless not to be utterly alone in this struggle.

Mary-Esther was having a hard time climbing the stairs with her four large wings protruding from her back. They were bigger than before and now taller than she was. They were bumping against the walls and corners, if not the ceiling themselves, and made her balancing on two legs as she walked a struggle in itself.

Even without the pain and soreness from her last fall, not to mention the heart wound from before, it was a challenge.

Now she was feeling like holding a table behind herself, and still trying to stand straight and walk while preventing the hold from falling down.

Since it was nearly impossible, her two lower wings were dragging along the floor like dead weight or tails. She was hurting herself scratching her wings, but she was unable to use these new limbs otherwise to help herself walk, and the staircases were the hardest struggle.

Once she found carpets, she placed her bottom wings on it and pulled these along to diminish how she was hurting herself as she struggled to walk forward.

Alongside, Elise was following, looking on a side or another, never really straight in front of her anymore. Maybe she had lost herself in deeper thoughts somewhere. Her lucidity was shifting, but she followed instinctively Mary-Esther as they continued to climb up.

~

They gradually made their way toward the last levels Esther recalled reaching prior.

The place that looked like an abandoned building crumbling into modern ruins.

The doors were still open to the winds now.

They sat there to rest for a moment, calling it a day.

As she sat against the wall, Mary-Esther made the world around them shake a little, as if a small tremor had coursed through the ground.

Esther didn’t mind and lifted a hand toward an abandoned piece of board and other chunks of wooden furniture.

She made the world change a little further, without going all in to change everything.

She focused just enough to change that one thing she focused on.

Sparks appeared, and the dry bits suddenly caught fire.

Mary-Esther had felt cold and now was warming herself a little with such kind of wild camp fires.

She already had done so a few times below. Each time she lit a fire in such a magical way, Elise was flailing and cowering away, scared like a fearful animal.

She would then return slowly and warily a minute after, to eventually come and sit close by and enjoy the warmth as well.

This time, while Esther was resting from her muscle aches and various pains running through her body and pulsating in her head, Elise began sewing some of her clothes back together.

Mary-Esther was thinking back with some nostalgia about the times when her body couldn’t feel any pain. When she had no blood and couldn’t cry. Things had been different.

Now her feet and legs hurted her deeply, at the rhythm of blood pulsating through her arteries, up until the blisters on her feet.

Nothing might have yet been real, but she was growing still on their realism and details, as if preparing for the real thing. Her shoulders and back were also suffering a lot from the weight of the wings she had to drag. Even the wings were sore for some reason. Thankfully they were at rest when folded against her back and she was in sitting posture.

Thinking about these bodily pains and limitations, she watched Elise working.

She had taken some of her clothes off in order to repair the ripped parts with a rough needle and some threads she was plucking from elsewhere. She looked a little pitiful, doing so in this shady corridor by a meagre fire, but also quite admirable in her doing. She was still resourceful somehow.

Mary-Esther decided to try doing something kind for her and lifted her hand toward her.

The world shivered along with the fire. She was casting another spell to change slightly the world around her.

Elise noticed and left everything fall to cower out in panic.

When Esther reopened her hand, she was holding a small sewing kit she had seen before, with a new set of needles and a small spool of new thread. Elise returned looking a little cautiously at it, as a bird craving for a few seeds in somebody’s hand. She was too afraid to reach for it immediately, although her eyes were locked on this gift.

They were alone.

Mary-Esther was feeling tired and still a little heartbroken somehow.

Because Rose had come to see her quite like Blue had done in the past, but only to thank her and bid her farewell.

Elise however, though not quite herself any longer was still there for some reason, and still able to handle herself with unexpected ease on some aspects. For now she was still afraid to pick up the gift in her hand.

Esther sighed in exhaustion, body and soul. She wanted to use her ability to bring at least a little of relief and fresh air to the only other being around her...

They were looking to Esther as if they were strangers meeting in a distant forest at night. Elise did not seem really reassured as Mary-Esther lied there, simply keeping a hand open with a present offered.

She wasn’t looking trustworthy probably. Both of them still wanted to believe they could show a hint of humanity to the other one nonetheless.

Despite every hardship that had happened and who they now were, they both still wanted to have some faith left in what the other, or the others, could be.

Elise approached very slowly, herself and then a hand toward the offering.

Uncertain, she grabbed it suddenly and retreated a few steps with it as a kid might have.

