007 – End
It was 5 o'clock when the limo pulled up to the gates, a guard came forward from the post and had a quick word with the driver before letting us through.
A wide courtyard opened up, we followed the path around several fountains releasing jets of water until we reached the mansion.
Then came the part I dreaded the most, being a gentleman, I went through the effort of opening the door and getting to my feet, before going to the door of the house.
I walked up the path, which had several rose bushes and other exotic plants, to either side, I reached the door, but before I could knock the door swung open, and my eyes shot wide open as I looked up ahead.
A long red carpet stretched from the door for a good ten meters before it climbed up a staircase that started in the centre of the entry hall, the staircase reached the far wall and split into two paths curving along the walls to reach the next floor.
The gold railings were covered in celebratory decorations, but that wasn't what had me losing my mind, there were dozens of people forming a neat fill along both sides of the red carpet, and they continued filling up each step of the stairwell, every last one of them was looking at me.
Standing at the base of the stairs were five people, two boys, and three girls, all dressed up in fancy clothes, they all bore a resemblance to each-other.
"What in the hell is going on here?" I asked the first question that came to my mind because it was simply far too ridiculous.
The well-dressed butler who opened the door was kind enough to answer my question, "Sir, it's just that today is a very special day Miss Elizabeth never leaves the mansion, let alone goes on date's," the butler spoke with genuine tears bursting out of his eyes.
'Dammit these people are ridiculous,' I cried internally and tried to ignore everyone, based on everyone's outfits they were mostly the caretakers that took care of the Barrington estate.
I couldn't even begin to imagine how much time and energy they wasted to put together this display.
But I shut it out like a pro and walked down the red carpet, where I saw her for the first time, Elizabeth in a word, was breath-taking, which only caused me to frown internally.
Her identity was obvious from her position, she stood in the middle between two men, I presumed to be brothers due to their similar features.
That ruled out possibility one, and since she asked for this, possibility six is out, that leaves out possibility 2-4, no scratch that, the butler says she never leaves the mansion, so possibility 3 of her being obsessed with her work is ruled out.
'Crap that leaves me with all the worst options possible,' I cried internally, I wondered if perhaps I was wrong and missed one of the possibilities, things always seem to go that way, you think you've pinned down every possibility only for something unexpected to appear and eradicate your conceptualized world.
As I drew closer I noticed that she was saying something, and her face was tinged red, "…totally scare him off, I told you this is too much it's ridiculous," she whispered her hands twitching at the hem of her white skirt with nervous energy.
I couldn't help but twitch my eyes as I read her lips, honestly, anyone else would have most likely gone splitsville, and I was seriously considering it, despite the promise I made to my mother.
"Look it was his mother's request that your meeting be epic, apparently it's the way he likes things, and dad said to do as his mom asked, if you ask me he probably enjoys a little flare," her brother whispered back.
My eyes twitched so hard that I felt an aneurysm coming on, I cursed at my own stupidity, of course, this was moms doing, I could picture her creepy smile when I looked at that place.
I approached the foot of the stairs just three paces away from her before speaking.
"I'm so sorry about…"
"I'm so sorry about…"
Both our voices came out at the same time, and we both paused as we looked at each-other and realised that we were both apologising.
"My mom is one for the dramatics,"
"My family likes to go over the top,"
Both of us paused, looking each other in the eye, and chuckled, both doing our best to ignore the crowd.
"Well I have a reservation at Crème'le'more and I'm afraid that it's only for two," I said pointedly, trying to be as polite as possible in my dismissal of everyone else.
Thankfully they weren't slow on the uptake and started to leave.
"Congratulations young miss," one caretaker came running up to Elizabeth and gave her a teary hug before rushing off, and she was just the first of many.
'We not getting married tonight you lunatics,' I shouted internally over and over again.
'Just what kind of family are you marrying me into Mom!' I cried; I had a serious desire to rip out patches of my hair from sheer anxiety.
When all the servants were gone Elizabeth's face was as flush as it could become, and she could hardly look me in the eye, all things considered, I couldn't help but sympathise with her, I'd die of embarrassment if I was in her shoes.
We didn't even exchange more than a sentence, and everyone was speaking like we were already married and expecting.
How was anything supposed to be normal about this date with the way everyone was treating it?
