Trip Down Memory Lane

They have been falling for too long that it felt like an eternity for them, yet it"s just more than a minute has pa.s.sed. Even spirit does not know when this will end.

And, for a while, they stopped descending.

Valera"s body felt a sudden stop on their descent and opened her eyes to see what happened.

She only saw nothing but rocks in front of her. She looked down and saw an endless pitch-black void with no hint of what"s the end of it.

She was going to look up but suddenly...

The water around them flowed upstream like a lukewarm geyser but strong enough to jet up into the entrance of the well. Their ascent is far swifter than their descent.

Valera"s body bolted upward, quickly ascending to the well. Spirit also followed her due to the current of the water but slower than her because the uprising of the water is so sudden that he unconsciously oppose the current. At that point, he realized that he actually needs to go up.

She opened her eyes a little bit and see a circle of light getting larger as they go up to the well. The circle is getting brighter and brighter and finally, they"ve arrived.

The geyser on the surface goes in shape of a giant water fountain, and Valera is on the top of that fountain. Her body spins around uncontrollably like a ballerina, raising her arms slightly but not above the head. Her eyes squinted as she tries to adjust her vision to the bright, yet outstanding world. As she finally adjusted her eyes, the view that is beholden to her is remarkably amazing.

For a short moment, her body soared into the air, making her feel like she"s flying. Her body being hovered to the sky is what makes this even better.

Before her is a group of trees with red leaves attached to it, as in this world greatly resembles to the season of fall. She also had a glimpse of a mix of yellow, light-green, and orange leaves on the outskirts of this world. Not to mention that the majority of the leaves in those trees slowly plucked themselves out, making them free and waltz into the skies.

In that moment, she thinks that she is one of those leaves, dancing around through the air to let out their insecurities and enjoying life the fullest.

And Valera is satisfied in what she has witnessed.

But unfortunately, Valera now realized that she is on the sky with no water fountain to support her whatsoever. With that in mind, she fell down.

She plunges head-first into the ground. She didn"t die because she landed on a pile of leaves, but it hurt her a little bit.

She got out of the leaves, but falls down into the ground. Her body faces to the ground and can"t turn around. The spirit finally emerges from the well and saw the person he was meant to protect.

"Valera!" Spirit hurriedly approaches to Valera.

"Are you ok?! Are you hurt?!"

"urggghh...." She responded with a groan.

She didn"t have an injury, even a minor one. She"s merely just dizzy from the swirling motion she had inside the well.

Spirit noticed her condition. He went silent, followed by a deep sigh.

"... Stay still. I"ll help you get up."

Spirit"s body glowed while he enchants a spell on her. What he"s saying is unrecognizable, but it"s working.

Valera"s motion sickness slowly fades as he chants his spell unto her.

"...thanks, spirit..."

Valera rested for a few minutes to recover. However, her resting time is taking a lot longer than it should be.

"Haaa... I"m feeling so much better." She said as her legs straighten and places her hands on her knees.

"You should really need to focus on the task at hand, Valera."

"Come on, Spirit. It"s not like having a nap or two would do us badly." Valera said with a carefree expression. In this sentence alone, the spirit as doubts that this journey would go on smoothly.

"Speaking of which, Valera..."

"Hm?"

"Why do you want to recover your memories?"

Spirit goes closer to Valera, but not too close.

"Why are you asking me, exactly? Isn"t it obvious?"

"Knowing your behavior, you would abandon your memories over this world you"ve previously in."

"How can you tell?"

"Just by looking at you." Spirit bluntly said to her.

From the third person view, he can tell whether Valera is daydreaming or not just from her face. She does this by giving a blank stare at something whilst looking amazed. She does this every time, even in her old memories. So spirit knew exactly what her mood is due to his experiences with her for a long time.

"...oh." Valera just realized about her habit.

"So I a.s.sume it"s because of someone?"

"..." Valera went silent. It"s not because she doesn"t want to talk, it"s just that she"s thinking of the answer that helps understand Spirit.

She had no memories of him, but she knows that he"s an important person to her. As she is thinking of an answer, she stares at the falling leaves.

While the winds of fall ease her mind and the leaves dancing in front of her makes the world slowly revolving, she had thought of an answer.

"All I know is that this person is special to me.

He"s there when I"m at loss.

He"s there when I"m desperate.

He"s there when I"m in pain.

He"s always there when I needed him the most.

Just his presence alone makes my heart skip a beat, and this feeling is far euphoric than my daydreams. I want to meet him again because...

I want to feel that way again."

In that moment, Valera"s cheeks blushed. She places her hands to her chest to contain that feeling once again. Spirit didn"t see that face of hers in the past, not even before she lost her memories. It is an entirely new emotion he witnessed that is engulfed in her heart.

Spirit is now aware of the existence of love.

"Daddy! Hurry up! The sun is going to set!"

"!" Both Valera and Spirit heard a voice of a little girl. The voice emitted from her has a slight resemblance to Valera"s. The two of them go to the source of that sound.

