Memory Echoes

The black waters had swallowed any faint ripples of light, leaving only the unknown dread of something slithering beneath. Of course Avea nor her mother's memory self could see beneath the surface. The darkness had defiled the waters, so that it had even destroyed the glistening reflection of the glowing moons floating above. A piercing cry broke through the vast silence, Avea's eyes fell upon the babe nestled in the mother's robes. She had to remind herself that this was her past self inside her mothers memories, it was unsettling, as though she were watching her life through glass. "Shhhh my girl don't cry, I won't let them take you," her mother's voice was low and yet melodic, like a lullaby whispered into the night. As she tried to soothe the crying babe tucked under her ceremonial cloak, that had been torn and tattered to unruly shreds.

"What are you running from?" Avea murmured. A stirring began beneath their feet, as ripples appeared across the black waters of the lake. The ripples grew bigger, as her mother pulled the babe closer to her chest and assumed a fighting stance. The darkness continued weave through the sinking moons, but her mother didn't retreat remaining in her fighting stance. It was a bone chilling seeing the shroud of darkness that had befallen over the moons. A ghastly sight of the once luminous orbs being slowly leeched of their glow. Avea could've sworn the darkness was alive breathing down her neck."I know you're here" her mother's young voice rang out across the black waters. The stone on her forehead had dimmed rendering it powerless. Her mother's eyes were fixed on the sky like she was waiting for something. Avea was afraid to touch her again, and even though she wasn't there in physical form she could somehow still feel her body break out into a cold clammy sweat. So her eyes remained on her mother, the tattered ruins of her ceremonial garments might as well have been armour. As she stood surrounded by endless black water, she kept glancing over her shoulder, her body tense as though anticipating an attack. She tucked baby Avea carefully out of sight under her garment layers, before bringing her hands into a strange formation above her head.

Her mother stared up at the lifeless sky, her lips muttering under her breath. Avea began walking across the water's surface, seeing the ominous ripples forming beneath her feet. Her mother's delicate hands were carving and cutting through the air in intricate movements. Her whole body followed her hand movements leaning and flowing, as if she were locked in a trance.

Avea followed her mother's eyeline to see that the once vibrant skies had dimmed, shrouded by a veil of shadow that bled the colour from the iridescent sky, turning to a bleak withering grey. The moons that had spun in gentle orbits above now hung suspended. Drained, pallid, slowly decaying as if the darkness were an unseen parasite leeching the life from them. Her mother raised a hand. With deliberate grace, she pressed her palms together, and then drew them apart. The shrouded graveyard of a sky obeyed her command, and the decaying moons stirred in response, shifting out of place, yielding to her will. Her arms moved in sweeping rhythm, muttering fervently under her breath, but Avea was too far away to hear the words she was speaking. She began moving towards her mother, her feet guiding her over the blackwater, refusing to look as ominous ripples began forming around her.

Her mother’s hands grew wilder, more urgent, tracing through the dark. Then Avea saw it. A single orb of silver light, still whole, still untouched by the rot. Her mother reached out her hand towards the orb of glowing light, dragging it closer to her. Avea could only stare, eyes wide with awe, as her mother drew out the last of the light from the glowing moon. Silken streams of pale light poured downward into the stone on her mother’s forehead. The stone, once dimmed and lifeless, now pulsed with renewed opalescence, like breath returning to a long-silent body. As the last drop of light spilled forth, her mother bowed her head in solemn reverence. To the final moon that trembled, and then dissolved into nothingness, devoured by the void. Avea had journeyed across the water and was now standing in front of her mother, face to face. Unable to believe the truth, that this stranger was indeed her mother. Her mother's hands slowed and her eyes opened.

They were glowing with moonlight.

"Come into the light ....you COWARDS" her mother's screams echoed across the waters, as she unsheathed her daggers. Those same crescent daggers with the ancient Ogham marked down the spine. The twisted darkness was still circling menacingly above her. Suddenly a long clawed shadowy hand stuck out from the depths of the black waters. Avea unleashed a scream at the sight of shadow hands emerging out of the ripples. Her mother turned very very slowly with steadfast eyes. She tucked the babe in closer, as the shadow demons decrepit and deformed dragged themselves out of the black water. "MUM RUN" Avea screamed at her mother, but her desperate pleas couldn't be heard.

