Sarah looked towards the stairs. Slowly she approached them.
She paused when she reached the base of the steps and she looked up. She could see another door at the top of the stairwell. It was painted white. This door frightened Sarah. It was ominous and represented a great unknown.
Sarah took a deep breath. Then slowly she began walking up the stairs. As she did so she attempted to prepare herself for what she may find.
With each step the fear in Sarah’s heart grew. Each step became a trial. She thought of the look she had seen on Catalina’s face. Go back to your room, her mind screamed. Yet she pushed herself forward. She needed to reach the top of these steps. She needed to go through that door.
Finally, there were no more steps to climb. Sarah stood before the white door. She was encompassed with fear. She took another deep breath and put her hand on the door knob.
She readied herself.
Sarah turned the door knob and pushed the door open.
Sarah had not seen daylight for quite some time. The bright light of the outside world blinded her momentarily. She closed her eyes to try to adjust to the new environment.
When she opened them what she saw took her breath away.
Sarah saw sky. However, it was not any sky she recognized. It was a sky that looked as if it was made out of shattered glass. The sky appeared to be composed of fragments of other skies. The splinters of this shattered glass sky formed a tapestry with a multitude of colors.
As Sarah stared into this strange sky she saw that one splinter of it showed stars. Those stars whirled by the shard that displayed them. Another fragment showed sunlight. Another shard showed clouds. One fragment of sky had the moon. Another fragment had storms. Some fragments were still. Others spun and danced.
The sky that Sarah was looking up at was impossible. However, somewhere in her core Sarah knew it was as real as she was. If that meant anything now.
In an instant Sarah knew she had been taken very far from home. She also knew this place did not exist in the world she had known.
As she stared up at the wonder of the heavens a voice spoke.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” the voice said from behind Sarah.
Sarah recognized the voice instantly. She turned and saw the old woman who had tormented so many of her nights. The old woman smiled sadly.
The old woman was seated on a bench. It was a slight distance away from the door that Sarah had just stepped through. Sarah saw that the door she had just exited seemed to be built into a rocky hill.
A wave of conflicting emotions washed over Sarah as she stared at the old woman. She wanted to attack the woman. She wanted to hurt this woman who had tormented and terrified her for so long. One thought prevented that. This woman was the only person with answers. She was the only person who understood this strange sky.
The old woman stood up. She did this with the aid of her wooden cane.
She walked past Sarah. She focused on the strange sky. “Even after all these years I’m still in awe every time I look up at this sky,” the old woman said. “It is…one of the most amazing constructions ever conceived.”
The old woman turned to Sarah. “A gifted man created this sky. He was part genius, part artist. Can you imagine being an artist so great that you can build a sky?”
The old woman was silent for a moment. The she said, “He created all of this.”
Sarah took her eyes off the old woman. She let her eyes study her surroundings in fuller detail. Before her was a large field. Near the center of the field was a small pond where one tree stood. The field itself was surrounded by hills and between two of those hills was a forest. As Sarah continued to scan the horizon, in the distance, she saw a valley. In that valley Sarah saw several buildings. Sarah realized it was a small city. It was composed of buildings of all shapes and sizes. They were painted a multitude of colors as diverse as the sky above.
Despite her hatred of the old woman Sarah was fascinated. She looked back up at the fragmented world she was now inside. It felt like she was inside a snow globe that was cracked and shaken. It was as if colored glitter was swirling all around her.
The old woman was still looking at Sarah. “Sarah,” she said. “One day…maybe you can build a sky. That is why you are here. You are very special. So is Catalina…so is Isiah…all of you are. You all have the capability to one day build a sky.”
The old woman approached Sarah.
“My name is Belili. I’m sorry Sarah…I’m sorry things have had to happen like they did…but it had to be done.”
Sarah looked at the old woman.
“I want to go back home,” Sarah said. “I want to see my mother.”
A frown appeared on Belili’s face.
“Maybe…maybe one day you can. Maybe…but for now…this is your home. I know you hate me. I know you hate all that has happened. But know this Sarah…know that you are here…for your mother. You are here to save her. We have brought you here for a very special reason. What you do here…you will do for your family…you will do for all those you ever loved.”
Sarah’s mind was now spinning as the sky above her spun.
“I…I don’t understand,” Sarah said.
Belili smiled.
“You will Sarah. You will. I promise. But all the answers will come with time. Just be a little bit more patient. After all this time I ask for just a little more patience. In the next few days you will learn more. But for now…take some time to reflect on all this. Take some time to understand…you are far from home. You have stepped outside of the natural order. But know…it is for the greater good. There will be no more locks for you Sarah. No more cells. You are…free. Soon you will be free in a way very few can ever know.”
Sarah looked at the city below. She understood that at some point she could walk the streets between those strange buildings. There were a multitude of places to explore in those streets. Her mind echoed the old woman’s words. No more locks.
