Receiving Life

She didn’t remember anything from before. Only the cold, smooth touch of the chain around her neck, and the locket resting on her chest. At least that seemed familiar. Then she felt it. The soft compression of flesh as the ornament sunk into her pores, the chain binding itself around her spine, whilst the locket settled onto her thumping heart. It stretched itself over it, wrapping around the muscle, oozing over the outer reaches of the pulmonary artery and the aorta, until it settled, the organ now a white sheen. It beat as if it were her heart, until she could no longer distinguish the two.

And with that she was everything. Her veins were cobbled and paved streets, the blood vessels within passengers fleetingly moving from houses to graves, the dirt under her nails the undergrowth that grew within and lived among the walls of the city that made up her. Her long dark hair millions of strings within instruments, cloth and machinery. She was herself, and her people through time. A present individual and a legacy. And the voices that rose with all this noise were countless and unending. Too many to allow her to think. To breathe!

She desperately tried to shush them. There would have to be a consensus. An order. They couldn’t possibly proceed without. So each quieted down and was heard. Slowly but surely a decision was made. Who would venture forward, and who would follow. They chose her. For taking the initiative, for her reason and bravery. And she sighed, relieved, for she knew then that she could lead.

He only listened to one voice within him. Other voices had come too once the locket had molded itself around his heart, and he had scattered them to the winds, like ink pens that hung in the balance, the sheets of paper ripped away from them. Some he silenced completely, the rest were left because they decided to be with rather than against. He didn’t hear anything else, or see the colors that had dazzled her. He willed himself to be in control, and so he was. He could lead. Oh yes, he could lead.

So each started off down the dark tunnel in which they had found themselves. The light, jagged cracks through holes in a distant ceiling that lit a trepid pathway for each of them, revealed their broken surroundings. Masonry and lumps of concrete littered their way as they progressed, whilst the walls, insurmountable, closed in around them. An empty world around them, and worlds bursting at the seams within them. She skipped, slowed and advanced, and made noises and whistles from her mouth. She couldn’t help it truthfully. Just as he never would have thought to slow his pace. He kept the same speed, his walking methodical in rhythm and length, never deviating. His gaze was narrow and purposeful, the pupils in his eyes like the tips of skyscrapers, climbing higher to seize more within their domain, his direction the horizon for which he ever pushed forward.

Around the corner each went, and halted at the sight of the immovable mass in front of them. It stood above them by several feet, daunting in scale, its breath humid and repulsive, its scream reverberating and deafening. She sees the abyss, a precipice that one can move away from, or fall into. He sees only ruin. They each sense the threat it presents.

Beside them to their right, a spear is rigid and forced into the ground. Fearful, she ducks and makes a grab for it, but stops. The wooden shaft is wrapped with white silk, and two brass bells attached along with the material hang motionless, doubtless swaying and chiming were there to be any wind through this void. The blade itself seems used, whilst next to it is a grouping of small, intricately designed cubes that cannot be naturally formed. Imprints of drawings mark their sides, some alike, others different. This is like her, she realizes. Inanimate, but a piece of culture. A civilization, not in body, but in spirit, likely lost to time. Infused within by the craftmanship of those long dead. Should she use a remnant of someone else’s past to benefit herself, and likely destroy it in the process? As if someone were to pluck out a strand of her hair. Cut a finger from her hand. She reflected within herself, and with the others, and the sense of the majority was that it would rather it not be so. They would find an alternative.

She stood up to face the abyss. To confront it. But then again… maybe there wasn’t anything to fight? Wasn’t everything around her once something else? The voices and lives within her, were all the more precious because they only ever had so much time. If things didn’t change, if people didn’t grow up, only to grow old, what would always remain? And what could have been that never would be?

She walked forward, scared but determined, and then through it. All light blacked out as she stumbled. It seemed that its length was even greater than its height, and she felt change within her. She greyed around her temples, some of her senses dulled slightly, whilst other things she felt more tenderly than she had before. Finally, the inky darkness that had wrapped itself around her being, dissipated as if it were never there. She did not look behind her to see if the abyss remained. That was the past now, and time had moved on.

He saw the spear and wrenched it out of the ground. He didn’t even register the cubes. The spear was old and worn, and served no purpose other than to aid him. What had come before was gone, whilst he was alive. They had lost everything, whilst he stood to gain everything by not having it taken from him. Why shouldn’t he use what was available to him? Why wouldn’t he?

