Prologue

An introduction to our heroine, Very Anne (Veranne) Delasko. As the successful entrepreneuse who discovered immortality, she begins to have suicidal notions before being visited by the Grim Reaper.

How often do dreams turn to nightmares? How often do nightmares turn to dreams? Aren’t both the same thing, two sides of the same coin that is REM sleep?

And what of memories? If one dreams a horrible memory, is it a nightmare? Or simply traumatized sleep, a reflection of a horrible figment of past?

And what of a dream involving the best of memories, one so fantastic it cannot be relived? Is it fair to say, in such a scenario, that dreams have already come true, before they were even dreamed?

 

* * *

 

Somewhere in a Northern Siberian city, where the perpetual night December cast its surreal daze on the pale inhabitants, a woman was experiencing an enormous amount of distress.

She was sleeping. As it happened, sleeping very soundly, and she also happened to be caught within a dream. A dream of inescapable unreality, which however had once occurred, and no matter how many times she dreamed it and was reminded of its occurrence, she couldn’t admit to it ever having happened; the notion was much too horrible. This is what she experienced.

Bright sunlight. Too bright. A slight migraine at the front of her skull. The shape of a man walking next to her, they both heading towards a building at a distance, with a gleaming glass roof and sturdy concrete walls, these with a shining finish.

After a silent period of walking, the man says something. She can barely hear the sound above a synesthetic whine within her mind. She grasps the meaning, though. He will be leaving, not of his own choice, but because he’s forced to do so. To be seen with him is to tempt outcast status. Meet him at the port to say farewell later, abandon him now.

A blur of bright light and tears as time passes. She then runs to a metallic structure on the immensely reflective Antarctic waters. The soft taste of salt water or tears. No ice. That’s fortunate; ice is extremely reflective and the light would hurt her.

Waiting. Standing. She feels like she’s in a solar oven. She takes off a sweater, and her eyes are blocked by her action for a brief second. After this, the man stands in front of her. Low talking. An embrace. She says goodbye. But before he goes-

The unmistakable sensation of human lips on human lips. A salty tear caught in between. She pulls herself back, surprised, and he smiles as if it didn’t even happen. Did it ever happen?

What does it matter? The sunlight is killing her. She runs off, away from the migraine and away from the one person she understood. Her headache remains, however. It cannot be remedied. It grows. She shuts her eyes but it’s within them, the tears emanating a light of their own. She falls to the ground, grasping her head. Her friend attempts to run to help her, but he’s stopped by two other men and put on the ship that will take him away forever.

A blinding pain on her forehead as the ship begins to churn out its exhaust. A blinding sound and a deafening smell, an unbearable light within her mind.

 

* * *

 

She opened both her eyes. It wasn’t so much a direct separation of her eyelids, but rather an extreme separation, followed by a slow lowering of her upper eyelid while her pupil, which remained half concealed by her upper eyelid, dilated languidly.

The pupil was not dilated because of the extremely small amount of light available, coming from the window of her large room, although the dim ambience definitely did help. Rather, it was dilated because of a sudden rush of adrenaline she had experienced shortly before, but which was now dwindling out of her bloodstream in exponential decay.

This rush of adrenaline, in turn, had been caused by a dream. Or rather a nightmare. Well, partly both, anyway. The dream was not "made up", or, more adequately speaking, a result of the usual daily release of repressed thoughts from her unconscious mind, as happens with every healthy human on the face of the earth. No, this dream was a memory.

Memories, more like. Plural. Weeks had gone by within that dream. Months, maybe. She didn’t know any more. It had been such a long time ago. How long ago? She didn’t remember that, either. All she could do now was close her eyes and relive the experience.

 

* * *

 

“An idealist. A bright-eyed romantic. That’s what you are,” said Veranne as she looked past a veranda over the chilly Antarctic. Any way I look is north, she would muse, as long as I look at the sea. She wasn’t that far from romantic herself. But at least she could hide it well enough.

She turned to the young man she was conversing with, tilting her head to the side and placing her cheek on the palm of her hand while her elbow rested on the handrail separating them from the sea.

“So I am,” he said. “And I will be till it kills me, Annie”.

She slapped him on the shoulder playfully. “I hate that name,” she said, looking around suspiciously, in case anybody's heard.

The man raised his eyebrows. They were thick eyebrows, and were a weekly grooming short of being one only. “Oh, being secretive, now, are we?”

“No. Just embarrassed of our full names, that’s all. You should know all about that,” she glanced at him mockingly, “Tiberius”

Tiberius dropped his jaw in mock surprise. “Why, I never. You should know better than to try and embarrass me… I do a good enough job of it myself. And I’ll have you know-”

She put an arm around his head and smothered his words with a gloved hand. “You talk too much, my dear Ernest,” she took a deep breath and paused, not knowing whether to mock his entire name. She decided not to.

“Mock me if you will," she continued, "It’s not my fault a man with an ear infection was assigned to register my name. I was lucky he got Very Anne out of Mary Anne; he could just as well have called me anything else that rhymed with it,” she looked at him again with a slight smile, “or Tiberius, for that matter. Now that would be a tragedy, for a man even-”

She turned her head and let out a slight cry as Ernest intercepted her and, picking her up, playfully swung her around in the air. No, they hadn’t had much more time afterwards, she regretted as she remembered the context of the memory, and, at the same time, remembered that this was but a memory. She caught a glimpse of the harsh sun and her mind burst into pain.

