Him and i - Dreams of trauma

I hear fire! The gorgeous, crackling noise of it. Or most probably, I'm already half asleep and imagine. I'm already dreaming? A strong draught hits me suddenly. I open my eyes. Everything's the same, but it's the first time I ever felt a current of air since I got here. And the sound of the fire… And they're both quickly gone. Where did it all came from? I close my eyes again. I wait. I wait. I…

I hear the fire, and hear and feel the draught again. I get up, with my eyes shut, I know what to do. I don't have to explain it to myself, instinct tells me. I keep my eyes shut, and walk forward, towards the glass, towards the room. With my hand reaching forward, so I won't hit my head, feeling the air. I don't feel the glass, I don't hit anything. I start feeling the cold draught, and the temperature lowering. I keep walking, hands ahead. I feel something, I touched something with my hands. I open my eyes, is the pillar. I'm in the room. I look back, but there's only wall, no glass.

I'm in some kind of an old dungeon. Chains with handcuffs hang from the walls, ceiling, and from the pillar. For hands and for feet. The two urns that burn continuously, are not fueled. The fire just gets out of the bowl of metal, bronze, whatever it is, without having a source, or something to keep it lit. The room is secured by metal bars.

The door made also by metal bars, is ajar, happily, no more trials for me to advance. I go towards the door to get out. I don't get too far though, as something grabs me by my foot and pulls me back. I panic and pull my leg as hard as I can to free myself. I hear an odd noise, as if I pulled after me a bunch of wooden sticks. I turn to see what I'm stuck in, a skeleton. A skeleton that grabbed my foot with its hand.

I'm petrified. I can't move. I don't know what I'm waiting. I'm waiting for it to move first. But the skeleton doesn't move first. It's dead. And just got stuck with its hand in my shoelaces. I move my leg a little, to see what happens. The skeleton follows my leg rattling on the floor. I move again. It's alright, it just happened that the fingers got stuck in my shoelaces, in this position… I free my leg from the skeleton's tight grasp and crouch down to get a closer look at it.

It looks odd. The skeleton, is not too tall, still has clothes on. It's not the only skeleton I see around but it's the one that grabbed my leg. I move it a little. I think it was a woman. She wears a scarf, black, that gives this feeling, it's tied around the neck. A black blouse, and a black long skirt, I think, or maybe some ripped clothing, it seems that it was torn apart. These rags look so old and worn, I thought she was just covered in sheets of black cloth. She also has a piece of cloth tied around her eyes. Why would she be blindfolded? It's red the cloth, or more like painted red, but only two spots, the ones around the eyes. I pull it apart and I see pieces of red threads fallen inside the skull.

I get up and go towards the door made of metal bars. I don't like it here, it's…ominous. Beyond the metal bars door, was another wooden one and beyond that wooden door, was an intensely dark hall. I get back in the dungeon. The torches are put in racks, on the middle pillar. Way above my head, and way high for me to reach. And there's nothing in this dungeon to help me get there, or at least, nothing I'm willing to use… I'll have to get the compass out and barely light my way again.

To the left there's a long hallway, I don't see its end. And to the right is the rest of the hallway, I see this end. No doors to my right, so I go left. I keep going in the deep darkness, the long hallway, I just hope, it's not… On the walls I see torches, put in racks, covered by dust and spiderwebs. None of them lit. The walls, torches, bricks and stones, the pavement under my foot, all seem so old. But again, untouched by someone in ages. But not so perfect as the infinite spiral stairway before. Here, the material was touched by time.

On my right I see a double door, made by hard, thick wood. But filled with holes and scratches and imperfections. I try to open it, it's locked, it doesn't move much, but the wood is so old and weak, it made a frail sound when I pushed. Seems easy to break. Ah! I think about my wrist, and pain comes back, agonizing, as if not thinking about it was a powerful enough analgesic that now wore off completely.

I'll leave it be for now, and keep going towards the end of the hallway. Which I reach right after. On my left there is another door, wood, single door this time. I press the black iron door handle, which breaks and falls on the floor, but the door opens. Wood cracking so hard for a moment I thought it's gonna fall into pieces.

Beyond the door I see a dark, cellar like room, damp, a bit colder than the hallway, but not significantly, and filled with a smell of alcohol and…mould in the air. With dust being present in each particle of oxygen I breathe. There is no source of light, again, so I go deep inside, to light the objects with my compass. From the ceiling I see ropes hanging, with meat, I think, tied at the end. But it doesn't stink as it should. It just has this damp smell.

