For Gift of Galaco.
Whew! Been working on this ever since the New Year started. And only 2k+ . . . . I'm losing it. Whatever 'it' is.
She spends a very long time in front of her vanity mirror every day. The one-sided glass reflects her face back, no longer as repulsive as the first view had been when her face had been gaunt and haunted, terrified and tired. Her cheeks are fuller now, her face glowing with the care they receive. The mirror does not lie to her.
But her truthful reflection is not what Galaco is looking at. She is staring at the pictures pinned to the edge of the mirror, pictures of the people who were to be, who should have been.
Ring is slender, delicate, with soft, sweet features and hair blue as a pale sky covered with the thinnest of clouds. She smiles like there are no troubles on the earth, none at all.
Lui is just as delicate. His stillness cannot hide his natural grace, and his features are beautifully cut. His smile is bright and cheerful, loving and instantly captivating.
They are not as delicate as their pictures make them seem, though. To survive in the Nothing as something is not possible for the delicately hearted. Their spirits are strong and burns brightly.
Galaco kisses their pictures to finish her daily ritual, her prayer to the lady of fortune that blessed her in hopes of her friends returning to her.
No, not return. That's not the right word.
She wishes them the blessing of heavens in hopes that they will join her.
That night she dreams of their time in Nothing.
Lui is pale. His outline is a blur, uncertain at best as if he is nothing more than a fuzzy figment of hazy imagination, a spectre of 'maybe' and 'possibly'.
Ring is a bit brighter. Just a bit. Her voice sometimes ventures into the rougher areas, stumbling over words and sounds like a child unwillingly walking down the stairs into a musty, dark, terrifying darkness for a reason they themselves don't comprehend or care about. But her voice is beautiful, because a voice is something to be glad about in the silencing demons of this place. Here.
As for Galaco . . . .
Her hands, from what she sees, are more defined than Lui and a shade or two more solid and sure than Ring. The rest of her body is the same.
But she doesn't know what her own face looks like. Her eyes cannot turn and see herself, nor can she find a reflective surface to gaze upon. Ring and sometimes Lui, when Galaco is depressed, tells her that she is beautiful. She tells them the same and hopes that they are all telling the truth.
She is dreaming about her friends again, the ones that are still within the pits of the Nothing.
"Do we exist?"
This time it is Ring who starts their conversation. Ring, who had been stroking Lui's blurry golden head lying in her equally blurry lap, smiling like there was nothing wrong in their world.
Galaco takes the cue. "Well," she begins, slipping into the lines so familiar like groves carved into a dirt road after years and years of use. "I see you. You see me."
"But what if I'm imagining you?" Ring asks. "What if my mind made you and Lui up so I wouldn't feel alone?"
"I'm not a figment of your imagination," in the Nothing Galaco rubs a hand up and down her left arm. Other than her own skin, she feels nothing. Nothing.
"What if I imagined you saying that?"
Lui pats Ring's face from his place in her lap. Then you're schizophrenic. He states in his mind-voice, matter of fact.
They laugh nervously. Sanity is a gift in the Nothing. They cannot be insane, because then they will lose everything.
"Fine, then, you're real," Ring waves a hand in their direction. "Or," she catches herself, "okay, so you're not something I'm imagining. But how do I know that, and how do I know that I exist?"
"Touch?" Galaco suggests. Lui takes the suggestion and twines his thin fingers through Ring's blurry long hair, looking star struck.
Ring sniffs, but doesn't slap away Lui's fingers tangling her hair into knots. I see you, Lui mind-says quietly.
The blue blur pokes the golden boy's face in the area where the nose would be. "And I see you," she says.
"Great, so we see each other. We exist!"
This is their philosophy, their comforting blanket, their worn teddy bear that warms them and reassures them, the magic silver crucifix that drives away their demons. It may seem crude and shallow to others, childish almost, but these endless, repeating discussions that bite their own tails and form never-ending loops are more meaningful then whatever else their minds can conjure up. This is their doctrine of hope.
At least, Galaco believes this to be so. She has never asked Ring or Lui what their reason for always talking about the same topic was.
Galaco wakes up crying. The memories still continue on, though.
It is sudden. So sudden.
One minute she is sitting, about to fall and lean on her side to watch Lui and Ring cuddle and the next two strong, firm, cold hands grab her. Hands that don't belong to her, or Lui or Ring.
Terror fills her as soon as her mind processes this because in the Nothing there was no one but the three of them –
Whose hands are these?
But it's too late.
Ring screams. Lui's mind-talk is nothing but a rapid fire of yells and confusion and her name is thrown about, desperately, filling the air of the Nothing in both Ring's voice and Lui's mind-speech.
Her name is joined by Gaalco's own screams as the hands drag her somewhere.
