Catherina - Day 14

Shopping, eating ramen, and going back home – the girl had an ordinary Saturday. Now, she had passed the neighborhood entrance and gone across the central square to reach her apartment building. Six stairs led up to the front gate, a metal-framed glass piece with traces of peeled-off posters on the upper half. The girl was standing on the third stair, looking for her key, which she swore to have secured it in her zipped left pocket.

Where had the key gone? The girl wondered. Finally, she gave up and decided to dial the unit number to call her parents. To reach for the dialing screen, she had to finish the staircase first. Therefore, still focusing on her left pocket, the girl lifted her right foot and shifted her weight forward. Then, she tumbled – not on the staircase, because her right foot came back onto the same level as the left. She was no longer in front of her apartment building. Instead, she stood in a rather dark place with an opening towards brightness ahead.

The girl could hardly make out anything, for it was too dark and too narrow – everything was so close upon her with a dried-up, suffocating oppression. Moving cautiously along this narrow lane, the girl felt friction against the walls that sandwiched her in between – their texture was old-fashioned, a sort of coarse concrete that formed wavy patterns. Push, push, push through.

The girl squeezed herself towards the opening, from where she was momentarily dazzled by the bright daylight. Tears lingering at the edge of her eyes, the girl observed her surrounding cautiously. Right in front of her was a tar road with paved walkways on either side. Across the street scattered several constructions, all of them having crimson brick walls and green plants on the front. The girl would have imagined this place to be a peaceful Western town, where modern technology coexisted with lasting traditions in harmony. Nonetheless, the conditions of those buildings told a rather traumatic story, as none was intact. Indeed, a better choice of diction would be "ruminants" – they were torn with great force, leaving coarse scars on their surface, exposing the darker inner construction as if blood oozing from wounds.

The girl struggled, pulling herself out of the narrow space she was in – it was a lane as she later discovered – and what she saw petrified her: a giant worm. Not the kind of inching worms those naughty schoolboys caught and put into classmate's pencil cases, the one the girl saw was massive. Blocks away from where the girl stood, the upper half of the worm remained in the girl's sight, and she could see it quite clearly.

The worm's metallic outer shell was glazing under the sunshine, each segment reflecting a different light, making it resemble a string of mechanical lollipops swirling towards the sky. Pairs of bronze legs stretched out under each section of this monster, some of which clinging onto the unfortunate architectures underneath its belly, leaving scar-like marks. The girl could not see its head, for it was higher up and thereby almost whitened by the reflection of sunlight.

That was fairly steampunk. The girl thought so - and a disastrous one! At the left end of town, another metallic insect appeared. Although it was too far for the girl to see its detail, she could recognize a vague, brass-shade outline reminding her of a beetle.

These monstrous species had made this city their garden, or perhaps, a playground indeed.

Where could she go? The girl looked around and decided to go across the road, for there stood a salon-like store with glass gates that remained wholesome – what a miracle!

Yet another miracle – the girl opened the sliding gate with ease. Then, she found herself stood in a brightly-lit lounge with marble floor and white walls. In the middle of the space was a reception with an LED logo on its front.

"Who's there?" A female voice came from behind the reception, startled and yet suppressed to forge a calmness.

"I have no intention of any harm." The girl paused, borrowing lines from movies, "I'm confused and seeking shelter."

"Stay there." A lady in a creased black suit came out, her hair made into a neat bun – perhaps she was the salon's receptionist. After seeing the girl, the lady seemed to relax a bit, but she was still alert. "Why are you here? It's not the time for a walk."

"I do wonder, ma'am." Replied the girl. "Can you tell me what's going on outside, please?"

"Come here, then." The lady gestured the girl to hide behind the counter, where she found another receptionist - younger, and also in a black suit. "A war had broken out."

A war had broken out between two mysterious sides, and unfortunately, the city became one of the many battlefields. The mechanical insects (of side A) seemed to drop down from the sky – as no one knew from where they came. The troops (of side B that also seemed to rise out of nowhere - perhaps under the ground) marched down the street, killing everyone, civilians – men, women, kids, elders – and whatever be in their way. The soldiers of side B wore scarlet hoods and armors underneath, making one suspect them to jump out of fairy tales. Indeed, both sides constituted of fantastic beings that did not resemble anything earthly.

"How tragic!" The girl couldn't contain a sigh. Disturbed, she felt uncomfortable hiding here, a place without logical explanation – how could this salon void of the fate of being destroyed by either side? How could the receptionists tell her the story this easily？She wanted to leave, but not before she could think of a proper excuse for the two women who enclosed upon her so tightly that she could hardly breathe.

