《Illusory》


 colors

    There was a girl whose feelings changed the world around her, and with every step little smoke clouds emanated from her feet. Her soul pulled right out of her chest like a long, blue comet with a tail, and swirled around her body like a protective blue flame. With every step she took the space around her changed, and the world was left a little darker, a little bluer, with shadows that left melancholy traces of mist to the touch, and when she sat down on a bench for a long time the seat beneath her turned dark and meandered outwards, spilling onto the floor and the tiles. The girl didn''t run. She walked, because in her memory there was nothing to run for.


    When she walked in a tight space the very metal itself around her melted and shifted so that she was walking in a cage of blue light, a cage of her own devising. The girl had grown up in a cage. A cage with many others, a cage in which food and water came at the same time each day, a cage in which trainers came at regular intervals and taught her to do tricks, and rewarded those who did them well.


    The girl has always been good at doing tricks. She was faster than anyone else at fetching the ball, and she could distinguish between shaking the right and left hands. She took pride in it, and when rewarded with delicious treats she retreated to her comfortable little nest in the corner of the cage. Her feelings had always been swirling green, or a warm yellow, back when she lived in the cage.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    One day somebody smashed the cage and told all the girls and boys inside of it to go free. The children poured out like a dozen trickling little lights and within seconds melted into the world and were gone. The girl alone scuttled back into her hiding place, peeking out at shattered silver bars that no longer hummed with energy. As she stared at the gaping hole, a chilly wind roared through the once warm enclosure, scraping her cheeks. She flinched, and a grey haze began to obscure her eyes in a muddle of confusion, as in her nest individual stalks of hay jumped and vibrated with her unease. When evening-time came and went and no food came, the girl snuggled in to her pile of rags and went to sleep. She slept fitfully, and with her the rags tossed and turned like little clawed monsters in the night.


    After a period of time she woke, but when she woke it was still cold, and with the cold her soul had thinned, wrapping itself delicately around her like so many long, icy vines. There was still no food, and the once silver bars of the smashed-up cage had turned dull grey. The floor rippled outward from beneath her, making her dizzy, and she hugged her knees and shivered, not knowing what to do or where to go. When unfamiliar voices cut through the air she shrank away instinctively, but there was nowhere to go, and the vines enshrining her flared up and spiked in response.


    "Hey!" shouted a voice. "Hey! I found one! There''s still one of ''em here!"

 gold

    A towering figure came into view, casting a shadow across the bed of ice that had spread beneath the girl as she slept. The girl bristled, and small thorns rose upon the icy vines that were her soul. Then the figure squatted down with a fleeting flash of red.


    A round, freckled face peered at the girl, breaking into a friendly smile. The icy spikes around her melted, tentatively, into leaves.


    "Hey," said the redheaded man. "What are you still doing here, little one?"


    The girl stared at him, but did not answer. She had been taught not to talk to strangers.


    Another figure stepped into view, gazing all around the cage.


    "So this is where they lived, eh?" said the man, who had a raggedy mustache. "Bit cramped, innit?"


    Still squatting, the redheaded man slowly reached out a hand towards the girl, palm facing upwards.


    "You don''t have to be scared," he said. "You''re free now."


    The girl stared at him blankly, unmoving. She did not know what "free" meant.


    "You don''t have to work for them anymore," said the redheaded man.


    The girl blinked slowly, like a cat.


    "You can do whatever you want!"


    The words meant nothing to her, although she liked the tone of his voice. The ice around her melted, fading back into brown dust.


    "Aye, give it up, man," said the man with the mustache. He was strolling along the length of the cage now, bending occasionally to examine the debris in the corners. "Might be she can''t speak. Some of them can''t, you know."Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "You never know until you try," said the redheaded man. He turned his attention to the girl once more. "Look, would you like to come with us?" He pursed his lips. "There''s nothing left for you here. If you stay you''ll starve."


    The girl perked up. Starve, she understood. She had missed evening and breakfast mealtime already. It was cold, and maybe they were finally going to feed her now if she did her tricks. Tentatively, she leaned in towards the outstretched hand, the vines breaking off from her body into small clouds of light green mist, but found no delicious morsel there, and cocked her head in confusion. Then she perked up. Perhaps they wanted her to do her favorite trick!


    The girl''s soul whirred about her in a light yellow sparkle of happiness. She loved this trick, because everyone around her was always so happy when she did it. She and only she could do it, and every time she did they gave her the most delicious meal.


    The dusty ground beneath her began to harden and smooth out into clear marble. She cast about for some small object to hold - in this mood, it turned to gold.


    "What in the - ?" said the mustached man. He stepped closer towards where the two were, one sitting, one squatting, and the girl decided on his coattail. They always loved it when she did it to something of theirs. She reached out and grabbed a fistful, intending to rip it off -


    "AAAUGH!" cried the mustached man, and stumbled backwards, right into her nest, which had been forming itself into a delicate tower of cheerful origami. The whole thing ripped and came crashing down on the cotton that was her bed, flying everywhere, her nest, her space, something which had never been touched in all the years the girl had spent in the cage.


