Orpheus - Chapter 4
I really need to finish this fic before everyone forgets what it was about. Because even I can't remember what I've written in some of these chapters. XD
Again, thanks to my beta mizz_magenta. I will send you the next couple chapters soon. *nods*
Chapter 4
“Elizabeth!”
Her eyes snapped open and she awoke with a start. The blackness of the room and the throbbing pain in her arm reminded her of her dilemma, and her tears returned.
As she wiped her despairing tears from her cheeks, she tried to comfort herself by telling herself that everything would be all right in the end. It always had. From the moment they stepped through the Stargate into the Pegasus Galaxy, they had encountered problem after problem. After each situation, they always managed to come out alive. This was just another one of those obstacles where everything seemed dire and hopeless. She would survive this, just as John survived nearly dying countless of times.
She let out a weak chuckle as she thought about how after this ordeal, John and his team would surely get into trouble, causing her to worry incessantly again. However, presently, she was the one missing, and she was alone, cold, hungry, and afraid.
She did not know how long she had been trapped in this tomb. It could have only been hours or days, but in the dark, it felt like an eternity. She buried her head in her hand and the only sound she could hear was the quiet ticking of her watch in the silence.
The ticking watch both comforted and troubled her. It comforted her, for the ticking reminded her that she was still alive since time is a part of life and mortality. On the other hand, since time symbolized life and its mortality, it was a constant reminder that she was slowly running out of time. With every tick-tock that went by, she was a second closer to dying in this tomb. She could feel tears of despair returning, but she quickly wiped them away.
“No,” she said to herself. “I can’t die. Not here.” She lifted her head and looked straight into the darkness.
Her body craved for sustenance and rest, but the only food she had was a chocolate bar and several energy bars in her vest. Unsure of how long she would be trapped here, she had rationed her meager meal to a couple of bites.
Instead of deciding to take a few bites of food, Elizabeth stood up to stretch out her sore muscles. She left the gun on the ground beside the wall to mark her position and looked around into the blackness. Before her light ran out, she had committed the layout of the triangular room to memory. She knew exactly where the archway and its hall of corpses were. She could also see in her mind where the hateful orb stood in the center of the room.
She slowly took a step forward away from the wall and towards the center of the room with her hand out stretched, blindly searching for the orb. It was not long until her fingertips touched the cool orb. Her fingers felt around the sphere hoping to feel something that she missed with her eyes.
All she felt was the flawless surface of the orb beneath her fingers. She carefully knelt down on the ground and started to feel the surface of the pedestal again. Still she only felt the smooth perfect surface of the marble pedestal. She let out a despairing sigh, rested her forehead against the pedestal, and closed her eyes. She wished she knew how to escape this nightmare.
Eventually Elizabeth forced herself to open her eyes and stand up. Before she was ready to feel her way back to her spot, she looked straight ahead. Though she could not see it, she knew she was looking straight into the corridor of corpses.
She suddenly gasped and took a step back when she thought she saw a glow of light floating towards her from the corridor. At first, she blinked and shook her head thinking the darkness was playing tricks with her eyes and mind. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, but the glowing light was still there and slowly came closer towards her.
Her heart started to pound nervously as she slowly backed toward the corner she marked with her gun. The thought had not occurred to her before, but the eerie glow approaching her immediately caused her to question if she believed in the supernatural. She had never really believed in ghosts or vengeful spirits, but her present predicament of being trapped in a dark catacomb was causing her to think otherwise.
As the light approached her, she remembered seeing something like this once before. It reminded her of the time when the Proculus Priestess, Chaya Sar, came to Atlantis, and how she abruptly left when her identity was discovered. Elizabeth remembered seeing Chaya become enveloped by light as she returned to her ascended state of pure energy and glided through the Stargate.
The mysterious light gliding towards her looked very much like an ascended Ancient. Elizabeth’s fear of meeting a vengeful spirit quickly dissipated. If this was truly an Ancient, there was a possibility that it could help her get out of this place.
Elizabeth prayed that the light at the end of this tunnel was Hope.
“Colonel, didn’t I tell you to get some rest?”
