(Rose)
I buried the girl. The picture of herself and her family from older times lie with her.
I did open her body like meat in order to pull out what Blume's flesh had become. Still a fruit of flesh, filling her depth. My hands weren't covered with too much blood as it had already settled inside of her. But the smell of death as I opened her made me vomit.
I got Blume out...
I didn't have to. But it saved her a lot of time and efforts with me doing so. She doesn't need to reconstruct her bounds to reality from scratch.
I feel a little monstrous. My hands still covered with cold blood plasma and the smell of that girl we killed.
I put Blume back within me as if that was the only thing that truly mattered these days, but there was no joy.
Then I buried her bleeding corpse.
I'm sorry I failed her. As I failed Blume before.
~
R - Since that day in the Alps, it's been... Rather awful, everywhere.
B - Hm. Hopefully we'll get better soon. Shouldn't we?
R - Are you... Still with me?
B - I won't lose you again. Even if I get severely wounded and captured again... I will never fully leave you anymore, no matter what happens...
She'll put a little more of herself in every one of my cells she says.
R - So how is your power now? What I saw the other night wasn't what we discussed before.
B - I'm a mess, because of the wound and then what happened since. I need some time to heal and recover... I may... Talk less, over the upcoming days...
I feel sad already. I mechanically touch that spot where she lies. I didn't realise how wounded she was. Then again, it's hard to evaluate the health of something that has essentially no flesh.
R - Are you... That wounded?
B - I need... Some time to sleep... That explosion in the Alps almost killed me. And that thing and that girl, they drained me of my blood... I've lost a lot of myself lately. I'm empty and fragile in more ways than one. I need to sleep for a while.
R - You couldn't have died truly anyway, right?
B - Unfortunately, I could have.... My true self isn't made of matter, but it can still be destroyed when the explosion is strong enough, of that specific kind. And the girl, she used my energy like a hole, without reason, bringing me on the brink of agony on the other end.
R - I'm sorry Blume... I didn't know you could be wounded and weakened, exhausted. All I can see is that power you're able to show.
B - We never encountered such crisis before it would seem... Please, be careful for the both of us for a little while, okay my love?
R - I will... You can rest. You're safe with me again. You're... home.
B - Thank you...
And just like that, on that misty morning, I felt her falling asleep. She turned quiet like she wasn't there anymore. She fell in a very deep sleep to heal all that she is and that my eye can't see.
I couldn't realise what she endured, despite how close we are. All I could witness was her prowess above the ground of reality. Never their costs on the other side.
I focused on what could make sense to me, and never thought she could simply end up more wounded than I am.
I stand up. The grave is set. Goodbye Horanah. I'm sorry it turned out like that.
I turned around and I leave. I walk slowly through that mist and leave her resting place.
~
I've walked out of the morning mist and reached the coastline. It's as it was a few days before, beautiful and windy. The cliffs are very high.
Her boat is nowhere to be seen below. It probably got away or sunk? She said the boat was smart, so hopefully it simply left on its own and went somewhere it wanted to go...
Oddly, even though I know it was just a machine, I can picture that...
I began walking along the shore, from the top of those cliffs, heading southward.
I don't know what I'll find next. But I heard this land was beautiful in my old days. I want to see it with my own remaining eye.
~
I'm lonely. I know I shouldn't worry about Blume. She'll survive. She'll come back to me.
I love her. It has ups and downs though. I'm feeling down still lately. I probably idealise my love life somewhat too much I wonder. Well.
I'm still feeling a little down lately and each day that comes feels similar. My stomach hurts also. I may be slightly sick.
I'm walking aside the shore, silently. All I do these days is walk alongside the sea and barren landscapes.
I've been through a few cities. They all looked like they were bombed out during the great war and never rebuilt. Everything blown away, and fields of ruins widespread and thin, across the entire land.
Every ten metres or so, I find a piece of wall, a door, a window frame, pipes, a sink, and so on. All across the fields, forests and shores. Where the cities start and end is gone as they were sprinkled apart sometime in the past.
Some events worthy of entering history books must have occurred in Italy to turn this region that way. Yet...
I doubt they were ever written.
I'm alone. And that's it.
~
It's raining now, and I'm cold. And here I thought Italia would be warm. I've lost all of my stuff from France, and didn't keep much from the island. I'm practically naked, and my wounds from the island, and before, are healing quite slowly.
At times I can feel my heartbeat onto the skin of my back, where I got somehow burnt. It's from new blood vessels growing like roots or branches, there to rebuild what has peeled and flaked over time.