It was both amusing and very sad, recalling who Elise had been before. Her sharper stare and intelligent remarks were feeling distant.

Now she was sewing more frantically her ripped clothes back together, a childish and oblivious smile across her face.

Even when she pricked her fingers, she now only seemed to laugh.

Mary-Esther was seeing in her how she might end up herself, if her ascension would take too long.

Still, it was these unexpected encounters and moments, that now seemed to be the most valuable experiences from this world lost at the bottom of a hole...

Mary-Esther was falling asleep. The small campfire was burning steadily the chunks that Elise had gathered and threw regularly in it. She had helped too, meaning she was still mostly aware of her surroundings.

As one doze off, the other continued repairing cloth with a passion that was visibly bordering on obsession.

Repairing all the shreds and rags she had kept wearing despite everything.

Esther dozing off only caught up some faint weird sights of this now nearly naked lady sitting there, repairing her socks with a focus that seemed overly zealous. Maybe Elise felt better that way she thought.

Mary-Esther fell asleep on that strange yet poetic sight for her and wonder.

Elise had spread all her possessions with a driven mind, clenching on the needles with steady hands.

For a moment a foreign thought drifted through her mind and she reached the window to look outside.

The abandoned building was looking like a derelict house to her, and she gazed at the sky outside. She heard the wind against the glass.

She turned back to the mostly dark place, and the small fire keeping them arguably warm. She looked at Mary-Esther she couldn’t recognise, and then her other sock still with a hole in it.

Elise jumped on it, forgetting everything else.

She worked on repairing it, mindlessly or as if that was the one true meaningful thing to do in existence.

She wasn’t caring about how couth her appearance now was. Her clothes were neatly folded after their repairs were done. All that was missing would soon be this sock.

Then... Then she would be free.

Beside her, Mary-Esther had fallen asleep completely.

She was tearing up silently. Elise looked at it but no thought came to consider it for what it were. Still, something uneasy grew back in her heart, and she resumed the mania of scratching her belly, nervously.

~

When Mary-Esther woke up, she felt cold first.

She realised she was naked as she lied there and was startled. She had faint recollections of seeing Elise working in reduced garments, but that was unclear.

Looking around, Esther quickly found Elise, still sewing clothes together almost in frenzy. She had taken her clothes off during her sleep to repair them as well. She was still at it, maybe she had not slept at all. At least she was dressed properly again.

Unlike her, Mary-Esther felt shy being exposed. Although Elise did no care at all, still only focused on stitching back together the vivid blue skirt, layered like petals.

Esther covered herself with what was at hand and waited a little longer for the work to be over. She didn’t think it would be wise to prevent Elise from completing her endeavour now of all times. So she waited for a while longer.

After another moment lost in time, the lost lady eventually completed her work.

She handed back her clothes to her companion and Esther dressed up again. Her shirt and jacket had cuts open to her wings.

M - Thank you Elise...

Elise didn’t really seem to hear her, only nodding sideways in reaction.

Mary-Esther took that as an answer nonetheless, and they resumed their slow movement toward the upper levels.

~

The new levels kept changing and varying more wildly in layout that below and usual. It was rare now for two levels to resemble one another. The pacing had changed.

And from this point onward, everything was in an advanced state of decay. The walls were peeling their wallpapers or crumbling their chalk. The ceilings were dirtier and dirtier, lacking crumbling elements and pieces they could usually find on the ground among piling up rubbish and rubbles.

It was now like wandering in a long abandoned building block, and the atmosphere was quite different from before. Now it felt miserable. Despite the leftover furniture, the levels below were ancient and looked like chambers of a giant crypt, with corridors from some catacombs. It was dark but the architecture and places were rather clean, slightly surreal in comparison.

Now the buildings had a straight ceiling, not arched and curved like most of the time below. It looked far more modern in the ways it was built, but far more eroded.

It looked here as if it had been built centuries after the rest of the vault below, but far more exposed to the harsh time and elements. Everything was still as empty as an abandoned grave, but now more like real what real above ground ruins would eventually turn to. While below everything was remaining still, up there everything was crumbling and changing.

The new corridors had more elaborated stone or even wooden flooring. Everything was mouldy. The old wood if not damp and crumbling was creaking loudly under their weight as they walked. Dust was falling from the ceilings and top of the walls if they were dry.

The electric lights were ghastly and flimsy when they worked, but now they could notice them. It wasn’t gas lights anymore.