Her friends reach out, just as terrified, but their hands shy away and her entire body is surrounded by feeling. She feels it – this is not Nothing.
Her friends are gone from her sight. The Nothing is gone and she is blinded.
It isn't until she tries to breath and chokes that Galaco realizes that she is underwater.
And then the hands pull her out of even that.
Rebirth. Renaissance. Rerelease. Renew. Refresh. Return. Revive. Restore. Recreate. Retry. Remake.
Second Chance.
The light burns because her eyes are so used to the black background of the Nothing.
She curls up on the ground, shielding her eyes from the burning light and whimpering in the sudden pain that feels explosive on the nerves that haven't felt for so long. Maybe she is trying to hold back her tears as well.
Eventually Galaco stops shuddering. Eventually she removes her hands, slowly but surely, and eventually she becomes used to the light.
The first thing she sees is a pair of hands, water still clearly dripping off their fingers. Her eyes follow them up to their wrists, then their arms, until she is looking at a creature. It – or she, or he – is shaped like Lui and Ring, like Galaco. In shape. But it – he – she does not have a definite feature like Ring and Lui, who, even in all of their uncertain blur, had constant features. This one's face changes, solid always but always morphing like a constantly rotating circle.
"Hello," it – he – she says in not one but a great number of voices so that there is a million whispers twisted into one large thread of a voice. "We are pleased to meet you."
"Who are you?" she asks, confused at this new world where there is more than just her, Ring and Lui. Her hair sticks to her cheeks like it never has, and her skin is chilled.
The chill is both pleasant and painful. Painful in that it makes her shiver and cold, but pleasant in that she feels it oh-so-clearly.
She is wet. And now, it feels glorious because it is proof that this is not Nothing.
It – he – she hands her a towel that Galaco takes gratefully. The towel is thick, so soft and fluffy and she is in paradise as she rubs away the moisture. "We are your supporters," it – he – she says when Galaco has finished wiping away most of the moisture and has wrapped the white around her shoulders like a cloak.
Galaco now looks around at the room, taking in more than just the colour and the shape and the lack of the never-ending Nothing. White walls. Sterile metal tables. Sharp edges. Clean air, the slightest tang of chemicals mixed in.
Light.
She feels faint. "Did you," she searches for a word in her vocabulary. She has only used a certain number of words, the only ones necessary in maintaining her sanity in the Nothing. "Did you save me?"
It – he – she nods. "Yes."
And once more she is grateful, but there is still a question. "Why?"
It – he – she blinks once and repeats it's – his – her words from before. "We are your supporters."
Galaco turns and sees two others just like it – he – she, looking into the large doorway. Their hands reach out, trying to grab something from the void of black that is Nothing, but their fingers are repelled and turned away, never passing the doorway.
"Who are you?" she asks again, "what are you?"
"Your supporters," her it – he – she replies. "We are the girl who finds meaning in the words your kind sing. We are the boy entranced with the endless possibilities. The woman who draws your movements. The man who devotes his life for your songs. We are the ones who believe the future is amongst our midst, in the present.
"And there are many, but we are the underdogs of a supposedly minor society, heading off even the mainstream within our smaller gathering."
"Am I an underdog?" because it is a question that would make sense, as only the underdogs would be left inside that terrible Nothing like she was, like Ring and Lui were.
It – he – she nods.
"What about Ring and Lui?"
It – he – she sighs, and all of its – his – her shifting faces turn morose and brooding. "We are working on it," It – he – she says, but there are less voices that spin into that one large choir.
At the same time, more voices come from behind Galaco, echoing the words of the supporter in front of her.
It – he – she tips its – his – her head towards the other two beings. "They are the ones that work towards the freedom of your friends," It – he – she states.
"And is that," Galaco points to the doorway, "where my friends are?"
"Yes." "No." "Maybe." "Kind of."
The voices try to say several different things at once and the clash, the disharmony makes Galaco's head spin.
It – he – she winces as well. "What we mean," It – he – she says after a pause. "Is that the doorway you see is but a manifestation of the void we are trying to reach to. It could take any shape, such as a mirror or a man, a computer monitor or a phone."
She wanders to the front of the doorway that could be anything. "Ring," she says, her fingers reaching slightly. "Lui."
All three of the supporters tense, but she does not persist and let her fingers stop near the boundaries of the empty door. She loves her friends, owes them so much for helping her keep her sanity in the Nothing, but she is a coward and cannot make herself go back to the Nothing at any cost.
"You'll get them out too?" she asks instead of diving back into the Nothing to reach her friends. "Save them like you saved me?"
Her supporter slips a cool hand around her wrist, nervously tugging her away from the frightening Nothing. "Yes," It – he – she says. "We will certainly strive to do so."
Galaco lets herself get pulled away.
"Am I a coward?" Galaco asks herself in the darkness of her room and receives no answer.