    The girl let out a soundless shriek and flaming white exploded from her, dissolving all that was in her path. She did not see the horrified face of the redheaded man before his arm and face disintegrated into a thousand little tiny white particles and mixed with the wind, she did not see her very own nest and the dull grey bars of the cage disappearing into nothing, she did not see how far and wide the white flame spread, further than any transformations had gone before, she knew only that the last vestiges of all she had known was destroyed. The girl clasped to her head and passed out.


    When she awoke, her soul was gone.

 nothing

    Emptiness stretched out ahead of the girl as far as she can see, in every direction. Everything had vanished. The cold, the people, the cage... all around her was just a vast whiteness, a blanket of nothing.


    The girl did not know that she had done this. Nor did she know that far away, people were frantically trying to figure out what had just occurred, or that soon she would be labeled as a monster.


    The girl did not know that as her shock subsided, the blankness was retreating, inch by inch, like melted frost, leaving behind wisps of white smoke and a light, ashy sand. All she knew was that the world consisted of nothing, and she was neither cold nor hot.


    When the girl stood up an emptiness nagged at her, and she realized that the familiar swirl which stemmed from her chest and hovered always protectively about her had gone. She might have felt sad, or worried, or dismayed upon this realization, but there was nothing to feel with, so she didn''t.


    The girl began to walk because she didn''t like being in such a blank world. She thought if she walked far enough perhaps colors would return to the world and she could find her soul again. In the back of her head, she also thought that she ought probably to eat. She didn''t feel hungry, but she knew it was bad not to eat, so she continued to walk at random, for there was no way to tell the direction in a world of nothing.


    The girl did not know how long she walked. There was no sense of night and day, only white. At some point the blankness had retreated almost completely, but stopped as it reached within 10 feet of her, as though it had hit a brick wall. With all that around her being white sand, the girl hardly noticed.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    The girl walked, and walked, and walked. Eventually she walked out of the unending blanket of sand, but the white blankness persisted around her and her soul did not return.


    The girl walked through cobblestone streets which shifted and transformed into an empty nothingness as she approached.


    The girl walked through war torn battlefields, but as the explosives hurled through the air, they dissolved as though hitting an invisible barrier, and never reached her.


    The girl walked past paupers bleeding on the streets, but their cries could not reach her through the vacuum that surrounded her.


    The girl rarely looked at that which was around her. It was too difficult to see past the blank veil that engulfed her within. Outside, men and women fought to get to her, heroes tried to capture her and villains tried to use her, but all who approached her disseminated like sand through a sieve. She became feared, and her name spread.


    All this the girl did not know. She was able to focus on the outside only when her body called to her, and even then she only dimly knew that she ought to eat and she ought to drink because it was bad not to do so. In an odd way, when she focused just like so, food and water would not disintegrate when she approached, and instead rolled to her feet in a cloud of white sand. She was able to pick it up and consume it, chewing mechanically and swallowing. In this way the girl subsisted, oblivious to the world around her, until one day she stopped short.


    There was someone inside her veil.

 sounds

    It had been so long since the girl had last encountered another living being that she wasn¡¯t sure how to begin. By and by she gathered her thoughts, and said, ¡°Who are you?¡±


    The boy had grey tousled hair and appeared to be resting, head drooped and one arm draped over his knee. At the girl¡¯s words he stirred and lifted his head, but the girl noticed that his eyes remained closed.


    ¡°I dunno,¡± he said. ¡°Who are you?¡±


    Suddenly the girl realized that she did not have a name. She understood the concept of a name, and had seen names being used before, but she herself had never received a name.


    The girl was silent. If she could not identify herself, how could she expect others to do the same?


    The girl decided to change her tactics.


    ¡°Why are you here?¡± she asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s so wonderfully silent here,¡± said the boy. ¡°It is so noisy out there nowadays that I have a constant headache. I heard the silence through the chaos, so I sought it out.¡±


    The girl was intrigued, and scooted closer to the boy. As she did so the boy unfurled his palm and relaxed his shoulders.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°You heard... the silence?¡± said the girl. ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I hear... things,¡± said the boy. ¡°It¡¯s hard to describe.¡±


    ¡°Try,¡± said the girl.


    ¡°Well, that old woman there, she sounds like a babbling brook,¡± said the boy. For the first time the girl peered out of her void for something more than food, and realized that she was in an abandoned town square. The only one there was an old woman sitting in the corner on some crumbled red brick, humming happily and turning some yarn over and over in her hands.


    ¡°Let me see...¡± said the boy. He stood up, carefully, and eased out of the whiteness surrounding the girl like a cat through a tight square. Immediately he winced, and eased back inside. When he did so he blinked, and the girl saw beneath his lashes a pair of colorless, milky-white eyes.


