Day: 568
Days Left: 4912
Lives Saved: 3
Corinna sat on one of the cushions on the floor in Calixte's newly built house, the blue notebook on her lap unopened. Calixte and Harmony sat nearby.
"How many notebooks do I have now?" Corinna laughed, inspecting the book but still hesitant to open the pages inside.
"These are the memories that you told Salim," explained Harmony. She placed her hands on top of Corinna's. "I know that you said you didn't need to know about your past... but I just wanted you to know that there is nothing to be afraid of. You don't have anything to be concerned about; there's nothing in here that would cause you pain."
Corinna shook her head and handed the book back to Harmony. "Thank you, Harm, but I still don't want to read it."
"But-" Harmony was about to force it back then remembered her promise to Salim. "I still don't understand why you don't want to know about your family. Calixte's memories of Violette are what keeps him going." She turned to the amphibian, hoping he would side with her.
"That is true," said Calixte. "My memories of my beloved kept me sane during my time as a water nymph. But that was my own personal experience; not everyone would feel the same to know about their past once their memories have all faded."
Harmony looked down at the blue book. "I still don't understand any of it, but I... I respect your decision."
Corinna smiled. "Thank you." She gave Harmony's cheek a peck. "It's complicated; I don't understand it myself either. Parts of me want to know, but parts of me don't." Corinna paused. "How about you keep a hold of it for me in case I change my mind later."
"Okay." Harmony nodded.
"You'll probably take better care of it than how I took care of yours," Corinna giggled.
"Yeah." Harmony smiled. "You had mine for a few minutes, and you fell into a sandwyrm tunnel."
*
"I just don't get it," Harmony sighed as she absent-mindedly accepted a bowl of food from Rin. "How could she not want to know about her life before the Abyss?"
"I don't get it either," replied Rin, serving her own portion of food before sitting down next to Harmony.
They sat outside of the caravan, near the pot of food, as they were both on serving duty tonight.
"Sumit and Ivette are the same," continued Rin. "They say that they don't want to know about their past. Though I'll never be able to regain my memories like them, I would still be scared to find out."
"You would?"
Rin looked back at Harmony. "I'm in for murder, Harmony. Whoever I was before the Abyss, she was willing to kill people."
"It might have been for a good reason..." Harmony said, but her voice wavered in uncertainty as she attempted to reassure her friend. "Maybe you tried to protect yourself or someone?"
Shrugging, Rin ate a spoonful of food. "Regardless, I've taken someone's life, as has Sumit and Ivette. Most of here are imprisoned in the Abyss for murder. Whilst regaining our memories of our loved ones might bring us comfort, having memories of killing someone... I guess it's difficult to choose between remembering your past or having a fresh start."
"A fresh start..." Harmony's fingers caressed the nape of her neck, where a brand should have been but instead were everlasting scratches. "I'd still want to know why I'm here, why I have to suffer down here."
"You do?"
Harmony hesitated, "yeah..."
Did she? Did she really want to know? Would that help her at all or just cause her more pain?
"I don't want to know who I've killed," said Rin. "I do want to remember my family and friends back home... but I would also gain the memories of who I've killed. I wonder if there's a choice of being able to keep all your happy memories and forget all the bad ones."
"As good as that sounds, it would just be a lie, won't it?"
Rin nodded absently as she ate more of her food. "Do you think they would give us an option? If once we are free from the Eternal Abyss, they give us the choice of erasing our memories of this place?"
"You would erase your memories of the Abyss?"
Rin looked back at Harmony, her eyebrows raised in confusion. "Of course, who wouldn't? This place is a hell dimension; why would I want to remember it?" After scraping up the residue of food in her bowl, she set it aside on the nearby table for it to be cleaned later, then donned her white mask, the black letters of an unknown language fading and swirling around.
"What about Sumit?"
Hesitating, Rin replied, "what about him?"
"You would want to forget about him too, or anyone else here?"
