Chapter 21
At first, Eden heard only deafening silence, saw only darkness, and felt only a cold that seemed to permeate her bones. She couldn’t move; she couldn’t do anything. She just existed.
She felt everything within her start to fracture, pieces coming off, little by little, as she slipped into nothingness. Such a strange sensation, yet almost familiar. She couldn’t react; she couldn’t do anything but allow it to happen.
She was content to allow it because, somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew.
It was a process as old as time, and, as she separated from one existence into another, it almost felt natural to her.
She sensed people around her—bodies, entities, souls, lots of them.
She couldn’t even begin to sort out how many.
Was it five, or was it fifty?
She couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it, and yet it was all here, telling her that, if she wanted answers, they were over there.
She only had to go in that direction, and everything would be explained.
Yet something was going on in that direction that held her back, telling her no, that this had to be her choice, that it had to be under her control.
Otherwise it would not end the way she wanted it to.
She sensed Eric around her, and yet she couldn’t see him.
She felt more of an overwhelming acknowledgment that he was here somewhere with her.
The fact that it was somewhere was even odder since she was nowhere.
She was still here, at the same place as always, and yet she was nowhere near where she had been.
She wanted to laugh. Then she wanted to cry. Nothing made sense, yet everything made sense. It was as if all the answers to the universe were right here at her fingertips.
Every question she ever wanted answered was here, right in her grasp. She just couldn’t quite reach it, couldn’t grasp them.
She had to ask herself some serious questions. Do I even want the answers?
Surely she did. Of course she wanted answers.
Can I handle the answers?
She was sure she could do something with this, but the crux of the matter remained the same—that she was nowhere closer to where she wanted to be. And her mind was rolling through an endless up and down, open and closed. It didn’t know what to do.
Her mind aimlessly wandered, questioning almost everything about the world that she lived in—or the world that she used to live in anyway.
No. Rein it in, Eden.
The voice was her own, nudging her. She pulled back on that, the world that she did live in. This was not a one-way ticket.
A mocking laughter came beside her.
Eden realized that somebody believed it to be a one-way ticket.
Somebody thought she had no way to get back out of here, that it was all about them and not at all about whoever entered this nightmare of theirs.
Feeling that sense of certainty within her, she poured more energy into it, building it, strengthening it, so that she had it beside her to pull on, just in case.
“It’s useless, you know,” a voice whispered into her ear. “You can’t fight this. Nobody can. We’ve tried. There is no fighting it.”
Eden didn’t want to even look in the direction of that voice, and she absolutely refused to believe it. There was always an answer. Whether she was strong enough to get the answer that she needed or wanted was a different story, but there was always an answer. She knew that.
Somehow she knew that without a bit of doubt.
She didn’t know how, but voices reverberated in her head from a long time ago, and then she realized it was her grandmother’s voice.
If Eden were honest, she recognized her mother’s voice as well.
Somewhere in there, in the past, were the answers she had wanted for so long, answers that nobody was willing to give her.
It was such a strange feeling, a strange sense of homecoming, yet not a homecoming that she particularly wanted or enjoyed.
She frowned at that, wondering what the answer was here, and then realized it wasn’t so much about the answer as what she would do about this situation while she was here.
Somebody else was in control, and it needed to be her.
If Eden couldn’t do it, she needed to get out, and again she heard that voice from somewhere in her distant past.
Somebody, somebody who had wanted her to do something, had trained her to do something, but ultimately Eden had failed.
She pondered the realities of life, caught up in other people’s dreams, hopes, wishes, and needs. She was hit with a tsunami of pain, loss, grief, determination, fury, and fear. It was all there.
It didn’t make any sense to her. So much of this didn’t, but the emotions were almost impossible to ignore.
Something was going on here that Eden only partially understood.
She had no idea how this was happening, yet she knew she’d been here before, right here to this edge of the darkness and whatever lay beyond.
You need to take control, child.
The voice was affectionate, and Eden tugged it close, adding it to the whirlwind of energies she had been gathering around her for support.
The maelstrom was peaking and included her mother, her grandmother, and everything they had tried to get her to do.