The walls are fitted with shelves filled with wines. Sealed or opened bottles of wine, țuică, and vișinată. These old bottles of wine give me this idea of money, and make me wonder what the value of all this would be. But other than this, is just a normal cellar, not worth looking more into. I'll have to break that door.

I get out of the cellar and walk towards the weak double door. I get in front of it and try the door handle again, with no success. I try to push it, but I didn't manage to move it more. Both my fucked-up wrist and my cut wrist are hurting madly. I get back a few steps and launch myself into the door, shoulder first. It moves, it felt like it almost fell, and the loud noise confirms it, that it will fall quickly.

The wood is weak, it bends, it cracks and breaks. I'll have to force myself. I get a bigger distance between me and the door and sprint with my shoulder again into it. It moves so much I fall on the ground as it didn't offer enough resistance for me to lean on it.

I back away even further, back stuck to the opposite wall and run smashing into the door with my foot. The door shakes and breaks from its hinges. The doors must be barricaded on the other side by a big wooden bar. There seems to be the point of resistance, at the middle of the door, around the handles. Why would you block from the exterior though? This is a dead end…

I get back to the opposite wall and repeat the kick. I hear the wooden bar on the other side cracking. I start kicking the door repeatedly, putting all my weight into each kick. The wood starts breaking, splinters get thrown out, wood pieces, debris. It starts disintegrating worse and worse after each kick. I stop and take some steps back, again, I run and throw my foot ahead bashing it in the middle of the double door. All my strength went into this last one, and with good results as I hear the heavy wooden bar falling on the other side, two of them, or it broke in half. The doors are slightly open and waiting for my last push.

I, once again, start from the opposite wall, sprint, and throw my body, shoulder first, into the door. I get right through the door. I'm on the other side, on the ground, covered in wood debris and splinters. I haven't got seriously hurt, but then, my shoulder starts instantly to hurt like hell, followed by my wrists. There is a threshold, must be, of pain that can be suffered, until one simply dies. And I think I'm so close to that…threshold.

After my body calms down, and the shivers stop, I get on my ass and start pulling out the splinters that got stuck in my shoulder. I get up and shake off the rest of the debris left on me and look up at what lays ahead of me.

And ahead of me lays a straight stairway, that rises beyond the effective range of the light of my compass. I start ascending the stairway, holding the compass ahead. Climbing into this darkness with only steps to see ahead, still looks like I'm descending…

At the end of the stairs there's another door. This one isn't locked, and I open it and arrive on another corridor. This time lit. Well lit, and populated with plenty of wooden doors on each side.

On my right, the corridor gets darker and ends in black, no end in sight. On my left, that's where the light is coming from, with an end in sight. It ends in a room that seems huge, with an arch instead of a door. An arch as big as the corridor, which is big. At least 7 meters in width and 4 in height, and seems infinite in length. It's a little annoying all this sudden light, being used with the darkness, now the eyes need to adapt again. But I set foot on the corridor and head towards the source of light first.

That I got here and discovered this place, this crypt, that I survived, all of what happened, it all makes me wonder, what will happen next? I want to see, what am I to find from now on. As I approach the arch, and the lit room behind it, a familiar smell greets me. Same as the one from the car…same as…

I can't remember what it smells like, or where have I met this smell before today. But I feel that I surely know it, it somehow gives me some childhood feeling. And as closer I get to the light source, as stronger and pungent it becomes.

Such a beautiful smell, but so intense. It really comes from the lit room. Inside, the room is lit by four huge urns, each placed in a corner, each burning fiercely. The huge room is more like a hall, divided in two. In the first half, the right one, lay three tables, long enough to sit dozens on each side, and at the end of the tables there's a podium from where discourses were probably held. And the other half of the hall is empty space.

On one of the walls shines a yellow sun, drawn, huge enough to attract attention from wherever in the room you are. In the middle of the sun lays a wooden plaque, simply stuck on the wall, and on that plaque is written: 'Light will be victorious in face of Darkness'. The wooden plaque seems newer than…everything else around it. And it also looks like it was put there in an unthoughtful, lazy manner. I see on the edges between the plaque and the wall how a solution was used to stick it up there. I try to pull it with my hands but with no success. It's glued well.

On the wall opposite with the arch, there's a huge, burning fireplace, placed so its light can run down the long hallway. I go to the fireplace and take a poker from there. I look very closely for an opening between the wooden plaque and the wall, I find something, and I stick the poker's pointy head in and leverage it open. The plaque falls and reveals an engraved writing underneath: 'Lumen et culti'. Seems like Latin, but I have no idea what it means.

