Hum dum. Just had a thought, so here we go - some random Ib fic thing.
Enjoy!
(Edit: So, my computer crashed and whatever drafts I had for later chapters went with it. I don't remember what else I had planned, save for very little things, so I have changed the status of this fic to 'completed' and have altered some/added more notes to the end of this now one-shot.)
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'eden and wonderland are very different places, my dear' - (the child with her lingering memories)
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One, two, three.
One stroke, second and a third. The pencil line darkens and takes on a rough, scratchy look. Not really caring for it, she moves on - one, two, three. One stroke, another and the last. She completes the drawing carefully, occasionally rubbing off some unnecessary bits, but finally it's done.
Eve looks up at the clock on the wall. It slowly ticks to the number one. All she hears is the ticking of those thin needles, drowning out the voice of the old man dictating some thing and someone asking a question.
She blinks. She expects nothing.
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On the bus, Eve dreams.
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"I'm home..."
Eve mumbles as she locks the door behind her. The curtains are drawn everywhere, leaving the house dimly lit with their colors. It is eerily silent, enough that the silence itself rings endlessly into her ears, but she is used to having no company in this expansive residence.
She heads straight into her room, dropping her bag by the desk and falling straight onto her bed. Eyes closed, she breathes the stiff air - this is her home, and yet it has a foreign scent.
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For two hours, Eve dreams and dreams.
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When she wakes up, the house is significantly darker and yet brighter as the sunset tries to shine even as it sinks below the horizon. The girl - she does not consider herself a woman yet, even at eighteen years - realises that little time has passed since she slept. It is only fifteen minutes past three, though she thinks it has been longer.
Eve sighs. That is her problem, she supposes. For her, it seems, time passes too slowly. Like she's walking in a different dimension with a different flow of time. Sometimes, time seems to have stopped when it clearly has not.
Shaking her head, the girl goes to take a shower, if only to make her world move quicker.
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For a little while, her mind day-dreams.
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As she enters her room, she flips on the light switch - the sun is just about to disappear, since it's winter. She sits at her desk, pulling open her drawers for some paper and pencil. She has nothing to do in particular today, and her interests are confined to dreaming and drawing. Some people think she's a bit lazy for that, but she does not mind it.
One stroke, another and a third and the fourth darkens the trio. Her hand moves on her own when she begins. As always, she has no idea what she's doing. She's doing what she wants and likes to do, maybe, but that doesn't seem apt a description. Only when time ticks in her world does she have control over her creation, and she sees that she has done the beginning sketches of three flowers - a rose, a marigold and a lily.
Love, sorrow and peace, she echoes their meanings roughly. Eve remembers looking up the meanings of flowers one day, out of a simple whim, and skimmed the list. It is only these three that she remembers with the greatest clarity, and she does not know why.
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She does not dream for now. But in the back of her mind, some thing whispers wistfully - red, yellow and blue.
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As spoken and understood, time does not move for her. If it does, it moves slowly. The only way for her world to be turning, if only by little, is to draw and dream.
So when the brunette is done, she pins the flower drawing to one of the numerous boards occupying the four walls of her room. On each and every one of them, there is picture of her make. It could be any thing from messy doodles to skilled portraits, but they all had one thing in common - and that is, time. They reminded her, embodied her. They made sure she lived, but she does not know any of that.
All she understands is that there was something special and unique in all of them - something that her current self cannot identify, but a part of her hidden away can.
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She leans into her chair and falls asleep promptly. The dream world is her imaginary stage of Eden - the worldly paradise.
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When she wakes up, she surprises herself by reading the number eight on her glass-pearl clock. Has time passed that quickly? It is shocking for her, but she makes sure not to let it get to her very much.
She goes to the kitchen - there, almost predictably, there is a note left by her mother. Eve doesn't really need to read it to check what's written, most likely it says that there are leftovers in the fridge for her to warm and eat, but she still does anyway. She is correct, and her parents are once again going to work late into the night, so they won't be home to eat dinner with her. Again.
She sets the paper aside. She wouldn't have minded eating yesterday's leftovers, but today, she felt like eating something freshly made. But the girl has never taught herself how to cook beyond boiling things for soups and the like - cooking was Mary's forte, not hers.
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Her mind once again trails off as she waits for the beep of the microwave. One can call it day-dreaming or night dreaming, which ever is preferred. She just idly dreams for twenty seconds.
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After dinner, she locks herself in her room. She sets her books for the next school day, which is after the weekends tomorrow. On days like these, she doesn't go to sleep until she feels so, passing the time with squiggly sketches that hardly resemble any half-brained thought she had, and practicing anatomy.
She only hears the tick of the clock and the scratches of her pen or pencil. It is probably very late when she hears the faint click and creak of the front door opening. Knowing that her parents would scold her for staying up so late, she hastily turns off the lights and by using the dim moonlight filtering through her flower-patterned curtains, she manages to organize her desk and then hides under the blankets.
A moment later, the door opens and she hears her father and mother checking on her. There are a few mutters exchanged between them, and she can imagine that they are smiling at her peaceful state - even if she is faking it.
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In her sleep, she dreams of a meeting with Adam and the Serpent-
Her head lies on Adam's lap and the Serpent sits on a branch belonging to the Tree of Knowledge. Sunlight filters through the thick leaves and the many fruits growing above the trio - the garden is a truly serene place, and she feels like she belongs here, with them.
But Eve never eats the Apple of Knowledge, and thus, she never remembers them when she wakes up.
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..
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There are a few loose ends I need to tie up here. Soooo, here are some notes:
-Ib/Eve does not consciously remember what happened in the gallery
-the memories have still influenced Ib/Eve unconsciously
-this fic takes place after the 'Together, Forever' ending
-Mary had, not too long ago in the current present of this fic, died in a traffic accident
-to cope with the loss of her adopted sister, Ib/Eve has taken to a habit of day-dreaming
-due to her dreams, she may recall the events in the gallery, but will always forget them later
And there we go!
~Shiroi