(Rose)
I breathe and I see fog appear in the air when I exhale.
There’s snow everywhere and it keeps snowing. I’m not quite sure about where I am currently.
The sound of snow being stepped on as I walk is oddly pleasing. Sotis it sounds as if soone was playing piano in the distance. Softly, slowly. I probably dream up these notes.
We’re cold but doing well. The travel is difficult, challenging, but very pleasing.
The sights of the land are so beautiful. I understand why so many people used the word majestic to describe these sights now that I’m there.
I do miss fall and spring a little though. Winter is coarse around here. And I thought the weather would beco warr as I march south. I should have headed toward Provence, not straight to the Alpine mountains.
It doesn’t matter that much for now. We’ll be alright.
I hear strange sounds hidden in the wind. Complaints. Voices? Cries.
The road is lost. The music returns. I spot a translucent but coloured ghost in the corner of my sight. I hadn’t seen them in a long ti. The translucent things flow around unconcerned as they always do.
I hold on tighter onto my clothes, as to wake up whom lies below.
R - Blu. I think there is sothing happening around.
B - What makes you say that? I haven’t noticed anything unusual but the weather.
R - I heard music notes, then voices, I think. And I see one of these colours you see better than I do.
B - You heard the sounds loudly? Clearly?
R - No, faintly, in the distance.
B - I think I heard what you’re talking about. I heard them too, though more clearly. Rest assured, it’s just, well, ruins in a way.
R - What do you an?
B - The cities that lie in ruins out there. So sounds from that ti remain here and there, just as damaged and slowly deterioration over ti. It’s like an echo.
R - How could sounds remain as echoes for years?
B - My guess would be that sothing in the surroundings, maybe rocks, trees, or even the air itself, registered so of it at the dreadful ti. Now it’s slowly fading away but still being retransmitted. It’s not new or unique to here. But I guess you heard it this ti because it’s in stronger intensity around here.
R - Besides ruins, sounds and very occasional survivors, what else potentially remains from my kind?
B - Thoughts, emotions, monsters, mories too sotis. And probably more things beyond my reach yet. I can’t say.
R - Emotions and mories can survive us?
B - I can feel them at tis but I’m unable to read them as they are. Only yours I can, as they still are embedded inside your flesh, so I can read them.
R - Could I read your mories?
B - I think I can arrange that. From when would you like?
I think about it for a minute. I don’t even doubt that it’s possible to do now.
When we hadn’t t yet... No, when I was dead. Or right before I returned?
I’m getting tired and confused suddenly. The realisation of yet another wall of reality broken finally takes its toll on my psyche. I don’t choose anything, now a little shocked.
Blu feels my disarray.
B - I’ll create and leave an open access for you. You’ll be able to check what you want anyti, there’s no rush.
R - .... Thanks.
The cold wind and snow suddenly feel awfully hostile to . I need so rest but there’s no shelter in sight. I have to walk further.
~
I couldn’t stop yet at nightfall, as I was still caught in a poor weather and without any shelter.
Finally, as night was getting dark, I reached long abandoned buildings. Factories I think, given how imnse this is. Though the interior looks like nothing I ever saw. The machineries are the size of my house, and my house was big.
There are many of them, and they all fit inside this giant warehouse.
I’m curious but I’ll care about them in the morning.
Fire, though nothing here would burn. We resort to a more powerful use of Blu’s magic.
She heats a piece of machinery the size of a car. She does it until starts glowing red and then yellow. I can feel the burning heat from a distance.
It begins to lt and provides a lot of heat. I settle carefully close by to this open furnace slowly cooling off.
Seeing this makes curious about sothing else entirely. But now I have to ask. Because if I’m no mathematician, I know it takes so energy to lit sticks in fire, and an incomparable, far higher amount to lt sothing the size of a car...
R - How much energy can you provide?
B - Hm, hard to say. We share it also you know, like for flying. I would say I can maybe lt this ton of steel once or twice a day. Or if I heated it continuously, I could maintain it at a few hundred degrees perhaps.
R - This is huge energy... And this ans... You could lt the snow around and ahead of us continuously? Preventing from feeling any cold at all?
B - Yes...
R - Then why...
I wait as I sit there. I don’t finish my question. There’s sothing uneasy in my mind.
I look at the orange warm glow of that enormous pudding of molten tals, in this otherwise dark warehouse on a very cold night.
What do I want? What does she? I’m starting to feel awful. I hold down my head.
R - Blu... Can you tell if I’m getting sick? I’m starting to feel nauseous. My emotions are going wrong.
B - Let check... Hm, you seem to have a slight fever and various new microorganisms in you here and there, but I don’t see anything worriso. You’re feeling bad because of the cold weather?
R - That, and the extent of your power... Why didn’t you tell ?
I hurt her. I was aggressive. I’m starting to feel wrong.
B - It slowly grew if that’s what you an. I couldn’t do that much last year. Also I’d rather not use it at maximum output all the ti, it’s dangerous. Transforming energy will attract attentions, and we’re not at the top of the food chain.
R - Right... Maybe going all out wouldn’t be a superb idea if there are other ogres lurking. But... Blu, care for , please? I feel rather bad and I’m afraid I’ll have bad dreams right now.
B - I’ll watch over you and keep you warm. You can rest safely.
Good night sweet. Thank you.
I try to sleep while fighting off rising dark thoughts. They fly around my head like bats...
I close my eyes on the glow, still feeling the incredible warmth coming from it.
~
I oddly saw through her mories of that exact ti as I slept. I saw through her what she saw through as I asked her if I was ill.
The perspective made dizzy, as it was as if I was looking at myself from sowhere else than my own body. I saw as she took a deeper look inside my head, warming up a little more than usual because of my immune system being active.
She then looked at my blood vessels all over and various organs and ganglions, looking for the bacteria and their effects, or other signs of wrong health. They appeared as bluish spots inside her mind. Is my body made and filled with that much bacteria? The dream must exaggerate what I saw.
I’m cold. Yet she can lt steel at will.
She doesn’t want to attract dangerous attention on us by using carelessly her power. But more than that...
As I, we; think about it, we realise she wants us as much as , to remain human.
She wouldn’t enjoy using her otherworldly powers to make more of a witch or a monster suddenly...
So we keep it as a last resort...
Maybe I can endure the cold. And cling to what’s left of my humanity while it lasts.
~
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