Steady Ground | ✔

7 | The memories are missing

Atlas followed Arrone, his feet unsteady on the soft, slick floor beneath him. They had been walking for at least an hour now, quietly talking about Arrone's interpretation of the voice's challenge.

"I doubt the eyes will be the portal out of here," Atlas said softly. "The... voice never said there would be any portal out. He didn't say anything other than to figure it out."

Arrone nodded. Atlas knew his manager understood him, but his insistence that he had it all figured out still left him doubtful. How could they figure out a puzzle before they even saw the pieces?

"No, but this does," he said, holding up whatever invisible object he had been given.

Atlas couldn't help but squint.

They were both going crazy. He knew the only person who could see the now-empty photobook he held against his chest with one arm was him, and that fact was bothersome, especially since he didn't know what to do with it.

The photos and memories that had leaped out of his book, into the sky, didn't give them an exit map. They had nothing to do with eyes. 

They just made him feel like he was missing, like when he returned, he wouldn't have any of those memories left, like the film above their heads stole them. Even if the memories remained, could he ever look at them the same?

He walked with his head down, his jacket hood up over his head to shield the sight away. The soft crinkling of nylon wasn't quite enough to drown out the sound of the memories that played above his head, but paired with the distraction of their conversation and their new goal, he could tone it out a little bit.

Still, every once in a while the soothing bubble of his mother's laughter and the blood chilling sound he screamed the day she died crept in.

He couldn't let the conversation drop, or he'd really go insane.

He peeked up at his Arrone, nodding toward his item. "What is it?" he asked, carefully. He never got a solid answer before, but his curiosity was constantly nudging him to ask again.

His manager lowered it down to his side. "Oh, it really doesn't matter what it is."

Atlas peeked over at him. Just what was his manager seeing that brought his voice so low? What memory had brought him here like a siren drawing in a sailor? "How am I supposed to understand your game plan then?"

"You just have to trust me."

Hiking up to the forest and lake that shaped the face's eye wasn't easy. As the cheek continued sloping upwards, he realized how little his boots could hold traction on the skin, especially as it became damp the further they inclined, as if the being was silently sobbing.

They slid and near-crawled their way up to the top, Atlas' shout from above occasionally echoing through the air. Arrone couldn't hear it. If anything about this place made him insane, it was that awful, gut twisting sound that he made the day his mother collapsed.

Small weeds grew up ahead, fuzzy like cattails. They stood completely still, casting sombre shadows that striped the lower eyelid. 

The water of the lake beyond them was solemn as well, glassy and dark, not a single ripple maring its surface. There were no whites like an eye, only dark ink that reflected everything around it like a mirror.

Atlas held his breath as he walked near it, looking down at his reflection in the water.

It wasn't a lake.

Arrone kneeled down beside it, cautiously placing a hand to touch the surface. Encouraged somehow, he submerged his arm, and he touched the bottom before the water reached his elbow, grabbing a handful of dark, fertilized soil and lifting it up. The water streamed down from his hand, and every drop that landed back into the pool didn't leave a single ripple, like its stillness had never been disturbed in the first place.