They ventured through the place that was feeling like a giant haunted house. Some doors were bared by nailed boards, condemning rooms and what forgotten things lied behind.

Long or wide corridors were still opening themselves to sets of similar empty rooms where all that could be seen were hints at the restlessness of time. They sometimes had carvings of windows along the walls, like paintings to do make belief. Unfortunately, it was still walls themselves. Coats of old paintings were flaking the illusion away.

They reached a library on the 17th level. It occupied a full side of the round pit of the well, with three different opening balcony over it.

They walked slowly between the countless shelves, moderately filled with old books. Most of it all was rotting in mud hills on the ground, mixing with scraps and dust. It didn’t look that unusual somehow anymore.

It wasn’t the first time that Mary-Esther was looking at these kinds of desacralized indoor sceneries.

It was likely another remnant of another memory, in a different time and place. It was likely not from hers, but one from someone else who had come around as well.

A library from someone else who ended up here and tried to leave, but ended up dissolving along with their memories in this place...

After some time of anguish, the people lost down here would vanish and merge with this. Only some of their memories and thoughts would remain, captured into the walls.

What Mary-Esther contemplated in this wide space, was closer to a tomb than anything else.

How many souls before hers had contributed to the solidification of this place? Every difference in the levels had a story to tell, and it now seemed that it was a long but steady accumulation of lost souls that eventually grew this place like an otherworldly cava stalactite. Was she just the last tearing droplet out of thousands?

Mary-Esther felt tired of it, still focusing on looking upward for salvation more than around for reason.

She only wanted to climb until she could not anymore. She wanted to reach the current limit to her ascension in this crystallising tower.

She wanted to face the new limit imposed against her. And then she would break it open.

She would walk and climb... She would crawl again, even though she was tired from repeating these words to herself. She really felt tired.

They might not have asked her to stop trying, but their goodbyes had felt similar. Mary-Esther was growing depressed and slow. Mulling again over how they had abandoned her. The two persons she had really cared for in the end. The two persons she had somehow saved, granting their wish... They had left her.

Just for following her legitimate wish, they had shunned her, they had done what they could to stop her.

It was unfair...

They didn’t say in the final goodbyes that she should stop trying to come to life. Now that she was carefully thinking back about their every words, she didn’t recall them saying so. She had interpreted the meaning as such.

Maybe, there was still a thin thread of hope...

~

Mary-Esther and Elise continued their climb, slowly walking one level after another without reaching the limit yet.

The oddest architectures and rooms were following each other, but they were beyond caring for the colours of overwhelming decay that surrounded them all the way.

Altogether however, the walls’ voices seemingly dimed. There were fewer and fewer things to remember.

And even less to say every further step of the way.

Although exhausted, Mary-Esther kept climbing with mixed feelings. Elise kept following her with little word or reactions.

Looking back at her, sometimes Elise looked slightly glowing and translucent, looking even more like a ghost than ever before. It was dim and fluctuating, but Esther noticed it.

When they reached the level eight, some slight tremors coursed through the ground, and they weren’t Mary-Esther’s doing. From time to time, some rumbling noise could be heard and the dust would fall from the ceiling sin a small rain. The piles of rubbish along the ground would shake slightly then.

They were getting close to the end.

So close, always closer... They still had not seen the end of it, but the estimated final floor was closer than ever.

They never managed to reach the end of it, for how long had they been wandering in there? They kept being set back.

The end was nearing their reach and grasp, and Mary-Esther feared she might get pushed back again, or worse not meet what she had been hoping for all this time.

She worried over the amount of time and further cost to her mind she would still need to pay and spend there, aside from the real outcome she sought.

If it took another year, she might lose herself like Elise did.

Even if she would fight tooth and nail to the end of the next century, she was afraid.

She might end up a shade of herself like that, wandering aimlessly on her path to dissolution. She would only carry her hope, spite and sadness of memories, having long forgotten her goal probably.

She would slowly erode and vanish, and either fall down back to the nil, or become another voice in the walls of that nightmare.

Despite her fourth wing growing, her will had been wounded by Rose.

Elise looked around her suddenly as if there was something to see. Esther promised herself not to let her own will and mind wither away like that...

She woke up again feeling sluggish and exhausted, but continuing to sacralise her will built on her wings.

That last one, it was the last promise to herself, to bring that ever so long nightmarish existence to the desired end.

M - With four wings I will reach reality, and gain a life of my own...

~