The 10th Circle - Abyss [Complete]

<Engram Corrupted>

I have gone back to that clearing in the dark forest to see her countless times.

I have grown accustomed to the strange sense of melancholy that overcomes me whenever I see her. But recently, it has been joined by an unsettling feeling of dread. Something is stuck somewhere, deep in those dark and murky depths of my mind. Like a word on the tip of my tongue, just about to be spoken but impossible to spell out, it fills me with a sense of urgency, and impatience.

I just know, I've seen all this before, done all this before. But not just in a dream.

I have been there before.

That place, it is real, it's not just in my mind.

But no matter how hard I try to remember who she is, where we've met before and what we're doing there, the answers to my questions remain the unspoken words on the tip of my own tongue. It is unsettling to think that I myself hold the answers that I am seeking, and yet they continue to elude my grasp.

All I know for certain is that she is important. These dreams mean something.

But the memory is lost to me, and all I have left is its shadow, this bittersweet and enigmatic déjà-vu that keeps frustrating me with its repetitiveness, and torturing me in its perpetuity. My thoughts keep moving in circles without getting anywhere closer to an answer. And so I wander aimlessly through the dark forest, only for my feet to lead me back to the same place again, where nothing ever changes. Until -

When I come upon the clearing, she is already there, as if she was waiting for me. She raises her head, a somber expression on her ethereal face. Our eyes meet, and just for a second, I think I can really see her.

I hold my breath as she puts a finger to her lips, and then points upward. But when I follow with my gaze, there is nothing to be seen.

And just like that, she disappears, leaving me confused and alone.

But I remember something else now.

Something very important.

I remember that it was her who gave me my name.