Not Real. Not Imaginary.

PART FOUR: GREER. [The ignored]

The second I recognized that scent, she walked away…down the dune. It didn’t seem to be very safe…the sand made the way down very slippery. She slipped a couple times…but didn’t stop. She had a mission…or so said her expression.

She reached the women, and they all turned to look at her. The woman that seemed to be in charge reached towards her. She placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder and gave her a light squeeze.

I followed her, as if that scent was pulling me towards her…I just wanted to be closer to her. I got there in time to hear the young woman speak to the rest, who looked attentively at her, like if they were searching for inspiration in her…but as soon as she spoke, they all seemed…disappointed.

“We shouldn’t do this, there are other ways to fix…all of this. A way that doesn’t involve hurting so many people…. We HAVE to stop this!” Her voice was trembling slightly; it was filled with emotion.

All the women remained silent for a moment, and then, they started to mumble with disagreement and discomfort…the woman in charge smiled and squeezed the girl's shoulder until the skin around the woman’s hand turned white, due to the strength she was using.

“It is necessary, and it IS happening. There is nothing you can do about it. It’s too late. WE HAVE TO FIGHT!” The rest of the women cheered and feminine battle cries echoed throughout the desert.

The young woman looked disheartened…and to see that expression broke my heart.

Even though her face wasn’t the same…her eyes revealed her identity…her eyes and her scent. It was Nina…I was sure of it…or at least another version of her. An ancient version of her…maybe in a parallel reality, in another timeline…. but it was her.

Ignoring her pleas, the women marched to meet the men…that had gotten much closer. Both ‘armies’ stood there…facing each other for a while. The masculine army was imponent and fearsome.

The young woman stood aside for a moment…she seemed to be unsure of how to proceed, however…she seemed determined to continue with her mission.

The two individuals that seemed to be in charge in each army, stepped forward and glared menacingly at each other, and then…both opened their mouths and lifted their weapons. After a loud battle cry, answered by the rest of the people behind them on both sides, they rushed towards another…and the battle began.

The young woman tried to stand in between…she was pleading, screaming…trying to get both armies to hear her…but her pleas were suffocated under the battle sounds. I couldn’t understand what she was saying at first so I moved closer to try to listen…and because I was worried for her safety.

She was being pushed and tossed around, and she kept fighting to stand between the heads of both armies, to try to stop the battle.

“Please! Stop! This won’t solve anything; we won’t get anywhere with this. This will only bring more suffering. We have to stop!” She could barely keep speaking…she seemed out of breath. She was about to open her mouth again when she was harshly pushed aside by the older woman that had squeezed her shoulder before. The woman clearly wanted her to stop interfering.

She stood up at the side of the path…where she had landed after the woman shoved her away…she dusted herself and then looked at the scene in front of her, with despair.

“Please…please stop! It isn’t too late…please just…stop! We shouldn’t do this…we…” She tried to get in the middle of the battle again, trying to separate all of the warriors in her path, trying to make sure no one was hurt…but for her attentions, she only received dismissive and disdain filled gazes.

As she reached the center, where the two heads were fighting…the woman looked at her as if she was some sort of pest and shoved her away again, but this time she didn’t fall to the ground like the first time…this time…the lance of a nearby soldier, of the female army…pierced her chest. Blood dripped from her mouth as she kept pleading and begging for the battle to stop…and the battle just kept going around her.

I felt my heart stopping at the sight, and found myself running towards her as she fell to her knees and then, laid on the sand. I fell to my knees a few steps away from her…that was the closest I could get. I felt the warmth of my tears sliding down my cheeks as my hands reached towards her, and…her eyes looked directly at me as a smile formed in her lips…then…she didn’t move anymore.

They could’ve killed me in that battle and I wouldn’t have cared right then…I held my head between my hands and screamed. And as my scream echoed throughout the desert…everything went blurry and the scenery changed.

Still dizzy after what I had witnessed, I looked around…unable to tell where I was. All I could see around me were stone walls. There didn’t seem to be a way in or out… all I could spot was a small opening on the top of the front wall, that seemed to be some sort of window, or ventilation.

I wiped my tears and difficultly lifted myself from the floor. I walked towards the window…it was too high and too small for me to fit through. So, I kept walking around the spacious stone room. There was nothing there…or at least, it seemed to have nothing in. There was too much dust on the floor…my footsteps were printed in it; I assumed there had never been anyone here, or at least it had been empty for a very long time. And even if they had, how would they even be able to come in or out of here? ...what even was this place?!

After hours of looking around the place, I noticed an interruption in the dust pattern in the floor. There was a small c***k that the dust had missed…or through which the dust had passed through.

I hurriedly dusted the area and there seemed to be a square formed in the stone of the floor…it was most likely some kind of trap door…but I couldn’t see the way to open it from my side. So, I was stuck in there until someone came through…was this some kind of trap room? A prison?

After what felt like a month, the trap door finally opened, and a girl that seemed to be around 17 or 18 peeked in and looked around. She sighed after making sure there was no one inside and then climbed up into the room.

She had a cloth sack that she emptied in the ground. Some bread, a couple candles, books and other artifacts, scattered around the floor…one of the candles landed at my feet. When she came closer to pick it up…she looked at me.