The familiar Scottish accent was muddled in John’s brain as he lifted his sore neck from the table he fell asleep on.
“I was sleeping.” John rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“I was thinking more along the lines of sleeping in a nice comfortable bed instead of stooped over a lab table,” Carson said. “I bet you’ve just given yourself a good crick in the neck.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s good, but I do have a crick...” John said rubbing the back of his neck. “Where’s McKay?”
“That’s how I knew you were here,” Carson said crossing his arms over his chest. “He came into the infirmary complaining of a neck cramp he got from sleeping at his desk again.”
“Figures,” John muttered and tapped a key on the laptop to start it up again.
“Colonel, I’m serious about you getting some rest.” John ignored him. “Do you think this Elizabeth of yours would want you stay up all night searching for her and harming yourself in the process?”
John stopped and looked at the Scotsman. “First off, she isn’t my Elizabeth. We all knew her. And no, she wouldn’t want me to stay up all night.”
“There you-”
“But,” John said holding up a finger to prevent Carson from finishing his sentence. “If I was the one who was missing, she would probably do the same. In fact, she never gave up when my team and I were taken by Ford and his super soldiers. If Caldwell was really in charge, we would have been presumed MIA after the first two weeks.”
Carson thought about John’s reasoning. He seemed to have a point. When John and his team had been captured by Ford and his men, it seemed unlikely for Caldwell to pull all available teams to go and search for Sheppard’s team on the fifty addresses they found. Still, no matter how hard he tried to think about this Elizabeth Weir, he couldn’t remember her. Even though some unexplainable things had occurred, they seemed to make more sense when she was added into the equation.
“Look, doc. I’m not crazy.”
“I never said you were. I just said that you needed rest, and I still think you do. And I suggest you do that right now. I don’t want to have to force you to rest, Colonel.” Before John could talk back to him he continued, “If you really want to find Elizabeth, you’re no help to her half dead. Now off you go.”
Carson stood there waiting for John to get up from the table. John was about to take the laptop with him, but Carson quickly shot him a look, and John decided it was best to leave it. He’d have to sneak back in here later to get it.
“Those things will be here when you wake up in a couple hours, Colonel.”
“I know,” he said reluctantly. “So are you going to walk me back to my room?”
“No, only part of the way,” Carson smiled. “I trust you remember where your room is.”
Carson stood by the door and waited for John to exit. Knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to get away from sleeping this time, John obliged the doctor’s request. Besides, he could barely see straight anymore. Before he fell asleep at the table, he swore he saw the text on the pictures start to wiggle.
Just a couple hours of rest, that was all he needed. That was all he could he afford. That was all Elizabeth could afford, he thought as he turned the corner towards his room.
It seemed like an eternity for the glowing entity to reach the room Elizabeth occupied; yet it also seemed to happen so suddenly.
Elizabeth took another step back as the being entered the triangular room. She felt the wall against her back. Terror, fear, hope, confusion, awe, and wonder were just some of the emotions that flooded her mind. All the conflicting emotions made her want to sit down and cry. Instead, she held herself together and looked into the eyes of the being standing before her.
From a distance the being seemed to be only a glow of light, but when it finally entered the room, it took a human form and the tendrils of light surrounding it disappeared, revealing a woman dressed in a peplos. Though the lights around her were gone, light still seemed to emanate from her body, lighting the small room with a pallid glow. For a moment Elizabeth felt like she stood in a museum gallery observing a Hellenistic sculpture of a Greek goddess.
“Who are you?” Elizabeth asked with an almost steady voice.
“I am the one who cares for and remembers those who have been forgotten.” The woman’s voice was somber yet beautifully feminine.
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth looked at the being in front of her. “What is this place?”
“This is the Realm of the Forgotten,” she said distantly as if she was remembering a memory of a long lost past.
“Why am I here?” Elizabeth asked.
The woman looked into Elizabeth’s wide eyes. “You are here because your beloved had touched Lethe and sought to forget you.”
“Lethe?”
The woman gestured towards the orb in the center of the room. Then Elizabeth remembered the quote she translated before.
Placing one’s hands on the Lethe will extricate all memory of a loved one that pains you.
