[Plot] Room 103 - I'm looking through you

[Samantha McManus]

"...aye. Got a glimpse when we made the mirror."

"Do you want to know what it's like?"

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm not sure I do. But then I'd feared for the possibility I may no longer have a 'soul' at all..."

[Samantha McManus]

"Yours feels... built to rule. People, places, things. It's like a tower that casts a shadow on things, with a throne at the top."

[Miriam Bell]

"I suppose that's better than having none at all, even if it harkens rather much to the me of Will's home..."

[Samantha McManus]

"If my other selves are any indication, you... probably have the same one she does. Doesn't mean you're her or that you even came out like her, but it is what it is."

[Miriam Bell]

"That makes it much harder to sell me on your 'soul' theory because I refuse to believe I share something so... so... significant with that monster!"

[Samantha McManus]

"And I share mine with some monsters of my own."

[Miriam Bell]

"I suppose that's true. Does this mean I can blame my misgiving on her?" she asks with a crooked smile.

[Samantha McManus]

"You can blame your misgivings on anything you like," she chuckles.

"But is that still a 'no'?"

[Miriam Bell]

"I suppose not." she sighs.

[Samantha McManus]

"Suppose I ought to get comfortable then," she says, casting a glance about for a chair, gothic or otherwise, before settling in.

[Miriam Bell]

"No refunds." she says before reaching out to Sam's mind and plunging into the flurry of caws and feathers, shielded only by the long flowing strips of fabric that envelop her avatar in criss-crossing patterns, fluttering behind her in a trail as she descends.

[Narrator]

As Miriam descends, she finds things more or less how she remembers them. As always, a river runs through the lands of Sam's mind.

Wait a tic, did that river always go into the woods? Surely it did, right?

[Miriam Bell]

Mindscapes move around. Or maybe she's spend too much time in Will's head. Either way it's a place to start, especially with how unwelcoming a lot of Sam's mind can be Miriam would rather not wander aimlessly through the woods. That's just handing Sam's subconsciousness a metaphor about being eaten by wild animals on a silver platter. And so she descends towards the river to follow it's path into the woods.

[Narrator]

It's easy enough to follow the river banks. At some points the river seems deeper and swifter, while at others it broadens out and is shallow enough to ford. It's at one of these spots near the edge of the woods that Miriam spies an old woman doing her laundry on the banks.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam slowly descends, the long cloth wrappings flowing around her slowly withdrawing and wrapping tighter around her until they're closer to clothing than billowing cloud.

"Old crone. You know these woods?"

[Narrator]

The crone looks up, only one eye visible underneath her lank hair.

"You're late. Not washing yours now."

[Miriam Bell]

"I'm not here for you to wash the blood from my clothes. The river, did it always flow this way?"

[Narrator]

"River's always flowed where it will. River always leads the same place."

[Miriam Bell]

"Very helpful. And where, pray tell, does this river of tautologies lead?"

[Narrator]

"To the place you can't go. To the end."

[Miriam Bell]

"Honestly, I don't know what kind of answer I expected." Miriam shakes her head and begins floating down-river again.

[Narrator]

As Miriam passes the edge of the woods, there's a faint but still somewhat palpable change in the air. Like the feeling just before a thunderstorm. It doesn't take long before the light is fading, shaded out by the heavy boughs as she heads deeper.

[Miriam Bell]

"It's always in the bloody lands of angry Sam... Could you for once bury your metaphors where the push-over one lives? No, only the deepest darkest woods..." she mutters to herself. "I know you're out there, watching! Piss off, she asked me in here!" she shouts at the thickening woods.

[Narrator]

It's not just anger Miriam can sense lurking in those woods, but definitely all the emotions in there are fairly strong, vivid to Miriam's senses. Wants and needs that go bone-deep.

As she goes deeper though, they seem to shy away, and she can't sense them near after she passes a certain point. She does see members of the flock every so often, up in the branches, occasionally in flight. Once in a great while, she sees one that has a little light clutched in its beak.

[Miriam Bell]

The woods tug at Miriam not because they're threatening - well, a little bit because they're threatening, anybody's mind can mess you up if you're not careful after all - but rather because it makes her hungry. Here a predator's might makes right, needs of the hunt supersede everything else. And that is a dangerous thought, so easy to let it take root and convince her that the gnawing in her soul is enough excuse to sink her fangs into someone and drink to her heart's desire. That it's not wrong, but natural.

