Eternal Silence - Sigils

Chapter 5 – Veil of Voices:

Singing off key to the same tune as the music coming through the store speakers was a favorite thing of mine. It usually happens in our quiet times of the day, then I would sit behind the counter and doodle on a random piece of paper. It made me forget a little about the unusual sci-fi my life had become but sitting here while Echo was on a food run made me feel like my old self.

It’s been a week that I have been out of the hospital, and I have been doing well. The only bizarre thing lately is the weather, it has been thunderstorm after thunderstorm, and I do not like them one bit. The city has been dark and cold for about the same time I have been back out in the world, and I miss the sun right about now. Getting up in the morning to go to class or even work was a really difficult thing to wrap my head around.

“That’s what you get when you let your heart win. Whoa whoaaho…” I sang out loud and heard the bell of the door jingle to the store and in walked the beautiful Echo, “I drown down all my senses with the sound of its beating, and that’s what you get when you let your heart win.”

“I was just singing that!” She beamed and placed a brown bag on top of the counter.

“Really? It was echoing in my head.” I told her and began opening the bag to find my sandwich she ran out to get, “Yes! Come here you handsome looking baguette.”

I hastily began unwrapping the sandwich and gripped it firmly, before proceeding to place my mouth over it in a very unpleasant sight and began making very pleasurable and satisfying sounds.

“That is utterly disgusting.” Echo stated while I could barely close my mouth from the huge bite I had taken, “I must do it…”

I chuckled while trying to not let a piece fall straight out of my mouth as she continued to follow my lead, by taking a huge bite of her sandwich. 

“Wow that is not easy,” She said with a mouthful of bread, hiding her jaws of steel behind her hand while chewing.

“I kinda wanted to ask you something…” I began as she gestured for me to continue, “Do you think it is possible to dream of someone you have never met?”

I stared at her waiting for her delayed reply due to the food she was swirling in her mouth, as she sighed and tried chewing as fast as she could.

“Whenever you’re ready…” I teased and she scowled at me. She then continued to swallow hard and gave a little sigh of relief.

“It is, I mean I have seen some randoms in my dreams that just kinda fill the background, y’know.”

“What if the person is not at all in the background, and more like, right there with you interacting”

“Suppose. I mean our noggins are a complicated thing.” She shrugged and took a sip of her strawberry juice.

I nodded my head while looking down at the little wet ring her drink had created on the counter. I opened my mouth to tell her about the weird dreams that I keep getting, but my lips snapped shut within seconds while I watched the reflection of her phone in her glasses.

“Ugh life is weird!” I sighed heavy and just took another bite of my sandwich.

“What is with the dream questions anyway?” she asked me and placed her phone next to her drink “Have something crazy running around in your head?”

I laughed briefly in hesitation, “Just some research I guess…”

“You don’t sound sure.” Echo replied while slurping on her pink drink eye-balling me from the side.

I intentionally began chewing slower, rocking on the chair looking down to my feet so I didn’t have to reply to her at once. At that moment I wasn’t sure if I could disclose what I was thinking to her, as I wasn’t even sure how to explain it, or that I might sound a little paranoid and like I have been watching way too many Supernatural episodes. I felt I didn’t have enough to go on just yet, as I knew she’d play it all down by rationalizing it to coincidence and maybe that wasn’t something I wanted to hear just yet.

“Well, I will just have to see what I can gather information from. So, I will get back to you on this.” I stood up shrugging, crumpling the sandwich packet between my hands before tossing it into the bin under the desk.

“Google is your friend.” She leaned back in her chair and held up her drink in the air in an “amen fashion” to her statement.

“I might need something more reliable than Google.” I said and was met with a very confused face, frowning at me like I was a math question she had to unravel.

Echo coughed once, “The hell…?”

“When I think research, I think library, call me crazy.”

“Stupid, I’ll call you stupid.” She stated while chewing on the last bit of sandwich from lunch, “It is not easy to find things there, especially if you are looking for something specific - which knowing you, you certainly are – and then you have to read through the entire book in hopes of finding what you want, and before you know it twenty years has passed and you are on book four.”

