Calm and Calamity

Chapter 3

Day: 194

Days Left: 5286

Lives Saved: 1

Gigantic mountainous piles of discarded items rose high from the sand below to almost the ceiling of the world. The location was dubbed 'The Land of the Lost' by the local prisoners. None knew where the name originated from.

Harmony gazed up at one of the mountainous piles. A portal opened for a fraction of second, and a wooden chair fell out of it. The chair tumbled down the pile, causing a cascade of items to follow. The sound resonated throughout the Land of the Lost.

Opening up her satchel, Harmony retrieved her green notebook and flicked through the pages. She sighed. For a while, she had considered getting rid of it. The notebook was of no use to her anymore. Reading a few passages, Harmony cringed at her own amateurish writing. It was supposed to bring her joy, to remind her of the happy memories she had, to help her keep going on. But all she could concentrate on was the spelling and grammatical errors and the abhorrent prose. The words lacked emotion and feeling. Even though Harmony could remember the events she recorded, when she read them written out like this, she felt no emotional connection whatsoever. She had never been good with words. Perhaps she should record her memories differently as Salim and Corinna had suggested?

She looked up again at the sky, seeing the numerous portals continuously opening and closing, dropping more unwanted things down, adding to the mountains. Almost two weeks ago, Harmony had gotten so close to escaping the Eternal Abyss through one of those portals. She had almost tasted freedom yet... hesitated. She stayed.

She stayed for...

Recalling back to the day, Harmony remembered the warm light caressing her face, freedom just an inch away. But then she heard Corinna scream for help as she fell into that underground tunnel and suddenly freedom was the last thing on Harmony's mind.

It wasn't like Corinna could have died. No one could die in the Eternal Abyss. Any injuries she would have received would have healed regardless of the severity.

But she could still lose her memories. Those would never heal back. Though everyone imprisoned in the Eternal Abyss eventually lost all of their memories, they would be gained back after completing their sentence. However, if you received any significant damage to the brain, those memories will be unrecoverable.

When she wasn't at Ivette's trading post, Corinna would spend most of her time writing in her notebook all of her memories and abnormally large family. Corinna was one of the fortunate ones. She was told about the curse while she still had all of her memories. She was able to write them all down before she forgot everything. But other prisoners had nothing. Harmony was one of them.

She had no memories from before the Eternal Abyss. All that was in her own notebook was the memories of her time here.

Harmony gazed up once more at the portals, wondering if there was someone on the other side, in the other world, that was waiting for her. Family? Friends? The only way she could find out was to escape. It would be another four months until she could make an attempt; that was when the portal that opened for longer would appear. Until then, she would have to wait. She would have to be stuck here in the meantime.

Flicking to the last page of her notebook, Harmony retrieved a polaroid photo that she had kept safe there. It was a selfie that she had taken with Corinna. Her eyes softened as she stared down at the picture, seeing the beaming grin on Corinna's face. Harmony let out a short chuckle then she glanced back up at the portals in the sky and the light in her eyes faded slightly.

In the past, after her numerous escape attempts, the wait for the next one was always excruciating as if she was getting further and further away from freedom the longer she trapped inside the Eternal Abyss.