Emerald Seas II

Chapter 5

At the beginning of At World's End, just before the song has been sung..

Location: Unknown?

People disappear all the time. Sailors get lost at sea before they wash up ashore. Children stray from their parents just before they're welcomed back by warm hands and embrace. Young women run away from their homes in the hope to find true love. Most are found eventually. Disappearances, after all, have explanations.. usually.

Strange how it felt like she remembered so little, from her life before this 'place'. And even though she didn't want it to be the only memory she could recall at this very moment, it was this last vided memory that stayed with her the most. Swallowed by the waves, never to see the last ray lights of the sun setting in the ocean.

These emerald eyes framed by long red locks of hair, now watching back into a broken dusty mirror, staring so long at the pale face of the young woman inside the reflection. Kate almost forgot who it was inside that mirror, but it was getting slowly back to her. Each day that passed, just a little more.

This place, this other world, that haunting dream that seemed endless, was making her head foggy. Until something, sometimes the smallest things remembered her of the life she had before, and like a puzzle, it started to fall into place and all come back to her. Like the moment Kate noticed, after staring back at her own reflection long enough and while removing a small curl of hair from her face, the line on her left-hand ring finger. There had been something there for quite a time, the slight tan line and the dent in her skin must have been carrying a ring. And suddenly she remembered quite clearly how it had gotten there. An emerald too... why was she constantly thinking about an emerald? Ah yes, the ring, the ring that had meant so much to her.

She gave up on trying to remember constantly most days, or at least what felt like days. Time was something she couldn't really grasp right now. It wasn't like the sun was rising and setting from what she could see, it was just light whenever it was light and dark.. very dark at moments that sometimes seemed to get out of nowhere.

Moving from her place at the small dressing table Kate strolled to the only window inside the room, an old creaky window from which the paint was peeling off, the same old paint that covered her dressing table. Her sight rested on the endless nothingness she had seen for what felt like a hundred times. Kate had panicked and had tried to escape this place many times the first days she had spent inside this room after she had woken. But she had soon learned it was impossible. It was her home now, even though she didn't know why, how, and where she had ended up.

It was only just when something that looked like dawn had settled in, and Kate had just woken from what felt like an eternal sleep, an important memory passed her mind, a memory of her life before all this. And a name.. a name that kept on entering her mind, but she couldn't really remember it as it kept on slipping her mind again as she was thinking about it for too long.

Her slender figure moved from the bed in the middle of the room, the long off white lace gown she was wearing for all of the time she had spent inside this place, was dragging behind her slow stroll to the window. The dawn like light touched the empty landscapes that were revealed from her window. It almost seemed like there would be an ocean beyond her horizon from where she was standing, but it wasn't clear enough to make anything out of it. Kate had been outside before, more times than she could count. It wasn't like she really tried to escape this place, it was as if she had accepted her fate, but something inside her grew each day like she wasn't supposed to be here. There was a purpose, a goal, a life, beyond this one, that kept on calling for her. It drew her outside, to once again take a walk on the endless landscape that didn't change. And so she did. Once outside it was just a single breeze that lifted the locks of her long red hair, hanging loose partly over her shoulder, partly down her back. Looking up Kate watched the tower-like building that was her 'home' now. It was only a little while back, she had suddenly come up with a word that described her new home perfectly. A lighthouse. The big scale on top of the building was holding a flame, that was slowly turning and turning. Kate couldn't recall what a lighthouse was supposed to do, but it made her calm when the darkness had returned. Earlier she'd spent hours watching the flame dance inside the scale that shone further than walking was possible.