Date: First Age
A man nestled his back against the damp cave wall. It was solid at least, a respite for the fear and unanchored thoughts drifting through his head. From the mouth he could see the rocky earth that stretched out, a pocket of some nocturnal island. Not far from where his memory began it ceased, a cliff surrendering to a medley of ice and dust. Beyond the view of that were stars and nebulae, elfin in the scale of things, huddled within the boundary. How could a speck of dust enclosed in a bubble ever be lost, though it circulates around, a refugee in its own home? Time did not go far, even for a few moments in the agony of immaculate night. He could not even remember if anything came before. Aesthetic dots sharing no answers, only questions. The man looked to his side, down a shy corridor. At least he would be safe for the moment. He craned his head and listened. Pleasing drips from the stalactites followed, abating his worry. Rough hands inquired against the firm stone, searching for another. “I am here!” he called. Words rambled down the dark hall, ushered by the void. Studying its evaporation, his face fell, and he pressed his back once again into the niche. “There must be no one here but me” he thought as his eyes failed, crossing into the decay of sleep. Halfway there. Lower and lower. But then a weird thing happened. It returned back, trembling coherently. “My voice must be hitting off the walls and
coming back, that’s the only thing that works” the man deliberated. A noteworthy trait, that it could be so kind to an odd traveler. Testing it once more, he felt the rush of his own words, sympathetic like the morning tides. Even the pauses were cordial music. “I must be by myself”
he gleaned haplessly, and focused on the entrance, looking back the way of the starlight and its dangers. Some parcels of time went onwards, with loneliness reforming into solitude. He carried on, calling “I am here” to the null passageway, routing the worthless hopes, although in part his thoughts still clung to them. A crumb of uncertainty, that he maintained, just to feel the dreamy degree of the phenomenon, to seek its limits. Slight dizziness came. Then, a glance to the other wall, heavy with furtive shadows. The man took a breath to relax as more starlight joined.
Flickering ideas. If only he could be as eager, with ideas welling up inside. “Hello, my name is Echo” a woman said, emerging from the hall. Rough knees vaulted back into place as the man got to his feet and backed off. She had long black hair and a body freckled with those aesthetic dots, rippling at the edges. Abruptly, a pink layer like his overcame that canvas, keeping only the eyes.
Echo: Hello, my name is Echo.
Sam: Did you come from the cave?
Echo: No, I’m from over there, although this place is not as big as you’d think. I’ve explored most of it.
Sam: You look different, like the outside … I don’t know where I am.
Echo: Please don’t be afraid. I’m really nice I promise. Did you hear your words repeat?
Sam: Yes, when they hit the walls.
Echo: I know, it’s called an Echo. After you talk, there is a wave in the air. It can touch the wall and return.
Sam: That works well. Then you named yourself after it? I like your name.
Echo: It’s fascinating here. A little scary. Thank you by the way. I’ve spent most of the time flying and fiddling about.
Sam: Are there more people?
Echo: If there are, I haven’t met them yet.
Sam: Echo, you must have looked everywhere. All the way down there. I’m sorry.
Echo: Loneliness is not so nice. Did you feel it, just like I did?
Sam: Yes.
Echo: Can I touch your hand?
Echo: To be honest, I was hiding.
Sam: You are too beautiful to do that.
Echo: Hehe … I knew you would say that. A while ago I woke up drifting in the night, near those dots.
Sam: What are you saying?
Echo: It’s strange. I’m the echo of space and time. Since I like to fiddle, I made some mirror light.
Sam: Friend, you must be thinking too much.
Echo: There are so many shapes and details around us. It’s so refreshing. Hehehe.
Sam: Friend, I think you have been here too long.
Echo: Even you. I drew you from a shaft of mirror light.
Sam: Please, I am … am … call me Sam.
Echo: Wait … give me a moment to answer.
Sam: Of course, because everything you said works so well. I’m not bad at this.
Echo: Please! Didn’t you notice that I became your echo?
Sam: I saw you jump out. Hiding in the shadows, you must have heard my words down the hall.
It doesn’t mean what you say.
Echo: Sam, don’t close your eyes. Let me show you how I can move.
Sam: Incredible!
Echo: Think of how the wave touched the wall and came back.
Sam: Is this true! How can you move like that?
Echo: Alright, handsome.
Sam: Echo, you are …
Echo: Hehe, there’s another way I can move, come closer …
After more … reflection … the goddess flared with mirror light. The first echo generation hit the island like a volley of arrows. Before long, what had been an uncouth stone grew into a village, sprouting huts. People went to work. In those times dust was much easier to manipulate.
It could be formed into bricks and laid with easy magic. Subtly, the cave’s walls were chiseled out into a market and lined with torches. Less than a hundred milled about, talking all the time.
