Whispers of the Past

[Linqy]

The room

Trembling fingers reach for the door that is barely visible in the darkness. The creaking sounds when it swings open slowly are the only things to break the silence that covers everything like a heavy blanket. Still no lights can be seen, only the dark that seems to swallow up every shape there is to be seen here. Not that there are many shapes.
The room is almost completely empty, and seems to have no other exit than the door she just opened. No windows on the walls, no art to hide the cracks in the stones. Not even a chair or table, nothing there to give the room personality. The only thing the room has is the paper. Sheets of white, scattered throughout the whole room. Covering the floor, stuck to the moist places on the walls and ceiling. Enough paper to write a book, but not even a table to write on, or a pen to write with. The few steps she had dared to take resulted in the paper being disturbed, flying up around her feet.

An eery glow seems to suddenly emit from a point in the middle of the room. It's like a random piece of the air suddenly decided to turn itself into a candle, shining brightly in the previous dark room. It doesn't stop at one candle though, because more and more little lights are popping up everywhere around her, providing her with more light than even our own sun would. This time the door makes no sound when it falls into the locks, so when she turns around she is surprised to see the door closed. The seconds pass by as she stares to the now closed door, wondering what might have caused it to fall shut. She was sure she'd done nothing to make this happen, she had not touched the door in any way, and there hadn't been any draft either. The lights are still bobbing in the air, always moving around, though they seem to have no real place they try to get to. They're just there, floating.
She walks to the door, trying to avoid touching the strange lights, not that she has to try very hard. They seem to float away from her whenever she comes to close to any of them. Like they respond to her movement, like they're aware of her presence. The door however doesn't budge, securely locked in place by a heavy lock that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. It takes a few moments before the panic  starts to rise up inside of her, taking over all her senses at that very moment. Frantically she pounds on the door, hoping that her fists will make it forget that it's locked. Hoping it will suddenly decide to swing open and let her out of this depressing room once more.

Up until now she had tried her best to ignore the lights, she hadn't been scared or confused. She had just accepted them to be there, as part of the strange room she was now locked into. Since the door would not open she was forced to face the room once more. Even more lights now formed a blazing circle in the very center of the room, still moving, but now in a seemingly set pattern. Even now she felt no fear, how could something that pretty ever be harmful in any way. One hand was still pressed against the wooden door behind her back, looking for a sense of security and maybe even to steady herself, the other was stretched out in front of her body. What would she do if she actually managed to touch one of the lights, she didn't know. There was no reason to think that far ahead yet, because the little lights never seemed to float within the grasp of her reaching fingertips.

Each calm attempt to fold her fingers around the mysterious shapes resulted in failure, and even when she started to move more abruptly the lights still stayed just out her her reach. Now she is standing in the middle of what used to be the circle, swinging her arms around her body, while spinning around on her feet. No closer does she get to the lights, and if there would've been anyone to see, they would've laughed at the sight. Faster and faster she spun until finally, dizzy, she fell to her knees. Her head hidden in her hands, she made herself as small as possible. She could not see what happened then. She did not see the lights coming closer, as if they wished to comfort her, mimicking the exact shape of her body, only inches away from her skin. Every time she moved, so did they, so she was unaware of all of this. Only now did she start to cry, out of fear, out of panic and out of despair. There was no way to open the door, heavily locked as it was. There was no way to leave the room in any other way because, even though the walls were cracked, there were no places she could make her way through.
The sound of her cries seemed to be absorbed by whatever was covering her now, still there was only silence in the strange room. Nothing could be heard, neither outside, or inside the room. Her body shivered, her muscles pulling and twitching as a result of her crying. The tears formed strange patterns on her arms and chest, soaking the fabric of the shirt she was wearing. Still she cried, even though now she could not think of anything to cry for anymore. How much time has passed was hard to tell, there were no clocks in the room, and no way to tell the time by looking at the sun. It could be day or night, it would not matter.

