Previous note: this chapter may be a bit strange but it is a direct continuation of the last chapter of volume 2, the story is temporally related to what happened in this arc: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/56828/nevermoreenygma-files/chapter/1133925/vol-2-chapter-23-mementovivere-vol2-final-chapter
Chapter 75
A Farewell and A Beginning
Sil Moore had never seen anything like it.
It was as if for a few seconds all space had been compressed into a point, and also as if time had stopped. But that only lasted for an instant, and then everything came back to its place. She could not breathe for that brief lapse of time that seemed like an eternity. It was not like holding her breath, it was as if all the air had been suddenly emptied from her lungs and in her body was the sensation of being pressed from all directions by invisible hands, and then that pressure all returned to normal. It was strange, given her training she was used to holding her breath and slowing her heart rate. That had been momentary but horrible.
As a result she was having the worst dizziness she had ever felt in her entire life.
The wind was still rushing furiously and the clouds were still moving at breakneck speed in the gray sky, but the rapidly changing scenery around her had stopped.
No more cities rising and falling, no more mountains emerging and crumbling like stone giants. No more oceans rising and evaporating in the blink of an eye.
She and that strange company were still standing on that hill, which had remained unscathed by the transformation around it. The same was true of the distant silhouettes wrapped in dark suits from another era and those old-fashioned hats that almost everyone wore.
Sil Moore fell to her knees on the ground and the girl with shoulder-length silver hair and yellow eyes, along with another girl with long hair tied in pigtails tried to help her up.
The dizziness Sil had just felt had been horrible. Not so horrible, though, when she felt a strange taste rising in her throat. With a retch of disgust she vomited on the ground. That had been her last meal. The pizza she had eaten.
“Let it all out. That happens to all of us the first time we get here.” The silver-haired girl had just spoken to her as she held her arm.
The world was still spinning around her, but she tried to stay on her feet even though her legs were shaking like they were made of jelly.
She was afraid. Terrible fear, but at the same time a calmness that was not at all explainable given her situation. How could she be calm, even when she knew that the one who was helping her had just apologized for something?
Sil could remember seeing her body separated from her head. Did that girl had anything to do with it?
Where had she gone? What had happened? Could it have been a hallucination? No. The unpleasant taste in her mouth told her it was real, as did the strange sensation she had felt in her neck.
She staggered, but shook off the two who were holding her. She couldn't trust them. Who were they to begin with? Who were all these people? Were they all feys to begin with? Sil could be sure that, despite being almost a hundred meters away, she could see that one of those figures had a three-meter body with a horned head. Another girl not far away had branches with leaves coming out of her brown hair. What about the other one with a reptilian head but humanoid in shape? All wearing black outfits, some with different variations but the dark color remained a pattern regardless of the differences.
But, beyond the different shapes, it was that feeling of terror that she could not shake. And at the same time the feeling of calm.
Sil stepped back and looked around. She was surrounded by those figures scattered over hills and crumbling buildings.
Could she escape? She still felt dizzy, but her survival instincts were kicking in. She had tried to turn on the Neurowire but that had not worked. What was happening to the system? Without control of the Neurowire many of the enhancements she had integrated into her body over the years would not activate.
She would have to run away from that place even if she was in that state and only wearing a swimsuit
She was about to embark on a dangerous run, when she turned around and and her face bumped a tall figure dressed in black.
It was an elderly man with a Jupiterian and imposing appearance. He wore a suit with a long overcoat that dragged in the grass and dirt, but that did not seem to bother him in the least. Although, in spite of his clothes, what caught her attention were his hair and beard of a white color almost resplendent like snow or sea foam. He had bushy eyebrows of the same white color that barely let glimpse some sunken eyes. The little that could be seen of his face revealed wrinkles that merged with old scars.
Sil stared into those eyes and stepped back. She fell on her backside on a stone. But the pain didn't matter to her at that moment. She stayed on the ground and her dizzy eyes were trying to focus on the old man's eyes.
If all the people around him had that strange aura of menace, but at the same time of tranquility, it was much more accentuated in that old man.
The wind moving his hair and beard almost gave him the appearance of a god already forgotten. Sil had never believed in anything religious but, for some reason, that presence awakened in her something very similar to the sensation she had felt when she had been dancing underwater or when she had lived that experience in the Orbital Belt. The sensation of being in the presence of something that went far beyond the mundane.