The rest of this hall is just empty space, used probably for stand-up gatherings or something. I have to move forward, the smell became stronger in the meanwhile. It's the type of smell that you don't notice when it gets more intense. But it's a nice smell. Just the intensity gives this impression of being dangerous. Poisonous. Bad. I put the poker back and get myself back on the hallway. I start going towards the opposite end of the seemingly infinite and impenetrable dark hallway.

I try the first doors that I find in my way, but they are all locked. Each door has a number on it, like in a hotel. Each door looks the same. There's no reason to try them all, I'll keep walking along, maybe I'll find something else. I pass the door that I came through, and many other doors, some are locked, some I didn't checked, but none I got open. And so, I wander, submerging myself in the darkness, safe and protected by the light behind me, for now. That huge fireplace lights even this far, but only this far. I have to pull out the compass to go on further, into the darkness untouched by the fireplace's light.

It's terrifying, this situation I'm finding myself in, on this dark corridor, helped by just a faint light that doesn't show me anything more than 3 meters ahead. The closed doors to the left and to the right, come into my sight just for a few seconds, and they disappear back into the darkness, as I advance. I'm expecting any moment now, one of these doors to explode into small pieces and from behind it, an unimaginable beast to dash at me with a brutal speed and grab me and then…

I look behind, the arch is still visible, the small light coming from the hall, the fireplace, they are all still there. That hall so full of light seems like such a safe place to be, instead of where I am now. Too bad the light doesn't reach me and guide me on the path ahead.

After some more walking, I notice an open door to my left. It's different from the other doors, instead of a number this door bears a small wooden plaque with some books drawn on it. I open the door even more to check every corner before entering, which is futile, as I have to enter deep inside to be able to touch the far corners with the compass' light.

I enter the room, pointing my compass everywhere until I mark the room delimitations in my head, and make sure there's nothing lurking in the shadows. What's with this sudden fear of getting surprise attacked by someone, or something? After I deem the room secure, I go to close the only door and then wander around this small library. It's a not so large room, only of 10 by 10 meters or so. All the walls are covered in bookshelves from the very bottom and up to the ceiling. But the shelves aren't filled with books.

These shelves look so poor, so sad and empty. There are barely a few hundred books, if even that, in a place that could easy fit thousands. The books that look like they made it out alive, are barely 3 or 4 on each shelve. Left where they were initially, most of them laying on a side. As if someone took the other thousands of books and ran with them, leaving these behind in a hurry. Sad library.

In the middle of the room there's a round table, big, with many chairs around it. The table is more filled with books than the shelves are. A small pile of them, left there, thrown in a hurry more like. Everything is covered in this so thick layer of dust that I'm afraid even the smallest sneeze would make it explode and scatter it all around. I felt this dust in the air since I came in this room, like I smelled from too close, an old book. It's so dense I can even feel the dust now settling, with every inhale, in my lungs. The older books catch my eyes. So old they are written by hand and bound by hand and so they are scarce and can be count on one hand. But most of the books in here are new, printed.

In a corner, where the wall isn't touched by shelves, lays a wooden box with no cap, and filled with papyrus rolls. They seem so old that the paper looks like is going to break just from me taking a closer look. I slowly move away from that box afraid that I might somehow damage them with my presence. I sit instead at the round wooden table. I reach and place in front of me the closest book.

Titled: 'Rituals and other rites II'. Old, but not as the oldest here, but still gives off an odd smell. It was open at the chapter: 'How to come back on the light's path'.

First rows start: 'Don't despair if you find yourself distanced from the light's path, a lot of people went through this, as you, and a lot will go through this after you. Temptation awaits you at each shadow you meet and doesn't waste any time to drag you on the path of no light. The path of the empty and unholy darkness. You just have to remember yourself what is our fight, who is our common enemy. You have to keep yourself pure and to not forget to ask other's help, as we are a community, as we are a family, and we help each other to stay on the path filled with light.'

What is this shit text? Does it want to be an occult book? I throw the book back on the table and take another one, still one of these newer books. 'Birth of light'. The author's name, I feel I've heard it before, 'Marcel Văcărescu'. I open at the back of the book and read the chapter titles: 'Pre-day', 'What it means to be the bringer of light', 'How to increase your chances', 'Mother's role ', 'The big day preparations', 'How to make decisions for your kid', 'How is he different from the others'…

And it keeps going like this, with these kind of advices on how to raise your son, or whatever he is, as they keep referring to him as some kind of messiah. I think I am in a cult like convent. An underground location in which lived these people that were part of some odd, ancient religion. I haven't heard of this kind of religion or this place, and everything seems so interesting. Nonetheless a discovery like this would've brought a lot of attention, it would've appeared in news, papers, social media. It would've been some international phenomenon, and a huge touristic attraction for Brasov. But it isn't.

