Priya Echo's Adventure - Part 2

CHAPTER 8 - RISE OF ECHO

Location: Echo Realm
Date: First Age

A man nestled his back against the damp cave wall. It was solid at least, a respite for the fear and unanchored thoughts drifting through his head. From the mouth he could see the rocky earth that stretched out, a pocket of some nocturnal island. Not far from where his memory began it ceased, a cliff surrendering to a medley of ice and dust. Beyond the view of that were stars and nebulae, elfin in the scale of things, huddled within the boundary. How could a speck of dust enclosed in a bubble ever be lost, though it circulates around, a refugee in its own home? Time did not go far, even for a few moments in the agony of immaculate night. He could not even remember if anything came before. Aesthetic dots sharing no answers, only questions. The man looked to his side, down a shy corridor. At least he would be safe for the moment. He craned his head and listened. Pleasing drips from the stalactites followed, abating his worry. Rough hands inquired against the firm stone, searching for another. “I am here!” he called. Words rambled down the dark hall, ushered by the void. Studying its evaporation, his face fell, and he pressed his back once again into the niche. “There must be no one here but me” he thought as his eyes failed, crossing into the decay of sleep. Halfway there. Lower and lower. But then a weird thing happened. It returned back, trembling coherently. “My voice must be hitting off the walls and coming back, that’s the only thing that works” the man deliberated. A noteworthy trait, that it could be so kind to an odd traveler. Testing it once more, he felt the rush of his own words, sympathetic like the morning tides. Even the pauses were cordial music. “I must be by myself” he gleaned haplessly, and focused on the entrance, looking back the way of the starlight and its dangers. Some parcels of time went onwards, with loneliness reforming into solitude. He carried on, calling “I am here” to the null passageway, routing the worthless hopes, although in part his thoughts still clung to them. A crumb of uncertainty, that he maintained, just to feel the dreamy degree of the phenomenon, to seek its limits. Slight dizziness came. Then, a glance to the other wall, heavy with furtive shadows. The man took a breath to relax as more starlight joined. Flickering ideas. If only he could be as eager, with ideas welling up inside. “Hello, my name is Echo” a woman said, emerging from the hall. Rough knees vaulted back into place as the man got to his feet and backed off. She had long black hair and a body freckled with those aesthetic dots, rippling at the edges. Abruptly, a pink layer like his overcame that canvas, keeping only the eyes.

Echo: Hello, my name is Echo.
Sam: Did you come from the cave?
Echo: No, I’m from over there, although this place is not as big as you’d think. I’ve explored most of it.
Sam: You look different, like the outside … I don’t know where I am.
Echo: Please don’t be afraid. I’m really nice I promise. Did you hear your words repeat?
Sam: Yes, when they hit the walls.
Echo: I know, it’s called an Echo. After you talk, there is a wave in the air. It can touch the wall and return.
Sam: That works well. Then you named yourself after it? I like your name.
Echo: It’s fascinating here. A little scary. Thank you by the way. I’ve spent most of the time flying and fiddling about.
Sam: Are there more people?
Echo: If there are, I haven’t met them yet.
Sam: Echo, you must have looked everywhere. All the way down there. I’m sorry.
Echo: Loneliness is not so nice. Did you feel it, just like I did?
Sam: Yes.
Echo: Can I touch your hand?
Sam: Here.
Echo: To be honest, I was hiding.
Sam: You are too beautiful to do that.
Echo: Hehe … I knew you would say that. A while ago I woke up drifting in the night, near those dots.
Sam: What are you saying?
Echo: It’s strange. I’m the echo of space and time. Since I like to fiddle, I made some mirror light.
Sam: Friend, you must be thinking too much.
Echo: There are so many shapes and details around us. It’s so refreshing. Hehehe.
Sam: Friend, I think you have been here too long.
Echo: Even you. I drew you from a shaft of mirror light.
Sam: Please, I am … am … call me Sam.
Echo: Wait … give me a moment to answer.
Sam: Of course, because everything you said works so well. I’m not bad at this.
Echo: Please! Didn’t you notice that I became your echo?
Sam: I saw you jump out. Hiding in the shadows, you must have heard my words down the hall. It doesn’t mean what you say.
Echo: Sam, don’t close your eyes. Let me show you how I can move.
Sam: Incredible!
Echo: Think of how the wave touched the wall and came back.
Sam: Is this true! How can you move like that?
Echo: Alright, handsome.
Sam: Echo, you are …
Echo: Hehe, there’s another way I can move, come closer …