Rin scoffed, "do you really think any of us will stay friends after we're free of this place? Sumit's sentence will be over before mine, and we're from different countries. You really think he'll wait for me that long?" She glanced down at the ground. "He'll forget about me, I'm sure of it. Besides, what memories would I want to keep of this place anyway? May as well just wipe it all away."
"I used to believe that too," said Harmony. "But now, I don't want to forget." She retrieved a couple of polaroid photos from her satchel, one of them being a picture of Calixte posing in front of his new house. A soft smile appeared on Harmony's lips. "When I first started taking photos and writing down my memories of this place, I didn't think I'd have that many good times to remember; I thought I would just have a handful, but as I continued to write and take photos, I realised that actually, I had quite a lot."
Rin glanced over at Harmony, her arms folded at first until she let them drop to her side as she gazed at the photos; one of them was of the plant nursery where Ivette, Sumit, and herself were tending to the newly grown fruit. It had been taken just after Sumit had told a pun, and Ivette and Rin had both rolled their eyes and groaned.
"Even something so simple of a memory I found could give me happiness," continued Harmony. "Though this world is full of suffering darkness, I still somehow managed to find some light amongst it all."
"Seems more like seeing the silver lining," said Rin.
"Regardless, I don't want to forget this place because that would mean I would forget Corinna and Calixte and everyone else here." Harmony gazed down at the image of Ivette in one of the polaroid photos. Perhaps she could now understand Ivette, how Ivette had decided to remain in the Eternal Abyss despite her prison sentence finished.
Day: 569 (Food Drop-Off)
Those who had been assigned food pick-up duty walked together to the drop-off area and stood outside the ring of stones, waiting for the portal above to open. Though there was no danger or threat now in their sector, the group still armed themselves with their weapons and kept their masks by their side just in case.
Once the moon had split open into a bloodshot eye and the sky had faded into crimson, silver food packets plummeted down into the centre of the ring of stones. After the portal closed, the group walked over to the pile of food packets.
Riley picked up a packet, then flattened the pile. "There's barely anything there..."
Everyone was silent, glancing at each other and then at the silver packets. There was only half of what had dropped last time.
The journey back to the village was deafening quiet. They presented the packets in front of the rest of the prisoners, and their expressions fell in disheartenment.
"It's because we're not fighting," said Rin. "No one's going to bother sending us food if we're not going to fight over them. There's no entertainment in that."
"I don't mind eating less," said Calanthe. "I don't want to go back to fighting."
"Nor I," added Klei.
"We won't have to," said Ivette.
Everyone looked to the old trader, seeing the gentle smile on her face.
Ivette snapped her fingers and ordered everyone to follow her back to her warehouse.
*
"I have finally done it!" the old trader squealed in delight as she wheeled herself through to the back of her trading shop. She motioned over to Sumit and Rin, who lifted away the bookcase hiding the door that led to the rest of the warehouse.
"Done what?" asked Kai, who had been questioning and impatient for the answer for the entire trip to the outpost.
Ivette gave a sharp glare back at him; then her eyes softened as she replied, "I have finally grown enough to bring it out for mass use." She rolled herself through the door and revelled in the gasps of awe from her audience.
Those who had not known or seen the plant nursery followed after Ivette, their steps slow and shuffling as they gazed around, mesmerised by the rows upon rows of plants. For so long, the prisoners lived in a world of grey, beige, and darkness, but now they were surrounded by emerald green.
"So this is what was in the rest of the warehouse," said Dex, still entranced by the sight before him.
"I've seen these plants before in another sector," said Riley. "Very rarely, one of them might produce this black fruit, Abyss Fruit we called it. There would be all-out fights to have a flowering Abyss Plant in your possession..." She paused, seeing that almost all of the plants in the nursery had sprouted neon red flowers and large black waxy cocoon-shaped fruit hung from their leaves. "Where did you-"
"You had all these plants all this time?" Princess Alfreda wafted herself with her paper fan. "You have been keeping all this food to yourself whilst we were rationing?"