The shadow demons were nightmares given flesh, twisted limbs jutting at unnatural angles, and crescent horns seared into their foreheads like brands of damnation. The swarm of bodies emerged out of the watery depths crawling towards her mother, surrounding her from every direction. They were wraithlike husks dragging their mutilated bodies across the water, their hollowed eyes voids, where no souls remained. Only the cold gleam of hunger that stared down her mother, as their terrifying faces split open revealing sharp jagged canines primed for devouring.

Her mother was not deterred, there was only a cold glare in her eyes as the shadow army charged towards her. Her crescent daggers extended before her, their silvered edges glinting with deadly grace. Avea was horrified to be a phantom spectator to this terrifying memory, forced to stand watching the wraiths rise from the black waters like an army to attack her mother. Her mother spun throwing her blades in opposite directions with a warriors accuracy and Avea watched the blades sliced through the air cutting down the wraiths advancing towards her. She unleashed a primal scream full of rage and anguish, but Avea realised she was clearing a path to the middle of the lake. She was merely starving them off, biding her time for something, but they kept rising out of the waters. Her mother began viscously cutting them down, the air sang with the sharp hiss of her blades, and the shadow evaporated like smoke around her.

She ran, feet pounding across the black water, each step sending ripples through the inky surface. Around her, chaos erupted. Avea's younger self wailed, the babe roused by the horrors around them. Avea moved unseen, a phantom slipping through the battlefield, gliding past twisted wraiths with their faces torn open. Her mother was a blaze of motion and desperation. She clutched the child tightly in one arm, the other wielding a crescent blade that carved through shadowed bodies. The stone embedded in her forehead pulsed, first a soft glow, then brighter, rising like a beacon in the gloom. Still, her eyes flicked upward, wide and frantic, searching the skies as if begging them to open.

“Come on…” she whispered, voice frayed. “Open it, Aytigin… open it!” she pleaded. She spun, slicing two wraiths down in a single sweep, but her movements had begun to falter. The strength in her strikes wavered, and Avea could see her exhaustion creeping in. And still she stared skyward, desperation warring in her eyes as the last light flared in the stone.

Suddenly a wave of light broke through the sky. It was a fleeting fast swept wave that had come from a distance blowing past them, and it was only when Avea looked up to see the stone on her mother's forehead glowing brightly again. Her mother sheathed her knifes and her eyes stared directly through Avea as she raised those slender fingers to the stone. The shadow demons were reforming after being torn apart by the wave of light, but the wisps swirling together to reattach limbs and repairing the gruesome faces that now looked far more ferocious. As the shadow demons forged ahead, her mother stared them down, "my turn." She raised her hands before slamming them down on the water.

A blinding cascade of light streaked across the surface, and a chorus of shrill shrieks erupted from the shadow demons who disintegrated into wisps of smoke. Even the wisps of shadow writhed violently above the black water, twisting in agony beneath her mother’s power before dissolving into nothing. This, this was what she had been waiting for.

The stone’s glow was fading. Without hesitation, her mother brought her hands together, summoning the last of her strength. Her hands moved gracefully through the air, her movements fluid, as light gathered at her fingertips. Drawing on the power of the final moon, she began to shape a portal, slicing through the fabric of space with practiced precision. Though the shadow army had been vanquished, Avea saw the strain in her mother’s posture, the rigid set of her shoulders, the deep lines etched across her face. She was still afraid.

The stones light was dimming, she was running out of time. It wasn't long before her movements became strenuous from frantically tearing away the layers of space making the portal wider. The stone's light continued to dim. Time was slipping away. Her mother’s graceful motions grew frantic, each movement more labored as she tore through the layers of space, widening the portal with desperate urgency.

