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She had been dead for ten whole sweeps, and didn’t even realize it. The reason for this was simple, if a bit grim: dreambubbles were formed from memories. What did she have to remember? The tasks she had grown to love so much made up but a fraction of her life, and the rare journeys she was allowed to take between silent stars accounted for even less.
Mostly, what she remembered was her room.
She’d measured it over and over again in manic fits of boredom. It seemed at first to be a perfect cube, ten paces squared, but she’d realized eventually that the measurements subtly shifted. She’d assumed at first that he was doing it on purpose, a sly jab at her helplessness. It was only when he first forgot her for a few decades that she realized the truth: he simply did not care enough to keep it consistent.
Green, of course, the room was entirely green, and oh, how she was sick of green! It got so bad that she’d bite off her fingertips and paint the walls with red swirls of her own blood, just for something new to look at. It never lasted, of course. An hour later, her fingers would be good as new, and the walls would be unmarred and perfect.
She painted, and drew, and mumbled stories to herself, strange and morbid tales whose only purpose was to fill the void. (There was a kitty had an apple ate the apple choked to death. Poor kitty, lucky kitty, dead kitty, rotting kitty! There was a vulture had a kitty ate the kitty got a bug. Sick birdy, dying birdy, lucky birdy, coughing birdy!)
Her fingerstub hit the doorframe, sending a lightning jolt of pain up her arm. This small addition, this door in a room without doors, slapped her in the mind like a shock of cold water. She removed her finger from the surface of the wall, allowing it to heal. She only needed to wait a few minutes before she could caress the surface of the door with a brand new fingertip, humming under her breath.
It was real. She had a choice.
It took her only a few seconds to work up the courage to grasp the doorknob. What if it was a trap or, always horrifyingly possible, a fake? She didn’t know what would be worse, opening the door to see Lord English or opening the door to see a brick wall. All she knew was that staying where she was when she had even a chance to leave would be the worst thing of all.
She closed her eyes, turned the knob, and stepped out. The first thing to hit her was how the time just dropped away, how it finally seemed like she could breath for the first time in her entire life. The ground beneath her was firm and solid, but not perfectly flat, and she resisted the urge to open her eyes in case it broke the spell and reality came crashing back down on her.
She blindly reached out and groped for walls that weren’t there. When she stumbled, bare feet catching on a rough, ropelike protrusion, the soft ground cushioned her fall. She realized, dimly, that it smelled like home, but the only home she knew smelled like dust and dried blood. The familiarly unfamiliar odor made her head swim and her eyes water, and she didn’t like it.
She breathed it in deeply, anyway.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, and this too was new. It was like her entire life, her brain had been infested by a painfully accurate clock, ticking and tocking her sanity away second by century, calling in time to drown her and bury her. It was like, she realized suddenly, the clock had finally wound down and fallen asleep, leaving her free to think again.
She thought she understood, finally, why the funny little bug-man had so enjoyed breaking all those clocks. The memory made her giggle, then laugh, in the first display of joy she could remember indulging in. Joy! She was supposed to be the Demoness without mercy or joy, the Handmaid without emotion or pride, but with that laugh, she was merely…herself.
She rolled onto her back, finally opening her eyes. The stars blazing high above couldn’t be blocked by the pines rising all around her. It was funny, really. In all the times she’d flown between stars, they’d never looked as close as they did in that moment. Would they have looked like this if she’d paused to look mid-rage, or would she have wanted to tear them all down and break them?
She’d broken a star once, early on. The natives of the star-system had no time to scream before their atmosphere burned away, along with the troll battleships in the area. An inexplicable sadness rose up, and tears spilled from her eyes. She was home, and she was alone.
The sound of a familiar throat clearing snapped her away from her misery. The stranger stood on the edge of the clearing, and it took her a minute to place him. The last time they’d met, his face had been twisted in anger and death, but now he just looked…sad. He stepped closer, and she didn’t draw away. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t know what she’d say.
--
The Sufferer cleared his throat again as he sat down next to his old friend, and prepared to speak the words that would unlock her memory. He’d been searching so long for her, for all his old friends. Even the Psiioniic had been easier to find – and at that thought he closed his eyes in painful memory. He couldn’t get distracted, not now. He had something more important to do, but when he looked at her face again, it dawned on him that he didn’t need to say anything. Not this time.
--
She remembered.