Snippets and Stories: (WtI) The Last Door of Corridor 5354

What could possibly shake him--nay, her, so that he--bloody hell, she seemed to cower before that last door?

It stood there so innocently, not even truly locked like the rest of them had been.

Their stalwart companion who was as the flames themselves, such fiery passion and vigor that the very atmosphere nigh filled with color, with Life. That the selfsame person now shrunk away as if scorched by her own self and flame.

They would soon understand why it was to be one that could never be forgotten, no matter how many sheets one covered it with, not a multitude of rooms and doors, yellow tape, nor chains, bolts, and locks.

And all it took, was her mere presence for the door to part, ominously ajar. So deeply was it a part of herself, that no lock she tried could keep it closed.

Nothing could take away this deepest of memory, her sharpest, most vivid, embedded sense of self. 

It was, the root of her being, what would shape her sense of self and make her who she is. The foundation by which her very self had been established around. Hiding, yet no matter how she ran, it was a maze, a labyrinth that encircled the last door, always leading back to it. 

He thought back to the roaring white wall that loomed a story high, the deadening weight the moment where they realized their burdened strides could not outpace the coming wave crushing all in its path.

She had been the swiftest of them to realize. Her long experience, spacial IQ, and a touch of instinct told her so. 

In that moment she chose her path, even should she take the brunt of Nature's encroaching fury. 

Bracing  himself for the impact as he--she darted back up the slope, fighting the thick snow. 

It hapened in mere seconds, her lith form leaping over the snowscape. But no Time had they to spare, even a second. 

With a sweap she jerks loose the waxed fiberglass raft. A buy for Time. Time which she spent yelling for them to get on her board.

With a sinking feeling he realized they had not the momentum. Not with all of them on and the angle such that it wa--

And then she kicked them off. 

With as much force as she could muster. 

And the small raft flew across its white ocean, into the safety of the thick tree line. 

She had thrown them to safety when their shelter fell, and the snowdrift told of the coming flurry. 

He had looked back, and saw her, lost in a forlorn stare. He caught her eyes, and in that instance saw the regret, of all the things she hadn't yet finished. He held her eyes, and then--

--she smiled.

A smile warm and true.

An embarassed smile that almost seemed to shrug up at him, did shrug at him to his amazement.

And then there was nothing but a roaring white sea.

"Sorry, guess I'll be troubling you guys again!" He swore she had said.

The blow had taken from them their friend, and left a hesitant girl who knew nothing whatsoever of anyone or anything.

But there was a chance. Slumbering deep within was a memory so branded deep, buried and ingrained as an integral part of her.

It could bring her back.

It would be their hope to restoring her memory. Bringing back their friend. And so they took the venture into the Astral world. A world of projections of one's inner most being.

So they took to the pods, and entered this nonexistent world that made up who she was.

When they first materialized the first thing that struck them was how starkly bland the world was, but for the endless twists and turns, of looming corridors and endless doors.

Perhaps it was in part due to the little she knew upon her awakening, of but the hospital halls and walls so similarly bare, with their paltry dressings and the distinct scent of disinfectant. Thankfully such scents weren't similarly present.

False doors littered the wall, and every other door that did part for them were but empty with more false leads.

Sometimes she would see something familiar in them, and it would materialize, would part for but a wisp of color, a scent, a sound, a blur or sensation.

They would wander these immaterial halls, a strangely familiar but eerily empty world, devoid of memories and left with but blank rooms, save the odd dark stain and pungent copper scent that lingered in the stale air.

It was in that phantasmal world that it came to light.

When at last they beheld the truth, it was with horror and disgust.

Bitter tears for the hodgepodge of anger, defeat, humiliation, shame, and disgust that roiled within him.

"Her." Silas mentally corrected himself yet again.

They had steeled themselves against the inexplicable trepidation that had gripped the normally passionate and fiery redhead, and seeing this now, the shackles seemed so painfully obvious.

When the brunette turned to her and saw not a blank stare of the broken, but such vivid, lively eyes, brimming with tears and so shaken and lost, he faltered.

Neiro hesitantly approached her but even from his--her, friend so close, she flinched sharply and shied away. The fear was overpowering.

And suddenly, the Sovereign realized with stark clarity. Her wild eyes when one caught her unawares from her peripheral or beyond, how though she was quite free with affection, would never tolerate that initiated by others. The instinctive, almost involuntary jerk from contact, the masculine manner in which she carried herself yet sidelong glances at that which she wanted to be, and was, albeit suppressed behind layer after layer of stone walls.

She had denounced all that made her herself, never able to discard the memories, cope with, nor bear.

Trauma induced stress, that manifested in behavioral quirks, and more drastically so, a completely different identity.

One she had done well to hide behind. Until then.

It was vile, the way she had been held down, her innocence torn from her as violently as her clothing to be stripped and shattered. 

When the vile act was over and the monsters, for he loathed to deem them human, had sated themselves of their fill of carnal pleasure, they degraded her still, capturing and burning her torture and shame in a flourish of HD pixels. 

Having their fill they discarded her in the streets alongside the garbage, laughing and gloating of their conquest as the broken child picked herself up and crawled back to her home, hiding in the shadows in disgust and shame.

Trickles gathered at her eyes and fell, lost to the fall of rain. At last she returned to a white room isolated and quiet, and oh so lonely. She lay by her still brother's side, heart, mind, body, and soul, aching.

She begged a desperate plea, someone, anyone, that her other half would awaken, that another soul be there, someone, anyone, of familiarity, safety, and comfort.

But there would be none, save the clouds as they continued to rain and pelt it's gale and storm against the dreary grey world beneath.

None need ears to hear her silent plea, so vivid in her blood red eyes, and neither would any heed her silent plea, nor answer to its call.

Her hell would continue several months later when her belly bulged if only slightly with their vengeance, and realizing the parasite that lay within her, born of sin and vile desecration, she swiped a razor, and disemboweled the hideous thing whole.

A wretched scar of poor mend, a mark of her disturbed mind and body in shock, would ever mar her otherwise perfect skin, hidden from the sight of any prying eyes in layers of cloth.

It would forever be burned into her, like a branding, carved deep upon her very soul, never to fade.

But in her bitterness rekindled a fire of vengeance, and closure, and she again sought out the those who dared defile her.

They jeered and taunted as they once more led her to that place, and the sight made the bile rise. But she remained steadfast, and that night, colored their walls and floors a beautiful dark scarlet. To match her hair and eyes.

For the first in many a night, she slept through the night.

Closure, and at uneasy peace, but never truly forgotten, nor forgiven.

Not now, not ever.