The Trouble with Time, Part 23 - Her

She blinks against the whiteness around her and tries to shade her eyes, but it's coming from all directions. No, not all, she realises after a few seconds. The otherwise completely blank white is darkening to one direction. And the whiteness isn't empty either, she can feel things around her, even though she doesn't have the words to describe the things or the feeling. She does know those things are irrelevant to her, though. They don't mean her harm. They're indifferent towards her.

Suddenly there's someone else next to her. Kevin. Sam appears a moment later and curses as they, too, are blinded by the white world. The things around her seem to perk up a bit as a reaction to the new presences, but they soon calm back down and ignore them.

The misty form of her Guardian is standing (floating?) a little ways away from them, towards the direction of the dark.

"Help me," it says in a small voice, "Please, follow me. This way."

It turns and heads towards the darkness, and she follows without hesitation. She doesn't look back to see if Kevin and Sam are coming too, but soon they fall in step next to her.

They walk for a long time. Or at least for a time that feels long. She's not sure that time means the same thing here than it means out in the world she's used to. The farther they go, the darker it gets. Or, rather, the blacker it gets. She can still see the other two walking beside her without a problem, in a light that seems to have no direction. It just is. It's only the color of the world around them that slowly turns from white to black.

The things around her are shifting a bit now, uneasily, in a way that makes her feel like an intruder. But somehow she knows she's safe here. As she knows the other two are safe here too.

"Do you feel that?" she asks Kevin anyway, quietly.

"Feel what?" he asks. He clearly doesn't. If he did, he would know what she's talking about.

"I do," Sam says. "I think. A slight uneasiness in the air? It's not much, but it's there if you focus on the right things."

She nods. Kevin looks irritated that the two of them know something he doesn't.

"Don't let the uneasiness get to you. We're safe," she tells them.

"How do you know?" Sam asks.

"I just do," she says. Neither of them tries to press the point. She guesses that none of them know what's going on, or where they are, but somehow they still trust her to know they're safe, and she's grateful to them for it.

Finally they come to an ornate wall, and to a gate in the wall. It's the first solid thing she's seen the whole time. The Guardian floats through the gate, and merges with something on the other side. The thing is glowing slightly, and unlike the figure they followed, is solid. It is holding on to the bars on the gate, on the other side. The world around is entirely black now.

"Help me," the figure on the other side of the gate. "I want to be free."

"Where are we, and who are you?" she asks the figure, but gently. She doesn't want to scare it. It stares at her for a moment, confused.

"You don't know?" it asks, and she shakes her head. "We're in your mind. And I am what memories become when they are forcefully, magically forgotten. I have been trying to reach you, to help you, so that one day you might know I'm here and come to help me instead."

She stares at the figure, hears Sam's small gasp. Kevin, on her other side, has visibly tensed. She didn't know what she expected from the spell, but this wasn't it. Clearly the same was true of the other two too.

"How could I hear you? Sense you?" Kevin asks beside her, before she manages to find words for anything.

"I grew stronger in the Garden, with more forgotten memories. Not much, with so little she remembered at the time, and most memories were consumed by the Garden and didn't come to me." It shakes its head. "Honestly, I don't know. But I don't know much about magic. You were always the one who did know, Kevin. And you've always have a knack for sensing the magical."

"You're my memories? From the years I've forgotten" she asks, finally getting her thoughts back together enough to form a sentence. The figure nods. "And if I find a way to get you out, I will remember again?"

It was starting to make sense. Somehow. It was all too surreal, so instead she simply tried to focus on what she felt was true. The figure nodded again.

"But you already have a way to let me out," it says. "You have the key."

"What?"

"You have the key. I tried to use it, when I saw you in the reflection, hoping that that would mean we were united enough, that you could in that moment help me in using it. But it didn't work, as I should have known it wouldn't. It only caused pain. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

What...

"The melody."

"Do you remember how it went?" Kevin asks.

"I..." she thinks for a moment. "I think so." She turns to the figure behind the gate, "What do I do?"

"You sing the melody," it tells her. "It's the melody that was used to seal the memories away. It is what can free them."

She closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath. Starts humming. Carefully at first, testing the sound, seeing if she can remember it. Slowly she grows more confident, and the volume rises. The hum turns into a song, the song growing stronger.

And then, abruptly, the melody comes to an end and the gates before them fly open.

Alice gasps as the missing memories rush joyfully back to her.
________________________________________

I can't believe it's Christmas. It doesn't feel like Christmas. Though I acknowledge the fact that I'm on a tiny island in the Caribbean sea may have something to do with that.

My life is weird.

Anyway. The final topic is Shell.

~matleena