Final Truth

Chapter 65: Take My Hand

Julia's point of view:

Time becomes as lost as a whisper in the wind while I lay on that patch of grass, trying to grasp what's left of my sanity about as well as one can keep water from slipping through their fingers.

If I could leave my body for just a moment, step back and see what I would look like to someone else, I would be presented with a girl splayed on the ground, a heap of limbs, of black hair, and of tangled strings. She shivers from the wet clothes on her body and the lingering screams in her mind, lolls her head around and sees the world around her, but does not comprehend it. She does not live; she merely exists.

She imagines using her powers to disappear from reality, to pull the earth over her body so that she might not have to be a part of it anymore, to rip all the memories out of her own head so that she might forget it all, so that she might start over, so that she might never remember how pathetic she really is.

Ice fills my veins and spreads throughout my body like poison at this image, but I pull the incoming numbness around me like a blanket in an effort to block it all out.

Finish the test, I think to myself. It's the only thing you can do now.

I sigh deeply, the kind of breath that leaves a person on the cusp of falling into an abyss, and weakly push myself off of the ground to look at where I've been taken this time, opening my eyes to the world in an effort to truly see this time instead of just staring.

And when I do, I find myself at the mouth of a maze.

Towering hedges of green rise high above my head and split off in the distance, different paths crossing to create an enigma for me to navigate as I sense that the maze goes on for miles.

The strings around my fingers begin to hum, the slight glow to them pulsing, almost as if I were near the place where I would finally find their end. And like previous instances, they tug me forward, beckoning me to do their bidding.

Only this time, I'm not afraid.

Perhaps some part of me should be considering all the horrors I've experienced thus far, but I can't bring myself to feel much of anything at the moment. Not fear and not even hesitation.

And why should I? Everyone I love is dead. Gone. Ascended somewhere much better and left me behind. Or maybe not; maybe those screams were real and they're being tortured while I stand here and stare at the hedges. But those screams couldn't be real. They can't put real life in a test, can they? Am I still even in a test anymore? Maybe this world is real and all my memories are fake. Perhaps Peter never existed. Perhaps none of them did. Yes, that would be better. If they didn't exist, then they couldn't be tortured anymore. Oh goodness, my head hurts. I don't feel quite right. I want this all to end. I want to end. What I would give to not exist.

I cross the threshold into the maze, heart full of ice and head full of confusion.

But as I take those first few steps, a different sort of feeling engulfs me, a kind of serenity of humming silence that blocks out all my frantic thoughts and chases away lingering grief. Sound becomes distorted, almost as if the walls of the maze could block it all out to give me clarity. It's a strange phenomenon, but I don't pay it much attention; if I want to enhance my hearing, I most certainly will.

I close my eyes and shift my feet against the ground just so, the movement sending waves of motion outwards to give me a clear picture of this place. The images reflect into my head, showing me the maze in its entirety: the thing stretches on for miles upon miles, paths intersecting upon each other to form a network as complex and structured as the human body. And the hedges shift to make new paths every few minutes, creating dead ends where there was once freedom to move and vice versa. The one thing I cannot sense, however, is the end. No, there is no clear indication of the destination I must reach to pass through. Even the strings around my fingers have gone cold from stepping inside now, useless in where they might lead me.