-------------------------ACT 6 -------------------------------------
IILUSIO
I looked at the mirror before me. Tempus was seen in the reflection. White hair, yellow eyes. A royal look bound by chains.
"So? What brings you here?" He asked, while his reflection was slightly blurred.
"Isn't time interesting?" I locked my eyes on the edge of the mirror.
"What do you mean by that?" His eyes glowed, marking his presence.
"If we could travel back in time, we could change something. If we could peek into the future, we might avoid something." I rested my face on my palm.
"Oh yes! Indeed. But listen, mister. If you are asking me to take you back or show you the future, it will cost something. I am not a freebie you can pick up and throw whenever you want!!" He frowned.
I stared in his eyes, leaning in. "Can you tell me what is time?"
"What a horrendous and stupid attempt of you trying to persuade time using such incompetent questions. Whatever, listen here! Time is a dimension that exists beyond your mortal comprehension. You need an entity that has authority like me to understand the true essence of time that you humans have disrespectfully ignored whilst being aware!"
I whispered, he talks too much!
"What?" He asked.
"Nothing! Do you know that I don't believe it's possible to change tracks of time other than in state of a dream!" I leaned back. Some golden leaves, dried ones, fell deliberately.
"Dream you say? Dream you think? Dream you ask? A dream is just a cowardly act to run away from the truth that you lowly beings don't understand! Time is everything. It is the currency! The life! The true essence!"
....
Caesar was fading away from existence itself. Becoming one with despair, on par with his nonexistent self.
Athyna slept over her notebook. Her tears forming around her face, absorbed in the pages. It was foggy and ethereal, but she felt at ease. She wasn't feeling any distress or agony.
Like a curious child, she moved her feet. The surface felt cold sometimes and warm the other. Her foot stumbled across a card.
Some words were encrypted on it in such a beautiful manner that might tempt anyone to frame them.
"I. AM.... MOTHER...SAW...BALLOONS..CHILDREN" She read it loud but no ear to catch. She walked again and collected more cards.
But it was an burden to carry them all, as every card nearly weighed as much as a word coming from someone's mouth. They do disperse in air, but when hit directly with the gravity, even the words can pull down a person.
She sat in the middle, she assumed. Sighed and hummed but nothing crossed her mind. The emptiness was eating her alive, no one to talk—to share a word.
She asked the very existence itself, "what is your name?" Are the words recited by her trying to communicate with someone she thought.
No reply came, so she sat up again and walked further. "Anyone here?" She cried out.
No replies came.
She came across a wall so she sat there and leaned against it. For a few minutes she tried to rest her sore muscles. But the exhaustion wasn't there to begin with.
When the very thought of relaxing crossed her mind, her body became more light and agile.
She walked again, her figure barely visible through the mist, her foot landed on a glass pane.
She looked down and there was something. It wasn't her reflection but herself.
Within reality itself, sown in the words. "Athyna, the princess of.???" And the emptiness again.
She traced her hand along the wall and leaned against it again. With her head facing the wall she was bored. She had a hint of reality, but couldn't remember much.
She sat down and tried to make some sense out of those cards.
A small hut, a house, a pen, a cage, a wall—then a big castle.
But she was short on cards and neither were they staying for too long.
She spread the cards on the ground while murmuring another question.
"Why am I here?"
She tried to make sense of the cards.
"Can I go back?"
She placed the cards alongside each other.
"I am sorry, Caesar!"
She tried to stack them, but they fell again and again.
"How are you now?"
A card floated over her head and firmly landed in her vision. She picked it up and read it, "I. SAVE....SORRY..LIVE"
She asked another question, "Are you here? Caesar?"
A card fell over her head, like a feather it was weightless.
Just a single word "k" a single letter was carved in it
"Are you fine?" "Did you forgive me?" "Do you know why i did that?"
She asked again. Cards fell, with fractured sentences, but a meaning too.
From general questions she asked, "when will it end?".."Can i save you?"
The cards started to fill up the corner. She didn't knew what she had to do. They were too many like hundred or two.
She asked questions until she could, reading every card loud as her ability let her to be.
She didn't felt the exhaustion but was mentally overwhelmed.
"It's overwhelming!" She said. Reading the cards, and trying to place them somewhere in the net.
"It's unbearable." She tried to sleep it off, but she couldn't. So she walked near the glass pane.
Jumped on it in order to break it, but couldn't.
"I can't do this anymore." She was getting numb but didn't stop or she did. Lying on the pile of cards, staring at the ceiling for one hour, two hours. She just asked questions rather than reading or arranging them.
