Chapter Two: My Inner Voice is Named Alice
Despite my conversation with Pollux earlier, I decided to to skip the camp fire that night. After spending time with Rachel I couldn't get over her cryptic warning. It wasn't a quest, thank the immortals, but it hadn't been a fleeting feeling either. Something was coming up and I felt like I needed to be prepared. So instead of doing one of the few normal activities this camp had to offer, I stayed inside my cabin. I dimmed the lights and lit some candles that I had gotten from the camp store on my way back from Rachel's Lair. I don't know why I did, but in every movie I've ever seen where people meditate there are always candles being used. They were nothing special, just two simple white candles that had a hint of a vanilla scent.
I sat crossed legged on the floor beside my bed and placed a candle on each side. I laid my arms flat against my legs and slowly closed my eyes. How was this thing suppose to work anyway? For fifteen minutes I tried to close my mind off and not think about anything. Nothing happened. I sighed and opened my eyes. Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. Closing my eyes again I relaxed my body, but instead of clearing my thoughts I focused them. I searched my memory for the fight against the Keres. Emotions ran through my mind. Panic, fear, helplessness, and then I searched for that feeling of power. The pressure that had taken root in me when the monster had started to strangle me was like nothing else. It had been both intense and soothing, as though it was always a part of me, just a part that had been snoozing away until I needed it. Now, after weeks of trying to avoid the power I dug deep, trying to find it once again. I felt something shift inside me, but in an instant it was gone, no matter how hard I tried to grab onto it.
Snapping my eyes open I let out a frustrated groan. I had never been mistaken for a patient person and I really hated it when I couldn't pick up on things right away. Was I a perfectionist? A little, but mainly it was the fact that things tended to come easy to me and when something didn't it bothered me to no end. Deciding to stop for the night before I gave myself a major headache I blew out the candles and got up. If I left now I could still enjoy the rest of the night at the campfire. I walked to the cabin's door and opened it.
Camp Half Blood was gone.
In front of me wasn't the sight of the other cabins, campers walking around, or the occasional sprite that came from the forest. No, in front of me was something much weirder.
A long hallway lay before me, the walls made of a dark stone and had no windows. Instead they held torches like in really old castles. I stepped out to make sure I wasn't being punked. The floor beneath my feet was covered in a deep red carpet and certainly didn't feel like a hallucination. This place was giving me the creeps so I turned around to go back inside my cabin only to find a wall of the same dark stone as the rest of the hallway.
"What the freak?" I muttered. Feeling the wall with my hands confirmed what I feared, the wall was solid and most definitely not a prank. Turning around to face the hallway once more I sighed. "Guess there's no place to go, but forward."
Wishing I had my sword with me I began walking. The hallway was plain and very unoriginal in my opinion, there wasn't anything to look at! But I did notice that the hallway was coming to it's end when a door that I didn't see earlier appeared at the end. The door was made of dark wood and had a glass doorknob. It was a very classy door. Turning the knob I opened the door and stepped through.
Thankfully there wasn't another hallway, but a small room that resembled a sitting room of some kind. The walls were creamed colored and had drapes on them even though there were still no windows and a small table sat in the middle of the room with two wooden chairs. One chair was occupied.
By me.
Or someone who looked a lot like me.
The young woman didn't look up from the magazine she was reading, instead she kept flipping through it as though I hadn't come in at all. She had my face, purple eyes and all, but everything else seemed off about her. Instead of my long purple and blue hair she had short dark hair with my natural color. It was slightly curly and gave her an appearance of someone older than sixteen. Her skin was the same pale tone as mine, but was smoother and flawless. Her outfit consisted of dark blue skinny jeans, a pair of black high heels, and a tight white t-shirt covered with a trendy purple blazer. All in all this girl looked like me, but someone I knew was not me, I mean, I'm me so she couldn't be.
This had to be a dream or something.
"It's not, but then it wouldn't be as fun then would it?" the 'not me' said, still not looking up from her reading.
My eyes widened in shock. Did I say that out loud?
"No you didn't, but seeing as where we are your thoughts are heard loud and clear, well by me anyway. If you have something to say then you might as well say it. I'll hear it either way." she smirked and finally put down the magazine, focusing those undeniably purple eyes at me.
"Who are you? Why can you hear my thoughts? Where the hell am I?" I fired off each question as soon as it entered my head.
"Why don't you take a seat Sarah? Having a conversation from the doorway is a little rude don't you think?" she gestured to the only other chair in the room, right next to hers.
I really didn't feel like sitting, but I did want her to answer my questions. So without a word I walked over and sat down, the chair was surprisingly comfortable for a being made of wood. The me look alike smiled as she stirred her coffee that came from no where. This was just getting more odd.
