Not Real. Not Imaginary.

PART THREE: NINA. [What's inside?]

The light enveloped me completely, blinding me for a moment. I had to close my eyes as I took a step further in. My feet were scanning the floor, carefully stepping in front and sliding across to make sure the ground beneath me was safe.

I opened my eyes hoping the light was gone for now and I could actually look where was I going to.

The place was bright, and my eyes took a moment to adjust to the light. It seemed to be some sort of small prairie. The grass wasn’t too tall, and there were small colorful flowers all around. A couple butterflies passed by me and then a soft breeze blew, making the fresh scent of nature invade my nostrils, and, for a moment, I felt at peace.

A little ahead, the prairie merged into a lush green forest. Every tree was full of beautiful, green, glistening leaves and the birds chirped from within the bushy mass of leaves, they flew from tree to tree and all around. It was almost as if they were dancing…for me. Or at least, that’s how I felt….

I started walking into the forest. Somehow I found myself barefoot, and I enjoyed the warmth and freshness the ground offered for my feet, while I kept looking around at the birds, the butterflies, the colorful beetles, ladybugs and dragonflies, buzzing all around and stopping for a breather on the bark of a random tree.

Eventually I stumbled upon a clearing. The sound of the waterfall that fed the small lake was extremely soothing, and I felt like I could just stay there forever. On the center of the lake, I could see a patch of land spreading around a big Willow tree.

As if in a trance, I found myself walking towards the ancient looking tree. I didn’t even realize how I got there; there was no path, and the water wasn’t shallow enough for me to walk around freely without getting completely soaked.

With those thoughts, and once I was close enough to the tree, I looked behind me, and then underneath; I was basically walking on the water, and the sudden realization made me panick for a moment, but when I understood I wouldn’t fall, I walked the few steps that separated me from the huge tree.

There was a curvature in the lowest part of the tree. It seemed to be some sort of seat, and as I sat on it, it seemed to adjust to my body, or rather…it seemed to have been specially made for me.

Then, the leaves and bark from the tree started to surround me, as if it was encapsulating me in it; as if it was locking me inside. But it was strange, for some reason, I didn’t feel afraid, I didn’t panic. I was very calm, I felt like I was being lovingly embraced.

And now, I was in darkness again. A foggy darkness.

‘Great…’ I complained to the darkness.

I don’t know how long I was there just looking around, waiting for something to happen and trying to figure out what I should do next.

The fog in front of me cleared a little bit, and there, in front of me, a child was crouching, hugging her knees and hiding her face, her little shoulders were shaking, and despite the silence, I was certain she was crying.

I took a shy step towards her and crouched down next to her. I placed my hand on her small back, between her shoulders, trying to be as gentle as possible and hoping not to startle her.

She didn’t even look at me, she just kept crying.

“Are you hurt?” I asked gently.

In that moment, her body completely stopped shaking as she looked up, and then, her head turned towards me, very slowly. She opened her mouth to say something, but all I could hear was static, white noise.

“What did you say?” I leaned closer, trying to watch the movement of her lips to understand what she was saying.

“In…de….t…re, wi….i…” Her tiny hand stretched towards me, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying yet.

“I don’t understand…!” I urged her to talk again, the interference-like noise kept coming out, but I could understand a couple sounds

“….si…..he…, …..th…n” She repeated as her hand came closer to my chest.

“What is this place? Who are you? What’s happening?” I was so confused.

And what happened later only confused me more.

The girl looked away, straight ahead, and a small square of light shone brightly at the other side of the fog. She pointed there, talking without speaking a word. Thankfully there was no more of that unsettling white noise.

Now I had a second puzzle. I had no idea what that light could be, or if I should get closer. For all I knew now, it could be something just as creepy as the girl who spoke white noise.

After a few moments of thought, I decided…since I was already there, (and there seemed to be absolutely anything else at all around me) that I had to go for the light. So, I got up, took a deep breath, and started to walk towards the little light square.

The fog got thicker as I moved closer to the light. Soon, I couldn’t see anything else, not even the light within the fog.