I think…I'm the first person, outside of this cult, that has been here. I think I'm the first person that discovered this cult since it found its end. I feel like an adventurer from a story written by Jules Verne. I've discovered this secret cult, hidden for so many centuries. A religious cult, that worships light. A group of people that lived in these catacombs hidden underground and I had to pass some traps and enigmas to get here.

It's the first time I'm eager to see what will happen next, what will I find next. Maybe this series of events isn't the worst thing that could've happened to me. I have to continue my adventure, and I have to continue looking for information anyway, not just for the sake of mystery, but there are things happening to me and affecting me heavily and I have to find out what's my role in all this. The smell, wakes me from this pause of thought. It reaches even here? Or did it spread up to here and followed me?

I get up from my chair and start looking at the shelves, there are only occult books in this library. 'How to face darkness', 'Training for the big battle', 'Initiation rite'. Books that you'd expect to find in this kind of library actually. I go to the corner of the room, where the box filled with papyri is. I can't read one if I don't touch it, pull it out, and unroll it. And this kind of paper, I swear, just by breathing so close I think it will disintegrate.

I decide that I have to read one, so I look at them and find the biggest, sturdiest of them and grab it. The paper feels so weak in my hands. I unroll it, without tearing it, yet. I don't understand the language at all. It looks like old Greek, but just a few letters, then I recognize some that are part of the Latin alphabet, but it's useless, these are just hieroglyphs for me.

I roll the papyrus and place it back with the biggest of cares. I take another one, it rips a little at the edge, but I manage to throw an eye around and notice the same unknown language. I roll it and put it back. Next to the papyrus box is an empty wall of shelves, but it has a roll rolled up to the upper last shelve. It looks like a rolled map stuck in a pin, like in geography classes. I grab the roll and unroll it softly, until I reach the last shelve near the ground, there is a nail stuck in that shelve, and the roll ends with a little string that I twirl around that nail.

Once it is tied well, I take a few steps back to look at what definitely isn't a map as I thought it would be. Instead is some kind of family tree that dates since 520. I see Marcel Văcărescu there, probably it seemed familiar because I read his name on the marble plaque. All the names that are put on the middle line of this family tree are the same as the ones on the marble plaque. A line of men just, starting with Ognian, but this time ending at Andrei Mureșan. Petruț isn't mentioned here. The disappearance of this cult seems to revolve around his death. Probably it started a conflict, or there are other reasons more… Whatever.

I look around and notice something behind the wooden trunk. A big painting, hidden by dust and by the box and shelves. I take out the painting, with great care and great difficulty, and turn it to face me. It's an old woman, with white eyes. Like the one from the dream. It says 'Olsana' on the painting. Everything seems connected. But I don't know how to look at all this information I have. I don't know how to follow this thread in this entangled ball that represents the events that happened to me today. I also feel like the information is incomplete, like I just scratched the surface. An intangible surface that I still don't know how to deal with.

Everything seems so…but also, everything seems so real…I don't know…

The family tree, all the books, all these catacombs and crypts that I passed until now… These people from this community really believed in a light, venerated it, and awaited the day in which it will be born in their community. This light, is portrayed as some kind of Messiah. Some god of theirs. And I, after all this…believe. After all that happened to me today. All that I've been through. I believe in their religion. How can I not? There aren't many things that could seem impossible to me now, unreal…

The room is spinning. I lean on the closest shelve and slowly drip down, so I can sit safely. I can't see, I see, but everything has no name, no meaning. Objects, materials, me, it all feels meaningless and without a definition for me. I don't know what I'm looking at.

Nothing is real, not what I've read, what I've seen or felt, nothing. It can't be real, but this place… I feel overwhelmed by feelings, by emotions. I'm completely lost. Ripped away from reality. Insane. Maybe nothing is real. But I'm not dreaming, and if this is a hallucination… Maybe I really lost my mind. But I'm here, now, and I can't do anything else but continue. This is reality, for now. My reality.

I get on my feet, still holding my hand on the shelve, still numb and dizzy from this explosion of feelings. I have to find more about this cult, about this crypt, these dungeons, and how it's all tied to me.