[Linqy]

Time kept ticking away while she lay there on the floor, yet nothing changed in her situation. The big door was till locked, every time she managed to lift her head from her hands, looking up with hopeful eyes. Yet every time she looked, her hopes were crushed again. Eventually she fell asleep, covered by a blanket of light, but never touched by its fabric. The lights still evaded every touch, as if they were scared of what might happen if she lay a finger on them. Still, they tried to comfort her, even though she did not notice their effort.

Her muscles relaxed and even though she had been very scared, she fell asleep and dreamt happy dreams. She was fast asleep for what seemed to be a long time, and didn't even wake up once. Until at one moment she opened her eyes, and sat up straight. Her muscles were aching, because floors are not the best choice of bed, but that was not her main concern. One glimpse at the door told her the horrific truth. She was locked up here, and there wasn't a single way of escape. Without food and water she would not last long, she realized this. So she got up, stretching her sore muscles before walking toward the door. When her fist hit the wood for the first time she made a pained sound. It hurt her to hit the door, but she had to hit it hard to get it to make a sound. The thumps she made would probably not travel far, but there might be someone on the other side... even though she did not remember what was on the other side. It was a strange thought, because now she was looking back she realized that she had no idea how she had gotten to be here. There were no memories of hallways, of buildings for this room to be in. It was like she had just appeared in front of the door to this mysterious room, meant to enter it. Would that be possible?
Questions that she couldn't answer filled up her mind, but she kept on banging her fists against the wooden door. The lock did not budge, and the door did not move. It all seemed kind of useless, as nothing happened at all. And then there came the point that she didn't remember why she wanted the door to open in the first place. A disturbing thought, because it left her standing there without a goal. Because if she did not really want to get out of this prison, what did she want then?

This time when she turned around to face "her" room, the lights were no longer there. It was just the empty room with all of the paper. It was a carpet made of fragile sheets, and even though she did not know why, she decided to pick them all up and form a pile. One by one she grabbed them, stacking them up in what eventually turned out to be a decent book-size pile of paper. There were a few still left, lying in the corner of the room, the only ones that had escaped her sudden eager plan. Then, when she picked up the very last sheet of paper, she found it. A pen, made of gold, with an inscription she could not read. At least she would have something to do while she was locked up here, without food or water or someone to talk to. She could write.
This conclusion lead to a lot more question however, because what would she write about. Her life wasn't really worth writing about, nor was anything in this room. Simply because there was nothing in the room, except for herself, the pen and the paper. She never had had much fantasy, nor inspiration to create stories. And even the discovery of the pen did not really make her into a fabulous writer. There just wasn't anything to write about.

She sat down on the floor, and took out a single sheet of paper to place in front of her. The pen tapped against her bottom lip while she thought about her problem. Little ideas popped into her head, but got thrown away even before she had put down a single word into writing. Everytime she thought she had found something nice to write about, she decided not to do it anyway. It all seemed so empty, so useless. She wanted to write real stories, to leave behind record of real adventures. But she'd never done anything remarkable, she couldn't even remember ever doing anything at all...
Now she was talking out loud, tasting the words and sentences she wanted to write down on her tongue. Discussing with herself whether something was worth being written down or not. Nothing was.
And that's when the lights returned.
This time there was only one. One little ball of light that floated in the air right in front of her nose. It seemed to expand and shrink all the time, changing shapes every few seconds. What it was she did not know, but still she did not feel threatened. There was something about these lights that made them feel familiar, safe. Nothing to be feared, at least. Yet this time there seemed to be a faint humming too. Something that broke the silence that filled the room completely after she'd stopped talking to herself. It wasn't really a song, or notes that were being hummed. It seemed to be more like someone whispering, too far away to really be heard. And the scariest thing was that it seemed to be produced by the mysterious thing right in front of her. Could it be making these sounds? Was it trying to tell her something, or was it just something that it always did. She was getting tired of all of the questions she could not answer, but there was nothing she could really do about it.
So she held out her hand, hoping that this time she would be able to touch the mysterious ball. And sure enough, something happened this time.