“Are you a Google sponsored post?” I grinned at her amusingly and she scowled at me fiercely.

“No, I am just saying that Google is a time saver when it comes down to looking for specific things and has so many records of endless information.” She replied and got up from her seat tossing her paper from the sandwich at me.

“I know how the internet works.” I laughed

We heard someone come in through the door and our eyes fell on a gentleman with light brown hair, wearing a matching red shirt and cap, with the shirt neatly tucked into his trousers.

“Hi, delivery for Music&Merch” The guy smiled politely after reading from the clipboard.

“Yes, coming.” Echo answered him before he went out the door again. “All I am saying is that googling for your answer is a more time efficient way than the library in my opinion, but you’re going to do what you want to do anyway.”

I had a tiny smirk on my face mulling over her reply as to how senseless I am wanting to go to the library instead of just typing stuff into Google.

“Leave me alone and go do your job!” I yelled at her once she went through the door, and she left me with a rude hand gesture before disappearing and returning her hand to her side.

Laughing to myself by her action to “politely” tell me to piss off, the laptop caught my eye and I sighed thinking it couldn’t hurt to try and see if the internet could give me some answers. I hauled my body towards the chair and plopped down right in front of the screen.

“Now…what do we ask?” I wondered with my fingers ready at the keys.

Staring at the colorful name in front of me, I think my brain started to hurt just trying to find exactly the right sentence as to what I was looking for.

‘Dreaming of someone you don’t know’ – I typed in the little bar, ignoring all the suggestions that popped up. After pressing enter my eyes fell on an elusive picture that was right at the top in a tidy little black frame, and next to it a little paragraph:

‘If the neurologists are wrong, your dreams have a subconscious meaning of some sort. If they do, then perhaps your mind is trying to fill some subconscious need, desire or fear. If the person is positive in your dream, you may want to have someone happy and supportive in your real life.’

“Well if that isn’t vague as f**k…”

I continued reading titles aloud to myself, but none of them really seemed just right. Let it be known I had no idea what I was looking for, but for some or other reason I knew that when I find it, I would know. Like something would just click and I would go “Ah-ha, I knew it!” – but I am also pretty sure I did not know it. How could I?

After about five-minutes of reading through titles, questions, explanations and some people’s longing to just feel love from someone they were pining for, I considered rephrasing the question I typed in hoping I would find something, anything, that could point me anywhere that didn’t just give me generic answers.

 ‘Same person appearing in my dreams’ – After pressing enter and skimming through some of the results, I finally gave an exasperated sigh of frustration and abruptly quit the browser. As much as I loved Google for so many things, this might be a time where it simply could not be of any assistance. Maybe I was just going about this in the wrong way and focusing on the wrong things, my dreams have been way to intense to just make it off as coincidence at the end of the day, right?

While lounging on the chair, feeling defeated after my entire ten-minutes of hardcore research, the same link  I previously closed popped open again on the screen and kept scrolling through results at an alarming pace. I scooted up from the chair frowning at the screen, seeing titles pass over my screen on their own accord.  I tried clicking the mouse frantically to get some control back, but it kept scrolling.

“I think the computer is possessed!” I yelled while still clicking my heart out trying to stop the madness from continuing.

Grunting at the screen in an attempt to get it to behave, I was met with someone tossing shirts and other goods on the glass counter. I looked up to a familiar face I know, mostly by reputation and small encounters at school, and a cute girl hanging on his arm bouncing on her heels from anticipation.

“Well now, becoming as always.” Devon said with a smug look upon his face.

I grabbed the first item in front of me, which was a black extra small crop top, and rang it up before starting to fold it.

“This crop should look ravishing on you Devon.” I mocked before grabbing the next item.

I saw him grin before he leaned in onto the counter with his forearms.

“Think of me in crops often?”

“What I have to say next might disappoint you.” I replied to him, lifting both my brows because he hardly featured in any of my thoughts. 

“Then let’s just keep this lingering.” Devon shot a glimpse of his pearly whites to me, before grabbing the girl next to him, enfolding her in a tight embrace.