    ¡°Not far from us there are a few more people,¡± said the boy. ¡°They sound like nails scratching on a chalkboard. They must be very unhappy.¡± He paused.


    ¡°How did you do that?¡± said the girl.


    ¡°I told you,¡± said the boy. ¡°I hear sounds. Trees sound like a deep, low hum. Flowers sound like a feathery tinkle...¡±


    ¡°No, no,¡± said the girl. ¡°I meant how did you come close to me -" without turning to white sand, she wanted to say, but for the first time in a long time she felt a twinge of something like shame, and stopped short.


    The boy seemed to understand.


    ¡°You mean how did I not get consumed by the silence, right?" he said. "I can... sort of hear the spaces between the silence. And as long as I stay within those spaces, I''m okay."


    The girl nodded. She thought she understood. It was like how she was able to reach out and grasp food and water, except this time, instead of her focusing, the boy could do it of his own free will.

 ocean

    The girl and the boy began to travel together. Where the girl went, the boy followed. Sometimes they would share food. Sometimes they would chat.


    "Where did you come from?"


    "I''m not sure... but it was an enclosed space. It was completely surrounded."


    "Oh! I know, it must have been a cage. I grew up in a cage."


    "What is a cage?"


    "A cage is a beautiful enclosure, with straight silver bars surrounding you on all sides in a cube, with only a small gap in between that you can fit your arms through."


    "A cube? So the top was covered?"


    "Yes."


    "That can''t have been it. There was nothing above us except a warm sizzling and gentle harp melodies. We could run freely. Except we were surrounded on all sides by an unending symphony."


    "A symphony?"


    "Yes. You cannot cross the symphony without a thrumming wooden vessel this big. If you tried to cross it with your bare feet you would get wet."


    "I know! It must have been the ocean!"


    "The ocean?"


    "The ocean is big and blue and contains all the water of the world! I''ve heard it can be calm and beautiful, but sometimes there are terrible storms and the waves are higher than three men combined."Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    "Exactly! Sometimes the song is slow and alluring, but sometimes the music grows so intense that we all have to go inside, or the water would spray everywhere and soak us through."


    "I would like to see that."


    "Well, you can''t."


    "Why?"


    "I haven''t the faintest idea how to find that place again."


    The girl began to think more, and observe more. The whiteness that had surrounded her began to fade, and small flickers of


    flame occasionally caught near her chest, threatening to blow out at the slightest hint of a wind.


    "What did they call you, on your island?"


    The boy thought about this one.


    "A failure."


    "What''s that?"


    "I don''t know, but I wasn''t the only one! There were a bunch of us."


    "Oh!"


    "I think us failures had it good. We had free run of the place, and we got to play with each other whenever we wanted. I used to lie on the sand for hours and hours and listen to the song of the sea. I don''t know what the others did, but they were always talking about tests and they sounded like switches, buttons, and levers. Us failures sounded like dolphins and chirping birds."


    "I want to be a failure, too."


    The were lying on white sand in the nothing that the girl had created and staring up at the 10 feet of nothing above them, and the slight pitter patter of rain on ruined concrete above.


    "I think this is why I like it here so much," confessed the boy. "It reminds me of the ocean."


    "But there is no music," said the girl.


    "Oh, there is," said the boy, under his breath.


    "What?" said the girl.


    "Nothing," said the boy.


    "What is it outside that is so noisy it hurts your ears, anyway?" said the girl.


    "Oh, you know. Just - things." The boy paused for a long moment, then said brightly, "I would like to see the colors of water. Does it truly change from blue to clear, as you describe?"


    "Of course!"


    "Tell me about something else that changes colors."


    "Well, as the sun sets, we call it dusk, and the sky changes from orange to purple..."

 path

    One day, for some reason, the girl thought of the redheaded man. As she did so the air around her flattened, and the edges of the emptiness crept outward just a tiny bit.


    The boy noticed immediately.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± he asked.


    ¡°I met a man once,¡± confessed the girl. ¡°He told me I was free.¡±


    ¡°What does that mean?¡± said the boy.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± said the girl. ¡°But he said I could do whatever I wanted now.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t that what you¡¯re doing?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    The girl was silent for a moment. Then she spoke again.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I have anything I want to do...¡±


    They were in an abandoned orchard, where the weeds grew rampant and far away stood a tattered house with its roof caved in. They had come here because the boy said the music here sounded soothing. He had ventured out of the boundaries of her "safe space," and lay on a patch of clovers that peeked out atop a rotten piece of wood, his hands behind his head.


    "You don''t have anything at all?"


    The girl vaguely remembered others in the cage talking about things they wanted to do, and where they wanted to go. Though she had been in the cage for as long as she could remember, other children came and went, but she never bothered to learn where they had gone. They spoke fondly of sights the girl had not seen, like the ocean, and places they would rather be, but the girl thought the silver cage she lived in was the most beautiful place in the world, and she loved it as she had loved her nest, and feeding time, and being patted on the head.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    But she recalled the dull grey bars, the gaping hole, and chilling wind. And she knew deep down that she could never return there again.


