Unknown Time

After being easily accepted into the group, the woman followed her new friends through the forest. She learned all of their names, the two-legged lizard was Fergus; the blobfish Georgi; the tortoise Aldo; the plague doctor Nanjala; and the ten foot tall legged ghoul Carol. Fergus, Nanjala, and Aldo transformed back into a human for the journey, whilst the others remained in monster form, with Georgi's mask believed to be tampered with for him to unable to transform back into human form for a few days after blood moons, and Carol was unfortunately stuck after having gone so long with insufficient food and stress, all the more reason to steal the food from the mansion on the cliff as it might be too late to go to another sector and fail at another drop-off.

When asked herself about her name and past, the woman could not answer. She did not know. She knew nothing about herself, her memories all began when she was falling from that portal only an hour ago.

"Weird," commented Fergus. "The curse can't have already activated, right?"

"It usually takes a couple of months," said Georgi.

"That is terrible!" sighed Aldo, patting the nameless woman on the shoulder. "To have already lost your memories!"

"Do you think this is new?" asked Nanjala. "They're no longer giving newcomers a couple months and just stripping them of their memories straight away now?"

"Or perhaps you hit your head?" suggested Aldo.

The woman frowned. "I kind of did, I suppose. I hit something hard on the way down, maybe the monster trying to escape?"

There was a consensus within the group that came to this conclusion, or rather just hoped it was true as otherwise it meant that the way The Eternal Abyss operated could also change and make things harder for survival. However, the woman knew it wasn't. It was only for a fraction of time but she remembered falling first before hitting something on the way down. Perhaps all of her memories had been wiped before, was it the new way or was she an abnormality? She looked to the others as they walked, seeing the brands on the back of Fergus, Georgi, and Najala's necks, and finding her own neck without one, only vicious and deep scratch marks, scars that would never heal in The Eternal Abyss. And that was the other concern, how much knowledge she already had of this place, of masks, of brands, of memory curses, of blood moons, of immortality, of Land of the Losts and food drop-offs, how she knew that all the monsters were actually prisoners which was not public knowledge. This was not normal. Perhaps that was why her memories was wiped, because she had an unfair advantage, already knowing The Eternal Abyss' secrets.

"That is unlucky. But don't you worry, you're with us now, we'll protect you," said Georgi confidently despite being a blob-fish with legs. "A lot of prisoners get eaten within the first moments of arriving-"

The others shot him a look.

"Don't worry!" Georgi panicked. "We're all immortal down here so even if you get eaten, you'll be..." He did not continue that thought, shuddering on whatever he had imagined.

"What shall we call you?" Nanjala changed the topic. "Any ideas for names?"

The woman wrinkled her nose in thought. "Huh... I don't know." She looked around at her surroundings, calling out anything that inspired her. "Uh, Rowan? Willow? Sylvia? Hazel? Maple-"

"Are you just naming trees?" laughed Nanjala.

The woman shrugged, looking around, a smile on her lips, perhaps the first smile she could remember. "Grey? Silver? Cloud? Shadow? Rock? Sky?"

"You don't have to name yourself after something you can see."

"How about Emma? Amy? Katie? Jane? Corinna?" suggested Fergus.

"The most basic women names?" scoffed Nanjala.

"What's wrong with them? They're pretty. Especially Corinna even if it is so popular."

"Karina?" the woman practised, feeling the word, but not completely sure.

"Rose? Violet? Lily?" suggested Georgi.

"And you're just listing flowers." said Nanjala.

"They're names." Georgi listed more, though soon forgot they were supposed to be names and just began saying any kind of flower.

"Snowdrop sounds patronising," commented Aldo.

"Yes, but imagine how cool being called Snapdragon would be."

The woman also joined in naming flowers and other plants, even more trees, and then went onto colours, the majority being shades of green.

