A/N: This is a new story I have decided to write alongside Moments in the Matrix for the hell of it. I have been putting my heart and soul into my other story, and I currently have a flu/cold thing which means that I don't think I can work on it, because it won't be my best work because I'm not focused. So I decided just to write this instead….because I have to be writing SOMETHING!

This story has a rather complex plot and the format in which I write it is pretty confusing as well, so it may be confusing at first. I made it up this morning and I have to admit that it is even confusing for me. But I hope you can enjoy it nevertheless.

1

It was so quiet. Too quiet. No sound dared to penetrate through the silence that consumed the dark corridor, as if an unwritten law had forbidden it, and the swirling tunnel of darkness ensured that this law would not be broken. There was darkness everywhere, so dark that darkness itself was afraid of it. The walls could not be seen, nor the floor or the ceiling of the winding corridor. Only darkness. Silence. Darkness.

As he walked along down the corridor, stumbling blindly and allowing his feet to guide him past the twists and turns it led him by, he became aware of how loud his footsteps sounded upon the surface of the unseen floor. He was wearing his boots – he could tell by the thudding sound they made as he moved. The sound echoed out across the hall, and along the winding bends of the corridor, loud and definite. The only sound heard for miles. He suddenly became conscious of this, and felt the colour flood into his face. He was breaking the unwritten code of silence, and for a while he was afraid that the darkness would punish him – consume him and hold him for all eternity.

He knew he was meant to be dead. For a time, he almost believed that this was true. There was no breeze in the corridor, as everything was stiff and silent. Yet he could smell an eccentric, musty, moist odor, and hear the pounding of his own feet. Dead people could not feel, hear or smell. He knew that too. He knew because he had been dead once….before she brought him back.

His feet were the only thing that carried him. That constant pounding upon the floor scared him more than the corridor that surrounded him, because he knew that it was his feet that moved, but he did not know where to. They seemed to have a mind of their own, and were carrying him to place he had never seen before, uncontrollably driving him to an unknown destination. He wanted to turn back, and run back the way he came. Anything was better than this, even the lonely life he would lead alone once he returned. But still his feet pressed on, carrying him further and further away from where he wanted to be.

Why didn't the corridor end? Why did it lead him onward, to a place he did not wish to go? He seemed to walk for an eternity, hands grouping helplessly in front of him and feet guiding him round corners and bends, all the while breathing in the same strange scent and listening to the sounds of his own steps. He hated the way his boots sounded on the floor. He was afraid…afraid of disturbing the silence, and of alerting someone to the fact that he was there.

Finally, he saw the light. It was not neon white or ghostly artificial, but warm, bright and welcoming, as if it had purposely been left on to show him the way. It was then that he became aware that he could now see, and the blind veil had been lifted from his eyes. Perhaps he had been temporarily blind before his battle with Smith, but if this was so then he still would not have been able to see if the cloth she had tied around his eyes so long ago had not been removed. And he did not remember taking it off. He did not remember entering the corridor. He only remembered walking, wondering what strange force had brought him to where he was, and why he was not dead, as he was supposed to be….as he hoped to be now that she was gone.

The light grew, until it was strong enough to battle with the darkness, its beams struggling to be dominant. It was like the eternal fight of good and evil, of light and dark. The light won, and he passed through an entranceway and into another domain, leaving the darkness and the echo of his pounding footsteps well behind him.

Now he knew for certain that he was blind no longer, for he could see every detail of the room clearly. It was their room. Or at least it had been their room. But everything was as it always had been when she was alive. Everything was as they had last left it, before they knew that she would die. A chair had been turned out from the rickety table in the small, dank kitchenette. The door to the offside bathroom stood ajar, just as she had left it. And she had thrown her white silken kimono over the end of the bed, which lay as it always had done in the cave at the end of the hall, the velvety sheets crumpled as they had left them upon departure. But it was not their room anymore. Time had past, and it now belonged to someone else.

The new owner lay on the bed atop the sheets, her head resting on the pillow, and one arm lying above the bed. From a distance, he almost believed the figure was her, come back from the dead to haunt him. She had the same womanly essence, and the same, defined feminine curves. But as his feet uncontrollably carried him closer to the bed, he saw that this woman did not have her broad shoulders and had slightly bigger hips, and a bigger bust. She did not have the same scent either, and this new scent had consumed the room and eliminated the old one. It was like roses, crisp and fresh on an early summer's day, and wet with the morning's dew. Besides, Trinity was dead. Dead. Gone. Dead.