I cringed in distaste at how smug he was, and how everyone seemed to throw themselves at him. His family has everyone running up and down for them, doing what they want and how they want it, I guess when it comes down to a legacy, you don’t dare steer away from the blueprint that has worked so well for generations of your family.

“Please make sure you wrap the delicates in chiffon paper,” the vanilla-scented-blond-youngster leaned in and put emphasis on the word for me, almost like she wanted to keep it a secret from the boy who was buying it all for her, or maybe I looked like I lacked the decorum to handle her request.

I looked at her and had to choke a chuckle, “Of course!” I beamed and turned around to the cupboard behind me to get a sheet of chiffon paper out to wrap her “delicates” in.

I can pretend like a few $7 thongs were Agent Provocateur lingerie that needed the extra loving care. I am nothing but accommodating. As I laid the black chiffon on the counter, I neatly placed the poly-cotton blends in the center and folded it for them.

“You don’t have a softer color, do you?” She asked again and I looked up, bouncing my eyes from her to Devon and back.

“Sorry, only shades of black, you know, hues that match our aesthetic,” I answered her and began ringing up the last few items.

“Meghan is only kidding. Black is fine.” Devon said after a second as I could see he was also trying to wash away the amused grin on his face.

“That will be $119.99” I smiled, sliding the brown paper bag with the items towards them on the glass counter.

After exchanging virtual money from a plastic card to our stores bank account, and endless awkward glares waiting for the payment to go through, I handed them the receipt and waved goodbye.

“Is it just me, or do they just keep getting younger?” Echo joined me at the counter and both of us stared at Devon and one of his conquests as they walked past the store window.

“I think we are getting old.”

“Bite your tongue!” Echo gasped shocked and then playfully shrugged, “Eh, who cares.”

“Now go grab that clipboard, gurl. We have work to do.” I threw it her way while walking to the backroom.

We spent the rest of our working hours messing around and doing inventory, like the monthly routine required from us. We filled the hours with dancing around with our clipboards and singing very off key when we were alone in the store.

“Would you mind locking up alone?” I asked Echo as I began getting ready to leave.

“Sure, I don’t mind. What do you have planned?”

“I am eager to get to the library.” I told her while tying my shoes.

“You have me intrigued miss Winters, I won’t lie.” She raised her brow while speaking with a sophisticated voice.

“I owe you!” I rushed to the door, “Bye beach!”

I felt the cold air touch my cheeks. The weather has been unpredictable with storms and howling winds which would play tricks on me when the frequency hit my ears in a certain way, making it sound like I am hearing things.

As I walked down the sidewalk, I must have looked really dodgy while frowning, looking back at passing people, who I swore said something to me. A feeling of being followed also crept over me, and because of that I pretended to scratch or look at store windows to take a gander of my surroundings a few times. Paranoia was real – yet I could not shake the feeling of subtle breathing at the back of my neck. Snuggling in further into my coat I stuck my hands in my pocket and walked to the huge concrete building holding the knowledge of decades – or so I hoped.

I am not sure what I expected but what I got was a mix of both modern and gothic century, almost as if they kept the old structures for history and good bones but wanted to accommodate the new world with technology and stylized furniture – I might have been relying on what I see in movies too much here. Standing halted in the foyer I was looking for any indication on where to start. The library had huge boards up on the walls for direction you may need but I felt I was reading through stuff I knew nothing about.

With a huff a decided to just make my way to the information desk to ask someone to hold my hand and give some direction to the department I wanted.

“Hi,” I greeted unbuttoning my jacket as I could feel I was getting a tad flushed.

A pale white hand was held up with dull pinkish nails gesturing for me to wait. My eyes wandered over the cold iron desk an older woman sat at with a stern look as she finished writing something down. Once she was done, her chair creaked, and she looked down to me over the top of her thick rimmed glasses.

“What is it you want?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you would be able to point me in the direction of the dream section. You know – what dreams might mean or why dreams often have the same-“

“And this you deem important…?”

While my lips were still formed in the word that was next in my sentence, a good second passed as her glare intensified, “I assumed that was rhetorical.”