“This is all a mistake,” Elizabeth quickly said. “John isn’t my beloved, and he didn’t touch that thing to forget me. We were being chased by the Wraith and something within the vicinity was interfering with our equipment. We only touched Lethe in hopes of turning it off. There was never any intention of doing… this.”
The woman listened patiently to Elizabeth’s explanation. “You say this John is not your beloved, yet you are here,” she said.
“It was possible that he was thinking of trying to save our lives, so I was probably the last thing on his mind when he touched Lethe,” Elizabeth thought out loud. “The point is this is all a mistake.”
“I am truly sorry,” the woman said.
“What do you mean ‘I’m sorry’?”
“I made Lethe many years ago, in the hopes of easing those who have suffered a loss from death. I was young and naïve. I never listened to what the others thought. I especially disagreed with our highest law to never interfere.
“For many years, I stood by and watched as the Wraith culled and took many lives leaving behind many distraught loved ones. For some it was only a matter of time before their hearts healed, only to face another culling or disease and lose another loved one.
“Our descendants have suffered so much and I thought that I could ease their burdens in hope of allowing them to forget certain things,” she explained.
“But you were wrong.”
“I was gravely wrong,” she admitted. “People started to abuse the gift I gave them, and some innocents were chosen to be forgotten and left here to die a cold lonely death.
As punishment for my defiance to our highest law, I am forced to remain here and remember all these souls I have aggrieved. I have wandered these forests in hopes of keeping fear within the hearts of the villagers to prevent them from venturing into these ruins. Unfortunately, after ten thousand years, my faults have found yet another victim.”
“Are you saying that there is no way out of here?” Elizabeth asked, afraid that she already knew her answer.
The Ancient gravely shook her head.
“What if someone changed their minds and wanted to remember someone?”
“How do you remember something you and everyone else has forgotten?” the Ancient asked solemnly.
Elizabeth dreaded those words. She could feel her throat choke up as tears were starting to moisten her eyes again. She quickly blinked back her tears and took a deep breath to steady her voice again.
“Has no one ever remembered someone when they touched Lethe?”
The woman could see that Elizabeth was still grasping on to hope.
“There was one,” she admitted. “One man, who loved his wife so dearly, that even after he touched the Lethe, he still could not forget her after her death. But everyone around him no longer knew of her existence; only he knew she existed. Day after day he sought her body, which laid here. For many years he searched for her, while the villagers all thought him mad. Finally, one day he found the stairs that led down here.”
“Wait,” Elizabeth interrupted. “You said there was no way out of here, and I don’t remember seeing a way out.”
“The underworld was never meant for the living.”
“You said this man found an entrance down here. So there is a chance in finding those who were forgotten.” Elizabeth was still trying to grasp on to this shred of hope.
“Yes, there was” she said emphasizing the last word, which did not escape Elizabeth.
“What do you mean by ‘was’?”
“When the man found the rotted corpse of his wife, he pushed himself over the edge and went mad with overwhelming grief again. In his madness he chose to stay. He was a skilled craftsmen and artisan and chose to seal the only entrance into here. Because I am not able to interfere, I could not prevent him from sealing the tomb,” the Ancient said with downcast eyes.
“So there is no way of escaping here?”
“I am as much as a prisoner as you are.”
“I know it is part of the Ascended laws to never interfere but…”
The Ancient held her hand up for Elizabeth to stop. “I am sorry. I am powerless in this matter.”
Elizabeth thought about trying to plead with the Ancient again, but from her past experiences with Ancients, especially ones that were punished, many were hesitant in assisting. There were always a few exceptions, but this time was not the case.
As Elizabeth’s gaze remained down on the ground, she noticed the light in the room start to glow brighter. She looked up to see that the Ancient was preparing to leave, subsequently leaving her in darkness again.
“Please, before you leave can you at least tell me who you are?”
“The people here knew me as Mneme.”
“Mneme,” Elizabeth repeated the name to herself. “I am Elizabeth Weir,” she said as Mneme turned into a glowing orb again.
“Elizabeth Weir,” Mneme’s voice echoed in Elizabeth mind. “I promise to remember you.”