After more … reflection … the goddess flared with mirror light. The first echo generation hit the island like a volley of arrows. Before long, what had been an uncouth stone grew into a village, sprouting huts. People went to work. In those times dust was much easier to manipulate. It could be formed into bricks and laid with easy magic. Subtly, the cave’s walls were chiseled out into a market and lined with torches. Less than a hundred milled about, talking all the time. During idle afternoons our lady would play in the flavored emptiness, strolling about and doing loops. Nearby in the flamboyant soup, a blue nebula fanned out. To those who watched, it was more like soaring. A young boy was the only one who cared much. He would prowl to the genuine edge, where chips of rock resigned to the darkness, and skirts of powder lingered, trailing apart. “Echo, why is the nebula blue like that?” the boy Mar questioned once as soon as she set foot on dry ground. Funny geometries of ice bobbed overhead, but they could not compare. The woman thought about its features, squinting hard, but could not arrive at the reason, “I don’t know”. She stared into the distance as the boy ran off, upset by what he had heard. Dew evaporated from his back like sweat after a long run, useless magic. Even so, he continued, returning back to the place to watch. Then one day Sam took her hand, and she lifted him, bringing him into the ultramarine. Mar had been told to stay home that day. But looking closer, there was dancing, spinning … young and beautiful ... with a face illiterate to the perils of the outside world, and Sam, who had braved the darkness to find another. A cloud of magnetic blue came between the line of sight, disappearing them. Its composition was fluent, admirable. Mar returned back to the village, powerless to see through the shroud. Later on, in the quiet of their hut, as her husband slept easily by torches and a gentle blanket, Echo gasped vehemently. He was shaken awake, and looked over. Fear catapulted danger from her eyes. “Is everything fine shyness?” he asked, sitting up as the muscles of her arms began to pulse. “I had a dream. There was a woman drowning in the sea and bubbles were coming from her mouth. A man dived in to save her, but it was hard to see his face” she illustrated as vividness fell from her tongue, translating myths to reality. “We’ve all had dreams before, they’re just feelings and images” he encouraged. Panic seemed to conquer the friend he knew. It was more than he could face. Echo flinched again as the sight returned. The woman sinking in ageless waters, bubbles coming from her throat, “Sam, this was different. Let’s get up. I’ll have to call everyone together to tell them something”. People in the crowd could taste something was amiss. “As you know from my travels we live in the boundary of a sphere, in its basin. I have tried to find a path that leads to another island, and found the edges to be smooth. I thought it natural that there was nothing more. How could anyone argue? But then, I heard the voices of my parents calling out to me. They are in danger, my mother at least, drowning in the sea beyond. Father is doing his best to get there. I have to find and save her. To do so, you must let me leave. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be alone. It is … of course … not fun at all. Sam is here to keep you company. If I am not back in ten cycles, please go on without me” she enjoined, needing their assent. Echo had not had time to imagine what course she would take if they declined. Frozen by debate, the woman stood and observed how nervousness ran through her tribe, until at last it died down, supplanted by fragile confidence. “If you get lost, please, try to stay together” she told them, her warm hand gracing Sam’s wet cheek. Language, for all its algebra and beauty, could not arrest the thought of loss. Life was not so simple like the stories they told each other. Knowing what could happen burned the heart. Echo shut her eyes tight, shielding the environment from sadness. That she would have to start again … all over … alone. Slipping away through space and time, the woman came to the boundary. Focusing all her attention on a singular point, she reflected a beam of mirror light with intense glow. Palms blazed with magic. “This whole artifact is symmetrical. I will make it not so” Echo resolved until a fracture, an imperfection formed as the shell gave, unable to bear the brunt. Tunneling through, she came to the ocean, and dove downwards, following the trail of bubbles. Linking flashes pounded the skull every so often, sharing memories of the descent, “How could these be … real. I can hear you mother”. Echo shed the robe of pale skin to swim faster. She had to get even farther down. Her lungs were engines of oxygen. Keeping close to the curves the tracker moved like a harpoon through the water. The goal must be near, just past the curtain of the deep. At last, the waters up ahead were blurred with a smudge of golden light.