During idle afternoons our lady would play in the flavored emptiness, strolling about and doing loops. Nearby in the flamboyant soup, a blue nebula fanned out. To those who watched, it was more like soaring. A young boy was the only one who cared much. He would prowl to the genuine edge, where chips of rock resigned to the darkness, and skirts of powder lingered, trailing apart. “Echo, why is the nebula blue like that?” the boy Mar questioned once as soon as she set foot on dry ground. Funny geometries of ice bobbed overhead, but they could not compare. The woman thought about its features, squinting hard, but could not arrive at the reason, “I don’t know”. She stared into the distance as the boy ran off, upset by what he had heard. Dew evaporated from his back like sweat after a long run, useless magic. Even so, he continued, returning back to the place to watch. Then one day Sam took her hand, and she lifted him, bringing him into the ultramarine. Mar had been told to stay home that day. But looking closer, there was dancing, spinning … young and beautiful ... with a face illiterate to the perils of the outside world, and Sam, who had braved the darkness to find another. A cloud of magnetic blue came between the line of sight, disappearing them. Its composition was fluent, admirable.
Mar returned back to the village, powerless to see through the shroud. Later on, in the quiet of their hut, as her husband slept easily by torches and a gentle blanket, Echo gasped vehemently.
He was shaken awake, and looked over. Fear catapulted danger from her eyes. “Is everything fine shyness?” he asked, sitting up as the muscles of her arms began to pulse. “I had a dream.
There was a woman drowning in the sea and bubbles were coming from her mouth. A man dived in to save her, but it was hard to see his face” she illustrated as vividness fell from her tongue, translating myths to reality. “We’ve all had dreams before, they’re just feelings and images” he encouraged. Panic seemed to conquer the friend he knew. It was more than he could face. Echo flinched again as the sight returned. The woman sinking in ageless waters, bubbles coming from her throat, “Sam, this was different. Let’s get up. I’ll have to call everyone together to tell them something”. People in the crowd could taste something was amiss. “As you know from my travels we live in the boundary of a sphere, in its basin. I have tried to find a path that leads to another island, and found the edges to be smooth. I thought it natural that there was nothing more. How could anyone argue? But then, I heard the voices of my parents calling out to me.
They are in danger, my mother at least, drowning in the sea beyond. Father is doing his best to get there. I have to find and save her. To do so, you must let me leave. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be alone. It is … of course … not fun at all. Sam is here to keep you company. If I am not back in ten cycles, please go on without me” she enjoined, needing their assent. Echo had not had time to imagine what course she would take if they declined. Frozen by debate, the woman stood and observed how nervousness ran through her tribe, until at last it died down, supplanted by fragile confidence. “If you get lost, please, try to stay together” she told them, her warm hand gracing Sam’s wet cheek. Language, for all its algebra and beauty, could not arrest the thought of loss. Life was not so simple like the stories they told each other. Knowing what could happen burned the heart. Echo shut her eyes tight, shielding the environment from sadness. That she would have to start again … all over … alone. Slipping away through space and time, the woman came to the boundary. Focusing all her attention on a singular point, she reflected a beam of mirror light with intense glow. Palms blazed with magic. “This whole artifact is symmetrical. I
will make it not so” Echo resolved until a fracture, an imperfection formed as the shell gave, unable to bear the brunt. Tunneling through, she came to the ocean, and dove downwards, following the trail of bubbles. Linking flashes pounded the skull every so often, sharing memories of the descent, “How could these be … real. I can hear you mother”. Echo shed the robe of pale skin to swim faster. She had to get even farther down. Her lungs were engines of oxygen. Keeping close to the curves the tracker moved like a harpoon through the water. The goal must be near, just past the curtain of the deep. At last, the waters up ahead were blurred with a smudge of golden light.
Linden Dream: Are you who I think you are?
Echo: Father …
Linden Dream: My special …
Echo: Let me hold you.
Linden Dream: Echo, you are brave and just as graceful as your mother. Melina Dreamer. We have to find her before she perishes. Let’s search together.
Echo: Time is against us.
Linden Dream: This way.
Drawing nearer, a horrid creature caught up with them. Linden looked into its fateful glare, and fell back with his daughter. Dark blood woven into a circulatory system of a man.
Raw, vulgar energy danced around him like an aura.
Telenon: Is this a conspiracy?
Linden Dream: Who are you? Leave us alone at once.
Telenon: I am Telenon.
Linden Dream: This … must have formed when we separated.
Telenon: Some problems are their own solution. They don’t need an answer.
Linden Dream: Are you looking for something?
Telenon: I see now. The body is down there. The maelstrom is strong.
Linden Dream: Stay right there!
Telenon: The maelstrom allegiance is here …
Linden Dream: Don’t try to go any further. Melina is with us.
Telenon: Trust me, dying will not be fair for you. Let me pass.
Linden Dream: Daughter, help me here.
Equally, as she had brought destruction to the boundary, the soul fought on. Lasers of magical force knifed against the thing. It was stronger than she could have possibly imagined.
Pressure shifted in the water as shockwaves formed and collapsed. They seemed to be racing against time. Linden clung to the grueling dance until her daughter finished it with a final blow.
He continued to the lost one, before time could return and cycle again, before the tide came.
They had spoken about changing the path. Of altering things. The moment of return in their own sphere of time.