It wasn't really as if she had grabbed the light, her hand did not really feel any substance when she touched the thing in front of her. It was more of a tingling sensation, vibrating throughout her whole body. It was warm too, comforting in more ways than she could explain. And as soon as she had touched the thing, her world had become filled with sound. No more did she hear the faint humming, this time she heard clearly the words that were being spoken.

"Make time to listen to my story, for you are the only one that can hear. Shape your memories around me, and never let me be forgotten. Tell my tale to the world, in any way that you can, and you will be rewarded."

The words puzzled her, because she had thus far not viewed the balls as beings. They did not seem to be things that would have a story. It seemed weird to her that they would have memories. Was this a trick, or was she just going mad, locked up in this room. Yet the words did not stop here, and when the light continued with what would probably be his story, she felt the strange urge to pick up the pen and write down his words. And sure enough, a story was told. This is what she wrote down, this is what her whisper told her.

"I have no name. But my story is one that should never be forgotten. I have no life, for it was taken from me. But I am a whisper, one of many. My story is not the only one but let it be the first.

I once lived in a city, I have sadly forgotten the name, but it was alive. There were always voices, always people. Something happened every day, even when there was no one there to see.

[Linqy]

While he was talking his words sounded more clear than any other voice she had ever heard. Yet her vision was getting more blurry every second. The colors were mixing, no real shapes were visable anymore while everything kept spinning and moving. At first she attempted to make it stop by rubbing through her eyes, yet this only caused her to tear up, which made everything worse. It was almost as if she was going blind.
His words disappeared to the background for a few seconds as she panicked about her loss of sight. Then all of a sudden her eyes worked perfectly again. Or at least, so it seemed. Yet what she was seeing could not be the truth, for this time she was no longer in the room. The little light has disappeared, and she was surrounded by people, and buildings. A market.

" I left for work every morning, and worked all through the day. I never complained to my boss, because complaining to myself would not really work that well. Yes, I ran my own little shop. A stand at the market in the city I lived in.
I sold fruits, the best fruits of all the market, I might add. And my stand was always crowded. People came from all over the region to buy my apples. They were the best apples in probably the whole kingdom, at least, that's what I told my customers. They sure were special though.
No one knew how I could get these perfectly ripe, fresh apples throughout the year. Every season, even in the winter, I'd open my stand and sell my apples. My perfect apples"

She was standing in front of the very same stand the voice was speaking about, and as he had said it was crowded. Many people were trying to push their way to the front of the line. They wanted to get their hands on the apples that lay stored in crates on the wooden boards. Truly they did seem perfect. Shiny red, and perfectly round, each and every one of them. For some reason she too felt the need to buy apples all of a sudden, and she made her way into the crowd. Pushing as hard as everyone else was.

"No one knew my secret, and I never told anyone until this day. Why would I. My apples were magical, and as scared as everyone was of things they did not know, I could never tell them about this magic.
My garden had only one tree in it. One lonely tree that stood in the center of the grass. It was bigger than any apple tree I had ever seen, and sometimes I couldn't even be sure that it was a real apple tree at all. Some days, when I walked outside, it seemed that it had changed. The branches sometimes shifted, never when I was looking, but they would change positions every now and then. And it was always heavy with apples. No matter the weather, no matter the season. There would always be tons of them hanging from the branches. The tree had been there as long as I remembered, always laden with its delicious fruits. It was the only memory I had left of my dad. We always used to work together. Plucking the apples from the tree, putting them in baskets. And sometimes I'd help him at the market. It was no more than natural that I'd take over the stand when he left. I never would have guessed it would have been this soon. Because my dad suddenly disappeared, years before I started this story. Vanished from the face of the earth, without leaving as much as a note. I miss him still, every day, wherever he is."

The boy that is standing behind the stand suddenly tears up, when he looks up directly into her eyes. She can't get herself to look away, taking in the face of her whisper. This is who he was. He was once a man. Selling apples. How did he end up in the locked room, what was he doing there. Was this real? And how would she get out of here. All these questions ran through her mind while she was still trying to get to the front of the stand. Lots of people had already managed to buy their apples, and the crates were getting emptier and emptier. What if there were no apples left. What would she do.