As they arrive, they saw a red-haired girl running towards the edge of the cliff. They just realized that the sun is actually going to set.

"Slow down, Valera! I"m not allowed to run, so I"ll be there for a while!"

The sound came from the other direction. They saw a man, almost looked on his 30s. His body seemed a bit fragile and looked like he had come back from work.

The child laughs as she moves around playfully.

"Is that me?" Valera said while she looked at her younger self.

"Seemed like it. That man called her Valera."

The man approaches to the child.

"You"re so slow, Daddy! Hahaha!"

"I can"t help it. Your Daddy is starting to get old, you know?"

"I know. I just want to play with you."

"Well, ain"t you a cute little devil." He said as he pats her head softly and the child responded with laughter.

Both the man and the child sit on the cliff to enjoy the sunset.

"Who is he?" Valera asks.

"Isn"t he the person whom you love?"

"...No. No, I don"t think so."

"So you hate him?"

"Not that either. It"s just that when I"m with that person, I feel protected. But why I don"t feel more joyful than I was with the other person?" Valera felt anxious, yet composed when she looks at that man.

The man crossed her legs as he sits while the girl sits on his lap. The girl looked like she enjoyed the scenery she saw, much similar on what Valera did while she daydreams.

"Daddy?" The girl asked the man.

"What is it?"

"Where do you get the name "Valera"? It"s such a cute name." She smiled as she said her name.

"Well... That name came from one of my greatest achievements in my early years. And that name is the cause of why we"re here now. From the time you were born, I decided that I want to give my most precious accomplishment to you."

"Wow..." The girl is amazed of how her name came from her father"s treasured memories. Her eyes looked like it sparkled for a bit.

"So what is that accomplishment that you said to me?"

"You want to become a pharmacist, right?"

"Yeah! I want to be like you."

"Then you"ll know that soon enough." The man gave her a sweet smile.

"Aw, Come on, Daddy!" "Haha. It"ll be better this way, I promise."

After that, a sudden airstream hits Valera"s face, forcing her eyes to close.

As she opened her eyes, the two figures in the cliff have vanished.

"My Father"s greatest achievement..." She spouted those words, being as she felt like it is a key to one of her memories.

"Look! Over there!" Spirit looked at the place beyond the cliff.

"!" Valera can"t seem to believe this. She saw a pillar of light that goes up endlessly. There are no trees near the pillar. Instead, it is around a body of water. It is an island within a lake.

"That could be the next portal that lets you travel through worlds."

"Yeah, But..."

The distance between them and the portal is more than a kilometer. For them to go there, they need to find a way to go down the cliff. But as they go near the cliff, they saw that it wasn"t actually a cliff at all.

They looked from each side and there"s no trace of a downhill path. It"s like the part of the ground they"ve stepped on just erected and creates a wall. Most certainly, this mountain is a plateau.

"I don"t see any sign of a downhill path to get us to that portal."

"Should we climb down?"

"You can"t climb, Valera..."

"Then..." She"s thinking of ideas of how could she go down in such a height. It looks higher than the height that she fell in the fountain back then. Falling in that height is a sure-kill for her.

Then she saw a leaf flew pa.s.s by. She looked at the leaf as it moves around with the wind. Then she came up an idea.

"...We should dance with the wind."

"With the, what?"

Without a second thought, Valera jumped down.

"Valera!?"

Valera"s mind is calm. She didn"t just jumped down without a plan. It sounded asinine but she felt like she had done this before. She took a deep breath and calms her senses...

...And flew across the sky.

Spirit is astonished of what she has done. Her body moves with the wind"s direction, helping her maintain her mobility in flight. She also moved fluently and precise, so precise that the wind mistook her as a leaf.

And Spirit noticed something. When he looks both her and the red leaf, both of them have the same movement. They twist, twirl, and turn at a perfect sync. That"s where Spirit concluded.

Valera is waltzing with the Red Leaf.

Spirit came back to his senses and follows her.

Valera is aware of the wind. It is getting weaker as she goes on. Having no choice at all, she flew down to the ground.

As she flew by the branches of the trees, the atmosphere is getting gloomy. She didn"t notice it at first so she continued to come down. She reached contact with the ground with her eyes closed. She stopped and slowly opens her eyes.

When she regained her vision, her pupils contracted.

Everywhere around her is dark. She can see a few trees around her but only the immediate area are visible.

The trees around her withered and their leaves turned pitch black. She doesn"t know which direction she needs to take to find the portal.

She is lost in the dark forest.

Valera felt despair on the situation she"s in. In this moment, she will realize the reason why she doesn"t want to go in this place,

Ever again...

"Arghh...!!" She felt immense pain on her head. Within that pain, is the memories she wants to forget the most.

"Hahaha! Mommy! Daddy! Wake up! You"ll be late for work!

I prepared the ingredients for this morning, just as you promised!

Mommy! Hurry up! Daddy"s going to be hungry at work again!

Mommy. Daddy.

...

...mom

...dad

...please

...wake up..."