Every night is the same. The same dream. The same nightmare.
I was only 7 when I saw it. The void. The white world with the large stone door. The markings that I did not then recognize. The inscriptions in a language I did not know. The shadow figure with the voice of a boy who taunted me. How did I get here? Where was I before? I don't know anything. My name? What do I even look like? He has no shape. He casts no shadow. What is he?
"Do you wanna play a game?" he...it asks.
I think "A Game? What is that?"
"Well, do you?"
I begin to open my mouth and I attempt to speak.
"Ah, too slow!" it yells.
The shadow figure lunges towards me and throws me into the grand stone door behind me. My head feels cold from the stone, but at the same time I feel warm. Warm like…I can't find the words. But the image of water (at least I think it is water) pops into my head. I touch my head and find color. Thick. Crimson Color. What is this? I hear his laughter echo around me.
"Well, you are no fun. I guess, it is about time I released you."
Release?
He waves his hand and the door behind me opens. There is nothing behind it. It is black. The lack of color. Emptiness. But, I hear voices- whispers from its depths. Suddenly an eye appears within it. It is as large as the door itself. It's gaze pierces me and all I want to do is run. However, my legs won't move. I look down and there are tiny black hands wrapped around my pale legs.
There is a pause. I cannot hear anything this time except the pounding in my ear. What is that? I wonder.
"Take her back. She's not ready, yet." He shadow figure commands.
I look back to him about to ask something, but I feel my feet pulled out from under me. My head his the floor again dragging my crimson essence across the white void and through the stone gates.
As I was being dragged inside, I managed the words "Why?" Suddenly I stopped. In a moment, I was almost swallowed by this eye and now I was slid back to my originally standing place.
"So, it speaks?" it...he...the shadow inquired. "Well, you see, girl- I am Truth. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I know all that will and has happened. I am the form that all being seek, but few attain. But to answer you, Why? Because, you are the punishment for your father seeking me. He sought to know the truth of the world. He sought to transgress the bound of creating life, knowing all truths, and being "god." As if such an entity existed, I guess if there were a god- I would be the closest thing to it. However, your world is governed by simply natural laws such as equivalent exchange- or in lamest terms 'give and take.' If a man should want something from me, I will gladly give it BUT they must be willing and gladly to have something of theirs taken. This is the law of your realm. You are no one. You are simply his payment."
Although I heard Truth's words, I had not comprehension of what they meant. So I asked again "Why?"
"Oh, you humans are too simple. 'why?' 'Why?"' he mocked me in a childish voice. "Why? Because it is the law. I am the law and I say so."
"Play?" I asked.
"Now you want to play. No. You bore me now. Why would I waste my time on you, child?" he began to move away from me. "Take her; I care not for her childish conversation. Bring her back when she begins asking the right questions."
The large stone door swung open and thousands of hands shot out from it and wrapped around me. This time it was easy to see that the hands came from other beings. Beings who looked like people but covered in black water. The hands pulled and pulled on me until my body could fight no more. The souls welcomed me in and I began my ascent to my place along them. But something happened whilst I was in the door. As soon as the doors shut on me, I saw everything. I saw the world as it was, had been, and would be. I saw my life. I saw my father. My mother. I saw the world's birth and destruction. I felt my body begin to move faster and faster through the film of every person's life I was to know and meet. I became weightless and sense no other presence other than my own. My head ached as if it would burst with the knowledge.
I looked below me and saw the black water souls below me and the shadow hands unable to grasps me. As I looked on at the moments and the truth of the world suddenly Truth appeared. He very calmly said;
"I see. You are too pure for this. You are not meant to be trapped here, because you have not broken any of nature's laws or transgressed what I, Truth, hold to be sacred. I have no control over you and yet you are able to see everything and know everything I know. You are an oddity. A rarity. There has only been one since you who has been able to do this. He was tricked into entering the Eye and Door of Truth and he was forced to carry the weight of a thousand souls because of it. What a foolish boy he was. But you, girl- you will have no such burden. You and I both know that you will be back and maybe then you will not be so pure. No human should ever have such knowledge. You will create an imbalance in the world. This I cannot allow!"
Truth began to extend his shadow hand towards me, but I simply turned away and viewed the images of truth. I saw my house and focused on it. Focused with all my might. I closed my eyes with such intensity that my eyes began to bleed. When I opened them I was home.
My father stood above me with a crazed look in his eyes. His blonde hair dulled by the lack of light and his glasses hiding his eyes. He was bleeding and sweating, and angrily he demanded "Where did you go, Artemisia?!"