Utopia of The Infinite [C]

The woodland seemed too calm to be genuine.

The air was silent, as if even sound had paused to listen. Towering trees, gnarled and pallid, formed a ragged circle around a stone memorial half-buried in moss. There were no birds. No wind. Just breath, heartbeat, and a slight hum beneath their feet as if the earth itself was hiding a long-buried secret.

Auri went forward first, her boots brushing across the soft earth. She wasn't sure why she knew the way but every part of her did. The grove had appeared in her dreams. The curving ridges on the stone. The hollow at the centre. Her body recalled even if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

"This is it" she said gently. 

"This is where I saw the gate"

Wen knelt before the statue and drew out her tablet. The screen buzzed once and then went dark. Fried.

"There's too much signal. There's too much code"  She glanced up. 

"This place doesn't want to be measured"

Mira approached the monument, running her fingers gently and reverently down it’s base. Her fingertips followed grooves in the stone, which pulsed quietly beneath her skin, much like veins under warm flesh.

And suddenly the light appeared. Not unexpected. Not bright. It unfolded.

Lines of letters began to light, spiralling upward from the base in a pattern similar to breathing. The monument relocated. A seam opened. And out of it a person emerged tall, faceless, enveloped in moving lines of light and memory.

No feet. No face. No weapon. It's just presence.

"Solmira" Auri whispered. 

The name had been buried in her tongue for a lifetime. The Guardian of Knowledge did not speak loudly. She did not need to. Each girl heard a voice within her head layered, old, and unnaturally still.

"You have found the root of forgetting"

"And the reason it was given"

The females stood in a loose arc, motionless and scarcely breathing. Solmira approached Auri first.

"You were once the bearer of the entire pattern. The thread that kept the initial cycle together. You mapped the loop”

"You tried to break it. But it broke you first"

Auri clinched her jaw. 

"I chose to forget"

“You begged to forget. To spare others. To protect yourself"

"And so I sealed it"

Auri said nothing.

"The others were also adjusted. Not erased. Softened. Blurred. Just enough to keep the scheme going. Just enough to keep it from crushing you"

Wen frowned his brow. 

"So we were set up to walk blind"

"You were scheduled to stroll together. And slowly. Carefully or the memory will shatter you again"

There was a prolonged hush. Then Izzy took a step forward, arms folded, her voice calm.

"I remembered" she said. 

"Not everything. However, the ship is breaking. The panic. The noise. The fall. I kept telling myself it was only a dream"

Sera nodded silently. 

"I have sensed echoes. Emotional wounds that belonged to a different version of me. People I missed without realising why"

Mira looked at them, wide-eyed. 

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Izzy's voice sounded low. 

"Because it would not have helped. We were not ready. If I had pushed it….if I had told you all. I could have hurt more than I helped"

Auri's eyes met Sera's. 

"You, too?"

Sera's shoulders rose slightly. 

"I didn't want to be the reason you doubted yourself"

Auri blinked, a quick breath caught in her throat. She gazed at them, not in hatred, but with sadness.

"We were never meant to win the first time, were we?" She questioned Solmira.

"No. You were supposed to learn. and fail. And forget"

"Until you could choose truth even when it hurt"

Solmira raised a hand, and light spread out like water over glass.

"Now you could recall. Fully. If you want. But it will have consequences. Pain. Clarity. It won't be like a dream. It will be real"

"The choice is yours"

The girls did not talk for a long time. The grove awaited.

"I'd rather remember and hurt" Rhei eventually concluded.

"Than smile through a lie"

Wen nodded slowly. 

"We can't fix a world we don't understand"

Mira turned to face Auri.

"It's your decision. If you say no, I will follow you"

Auri examined them all, one by one. Each face is filled with terror, courage, and something greater than both.

"No more forgetting" she stated. 

"We remember together"

Solmira pushed forward, her body transforming into strands of light. She stroked their foreheads one by one. And one by one, they remembered. Not only photos but with feelings. Flashbacks of previous live, loops lived and lost.

The initial cycle. The initial ship. The first treachery. Auri opted to give up her thoughts in order to protect the others. Hundreds of times, they had almost succeeded but failed.

The fall. The burning. The quiet that followed.

Each one felt like they were living through fire. Mira wept softly. Izzy trembled. Wen covered her lips with her palm. Auri sank on her knees but she did not shout. Sera knelt besides her, wrapping her arms around her. Mira followed. Then Lyra.

For the first time in any recollection, fresh or old, they did not break apart on their own. They held. When the images vanished, Solmira remained still, her light dimmed and her presence diminished.

"You are no longer who you were"

"You are now who you have become"

"And now you may choose to break what was built"

She moved to the grove's edge. The roots separated to show ancient stone stairs descending down.

"The Core awaits"

Solmira bowed once, then dissipated into dispersed symbols that drifted upward like sparks. Nobody spoke. They stood in the warmth of what remained, which had transformed. Not stronger. Simply real.

Wen eventually murmured.

"Now we know"

Auri rose slowly, wiping the blood off her lip, her voice scratchy.

"And we're still here"