(Rose)
Fog... Water floating in the air. Everything is so still. I'm a little scared.
For the longest time in my life I had spent in that tunnel, I grew a little afraid of the sunlight. It's slightly ridiculous, but I can't help it, my heart aches.
My heart aches...
My feet walk on this bedrock with railways mostly hidden by time and natural elements. It has turned into a trail in the middle of an unknown land.
I shed a tear as I see the sunlight and breathe fresh air.
For the first time in my life, in all my lives, I'm setting foot onto another continent... Well, from what I remember.
France... How has it turned over the centuries and beyond the white day?
I feel a little hollow. Time of peace... The environment is just as quiet as on the side I'm from. Only the continent is infinitely wider I'm aware.
This infinite space ahead of me gives me vertigo. The world I can freely wander in is now a million-fold wider, and perhaps even more devoid of humanity.
My heart aches a little and I clench my hand over Blume. She holds my hand kindly without saying a word.
At the top of the hill above the tunnel entrance, I only see a wide abandoned land. Trucks reduced to rust are scrapped along the roads, along trees and other armoured vehicles, all randomly abandoned. Budding woods and ruins of a past I can hardly understand.
Oddly enough, I can't see the sea from here. The tunnel isn't starting from the shore on either side for a reason I don't understand. This end is a poorly decorated as the other. Where are the statues?
And not a bird in sight. Only the wind can be heard.
I should try to reach Paris. If humans still live in this day and age, this is a good place to start looking for them I think.
B - So you want to meet people?
R - I want to learn... It's a good way. Plus I feel a little down right now, seeing this new land is essentially more of the same, only wider, so much wider...
B - You feel lost. I'm with you Rose. I'll always be.
R - What about you? Is there something you'd like to see?
B - Well, there are a few places I would be curious to see surely. I can detect a few oddities spread in Europe and Maghreb. Beings-like-me and also beings like you, and other sparkles I cannot quite identify here and there.
R - Is the land like a night sky to you? With stars to see here and there.
B - Quite! The closest I detect roughly from here should be about a thousand miles south east, or east-north-east from here. Though I can see the general direction more accurately than the distance themselves.
R - The closest ones uh...
B - And I cannot see everything I've learnt. There surely are more things which I cannot see.
R - So... Where shall we go?
She smiles kind heartedly inside my head, but also teasingly.
B - Does it matter?
I draw a smile. I wink. She's flustered, but she's right.
I have fifty years or so left to venture into the world. It does not matter where I go, the journey is endless.
I stretch my back and legs. Blume makes a few flowers regrow. We're feeling a new energy and will rising. We want to go. I reattach my hair with its white ends in a ponytail and lace my shoes. So shall we go.
We enter this new land.
~
The greenery, the air, the water. Everything tastes a little different. I can also feel my body adapting.
I'm getting stronger and more fit. I noticed that since Blume is with me that my cheeks are less hollow than in my youth. The same goes for all of my body.
We follow the roads spotted with decaying vehicles. The sky got clear at midday and I see the clouds wandering away in interesting fashions.
We pass by old structures of metal built like small Eiffel towers. I guess that fits. There are a lot of these small towers around here oddly.
Cables dangle around from some of them. As I get a closer look, I see shining mushrooms growing all over them. They're made of copper, or contain a lot of it they're draining from within the cables.
This was for electricity. They must have needed or produced a lot of it around here.
I climb one of such a tower of rusted steel with copper mushrooms growing onto it. I climb up there to have a better view of the area.
I reach the top and hold on tight. My heart is beating so fast. I'm surprised my arms had enough strength to carry my so high. And I discover the land of my sister's dreams.
Fields, roads, vehicles. All so mundane yet still slightly appealing. There's an atmosphere I don't know how to describe otherwise but by calling it more French. It makes me want to go further and see more like an appetite.
I notice a city not far away. It's so still and void, it almost looks like a natural (though old) rock formation. A crystal of civilisation protruded from the fertile ground over the millennia over there.
If humankind survives, will we restart civilisation from the middle-ages, or the Renaissance?
B - I'm sorry but I think that will be neither. Humankind is almost extinct and the new species like us are taking the place they left. I don't think there will be any going back, neither for us nor for them...
R - Them... Us... It's confusing. But I see what you mean. Well, I guess humanity had a good run. Even though I'm not sure about what I'd prefer best, I'm still a little saddened by our demise.
B - That's my Rose. You said it. Humans had a good run.
We chuckle. It's bittersweet, but the world is what we think of it.
Today, though a little melancholic, I find it beautiful, as beautiful as ever...
So we venture inside that long abandoned garden where new species of flower begin to bloom.
~
R - One of my sisters spoke of France sometimes. I think she loved that country even though she only heard of it in tales. I remember her look, her face painted with admiration and passion. I remember that time vividly.
B - You seem to have had so many good memories with your family, it's endearing.
R - I had so many good times yes. I'm grateful to no end to them... I've had a few painful memories too, but overall, it was bliss living with them.
B - What kind of bad memories?
R - Nothing as awful as the guilt of murder I've had here. But some events can nonetheless reveal themselves to be traumatic at a younger age. Just arguments... Small words of hatred sputtered by the same sisters on the bad days, or disgust confessed by my parents at some points. Small events can be like stabs for the heart. I'd rather not talk about them for too long you see.
B - You will never disgust me Rose.
I smile timidly. She said it very sincerely and feeling sorry for me, and some bad memory I have scarred onto my heart. I thank her.
We camp for the first time here.
For the first night outside of England, I dream and think a lot about my family.
That one time, when Goldy spoke of France with uncanny enthusiasm. The fact that while in his younger age, my father left the country to travel the world too...
He at a time when passports did not exist yet.
Me, I follow somewhat his footsteps, now, once upon another time...
Forget that one time when I realised my parents were disgusted by me.
I'm travelling today. My father is proud.
~