Once again, Elizabeth stood alone in complete and utter darkness.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Fanfiction.net version: Chapter 4
Again, thanks to my beta mizz_magenta. I will send you the next couple chapters soon. *nods*
Chapter 4
“Elizabeth!”
Her eyes snapped open and she awoke with a start. The blackness of the room and the throbbing pain in her arm reminded her of her dilemma, and her tears returned.
As she wiped her despairing tears from her cheeks, she tried to comfort herself by telling herself that everything would be all right in the end. It always had. From the moment they stepped through the Stargate into the Pegasus Galaxy, they had encountered problem after problem. After each situation, they always managed to come out alive. This was just another one of those obstacles where everything seemed dire and hopeless. She would survive this, just as John survived nearly dying countless of times.
She let out a weak chuckle as she thought about how after this ordeal, John and his team would surely get into trouble, causing her to worry incessantly again. However, presently, she was the one missing, and she was alone, cold, hungry, and afraid.
She did not know how long she had been trapped in this tomb. It could have only been hours or days, but in the dark, it felt like an eternity. She buried her head in her hand and the only sound she could hear was the quiet ticking of her watch in the silence.
The ticking watch both comforted and troubled her. It comforted her, for the ticking reminded her that she was still alive since time is a part of life and mortality. On the other hand, since time symbolized life and its mortality, it was a constant reminder that she was slowly running out of time. With every tick-tock that went by, she was a second closer to dying in this tomb. She could feel tears of despair returning, but she quickly wiped them away.
“No,” she said to herself. “I can’t die. Not here.” She lifted her head and looked straight into the darkness.
Her body craved for sustenance and rest, but the only food she had was a chocolate bar and several energy bars in her vest. Unsure of how long she would be trapped here, she had rationed her meager meal to a couple of bites.
Instead of deciding to take a few bites of food, Elizabeth stood up to stretch out her sore muscles. She left the gun on the ground beside the wall to mark her position and looked around into the blackness. Before her light ran out, she had committed the layout of the triangular room to memory. She knew exactly where the archway and its hall of corpses were. She could also see in her mind where the hateful orb stood in the center of the room.
She slowly took a step forward away from the wall and towards the center of the room with her hand out stretched, blindly searching for the orb. It was not long until her fingertips touched the cool orb. Her fingers felt around the sphere hoping to feel something that she missed with her eyes.
All she felt was the flawless surface of the orb beneath her fingers. She carefully knelt down on the ground and started to feel the surface of the pedestal again. Still she only felt the smooth perfect surface of the marble pedestal. She let out a despairing sigh, rested her forehead against the pedestal, and closed her eyes. She wished she knew how to escape this nightmare.
Eventually Elizabeth forced herself to open her eyes and stand up. Before she was ready to feel her way back to her spot, she looked straight ahead. Though she could not see it, she knew she was looking straight into the corridor of corpses.
She suddenly gasped and took a step back when she thought she saw a glow of light floating towards her from the corridor. At first, she blinked and shook her head thinking the darkness was playing tricks with her eyes and mind. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, but the glowing light was still there and slowly came closer towards her.
Her heart started to pound nervously as she slowly backed toward the corner she marked with her gun. The thought had not occurred to her before, but the eerie glow approaching her immediately caused her to question if she believed in the supernatural. She had never really believed in ghosts or vengeful spirits, but her present predicament of being trapped in a dark catacomb was causing her to think otherwise.
As the light approached her, she remembered seeing something like this once before. It reminded her of the time when the Proculus Priestess, Chaya Sar, came to Atlantis, and how she abruptly left when her identity was discovered. Elizabeth remembered seeing Chaya become enveloped by light as she returned to her ascended state of pure energy and glided through the Stargate.
The mysterious light gliding towards her looked very much like an ascended Ancient. Elizabeth’s fear of meeting a vengeful spirit quickly dissipated. If this was truly an Ancient, there was a possibility that it could help her get out of this place.
Elizabeth prayed that the light at the end of this tunnel was Hope.
“Colonel, didn’t I tell you to get some rest?”
The familiar Scottish accent was muddled in John’s brain as he lifted his sore neck from the table he fell asleep on.