The old man was contemplating her with a calm expression.
“You could have distorted the area less, old man.” The one who had said that was that young but extremely thin figure who had spoken to Sil before without moving his lips. The man was looking at the older figure with a gesture that Sil could not explain, but she thought it was anger.
The old man looked up at the man and spoke with a deep voice and a calm tone. “Do you think it's easy for me to go the other way? Why do you think I wanted everyone to be here?”
The thin man looked away with an almost sulky gesture. “Whatever.”
Although Sil couldn't see his mouth covered by that bushy beard something told her that the old man was smiling.
“Aren't you a little funny to tell me that, after you visited that girl before her mission?” continued the old man, looking at the skinny man.
The skinny man looked off into the distance and, despite the wind, Sil could almost have sworn she heard a sound like the clicking of a tongue.
On the other side the silver-haired girl with shoulder-length hair and another who had stood back looked toward the thin man. The second girl was a little shorter and had silver hair tied in two short pigtails. She had a face that expressed no emotion. Sil could see that her eyes were cloudy. Blindness perhaps? But, in spite of that, she was looking in the man's direction as if she could see him perfectly normally.
“So that's what this was about?” asked the expressionless girl in a calm tone.
“Bastard, what were you saying to our big sis?”
“Shut up. Leave me alone,” said the thin man, looking away even further into the distance as he adjusted his hat.
Sil swallowed hard as she tried to understand the situation. Those two girls were sisters? Although they were of different stature, they certainly looked almost alike. But Sil decided not to look into it. She had a more pressing problem before her.
To her surprise the old man took a step forward and squatted before her.
“Certainly, an unusual strangeness,” the man said, in an inquisitive tone.
Sil wanted to articulate something, but nothing came out of her throat.
“Don't be afraid. I know this may seem strange, but we mean you no harm.” At those words the old man looked sideways at the silver-haired, yellow-eyed girl. He cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows. The girl twisted her gaze. “Well anyway I think I should at least introduce myself.” The old man raised a strong, bony hand covered with scars. My name, or rather my title, is Nodens.”
Sil, trembling, raised her hand and accepted the greeting.
“I know this may be confusing to you, but we had to do what we did to save you... from yourself.”
“Wh-what?” asked Sil with a faint catch in her voice.
“ Lass... I can't blame you. You didn't know. But... you know you came close to almost destroying an entire country or much worse?”
“I can't understand... what are y-you talking about?”
“The music you were composing. It's not something that should be done carelessly. Only a handful of people in the world can do it and you... you're not one of them. At least... not here.”
“I-I can't understand what you're talking about.”
“Everything in this world has pathways. Possibilities of what could have been. And you, my child... no matter how hard we look you have no possibilities or paths. That's why we knew there was something abnormal about you but at the same time a contradiction. You see. You certainly have the capabilities of the Bard. But you shouldn't. No matter how much we look into the past. Your existence came from somewhere different.”
“Wh-what?”
“Ah! You're just confusing her more!” The one who had spoken was a small-looking girl with a halo on her head. “On the other hand we have something more important now.”
“I'm not feeling well...” Sil had almost stopped understanding what the old man was saying in the middle of his strange talk. But, more than the difficulty, it was because she was feeling worse. She was getting dizzier and dizzier and the world was spinning even more as if her brain had been put in a blender.
With one last dizzy spell Sil collapsed and fell unconscious.
She couldn't listen to that anymore. And on the other hand she wasn't sure she wanted to hear it.
***
Dawn knelt down in front of Sil's body and touched her forehead. It burned. “I guess the awakening was too crude.”
Nodens in turn stood up and looked down at the giant man with the mustache and ushanka hat. “Tiny, can you take care of her?”
Tiny approached and taking off his coat took the young woman's body in his arms and wrapped her in it.
“Here she comes...” said Priscilla with a sad gesture.
Everyone looked in the direction of a small hill nearby. Not only the group composed of Nodens and the others. Each of those distant figures had also fixed their gaze on the nearby hill.
On that hill a small spatial distortion had occurred and someone had appeared.
“Alice...” murmured Rei.