Ivette glared back at the princess. "The success rate of any of the seeds germinating was incredibly low. Every fruit that grew, I replanted to produce another plant. We now have enough of the 'Abyss Plants' to use just for food, whilst setting some aside to keep on reproducing." The old trader caressed one of the black waxy fruit, then turned back to the other prisoners. "We don't have to worry about food. One of these fruits can substitute a whole meal, maybe even more. However, we need to keep this a secret from those watching up above."
"Yeah, I imagine they're pissed off that they no longer have any entertainment," said Klei. "If they knew about this, they'll try to ruin it all."
Oscar inspected the Abyss Fruit then smiled despite the stinging pain from his almost healed wound on his jaw. "I can cook it along with the food packets," he said, his recovering voice-box croaking.
Princess Alfreda sighed. "It seems that this alliance will live just yet."
Corinna grinned. "It's going to take more than that to break it."
*
Following Oscar's suggestion, they served the Abyss Fruit hidden amongst the food from the silver packets. The feelings of fear and disheartenment from earlier had all quickly washed away. At the next food drop-off, fewer packets were dropped than before and the one afterwards and one after that. Despite this, everyone remained vigilant and carefree. With the Abyss Fruit that Ivette had grown, the prisoners were no longer afraid of the possibility of starving. Thus the amiable and steady relationship between each other was not unsettled.
It seemed like there was nothing that could break this peace treaty.
Now that Ivette had grown more flowering plants, she recruited willing volunteers to tend to the saplings. Jackson, Riley, Dex and a few of the imps offered their help. However, Ivette was at first reluctant to accept the imps assistance; they were surprisingly well behaved as Dex and Calixte's teachings of manners and politeness had finally stuck, well, mostly.
As usual, Ivette secretly sent food to the recovering water nymphs, which Sumit smuggled into their building. Over the weeks, more nymphs were dragged out of the ocean underneath the portal, saved from an eternity of drowning. After Klei and Kai wiped their memories, the water nymphs' memories of suffering and their cannibalistic tendencies disappeared. Though they writhed and gasped in pain from their damaged lungs, unable to breathe, Harmony's magical healing 'ointment' soothed them. The nymphs that had been saved first were already making great progress on recovering, their lungs no longer clogged with water and their skin returning to their natural colour and state, but still not strong enough to talk or stand.
Calixte himself had also been recovering from his time as a water nymph. Every afternoon, he would take off his amphibian mask and transform back into a human. He could now endure almost half an hour of pain, allowing the Eternal Abyss to heal him and revert his body to how it was when he was first imprisoned. Every day, he felt that he was closer to permanently being in his human form.
Whilst Calixte transformed back into a human, Salim sat by his side, keeping the man's attention away from the pain by reciting stories, specifically ones that involved mysteries as it was Calixte's favourite. When the two weren't making jokes about age, as Calixte, despite looking like he was in his mid-thirties, was over three-hundred years old and thus older than the old storyteller, Calixte and Salim bonded over books and stories. They formed a book club together and were joined by Rin, Jackson, and Princess Alfreda, the latter who was a prolific reader and literature enthusiast as the fiction had more consistent drama and excitement that reality could never possess.
When he wasn't reading, Calixte, in his spare time, began to give piano lessons to anyone interested in learning, using the beginner's piano book that Harmony had gifted him as a goodbye present so long ago. Calixte's latest student was Wendy the wendigo. After it had been deemed safe enough, Wendy was allowed to go outside of her room so long as she was supervised. A seating area was made outside of her house, where she spent her days playing with her soft toy animals and listening to Calixte when he played. She expressed an interest in learning how to make such beautiful sounds, and the amphibian took her under his fin. Though Klei, Kai, and Dex were reluctant at first to allow this, worried that it might be overwhelming for Wendy to leave her sitting area, the young woman remained calm and giggled gleefully as she performed a simple duet with Calixte.
