Prelude

—Wake up…

That morning my sister’s voice was as soothing as it had ever been. So much so that it had the effect of drawing me even more into Morpheus’ hands, making me hide my face in between the bed’s sheets.

—Wake up, the sun is out… We have to leave.

My sister insisted. She was right. Sunlight had been leaking through the window and into the room for a while. I was aware of that, I just couldn’t bring myself up to do something about it, but the slight change in the lighting had been bothering my dreams since the sun rose. Crawling between the numerous pillows that had been placed on the bed by the maids was the best way to avoid that bothersome light beam which unsurprisingly hit right into my eyes.

But her hand touched my neck’s bare skin.

—Come on… It’s time…

Her touch helped me gain back some awareness, however I found myself to enjoy such petting in a way that made me want to dive deeper into the bed.

—I have something for you…

A present? I liked presents! But my sister was hardly a generous one, I had many reasons to doubt her. I peeked over the pillow while still hugging it, showing only my right eye to the person in front of me, out of curiosity.

Her smile was beautiful. Her shining white teeth timidly showing between her captivatingly red lips. But the face was pale, reminding me of the falling snow on winter nights. The contrast was big but perfect. Although white skin might have looked odd or even sick on some, hers looked healthy, accompanied by slightly blushed cheeks which would have gone unnoticed on any other person. The waves sliding down her head in the form of white, golden and platinum threads which reached out towards her shoulders and her hand, laying on the bed. I would often find myself just staring at her without waiting for anything, without the will to lift my gaze off her.

But what made her special, what made people lay their attention on her and not giving up on their stare, was her eyes. Crimson wells of colour laying on the whiteness of her eyes converging into her black pupils giving the impression of observing a field of roses, elegant and charming. Her eyelashes accompanied her gaze as if they were made for each other. Long, delicate, enchanting. She had her eyes partially closed, not as they would be when sleepy, but as if they were happy to see what they were seeing. Calming and playful at the same time. And I dove deep into her stare.

—Nice, I got your attention.

I couldn’t react then, or rather, I didn’t want to. Just awake and I already wanted to go back to sleep. You wanted attention? Couldn’t be me.

—Yeah, not for long though — I then proceeded to drop my head back on the pillow.

She was slow to react. Starting with a small chuckle that ended in a wide laugh. Rolling on the bed as if there was nothing funnier in the world. I didn’t get why. The situation wasn’t even that funny. But I started laughing too. She raised herself from the bed, eyes wide open, excited, and a big smile on her face.

—Aha! I got you. I’m not going to let you go back to sleep now!

I smiled. She did get me. I turned myself around, now lying supine on the bed, looking at her in the face. I released a long puff to let my tiredness out. She relaxed herself then, her face softening into her usual expression of mature calmness.

We had been living in the castle for a really long time. I had already forgotten how I felt the first time we came into here, but it hadn’t changed much for sure. It was a really calm place. There weren’t any people other than me and my sister, and maybe the maids, but I wasn’t even sure if we could consider them people. We didn’t even interact much with them anyways. Cleaning, cooking and laundering were their main tasks. They served me and my sister, but they were mainly involved with maintenance and cleaning jobs all along the castle, and it was a big castle. Even for me and my sister.

The palace was not similar to any other. It was close to what a church would have looked like if it was built on the sky with no physical limitations. The place was spreading towards the outside like a cloud, reaching as far as it could. More than a castle many would have confused it with a city, similar at least in size. Its proportions would have struck anyone seeing this place for the first time, not a single building on this world could have compared to such magnitude even in the slightest. It was hard to imagine how a structure like this could even hold itself straight without collapsing onto the underlying ground.

The mere thought of surrounding the castle to see what it looked like from the outside had been consistently abandoned by our minds. There were no edges to be known of. No exits no, entrances, at least none I had seen myself. The maids probably knew of such matters since they had explored the place farther than any of the two of us had. But I wasn’t willing to start a conversation with one of those harpies about the subject, it did not raise enough curiosity in me to sacrifice my ego to do such a thing. It might have been hard to find them anyways. It was unusual, if not impossible to see anyone that wasn’t me or my sister in this abandoned place. In this sense it reminded me of a dream. A lonely place it was. Abandoned since the ages of the first. The knowledge of this place was restricted to a small number of individuals, lesser than fingers you could find on a person’s hand. But only two inhabitants were left after all this time. The rest refused to put their foot on this floor, maybe too scared of the mystery surrounding the domain.

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You could still stare outside through the different windows in the corridors and rooms. They were everywhere, with colours and images representing different events in history, important figures and places. They did not lead out of the walls. Instead, different courtyards were spread between the different corridors with plants, flowers, fountains. Arches, meant to hold for the structure, decorated the inner walls and roofs. In this sense, the palace was not unrelated to other buildings of the same type, it used the same basic building principles, it was just carried out in the most perfected way any architect could have thought of. The epitome of thousands of years of geometrical studies were not enough to surpass such greatness.