"To answer your questions you are where you put yourself, inside your own head." she said as she sipped her drink.
I scoffed at that. "Where am I really?"
At that she raised her eyebrows in a challenge. "Oh sure, you can talk to death and wine gods from inside your dreams, but you can't travel into the realm of your own mind. That would just be crazy." she said sarcastically.
I deflated a little bit. "Alright, maybe it's not totally impossible for me to be...inside my own head." Although saying that out loud sure made me feel crazy. "But how did I get here?"
"Through your meditation of course. You wanted to find your power over insanity to learn how to control right?" At my nod she continued. "Well it's not unheard of for demigods to be able to travel into their own subconscious, it just takes the right person with the right motivation. It also helps that insanity is linked with the mind, so you have a slightly higher advantage than others."
I processed the information and stored it away for later, hoping that Sophia might know something about it. "Is that why you can hear what I'm thinking? Because we're inside my head?"
She tapped her nose. "Right on the dot"
"Next question. Who are you? You look like me, but that's not possible right?"
"Well, I can neither confirm or deny that I am indeed you. Simply put, I am you because I exist inside your head. I'm your conscious, your inner voice, or the way I like to view it, the person you'll eventually develop into."
That was confusing. "So you're the me of the future?"
"Not exactly. More so I'm the version of you that has had the opportunity to learn from your past mistakes through your inner mind and grow into a more mature state of mind. One that you will eventually grow into. With time that is."
"Then why do you look so much older than me?"
She smiled widely at that. "Age is but a state of mind. Luckily for you, I am very mature, but can be a little crazy at times. Best of both worlds I suppose."
I rubbed my head trying to take it all in, this was just too strange!
"I feel like I fell down the rabbit hole."
"Don't we all sometimes?" Not Me said with a crazy grin on her face.
Shrugging I looked at her and another question popped into my head. "What do I call you? Sarah Two? Oh! How about Jiminy?"
She laughed at that. "Sorry, but I'm no cricket. How about you call me Alice?"
"Alice?"
"You did mention falling down a rabbit hole. I think it's appropriate."
"As long as you're okay with it."
She went to sip her coffee again when the entire room started shaking! Could earthquakes happen inside my subconscious?
"What's happening?!" I yelled as I grabbed my chair for some kind of support. Alice just remained unfazed as she grabbed her magazine from falling off the shaking table.
"You're being pulled out of your meditation, it's not serious." she said with a bored voice.
"Wait! I can't go, I never figured out how to control my power."
"Oh don't worry, that takes time. We'll see each other again when you meditate, but I'd lose the candles. They really don't do anything except catch you on fire while your occupied in here." she said with a grin.
I closed my eyes for just a second, but when I opened them back up I was no longer in the sitting room. I was once again sitting crossed legged on the floor of my cabin. Looking around I found no trace of Alice anywhere, everything was exactly the same as before I meditated. Well, except for one thing, one more person had joined me in the cabin.
"Sarah! Thank gods you're awake." Pollux was kneeling next to me, his hand on my shoulder. I had a feeling he had been shaking me.
"Of course I'm awake, I'm fine." I said as he backed off, but looked no less worried.
"I came looking for you after you bailed on the campfire. You didn't move when I came in and when I tried talking to you you didn't say anything, you were hardly breathing! After I shook you a couple times you finally came out of it. What gives?"
I opened my mouth ready to tell him everything, but I quickly shut it again. As much as I liked Pollux and had gotten accustomed to seeing him as my older brother, I just couldn't tell him about Alice or my mind trip. Because everything I told Pollux some how got back to Mr. D and that was the absolute last thing I wanted. So I go for an oldie but goody, a bold face lie.
"I was meditating and I kind of fell asleep, I think I trained a little too hard today and my body just decided to doze off. I didn't mean to scare you."
That made the tension in his shoulders lessen, but he still looked dispassionately at my candles.
"How about next time you don't light these? I'd rather not come back to the entire place on fire if you fall asleep again."
"Fair enough." Looks like he agreed with Alice on that point. "So anything interesting happen at the campfire?"
His smile vanished and his entire body tensed. Pollux was not happy about something and it was bothering him. He sat down and crossed his arms looking at me dead in the eye.
"Yeah, everyone was talking about the newest gossip." he said in an eerily calm voice that I knew meant he was pissed, but I had no clue at what. Then his eyes narrowed. "What is going on between you and Nick Winters?"
C.A. Crest: (Insert your favorite dramatic music here) I thought to leave you all with a cliff hanger here for kicks and simply because my mind didn't want to write anymore. Until next time. Keep calm and read on.