Against the Tide - A New Elysium Story [Complete]

27. Fragments

Hurried footsteps echoed through the empty hallway, coming from behind and approaching her rapidly. Null whirled around and found herself staring at herself - or rather, her younger self. A hand reached out and grabbed her arm to pull her out of the way, and the girl walked past her at a brisk pace without taking any notice of her presence.

"Fancy meeting you here," Lars said and smirked next to her.

She looked after the girl in confusion as she disappeared around the nearest corner.

"What is this? A dream?" Null asked.

"A memory, I believe," Lars replied, casting a glance along the hallway after the girl. "Shall we go after her and see where she's headed to?"

He stretched his hand out to her, and she hesitated for a moment. She looked up and down the hallway. The place seemed familiar but she could not say what it was, or when. But she felt like this was an older memory. The girl she had just seen had been quite young. It was probably from before she had met Riga, so it was likely to be safe. Finally, she nodded and took his hand.

Together they walked along the deserted hallway. To their left, sunlight fell through high, ornate windows and drew complicated patterns on the tiled floor. To their right, the wall was covered in colorful posters with illegible writing.

"Organic memory..." Null explained, as Lars stopped for a second to try and decipher them. "It's not as precise as yours."

"Oh, of course," he said, and they continued on their way.

They found the girl again around the next corner. She stood before a closed door with one hand on the handle, and seemed to hesitate before entering. But as if she had waited for them, once they approached her, she took a deep breath, rolled back her shoulders and opened it.

The room inside was a small auditorium. Several people turned their heads to look at her, but they were all faceless. The room seemed to flicker and shift as the girl quickly squeezed into one of the benches at the very back of the room.

At the front, glass boxes of various sizes had been set up on a large table. They contained colorful biological specimens, from branches with multi-colored leaves to dishes with moss and lichens growing inside. In one of them, a colorful fungal-like growth grew in fuzzy fibers all over the place, spanning between the glass walls like spiderwebs. It looked like a rainbow had exploded inside the box and had been frozen halfway through the process.

The lecturer raised her head to look at the girl who had come late. She was an elderly woman who wore her grey hair tied up into a tight knot on top of her head. Her face was much clearer than those of the other people. It was wrinkled, but looked soft, not like the face of somebody who had been aged by chagrin and weariness, but rather of somebody who had lived life to its fullest for many decades.

"Miss Langdon," the woman said, "How kind of you to grace us with your presence."

Evelyn's shoulders slumped and she seemed to shrink a couple of inches into her seat.

"Sorry..." she mumbled, barely audibly. "I had to work late..."

The woman ignored her excuse.

"Since you apparently seem to believe that you do not require to attend my classes full-time, surely you can come to the front and tell your colleagues something about today's specimens?"

Her voice did not betray any disdain or anger, it seemed rather amused. Null felt as if she was on the verge of remembering something important about the woman, but the sensation washed over her without leaving any realization behind.