 

* * *

 

Migraine headaches can be the worst pain some people will feel. Triggered by a rainbow variety of factors, a common start to them is through sensorial or emotional stimuli. Of course, these have to be stimuli of great significance and power to trigger this kind of neurological response; or, on the other hand, the subject could be extremely sensitive to them. In the case of a more susceptible subject, as can be the case with those of greater photosensitivity or a keener sense of smell, these kinds of headaches can become a common, day-to-day experience, with different people even finding their own homemade remedies, or simply dealing with them when they arrive if they are of the least painful variety.

In the case of those of greater pain, however, their routine nature does not make them any less painful or annoying. Quite on the contrary; those in need of anti-migraine drugs will eventually develop tolerance to them, intensifying the nature of the headaches when not under the effects of the drugs, and increasing the doses needed in a vicious and, by moments, excruciating cycle.

 

* * *

 

Veranne Delasko would start her days in the same manner. This had gone on for countless months (years, even), so that she barely remembered her age. If it weren’t for her birth records, kept safe in a security box at the most remote corner of her apartment (between the western and northern walls of her study), any information as to the duration of her stay in the realm of the living would now surely be lost.

Yes, she’d been immersed in a routine for God knew how long. God? She couldn’t remember the last time anybody had mentioned him, even. But to any routine there must be a defined start, which went as followed: Step one, get out of bed.

This wasn’t as easy as it is for the common human; this is because, unlike the common human, Veranne was not awakened by a squealing rooster, by an alarm clock, or simply by the first rays of the sun. No.

She was awakened by her head splitting in two, with substantial throbbing on her left temple. Always the left. She jumped out of bed, toppling over, falling on her face, nothing mattering as long as she got to her nightstand, which kept her salvation in a small plastic container: medication. Putting five pills in her hand (her tolerance was getting out of hand these days), popping them in her mouth, and taking a gulp out of the water bottle she always kept beside her bed, she allowed herself to fall, her bare back against the white carpeted floor.

She waited there five, ten, fifteen seconds, until they kicked in. Sudden as it came, it was gone. She hardly remembered the dream she’d had, or the memory it contained, after the excitement of waking up. All she knew was that it was something out of her past; something distant, so distant it would never connect to her present.

Not worrying about it, she got up and walked over to her mirror. How many years had passed, and the same reflection staring back at her, as always. She’d never thought herself Dorian Gray as a child. Or had she? She really couldn’t remember, this far into the future. Was this the rest of her life? Waking up like this every day, in her large, empty apartment, having fulfillment and success already made, nothing to keep living for, nothing to struggle for? Wasn’t she merely asleep, waiting to wake up by some benevolent light that wouldn’t give her a migraine, some easy sound that wouldn’t alter her state of mind? Couldn’t a memory bring back the person she thought she was?

She mentally turned away from such thoughts. Memories were done. Everybody she’d ever known was no more, and would be so forevermore. She turned to look at her beautiful face, the face of a twenty-five-year-old in her prime, cute cheeks, green eyes, sharp eyebrows and a nose that was only slightly prominent and perfectly proportioned by Classical standards. Her face pointed in the direction of her chin, and chestnut hair cascaded down the sides of her temples, down behind her ears and onto her shoulders.

As for her body, this needed no description. Men would turn, usually, only to remember their manners and turn back to their business. Not too skinny, of course, as nobody likes that; a middle point between both extremes, as all healthy characteristics go, again recalling from Classical tradition.

Yes, she was young and beautiful after all this time. She was wealthy. But she was alone, and this thought she could not shrug. She was alone, and she had been for all these years of passive sleep she’d been through. What was she doing? Everybody she’d ever known was dead, and this last question in her mind she couldn’t stop asking: Why wasn’t she?

The doorbell rang. It was as if the ringer had been reading her mind to show up now, after all these years when she could’ve been visited. She covered her body, naked up until then, with a thick robe that had rested on her bed, and straightened her smooth hair. Opening the door after traversing the lengthy hallways of her spacious and void apartment, her eyebrows lifted in surprise at such a specific house-call by such a curious individual.

Her visitor wore a dark cloak, and carried an hourglass in one hand, a scythe held by the other.

“Just who I wanted to see,” she pronounced, extending her hand in a businesslike gesture.

Author's Note

This first part may not read as a science-fiction novel; rest assured, it develops into one as time goes by.

Reviews

[Weaver]

"gleaming glass roof... gleaming finish" - I recommend using a word other than "gleaming" for one of these.
semicolon or period, not comma, after "That’s fortunate"
"eyes become blocked" - "are blocked"
"She shuts her eyes but it’s within them" - comma after "eyes"
"A blinding sound, and a deafening smell" - good description
"Well, partly both anyway" - comma after "both"
"She didn’t remember that either" - comma after "that"
"“So I am,” he said..." - Start a new paragraph here - new speaker
comma after "knows my real name"
"how very Annie of yours" - "of you"
"child labor" - "childbirth labor"
"getting out hand" - "getting out of hand"
"waiting to wake up, by some benevolent light" - no comma
Well-written - around 2000 words and very few errors.
Parts of the narration have a detached feel to them, but I think it works for this story. I did notice a few SF touches, but they're very subtle. I look forward to the rest of the story.

[Gelydh]

Your diction and organization are intoxicating. The descriptions and actions, for the most part, flow smoothly from one clause to the next. I can't offer anything more than what has already been said, but this is definitely a good start to something!

[StarNinja]

I love the use of language in this chapter. Weaver's right, the detached narration gives it an almost other worldy feel. Even if there was no mention of sci-fi elements, it still felt like it was outside of our normal experience. Very interesting and very different. When are you going to write more?