Up until that moment, he had not dared to think of her name. It seemed to be a thing too sacred, and too holy to utter even within his own mind. But he hardly thought of this when he arrived and stood beside the bed. His feet stopped moving, but his mind did not claim his body's control. He was forced to stand and stare at the woman on Trinity's bed, her essence now overwhelming, and inescapable, slowly driving him to insanity.

He did not know her name, but he could have sworn that he knew her face. That cloud of dark hair that flew out across the pillow…those ringlets that lined and clung to her face as glossy as the reflection of the moon in a silver stream. He was sure he had heard her breathing before, so smooth and delicate…nothing more than a fragile sound whispered in the wind. Perhaps he had seen her before in a dream….

The room was not quiet and still, as the corridor had been. It was his room, and Trinity's room. Now it was her room too. She was breathing here, sleeping here, eyelids closed placidly over her eyes, her lashes long, fine and dark, brushing the tip of her cheekbone. They were so dark against pale, porcelain skin. Her skin was white, not blotchy or swollen. It was smooth and clear, a clear shade of passive white, as if she were a china doll, carved by a swarm of angels. The tone of her skin remained the same, from her bare, exposed feet to the arm that rested above her head. He saw, when he focused on the other arm that lay loosely at her side, that her fingernails were long and well shaped, defined in perfection. And that scent….that scent of summer roses was stronger than ever….still driving him mad.

It must have come from her clothes. Perhaps she had been walking somewhere, near a garden of roses. Perhaps the scent of them had rubbed off on her attire. He would have believed this, if there had been such a thing as roses in the Real World, for she appeared exhausted as if she had been walking a long way, and the navy blue, stain drawstring pants and white, stained shirt she wore were dirty and disheveled, unfitting of her elegant frame. Still, the colour of her shirt, though purest white, was not as white as her skin. He would have thought she was dead, if it weren't for the pinkish tinge to her cheeks, her slow, frail breathing, and the small smile playing on the corners of her lips.

Of all the features of her body, it was her lips that were the most captivating. They were slightly larger than normal, and deepest red, as if they themselves were made from the petals of roses, and therefore the source of her aroma. They were bright against her purest pale skin, and parted slightly to allow small breaths to escape them. Her breath was hot and fresh, and left a tingling sensation upon his skin.

She murmured in her sleep, upsetting the stillness of her slender face, and shifted her body amongst the sheets, tangling her tall figure within them. For a moment, he feared he had woken her by his presence, and drew in a long, shallow breath, only to release it once she'd settled herself again. Then she was still, lifeless and unmoving, hardly breathing at all. Black coils of crisp, lustrous hair fell over her face, and he saw that they reached as far as the hollow between her neck and shoulder. The smile was gone from her face, and her lips were set and still, no longer parted as they had been before. Without warning, she began to trust her hips forward, propelling herself upwards to where he stood, all the while keeping her eyes shut softly.

"Neo," He heard her call out his name in her sleep. It sounded odd, coming from a voice so different to the one that had called his name before. It was lighter, carefree and almost childlike, yet was filled with the same lustful passion as Trinity's had once been.

She called again. "Neo, I'm on fire….you're on fire. Neo….Neo…."

He was stunned, afraid perhaps of her waking and finding him there. How she knew his name, he did not know. All he knew was that he did not want to be there any longer. Finally he had control of his limbs. It seemed that whatever force had been driving him before had shown him what it wanted him to see. He did not want to know or see anymore, so he turned and fled the room as quickly as he could, darting back into the darkness of the corridor, stumbling blindly away from the light and finding himself unable to block out the sounds of her tossing and turning in her sleep from behind him. He did not look back.

He did not care that he could not see. He forgot the rule of silence that had bound him when he last ran along that moist, dank, winding hall. His boots thudded noisily as he ran, and he found himself panting uncontrollably, stumbling and smashing into walls. He fell back, bruised and bleeding, but stood and ran again. He did not care where he went. He just wanted to get away. He was afraid of that room….his Zion room….and he was terrified of the woman.

He did not know when he stopped running, and he could not even remember finding an exit to the corridor. But before he knew it, he could feel the cold air upon his sweaty face once more, and found that his body had stilled and he was lying flatly upon a steel surface, surrounded by the sounds of the screeching and swooping of sentinels. He could feel pain coursing throughout his entire body, and feel the blood, dry over his blinded, closed eyes, as well as the scratchy material of the cloth she'd tied around them so long ago….it was then that he knew he had been in 01 all along.

With a great burst of pain, he heaved himself into a sitting position and pushed away his dream….

(o)

A/N: Thanks for reading my first chapter. Like I said earlier, the style and the plot of this story is very different to what I usually do, and it was very challenging for me to write at this level of complexity. The plot will slowly be revealed over time, and I am sorry if it's confusing.

Please review!