The door slid open, slowly at first, bearing the weight of years of inactivity. The dry smell of dust seized her at once, but she didn't even wrinkle her nose. For too long she had been breathing only the damp, heavy air of the Shadowlands; such a puny detail could not bother her any more.
Inside, it was dark and cold. Nobody had entered the vast apartment since she had left, and the thick dust covering the floors bore no traces of feet, save for her own when she finally walked into the corridor, letting the door close again with a wheezy sound. At some point during her absence, the cleaning droids had just stopped working, and the system, in the absence of any owner, had never picked up again. She had left a mess when she had departed; she was now facing a dirty mess.
She didn't swear, didn't flinch, didn't frown in disgust. Her eyes, quiet and dark, wandered for a moment on this place she failed to really recognize as her own. She paused and blinked. The ghosts that still lived there could only recoil when facing her deep gaze. The chiming laughter of a child. Words of love and comfort. Meetings held around the table. Weird experiments in the kitchen. Again, she blinked, and they vanished, leaving only silence and darkness.
The woman dropped her bag onto the ground; she was already walking forward, leaving behind her the items that had been her only companions there, beyond the Portal. Life had fled from the apartment a long time ago, but its echoes still remained nonetheless, ready to be wakened up by the slightest stir of a memory. She wouldn't have it -- not this way. She hadn't come back to face the same old shadows. She had been half-sick of shadows, of those shadows.
There were the chairs, the low tables, the bathroom, the bedroom, too, where she had slept, where she had loved him, where she had talked at length with her daughter. Her voice didn't quiver when she quietly spoke the command to open the heavy shutters; a minute later, rays of sun poured down into the room, unveiling more dust, revealing the remnants of a painful past. Electronic notebooks thrown on the ground. Clothes spread on the bed. A Leet stuffed doll on a chest of drawers. Near it, a simple, golden ring in its little box, the same ring that had once adorned her hand. A mirror, surrounded by dozens of holo-pictures, the copies of which she had taken with her, recorded in her Grid-unit, yet never looked at any more in the past months.
Those were yours.
"Those were mine," she repeated aloud, fancying the sound of her own voice. Once upon a time, sadness, regrets and despair had marred it. Now, in the deep silence, it sounded like someone else's. Seldom had she had an opportunity to talk in the dark lands, save for the odd encounter with Traders to buy them some food.
She took a few steps to look in the mirror, and there she stood for a long time, contemplating her pale face, her lithe body made more muscular by two long years of trekking in the cursed wilderness of Elysium and Scheol. Her dark hair had grown longer, hastily braided in her back for the sole purpose of keeping it out of the way; the two white locks framing her cheeks and pointy chin were still here, too, perhaps thicker than before. She cocked her head right, then left, peering at the reflection of those deep eyes in front of her. Her very own eyes. She wore no makeup any more, and only now was she starting to realize how dirty she looked, in her armor soiled with blood, dust and black earth. She hadn't cared back then, not every day, at least.
"Something's... wrong," she whispered, marvelling at the move of her pale lips in the mirror.
She wiped her face with a corner of her old cloak, and stepped closer to the mirror to examine her features again. The holo-pictures caught her attention, and she reached for a few of them.
A young woman, her hair definitely matching her own, clad in the black uniform of the Omni-InternOps department. On a second picture, another woman, an Opifex, this time, bearing white streaks in her long hair; her arm was playfully tugged under that of a scowling, bald, ageing man in a trenchcoat. A third picture - a tiny Opifex girl, perhaps ten or twelve years old; behind it, the small data-disc containing a copy of her marks at school.
She kept silent. A fourth picture. A man with short spiky hair and tatoos on his cheeks. Him. She had shed tears of grief and despair on that picture on the cliffs of Nascence. She had mourned his disappearance near the glassy pools of Elysium. And then, time had washed away the old wounds, wrapping the painful memories behind a thin yet solid veil of understanding and acceptance.
For the first time since she had entered the apartment, the woman smiled, as if slowly remembering how to make her face perform such an act. In the mirror, her image changed as well.
"I know. I look older. On tha pictures," she said at last.
You didn't have many reasons to smile, in the end.
"I hope I'll have some. I wanna smile again."
Oh, but you're already doing a very decent job.
"Hope so."
She shrugged, then slid the corners of the pictures back behind the mirror's frame. Again, memories stirred in her heart, and for a second, she froze, fearing that they'd bring back with them her old lot of tears. But her heart kept quiet, her gaze remained steady, her smile didn't drop. She understood, and let out a very slight sigh.
She had put herself to the test by coming back here, for she would have had to do it sooner or later. And now, she knew for sure that she had won. A victory over herself, over her past, over the darkest times she had ever gone through. Many things had happened, things she would maybe recall someday, if anyone was ever to ask her; learning had been hard and painful at times, and surprisingly easier at others. And when she had looked into the abyss...
She let go of the pictures. Someday, she'd have to put them away – not to get rid of them, but to leave room for new memories, new pictures, new facts, new smiles.
"That place's is in a mess. Think our housework-droids are still under warranty?"
You bought them from RUR, right?
"Yeah."
So they're probably not.
"Oh. Well. I'll hafta try my hand at hacking their catalogue, then. Drop Charissa my visit card."
You're so considerate.
The smile came back, turned to a grin. An old grin, her old grin. By the Grid, what a dirty girl, there, facing her in the mirror! It didn't matter in the Xan ruins, but now she wanted to see what she had become without a layer of filth and dust in the way.
I know what you think.
"Mmh. But not now. That place needs more cleaning than I. An' I have something else to do first. By tha way, ya wouldn't remember where I dropped my Yalm keys? Or where I docked that stupid plane, even?"
***********
((Yeah, well, I'm back. You can tell from the length of my posts.Sure, I won't be able to be here every day – the problem with wanting to take a national competitive exam is that you need to prepare for it three years in advance.
But a RL friend wanted to try the game, I offered to be her guide in n00b island, and... and I realized I really wanted to give AO a try again. Even if I'm so completely lost regarding all the changes that happened while I was away.
So... Hello, old friends. Yes, you, in the corner, from "my" old days, if you're still here. As for the others, I hope we'll get to meet soon. After all, here's a former InternOps operative ready to resume duty. Omni-Tek prevails.))
))