    ¡°I miss how things used to be," she said.


    "Don''t we all," said the boy. He rolled onto his knees and stood up, wiping the dirt from his pants. "I hear the bittersweet thrumming of oboes. There must be something ripe nearby."


    As the boy wandered, his head cocked to the side and his hands out in front of him, the girl marveled at how he moved with such confidence, just as how he had first eased into her life, though he could not see.


    "Here!" said the boy. He stopped before a small, bushlike tree, reached out, and plucked a small, yellow fruit. It was a lemon.


    "Let me try," said the girl.


    The boy tossed the lemon to her and plucked another one for himself.


    The girl caught it, and tore at the skin with her fingernails. When the juice emerged, she took a bite, and as if in reflex the lemon in her hands dissolved silently into white dust.


    "Bleargh!" said the girl, making a face. "So sour!"


    "That''s why the song was bittersweet, I guess," said the boy.


    "I liked apples better," said the girl. Some weeks ago they had traveled through a city that was still mostly intact and bustling. The boy had gone to the market to get some fruit, and they shared it, when he got back.


    The boy paused thoughtfully. "Well, now you know that you like apples. And you don''t like lemons."


    "I suppose that''s true," said the girl.


    "I don''t know what I want to do either," confessed the boy. "I only know what I like. I like some songs, but I don''t like others. And I like lying on sand, in the sun, but I don''t like getting wet."


    "But if you don''t know what you want to do," said the girl. "How can you do what you want?"


    "But I am doing what I want," said the boy. "And so are you. You threw away the lemon because you didn''t like it, didn''t you?"


    "Hm," said the girl.


    The boy sidled back in next to her. "You like how things are now, don''t you?"


    "I do," said the girl.


    "I suppose that''s enough."


    "I suppose it is."

 difference

    The girl began to learn of many things. She liked the moon, and she thought the sun was okay. She liked crunchy foods, but hated sour fruits. She liked small, enclosed spaces, but she didn''t like the smell of rot.


    As she did so, slowly, her soul began to ooze back out, lengthening a little every day, until finally it enclosed both her and the boy in a thin, flickering flame. And as it did so the emptiness around her begin to relax and blades of grass poked through the white sand beneath her feet. Small creatures began to approach her without fear.


    Nobody came for the girl. This was because in the time that she had walked the earth, nobody could figure out how to get past the invisible barrier surrounding her that turned everything to nothing, the barrier that she had accidentally ensnared herself within, the space that the boy referred to as silence.


    In the time she spent with the boy, the world had split into two factions. Those that thought she was a monster, and those that thought she was a victim. They were the same factions that built the cages, and those that had smashed them. But even within them there were murmurs of disagreement, for some cage-smashers had been friends with the redheaded man, and some cage-builders remembered how sweet and obedient the girl had been, and how she had loved them, when they did not deserve love.


    Of course, the girl and the boy knew none of this. They were caught up with other things.


    "Do you still hear the chaos?" said the girl.


    "What do you mean?" said the boy.


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    "Well," said the girl. She paused. "You came here for the silence, didn''t you?"


    "Oh," said the boy.


    There had been a time when the world around him was filled with the sound of glass breaking and metal clashing, laced intermittently with the slow screech of a train scraping against its tracks. At times the noise was so bad that he clutched his head and rolled on the floor and cried, because there was no way to make it stop. Now it sounded like wind with the occasional howl of sirens and the ticking of a clock, along with a regular tapping of plastic cups on wood regimented boom of drums. But he didn''t know how to tell the girl this.


    "It''s not... just the silence," he said.


    "What do you mean?" said the girl.


    The boy tilted his head, thinking.


    ¡°Everyone I meet... I hear their sounds,¡± he said. ¡°But their sounds stay within them. You¡¯re different. Your sounds spill out from you like a river, and contaminates everything that it touches. Even now.¡±


    He was not lying. It may not have been silent, but there was the beautiful melody of a violin. Sweet and warm and mixing like water with the bell chimes of grass, threading itself into the sad moan of an abandoned building.


    The girl was curious.


    "It spills out?" she said. "How far does it go?"


    The boy thought of the moment he had first heard it. When the silence hit like a sonic boom, and he sat bolt upright with shock, listening, with disbelief, to the suddenly muffled noise.


    "Oh, I don''t know," he said. "I think you could infect the whole world if you wanted to. A whole side of it, at least."


    ¡°Oh!¡± said the girl. ¡°Do you think that means I can create an ocean?¡±


    ¡°Maybe!" said the boy.


    They were both excited by the idea.

 habits

    The girl and the boy traveled to many places. The girl had a habit of curling up sleeping on her side, and the boy would hold her as she slept. Every night before they found somewhere soft to nestle down for the night, the boy would place his battered sandals neatly beside his head, as he had always done to prevent them from washing away.