Though Wendy was heartbroken when Reggie left and was freed from the Eternal Abyss, she quickly bounced back as she was introduced to more imprisoners beside Klei, Kai, Dex, and Corinna. Including Calixte, who became her new piano teacher, Wendy became acquainted with Salim, who talked to her at great lengths, telling her stories, so long as he did not overwhelm her by asking questions about her own past too much. The imps also visited Wendy and played catch with her whilst she sat in her fenced-off seating area outside her house. After she apologised profusely for having lost the soft toy giraffe they had gifted her, the imps then returned with a soft toy black labrador that they had found at the Land of the Lost.
To begin with, the other prisoners were cautious and perhaps even afraid of Wendy when she first sat outside for everyone to see- to see her ghostly white skin, her sunken and rotting skin that stretched over her bones, and her shark-like teeth. Still, as time passed, they grew accustomed to the wendigo despite her monstrous appearance. One of the only prisoners who did not retreat away from the lonely creature was Pearl, who seemed unfazed to the wendigo. The seamstress noticed how the other prisoners were hesitant to approach Wendy, and she decided to sew and adjust some clothes from the Land of the Lost. Wearing more bright-coloured and more fitting clothes, Wendy seemed less scary and more approachable and friendlier. Afterwards, the other prisoners would occasionally talk to Wendy, even if it was just a simple 'hello' or passing comment about their day. When the wendigo asked why Pearl helped her, the seamstress replied, "It's all about appearances; everyone only pays attention to your outsides, so your insides go unnoticed."
It wasn't just Wendy's clothes that Pearl fixed; the seamstress spent her free time sewing up the holes in the other prisoners' clothes as well as making functioning belts that people could easily attach their mask to. When they weren't obeying Princess Alfreda's whims, her servants had found their hobbies and projects to keep them occupied in the Abyss. Pearl had her sewing; Oscar worked alongside Ivette to develop new recipes and methods to combine the Abyss Fruit with the silver food packets from the donations; Oscar calculated the most efficient way of cooking the fruit and the packets to make them go further and feed more people.
Calanthe, as usual, styled the hair of anyone who would allow her, most of them reluctantly surrendering to her desperate pleas and hyper energy and enthusiasm. Even the water nymphs were not spared from having their hair styled by Calanthe.
More and more people began attending Lili's training sessions to the point where she had to create more break-off groups and curriculums. She also accidentally began a weekly aerobics class when Ivette was interested in doing some more suitable exercise.
Whilst the other servants had found something to fill their spare time, Daina kept to herself and took solidarity walks. No one had heard her voice since she sang along to Calixte's piano playing that night. She had reverted to her indifferent and silent herself, interacting as little as possible. Out of all of the royal servants, Daina was the one that had spent most of her time by Princess Alfreda's, perhaps to fill the boredom.
Though she showed little interest in talking, Daina still participated in the community gatherings and activities that Corinna organised. It first started with Dex, Sumit, and the imps playing a game of rounders which soon evolved into a weekly game that everyone was involved in; the teams were shuffled and balanced each time and masks were permitted until they were quickly banned after several broken bats and balls. Corinna also hosted a talent show, a dance night, and plays which Salim wrote himself, with the imps acting it out and Calixte playing the piano as accompaniment. Riley also started a large poker night and taught everyone how to play; amongst the group, three people, aside from Riley, proved to be tough competitors; Jackson had an unreadable poker face, though his face was always unreadable and was fixed with a dreamy and absent-minded expression; Pearl was ruthless in psyching her opponents out; and Harmony was the wild card, though even after learning the rules still had no idea how to play, somehow she had amazing luck and was unpredictable, so she remained in the game longer than she should have.
Day: 629
"It's not going to last forever, Miss Warren," remarked Princess Alfreda to Corinna as they sat at the back of the room, both of them having lost all of their chips in the poker game.
"Yeah, Harmony's terrible at betting," said Corinna. "And she keeps on accidentally showing her cards."
"Not that, pet," chuckled the princess. She motioned around to the other prisoners watching the game. "How long do you expect to keep this alliance going for?"
"For as long we can," answered Corinna. She smiled as she saw the smiling and laughing faces of her friends. "It won't break that easily."