Part of "My Parallel World" Chapter: Hallucinations

It’s a cold winter night. She is wearing a long black dress that she found yesterday in her old wardrobe. She’s sitting in her red old-fashioned armchair in her room and reading an interesting book to pass her limitless free time. She has only a couple of candles to help her continue her reading.

This house seems much bigger now that she’s living here alone.
Now that there’s nobody to share it.

This house also seems to be in a deep silence especially at the long nights of the winter.

Suddenly the silence is interrupted by a weird sound, like something has fallen on the floor. She has stopped her reading and her eyes have started looking on the wall in front of her. The absolute silence, like the silence before a storm.

And now another sound is being heard. It’s like someone is walking downstairs. But she’s living alone here, isn’t she? After that, the sound of a door opening is heard. That wasn’t definitely her imagination though.

She is standing up carefully and quietly because she doesn’t want to be heard. She’s starting to walk with a candle in her left hand towards the open door of the room that leads to the long corridor and the stairs. She’s trying not to make noise but the old floor doesn’t help her at all. Nothing like that has ever happened to her, so she is afraid because she doesn’t know what to do next but she can't stop walking. She’s reaching the stairs now. She’s staying still.

All of a sudden, a strange melody is being heard all over the house. It’s the strange music she used to listen a long time ago. Someone is playing the piano. Fear doesn’t exist anymore for her; she can’t believe that she’s listening to her favorite song again. She’s descending the stairs quite quickly and without hesitating this time.

But her music’s stopping and everything's just returning back to silence.
She just can’t believe that she lost her chance one more time.
She is running to the empty room. She’s pulling the door with all of her strength and she’s getting inside but no one is there. Only the piano of this music room lies there untouched for a long time. Her candle’s starting to flicker and she has the feeling that somebody is right behind her. She can’t see his shadow but she can feel his breathing next to her neck. She’s closing her eyes…
She’s opening them again and she’s looking herself in the mirror and now she can see a white skinned person smiling at her. She’s turning back but no one is there.
She’s falling down drowning in her tears. The same strange music starts to play in her mind as memories come alive to remind her another time another world…

This great salle is full of lights and sounds now. It is a ball. This place seems to be overcrowded by all these guests. Beautiful ladies in their eccentric dresses with their partners with customes are dancing with passion according to her music. She’s there too. She’s much younger now and she seems to be stunning in this astonishing purple dress. She’s alone this time. She’s standing in the middle of the ball with the man of her dreams. His cold white skin never was so perfect.
But there’s no reflection of her partner or of any other guest. It’s just her dancing in a room full of mirrors. She’s feeling alive but she’s dying. She knows though that she will live forever but soon he will be gone.

They’re stopping dancing because her partner of life doesn’t feel very well. He’s keeping his chest with his both hands. He starts bleeding. She’s touching his infliction with her hands but she can’t do anything to stanch it.

The first drops of his blood are falling on the floor. Time seems to have stopped now. More drops are falling faster and faster and his blood is flowing on the floor, it’s reaching the stairs and is running faster that ever on the white slippery marble.

It is like a cold black river she used to know over the mountains into the wild. It was known exactly for the wildness of its spirit. No one who ever tried to traverse it managed to survive. It’s only a small raft there this time trying to stay alive but its passengers, three men and our heroine, seem to have been run out of strength and courage.
All of them they’re rowing hard but none of their efforts seem to be enough. The maniacal water is trying to turn over their raft, their only chance to stay alive. They’ are trying to keep it straight and they barely fall in a backwash. The sound of the waves is covering their voices but then is something more. The sound of water falling is bombarding the whole place. The stream of the river is more powerful than ever. No one can stand out against it and the sound is coming closer unbelievably fast. They seem to be at the top right now. They can see everything beyond these wild mountains. What a breathtaking view!
They’re looking each other, they’re hanging on tightly and they’ re taking a deep breath. Their biggest fear has just begun.

“And then I saw the waterfalls. Their power is … unbeatable. The unstoppable mania of nature for destruction.”

And then they fell in the cold water.
She was reaching the bottom. She couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t breathe. The cold water was drought through her whole body. She could only feel her lungs to freeze and her desire to breathe. She was swimming with all her strength that was left. She was trying desperately to reach the surface. But she could feel nothing at all. Then somebody pulled her out of the water and leaded her carefully on a rock.

She survived but she was feeling really cold. She thought she saw a white skinned figure close to her face for a moment before she closed her eyes and passed out.



And now she is waking up. She had fallen asleep in her armchair with her book in her hands and the candles almost seemed to erase. She could listen to the music, to her song now. Someone is downstairs and she knows that because now it’s not a dream. She is getting out of her room, running to the stairs and she’s finally finding the door of the music room opened. But there is no one there to play this music and the room is still empty, almost empty. It’s really cold and it has been snowing the whole night.
In the middle of the empty room, on the floor, it was there…
A flower that was never meant to be found…

That was only the beginning.