    The girl felt more at ease in small, enclosed spaces, and the boy in the wide open with wind cutting across his cheek, so the boy stayed always on the outside, with one arm around the girl, and one behind his head.


    As they slept little fireflies emerged from the girl''s chest and danced around them, and soft yellow grass and dry pebbles grew from the ground beneath them. And in the morning, as the girl walked, she left a trail of cattails in her path, and flowers unfurled from right beneath her feet. When they encountered an abandoned city, the rubble beneath them smoothed itself out into effortless concrete with every step, and as they approached a withered tree, the tree burst into leaves and ripened with fruit.


    The girl''s soul swirled around them like a diffuse, orange flame. There was no longer any barrier between her and the rest of the world.


    One day they spoke of tricks. And the girl became excited, and wanted to show the boy her favorite trick.


    With her excitement her soul sparkled light yellow, and keeping carefully in that mood, she picked up a rock, and in her hands it turned to gold.


    "See!" said the girl.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    The boy was puzzled.


    "I don''t hear anything different," he said. "Just the same, happy song of a mandolin."


    The girl was miffed. She stuffed the rock into his hands.


    "Oh!" said the boy. "It is colder. And smoother."


    But it didn''t seem that different from all of the other things that had ever transformed around the girl, and the boy wasn''t sure what was so special about it.


    "If only I could see," he said.


    "If only I could hear," said the girl.


    They were both silent.


    "If you could see," said the girl, "what would you want to see?"


    "I want to see the moonlight," said the boy, "and the setting of the sun. I want to see the wind, and I want to see you."


    "Silly," scoffed the girl. "You can''t see the wind." But she was pleased.


    "I want to hear the ocean," she said, "and the song of the storms."


    The boy was intrigued. He had never told this to the girl, but he could hear everything around him except himself. If the girl could hear as he did, he wondered what she would hear when she came close to him.


    These thoughts brought him back to his days on the island, and he remembered something someone had told him, long long ago.


    "I heard once that there is a mirror which grants wishes," he said.


    The girl perked up.


    "Wishes?" she said. "What sort of wishes?"


    "Any wishes, I think," said the boy.


    They were both silent a moment.


    "Shall we find this mirror?"


    "Okay."

 monster

    The boy recalled that the mirror was said to be on a snowy mountaintop, but neither the boy nor the girl knew how to find such a place, so they began searching for people whom they could ask.


    They met a homeless man whose teeth chattered as he spoke.


    "I- I- don''t know of such a thing," said the homeless man. "But if you find it, please help me wish for some warm clothes."


    They met a soldier, who rolled his eyes.


    "A mirror that grants wishes!" he said. "Do you wish to add even more chaos to this world?"


    They met a child, whose eyes lit up upon seeing them and ran straight to the girl, hugging her around the legs.


    "You are so pretty, sister!" said the child, looking up at her and beaming with a small set of uneven teeth. "How do you make the lights dance around you so?"


    The girl felt something warm in her heart, and kneeled down to look the child in the eyes.


    "Would you like to see a trick?" she said.


    But the child''s mother hurried out to pull the child away, eyeing the girl with unease.


    "Monster!" she said. "Don''t come near us." Behind her, the child waved merrily at the girl even as other adults ushered her back into the worn concrete building.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    The girl was upset. The boy could feel the walls nearby crumbling and the ground beneath them shaking dangerously.


    "Why don''t you go sit in that pavilion," he said, "and I''ll ask."


    The girl was still upset, but she nodded.


    When the boy returned, she was sitting on the edge of a fountain with no water.


    "What did they say?" said the girl.


    "They said they didn''t know anything about a mirror like that, but not far from here there is a larger town with more travelers. We may find something there," said the boy.


    "Oh," said the girl.


    They were both silent.


    "What does ''monster'' mean?" asked the girl.


    "I don''t know," said the boy.


    Nobody ever called him such a thing before. When they looked at him they saw only a poor blind boy who was down on his luck, and were kind to him. But those same people warned him to stay away from the girl, and the boy was suddenly reminded of when he had first left the island.


    All the children on the island had been told to clamber into a wooden object that thrummed with solid, steady bass tones and felt flat and hard to the touch, protecting them from the symphony of water that swirled all around them. After a long time they alighted, and there were people, more people than the boy had ever met, so much that the cacophony hurt his ears. Through it all he heard hushed words, words of warning and disquiet, and he recalled the uneasy, fast-paced piano notes and the disjointed, grainy echoes of strings on air.


    "I think it is a name that people use to call that which they do not understand," he said.


    There was a place that the children could all go, together, but the boy split off from the group because from that direction he heard the march of trombones and a regimented percussion, and he wanted to find the source of some quiet, beautiful marimba tones that stood out to him amidst the noise.

 citadel

    By and by the girl and the boy arrived at a citadel, with high walls and a watch tower.


