Rose Blumen ~ Exogignesthai 1

(Rose)

Evolution isn't always straightforward. We make mistakes. Terrible mistakes.

And we have to step back at times too.

I did not die on that island, and neither did she. But our mistakes, most probably mine above all other, costed us a lot. It brought us on the very edge of annihilation, both me and her.

Because I was uncertain about power and so was she. How strong must we really be, in order to live happily and free, in this world?

Maybe there is no definitive answer. There probably isn't... Even if I were to define 'happily' and 'freedom' for us, what these two concepts really mean to us is complex.

I could spend my life pondering about those, like so many philosophers before.

I know that wouldn't be happiness though for me, and living in a fear driving Blume's thirst for power wouldn't be either.

I don't need us to become as gods, and neither does she.

However we may need failsafes in order to defeat gods? I mean enough power to defend ourselves from beings who behave like monsters or believe that they are some sort of gods.

She called it trump cards, small packets of concentrated energy, stored somewhere in her, and that she could use and release in case of an emergency. Something able to release instantly a powerful spike of power, for an instant and not longer.

This may be our best compromise between frail humanity and blind beings-like-her.

Balance is tough to find.

I know I miss Blume... And she misses me also.

I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for everything that happened since... I don't know since when. At least since I dropped your main bond to reality, that flesh.

I feel so weak and tired since I lost you. The last days didn't help either.

And I'm sorry for this girl and what she had to endure...

I've slowly put most of the remaining pieces together.

The monster on this island needed to eat you Blume, but not as you landed. Did it pull us around here? It seemed partially aware of my existence too.

Whether it needed you to be stabilised or weaker, soften, I'm not sure. However I got that in order to consume you, you had to be put inside a living body before anything else. A place where you would instinctively reopen yourself between your world and reality.

And those poor slaves living on this island, they chose this girl. And the poor her suffered what no woman ever should.

The power and wrath she unleashed on them, was it her taking control over you, or was it your doing also?

She almost had her revenge. Then you were out of power I guess... Was that what the evil one needed before it could eat you?

I'm so sorry Blume...

At least... You were still able to save yourself in the dire end. I was unable to help you.

I failed.

I can't tell you how relieved I now am...

I love you so much my dear Blume.

~

I wake up with a cold and sore muscles. I'm almost dead truly.

I'm still in those ruins of an old fort. A small castle that once dominated this mediterranean (hopefully) island.

My eye is still asleep, all I see is out of focus. But I see the clear sky and sunlight.

I cough painfully. Next to me is the girl. I still can't see her face. She's awaken and looking at me I can tell.

I try to smile. It hurts. It makes me laugh and I manage to smile a little to greet her.

I can't tell if she's smiling or not. She must wonder who I am.

I have my sight slowly coming back along with many pains, but I keep a genuine soft smile.

R - Hello you...

H - Rose... You're Rose...

R - Ah... Why yes... What is your name?

H - So this was all true...

She's holding her head... She heard about me. She thought she was becoming insane, and now realises fully it was all real and true.

R - Blume told you about me... I'm sorry for what happened to you...

H -This... Language... It's English? I never learnt it... She's... She's speaking through me!

I manage to take her shivering hand. I did hear both voices from her and Blume at once.

Blume is right there, so close to me.

R - Blume, I'm right there. Please let her go, you're scaring her.

The girl looks suddenly relieved.

She says then a few words I don't understand. It's my friends' language I recognise, but I don't speak any of it.

Then she grabs my hand back and helps me stand up. I manage to lift myself up, though it hurts a lot. We're both looking like beasts that were dug out from their grave. Swampy graves possibly.

We're looking around. The veil has fallen. In the courtyard, there's a crater as if a great war shell had exploded. There's nothing left of the trees or the thing that looked like one.

It's over. Right.

She's seeing it too, with a different mind from mine.

She's sobbing a little. The body of the young man still lies next to all that, in a puddle of dry blood. I don't know what to think or say about it.

She's pulling on my hand for us to move away.

We find other bodies, just a few steps further. The other ones are just buckets of bones and putrid flesh poured along the way.

I had forgotten about the other ones whom were after me. I guess they died along with the root of it...