However, right now Sarah did not want to go to that city. Instead she turned from it. Sarah knew she would not get much more information from the old woman. In truth she was not sure that at this moment she could handle much more information. Seeing this strange sky was almost too much for her mind to handle.
Sarah turned towards the white door. She walked towards it and again opened it. However, this time she descended the staircase. She could go anywhere in his strange land that she wanted to but there was only one place she wanted to be right now. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be in her bed with her mother singing to her.
Seeing the sky had shown Sarah that she was very far away from that possibility. So, Sarah was returning to the only other home she knew. It was a home she had lived in for the last few years. Belili told her it was a home with no more locks. Did it matter? Where would she go? Where could she go when even the sky made no sense?
She thought of Belili’s words. Belili said answers would come in time. Sarah had no idea what answers would come. She was terrified of those answers in many ways. She was frightened of the uncertainty of the future which is why she chose to return to the comfort of the one place she had come to know best over the years.
Sarah slowly walked down the hallway towards her room. A cell, after all, with no locks is just a room. As she walked down the hallway a voice called out to her.
“Sarah…is that you?”
Sarah knew the voice. It was Isiah.
“Yes,” she replied.
“What’s going on?” Isiah asked. “What’s happening?”
Sarah reflected on his words for some time. His words seemed strange. How could she explain any of what she had just learned to him? How could she make him understand all the madness she had just seen?
She only had one response. It was the only thing she could think to say. “You have to see,” she said. “You just have to see.”
Isiah was silent. She knew the dread he was feeling. She had felt the same thing upon hearing Catalina’s wor
ds. However, Sarah could not offer words of comfort for what she herself could scarcely comprehend. He would have to see for himself.
Sarah shuffled into her room. She had dreamt of leaving her room since she first came to this place. Her heart had sung to see a time when the door was no longer locked. Now it no longer was. However, she was returning to this room of her own free will. It was strange the way a prison can become a home. It was strange that a dungeon can become a safe haven.
Sarah stepped into the room that had been her prison and did something she never imagined she would ever do. She closed the door through her own free will. She closed the door that for so long she had yearned to open.
In the strangeness of a universe composed of walls Sarah now felt safer inside those walls. She felt safer in this universe she knew rather than the strange and mysterious universe that she now knew existed outside.
***
One by one the doors to all the rooms were unlocked. One by one all the children were introduced to their strange new reality.
Sarah awaited Isiah’s return on the day his door was unlocked. She watched him as he pushed open the door to his cell. He was aware that there was something that needed to be seen at the top of the stairs.
When he exited his cell he first went to Sarah’s room. Her door was open. Isiah stood at her doorway. Sarah sat silently in her bed. She did not say anything. They stared at each other in silence. They had lived next to each other for years but Sarah had only seen Isiah once. It was the time he tried to escape. Sarah saw her friend had a kind face.
She gave him a gentle smile. He nodded. He understood that he needed to go up the stairs. He needed to go outside. He turned and began walking to the staircase with the white door at the top. Sarah went to her doorway and watched him walk up the stairs.
She waited. In her mind she counted. She thought of a playground she liked to go to in a life long ago. She would always get on the swings. Sarah pictured herself there now. She imagined that she was on one of those swings. She imagined that nothing in her life had changed. She pictured the playground in as much detail as she could. In her mind she counted her swings slowly. She counted the slow and gentle arcs. It was much like counting the swings of a pendulum in a grandfather clock. She reached a count of four hundred and eighty-one swings when she saw a shadow descending down the staircase. She knew the shadow belonged to Isiah.
A few moments later he appeared. He had the same dazed look in his eyes that they all had after seeing the madness of the sky.
He stopped for a moment. He turned and looked at Sarah. The expression in his eyes said it all. Without words they both communicated. Without words they both understood each other. Sarah did not know why but she felt the need to go up to Isiah. She threw her arms around him and hugged him. In many ways Isiah had been her only true friend over the last few years. They had communicated across the hallway when they could. She had told him of her home. She had told him her mother’s name. Isiah had talked of his life. They had bonded in this strange place together. They had been bonded through fear. They had drawn strength from one another. Now as they moved into a new strange unknown they moved in that direction together.
Isiah squeezed Sarah back. Sarah had already had time to come to terms with what she had seen. Isiah had not.
Sarah followed Isiah back to his room. She sat on the floor and watched him as he sat on his bed. In his mind he was putting together all that he had witnessed. He was trying to organize it and make sense of it. Sarah understood the thoughts flowing through his mind even though he had said nothing. Her thoughts had flowed in a similar manner just days before. She waited patiently. He needed to speak in his own time.
Finally, after what seemed like hours Isiah spoke. He did so without looking at Sarah. “Where are we?” he asked. It was the simplest of questions. It was a practical question. However, the sky indicated that the answer was extremely complex.
