Music from a Farther Room
He wakes up in an empty room, empty of almost everything. A bed. A side table. A glass of water he does not drink.
He has no idea where he is.
He has no idea who he is.
The room has stone walls, a stone floor. It is neither cold nor hot.
He stands from the bed, and then he's in a stone hallway, empty. Nothing on the walls. It stretches as far as he can see, to either side.
He walks to the left from the room, and then he's at the end, under an arch, looking out over an expanse of green, an arena, and a dense black forest.
Nothing moves. There's no sound.
He heads back the other way and then he's at another arch, another window, this one overlooking a lake to one side and far off, a still village, like a model.
He leans through that window, and tries to call out, but his throat catches, hurts. Nothing comes out. He is mute. The silence screams in his ears, pressure pushing into his brain.
He explores this building, a castle so huge, it must have housed a great army, but he is alone. From dank, damp dungeons that feel a little like home to high-steepled towers, he searches, but there is no one else.
He feels strange now, so alone and empty. He is made of loneliness. His footsteps echo in the stone halls, too loud against the silence. He tries to sing to himself, but his throat hurts him too much, and a raspy sound like metal being rasped by a demon in hell hits his ears. He could sing once, and his voice carried and cut, but now he is voiceless.
He sinks to a bench near a window that looks out over the lank, still lake. His eyes begin to droop, and he leans back his head.
He wakes up in an empty room, empty of almost everything. A bed, with heaping coverlets. A side table, dark wood. A cut-crystal glass of water. He looks at it, but he does not drink.
He has no idea where he is.
He has no idea who he is.
In the stone room, neither hot nor cold, he stands from the bed, and then he's in a stone hallway, empty.
He turns and then he's at the end, under an arch, looking out over an expanse of green, a green color that peals in his heart. A green he knows and longs for, though he doesn't know why a color should fill him with so much longing and despair. Nothing stirs the dense black forest beyond a sports arena, though the colorful flags there ripple in a breeze he can't feel.
He turns and he's at another arched window. The lake is flat, like a dead thing.
He wakes up in an empty room, empty of almost everything. A bed, soft and embracing. A side table with high polish. A crystal-clear glass of water. He runs his finger along the lips and snaps back as it slices his skin.
A red bead, redder than anything he can imagine, wells up on this finger, slides down his hand, and disappears. His hand is pale again, skin unbroken.
He doesn't know who or where he is.
He stands from the bed, and he sees his feet, once bare and almost cool against stone, now shod in black boots.
As he heads toward the arch, something moves. He lurches, startled, shocked, feeling cold and prickly all over.
A figure appears to slide out of a wall, looks at him, opens a silent mouth and then it's gone. It seemed to be covered in something dark, though it glowed a sickly green color.
He wakes up in an empty room, empty of almost everything. He does not drink from the glass.
Where he is?
Who he is?
At the window, he notes that the sky is gray, cast over with a solid ceiling of clouds, but it is day. There are no shadows, no sun to be seen.
He wakes up in an empty room.
Today, he has a voice. He stands at the highest tower, full of anguish, and he howls like a hurt, hunted animal. He sobs and screams until his voice is gone again, and his throat rages in pain.
He wakes.
He wakes.
He wakes.
He wakes up in an empty room, empty of almost everything. A bed. A side table. A glass of water he slams with one fist into the wall, where it shatters, spraying its contents across the wall, and then is back on the side table, solid, full again.
Today, he runs wild through the halls, screaming though the pain. The hallways stretch forever, or disappear behind him.
He wakes, and something is different. The door is open a crack.
At the window overlooking the green, nothing is different. The lake, too, remains flat, and the sky is featureless, pale and gray.
Behind him, he hears a sound, the first he's heard that has not come from him since he came here. He wheels, sees a shadow falling at the far end of he corridor. Running toward it, he curses because today, the hallway goes on forever. The shadow winks out of sight, and he collapses to the floor, grasping for breath. His black robes pool around him.
***
He wakes.
Today the shadow is more distinct, darker as it leads him on through sleeping corridors. He comes perhaps a few feet closer before it is gone.
He wakes and in a fit of pique, doesn't leave the room, just shatters the glass over and over again. A shadow falls across his door, but it is always gone when he looks up.
He wakes and finds the shadow waiting for him, flashing darkly along the halls, and when he hurries after it, it pauses to let him almost catch it.
Around a turn, he sees a flicker of something - a skirt or a dark cloak - twirl and disappear.
He wakes and gives chase. He sees the figure, slight and wreathed in darkness at the window, around the corner, pausing at the top of stairs, almost turning back to face him.