The relief of the tension she's carrying is palpable, exhausted from denying herself the reprieve. "Hate these woods so much..." But at least she's through now and has guides to follow. Of course, to Sam the urge to hasten Miriam along, to pull this dead thing to where it belongs is probably just as taxing. Meandering, shambling, untethered from it's mortal bonds but still latched on like a leech to fuel the towering reign lurking in it's shadow.

[Narrator]

At this point it's hard to tell if it's suddenly changed to night, as dreams often do, or if the canopy of the forest is just that dense. The little lights help, and they're getting more and more frequent, the flock carrying them on, occasionally passing them off, all converging towards a shape deep in the woods. It looks like a tree, but it's far too big to really be that, isn't it? It's swimming with the lights, like a madness of fireflies.

[Miriam Bell]

It doesn't take a genius to draw the connection between the tree and Sam's fractal vision. Especially here where it's only a tree in the metaphorical sense of Sam's thoughts. Seeing it as what Miriam might interpret it as would be imposing her own will on things, change it. Or at least attempt to, which would more than likely fail on someone like Sam and cause friction in the mindscape. But seeing it as is isn't too hard once she realizes that. She's in Sam's mind after all and the meaning of every metaphor here is woven into the very fabric of everything.

"This is... no, not new, but it's manifestation is." she muses as she approaches the tree. "An outcropping with roots that stem from where...?" Placing her hand on the rough bark she tries to get a sense of the whole of it.

[Narrator]

The river runs around the roots of the tree, not seeming to erode anything as it disappears in a waterfall down the chasm the tree perches on.

Touching the bark is a disorienting experience. She feels a strong sense that this is where she should be. That she should just let go and be another little light among the branches.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam flinches away like from a hot stove and finds herself staring down into the chasm. How close to the abyss can she walk without being engulfed? Does it even matter if this is a real path to an afterlife or a construct of Sam's imagination? She should withdraw, back away and leave it be, but she can't. If there's even the faintest possibility, an infinitesimal chance a part of her sister still exists somewhere she can't turn her back on what she might learn down there. And so Miriam slowly floats down along the waterfall and the tree's roots...

[Narrator]

It's hard to see an end to the tree's roots. They go deep, deeper than she can see as the lights up in the branches recede into the distance.

It starts to feel like there's a weight pressing down on her, like gravity is trying to get its claws into her.

[Miriam Bell]

Letting herself descend at a careful pace is hard and the mental strain only gets worse as she goes on, but she feels if she relinquishes her resistance and let's herself be drawn down she won't be able to ascend again. She needs the struggle, the exertion as a symbolic lifeline. The effort carving a groove she might use to find her way back in the dark...

[Narrator]

It's getting harder to orient herself. There's only a dim glow to signify the edge of the chasm above her, and the roots almost look like the branches of another tree entirely, naked and skeletal, spreading into the bottomless darkness.

[Miriam Bell]

"This is a terrible idea. This is the worst idea yet in a long line of awful decisions..." she tells herself as she sinks deeper. This is barely Sam's mind anymore if at all. This is something else, she's sure. The Astral bleeding into Sam or vice versa. Reaching into the folds of the cloth enveloping her she pulls free a lantern hanging from a chain, emitting an eerie blue light.

[Narrator]

She can see the roots now, or are they branches? It looks exactly like the tree above, just without leaves, denuded by winter. There should be no way she could know this, but somehow she does, that every branch has a twin.

Beyond is... nothing. Or everything. It doesn't give any impression to her powers. It's frustratingly, infuriatingly unknowable.

A skeletal raven perches on a branch near her, regarding Miriam with tiny pinpricks of light in its eye sockets.

"SHE'S NOT HERE. YOU MUST KNOW THAT, RIGHT?"

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam swivels around, startled at the sudden, heavy voice.

"I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try and see for myself. But there's just... nothing. Is that it? Oblivion?"

[Narrator]

"IT'S NOTHING, IF YOU THINK IT'S NOTHING."

"THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW AREN'T TALKING, ARE THEY?"

[Miriam Bell]

"But you know. Or at least you think you do."

[Narrator]

"I'M VERY MUCH NOT PEOPLE, THOUGH. IN SPITE OF WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN IN THE MOVIES."

[Miriam Bell]

"You're telling me you're not part of Sam's menagerie? Considering her penchant for birds and what lies up there I find that hard to believe."