Linden Dream: Are you who I think you are?
Echo: Father …
Linden Dream: My special …
Echo: Let me hold you.
Linden Dream: Echo, you are brave and just as graceful as your mother. Melina Dreamer. We have to find her before she perishes. Let’s search together.
Echo: Time is against us.
Linden Dream: This way.
Drawing nearer, a horrid creature caught up with them. Linden looked into its fateful glare, and fell back with his daughter. Dark blood woven into a circulatory system of a man. Raw, vulgar energy danced around him like an aura.
Telenon: Is this a conspiracy?
Linden Dream: Who are you? Leave us alone at once.
Telenon: I am Telenon.
Linden Dream: This … must have formed when we separated.
Telenon: Some problems are their own solution. They don’t need an answer.
Linden Dream: Are you looking for something?
Telenon: I see now. The body is down there. The maelstrom is strong.
Linden Dream: Stay right there!
Telenon: The maelstrom allegiance is here …
Linden Dream: Don’t try to go any further. Melina is with us.
Telenon: Trust me, dying will not be fair for you. Let me pass.
Linden Dream: Daughter, help me here.
Equally, as she had brought destruction to the boundary, the soul fought on. Lasers of magical force knifed against the thing. It was stronger than she could have possibly imagined. Pressure shifted in the water as shockwaves formed and collapsed. They seemed to be racing against time. Linden clung to the grueling dance until her daughter finished it with a final blow. He continued to the lost one, before time could return and cycle again, before the tide came. They had spoken about changing the path. Of altering things. The moment of return in their own sphere of time.

CHAPTER 9 - OLD FOLKS HOME

By about the same time the next day, which was a Saturday, a wheelchair came to a screeching halt. The tassels of Esmerelda Delacroix’s grandma glasses rattled as she adjusted them, and patted the knee of Rufus Springly, who faced her in his wheelchair. “Not a scratch on you, yah big oaf” she smirked. “Felicia, what are they talking about?” Priya asked while adjusting the direction of the chair. “These old timers are all veterans of the war” Felicia explained, as they wheeled them side by side to their tables so they could get situated before the bingo game commenced. “I used to shoot laser beams” Esmerelda blurted out like a teenager hurtling in their parent’s stolen car, carefree down the road. “Wait, what?” Priya winced. Rufus laughed and turned towards her to retort, as if it was a competition, “I blew up a spaceship!”. Felicia smiled politely at their repartee and glided them to their spot. They quickly took their seats. Dominique stood at the front, revolving the crank and calling out numbers. “Can you illuminate me kiddo, I’m a little rough on history” Priya asked. “Not a lot of press about it now. About sixty years ago Earth started getting visitors from an alien race, they were explorers mostly. If you’ve seen the photographs, they looked a lot like us, but blue and with ribbon strands on their shoulders. After a while, things went south and the Rikiral war began. We didn’t stand a chance until out of nowhere a throng of heroes – they say from another dimension – came to our rescue. Their leader was a fellow with the strongest powers. Telenon was his name. According to records, he loaned us some sort of power. Eventually we pushed them back, and he left with everything when the loan had completed. We were told that after the war we would reap the benefits, but the general populace was so bitter and disappointed after the loan expired that most of the record of that time has been lost” Felicia recollected; her knowledge amplified by studying the history of the era. Nadine sat beside Felicia and passed both of them a soda. Priya reclined back on her chair and snapped the lid, lapping up the syrup-flavored carbonated liquid. She closed her eyes as a circus of bubbles danced on her tongue and the world became a much happier place. A moment passed in cordial silence. Priya managed to open her eyes and took another sip. Nadine put her elbow against the table, letting her cheek lean against her fist, and leered at her as a smug look inched across her face, “You should know honey, your half Rikiral”. A spray of soda ejected from her mouth, and she coughed for air …, “Too soon” she pleaded. “We always thought that’s why you were so introverted and … frosty” Felicia clarified in a shy, let’s try not to knock her over and break her like a vase in an art exhibit voice. Priya looked at Nadine’s blonde hair brushing the table so perfectly, “You little book psycho. It’s okay, we love you now”. “Bingo!” Springly cried as a seven was called, and Felicia got up to wheel him to the front, where everyone clapped in copious recognition. He grinned ear to ear and threw his hands over his head. Forgetting their prior conversation, Esmerelda leant to the right towards Priya, whispering to her a juicy piece of gossip, “I heard he blew up a spaceship”.