“Assumptions are most likely the ruin of this world. Vapid minds coming into my library that hold centuries of wisdom your little head can not comprehend, asking me about meaningless information about propaganda conjured up by a Godless nation.” She scoffed at me making me feel more uncomfortable by the second.

“…so you don’t have books on astrology?” Ignoring her passive-aggressive behavior, I still had questions I needed answers to.

“Please stop wasting my time.” She turned back to the pile of books in front of her leaving me flabbergasted.

“Do you maybe have like…a map or a general-“

I was met with an intense glare and pursed lips and decided to hold both my hands up, backing away slowly. Man, I never knew your butt could sweat. I think it was sweat, maybe I peed myself a little. That woman had all my little hairs on my body standing up straight.  I decided to leave this moody, ancient old bat to deal with her own bad attitude and to instead scout the people currently occupying the library as to what books they were reading.

My eyes darted along the rows as I looked left and right trying to catch the category names of each section.  Things became blurry fast as my vision got caught up with all the information of structured words, a maze of rows of books of  various colors  and size.  I felt defeated by the logical side of my head – the one time I want to do research. Thanks for doing me a solid.

“Arlia,”

A soft voice accompanied by a light touch on my shoulder lifted me from the haze of my own recognized the very person responsible for my current turmoil,  my eyes grew wide as the old lady from the information desk stood in front of me and I visibly flinched expecting another verbal attack, but I registered that she seemed calm in her demeaner, so I relaxed my body and eased my face muscles once I saw the light smile on her lips.

“Follow me.”  She softly whispered.

She began walking away from me in the opposite direction. Frowning, my feet began following her, but then my brain registered that she called me by my name…. Wait!, how did she know my name?

The sky had turned a darker shade of navy from what I could see through the few windows placed alongside the roof. The library grew hushed as we made our way to an area that did not look as restored as the rest of the shelves. I looked back to take in how far this librarian was leading me.

“Oh, we just passed astrology…”I paused and pointed to the shelves but she just kept on walking, in an absent fashion, “Okay.” I thought and continued warily following her.

Now – one of two things were going to happen. One: this woman felt bad about how she reacted earlier and wanted to help me, so she was taking me to the correct place where I could find what I was looking for. Two: She was leading me to my demise which she would likely be the cause of.  As our initial introduction did not go off on the right foot I was inclined to lean more towards option number two.. Swallowing a knot in my throat, I clenched my bag tight ready to pounce if she made one wrong move. Instead of jumping around and chasing me down the aisle, she came to a stop, turned her body to the left and pointed towards a row of books.

“You’ll find what you need here.” She motioned.

I narrowed my eyes at her, still untrusting. I proceeded with caution not taking my eyes off her and her lightly brown hair in a loose sagging bun on her head.

“Thank you…”  I stammered unsurely.

In the same unresponsive manner she led me to this section, she turned around and walked back to the common areas where the reading nooks and study areas were located.

“Wait, this says Folklore!” I yelled back looking down the passage, but she seemed to have been swallowed into thin air, nowhere to be found.

Dumbfounded by this strange and unusual encounter, I dug out my phone and began typing a message to Echo to relay the bizarre turn of events.

“Okay. I get it. Libraries bad, internet good. If I don’t make it back in one piece the old lady at the front desk is suspect numero uno…”

Placing my phone back in my bag, I felt rather puzzled. I could not put my finger on it but ever since I came out of the hospital things felt and looked different. My encounters felt strange and a rush of uncertainty washed over me almost as if reality wasn’t a real thing. This would happen daily. I cannot help but wonder – am I dead or even real? Am I floating within a void of someone’s thoughts and experiences? Is anything around me even what I know and understand it to be? It is unsettling. I need answers somehow, some way, or I need to be put in the crazy house as it feels like I am genuinely losing my mind.

I turned my attention to the rows of books the old lady directed me to, and my fingers danced on the old wooden shelves as I gazed through the selections lined up next to one another. The dull lighting made everything seem a lot more ominous and gripping. One by one the titles flashed by while I browsed past them one-by-one. Nothing caught my attention as I dusted some of them off while scrutinizing the content. I was certain mythology was not the place I intended to browse through, and I felt very discouraged at this point. If Google and the library cannot assist me then maybe I am just looking for meaning to something that is simply just in my head. Wanting to believe there is more – something bigger – perhaps I am having a teeny quarter life crisis. Everybody get those right?

