G A Y L E
03. the curious case of cyrene de mercier
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I wake up in a strange room. It's white and completely empty save for a brown chair smack in the middle of it. There are no doors or windows, and it just looks like a giant cube.
I scratch my head as it begins to pulsate a little bit. "Thalia?" I call out for my friend but my voice just echoes through the room.
I begin to walk around, searching for any kind of exit.
How did I even get here?
Maybe it was Apollo. I try to ignore the shivers that run down my spine with that daunting thought.
"Thalia!" I scream again after what feels like five minutes of me wandering aimlessly. I feel goosebumps on my skin and it's like all the walls are caving in.
It's getting a little harder to breathe.
"Your friend cannot hear you. Nobody can." A voice that sounds eerily familiar echoes throughout the room, and when I turn around somebody is sat on that empty chair in the middle of the room.
It's me.
Only, it's not me.
She looks exactly like I look, down to the very last facial feature, only she is wearing a large red ballgown and there is much jewelry on her body, along with a tiara atop her head.
She has somehow summoned a table next to the chair and is now stirring a cup of tea with some golden teaspoon.
She looks calm, not surprised to see me as she takes a sip of tea. She places her fancy cup on the table placidly before finally making direct eye contact with me.
"Where am I?" I spare no time recovering from my shock. I must be dreaming or something, it's the only thing that makes sense. I'm still unconscious and when I wake up I'll be right there on my apartment floor where I collapsed.
I try to pinch myself but nothing happens.
I'm still here.
"Fancy a cup of tea?" She asks, smiling at me pitifully. "I, myself, fancy jasmine, howbeit if you prefer chamomile or regular..." She smiles serenely.
Those goosebumps return to my skin as I face my doppelgänger. "How about we get straight to the point..." I reply, waiting for her to fill in her name.
"Cyrene." She fills it in for me with a gracious smile of her coral tinted lips. "Very well, Gayle. Let us not beat about it." She gets up from her chair, and it disappears behind her, along with the tea and table that once was.
Her hands are linked together before her as she sashays towards me.
Once she feels that she is close enough, she sighs.
"Are you real?" I ask her, attempting for the umpteenth time to pinch myself awake.
She seems uneasy, as if explaining this simple thing to me would tip some kind of scale somewhere.
"Yes." After much deliberation, she settles for that simple response.
"See, I would believe you if you hadn't taken so long to answer, Cyrene." I challenge her and she arches a perfectly shaped brow at me.
"I am real, Gayle," she starts pacing before me, her perfectly crafted finger nails crossed over her chest.
"We are deep in the centre of your subconscious. Where I reside." She explains patiently.
"Where you reside? So basically what you're saying is that you are me?" I'm giving myself a headache trying to piece this all together.
She frowns, shaking her head. "No."
"Well if you aren't me, then what are you doing in the centre of my subconscious?" I ask her, marching to the chair that has reappeared behind her and spilling onto it.
"This is very difficult to explain, so I'm going to try to put it into simpler terms for you." She clears her throat.
"My name is Cyrene de Mercier. I am a French princess from the 15th century. I died when I was exactly your age, and for a while I ceased to exist. No, I did not go to heaven or hell, I just wasn't." She paused for a moment, eyes watering at the thought.
"Until you were born."
"You've been part of my subconscious from the day I was born?" I ask her, brow arching incredulous.
She nods. "Imagine how dull it was watching you grow up," rolling her eyes.
"It wasn't until recently that I understood why I was put here of all places."
I patiently wait for her to elaborate while she builds suspense.
"Apollo." A small, pitiful smile etches onto her coral lips at the thought of the man currently tied up in my apartment.
"You mean that walking Psych-Ward out there?" I drawl sarcastically and she shoots me a glare, urging me to shut up.
"I've been given a second chance to be with him. We were meant to be together." The desperation in her voice is loud enough to calm concerts, and her eyes are welling with what look like tears of joy.
I'm trying not to be weirded out by the fact that there's been a girl who looks like a better, richer version of me camping out in my subconscious my entire life.
Although I don't want it to, it kind of makes sense. All the times I felt a second heart beating in my chest, and all the times it was like my emotions were being ruled by somebody else completely.
"That's nice and all, I'm very impressed, really... but what does all this have to do with me?"
Her smile has faded and been replaced by a frown, until it seems a lightbulb goes off in her head.
She saunters closer to me, and at the tip of her fingers, a light seems to go off. Like a firefly in the darkness at the tip of her fingers.
She ambles towards me, her fingers outstretched before her as she presses them against my forehead with that light.
"What the – " but before I can further my protests, everything rushes back to me in waves, and all the memories play out before me like an old foreign film.
I remember everything.
I remember my best friend of all time, Ariel. I remember her disappearing when we turned sixteen, only to return last year and tell us she has been fated to a Greek god, that she needed to go help fight a war brewing on Mount. Olympus.
I remember offering to help, and not taking no for an answer. I remember all of those strange creatures, and of course, I remember meeting Apollo.
Apollo. He was another one of those Greek gods.
I remember Ariel's fated love coming over, telling me that this was what she wanted.
I remember him wiping my memories.
All the pieces are creating a puzzle now, a massive puzzle.
"Do you understand now?" Cyrene asks me. I remember Apollo mentioning her name that first time we met. I remember that jolt I felt in my chest that I couldn't understand.
I nod at her, and she smiles, seemingly relieved.
"I need you to ask him if there is anyway we can be together finally. Please." She begs me and I nod, pitying her more.
All of this for a guy?
She doesn't say much else, only presses her fingers against my forehead again, and the pulsating feeling is back, but not before I open my eyes, and I'm back on the cold floors of my apartment.