The 10th Circle - Abyss [Complete]

6. Engram: Thread (3)

"Forgetting is a mercy - those are some wise words," a voice from behind me said.

I tensed up immediately, and turned slowly to find Rain standing in the doorframe with crossed arms. I had no idea how long she had been listening in on our conversation and if I might have said something to incite her fury. But for now at least, she seemed perfectly calm and composed – no death glares this time. In fact, her beautiful face seemed devoid of any kind of emotion.

She looked like a doll, or rather, like a moving piece of art, as she set out to walk over toward us. Everything from her face, with those ridiculously bright blue-green eyes, delicate nose, sculpted cheek bones, full lips and flawless, pale skin, to her sleek, silver-white hair that fell behind her like a curtain of pure silk. Her whole body. Even the damned way she walked. Everything about that woman practically screamed perfection. She was so radiant, it was painful to look at her for too long. She was the kind of person who would make you want her, or want to be her. Right now, I couldn't even really say which of the two options applied to me. And when I thought about how close I had been to her the night before, when she had held me when I had cried, I began to feel light-headed, despite what felt like several liters of hot blood rushing to my cheeks.

She walked over to the hidden counter and pressed her hand against the wall. I tried to get a better look at the opening, but from where I sat, it just seemed like a perfectly smooth, seamless white niche in the wall. Rain took a plate and sank down on the chair next to Bridge, with an unfathomable grace to even the simplest of her motions.

"Being in this place is not so bad, once you stop wondering whether the grass on the other side is greener," she chimed in.

"Well, considering how everything here is white, pretty much anything on any other side will be greener, bluer or redder than here," I remarked drily.

Bridge giggled. To my surprise, my comment even coaxed a somewhat wry smile out of Rain.

"Of course," Rain said sardonically, "the new one's gotta be a smartass. Watch out, Bridge, or she will take your title as most annoying resident of Tartaros."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Bridge stopped laughing, crossed her arms and pouted.

"Nothing. Just that I hadn't expected this kind of... change," Rain said cryptically and sighed.

"So, what does the average day around here look like?" I asked to change the topic. "Breakfast, lunch, torture, dinner?"

Rain raised an eyebrow at me. "I'll ask you again how funny you think this is the next time you get back from a trial, dripping wet and bawling your eyes out," she said coldly.

I had overstepped the line there, alright.

"Well excuse me that I was a little upset after being almost drowned repeatedly," I grumbled.

"It was pretty harsh of them to put you through that trial on your first day," Bridge said sympathetically. "Luckily old Charybdis is probably not something you'll have to endure too often."

"Charybdis? Like the mythical creature?" I asked.

Now that I thought about it, it made a lot of sense. The way the well had kept filling with water and emptying again surely was reminiscent of the giant monster of ancient myths, which had been thought to create the tides through periodically swallowing water and spitting it out.

Rain rolled her eyes. "My brother gave that trial that stupid nickname, and for some reason it stuck."

I smiled at the thought. Somehow it didn't surprise me that it was him who had come up with that comparison. And I also noted that Rain didn't seem to have any problems with me talking about something that I 'remembered', as long as it was just stories that they seemed to know from the books in the library. Still, I decided to tread carefully around her.