Her mother's breathing had grown ragged, but at last, the portal opened wide just enough for them to escape."Have no fear little one, I will protect you," her mother whispered. A deafening roar shattered the stillness, echoing across the lake. Avea spun around, heart pounding, but the source remained hidden in the darkness. Her mother turned too, her eyes wide and glistening with fear. This is who she's afraid of, Avea realised.

Then it struck.

A black spear of shadow tore through the air, slamming into her mother’s side. She gasped, a sound sharp and broken as her body buckled, one side collapsing into a limp tremble. She held on, her arm wrapping protectively around Avea's past self, who was now wailing in her mother's arms. She pressed a kiss to the child’s forehead, before throwing them both into the portal with the last of her strength, just before the darkness could follow.

Avea felt herself being swept away, pulled into another memory. It was like sailing through a tornado, catching glimpses of faces and voices as they whirled past her, fragments of lives she couldn’t grasp. She tried to hold onto those fleeting images, but eventually gave in deciding that the tornado that chartered its course.

This time, she recognized the place: the outerland cave. The portal flared to life, and her mother tumbled through, cradling the infant Avea in one arm and clutching her bloodied side with the other. Her face was ghostly pale, her breathing shallow and uneven, but she didn’t rest. With trembling steps, she staggered to the cave wall and pressed a blood-soaked hand to the stone. Light flickered weakly as she fused the last of the moonstones power to forge the eight glowing markings, sealing the portal behind her.

She had been the one to create the gateway.

Avea stood within the dreamlike haze, watching as her mother limped from the cave, broken, bloodied, and barely standing, the wailing infant clutched to her chest. Yet even in her ruin, Avea saw it, the glint of unrelenting fury burning in her mother’s eyes.

Another flash.

She saw her mother standing amid the barren outlands. The memory visions were becoming more distorted, making it harder for Avea to observe the landscape.Some time had passed with the babe a little bigger lying in a handmade basket, blinking wide eyed at her mother who was standing above her chanting. She'd healed and had forgone her ceremonial garments, now wrapped in sand coloured shawl that was more appropriate for the dry climate.

She held her dull moonstone above the infant, whoes skin glowed softly, an unsuspecting vessel, while the moonstone shimmered with an otherworldly light, pulling the silvery luminescence into its depths. The coos of the child filled the air, blissfully unaware that her powers were being transferred to the stone. Around them, the vibrant lush plants surrounding them wilted and withered away into white skeleton bones. The moonstone held high above the babe ignited with a mystic glow, the cadence of Avea's mother’s chants grew louder and more vigorous. Avea standing once again as a phantom spector, could see the night sky split open, revealing the full moon, casting its silvery pathway through the clouds. When the incantation ended, Avea watched her mother sink to her knees, the exhaustion evident on her face. The infant, oblivious merely yawned, her heavy eyelids fluttering closed. With trembling fingers, her mother crawled to the basket, brushing against the delicate hand of baby Avea, where a mysterious birthmark etched itself onto her soft skin. "Forgive me, little one," she whispered, holding up the now glowing moon stone, her voice barely a breath in the still air. "It will be returned to you, but for now, I must keep you safe."

The vision faded. Avea felt herself falling into another memory.

This time she heard yelling, and Avea was back in comforts of her own home. She followed the sound of her voices and saw a a younger, more defiant incarnation of herself stood there, a wiry teenager with a hard glare, directed toward her mother. "Why can't I go?!"Her mother's reply was firm, imbued with a composed authority that Avea recognised all too well. "You know why you’re not allowed to venture beyond the borders, Avea." Avea who was standing behind her mother, her eyes drifted to the rickety hoverboard in her mother's hands. Clutching a battered hoverboard so tightly her knuckles were a ghostly white. The memory seeped into Avea's mind, she remembered all too vividly, the night she had dared to sneak out, lured by hover-vehicle races beyond the borders.

"Why? Why are you so terrified of the outlands?!" The teenager's voice was a desperate plea to her mother. With a weariness that spoke of countless arguments, her mother sighed heavily, rubbing her temple as if she has a terrible headache. "The outlands are dangerous."