“I don’t know yet,” Sarah replied. “I think they are waiting for all of us to see. Then they will tell us.”
Isiah nodded in agreement. “We could free them. Those who’s doors are still locked. We could open all their doors,” he said. “Together we could.”
“Why?” Sarah asked plainly. “I think that at some point they all will be freed. But they are doing it one at a time. They are doing it one at a time for a specific reason. They want us each to see it and understand and come to terms with it. Then I think they’ll tell us more.”
Isiah looked at Sarah. “Then I guess we wait,” he replied. For Isiah and Sarah waiting was easy. They had literally been waiting in these rooms for years.
As the days passed they began to meet other children as they were freed. Sarah knew some of them from conversation through locked doors. Others she did not know. In all there were twenty-seven children who had been imprisoned in this place for years.
On occasion they would see Joshua come down the stairs. They were all still frightened of him and would go to their rooms when they heard him coming. He carried with him a giant key ring. They watched as he would unlock another door. He would then disappear up the stairs and those that were free would watch as another child would emerge from their prison.
They children who had been freed never said anything to the children in these newly unlocked cells. They waited for them to discover things in their own time. When a new child emerged from their room all the children would stand by their doors and watch as the child went up the steps. They would watch and wait in silence as the child came back down. Then they would give that child space. They would let that person come to terms with all that they had seen. They knew when the child was ready they would join the other children and begin to intermingle. Slowly their group grew and all the children drew strength from one another.
Freedom was a strange thing. After living so long behind walls the idea that the children could go where they chose unchecked was almost more frightening then being locked in a cell.
The children did not go outside often in the first days of their freedom. When they did they stared at the strange sky and debated what it meant. They mostly stayed in their rooms. On the occasions when they did go outside they spent that time in the field that surrounded their hill.
At times there were moments when they forgot about the strangeness of this place. Sometimes for very brief instances they were just children. They would run through that field chasing each other and playing games. They all became friends. They understood each other from their shared experience.
The answers that awaited them in the future hung like a phantom over them. So, they pushed it from their minds. They found moments when they could just be children. Together they laughed. Together they played.
Sometimes Sarah would look to the small city below. None of the children were ready to venture there. Instead they were waiting for the answers that they had all been promised.
They would wait for an explanation to why they were all taken from their homes. They would wait for an explanation of the sky which looked so much like shattered glass.
***
The Philosophical Principles of Death. The Scripture of Farinata Uaegli Abertio.
Gospel 004181
Nothing is perpetual. Noting is eternal on this plane. That is how we know we are right in our faith. We know our religion is truth. The laws of the universe have shown us truth.
My children, read this and know that hence forth we shall be a great people. We will go out and spread the light of the Truth of God. Much life will be extinguished at our hands.
We do this not out of hate or malice but out of the understanding that we are doing the work of God. God made us his chosen people for a reason.
He left us alone in darkness to see the light of wisdom. The pain and suffering we endure is for the greater good as we the servants of God...
Verse Four: The Prodigies
The day for answers arrived.
Sarah was in her room when Catalina came to find her. Sarah was s
itting on her cot reading when suddenly Catalina burst through the doorway. She was breathing heavily.
“Belili, is calling for all the children to come meet her by the pond,” Catalina said.
Sarah’s heart began beating faster. She understood from the look in Catalina’s eyes that this was the moment that they had all been waiting for.
Sarah followed as Catalina gathered the rest of the children. Together they ascended the staircase and went outside. Some of the other children were already waiting for them as they stepped from the doorway into their new world under its strange sky. Sarah saw that Isiah was among them.
He was staring into the distance. Sarah followed his gaze and realized that he was staring at the pond. Sarah saw Belili was there waiting. Belili was not looking in the children’s direction. Instead she was looking at the horizon.
“We’re all here,” Catalina said.
“Let’s go,” Isiah replied. Together the children made their way to the pond where Belili was waiting for them.
They stopped when they were a few yards behind Belili. She was aware of their presences but she did not turn. Instead she merely said, “It is time. Follow me.”
Belili began walking towards an area between two hills. Sarah realized there was a path between these hills. The children followed silently.
Their walk took them near the strange forest. The children were scared of the forest. These lands contained plenty of mystery but the forest stood out oddly even amongst a place that was completely odd. Some of the children had ventured near it but all were too afraid to enter it. The trees appeared dead and lifeless. The little foliage that clung to them seemed rotted.
As they continued walking Sarah realized that the strange sky did not stretch on forever. She saw that her comparison of this place to a snow globe was not as far off as she might have thought. As they walked Sarah saw that the sky was beginning to curve downward. It was as if this strange world was encased in a dome. Belili was now leading the children towards the borders of this dome.
Prisons of Stolen Dreams Page 7