Her mother, who had released her in peace, telling her it was okay, telling her she had done everything that had been asked of her, telling her that her mother was happy to go.
Then there was her grandmother, who could not stand to lose her own daughter, who pushed the edge of absolutely everything anybody could possibly believe into existence. Even then it still wasn’t enough.
Eden felt the rage and the pain and the sense of failure, the sense of anger and fury that she hadn’t been enough.
Even as she listened to that voice inside her head, she heard it screaming through the annals of time.
She gave herself a hard shake, and, even then, she heard Stefan’s voice. “Stefan, you’re here?” she cried out.
I’m inside you, he murmured, and, therefore, I’m here, but I’m not here.
She laughed, the sound almost freeing. “That makes so little sense.”
She could sense the smile in his voice as he whispered, I know, and that’s okay too.
She wasn’t sure. She was almost in a euphoric state, knowing something about where she was, feeling a certainty, a weird freedom that she couldn’t quite grasp, yet couldn’t let go of either.
How do you feel? he questioned.
“You know how I feel, as I’m sure you feel it too.”
Yes, but I want you to tell me.
“Wild, free, painless,” she replied in a moment of untethered joy. “It’s as if I’ve always been primed for this. This is meant to be.”
And, in many ways, you probably have been primed, Stefan noted. Can you see anything here? Can you feel what’s going on? he asked, as if trying to direct her somewhere.
However, she didn’t understand where.
I need you to focus, he said.
“On what?” she asked. “It’s beautiful here. Look.”
I can’t see the same thing you can see, he replied. I can’t see any of it. I cannot feel it. I cannot in any way recognize the same things you sense.
“But it’s so beautiful,” she said. “How could you not? So much joy is here.”
Joy? he repeated, his tone almost disbelieving, but something else was in his voice. Tell me exactly what you see.
“I don’t see anything,” she replied, “just darkness. Lots and lots of darkness.”
And you like that?
“I do,” she said, with a smile. “No pain, no worries, just a beautiful, beautiful darkness. It’s gorgeous,” she whispered.
Listen to me, Eden. This is not for you. You have your own problems to deal with. You aren’t ready for this.
“How can you deny the beauty here?” she cried out softly.
Maybe you aren’t seeing clearly either, he murmured. In a surprise twist, he asked, Can I ask you something, and you say the first thing that comes to your mind?
“Yes,” she said, turning around, feeling such a lightness in her heart and soul. “What?”
Who are you?
She froze. “Pardon?”
Who are you right now? he repeated. I know it’s somebody else. I know it’s not Eden, he declared. Who are you?
She laughed. “How can you tell it’s not me? Of course it’s me.”
No, he repeated. Once again you have taken on a persona, taken on an entity, someone who wants to keep you there.
She laughed. “Maybe it would be nice to be wanted for a change,” she replied wistfully. “There’s not been very much of that niceness in my world.”
I understand,” he acknowledged, but that too is changing.
“Is it?” she snapped and then sighed. “I’m not angry at you,” she shared, “but it’s nice in here.”
He let out a deep breath. Is it? Maybe you should show me some of where you’re at, some of the places you see, so I can see it too.
“Can’t you see it?”
No, he stated. I just told you that I can’t.
“Right. It’s too bad though,” she said. “It’s very pretty.” She noted that her voice had taken on a weird melodic tone. Then she almost recognized what that tone was. “I don’t understand,” she admitted, only to have the thought flit away almost as soon as it came to her mind.
I know you don’t, Stefan agreed. Something else is going on here that you don’t necessarily recognize.
“Of course I do,” she argued, with a laugh.
“It’s really pretty here.” Her voice now sounded childlike, almost not capable of recognizing anything around her.
It was a little girl’s voice, one with pain, one with resignation, fear, not knowing that, whatever this was, it was bound to be bad because it was always bad.
If it is going be bad, Stefan asked, why do you say it’s pretty?
“Because, if I keep telling myself that it is pretty, then I don’t have to worry about how scary it is here,” she admitted.
You don’t like it there, do you?
Suddenly a buzz filled the air, and everything around her shifted, shimmered, and merged into the same odd darkness. “Now it’s getting scary.”
And is your mother there?