I…I was confused. I was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to see me…I wasn’t really there…at least…I wasn’t really a part of that…I was just there to observe…nothing but a ghost, unable to do a thing....

“It’s okay…I knew you’d come someday.” She spoke as she sat down in front of me. “I didn’t think I would find you in this place…but maybe…it was only logical.”

I didn’t answer…I was unsure of how to act now. I just looked at her, and she saw the confusion in my eyes.

“I am special…or so people say. I can see things other people can’t…beings…like you!” She smiled and lit one of the candles. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you are here. This is my secret place.”

“Secret…place?” I murmured…she heard and smiled, as if she was happy that I replied.

“Yes. Since I am special, people in town are nice to me…all of them take care of me and look after me. But they also look FOR me. They always want me to tell them stuff about what I see. I sometimes have dreams…of the future, and sometimes…just sometimes…they happen in real life. People started to treat me differently after the third time it happened. Some started to call me ‘Priestess Mother’. I don’t understand what it means…I just know that I am supposed to use my special abilities to make sure we are always safe…and I have to attend everyone all the time…all of their worries end up being mine...all of their grievances…are mine…. I get tired sometimes so I hide here. They never find me here.” She lit another three candles and placed them on the corners or the room…then she came to sit next to me.

I could only nod after her explanation… I was afraid that if I kept interacting with her something bad would happen.

She didn’t talk the rest of the night. She grabbed a book she had brought with her, and was deeply concentrated reading…and I was too concentrated looking at her.

She was very different from the other woman…but she had the same eyes and the same scent. Even if her skin was lighter, and her frame smaller…her hair straighter and her face more youthful…she kept the same ancient wisdom within her eyes.

The Sun rose and she looked up at the small window. She blew the candles out…and just as she was blowing the last candle, the trap door slid open, and suddenly…two men climbed up, and I could hear at least two more down.

“Here she is! We found her!” One of the men screamed, and someone down answered:

“Tie her and bring her to me.”

Her calm expression suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a fearful one. She recognized the men…and the betrayal sparkled in a couple of small tears that rolled down her cheeks.

“Why?…I didn’t do anything!” She pleaded as one of the men held her arms and the other one tied her hands together.

None of the men answered, they just tied her up and threw her down the trap door. I heard someone walking away under and I hurriedly jumped in. There was a tunnel…which was the way she came in. The two men jumped behind me, startling me for a moment. But then, I realized they couldn’t see me.

There were other two man in front, and they were carrying the girl out, sometimes dragging her…whenever she fought to get free. She looked at me…but I couldn’t really do much. If I did anything at all…I could change the entire timeline and create chaos…besides…whatever it was and whenever it was…had already happened.

We came out between a couple of huge rocks deep within a forest. Then we kept walking…. She kept fighting to get free…not succeeding. We walked an entire day, and then reached a small town hidden behind a wall of really tall trees.

The men carried her all the way to the center of the town and tied her to a big wooden pole. The whole town reunited around the pole staring at her…and she stared back. It seemed to me…she had somehow deciphered the reason behind all this.

“This won’t help any of you…any of us. They have only been feeding you lies! Please…don’t listen to their words.” She spoke with a serene voice…she seemed to have a lot of experience dealing with multitudes.

The people looked at one another…then at the men that had captured her.

“I told you she would try to convince you…to trick you. She is selfish and doesn’t want to sacrifice herself to protect her people!” One of the men spoke. He was really thin, his skin was completely white, it seemed as thin as paper and you could barely make out where his face ended and his silvery white hair began…his black eyes were fixed upon her…mocking her.

“If I had to give my life to keep you safe I would, gladly…but there is no danger befalling us…none that requires my sacrifice…not now.” She replied to the man's words.

The crowd only answered chanting in unison: “We are your children.”

She looked at the men and took a deep breath before speaking.

“If you sacrifice me now…you will be in danger later…please…don’t let yourselves be fooled by these men!” She shook her head and looked at the crowd with pity.

“We are your children.” Everyone chanted again.

The Sun fell in the horizon and was replaced by the moon as the people kept chanting over and over…always the same phrase: ‘We are your children’.

The man’s lips curved in a satisfied grin as he watched the scene. I couldn’t understand how the people was so blind to his actions…but they were just focused on the girl, chanting over and over. Another one of the men handed him a torch…he lifted it above his head and yelled:

“This is the ultimate sacrifice the Priestess Mother was meant to do for her children, to make sure they are safe from the curse that quickly moves through the kingdom, killing entire villages. Now…we shall all be safe from the curse!” As he finished his nonsensical speech… he lowered his hand and the flames touched some hay that had been piled at her feet.

“NO!” I screamed…but of course no one heard me…only her…she looked at me and smiled peacefully. She knew they were lying…she knew they just wanted her outside of the picture to take advantage of the village and do unspeakable things to the people…but she had lost. She couldn’t do anything to convince the crowd anymore.

Her lips moved lightly as the flames grew and started to consume the fabric of her robes…and started to scorch her white skin…

I looked away…I didn’t see what she said, but I knew…that with whatever little strength she had now…in her last seconds…she wished for her ‘children’ to be safe.

The smoke filled the area, making everything hazy, and when it cleared, I was somewhere else…and there she was again…in a different skin…in a different time…being ignored and dying under terrible circumstances….and then…again…and again…and again….and again.