The nice smell from the big hall got intense again. It gives me a feeling of discomfort. It's not a smell that I can get used to, it doesn't fade after some time, and I don't get to forget about it. It's constantly here, as intense and striking as the first time I encountered it.

I feel a tingling in my brain whenever I breathe in this air. It gives me a feeling of sadness when I inhale this smell, of melancholy. Euphoria? I pull the shirt over my nose and try to breathe less. I get out of the room and continue my adventure through the dark hallway. Further away from the lit hall and the smell that follows me. With the compass pointed forwards, I continue walking, looking closely at the doors on the sides, to see which is open or at least ajar.

All the doors I encounter are closed, I stopped from time to time to check them, but I stopped doing even that. As the doors that would open, proved to be just a waste of time. Most of the doors have numbers on them and if I find one bearing a number open, it just leads me to a simple room where someone used to live. And all these living rooms are almost exactly the same. There wasn't much variety back in those times I guess. All that these rooms have are a bed, three torch holders, a small shelve and a bigger closet. Not much more than that. Some have desks.

But in my wander, I start seeing more often, doors barricaded with wooden planks, so often that a normal locked door becomes a rarity. These doors were shut with planks and nails from the outside, to keep the people locked inside. I don't want to try to open these doors. I'm afraid of what I'd find inside, but I want to know why so many are barricaded.

The hallway is so long… I've been walking for more than half an hour and I still haven't reached the end. And it doesn't even look that I'm getting any closer. That sensation, from when I was stuck on the stairway, it's coming back. If I hadn't noticed the compass back then, I would've been stuck there, in that infinite loop, for an eternity. Or just until I would've died.

No, this hallway is different. It doesn't look the same everywhere. It's not symmetric at all. I continue along the hallway. I don't feel chased by the smell anymore, it's gone for now, I've outrun it. For now.

But I don't find any interesting room, any different room, on this so fucking long corridor. Everywhere barricaded doors, locked, or simple living rooms. I stop for a second. A room on my left side, the light from my compass behaved differently when I pointed at it. I go back and get closer to that room.

The room has wooden planks to act as door and to keep people from entering. But the door is on the ground, on the inside, ripped from the hinges. Forced. The only one I've found like this. It has a number so it's a living room, but different, I can't see much from outside, my compass barely lights and there's too little space between the planks to get my hand with the compass through. I have to get in.

I grab the planks and pull them out. I don't even have to pull them out of the nails, the old wood breaks so easy that it takes me a few moments to get rid of half of them. And half is enough for me to squeeze in. I raise my foot and lower my head and get in the room. I look around the room, it's simple, but different from the others. It doesn't have supports to put torches in. There is no dried-up wax on the desk or a candle holder.

This room could be the old woman's room, from the painting, from my dream. Olsana. She doesn't need to see, she doesn't need light or fire. Fuck. Being in this room gives me chills. I'm extremely cold and hyper aware suddenly, scared that she might just appear out of a shadow and grab me and… I have to calm myself. I'm frantically looking everywhere in the room and walking in circles as to leave no shadow untouched by light for more than a second. It's so stressful…

I stop, go to the opposite wall from the door, and stick my back against it. With the compass ahead of me, I just point it forward. If there's something to come, I already checked the room a thousand times, it will come through the door. It can't other way.

I stay like this, for a long time, until I get used to this dreadful feeling and my breath can finally come back to normal. I get used to it. I build up courage to move again, make a few steps, and stretch my tense body. Nobody's here. Just me. And that's all. I take a deep breath, it's hard, but I hold it, and then let it out slowly. It's alright.

I get to the desk and look closely. There are inkwells and quills and pens. Odd, to see these objects in a room that doesn't have any support or holder for a lighting source. How is someone supposed to write in here? I pull the chair from under the desk and sit on it. On the right side of the desk, under it, there are two drawers. I open them. The first one is empty. The second one has a book. I take the book and place it on the table, carefully to not spread dust everywhere.

The book looks more like a journal. The covers are made of animal skin, and inside, the papers seem to be made of an old parchment like material. All pages are empty. The book has no title, no writing, nothing. I shuffle the pages up to the first one. It's written. Someone started to write in this book, but no more than a page, and even this just half of it.

Even though it looks so old this book, the text is written in Romanian. I prop my elbow on the desk and hold the compass above the writing. I can't see. I have to hold it very close to read properly. I start moving the compass from left to right to light every word, and read.