“What the…?” I was extremely confused at this point, and a little fed up to be honest.

I sighed annoyed after walking further and not finding anything at all.

“Well done me. Great way of hiding stuff from me and pissing myself off in the process…” I might’ve started to lose it a little, and…just kept complaining to myself.

I just was extremely pissed for having to go through all this trouble for something that should’ve been always in plain sight in first place…according to Greer.

I stopped and looked all around, once, twice, thrice…hoping to find literally anything that would get me out of this madness. Then it hit me: I was still in the Prism, wasn’t I? And, if what Greer said was correct, I should be able to have at least a little bit of power over it. Obviously not a lot since I couldn’t get the girl to speak, but…I could at least do a little…right?

Whatever nonsense the little girl got to speak at the end, was probably because of me…right?

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply again, and then again, until I was completely calm. I slowly opened my eyes, and the fog already seemed a little less dense.

“Okay…if I was some kind of a secret, where would I be?”

I tried to think hard already, so probably now the answer, was to not think hard at all. Just relax and go with the flow…. And…that was it!: The flow!

The fog wasn’t stationary, it was flowing around, for some reason.

After paying closer attention to it and its movement I realized, it wasn’t fog anymore, it was some kind of smoke, floating around me in the direction of the…wind?

There was no wind here a minute ago. There was nothing but the odd fog…but I guess, it made sense somehow, after all, there was a weird girl, a weird light and fog…. After all…I was in something I could only describe as an imaginary space within an imaginary space.

I decided to walk in the direction the smoke moved towards, and found out that the further I got, the thinner the smoke got, until there was not much of it left.

The darkness kept surrounding me, and there was nothing around me, however, when I looked down, I felt a little bit of a…sense of accomplishment...when I noticed there was a tiny wooden chest with black metal edges.

The little box was the source of that smoke.

Despite having a very sturdy looking lock, some smoke escaped from it, as if the lid didn’t fit all too well, or as if it was too full and there was something keeping the lid from closing completely.

I sighed again. This time, slightly relieved that I had managed to find something…at last.

I leaned to pick up the tiny chest. It was about the size of a small jewelry box, but it was surprisingly heavy...it was so heavy, that at first, I struggled to pick it up and there was a slight pain spreading through my wrists, as if I had lifted something too heavy.

“Okay, so we have this. Now…how do I open it?” I was thrilled with my small accomplishment, but I slowly started to notice myself feeling a little more disappointed by the second, after realizing I had no idea of how to open the chest.

I turned it around, looked at the bottom of it, inspected the lock up close, and I still had no idea of how to open it…or if I wanted to open it.

What would happen after I opened it anyways? What if there was something bad inside? After all, it was locked for a reason, right? And I didn’t think the smoke was such a good sign.

Again, I was getting impatient. I felt the anxiety slowly crawling into my body. I knew I had to calm down somehow, but I was starting to feel despair. I had gotten all the way to this point, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about the lock. It didn’t even seem to have a keyhole.

“Well…at least I tried. I came all the way here and didn’t back…away...”

Suddenly the nonsense that had come out of the little girl made a little bit of sense to me.

As if I understood everything, and had all the answers now, my hand moved on its own, placing over my chest. I could feel my heart beat against it, and the rhythmical movement of my chest as I breathed.

A warmth came forth, like a calling within me. The warmth concentrated underneath my hand, almost at the level of my heart. It kept getting warmer and warmer, in fact, it started to burn, both, my chest and my palm.

I winced in pain, and groaned a little as the warmth kept increasing, to the point I felt like hot metal was being pressed against my skin. Then I felt something hard pressing against it and instinctively closed my hand around it.

As I moved my hand away, I opened it to see what was inside: I had a small piece of…something I can only describe as light, on my palm. This light had the shape of a key, a very classical looking key, the kind your mind wanders to first, when you hear the word key.

“Convenient…”

I held the small key and looked at the box, I still had no idea of how it would work, since the lock didn’t have a keyhole, but I still moved the key close to the lock, and then, the lock lit up, and as the two lights touched, I heard a ‘click’.