"But the other kids from the outskirts get to race...”

The response came like a thunderclap. "NO!" The single word echoed, leaving the younger Avea momentarily mute, the weight of her mother's disapproval crashing down upon her. As she stood there, a silent observer of the scene unfolding before her, Avea couldn't ignore the familiar sting of disappointment rise within her.

Another memory flashed.

They were coming on much faster now and Avea was struggling to fight the disorientation washing over her, leaving her unsteady on her feet. Within the depths of the underground tunnels, her mother stood clutching the moonstone, the luminosity illuminating the darkened passageways. The sounds of roars echoed around them, reverberating against the cold stone. "Dolunay" Avea whispered, recognising the roar, she turned the corner to see the Minotaur Dolunay, battling her mother, who was wielding the moon stones stolen power to fight back against Dolunay's onslaught. "Araceli you're making a mistake" Dolunay begged, as she deflecting one of his attacks, with arms outstretched, she forged ahead, not heeding Dolunay's words. "No the only mistake I made was letting you find us" she sneered,

Dolunay's power striked the walls with an viciousness to find a crack to escape through, but her mother held up the moon stone as it unleashed a searing light barricade. Avea watched in astonishment as the power barrelled into Dolunay trapping the beast inside the cave. Then watched as her mother entwined the power of the stone with the remnant power of the markings she'd fused inside the cave years prior, sealing the cave, and locking Dolunay inside."This prison will not hold me forever Araceli," her mother faced dolunay who appeared in front of her trapped behind the stone like a twisted reflection. "Its doesn't have to, it just has to hold you until the celestial moon." Avea listened intently not wanting to miss a single word. "She is to be claimed, she must restore the uri" Dolunay pleaded. "You're making a mistake."

Flash of another memory hit again.

"I need a favour" her mother said, to a stranger's back. This memory must have been recent, because her mother looked aged compared to her previous memories. The lines on her face were hard and unforgiving, she also was draped in that blue hood she'd worn earlier tonight. The stranger didn't turn around, and as Avea glanced around she instantly recognised the familiar grime of a Peccatrix bar. The stranger was perched at a high top, they're large back facing, Araceli refusing to turn to face her."Please they're coming for my girl," Avea's heart broke slightly at the desperation in her mother's voice.The stranger turned around and it was no other than Barnaby Briggs. Wearing his tattered leather coat and the 'corpse-maker' that had been fashioned to hold the large pint of drink.

He stared at her mother, his stance slightly softened by the sight of her. "what do you need me to do angel?" Her mother didn't break his stare, and Avea stifled her urge to gag. "I need you to keep something safe for me," her mother handed over the orb to Briggs. "What's in it?" Brigg's asked, his lens flared brightly at the sight of a potential score. "The truth" Araceli replied, her expression was grave, and Avea could see the guilt and shame flickering in her eyes.

Avea couldn't take it anymore, she let go of the stone.

Freeing herself of her mother's memories, only to find herself standing in front of the gateway. Her mind had reconnected with her body and the vision was not a dream-like state anymore. Then she heard her mother's screams coming out of the gateway, and Avea knew with every certainty that this was not a memory. When Avea was finally truly free of the stones hold, and she was back in Brigg's vault she couldn't speak. Didn't even feel the hot tears streaming down her cheeks, all she wanted was to scream until her throat was raw and her lungs burned.

Her mother had taken her power and used it to trap Dolunay. That was the truth. It was why she was so drawn to the outlands, it was where her power had been resting. For twelve years she had been living without this power, until she'd touched those cave walls and re-absorbed her powers. As well as accidently unlocking Dolunay from its prison, but her mother had known of all of it. Never told her of her true origins or gifts. Betrayal clawed at Avea, burrowing deep beneath her skin, a relentless ache threatening to consume her entirely. It was unbearable. She couldn't take it anymore, couldn't take the crushing weight of lies. "Kid? Kid are you all right?" Brigg's voice sounded distant.

That was the last thing she heard before crashing to the ground.