I sighed and stepped forward offering my hand, "You must be Elizabeth, it's a pleasure to meet you," I said trying to restore some semblance of normalcy.
Elizabeth looked visibly relieved as she placed her palm in my hand, "The pleasure is mine, and please just call me Elsie everyone else does," she answered as she used her free hand to lift her dress and stepped down the stairs leaving the side of her brothers.
Well off the bat she didn't seem to fall into any of the remaining three categories, she seemed perfectly pleasant, which only caused alarm bells to go off inside my head.
---
Needless to say, that was the first meeting I had with my with my wife, like I said this is just the highlights, I didn't write down the rest there are some personal moments that I won't reveal here.
But I can say that things went well, obviously.
We dated for a year before we got married, I was only seventeen at the time of our meeting, so we waited, I turned eighteen two months later and we decided on a December wedding, with my birthday being in November we knew that it was madness to plan a wedding in just a month, so we gave it a year.
As for the problem, it didn't take me long to learn that it was actually one of the possibilities that I had listed, but there was more to it, and it wasn't one of the bad ones.
And we learnt a lot about each-other, one of the key factors I had to learn about her was that she was a 'gamer', and she was an ongoing fan of the first game that ever came out as a virtual game, a game called Ariadne Online.
I call her a 'gamer' because she is only a gamer in a sense, in real life, she had several degrees in the arts and history.
Something that she used in the virtual the world, Elsie had a habit of seeking out interesting stories and uncovering history, and she had a talent for it that was quickly recognised by the gaming community, the game developers were also impressed and contacted her allowing her to make a career out of it.
According to the developers they had so many AI programs creating lore and in-game history, that they believed it possible for them to make continuity errors with timelines and events.
Her job was known as a Chronicler, and she had to unearth these stories in-game and report all her findings.
I suppose that was the part that allowed us to get along so well, for my parents it was the food world.
For Elsie and me, it was the stories, we always had another story for each-other, I wrote story after story, and she was always the first to read it.
She didn't pull her punches when she criticized, and she never stopped teasing me about my naming sense.
And she always shared the stories that she dug up.
Years quickly started to pass by, it was the year 2062 when Elsie lost her mother, a year later my mom married Nicholas as agreed.
It was the year 2067 when Mom passed, it hit me harder than I ever thought possible, when I try to think of that past life I can't say that I even get any sensation when I think of family, I wonder if the old me even had any…
In her passing, Mom left me a couple of things, that proved that even in death, my father was always there by my side.
I had planned to leave this world when she went, but I decided against it, she would probably curse me back to life if I tried to follow after her.
Time continued to flow, one of Moms only regrets was not getting any grandkids before she passed away, so we tried harder than ever.
When we finally went to the doctor, we learnt that my bad health lowered my fertility, I was almost sterile, so it would likely never happen.
It was then that I decided to take a chance, I decided to start sleeping properly, no more feeling afraid of hell, it really wasn't that difficult, by that point the memories were almost all gone, I had a hard time remembering what it was that I feared, it was merely out of habit that I kept up the no sleep policy... or so I tell myself...
If my health improved we might have been able to have children, and maybe I could start to join Elsie on her adventures in Ariadne.
But then everything changed with a phone call.
Elsie died.
It was an accident, a truck lost control and went over the edge of a cliff, taking Elsie's car and a couple of other cars out at the same time.
---
Do you see? Do you get it now? This is why sloth must never sleep, because when sloth goes to sleep the world goes to hell!
I was foolish for thinking that I could outrun karma! Even in this world so far away it found me...
All this time passed by and my memories faded, but still, I remembered that, I remembered just that little about myself.
This world was supposed to be my world of rest, but now it's become hell.
Everywhere I look there's only darkness, I believe only in cold logic, I never cared about love or emotion until it was taken away.
I wonder how many times I told her I loved her, the sad thing about that is that I can probably count how many times I let her know.
I couldn't move on and couldn't let her go, so I decided to search for her in the place she loved the most.
I know my health doesn't allow it, but I have nothing left to live for, I have to see the place she loved so much or die trying…
And since you're reading this it's obvious that I died, I mean I told you in the beginning the only way anyone is reading this is over my dead body.
- The year was 2075