Harm and Harmony

-Chapter 23-

Day: 4

Days Left: 5476

Lives Saved: 0

The next day, the sky was brighter, or rather a lighter grey, but nonetheless, clear enough for Corinna to finally see a creamy white orb hanging up above- the moon which would turn blood red tomorrow. The moon radiated a sliver of light, creating a haze of grey along its edges. Whenever Corinna looked at it, she sensed something was wrong with it. It disturbed her, but she unable to put into words why. Perhaps it was because it seemed unreal like it was painted onto a blank canvas as opposed to being a spherical celestial body in space. Corinna dismissed these feelings by theorising that it was because she had seen only one moon before and had become accustomed to it. In the Eternal Abyss, not everything was the same as in the human realm.

Still pouting about her defeat against Corinna at Kerplunk and Jenga from last night, Harmony led the young woman to the monstrous pile of objects, which she called 'The Land of the Lost'.

'Everything here was deemed useless/ unwanted' the chimaera explained on the whiteboard that hung around her neck. 'The rich/ mages throw them out through the rifts into this realm'.

"Ah, I already knew that," said Corinna. "Well, actually everyone throws stuff out into the Abyss, not just the rich and those with magic."

Harmony furrowed her brow and wrote down on her whiteboard- 'did not know that'.

"Yeah, lately there's been a load of environmental activist groups trying to stop that. Although if they did it would mean we wouldn't have any supplies." Corinna shrugged. She gazed up at the summit of the monstrosity. From afar, the colours of the objects all blurred into one, difficult to differentiate one item from another. A crack in the sky split open, a beam of light shining through, and a lamp fell from the opening, tumbling down the mountainous heap. The lampshade caved in, now dented and broken, the bulb shattered.

The light receded.

The opening closed.

"Couldn't you escape from one of those portals?" Corinna asked, having judged it to be far safer than the other opening that Harmony continuously strived to escape through.

Harmony shook her head and wrote 'more frequent but close very quickly. Difficult to get right timing.'

"Oh..." Corinna lowered her head.

'Heard stories people have' Harmony wrote, then added 'I tried once. Got hit by piano.'

Corinna smirked, covering her smile.

Arriving at the base of the item pile, Harmony began to work on collecting more supplies for her escape plan. Meanwhile, Corinna followed her around, commenting on every object she saw, reciting an anecdote about her family that was somehow linked to it, no matter how minuscule the connection was.

"Look at this Harm!"

"Hey, Harm! Do you need any more of these?"

"You got any idea what this is, Harm?

*

Upon hearing her new nickname, a wide grin spread across Harmony's face, causing her pain due to her fangs. It was an odd yet euphoric feeling to hear her name being said by someone else. Harmony attempted to think of a nickname in return but thought it pointless as she would never need to use it since she was unable to speak.

Occasionally Corinna would forget what her original discussion topic was, going off on a tangent or getting distracted by a new object or story of interest, always succeeding in somehow relating it back to her family.

Corinna had listed so many relatives that Harmony was having difficulty remembering any of them. From the numerous names she had heard, Harmony concluded that Corinna's family was abnormally large.

How can someone have so many cousins? Harmony thought to herself.

"... and then there's my second cousin Julia, we have the same birthday, different years though." Corinna laughed. "She still hasn't forgiven me for being born on her birthday. She would always be like..."

Harmony rummaged through the item pile, discovering a lime green book of children's stories about frogs called 'The Hopping Compondium of Frog Stories for Toadllers and Tadpoles', which she pocketed into her satchel.

"... speaking of coffee, you ever heard of this place called 'The Sweet and Bitter End'? It's a cute cafe that serves a lot of coffee and tea and desserts. They do the most amazing cheesecakes! It's called that 'cause it's at the end of the road. Me and Jonathan would go there every Saturday, he's a journalist, so he basically lives off of coffee. Though we had to sit at separate tables since he wanted to work on his writing... He's the nephew I told you about, the one who's older than me. Everyone finds that really weird but I don't see why. Jonathan didn't like people knowing I was his aunt, so we'd..."

Harmony discovered a packet of crayons, all of them reduced to small unusable pieces, apart from the white one that looked brand new. She took the white crayon out of the packet and put it in her satchel.

"... and that's how we almost lost my brothers in the forest. We no longer go on holidays with that many of us now. Also, it was quite expensive, and we couldn't all fit in the same restaurant-"

Harmony yanked Corinna by the arm, pulling her into a protective embrace with such strength that Corinna tripped and they both collapsed onto the floor.

An ironing board had fallen down the heap, causing an avalanche of objects to tumble down with it.

*

"That was close." Corinna breathed out a sigh of relief. "Thank you." She soon realised that she was lying on top of Harmony and quickly stood up. The young woman offered her hand to Harmony, then immediately withdrew it upon remembering the chimaera's claws.

Harmony stood up by herself, brushing off any dirt and dust, checking that the objects she had collected in her satchel were not damaged by the fall.

Corinna looked behind her at the pile of objects that had fallen down, which was now higher than her. She clutched at her arms in an attempt to stop her body from quivering, imagining the pile of objects falling on top of her, crushing her, trapped, unable to escape...

"Are you alright?" Corinna asked the chimaera.

Harmony nodded, then her eyes widened and pointed to the blood seeping out of Corinna's coat sleeve. The young woman rolled her sleeve up and found claw marks from where Harmony had grabbed her, to save her. Corinna wiped away the blood but more soon surfaced.

Harmony retrieved a packet of plasters from her satchel. Corinna giggled once she saw the design. Soon Corinna had many cartoon crocodile plasters on her arm, covering up the claw marks.

Rushed in a frantic panic, the word 'SORRY' was almost unintelligible on Harmony's whiteboard.

"Don't worry about it. It's okay." The young woman laughed, still giggling from the excessive amount of crocodile plasters on her arm.

'There's a trader need to go to' wrote Harmony.

"A trader?"

Harmony nodded, she motioned to her satchel. 'Trade for useful supplies for blood moon'.

"Alright. Lead the way!"