    ¡°I know this place,¡± said the boy. With his eyes closed, he heard the piping of trumpets and the steady, periodic blaring of a French horn. The tune had changed, but it was the location where the children of his island had been told to go, so many years ago.


    The girl approached the great metal gate but then backed off in a sudden bout of shyness.


    ¡°You go first,¡± she said to the boy.


    The boy smiled. He knew that the girl could just walk towards the gate and the metal itself would melt and shift around her to let them in, but he did not press the issue.


    ¡°Come now,¡± he said. ¡°Let¡¯s go in together.¡±


    Before he could do so, someone high above noticed them, and shouted, ¡°Ahoy!¡±


    "Ahoy!" the boy shouted back.


    Up on the city walls two soldiers squinted down at them. "Ability users!" cried one, his voice wavering with the wind. "Whose side are you on!"


    The girl and the boy looked at each other.


    "Do you know of a mirror that grants wishes?" the girl cried back at them. Her voice was like a drop of clear water, undulating in the wind.


    The guards were silent.


    "Who told you of such a thing?" one of them cried.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    The boy tensed. The girl stepped forward to shout back up towards them, but the boy tugged at her sleeve and shook his head. He heard the discordant notes - they were off tune.


    "Shall we leave?" the girl said to him. The ground beneath them glowed a warm gold, and her soul coiled gently around them in shifting hues of coral and red-violet.


    The boy slid his palm over hers.


    The girl looked at him in alarm, her soul darkening to a deep wine. Something was wrong.


    For the first time in a long time the ground beneath them bubbled, and the dust began rising up around them, like a


    shield. But before the particles could complete their path, the metal gates in front of them began to rise, and a small figure stepped out. The child had soft, black hair and wore an oversized tunic. The child smiled at the girl, touched his palm to his head, and extended his palm away again.


    The girl realized that the child could not speak.


    "You - " said the boy.


    Back when the boy was still young, the sounds in his world had so overwhelmed him that he could not distinguish "real" sounds from the sounds he heard, and so never learned to communicate, because he never realized that people were communicating to him. He lived in a world of sound, inundated by the constant whirl of noise, and knew only that the sounds around him changed depending on how he acted, and where he went. It wasn''t until one day, when the music near him actively changed, that somehow a part of the song made sense to him in a way it had never done before.


    "They are speaking to you, you know," whispered the music.


    The boy wanted to speak back, to ask "who are you?", but he did not know how to change the music as it had done. And for the first time he realized he was lonely.


    "Listen," murmured the music. "Hear the words."


    The boy listened.


    In time, he learned how to speak.


    +


    "You know him?" said the girl.


    The mute child smiled at them, placed his right palm over his chest, and moved it in a circular motion. Then he pointed at them, pointed at himself, and cupped one hand, slipping his other hand into it.


    "He says please come inside," said the boy, and as he turned the girl caught a glimpse of his pupils beneath his lashes, milky white and unseeing.

 swamp

    They were lead through multiple winding staircases, and came out at last into a great hall with a large stone arch. The mute child gestured politely at them, but the girl did not understand what he meant.


    The boy heard someone approaching who sounded like wind rustling through roses on a morning field. In the next moment a young woman with flowers in her hair rounded the corner, all nods and smiles.


    ¡°Oh, we are so glad you¡¯re here!¡± she said. ¡°Always so wonderful to meet more survivors.¡±


    The mute child pointed at them, made two o-shapes with his index and thumbs and connected them, and patted his shoulders. He then engaged in a chain of quick gestures that the girl could not follow.


    ¡°Yes, yes,¡± said the woman, nodding. ¡°I see. Come along now,¡± she said, beckoning to the girl and the boy.


    They fell into step behind her.


    ¡°So you are from the island also,¡± she said.


    The boy nodded.


    ¡°Do you know of a mirror that grants wishes?¡± asked the girl.


    The woman furrowed her brows. ¡°No, I don¡¯t believe I do,¡± she said. ¡°But you two can meet with the leader first thing tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°Does he know of a mirror that grants wishes?¡± asked the girl.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    ¡°He will have answers for you,¡± said the woman.


    They came to a long stone corridor and a deep birch door, and the woman opened it with a flourish.


    ¡°Welcome to your room!¡± she said.


    The room was beautiful. In the center was a large bed with velvet pillows and a white veil draped over it. Beside it stood a delicately carved dresser and a mirror as large as the door, and in the corner sat an old oak writing desk with scrolls and several quill pens. The girl stepped in, slowly, but the boy frowned.


    Past the deep rectangular hum of the door, he heard nothing.


    ¡°What is this?¡± he said.


    The girl put a hand on the cool stone walls, feeling the familiar thrum of energy, energy that she could not cross.


    ¡°This is like where I lived before,¡± she said softly.


    ¡°It will prevent harm from coming to those beyond the room,¡± said the woman. ¡°You come along now," she said to the boy.


    ¡°I''m staying with her,¡± said the boy.


