The Eternal Doom

Chapter 12, WALKING BACK TO THE STREET OF DREAMS.

Now the mansion was in a deep sleep, and Stephen blundered downstairs with slow steps, with his grave eyes facing the semi-darkness in the hall, with the shadows of the moon entering inside. Everything was so silent, but again the whispers of Mr. Erick were lingering, the same whispers which always made Stephen pause. and Mr. Erick's voice was so audible and slurred with sorrow and sadness. It was a whisper filled with sadness. "Don't leave me, my darling; please come back, Della! You know how much I've been missing you! Come back for the sake of my broken soul." Stephen was standing with grave whispers around him, swaying in the hall. The wind entered, making the draperies flow slightly. "Come back, Della!" these whispers were going on. Now there was a momentary pause of the whispers, and the silence of the mansion appeared again. "When will I see you?" the voice rose again. "If you are not coming, I will come to see you there. Good night! Darling, never sleep for too long!" Now the voice of Mr. Erick was finally ended but it left a despairing effect on Stephen, who listened to those sad pleading whispers, which reminded him that he is the one who had called that nightmare into the lives of those who were left by the angel of death in that night, for the immortal dream.

"I know I might never find the words to tell her how much I missed her, or to her father, who has been suffering in sadness for her. I hope she will come back soon." Stephen left his whispers in the darkness of the silent hall, with the moonlight falling in so dimly. 

The brick road of the mansion was so lonely under the hazy sky. He walked over it as it was half hidden in the darkness which was half-illuminated by the dull light of the winter moon, which was coming through the wall of the swirling mist, which seemed to be invading over the sky, the sky which appeared like a hidden world filled with hidden angels landing in the middle of the night; may be in the world of immortals, perhaps not landing, but roaming; to see the midnight world where the immortals must be sleeping with the dreams of immortality, with no existence of hell and heaven. He was walking in the place, which was only hit by the dull light of the sky, as the moon was now hiding behind a compelling mist, while the earth was still somehow illuminated by a greyish light. Everything stood so silent, except something was flowing with the whispers of the wind. Stephen drifted his eyes over the strange huge tree erected by the outside wall of the deserted mansion like a candelabra. Its charm seemed to awake angels and demons to play in the haze of swirling mist around the gigantic tree which dark abyss of night, as if it not belonging in the earth, as it was grown in some other world. Oh, how it was playing silently with the wind! Is it a tree? Or something else? Something which compelled the soul of Stephen towered in it. The way its dangling overloaded branches were waving in the wind, and the way its chandeliers of leaves glowed in the rusty light of the street lamp. It seemed as if the pale rusty smoke were flowing down from somewhere; or sometimes it seemed as if a thousand diffused lanterns were burning like shadows. Stephen stood with his eyes transfixed on the tree as it was standing stark against the hazy sky, merging with the mist around it, shaded with the rusty orangey light of the street. It seemed as if the devil and the angels were circling around that tree, playing the game of GOD; as if GOD had made that tree from his own wizard world.

The wind came brushing over the face of Stephen. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Erick, but I have to flee into the immortal world right now, in search of an answer which I have to give myself. I have to find out whether it was me who brought that nightmare to the chapel world," he whispered huskily, taking a long glance at the sleeping mansion which was half merged in darkness under the strange glow in the sky; and then he clung to the same old wall, hidden under the foliage of wild plants, along with the orange lantern. The silent gusts of the wind appeared around him, as now he was standing in the deserted mansion again, where everything seemed to awake the secret memories. The plants stood like a dark blend of the shadows in the mist, but still he could feel their whispers, a whispering of loneliness.