"Why are you punishing me?" She asked. A card fell on her head,
"HELP ME'' She threw the card on side, joining the other piles. Questions like 'Do you like ice cream?'-'Do you read books?' Were slowly forming.
The fog grew denser but the volume decreased. She wondered and asked.
"Why did you choose the fog?" No reply came but humming were heard.
"H...h...h...h.hmmm." The creepy and terrifying sound sent a chill down her spine. With a shock she stood and looked around, there were piles of cards, she could do nothing but drown in them.
She jumped in the sea of cards—crunching them in her fist, tearing them apart and punching. Nothing happened, she was on the verge of crying.
Emotions slowly choking her ability to think, speak and understand.
She looked up, the ceiling wasn't there, but the sky was so high. Crescent moon, with two stars shining side-by-side, forming a face.
She tried to reach the moon but her hands caught a red flame in the idea of touching the moon. It didn't pain or tear her skin. It was warm, so she lost much hope.
With the blood-red fire burning in her hand. She clenched her fist near her heart feeling the warmth and asked a question.
She started counting them, "If you were a prince, what would you eat?",
"127." She was slowly sole existence in the pile of cards.
"How did it feel standing there alone?", "344."
"Were your clothes rough or smooth?", "443."
"Did you ever eat a warm dumpling?", "660."
"If I had hurt you with a little bleeding would you have forgiven me?", "999."
"What does it feel like to be a boy?", "1725."
"Have you ever counted your hair?", "2520."
"What is justice in your view?", "3548."
The questions were piling up. Her body was submerged in the cards, but she didn't care. The warmth of the flame was keeping her hope alive.
"Does the air feel different when you taste it?", " 4282."
"If you could eat fire or wood. What'd it be?", "5738."
"If you could start it all over! Would you do it?", "5992."
"If I ran away with you, would you marry me?", "6628."
"What would you name our kid's pet?", "7293."
"If I died, will you find me in the future?", "7777."
"If I was turned into sand, would you walk on sand ever again?", "8000."
"If I asked an question, which dosen't have an answer. What will you answer?", "8752."
"Do you ever think if we could breed a human with an animal?", "8779."
"Am I insane or is this world dumb?", "88,21."
"If i was your mother, would you still make me your wife?", "88,31."
"Why do you love someone, if we can get them from force?", "88,42."
"If i killed my mother and impersonated her, will you still marry me?", " 88,52."
"If we expose everyone to our collation to every child in this kingdom, will it still be a taboo?", "88,62."
"If I died, will you still unify with my corpse for the love? Or will the love die with me?", "88,72."
The cards suffocated her, slowly her fire dimmed, the light in her eyes was flickering.
She struggled, punching aimlessly. The cards caught fire. She tried to swim up to the surface, the cards didn't melt—they turned into fog. They glowed—blue like stardust, static red like blood, deep pink like petals.
She swam through the fog, her clothes slowly dissolving. She couldn't bear to go up. She wanted to curl up and hide herself. She bit her lip and kicked up, drifting through fog, up ascending higher.
Her hair flowed and growing like cascading rain. Her hair started to burn as she was reaching the crescent moon. Brighter than anything, her eyes started to wobble but she couldn't think of anything else. Her body was growing in age.
Defined curves and statuesque presence. Colours flowed through her hair, burning fire withering her hair's edge. Sparkling red and cyan flames with a hint of green and pink.
The whispers in fog were growing denser "Shwshwshwshw..." Her ear tingled with sensations, turning deep red.
Athyna's fingertip touched the moon and her hair burned up to her waist. She touched the moon.
Red, blood-red, bright like a colour she had never imagined. It was..
"It... is... warm.. Ah...." her eyes welled up, a tear slipped free. She went beyond Icarus.
A sensation of nostalgia grew in her spine. She wrapped herself around the moon, clinging to it.
"It's... warm.. Ah-and..beautiful." Her tears didn't stop. But they weren't raining.
Warm and solid yet carried softness of the moon. On her neck, bosom, stomach, thighs and feet.
Athyna's bosom slowly rejuvenated into spiraled petals, a sore but uncanny glow and the lower tip of the moon slowly pierced through her bosom.
She stood on high ground with a crescent moon radiating blood—red hanging between her chest in a perfect half.
Her body was felt an unspoken, internal warmth. She walked down the fog like solid stairs. Each descending below in order. Her feet touched the ground—cold, rigid like the streets of local market.
She stood on the path, walking forward. Her face caught a glimpse of the clown's memory—a moment of time frozen and manifested in physical form.