    ¡°Hon,¡± said the woman, ¡°I¡¯m afraid that¡¯s far too dangerous.¡±


    ¡°She won¡¯t harm me,¡± said the boy.


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sure she would never intend to,¡± said the woman, ¡°but you must understand, her manifestations are external, so it¡¯s for her own good. Besides, don¡¯t you want to catch up with your friend?¡±


    The boy hesitated. He tilted his head, listening for signs of discord and darkness, but heard only the rustling of roses and the peaceful song of a choir.


    ¡°You¡¯ll see each other tomorrow,¡± said the woman. She smiled at the girl. ¡°It must have been difficult, living like that,¡± she said, ¡°but you''re safe now. We can help you be just like everyone else.¡±


    The boy hesitated a moment longer, but left in the end.


    The girl sat alone on her lush, beautiful bed, in the vast stone room with no windows. Where she had grown up, there was a large skylight cut into the pristine white corridor outside the cage, and she had loved it when moonlight streamed past the silver bars to cast long shadows on her nest.


    Back then, she had been told repeatedly that she lived in a silver cage because she was special, and special people lived in a special place.


    This was the first time that she had been told a place might make her just like everybody else.

 butterfly

    The girl had a dream.


    She dreamt that she was a butterfly with silver wings that landed on a beautiful rice paper lantern whose flame mirrored that of her soul.


    When she woke, she wasn¡¯t sure whether she was a butterfly dreaming that she was a girl, or whether she was a girl dreaming that she was a butterfly.


    In the morning they met with the leader. He was a clean-shaven man with slick hair and a military-grade smile. He sounded like the upbeat drum line of a marching band.


    ¡°A pleasure to meet you,¡± he said. His words were clean and sharp, like the light ding of a triangle.


    ¡°We are seeking a mirror that grants wishes,¡± said the girl, her soul-flame dancing around her with faint echoes of silver.


    The young leader inclined his head. ¡°We have heard of such a mirror,¡± he said, ¡°and sought it, to no avail. I am afraid we cannot help you there.¡± He glanced at the dancing flames, which turned one shade darker. ¡°May I hear what you wish?¡± he said. ¡°We may be able to help you there.¡±


    ¡°We wish to see the ocean,¡± said the girl.


    ¡°I wish to see as she sees,¡± said the boy.


    ¡°I wish to hear as he hears,¡± said the girl.


    The young leader inclined his head once more.


    ¡°Allow me to take you on a tour,¡± he said.


    They followed him, descending through winding staircases and long corridors.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    ¡°We have a girl who can float up into the air as she turns her palms,¡± he said as they walked. ¡°And soar through the skies to anywhere she wills. She can take you two to the ocean in a jiffy.¡± His eyes glittered with pride as he spoke.


    The girl squeezed the boy¡¯s hand.


    The boy heard blends of all sorts of sounds up ahead, past the deep velvet of the walls. There was the regular undulating of an accordion, the blaze of fire, the bright plucking of a harp, all jumbled up but faint, as though muffled by cotton.


    ¡°These are the training grounds,¡± said the leader.


    The girl saw several children, some younger, some older than her, but she could not make out what they were doing. One boy appeared to be focusing intently, another was doing something with his hands, meanwhile a girl appeared to not be doing anything at all. Beneath them was a giant chalk circle crossed with a triangle


    ¡°Do not enter the circle,¡± said the leader. ¡°It¡¯s a safety precaution we added recently, to prevent people from getting hurt.¡±


    ¡°What are they doing?¡± said the girl.


    ¡°Learning how to control and use their manifestations,¡± said the leader. He smiled quietly, and the boy heard confident low beats of a bass drum emanating from him. ¡°We don¡¯t lock people up here,¡± he said, before turning and leading them down another long hallway.


    ¡°Welcome to the laboratory,¡± said the young leader.


    The boy was intrigued. He heard rows upon rows of little spheres brimming with sound. Some sounded angry, some sounded soft, and some sounded mysteriously beautiful.


    The girl saw a cavern filled with vials and potions on shelves in the walls. Something bubbled in a cauldron separated from them by a thin wall of glass.


    ¡°Essences,¡± said the leader. ¡°We¡¯ve figured out a way to distill the essences of certain manifestations, and study them here.¡± He smiled proudly. ¡°Of course, there are other things we study here as well, such as the art of healing and the art of recovery.¡± He walked up to the cauldron. ¡°This is a new formula we are working on that may allow manifestations to be shared with others. The prototype ought to be complete in a few days.¡±


    The girl felt a trickle of excitement, and the air around her crackled and buzzed as though filled with electricity. But at the same time she wondered.


    If her feelings were distilled and shared again with someone else, then did they, in a way, become her?


    Or did a part of her, perhaps, become them?

 web

    The boy had a nightmare.