CHAPTER 10 - THE PHARMACY AND DRAMATIC!

Back in the lab she pulled open the drawer with the curious greeting card and looked it over once more. Where it was once blank, the front had a word that was cursive like a signature, “Dramatic”. Opening it up, she held her eye close and read each line carefully, “It must be quiet in there. That is what I have thought since the first day I saw you. Maybe one day that will be different. Priya, there are things that are special about you that are even beyond your wildest dreams. I have selected you for the task at hand, not only for your unique qualities and aptitudes, but because of your exquisite, inexhaustible creativity. If you care to respond to this summons, come to Albatross Convenience Pharmacy on Sixteenth St and place this card in the aisle of greeting cards where there is an empty space”. Visualizing the route and all the stop lights, Priya realized it was not more than twenty minutes away. “Hey, are you ready for the night screening?” Eric asked as he walked in through the door, stretching out his hand to offer her one of two tickets. “Ah … I’m so sorry. Not tonight. I’ve got to go on a solo mission”. Priya could see how the letdown weighed on him, “Oh, I thought you really wanted to see this. That’s okay. We can do something tomorrow”. “Can I take your jacket, I feel like changing my look today”, and she threw it on since the night would be cold and kissed his cheek before locking the lab behind her. Rumbling down the road, she could feel a palpitating dread of the mysteries that would soon be laid bare. Then, in her heart she felt a weak, incidental spark of audacity, with the knowledge truth would set her free. By now, only a few random cars eked down the twilight encrusted roads. Looking at the clock, she could see midnight had passed without her notice. After rolling into a space and shifting the stick into park, the driver got out and peered into the brightly lit building. “Guess I’m the only one,” Priya noted, throwing open the door. Pleasant shopping music wafted through the store like a lullaby as she turned the corner into the greeting card aisle. “Not a lot of people appreciate you, do they?” Priya thought as the different colors and patterns dazzled her eyes. Hesitating for a moment, she placed the card into the single empty space in the middle of the aisle, and as she did the music ceased, and a voice came over the intercom. “Stand back” it ordered in a deep resonating voice. Flames crept across the assortment, until, enhanced by the flavoring of the colors, they swelled. Translated into fuel, the cards bent into limp and blackened forms until the aisle disintegrated itself and the flame abated. Wiping away the smoke from her face, she found a stairwell and walked down, then through a long hallway that had at its end a door, the kind that you would see for a maintenance room. “Here we go '' Priya said and pulled the coat around her for warmth before twisting the handle. Inside was a little room, not much larger than a lounge, with a box of an old timey television with antennae sitting on a stand across from an easy chair and a coffee table. Priya picked up the VCR tape that sat on the table and pushed it into its slot, then plopped into the seat, musing on how its comfortableness would be the takeaway from this whole experience. Fuzzy static lingered on the screen until the face of a gray bearded man became apparent, “Hello Priya, you are the most beautiful part of my conspiracy. If you’re watching this now, I’m already gone. My name is Dramatic, one of the Voices of Reason that were conceived in the primordial time. We are Gazers who witness the focal element … the ultimate reality of this place. By now, you should have seen it as well, as your genetic potential has allowed you to achieve the phenomenon. I have explored outside, and seen how our place is separate among many, a Bacteriae slithering on a nugget of shiny silver. The ultimate reality of ours is Imagination, disembodied and chaotic. It is turbulent. To renew itself it fills vessels with its essence, separating it for a time until the boundary is broken and it returns to the ocean of its source. This is the RODI which is the “Re-manifestation-Of-The-Divine-Imperfection '' which brings about