2
Odette
Just as if I woke up from a comfortable dream in my bed back in Bachassau, I open my eyes.
However, after blinking a couple of times to adjust my vision to what is around me, my first thought is that, clearly, I don't know this place at all.
I seem to have woken up from one dream to appear in another. My mind, floating somewhere away from my head: this is how I feel at this moment. Behind me, there is absolutely nothing. A wall of a black so deep and intense, without any light that reflects in it, scares me even to look at it, and it gives me chills.
In front of me, the longest gallery corridor I've ever seen. It's so long, that the other end vanishes through that same darkness that haunts me. It's the strangest place I've been, and it feels so unreal that for a moment it gives me a sense of alienation, as I try to make sense of what my eyes see.
I want to think that it's just a solitary gallery somewhere in this dimension, illuminated by the light of the moon, but even the light is unusual. This light enters through the arches that flank the gallery. It's blurry, and has some dark red notes, but manages to be clear and strong. A rarity from a dream.
I stand up and venture to walk down the hall. This is when I discover a new rarity. The left side of the gallery is only a reflection of the right side, which means that the left wall is an extensive mirror that also ends where this gallery vanishes. I move with caution, trying to assimilate everything that surrounds me.
Luciana.
Next, I am tempted to turn around and enter that darkness behind me, but I have a feeling that when I cross that portal I will lose myself again. Maybe... the power of the Inquisitor is not as limited as I thought, and he has locked me in a place with no escape. Maybe this is my end.
But, is it possible? There are some things that I would like to tell Luciana yet, but I think it's too late.
I move cautiously into the darkness, and reach out to touch the wall.
"Don't."
A female voice stops me an inch from touching the wall with my finger. It's a familiar voice, and it comes from the mirror.
It's me who is reflected in the mirror, but it's not my current stance. Instead of having the arm extended to the side, my reflection remains with the fingers intertwined at the level of my bellybutton. That's a habit of mine, to interlock my fingers that way. However, although I can distinguish elements such as my silhouette, hair and height, the expression of my reflection is different from what I have seen reflected in other mirrors, or simply the general expression that I usually keep. The Odette in the mirror keeps a serene expression, worthy of admiration, as if she knew everything about me. There is even a small gentle smile on her lips, something that doesn't reflect at all the fear I feel at this moment inside me.
I'm not sure what to do, but then it occurs to me that the mirror is not an ordinary mirror, so I approach it and touch it. It's the texture and coldness of a normal mirror, but its function, I've found, is different.
"Oh, come on, what's this?"
"Odette."
The reflection in the mirror, unlike me, hasn't moved an inch, and maintains her peaceful expression. I wonder what kind of spell this is, what the Inquisitor has actually done to me, and I'm positively surprised at his abilities. However, I think that anyone could get great capabilities if you offer your soul to the Dark Force, I suppose.
I fix my eyes on my reflection. Suddenly, her face goes to the right, and then she looks down the corridor.
"Why don't you come with me?"
For a moment her voice overwhelms me. It's my voice, but the tone is, at the same time, very different, as if it were some other personality of mine. Seeing me reflected, and listening to me, makes my hair stand on end.
"Where are we?" I ask, before accepting her invitation. "Why would I walk with someone created by the enemy?"
She raises an eyebrow and drops it, showing at the same time a self-satisfied smile, as if saying "I thought you would say that."
"You fell in the Waters of Oblivion. It's a terrible place to fall, but you shouldn't fear its name. Once you fall into the Waters of Oblivion, you actually fall into a trance. For a moment you can be alive, and fully aware of what is happening, but, little by little..."
"I will begin to forget."
"Yes, more or less." When hearing this I can't avoid feeling my soul leaving my body for a moment. At the same time, I feel horrible remorse, and I can only think of Luciana. "But it's painless. And, since it's about forgetting, it's impossible to think about what you forget, you don't even know that you're forgetting. To put it simply, everything abandons you."
"Oh, no."
Painless or not, all this is regrettable. The idea that in a few moments I'll be forgetting about Luciana makes me desperate, and I need to ask how to get out of here, if there's any way.
But, before I can open my mouth to speak, the reflection lets out a giggle.
"Whichever reason you arrived, it's of great fortune."
"What?"
"Well, I suppose you didn't come here because of your own free will. In that case, I think he has made a mistake in his spell lines."
"What does that mean? Is there any way I can get out of here? How much time do I have left of conscience?"