He wakes and finds the figure in an alcove that must have held a statue, once. He reaches his fingers to touch, clasps the fabric and then it is gone as if it was not there, and he sinks to his knees and weeps, hot tears streaming freely down his face, breath ragged and his throat closing in, sore again.
He wakes and catches the figure at the window again. He approaches it softly, and it half turns to him, reaching out.
A woman's face, pale, shadowed by the cloak, but she lifts her face to his as he reaches out, his hands gloved in black, and tilts her chin to him. His hands now bare, he strokes fingers gently along her throat, and half bends to her, half pulls her to him, and their lips meet, him kissing her, her kissing him.
Her lips are cool, but her kiss is fire in his veins, and then she's gone without a sound.
He wakes, and her scent hangs in the air, but he cannot find her.
He wakes and she is waiting there, on the edge of the bed. He tried to grasp her hand but she is at the door now, walking away, and he is up in a flash and after her. She leads him down the corridor, up the stairs, up higher and higher into towers he doesn't think he's seen before, or maybe saw a thousand years ago.
She turns at the window and drops her hood, and then she's not alone. An old man stands next to her, reaching out one hand. A younger man stands at her side, and he looks wary and a little sad, but he smiles. A middle aged man, bedraggled and world-worn, his eyes a little wild, smiles sadly, as if he's learned a painful truth. All around them, more people flickr into sight, as if they've always been there, and they are all smiling and welcoming him, reaching out hands or smiling in encouragement, gesturing to him to come to them, to join them.
He is alone, where he stands, on the other side of a chasm of terror. Unknown lies between them, invisible but palpable.
A voice, soft. "I told you he wouldn't come." Hers. "Too long alone. We'll lose him to the shadows again. "
"Shush, child," says another. The old man? "He will come."
He wakes. No one is present, and the high tower is nowhere to be found. Not even her scent is present.
He wakes and wonders if he's been left alone forever.
He wakes and she is waiting there, on the edge of the bed, sheathed in the cloak. She takes his hand and presses it to her cheek, turns huge and luminous eyes to him. She walks to the door, and he follows, down the corridor, up the stairs, up higher and higher, into towers that scrape the sky with their steeples, impossible towers. They climb for years; they climb forever.
At the apex, she walks away from him, and joins the others as they swirl into sight. He sees different faces, indistinct but nearly recognizable, if only he could remember who they were. A young woman with spiky hair in no color nature ever invented. A pale man with dusty hair, smiling hopefully at her side. A young man, blond and uncertain. A boy, skinny and ginger-haired, face plastered with a roguish grin.
The old man reaches out his hand. "Please," he starts.
That voice, that word. He shudders, wraps his coat around him, though he feels no cold.
"Please," says the old man again. "We're waiting for you. You're the last."
"The last?" he asks, voice raspy with remnants of pain and disuse.
"The last of our fallen. We're waiting for you. Join us."
"We have cookies," cracks the ginger boy, earning him a look of dismay and loving disapproval from several faces, a shushing sound from the spiky-haired woman.
Cookies? He frowns. He's not sure what that means. He glances behind him, and feels lost, alone. The terror, he realizes, is of being alone. He's been alone so long, not just since he's been here in this empty castle. He is made of loneliness.
He turns back, and the woman who has haunted his hours reaches out again, and he taking a deep and shuddering breath, he steps across the invisible chasm.
Hands pat his back, grasp his in warmth - the old man and the woman lean in, while other voices cheer, laugh.
"My dear boy," laughs the old man, "you've come home to us at last! I knew you would. We've waited for you for so long!"
His eyes find the woman's, hers laughing up at him, twinkling and gay and she twines her arm into his, and whispers, "We've missed you." A pause. "And I've missed you so much, for so long."
The brown-eyed man at her side reaches out a hand and clasps his arm. He looks up and their eyes meet. Black eyes wince; there's something wrong now. It's coming back, floating atop his mind, memories…
"Don't hurt me, don't push me away, don't leave me alone…" he babbles, realizing he is almost begging, talking to them all, terror gripping him again.
But the man and the woman pull him into a shared embrace. Brown eyes fill with only love and sorrow, and the man whispers, "None of that is here, now."
"Is this…" he begins to ask, beginning to remember, but the woman puts a finger to his lips.
And they are all going transparent now, misting in the light that's streaming in through the window, as the cloud cover breaks.
"No. Yes. It doesn't matter." she says. "Nothing bad will happen again, not here, not for us. It's forever. It's for…"
And they are gone as her word rings in the surrounding silence, hanging in the air.
"…always."
Author's note: Inspired in part by the dreamworld (Tel'aran'rhiod) sequences of the Wheel of Time. The title is from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot, one of the most beautiful and saddest poems of the 20th Century. It's long, but do yourself a favor and read it, or find a video of Eliot himself reading it on YouTube.