"I kept the stand going, of course, when my dad left. Plucking the apples by myself, day by day, until everything changed. I found a girl, and loved her more than I had ever loved anything in the whole wide world. I could not wait to propose, and after we got married it did not take long for our first son to be born. He was a strong kid, always happy and very bright. And as I had done before with my father, he would help me pluck my apples. We lived in the same house as I'd always lived. And we were happy. He grew up faster than you could imagine. I knew that he would one day take over my work, when I'd gotten too old to still keep working. It were happy times, those early years.
I would've enjoyed them more if I'd known what would happen. I would've made the most of every day, lived my life instead of work and work all the time."

A puzzled look appeared on her face when he spoke these words, the expression on his face had become grim. She realized that she had gone back in time, how far back she did not know, but she now was in his world, before whatever caused him to become one of the whispers, had happened.
He left the stand at that moment, leaving the apples behind, under the careful watch of a young boy, that seemed to be his son. They looked much alike, and the boy seemed to know what he was doing when he took over the work when his father walked away. He was young, but not too young to run a stand like this. She followed the man, walked behind him while he made his way to what appeared to be his home. It was a beautiful house, but she did not get to spend much time looking at it. The man disappeared into the garden. The garden was as beautiful as the house was, and as he had said, there was only one tree in there. It was enormous, taking up a lot of space with its web of branches that stretched out to every side. And there were more apples than anyone could ever eat.

"One morning I went outside to get the apples for the day. My son was still in bed, tired of a party he had went to the previous day. It was the first time I had let him go out that late by himself, and I had to accept that he was now a grown up. It was hard to let him go. I was thinking about the future while standing on my ladder, picking apples as ever. Many things were going to change soon, I was getting too old for this work, but the tree was healthier than ever. The apples seemed to become more abundant and perfect each day, and we never stopped to marvel at its wonder. That day I would learn its secret. But there would be no one to tell it to."

She looked at him, standing on the ladder he had described, picking the apples and dropping them into the baskets he had put on the grass below. There was a certain ease to his movements, the result of many years of practice. And it didn't matter how many apples he picked, the tree would not get any emptier. Every apple was perfect, not a rotten spot on any of them, all of them perfectly shaped and colored. She did not notice the branches moving until they had reached the man, closing in on him as if they wanted to give him a hug. Since when did branches move? What was happening here.
She staggered forward, wishing to help the man that was now completely covered with the branches and leaves. The only thing she could still see were his feet and his face that had not yet been covered yet. There was panic in his eyes, and his mouth formed the word help, before it too disappeared. He was swallowed, by the tree, that was the only explanation. And he had not made a single sound while all of this happened.

"I felt no fear. It felt natural, as if it was meant to happen. At that point I understood the magic of our apple tree. It consumed its users, to keep itself alive, but only when it was sure that there was another person to keep the chain working. And I knew that I had a debt to pay. All these years I had just taken the apples, without even thinking about the price I would eventually have to pay for them. Ungrateful in a way. The only thing I regretted was the fact that I would never say goodbye to my son. He too would think I had just disappeared, like my father had. Many years I was part of the tree, watching my son as he grew up to be a strong and healthy man. I kept the apples healthy, made sure that there were enough for him to sell always. I watched his children grow up, and saw how he taught his son to pluck the apples. I wanted to warn him, I tried to. I fought to move my branches, tried to make him see that there was something wrong with this tree, with me. Yet he never saw it, and when the day came that it was time for him to take my place, I could do nothing. He was taken, just as I had been, and I never had a chance to stop it from happening. But now, now I can tell my story. To you. Make sure it is told.
Don't forget me, and don't let my story be forgotten."

She was still standing in the garden, staring at the tree that had swallowed a man whole not even minutes ago. She walked forward, and lay her hands upon its bark, and sure enough, she could feel a heartbeat under the wood. The magical tree had claimed another victim, but would keep a whole new family alive. Would it still exist? Would people still be eating the apples?
She was wondering about this when her vision suddenly went blurry again, the colors changed, and this time she didn't panic. Her eyes blinked a few times, calmly, and she just let it happen.