The 10th Circle - Abyss [Complete]

15. Engram: Numbers (1)

Alas, his fears were justified
The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail
Cut the head off the wheat and damage the grain.
The Four Seasons: Summer – Antonio Vivaldi

~ ~ ~

My eyelids felt heavy as lead, and I could barely open them enough to see a painfully bright light.

"That one is really pesky."

The room around me gradually gained some shape, but there really wasn't much to look at. It was bright white, and in front of me, there was only a white wall with a black screen embedded in it. I could hear somebody talk next to me, but when I tried to turn and look who it was, I realized that my head had been fixed somehow. As a matter of fact, I was unable to move any part of my body at all.

"I have to admit, I don't quite understand the purpose of putting her into level three, specifically. If there is nothing left of her, how...?"

"Oh, she will still be able to do plenty. And besides, it's not so much about what she will be doing, as how the others will react to her presence. That should be interesting."

"You would assume that with so little to lose, she wouldn't be holding on so tightly."

"Yes, it's quite strange. But whatever she had, it will be gone once she's been through Lethe."

I tried to struggle against the restraints, I wanted to protest, but my body was limp. Then I felt a sudden, sharp pain at the back of my neck. I wanted to scream out in pain, but even my voice failed me. Then the world around me went dark again.

~ ~ ~

I shook my head vigorously to clear it of these unwanted thoughts. They seemed like memories to me, but they felt more distant than that. As if I could only observe moving shapes behind a hazy veil. Whatever it had been, the feeling of something prickling at the back of my neck didn't leave me.

Lethe, Lethe, I know that word. It's a place or something.

I repeated it over and over as I continued my aimless walk through the water maze in the darkness, until suddenly, the ghostly, velvet voice whispered close to me again, wistful and heavy with sorrow.

So speaking, all his eyes suffused with tears; Thrice would his arms in vain that shape enfold. Thrice from the touch of hand the vision fled, like wafted winds or likest hovering dreams. After these things Aeneas was aware of solemn groves in one deep, distant vale, where trees were whispering, and forever flowed the river Lethe, through its land of calm.

I would have lost myself in the sound of his voice readily, I had done so countless of times to keep myself occupied while I had wandered this lonely place, but I forced myself to pay attention to the words this time.

So it's a river, I thought. Is this place a river, then?

I stopped and looked around at the 360-degree encompassing darkness that surrounded my position. That water around my feet was definitely not flowing.

No, this isn't Lethe, I concluded, and continued on my path, submerged underneath the still surface of the water. But I clearly recall these people mentioning it, before I came here for the first time. I am certain of it now. I bet this is important. If only I knew what it all means. If only I could remember-

"Wait a moment," a realization struck me and I spoke out loud, "If he knows about the river Lethe, perhaps I could just ask him."

"What a grand idea," the other voice, the one that sounded like my own, replied sarcastically, "So have finally figured out what you have to do?"

"Well. I have to get out of here. And I do know one thing. They don't like it when I walk towards the light. That's how I got out of this maze before," I remembered. "But the light that guided me is gone right now, so...."

Actually, it doesn't much matter which way you go.

I could vividly imagine his Cheshire grin as he quoted that character from one of my favorite stories again.

"...so long as I get somewhere," I agreed, with determination in my voice.

Oh, you're sure to do that, he chuckled, if only you walk long enough.

_____
A.N.
The lines about the river Lethe are taken from Virgil's Aeneid, Book 6, translated by Theodore C. Williams.
The last lines here are quotes of Alice & the Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.