“I was sleeping.” John rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“I was thinking more along the lines of sleeping in a nice comfortable bed instead of stooped over a lab table,” Carson said. “I bet you’ve just given yourself a good crick in the neck.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s good, but I do have a crick...” John said rubbing the back of his neck. “Where’s McKay?”
“That’s how I knew you were here,” Carson said crossing his arms over his chest. “He came into the infirmary complaining of a neck cramp he got from sleeping at his desk again.”
“Figures,” John muttered and tapped a key on the laptop to start it up again.
“Colonel, I’m serious about you getting some rest.” John ignored him. “Do you think this Elizabeth of yours would want you stay up all night searching for her and harming yourself in the process?”
John stopped and looked at the Scotsman. “First off, she isn’t my Elizabeth. We all knew her. And no, she wouldn’t want me to stay up all night.”
“There you-”
“But,” John said holding up a finger to prevent Carson from finishing his sentence. “If I was the one who was missing, she would probably do the same. In fact, she never gave up when my team and I were taken by Ford and his super soldiers. If Caldwell was really in charge, we would have been presumed MIA after the first two weeks.”
Carson thought about John’s reasoning. He seemed to have a point. When John and his team had been captured by Ford and his men, it seemed unlikely for Caldwell to pull all available teams to go and search for Sheppard’s team on the fifty addresses they found. Still, no matter how hard he tried to think about this Elizabeth Weir, he couldn’t remember her. Even though some unexplainable things had occurred, they seemed to make more sense when she was added into the equation.
“Look, doc. I’m not crazy.”
“I never said you were. I just said that you needed rest, and I still think you do. And I suggest you do that right now. I don’t want to have to force you to rest, Colonel.” Before John could talk back to him he continued, “If you really want to find Elizabeth, you’re no help to her half dead. Now off you go.”
Carson stood there waiting for John to get up from the table. John was about to take the laptop with him, but Carson quickly shot him a look, and John decided it was best to leave it. He’d have to sneak back in here later to get it.
“Those things will be here when you wake up in a couple hours, Colonel.”
“I know,” he said reluctantly. “So are you going to walk me back to my room?”
“No, only part of the way,” Carson smiled. “I trust you remember where your room is.”
Carson stood by the door and waited for John to exit. Knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to get away from sleeping this time, John obliged the doctor’s request. Besides, he could barely see straight anymore. Before he fell asleep at the table, he swore he saw the text on the pictures start to wiggle.
Just a couple hours of rest, that was all he needed. That was all he could he afford. That was all Elizabeth could afford, he thought as he turned the corner towards his room.
It seemed like an eternity for the glowing entity to reach the room Elizabeth occupied; yet it also seemed to happen so suddenly.
Elizabeth took another step back as the being entered the triangular room. She felt the wall against her back. Terror, fear, hope, confusion, awe, and wonder were just some of the emotions that flooded her mind. All the conflicting emotions made her want to sit down and cry. Instead, she held herself together and looked into the eyes of the being standing before her.
From a distance the being seemed to be only a glow of light, but when it finally entered the room, it took a human form and the tendrils of light surrounding it disappeared, revealing a woman dressed in a peplos. Though the lights around her were gone, light still seemed to emanate from her body, lighting the small room with a pallid glow. For a moment Elizabeth felt like she stood in a museum gallery observing a Hellenistic sculpture of a Greek goddess.
“Who are you?” Elizabeth asked with an almost steady voice.
“I am the one who cares for and remembers those who have been forgotten.” The woman’s voice was somber yet beautifully feminine.
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth looked at the being in front of her. “What is this place?”
“This is the Realm of the Forgotten,” she said distantly as if she was remembering a memory of a long lost past.
“Why am I here?” Elizabeth asked.
The woman looked into Elizabeth’s wide eyes. “You are here because your beloved had touched Lethe and sought to forget you.”
“Lethe?”
The woman gestured towards the orb in the center of the room. Then Elizabeth remembered the quote she translated before.
Placing one’s hands on the Lethe will extricate all memory of a loved one that pains you.