But she couldn't interfere like an outsider. The clown was distributing the balloons, swaying away his happiness as always. She walked further as time began to descend. Her nose ticked, caught a fresh cold smell of rain and soil. The clown was a mere child, playing with the wooden horse, showing others some tricks and collecting pennies.
Like in invisible, intangible force she paced further.
And saw the center. Where the clown always stood. Unearthly feeling crept in herself. She left out a mundane sigh. Bewildered by the scenery, she couldn't help but gasp.
Just a broken doll like the one she used as a bookmark lay there, crushed. She knelt and picked it. Observing its parts and bolts. She sat there. And joined the doll piece by piece and then tried to make it stand.
The doll fell again and again.
The impeccable imagery she tried to mimic from her imagination was not manifesting. She thought for a moment then broke few strands of her hair. Tied them to the body of the puppet and make him stood. The moment she left it. A tick she heard.
Her eyes opened wide, hollowed out. From everything past and present—she witnessed by herself. It was a dream.
She got out of her bed, a sense of urgency overcoming her. She ran through the corridor and hallways.
Her leg tripped and she fell on her knee. She looked up and it was a grey world, stretched larger than life. And the doll was performing in front of her, she blinked.
The world cracked and shattered like a mirror. She stood in the hallway where she fell and ran again. Desperately, she walked downstairs in the dungeon where finally her eyes caught a yearning sight.
She saw Caesar, lying behind the bars. She blinked and her world changed through grey-fog. The child Caesar was performing in front of her. From her behind, a girl was watching him.
Athyna's crescent carved body was of an adult. The girl accompanying her was the Athyna she once was. An old lady clapped, white fur, wrapped around her neck with a deep crimson coat hanging from the shoulders.
Athyna's future was there. She had questions, and curiosity. But she slapped herself repeatedly.
"There's no use of non-meaningful act. Just let your eyelids rest and enjoy he serene beauty of performance!"
Tick!
Butterflies flapped their wings with photosynthetic lustre. Athyna's gaze ran through the room. Conflicted battle ended dire as her perception reconciled the flawlessly made place.
The prison bars were in front of her. She cried, "Wake up! Ameth! I came for you, to save you. Forgive me, forgive the sins I have ever committed. Please wake up!!" Her hair caught a breeze, and she felt a touch on her shoulder. She looked back.
It was a cherry blossom trail, trees on either sides. She was in a picnic outfit. A white scarf tied around her neck, bright yellow shirt with a veil covering her back and bare arms. A thread-sewn lunch box with a striking smell she haven't poured in her mouth but it was familiar.
"What is that thought of yours consuming you alive?" Athyna looked back and there was another, she. Her eyes traced in the surroundings, the cherry blossom stretched further than her viewpoint. Surrounded by her selves she was confused.
"What is happening!..?." She asked. Every version of her dimmed to silence, "I asked what is happening?" She repeated. Every version her had distinct height and age.
"We sailed our grace for picnic, if I remember correctly." One of them said.
"True! It isn't an blasphemous act to be one with the nature for some moments." Another one. "It must be an unintended harm someone might have done to you, so please communicate!" Another one.
They seemed to repent, while Athyna was only repeating one thing. "I don't understand anything, where am I? Who are you all? Why am I here? Where is Ameth?."
All versions of her seemed to be concerned as she slapped herself! Which scared all of them. Wake up! That's what she was repeating.
...
*Clank!* Athyna's eyes opened, she looked at Ameth who was standing up, with holding onto the bars. She was relaxed. For a moment she caught her breath. Ameth was still unhappy, but he didn't seemed to be in any ferocious state to be worried about.
The bars were withering away, she gently braced herself and tried to touch Ameth's face. To reassure him, to feel happiness.
........
Tempus looked confused and irritated.
"The reason I don't believe, it's possible to mess with time realistically is..."
I stopped my words there to see Tempus's reaction, it wasn't going to be great in anyway.
"Hey you incompetent, irresistibly ignorant brat! Do you really aim for an inhumane act? Do you want me to lecture you for hourss? Time is the currency of living, I have no business here. Then I shall take my lea-." "Wait!" I pleaded.
"At least hear my reasoning!" He hummed a little, as his figure in the mirror was slowly settling.
"The reason is that, time is not real!" On my words, he didn't seem fazed. Rather he looked like is about to have a breakdown.
"Time is just a measure of change created by us don't you think?" He stood up and tried to punch through he mirror but on my words, the mirror broke. As if his existence was erased.
......
On the withering white ember, her hand moved on its own. Athyna tried to touch the bars. Caesar was slowly filled with a spark of hope. The moment her hand touched the bars, or should I say, it couldn't.