Only the slight alteration in my breathing makes me realize that I have been walking along my reflection. I haven't taken my eyes off her face, and I feel that I have become accustomed to this strange image of myself that looks so different at the same time.
"Imagine," she says, "that in a parallel dimension that only a few people know, there is this kind of ocean. Somewhere in the universe. And a lonely person ends here and dies. It's distressing."
Certainly, this is the most terrifying place I have seen in my life, and I can't help but feel a knot in my stomach. It gives me the feeling of not allowing myself to make any mistakes in a place like this.
"Why does that place exist, then?"
"Why do black holes exist?"
"Tch. I have to get out of here. It's urgent."
The reflection gives me a knowing look and smile. It scares me and makes my stomach churn. I think she knows what is happening to me, and what the reason for my urgency is.
"Your lover?" She wants to know.
"What?"
At that moment, the reflection raises a hand and points towards the distance, toward what she thinks is her other side, that is, what is behind me. When I turn around, I can see a landscape pass the gallery. For some reason I hadn't been aware of her at the time, but it is as if my mind tried to build a reality wherever my eyes look. That is why, as soon as I turn around, what I see beyond the stone arches of the gallery is nothing more than dunes, dimly lit by this half reddish light emitted by the moon, which gives to the sandy surface a softness as if it were a silk mantle. Even in my state I can recognize that it's a landscape that has its share of charm, like something you would see in a dream.
"If someone forgot everything in this place and then saw a portal there between the dunes, do you think they would stay here or leave?"
"There's a kind of dreamy charm about this place," I confess, "but, after a while, it would be sad and lonely, I suppose. I would go through the portal."
"You see any?"
"No."
"All right. As long as you don't, everything's fine."
"Who are you? And why do you look like me?"
She smiles at me, and then lowers her head for a second. When she lifts it up again, she says:
"I'm Adelheid. Yes." She nods immediately after noticing my astonishment. "You didn't expect me to look like that, right? But, really, you do."
I try to get out of the fog of my amazement by concentrating on her words, and, as I do so, I begin to understand some things. I feel as if a piece of some puzzle was fitting perfectly at this precise moment, somewhere distant from my consciousness.
"Since I saw Luciana fit into the image of Rosier, in a surreptitious way, I could have fitted my own image into the idea of Adelheid."
Adelheid laughed softly.
"This is how you see me. In fact, even though Adelheid is so connected to your life, you don't think of her so often. But that's okay. A past life shouldn't interfere in a present life. Otherwise it would be unfair..."
"Wait, did you just say «past life»?"
"That's why I want you to walk with me!"
I look once more into the corridor, and now I walk with purpose and intention.
"To be honest, I don't know how it is with other human beings," she confesses. "But, for me, I've heard that sometimes we feel like we know who we were in the past. In general, we're convinced that we were someone great."
Adelheid shakes her head, revealing the human condition.
"The present life is difficult for some," I protest. "It's normal to think that it could have been better in some other time. If all our lives were miserable, that would be really sad."
Adelheid ducked her head, and then nodded, granting me that point.
"This place, don't you think it's familiar?"
"Yes," I say, glancing around again. The truth is that I have thought about how places like "limbo," "hell," "heaven," or simply life on another planet, and for me, limbo, even in the vaguest thought, can look like this, blurred and incomplete. Despite this, walking on my own incomplete thought, and noticing how dark it is, pains me. "This is a reflection of my mind, isn't it?"
Adelheid nods.
"Your mind built, at some point in your life, and unconsciously, your own idea of a limbo. However, it remains in this state..."
"Because it's an incomplete thought. I wonder why I add a mirror," I laugh.
"I think you'll find the answer at some point," Adelheid says it as if it were something of little importance, and I think it may be true. However, I would like to know at some point.
"What will happen to... Luciana? Will I see her again? Is she truly a future personality of Rosier, the Platinum Knight?"
"Yes!" Exclaims Adelheid, with a joy that takes me by surprise. "Isn't she cute?"
Then it erupts into a lovely laugh, the kind of shy, high-pitched laugh you would hear in a schoolgirl when talking about the person she likes.
I can only look at her with surprise, but, little by little, I'm somewhat familiar with her sweet reaction. That she expresses it so freely gives me a little envy. Then, when her laughter echoes, I realize that, in a certain sense, she's part of my subconscious. I've thought Luciana is lovely. Sometimes, when she eats, she reminds me of a child, and I can't help but feel warmth. It makes me think: "I want to cover a table with all her favorite food, and then look at her eating it!" That kind of charm. Those thoughts, however, are always so fleeting, because I have tried to repress them, stupidly. Now that I think about it, it gives me a lump in my throat. How much of those tender thoughts have I been repressing? And now... I don't know what will happen to me. I'm afraid to turn my head towards the dunes and see the portal that Adelheid talks about. I want to leave, I don't care if I don't get to know anything about this place, or about power, I just want to see Luciana again and tell her how lovely she is.