“This is all a mistake,” Elizabeth quickly said. “John isn’t my beloved, and he didn’t touch that thing to forget me. We were being chased by the Wraith and something within the vicinity was interfering with our equipment. We only touched Lethe in hopes of turning it off. There was never any intention of doing… this.”
The woman listened patiently to Elizabeth’s explanation. “You say this John is not your beloved, yet you are here,” she said.
“It was possible that he was thinking of trying to save our lives, so I was probably the last thing on his mind when he touched Lethe,” Elizabeth thought out loud. “The point is this is all a mistake.”
“I am truly sorry,” the woman said.
“What do you mean ‘I’m sorry’?”
“I made Lethe many years ago, in the hopes of easing those who have suffered a loss from death. I was young and naïve. I never listened to what the others thought. I especially disagreed with our highest law to never interfere.
“For many years, I stood by and watched as the Wraith culled and took many lives leaving behind many distraught loved ones. For some it was only a matter of time before their hearts healed, only to face another culling or disease and lose another loved one.
“Our descendants have suffered so much and I thought that I could ease their burdens in hope of allowing them to forget certain things,” she explained.
“But you were wrong.”
“I was gravely wrong,” she admitted. “People started to abuse the gift I gave them, and some innocents were chosen to be forgotten and left here to die a cold lonely death.
As punishment for my defiance to our highest law, I am forced to remain here and remember all these souls I have aggrieved. I have wandered these forests in hopes of keeping fear within the hearts of the villagers to prevent them from venturing into these ruins. Unfortunately, after ten thousand years, my faults have found yet another victim.”
“Are you saying that there is no way out of here?” Elizabeth asked, afraid that she already knew her answer.
The Ancient gravely shook her head.
“What if someone changed their minds and wanted to remember someone?”
“How do you remember something you and everyone else has forgotten?” the Ancient asked solemnly.
Elizabeth dreaded those words. She could feel her throat choke up as tears were starting to moisten her eyes again. She quickly blinked back her tears and took a deep breath to steady her voice again.
“Has no one ever remembered someone when they touched Lethe?”
The woman could see that Elizabeth was still grasping on to hope.
“There was one,” she admitted. “One man, who loved his wife so dearly, that even after he touched the Lethe, he still could not forget her after her death. But everyone around him no longer knew of her existence; only he knew she existed. Day after day he sought her body, which laid here. For many years he searched for her, while the villagers all thought him mad. Finally, one day he found the stairs that led down here.”
“Wait,” Elizabeth interrupted. “You said there was no way out of here, and I don’t remember seeing a way out.”
“The underworld was never meant for the living.”
“You said this man found an entrance down here. So there is a chance in finding those who were forgotten.” Elizabeth was still trying to grasp on to this shred of hope.
“Yes, there was” she said emphasizing the last word, which did not escape Elizabeth.
“What do you mean by ‘was’?”
“When the man found the rotted corpse of his wife, he pushed himself over the edge and went mad with overwhelming grief again. In his madness he chose to stay. He was a skilled craftsmen and artisan and chose to seal the only entrance into here. Because I am not able to interfere, I could not prevent him from sealing the tomb,” the Ancient said with downcast eyes.
“So there is no way of escaping here?”
“I am as much as a prisoner as you are.”
“I know it is part of the Ascended laws to never interfere but…”
The Ancient held her hand up for Elizabeth to stop. “I am sorry. I am powerless in this matter.”
Elizabeth thought about trying to plead with the Ancient again, but from her past experiences with Ancients, especially ones that were punished, many were hesitant in assisting. There were always a few exceptions, but this time was not the case.
As Elizabeth’s gaze remained down on the ground, she noticed the light in the room start to glow brighter. She looked up to see that the Ancient was preparing to leave, subsequently leaving her in darkness again.
“Please, before you leave can you at least tell me who you are?”
“The people here knew me as Mneme.”
“Mneme,” Elizabeth repeated the name to herself. “I am Elizabeth Weir,” she said as Mneme turned into a glowing orb again.
“Elizabeth Weir,” Mneme’s voice echoed in Elizabeth mind. “I promise to remember you.”
Once again, Elizabeth stood alone in complete and utter darkness.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Fanfiction.net version: Chapter 4