The one who had appeared was a girl with pointed ears, blue eyes and waist-length blonde hair, that gave her a wild appearance as it was blown by the wind. She carried a fedora hat in her right hand.
She walked slowly across the hill, but when she took a step she seemed to be gliding through space in a strange way, crossing several dozen meters in just a few steps. After a couple of minutes she reached the group of Nodens.
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Those who were there could see that her eyes were shining and a tear was running down her cheek. A tear that got no further than her cheek as it was swept away by the violent wind.
“I guess it's time,” said the girl named Alice.
Nodens reached over and patted her on the head. Given the height difference it looked like he was patting a granddaughter.
“You did good. He saw you, didn't he?”
Alice wiped her watery eyes and nodded. “Yes. Just barely, but he saw me when his vision was regenerating.”
Then Alice looked around. Pointed ears, tails, scales, rock-hard skins, others of gelatinous consistency, some invisible, others as subtle and weak as air itself. Humanoid forms but with animal characteristics that showed that the form was nothing more than something relative in that place. Shapes that in another time should have belonged to fables and legends. Hundreds of other forms dressed in the suits of another time and place had their eyes fixed on Alice. All those figures looked at her and many smiled, while others simply nodded.
“I was right to say goodbye beforehand. It wouldn't have ended anymore... it would have been even more painful,” Alice said with a weak smile.
Indrid was the first to approach. Although his face showed no emotion he gave her a hug that lasted several seconds. “Good luck,” he murmured as he pulled away and nodded.
“As undemonstrative as ever,” Alice said patting him on the shoulder.
Priscilla was next. Being the smallest one there she latched on like a tick to her waist as she hid her face in Alice's abdomen, while the halo above her head bobbed from side to side. As Alice turned away she could see that she was crying but not saying anything. A strand of snot was joining Priscilla's nose to Alice's shirt. Alice took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “Keep it, you always catch a cold.”
Priscilla pouted and looking to the side snatched the handkerchief from her hands. Alice gave her a caress on the cheek. Then she walked over to Tiny who was holding Sil Moore unconscious in her arms and smiled. “When your cycle is over, lay off the sweets. Diabetes is going to kill you.”
Tiny expressed no emotion on her face, but nodded, closing her eyes. “I'll do my best. I can only do so much with my half-automatic nature that likes sweets.”
“Anyway, take care of yourself,” Alice said patting the giant's arm.
“There goes our drinking companion,” said a woman.
Alice turned to look in the direction of the voice. “‘Ley, Dot…’”
The one who had approached was a young woman with tousled reddish hair, wearing a somewhat old-fashioned formal blouse and shorts with suspenders. Next to her was another woman with short dark hair, wearing a coat and scarf. The three of them had joined in a hug that lasted several seconds before they pulled away.
“It's a promise,” Dot said and the wind ruffled her short hair and scarf as she smiled.
Alice nodded.
“See you when our cycle is over,” Ley said smiling mischievously. “Let's drink our fill.”
Ley and Dot were both glossy-eyed, trying to hold back tears.
“Don't take too long. You know where I'm going,” Alice said and they both nodded. “You'd better watch out while I'm gone.”
As a farewell the three of them bumped fists in a friendly manner.
Weiss approached and she and Alice simply exchanged a complicated handshake. As they pulled away Weiss smiled and said. “Don't regret anything…”
“...and never ask for forgiveness,” Alice finished the sentence with a knowing smile.
“Take care of yourself…”
“I'll do my best,” nodded Alice.
Finally Dawn and Rei had approached. Alice smiled at them and then blushed.
“Huh? What's wrong?” Dawn asked.
Alice scratched her cheek. “Nothing. Come to think of it I did something stupid I think... but hey, no problem. I haven't been unfaithful yet.”
Dawn and Rei looked at her with serious gestures. “What are you talking about? What did you do?” Rei asked.
Alice hugged them both and smiled. “It's okay. It's no problem. We're like family after all.”
“Really... what did you do?” asked Dawn, somewhat choked by the tight hug.
Alice changed her tone and whispered in both their ears. “Promise me you'll take care of yourselves. Can you do that?”
The twins eased their expression and simply nodded. Alice stepped back and stroked their cheeks.
“Use your real names.”
“What's wrong with the ones we have? We'll get our names back when our summer dream is over,” Dawn grumbled.