We return slowly to the small village as the day light warms our skin slightly.

~

We're both cautiously washing ourselves and our multiples wounds at the fountain on the main square. There are still dry marks of someone being murdered right next to it.

The water is icy cold, but without wind, the sunlight is getting rather warm.

It takes a while to wash ourselves until there's no longer any nauseous smell of death lingering around our skin.

She's young. Maybe fifteen springs old? She has a figure right between puberty and adulthood.

Her face keeps a nervous grin and pain expression however.

My figure is rather plain next to hers. A missing eyeball now gives me the look of a pirate, or undead one. Teufel.

She doesn't like that I look at her, so I turn my back on her.

R - Say, what is your name now?

H - ... Horanah.

Blume is translating for her, more gently now.

R - I'm sorry for what happened to you Horanah...

H - They... They all got what they deserved... And now thanks to you, I can leave this place.

R - Do you know how to sail?

H - Yes. Before the demon came, I used to. Before it turned us all into its pets...

R - Blume isn't like that. You have nothing to worry about from her. I'm sure she's trying to find the quickest way possible to leave your body.

H - I don't want her to leave my body.

I stop and turn around, a little agape.

R - You don't?

H - She gives me power and I control it. I want to keep her.

R - Well... I'm not sure she would be happy about that, but we have the time to think about it. There's nothing we need to rush for.

H - Yes... We need some rest, and to set the ship ready. And there is no threat on us anymore. We have time.

The way she speaks has something weird about it, but maybe it's because of Blume's translating directly inside her brain. She smiled slightly, for the first time I could see. Perhaps for the first time in years, maybe ever.

~

I hope I won't become a new Odysseus, drifting from weird island to weird island... Nah, Greece is farther East and I already know that the love of my previous life is dead. And that my home has turned into ruins. So this won't be another long homecoming anyway. I've already set a record once. Once was more than enough.

Horanah burnt her house down. She had so much resentment to exorcise.

We settled then in the mill for the few days of rest and preparation to come.

She suffered too much in her own home. She needed revenge and closure. To her, far unlike me, her home was not the haven where to rest, but the chamber of torture where the slave had to return each night.

From the little she shared, I got the jest of the hell she's been through. Having Blume forced inside of her wasn't alas the worst thing she suffered there.

It seems that for years they tried to have her conceive, but never she managed to. The foetus always died in a few weeks.

And she's not fifteen even. She's so young, I'm not sure she truly knows how to sail. But that's too cold to say aloud after hearing what she had to share... To answer her one question, I never had a child either, and I'll leave it at that...

~

Over the days, we learnt a little more about each other, and packed every available supply on the largest ship in the port.

A ship like I've never seen. A work of art with elegant and soft lines. Its hull has heavy fouling now, but it shouldn't be a bother.

Inside are cabins more comfortable and luxurious than my home ever was. A small floating palace...

With family pictures... I look at some. I now can recognise the people who died here, from less than a decade ago.

They looked happy and simply human;.. They died horribly. And the only survivor is the smiling little girl in her mother's arms, next to her brothers.

Horanah threw most of those mementos into the water, but she kept that last family picture.

I don't comment or judge.

I remember a little puzzled that I had the same chance, but I didn't keep any...

Because I realised it wasn't me on those pictures. And I was sad in a different way.

During the evening, we talk by the chimney fire.

Blume speaks too, through her. And Horanah speaks using Blume's knowledge of English after all, so why not.

No ribbons nor flowers appear on her body however. She hides it maybe.

I still have a frightening wound in my chest, a hollow hard to describe. My heart aches and the skin there itches.

Blume wants to return to me also, she says shyly. Horanah doesn't want to let go of the power, but accepts the proposal that Blume brings.

B - I'll stay with you until we reach the mainland so I have time to build the structure you'll need to be stronger, and use power such as ours. When we part ways on the land, you'll be as powerful as me. I promise it to you.

H - I don't really have a choice... But I can see it isn't a bad outcome for me. I trust you two then.

Faint smile, with an uncanny colour to it. She feels insecure as we will take back her power. I try my best to reassure her. But her mind is elsewhere and tired.

Soon enough, we will leave this island. Blume will return to men and we'll part ways with a smile...

~