"So, that the magic identity of Luciana is the Platinum Knight, is it just a coincidence?"
Still with the trace of a small smile on her lips, Adelheid shakes her head.
"Rosier is... a misunderstood personality. Thinking that mortals don't express their love as they should, she spent a lot of time punishing them for it. But, when we first met, there was humility in her, the kind that looks so strange in someone you think is bad. For some reason, she was obsessed with the idea of me going with her, you know, to hell. Who would want to go to hell? Even if a beautiful angel asks you to, say no. But, hell is the only place she knew. Then I showed her something else, something that she might like. And that's why we ended up here. That opal," suddenly, she starts to laugh, "is a way to keep her energies balanced. When the Dark Forces entered, we were forced to fight. I told her to take the opal with her, fearing that she could start going about her evil again. And we separated, after a long time."
"You're not the owner of the Lightning Scepter, then?"
"No, it's her. I just... I designed the scepter to control her. If I kept it close to her, she would be fine. It supplies protective energy, that's why you were born with it. But..."
"Luciana was born with the opal. And her mother took it away from her."
"Yes. If you had a child, wouldn't you try to find out why she was born with an alien object? Laetizia did the right thing."
The dream I had weeks ago finally sets in, making sense. But, if she's Adelheid, it means that she has spent a lot of time alone, without the company of Rosier, or that Rosier has spent a long time without Adelheid. The thought makes my heart tense.
"So, why did you give Juna a piece of Rosier's power?"
"Well, I thought it was impressive for a person as young as her to do something as daring as traveling from one dimension to another, bearing in mind that there are dangers such as interferences between portals, errors of symbology, and such. She was surprised to see this place. I was glad to have visitors."
So easy. And yet, we Einsiedel basically built a religion out of it.
I look through the gallery again. There is no portal, only smooth dunes. That's good.
When I turn to her, I see that she has bowed her head a little, and that she has tears in her eyes, which confuses me, and for a moment, I'm unable to react. When she lifts her head, the brightness of the moon reflects in these tears, and, followed by a flash in her pupils, she says:
"I only regret not being by her side when she died."
Her voice breaks at the end, and a tear seems to jump from her eye to her cheek. Her grief is so deep that she bends her head, embarrassed, then lifts it up and her gaze fixes on something in the distance. Her eyes widen. She's seeing something, sighs a little, and I turn to observe what has caught her attention.
I know that whatever happens here is partly my creation, but in any case I'm surprised when my eyes meet the figure that walks towards us through the dunes.
Now I understand perfectly. Seeing the silent anguish of Adelheid, I wanted to help her in some way, so I thought in my subconscious how nice it would be to have Rosier here. Until that moment, even though everything that surrounds me is part of my creation, I couldn't understand how things could manifest here. The mind has no limit, like its own ability to create, and that's why Rosier has appeared. In my mind there's nothing that stops the capacity for existence. This is a very strange plane. There is no such thing as "possibility of existing": it exists right from the moment I have thought about it.
I recognize her immediately because of her armor. Rosier approaches guided by the moonlight. When I turn to Adelheid, she has her fist in her chest and her tears continue to flow, but through happiness. I sense that, although I'm just as excited and surprised as she is, I know that it's a machination of my mind, as a thank you gesture. Neither of them exist anymore, I know. Both lives existed in a space of time parallel to mine and Luciana's, a long time ago. And, in the same way, my future self will find Luciana's future self, without end, in all our next lives. Surely, as one who finally understands the meaning of a word after having put it into practice correctly, I tell myself that, even though this happens in my head while I'm unconscious, it's as real as anything else. It's the only happy ending for them that I can think of at this moment.
With her eyes fixed on Rosier, I begin to become aware of a dim light at the end of the corridor. Little by little, the image becomes defined, and then I see a door.
"I see," I mutter sadly.
"I think you want to go with her too, right?" Adelheid asks me.
"Yes."
Then I smile, because I can still remember her.
"You should hurry. I feel fear on that side."
What a mess this is, I think, leaving Rosier and Adelheid behind. As I run to the portal, I think it will be an entertaining story to tell Luciana.