“I hope so.” She slowly turned away and approached Nodens who had been contemplating the situation in silence. Alice looked at the old man and nodded. “I'm ready.”
“Come, let's go.” Nodens held out his hand. A hand on whose palm could be seen more old scars that mimicked the wrinkles but could still be distinguished, almost as if they refused to disappear completely.
Alice took a last look at everyone present and took the old man's huge hand.
In a matter of seconds a thick layer of fog had covered the whole place and did not allow to see more than a few steps beyond. It had appeared around the old man first but had enveloped everything. The others had disappeared, the surrounding landscape and even the wind had stopped blowing and his howl disappeared completely.
Alice looked up at the face of the old man whose, only visible features were his cheekbones and eyes that now glowed unnaturally. That bearded face merged with the mist as if it were part of it.
Suddenly Alice could no longer feel the ground beneath her feet. She was floating.
“Give me your other hand now,” Nodens commanded and she did so. She had been left with her face in front of the old man. “The truth you know is for you and yours alone.”
Alice nodded with a smile and extended a delicate hand to the old man and they both closed their eyes.
“Imagine the place where you want to go.”
“I want to go to my father.”
“Just as I thought. What will you do with your memories?”
“I'm going to keep them intact.”
“You could erase them. At least partially.”
“No. How am I supposed to keep promises if I don't have all my memories?”
“It's a big burden…”
“It's okay. Even knowing the end is okay. I'd rather live with it. My life will be beautiful. Hardships and sorrows are also part of living.”
“There's nothing left of that little girl who came thirty years ago.”
“Unless we move, nothing can begin. Isn't that what you were saying?”
Nodens smiled and although Alice couldn't see him at that moment she knew he was smiling.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked.
“Go ahead.”
“What about you? Isn't your cycle going to end?”
“I don't know. There's a future I can't see into, so I guess at some point I'll move on too. I'm not the first Nodens and I probably won't be the last. I had so many identities when I was human that after so many years I've gotten used to this one and it's the one I've lived in the longest.”
“Did you get to see your mother?”
Nodens nodded. “She had already moved her soul, it was more symbolic than anything, but at least I was able to say goodbye as I had wanted to. I could only move to that time the moment I died on earth and needed them here for any eventuality. It takes a lot of work to move into the world and leave the Land of Dreams.”
“At least you got to see her.”
He nodded. “Here we go.”
“Okay…”
“By the way... Take care of that version of me,” Nodens said, and Alice opened her eyes to meet his.
Despite his serious gesture Nodens winked and she nodded.
“I'll try my best.” There was a glint on Nodens' face that blinded Alice.
She knew.
That single glow was the end of her days as one of the shadows.
Her biological clock was ticking again.
Her feet first and then her hands began to dissolve in white light. Slowly at first and then increasing the pace. She didn't feel any pain but it happened so fast that she wouldn't have felt any either.
After a few seconds her body had broken down into smaller and smaller particles as Nodens watched her.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/difbn2d-2e3bbf4f-e4ca-4d2a-ad7d-870fb8e80f74.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1170,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_75_by_hasegawakein_difbn2d-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY4NCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGlmYm4yZC0yZTNiYmY0Zi1lNGNhLTRkMmEtYWQ3ZC04NzBmYjhlODBmNzQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTExOTEifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.1_OuEtl-t67qZfz_6ieHS5gQaqPXigXqNpFptoKj3DY [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/difbn2d-2e3bbf4f-e4ca-4d2a-ad7d-870fb8e80f74.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1170,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_75_by_hasegawakein_difbn2d-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTY4NCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGlmYm4yZC0yZTNiYmY0Zi1lNGNhLTRkMmEtYWQ3ZC04NzBmYjhlODBmNzQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTExOTEifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6aW1hZ2Uub3BlcmF0aW9ucyJdfQ.1_OuEtl-t67qZfz_6ieHS5gQaqPXigXqNpFptoKj3DY]
The last thing the old man saw of her was her satisfied, smiling face before it all disappeared.
“Safe journey, little one.”
Nodens looked down at his hands that moments before had held Alice's and sighed, almost relieved. He silently contemplated the scars on his hands and then clenched his fists, lowering them as the fog was beginning to disappear.
It had been a few hundred years for sure, but he couldn't forget how he had gotten those scars.
Scars that many had when escaping from the Other Side. Whether it was coming to that separate layer, as he had, or whether it was returning to the earthly world where they had once lived.
As the mist finished dissipating Nodens recalled his arrival.
“All in an order and with choice,” he murmured
***
An inhuman scream came from the naked man's throat.
He tried to sit up, as he felt the skin and flesh of his legs tear.
He had fallen on thick thorns that snaked along the edge of a swamp that smelled rotten.
Trembling and crying, he tried to free himself, but the pain made him hurt even more. He tried and tried but with each movement he felt more pain. He struggled and struggled among those thorns that, like spiked snakes, were trying to drag him into the muddy and pestilent swamp that bubbled like a cauldron from time to time due to the decomposing matter. With those blows he had wounded himself even more and had stuck long thorns in his hands from side to side.
He was in so much pain that he didn't care about the surroundings. It was a rather dark environment with black trees sprouting and whose height was difficult to estimate because they let in almost no light. He had shouted for help but no one had come to his call. Only silence had answered, sometimes broken by the sound of some insect that he could not identify and that on the other hand he did not care about insects in that situation in which he found himself.
Minutes passed and the minutes became hours. Finally, between crying and biting his lip trying to contain the pain, he had been freeing himself little by little. He had been escaping from those thorns paying a tribute in flesh and blood of his body.
When he finished he crawled naked as he was to some black weeds that grew from rotten mud.
The pain had overcome him and shivering with cold and pain he had fallen asleep for what could well have been several or a few hours.
When he awoke he had found that one of his eyes was stuck shut. Struggling he had tried to dislodge it only to find that a purple spider the size of a fist had woven a web in the middle of his head.
Disgusted he had swatted the insect several meters away from him.
That simple gesture had brought him back to reality. Yes, he still felt pain, but more importantly he remembered who he was.
But the realization struck him with terror.
Who was it?
Before his eyes appeared the face of a child.
Benu, son of Hebe Bender.
Himself.
The face of a young adult.
Lee Reubens, raised in a religious orphanage until he became a university professor.
Himself.
The face of an old man with burn scars on his face.
Leteo Waters, scientist working for the RIA and the Department of Defense of the Kingdom.
Himself.
Benu Bender had lost his memory after that man helped him escape from the plane. He had become Lee Reubens. He tried to remember, but no matter how hard he tried he could not find the link from his identity as Lee Reubens to become Leteo.
The last thing he could remember as Lee Reubens was that he had tried to help that fey professor named Ishijima Kanade who had fallen unconscious. He didn't remember anything else from that point. The next thing was waking up at another point in the past. He didn't understand, why? Did those two he had been with for years know all that from the beginning?
The questions buzzed in his mind.
What had happened? The plane.
It was true. He had found himself with the young version of himself when he had helped Jack escape.
Jack. Why had he helped him?
He spent what could have been a few minutes or hours on his knees thinking about it all as he tried to sort through the fragmented memories of his past.
More memories. Blue particles spreading through the plane. He had gained memories of something he hadn't experienced, but couldn't remember at the time.
Who was it? Benu? Lee? Leteo? His memory was fragmented with each identity he had lived.
He had been all three.
He looked around.
The memories that had invaded his mind and the spider upon awakening had distracted him from something he hadn't realized.
“But what?”
He looked at his legs. His arms and his body.
The wounds had disappeared as if they had never been there to begin with. But instead there were scars.
He had just realized something else.
When he met his younger version he had died. He was sure of it. But now when he looked at his body it was no longer that of an old man.
He looked down into the swamp at a place free of the thorns.
He walked in a daze to the edge of the swamp and leaned over. Because of the darkness he could hardly see his reflection at all well, but still he could see enough.
The wrinkles had faded. The scars from the accident when the explosion had occurred were gone. What was in front of him was a reflection of when he had lived as Lee Reubens.
He stood up and looked around. Where was he? When?
He was realizing how problematic his situation was.
But there was one thing he knew for sure. That was not the Earth that had seen him born.
Looking carefully, he began to move away from the swamp and into the maze of trees.
The Other Side had claimed a new victim and like hundreds of millions before him, it was now welcoming him into its bosom.