Hurling the spear was frightening force, his muscles tendons of garish industrial steel, it buried itself into the head of the thing that sought to weaken him. The shaft of the spear snapped in half as its forward momentum halted abruptly, and the wood bent at an angle from which there was no recovery. Only the blade and a small stick of the shaft was left protruding from the misshapen beast, which collapsed forward dead. He waited a few moments before quickly skirting around the body, which seemed to shrink in on itself with every passing second. Only once did he ever look behind him in his journey, suspicious of the silence, but the monster remained where it was, now small and pitiful. He turned away, satisfied, and continued on.

It had been some time since her encounter with the abyss, and she and the others had had time to think. Her thoughts were like ripples within a pond, each wave the musings of a different person, collecting and spanning until the water ran above ground and across into an entire network of waterways and ducts, with each idea building upon itself. A new story, hope or dream. She didn’t know why any of this was happening, or what all of this was for. If what she encountered beforehand and walked through was the work of something ancient and forgotten, this journey and her transformation were the machinations of something present and watching.

She and they couldn’t begin to guess at their motives, but all her wondering did was make her more curious still, quickening her movements until she came across a flight of steps, illuminated by the light. It all seemed so intentional, but she had gone this far without flinching away from her destination. She climbed until she was on the verge of exhaustion, and finally entered a room with an exit ahead of her. But in the middle, sitting on the front of a podium, was another locket. It appeared to be only half however, as if it were hollowed out. Like instead of clasping something within it, it was instead meant to be joined with its other half.

She stood there staring as the others waited in trepidation. Dare she do it? Give back what was forcefully given at the beginning, yet enriched her so fully? She tapped her foot and put her hand to her chest, breathing heavily. She closed her eyes, and walked past the podium towards the exit. She couldn’t. She was her own individual, but collectively she was so much more. She might not have peace or privacy, but it was the one intimacy she had in a place so barren. Her identity was as much hers as it was theirs. They were one, and couldn’t be parted, even if they didn’t always agree on everything.

He also stared at the podium. But for him it was logistical. He didn’t enjoy sharing himself with so many others, but there was no other benefit he could obtain from giving away what he had made for himself. If he were forced to trade, he would get the greater spoils. He had earned his power, and had shaped it with his own will. He didn’t owe anyone anything. Besides, he didn’t trust anything within this environment. It couldn’t be so simple.

It was because of the swiftness of his decisions, and his unwavering, uniform walk, that he reached the central point first. There was an open space, shaped as an oval, with no means forward. The walls wrapped around themselves, creating a dead end. He stood there, scanning the surface, trying to locate a pathway, a foothold, anything in the darkness. But nothing welcomed his need to advance.

Frustrated, he turned away, and spotted a woman from a distance. She had slipped out of a pathway from the other side of where he had emerged, and stood her ground but from afar. In the waning light, his determination had almost set his features into a marble granite, like a lifeless statue within a Roman palace. She sensed his unfaltering drive, which made her fear him, lest she were caught in his path, and which caused her to move away from him, while he feared her for her difference, her freedom, and the influence she might have on those he’d suppressed, which caused him to move toward her.

But suddenly, appearing from nothingness, stood a hunched, hooded figure, with multiple silver chains hanging out from the deep pockets of its trench coat, holding up a gloved hand in front of them. They both stopped dead, feeling the figures power. Two titans within its presence, two bustling metropolises of civilization, with generations within themselves, and yet both of them halted, understanding that they were small compared to it.

Yes they both were powerful, and could be the next cycle, but as one power rises, another must fall. Or not be allowed to be born. Neither of them could forget. They had chosen to keep their ties, and they would forever know what they were and could be. Which one then had the most potential?

He felt it. The locket within him opening! The lapse, the front of his heart swung open, but inside there was nothing. The organ was gone. He, and everything within him, and everything that could have been through him, crumbled to the ground. She looked on with apprehension, but It opened its arms, as the dead end opened itself up to blinding white light. It shielded her eyes from the glare with its figure, and beckoned to her, guiding her through it. As they walked into the clearing, everything she would build visible to It, It planned how It could influence her legacy to its own purpose. It saw the sweeping change she would bring, and what It would reap from it and smiled. And should it not work out like it had before, It could always end it. And start over once more.