"I need to go." Said the girl- in the end, she still hadn't come up with an excuse. Miraculously, she found herself on the empty street a second later – no, not quite. Physically, she was there, standing in front of the salon where she had just escaped. Spiritually, however, she was hovering above a large plaza encircled by stone buildings with bright colors. Soldiers in scarlet hoods gathered on the stone-laid ground, forming a silent phalanx in the color of roses. A breeze blew the tip of their cloaks upwards, showing the silvery metallic shade underneath.

The soldiers of side B – cruel, emotionless beings fighting against the mechanical insects and everything in their way – stared at a platform at the center of the plaza, on which stood a humanly figure that the girl could not see clearly. So, she decided to go closer. Descending, she penetrated through the air and felt resistance against every inch of her spirit. Closer, closer – but then she was pulled back to that empty street, where her vacant shell awaited her.

Bewildered, the girl wondered why she had to be back at this moment, but soon she saw a group of soldiers approaching from the end of the street. "They kill everyone in their way." The receptionist's words resonated in her mind.

Run – the girl sprinted down the road and made a sharp turn into a perpendicular lane with white walls on both sides. Silence in her surrounding - the girl had the sensation that her world was filled with noises of soldiers marching, mechanical monsters shrieking, buildings collapsing, and people screaming. But these sounds blurred and blended into a sphere of serene stillness, where nothing goes on.

The girl walked further into the lane and found an entrance towards a neighborhood on her right. From her viewpoint, the girl could not see the apartment buildings' full height behind the white walls, and thus, they must be skyscrapers. Nonetheless, she did not recall seeing any of those when she first came out of the narrow darkness. Anyway, this world was inexplicable, and when the girl thought of such details, they had already gone. As of now, a being sitting on the white way a few meters away caught all her attention.

Her hair was turquoise, and her skin pearl white – the being was half sitting and half lying, resting her delicate head on one palm. The girl could not see the rest of her body, as her visage alone was enchanting enough. When the girl stared at her eyes – which had the color of sky reflected in shallow water – all anxiety, fear, and uncertainty had vanished.

The being was a mermaid - the girl believed thus.

"Where are you going?" The mermaid asked the girl, a thread of hair lingered down her shoulder and touched the wall. Azure and blanc. The color of the summer ocean.

"I don't know." Time passed, and the girl had forgotten the existence of monsters and soldiers and receptionists, "what should I do?"

"That, I cannot answer you." The mermaid sat up, her translucent tailfins flapping against the wall, leaving traces of water dripping onto the ground, "however, you should take my guide. Do you understand now?"

If this happened back in the Ramen shop, where she possibly left her keys, the girl would say "No." In effect, the mermaid had provided no useful clue. Nonetheless, she might have planted an idea in the girl's mind, making her answer, with all grace and politeness, "yes. Thank you very much. See you."

The mermaid did not reply, and the girl continued farther into the lane, feeling safe and sheltered.

The lane, once the girl stepped across an invisible line, became queer, folding and diverging like a mad maze. Though, this maze had no Minotaur awaiting in the center – or perhaps the girl had never reached the center to discover because she followed a route engraved on her memory. After a journey of white walls and shades of green – apparently of trees – behind them, the girl reached an open area.

Without turning her head to see, the girl knew that the maze she came through had disappeared. Then, was it vacuum behind her? She did not know, for she focused on this square-shaped space in front of her, on the edge of which arose three dirty walls covered by graffiti and had grey pieces of paint peeling off.

She walked along the edge of the three walls, and finally coming back to her original spot, where now stood a rusty black gate in the style of the ones she had seen in grandma's old neighborhood preserved for over a century. With a light push, the gate opened.

Across the gate was a distantly familiar place that ran a bell in the girl's mind - white walls and shadows formed by overhead trees. When the girl lifted her head rightward, she saw a charming shade of turquoise, belonging to the mermaid, who lay lazily under the sun.

Now, the girl returned to her original spot, where she first stood several meters away from the mermaid - she felt insecure beside that being, as its surrounding dimension distorted and mutated. On the right side of the mermaid's wall was a half-opened steel gate, rusty and dark, leading to the neighborhood with sky-reaching apartment buildings that the girl could not see in full.

"Why are you here?" The mermaid asked. Her eyes had lost their magic and were no longer captivating for the girl. The wind brought the distant howling of mechanical worms and the smell of blood and melting metal.

"It's good to see you again." The girl was not answering the question; yet, she was pouring out her thoughts as much as she could, "I like the color of you, and what a fantastic creature you are!"

Did the mermaid say thank you? The girl could not remember.

photo credit: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsalamispots.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179365567860%2Fmermaids-with-coral-for-hair&psig=AOvVaw3PPYqy4qxpcwTtG65aKbkd&ust=1592361192202000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCMi0kv2lheoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAK