A Million Bodies by Erica Pensini - HTML preview

Chapter 42

I move towards the pulsing light, attempting to ascertain its origin. From a close distance the light ceases to appear intermittent, and I find myself enveloped by its suffused halo, soft and immobile in the night.

The space around me remains dark, but at the center of the sphere of light in which I stand there is an old map, marked by time and crippled along the edges, and yet clearly legible.

“You are here,” reads a label, pointing at a flame.

From it a dashed line snakes along a large dark patch, labelled “The woods.”

As my eyes follow the line I am lead to a cryptic image, which could represent a cave.

“Your army is here,” it reads.

I wonder how far that point is from where I am now. There’s only one trail marked on the map so - no matter the distance - if I keep walking there is no doubt that I will reach “my army”.

I have a vague recollection of an army, but I can no longer tell if it was a dream, a memory, or something I read and made mine.

The line doesn’t stop at the cave and the army. It moves further, beyond what seems to be a mountainous land, all the way to a cross.

“The cemetery,” the map says, and beside the label there’s an arrow pointing at a region located at some depth below the surface. “The inevitable depths,” the arrow indicates.

I feel a shiver as I read the ornate writing. The line does not interrupt itself there though. There is a way out of these depths.

“The book trail,” reads a label along the line exiting them.

The line zig-zags through what seems an empty space, and points to a circle called, “The Galaxian archeological site,” adjacent to a circle denominated “The Future Galaxies.”

From it the line continues.

“The Book trail,” it repeats.

I follow it further, and it says, “Mine 503.”

I think I remember all this, have I not seen it already?

My frenzy finger traces the profile of the line, and beyond Mine 503 there is a convoluted labyrinth.

But is it a labyrinth?

I bring my face closer to the map, and I realize that what I am seeing is not a labyrinth, but a game of mirrors bouncing a million reflections of my own face, or rather its appearance, distorted and twisted. I resemble uncle Ludwig at one moment, my brother Tristan the next instant, and a second later the person I think I am.

I pull back, terrified.

“You must learn to know yourself, my child,” I hear my mother say.

“Mother!” I call out.

Silence.

“Mother?” I call out again, but to no avail.

I start to wonder if I am hallucinating.

My eyes move along the line, blurred by the tears pooling in my eyes.

My courage is fading away, my assurance vacillates.

“The potion of the Truth,” reads a flag.

I remember the potion too. I feel like I’ve lived all this before, as if I stepped in each and every destination of the map in a long gone time.

“Yes you have,” a voice thunders, in reply to my unspoken thoughts.

I look around, startled.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“This is your map, Iris,” it resounds again.

“But if I am here-” I start, and my voice breaks.

“Phrase your question adequately, if you want an answer,” the voice tells me.

“If I am here,” I say, gathering my courage as I point at a spot on the map, “Where am I to go to find the door?”

“What is the door, Iris?” the voice asks.

“Freedom!” I shout, surprising myself.

I start to run as I’ve never run before, against the night, away from the voice which echoes behind me, “Are you sure? Are you, Iris? Sure? Are you sure? I am asking, are you really sure?”

The night is behind me, beyond me, and the present is dark.

But the voice won’t have me.

I run and run, determined to continue till the moment I will collapse. There’s nothing to lose, since there’s no place for me to go and there will never be.

And yet before I collapse I hit something huge, solid as steel, cold as the blackness around it. I collide against it at full speed, and fall down, suddenly awakened by the impact.

I just found the door.