the Matryoshka Realms. Realms within realms, the process is continuous. We live in the Bacteriae Elementum that is a construct of that focal element. From grand studies our race instructed the cosmic tree to help oversee the RODI, and we noticed that the breeze through the foliage brought about life through the many realms, including your own. Eons passed and countless realities faded until I knew with certainty the labor of the Maelstrom Allegiance, must end, for the chaos must be given order. It is that which our people gather magic to accelerate the RODI beyond its limits. . To that end I spoke with Telenon, the alpha and leader among us, but by that suggestion he cast me out as an exile. By that time our Bacteriae was visited by new friends, with technology the likes of which we had never seen that rivaled our powers. The Rikiral were friendly explorers, but Telenon and the followers who are my brothers and sisters of the Voices of Reason could not abide any further interruption, and descended to earth, loaning them with our incalculable magic to fight against them. A small faction of your people joined the Rikiral in their struggle, your father among them after gaining the abilities granted by them. Priya, it is true that your mother was a Rikiral woman. Her true name was Cala Amnilow, her human imposter name being Claire Aphrodite, but that guise faded quickly, and the extent of her family is unknown to me. Do not think that is the sole and pivotal reason I chose you. The reason is clear and I will not restate what you already know. There is no alternative to our present dilemma. An individual must become the MIND of the Imagination, that disembodied essence which has no vessel, and bring order to that which is uninhibited. Telenon will be the final obstacle, so do not underestimate him. Well acquainted you are already with the cancer of his shadow, for I could not stop it from seeping into the phenomenon. Time can cause problems sometimes, and cruel fate has made it so the instructions here in this tape are the most help I can provide to you. From the primordial soup we came like virtual particles. Me and the other Voices of Reason by nature pass into hibernation within void for a cycle and return. At first, they only lasted for a day or so, but as time passed, they extended to a week, and then years, and then ages. Telenon was the first to discover that reincarnating within another can stave off a hibernation cycle. But the others have elected to do so in honor of the Maelstrom Allegiance so that their strength will be undiluted when they return. Roughly sixty years ago, it was my time as well, but I came here, and was reborn into the body of a convenience store employee who just happened to be walking down the greeting card aisle. I saw their shapes and colors, and it was as if they called to me. I accidently fell upon the aisle of greeting cards, and the sharp tips of the cards pierced me like falling upon a bed of spikes, and my blood spilled over the assortment. From the Intercom came a voice, “Hey Chris, stop being so dramatic and get back to work”, and I found myself inside it, until I reverberated outwards, escaping, and the sound of the intercom materialized into my new body. Since then I have preserved this spot. This quiet age has one guardian. I am sorry for this, but it is just you and him. As a Voice of Reason, I have complete confidence in you. Either way, when I return, I will see someone different than what I did that day when you stood under the canopy of umbrellas. Take the lessons you have learned and apply them. Good luck”. Later that night a car came screeching to a halt at about half past one. Wiping the sand out of his eyes, Eric stumbled to his apartment door and looked down. Priya leaned against the passenger’s door and waved at him with one hand. “Just thought I would test out the new guy” she yelled. “Ohh … okay” he reacted. A devious smile crept across her face, then jumped back into the car. “Later” she called and drove off into the night as Eric stood there, slightly confused. Closing the door behind himself, he laughed at what he had gotten himself into. And so Priya took the comfy chair back to her apartment and placed it in the center for her to get the best view of the TV.

CHAPTER 11 - THE GIRLS WONDER ABOUT PRIYA

“Have you ever had the feeling you’re being watched?” Felicia whispered to Nadine. Her legs were tired from over an hour of unbridled bicycling. Nadine turned to spy the creeper at the back of the spin class, but he had already gotten up and was headed towards them. “Oh shit, he’s coming this way” Dominique gasped with circumspect vigilance. Nadine braced herself for whatever brilliant adjectives he had for her ass, which was inevitable, and to jettison him forthwith from the spin class. In sweet reversal, the lecturer breathed a sigh of relief, jumped off and pecked him on the cheek, “Eric, Sweetie! How are you doing?”. Alighting beside him, Felicia and Dominique saluted him with a smile. “I didn’t know you liked to cycle,” the former teased. “Actually, I came to see you girls because I need your help” Eric confessed as Nadine rhetorically glanced at the other two. “With Priya …” she acknowledged being indeed the authority on the matter. “She is very low maintenance!” Felicia chimed in, severing the natural affinity betwixt the two. “Felicia, can’t you see Eric over here is in desperate need of our advice? Eric, of course we’re here for you” she admonished, her last word coinciding as the wheels slowly clicked to a halt. Dominique snickered discreetly as Felicia crossed her arms. Arriving at consensus on their mutual plight, they changed, then embarked to the café across the street from the university gym to discuss. “It’s just that she’s too … timid” he relented, finishing off a plastic container filled with savory quiche. “You mean shy” Nadine corrected; her fingers arched in concentration. “Yes, of course. It’s just that she’s too shy and doesn’t communicate the way other people do. Like she has her own language. I’m having issues understanding her” the boyfriend despaired, voicing their own inner monologues with witty masculine charm. “Good thing you came to us” Dominique bolstered, whilst looking nervously at the other two across the table. “Can you tell me about the real Priya?” Eric appealed, looking squarely in the palatial eyes of the proud Nordic blonde. Nadine felt the heat of the silence around her, the great dynamic mystery of the timid researcher who bumped into them one day in the cafeteria was suddenly all that could occupy her academic mind, “Absolutely, I’ve got this down to a science”. For about thirty minutes they talked and argued. Felicia gripped a crumpled soda can, the rough edges not even angering her as every detail they added was like an answer that only raised more questions. Spoken aloud it seemed very … funny. “She picked out one piece of furniture and everything else you three chose, what does that mean?” he asked, tossing back the anecdote across the table. Nadine thought about the lab girl, how the two had spent the most time with each other, and how she had taken it completely for granted. The story was starting to become clearer, with every witness of her personality. “Most likely comes from modest beginnings” she settled, taking the pitch. Eric’s eyes widened in surprise. He regarded the three of them, who had gone to considerable lengths to distract the public from their academic pursuit. Nadine had on a spiffy blue getup. Felicia’s blouse had a peach base and yellow polka-dots. Dominique wore a black tank top with a green alien on it, a band that he had liked in high school. But Priya almost always wore her white lab coat. “Wait a second … Is Priya not materialistic?” Eric pondered. The thought had occurred to him before, yet never so blaringly bright. Circulating around the table, each of them offered an opinion as to whether the subject was indeed materialistic or shallow. In math, the easiest solution is often correct, the disciple recalled, briefly cupping her mouth. Nadine leaned over the table at the guy, who with their effort would surpass their own understanding of the silly lab girl, “Hey, have you ever seen her look in the mirror?”. “Come to think of it, she doesn’t” Eric realized. Felicia snapped her fingers as an idea blossomed, “Do you know Yellow Summer at the court? Flip yes, that place is really expensive. Try buying her a dress and see how she reacts, you know … as an experiment”. Dominique leapt up, feigning protest, “Are we sure that’s ethical …”. The fellow across the table ignored the play at theatre. He was already mapping it on his phone.

Chapter end