It's taking time, but I'm growing whole again.
I walk through the rain and am shivering however, holding my arms even lately.
And I've been thinking back about you lately...
I guess when Blume's asleep, I end up thinking more about you...
About that life I did not have. The one I, current I, wanted to have with you. The one I wish I had the memories of.
I miss you...
I thought I got over your loss and mourning. I thought I got over my lost life, now that I have Blume...
When I feel down and alone, a part of me still looks back...
Regrets... From my youth, from childhood, from mistakes made with you... Regrets of losing you...
I feel... trapped, in this world of a distant future where you no longer exist.
Blume was ready to cross the Styx and challenge Hades himself, in order to bring me back to life.
And she suffered no reasoning nor wrath, from god nor death, to prevent her from reaching her dream and her love...
She did it, and nothing came to judge her for her actions...
As for I... I'm just human. If I've been vehement about returning to you, and was ready to give it all for my homecoming... I'm...
I'm... I'm alive in a new chapter of my life.... But I can't help thinking back about the previous one, and how it shouldn't have ended like that.
The book of my first life has been put back on the shelf by our young maid at home.
The past is there, tidy. I can't go against the flow of time, and as I read this new book, the second about my life (or the third...), I can't help but thinking back about the one that's over, when I'm feeling really down.
Could I dream... An ideal ending? A selfish wish?
Can I make an insane dream?
In this world, it might come true...
You've lived a life I don't remember.
My most selfish wish... It would probably be... To have never come to be in this world...
~
I'm so cold. I shelter myself in the wrecks of a giant truck, while the downpour outside floods the land. I curl up in a corner and wait. I envy animals with fur right now.
I wish I could return to that time, to that train... I doubt it's possible, even now, to turn back in time.
My second most selfish wish then... What would it be but that?
I wish... The one you were at that time, would return to me.
A new you, along with the new me. And we would repeat history, since it already happened once.
But it wasn't me...
I cough. And all I feel is pain. Blume, please come back and soothe me, because I am depressed... I can feel my mind stuck in a swampy gloom it doesn't bounce off on its own right now.
And all this blood on my hands is really starting to weight...
Depending on how I count, I have killed between three and maybe a dozen human beings now. It's awful.
That girl I killed by mistake. Was it Victoria? Then that boy. Alan I think. Then Horanah. All the others weren't really humans anymore, I think, or I hope.
This world is peaceful above all, but is actually pretty harsh and painful for us...
Humans are no longer welcome, and the survivors are either eaten by monsters and ogres, or turned one against each other by madness and pain.
That island, I didn't realise until now, but it was actually quite similar to the time when I arrived. Another place, another time, and another being-like-her, turning us against each other.
~
The rain didn't stop during the whole night. I have to go out and go further, even though my remnants of clothing still haven't even dried from yesterday. I'm sick now, and I haven't slept. I feel murky in more ways than one.
I've fought monsters and a little cold is about to get the better of me, body and mind. Curses.
I've dreamt of seeing your smile again...
And you had blond hair also, I'm not sure why since you weren't blond. Dreams...
If I had the power of those god-like beings here and there in the world, would I be able to fulfil my insane dream?
Could I just... Take control of history? Writing it as all gods would? Not that I care for such. I would settle with having you as you were, back to my side. Whether by turning back time, or resurrecting you, I don't mind either way nor a third I wouldn't have thought about.
I just miss you right now... Deeply.
My quests for daiûas, back then and currently, they are passionate researches...
But my heart yearns for a little more, elsewhere.
I hollowed out my heart of you, casting aside most of you through mourning and thus making more room for something new, as much as I could. Blume filled most of that space I made for her, through passion and the loss of you...
But my heart...
I'm still crying because I've lost you.
You've never let me go free in my new life...
I'm walking slowly, icy cold, perhaps crying but I can't tell anymore under that rain, worse than in the worst depictions of Ireland. I though the weather in Italy would really be more merciful.
I remember the crow saying I should free myself from you.
Every time I did... I just suffered. I just had regrets.
In the previous world... All that mattered in order to make what you wanted to happen happen, was money. And relations. And power over relations perhaps.
In this new world, it's now only power. Energy.
And what you can achieve with it is seemingly limitless. For what I witnessed, it's clearly rivalling the Antiquity pantheons...
So I wonder...
How much energy would it require, if that is feasible, to make one way or another, my insane dream come true...
~