But it was not the proportions or the façade that characterised it the most. The colour. It was just perfectly fitting.  Big extensions of complete white covered the various surfaces. The walls, floor, ceiling, columns, arches. Everything you laid your gaze on was painted in different shades of white. Most of the windows, however, were transparent allowing for the light to reflect onto every surface it hit.

—We must go. The others are waiting. And you know how they are. Patience seems to be only a word for them, and not one they use often.

I often found myself wandering through my thoughts, not that it was pleasurable, but it was always my sister that dragged me out of those. And I was grateful for that. Immortality seemed like a gift to most, until you realised that at the end of time you would be the only one which was left to talk to. I was glad to have my sister; it would avoid the suffering of such fate.

—Do we really have to? You know they have never been nice to us and nothing has changed in the last decades, not even after all that has happened— I was angry at them, they abandoned us at the most crucial of the moments. Only my sister and I were left to fix the issue, but they did not like the outcome at all. What did they expect though? We did what we could with minimal help from them.

—You know why, the impact of what we did has been bigger than expected, we need to take measures so that no one is hurt because of us and we need their help for it.

—We avoided a catastrophe, and they were not interested in helping us then, why would they be now?

—We did things that we weren’t allowed to do. We have created a big imbalance in the world. They are scared of losing their strength. The consequences will affect the world for centuries, even millennia.  We cannot just let it be— She stood from the bed facing away from me, towards the window. —The future is uncertain, too many things have changed. Furthermore, it appears not even Zenia can tell what’s going to happen— Her face turned, still not looking directly towards me. She appeared serious. —Most countries have been turned to ashes. Humans annihilated almost to the point of extinction. If we have to rely on the others to fix the issue, we will. I will not let this reduce our world to ashes even if it means I will lose my authority.

I understood, even if I didn’t like it.

—Sorry…

She then smiled at me, coming closer and hugging me. —I understand this will be hard, both for me and for you. And I get it. We have never been that close to them, but we can take this opportunity to change things. I will need your help though. Can I count on you…?

—You know me; you can always do. I will never let you down. This issue will not be enough to split us apart.

She did not reply, but she hugged me harder. She was affected by what happened even more than myself. I did not realise to what extent. I felt sorry…

She then stood, back to her usual self. —I will go ahead; I want to prepare myself before the reunion. I need to concentrate—.

And there she went.

I was still angry. We would be labelled as traitors even if we were the only ones to have responded fast enough. It was all due to their incompetence that we ended up as we were right now. But I was sure it would all get fixed. My sister and I would always fight together, even until the end of times. And I was sure she felt the same way. Thinking of her always put a smile on my face.

I was still tired, slowly waking up from my restorative sleep. The bed was soft and fluffy, maybe I could stay five minutes more. No. I would probably end up dragging it even more. I stood on the floor. My barefoot touching the carpet. We hadn’t been in the castle for long, but it was not hard to get used to the luxuries of royal life. I walked towards the window. Slowly. Light hitting right on my forehead. The room was still dark. I felt comfortable in the dark. It covered everything. It covered my thoughts. I dragged my legs a bit, still trying to avoid the inevitable.

The castle had no curtains except for our room. Light was shining through the windows all day long. Since the nights were almost as bright as the days in this place it was hard to sleep without some shielding from the outsides. And it was even worse for this window. We hadn’t explored the whole place. It seemed impossible to do it even for us. From what we could tell all windows led into inner yards or open corridors inside the building. None of them led to the outer part of the building. Or at least. That’s what we thought before finding this room.

I removed the curtains from the windows, the sun shining high in the blue sky. It was almost noon. Rays of light illuminated the whole scene. The ground, as white as the palace itself, showed some rocks here and there. But there wasn’t much to observe. A hole was almost completely covering the view. It seemed bottomless from the outside. Darkness covered the walls as it went down. The dimensions though were incomparable to anything in existence. Squinting the eyes did not seem enough to completely discern the opposite edge. The distance made it hard to tell where the limit was, also because the colour of the sky seemed to reflect on the walls of rock, drawing the whiteness of the terrain into a shade of blue. It was scary.

We had no concrete evidence on how it formed. We had no clue on how it was so well defined. No witnesses appeared in this deserted place, it seemed the environment was too hostile for any form of life to live for long outside the castle. Gazing deep into it gave shivers even to the toughest of the individuals. Something was sure to be at the bottom, the issue was whether it was better to leave it alone or not. It was scary how something so simple could lead to so many questions and no answers. Only two things were certain: The incident had caused it, and it was not the only one.