    He dreamed that a beautiful melody of the flute floated through the air, soft and caressing, and, driven by a quiet pleasure, he followed the music, bare feet padding softly through the grass. The notes took a low turn, then drifted high again, and as he strained to hear the last vestiges of fading sound, suddenly he lost his footing and all around him was the roaring symphony of the ocean, filling up his nose, his ears, his mouth¡­


    He woke with a start and heard only the regimented thrumming of the walls and splashes of people moving here and there a floor below him. The training grounds were too deep, and he could not hear through its ceilings.


    A swirl of music touched him, like the whooshing of a train, and he could feel the questioning intent behind it.


    ¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± he said, and knew without seeing that the mute child was standing in front of his door.


    The music wavered.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised they don¡¯t classify you as external,¡± grumbled the boy. ¡°This is most definitely affecting the world around you.¡±


    The music laughed, like a million tinkling little bells.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    ¡°Sure it does,¡± said the boy. ¡°They just don¡¯t know how to listen.¡±


    The music danced in questionable acknowledgment.


    The boy sighed and slipped out of bed to fold his blankets. He liked the feel of the soft fabric beneath his fingers, ringing in his ears like little dancing fairies.


    They gave him free roam of the castle, and in the past days he had encountered one, two, three children from the island. There were more, he was told, but he had not got round to seeing them all yet.


    It was a relief to be around them. They sounded like waves and sunlight and pipe organs, and because many of them could understand him, as he understood them, there was no need to speak. He spoke to the mute child only because of those early days, when he had first grasped the concept of words, before he had learned to distinguish, just by hearing, the shape and form of another human being.


    He tried asking the mute child what kept him here, and learned of the immense gratitude the mute child felt at being taught to write and communicate in words with his hands. But the boy had trouble understanding. The concept of reading and writing was hard for him to grasp, when all the sounds right there in front of you, and the biggest problem was shutting out the unwanted.


    ¡°How is it so hard for them, I wonder,¡± he said with a sigh.


    The music rose to a curious pitch, and he knew it was throwing the question right back at him.


    The boy shrugged.


    He knew he could enter, as long as there were fragmented bits of music floating here and there, filling the spaces between the silence. It was like hearing the whisper of the wind through a hollow trunk; you just had to listen.


    If ever the music around her ceased completely, then even he could not enter any longer.

 labyrinth

    They told her she was a good girl, and as long as she continued to be a good girl she would be taken care of and treasured all her life.


    They told her she was a monster, and warned their children to stay away from her.


    They told her she was free, and the world was going to be fair to her from now on, just like it was to everybody else.


    ¡°Quit dreaming,¡± said the old man. ¡°The world is not fair.¡±


    The old man had the uncanny ability to induce vivid lucid memories in the girl¡¯s mind, and when he conjured up upsetting images of separation and a cold, dark dungeon, the very air around her thinned and flames burst forth and charred the girl¡¯s skin.


    The old man shook his head.


    ¡°Let¡¯s start by learning not to hurt ourselves,¡± he said.


    He was there because they had offered the girl a chance to use the training grounds, and assigned him to her for assistance, as it is said he specialized in manifestations relating to emotions.


    They had offered the boy the chance as well, but he declined, for he had become fascinated by the study of potions, and how the sound of crystal clear bells could melt at a moment¡¯s notice into a slow, symphonic adagio, or turn again into a sizzling charcoal ball when mixed or consumed. He was interested in the theory behind manifestations as well, but for the first time his ears failed him, for the music of the record books did not tell him what he wished to learn.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    On the third try the girl broke down in tears, and an angry flurry of snow buried the stone floors and crested her and the old man¡¯s hair in a fine white powder. She had agreed to this only because they promised she could visit the west wing, where the boy lived, more frequently once she had proved a ¡°reasonable degree of safety.¡± But she had never thought that it would be so hard, or so physically painful, to get ahold of her own feelings.


    ¡°Why me?¡± cried she, who had never had to reign in herself for as long as she lived. ¡°Why is it that I alone must suffer and affect the world around me, when all others are fine?¡±


    ¡°Child, all people affect the world around them,¡± said the old man. ¡°It is only that you are more obvious.¡±


    ¡°It is not fair,¡± cried the girl, and her soul flickered like lightning.


    ¡°All men must go through a labyrinth to slay the beast,¡± said the old man. ¡°And the path there is so elaborate and convoluted that many never find their way at all.¡± He regarded the girl, whose soul crackled and snapped with electricity like a whiplash. ¡°But you, my child, are born in the belly of the beast.¡± He sighed. ¡°Consider it a blessing¡­ or a curse.¡±


    ¡°How could this be a blessing,¡± said the girl, as a storm of dust began to brew about her.


    ¡°You are never lost,¡± said the old man, and as he gazed as her there was a sort of sadness, a melancholy that drifted off of him and settled slowly on the ground.


    At last the girl¡¯s soul quieted, and she raised her head to look at the old man through her tear-streaked face.


    ¡°And you?¡± she asked. ¡°Have you slain your beast?¡±


    The old man was silent, and said no more.