I heard a loud thud and with a loud yelp I whipped my head around to see a book that had somehow fallen onto the floor where I had just passed a minute or two ago. Frowning, I looked around to see if someone might have been there, but it was all dead quiet and I am sure I would have heard or seen another human tossing books about. I walked cautiously over and looked at the shelf it was closest to, thinking it probably fell out when I put a book back, but to my fascination, there were no open spaces between any of them.

Returning my focused to the book laying between my feet I had to dwell on where it had come from. Are books just magically flying about and falling out of the sky in this place? I had to look up at the ceiling for a second when that thought hit me, perhaps that is how libraries get their inventory.

“Oh yeah, otherworldly dimensions are just popping open all over the place now.” I sarcastically mocked myself at the crazy thoughts I was having.

Again, the book caught my attention when I saw a vast ray of light bounce from it. Raising an eyebrow, I bent down to pick it up, curiously examining. It did not look like a book that had been mass produced as it had a rather rough texture to it and had gold details on the cover that wrapped around the spine. No images. No blurb or write up of what it contained, just a simple title edged in gold and a cursive title.

“The In Between.” I whispered while my fingertips gently moved along the words.

Opening it up, the pages were older and rather discolored, but you could tell it was well preserved. It looked more like an old diary or journal of someone from decades ago, if not more. Turning the first stained page there seemed to be a short description written by hand in black ink.

“As above, so below, what you reap is what you sow and what you give comes back threefold, as above so below.”

Once the last word left my lips a swarm of whispering surrounded me and seemed to hit me in waves. Frantically I began looking around to see if someone was here with me playing a trick, hiding between the tall bookshelves. My breathing intensified as I walked to the passage and as soon as I closed the book, the whispering stopped. Heaving with the book in my one hand I took a few steps backward until my back hit the tall wooden frame, I slid down slowly against it to the floor feeling flustered and on the verge of tears. I was convinced I was losing my mind.

Glaring down at the book that was now resting on my lap, I cautiously considered opening it again as my fingers grazed the top corners. I swallowed a knot breathing in deeply and abruptly opened the book in one fast movement. My eyes roamed the darkened spaces around me in anticipation of something, anything to jump from the depth of the shadows confirming that I am not going crazy.  I waited, breathing in slow harsh breaths but nothing happened. My eyes roamed the already open pages and I realized that it was written in a foreign language, one I could not comprehend, maybe Latin or Greek? I was completely clueless.

There were also little symbols on the sides of the page, written bigger than the text and paragraphs. It drew me instantly and I lifted my legs, so my knees came towards me bringing the book closer. It was compelling. I turned another page to see if the symbols continued and it did. There seemed to be a pattern of two symbols next to the spine of each page in the center. Different patterns. The longer I stared at them the more I was fascinated by them and how beautiful they were. I turned another page and as my hand gently slid over the delicate textured paper, the words lit up in a faint golden glow and a paragraph began re-arranging itself right in front of my eyes.

Holding my breath, I watched as these luminous words arranged themselves into sentences that I could understand. It took everything within me not to freak out, throw the book and run for my life. I could feel I was being watched again as the subtle breathing on my neck returned. I closed my eyes as I was not sure what I was feeling or even experiencing, so a neutral reaction was all I had in me. I could even have been frozen in fear for all I know.

Everything felt heavy around me. My chest. My shoulders. My breathing even slowed down, and I could hear my heart beating so clearly. I became aware of  a build-up in the pit of my stomach, almost like I had to run to the bathroom to throw-up – but then the tension suddenly eased... Release.

“Can this just stop?!”

I yelled out in alarm causing rows of books to tumble off the shelves in front of where I was sitting, and the wood creaked in low echoes from it all. Stunned by the hundreds of books suddenly disturbed from their place and now lying on the floor, I finally shot up from where I was sitting to run out of this horror movie that I seemed to be in. I was officially freaked out.