Resemblance

Chapter 1: How do we look exactly alike?

 I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone.

It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream.

-from "Berenice", Edgar Allan Poe

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                In a formless strange world, where the sun weary to cast a ray of light and the winds choking out the last hoard of air to breathe life into its walls, I walked with a deep fear I forced to hide under my skin and away from my mind preventing it from creating false notions and feelings which may be true but superstitious in my head. Every step I took made a creeping sound reverberating on the ground louder and louder. I was in another time, a time everyone may have forgotten, a time everyone may have remembered in pages or in images only, a time where my stories were not yet discovered and the chapters of my life, still waiting to be read.

                The deafening silence drowned and went through me with an overwhelming roar of its excruciating noise. I heard nothing but the voices of my thoughts and the sound of my breath rushing dry against my throat like a river suffered from years of drought and famine. From that moment only I noticed my countenance different from what I have known. I was dressed in an elegant velvet muslin gown festooned with laces and silk of the finest sort.

                 I looked in a glass window almost shattered into pieces but well enough to behold the face of a goddess locked in a human form. A stranger looked back at my glance, amazed and confused. Her face befitted the image of royalty that even pronounced beguile and adoration or renounced wealth and possessions may seem little to offer.

                At the chime of a clock somewhere from the north made the glass fall into glittering ashes of crystals and the queen left her admirer dissatisfied of her departure. The chime turned into ticking and then suddenly lost souls arose from their slumber and began to wander before me like I was a ghost unperceivable. They walked so graciously as if anyone would think that they were in some kind of a procession of kings and queens that, in absolute certainty, inevitably arouses a feeling of obligation to the people to bow in great respect.

                Then all of a sudden they began to stare towards my direction, noticing my presence. Scrutiny and wonder was seen right through their inquiring eyes, throwing me the whole idea that I was not one of them – I was not seemingly welcome; I was not invited.

                My heart weltered in anxiety. I wanted to run away and get out of that place even how much I would've liked to stay. I felt like I shouldn't be there and that I should never have gone there in the first place. Suddenly, indistinct voices began to whisper, becoming louder and clearer. The whispers and murmurs of voices were all questions about me. "Who is she?" I heard someone whisper, too soft it almost sounded eerie. I felt many pairs of eyes glaring at me and I wanted to shrink and fold into myself.

                In a quick snap there was light coming closer before me. It walked and shone towards me, crept from the ground to my face. Its brightness made the shadows and souls before me crawl back into the soil, leaving no telltale sign of their origin. I felt cold. I realized I wasn't the ghost lurking on that place. They were.

                All of them.

                I shuddered at the thought. Seconds later, I saw a hand reaching out from the light.

               "Come, come," said someone in the light. The gentle voice cuddled and danced in my ears. As the figure neared me, it turned out to be a figure of a young man from that old time – ancient and majestic. He walked like a noble, feet barely touching the ground. I noticed his deep sky blue eyes staring straight into mine. And when I stared back at them, I saw the reflection of heaven, yet underneath its beauty was a darkness that was beginning to settle in.