"Fatima? Nadia? Mila?" Nanjala tried to steer people back on track with actual names instead of nouns and adjectives but the woman seemed to respond more with concepts and objects and so Nanjala gave up, and gave other suggestions. "Mercy? Justice? Faith? Verity? Love? Harmony?"

And then following that, the others listed music related names, with Georgi just straight up saying instruments, Viola being the only one usable.

"Carol..." Carol managed to muster, the ghoul's voice shaky and deep, a hoarse whisper which would have frightened the woman if she had not gotten adjusted to the woman's monster form.

"That's your name, Carol," said Fergus. "Too confusing to have two Carols."

"Cadence?" suggested Aldo. "Lyra? Aria? Allegra? Piper? Melody?"

Eventually, the woman settled on Melody, feeling a sense of comfort as she spoke the name to herself. It was something that belonged to her, even if it was possibly the furthest away from whatever her true name was, just having something, anything that was hers, that signified her as a person gave the woman such a comfort. Hearing her new friends speak the name was both strange and yet gave such a surge of happiness, and she clung to that feeling desperately.

It took half an hour to reach the base of the cliff. Along the way, Melody learned more about her new friends, how they met, any other notable groups of prisoners in the area as well as the whereabouts for the food drop-off, not that any of them had hope of winning again when the next one happened.

Melody showed the group how she had managed to get down, the ledge that wound around the cliff face hill and they climbed, hugging the cliff wall, others easier than some. Georgi being so small in his blob-fish form had no issues despite his rambling fear of being so high up, and Nanjala's claws came in handy to cling to the rock, however Carol's tall form had to go slowly, though her legs were thin, the quadruped struggled to keep all her feet squeezed onto the ledge, Nanjala and Aldo holding onto to her to prevent her from falling.

"So, what's the plan now?" Melody asked once all of them had safely traversed up to the summit.

There was a long silence.

"You guys didn't have a plan of attack?" she asked.

"I was hoping we would find no way of getting up and just give up on the whole thing," said Georgi, then sighed. "But I guess now we have to go through it."

"Come on, guys!" Fergus tried to rally his friends. "It is one person against the six of us! Right? Just one person?" Fergus' confidence wavered as he looked to Melody for confirmation.

Melody shrugged. "I only saw one person on the roof. Ran away as soon as I could so I have no idea if there is anyone else in the house."

"Let us not continue this line of negativity," said Aldo. "We've come this far and we will catch the monster by surprise! They will be too distracted by the destruction of the tower. And we have our ace up our sleeve!" He motioned to Nanjala who brandished her claws.

"If I take off my mask, I can infect someone with a deliberating disease," explained Nanjala, adjusting the plague doctor mask. "I just need to get close enough to the target and then we will instantly win this."

Refilled with confidence, the group headed stealthily towards the mansion under the cover of the dead trees. Melody could finally get a better look of the mansion, too preoccupied in running away the last time she was here. Despite how difficult it was to reach, it was definitely an ideal shelter, the sheer size of it, and yet apparently only one person was occupying it.

The mansion was four stories tall, with the top floor being a singular room within one of the turrets, a notable broken hole in the tiling where was likely the drop zone for new prisoners coming through the portal above. Though the cliff and mansion were high up, Melody imagined that falling from such a height would be enough to cripple newcomers, not too much to paralyse or kill, but a couple broken limbs and damaged spines, enough to deliberate them for an hour or so and be vulnerable to attack. She was somehow glad that there was that tower that she climbed down from otherwise who knows what would have happened to her. The tower was considerably tall, the base still intact being made of the more sturdier materials, the further up it went the more desperate the build was. An impressive feat, nonetheless, Melody couldn't imagine building something as successful as this, especially so high as it had been.

The dark grey colour of the bricks made the mansion seem more like a silhouette in the moonlight, a shadow of a house. From this distance, Melody could see all of the windows on the ground floor had been boarded up, the same with all the entrances, however the upper floor windows were open and inviting, the darkness lurking inside and for a moment, she thought she saw something moving in that darkness or perhaps it was just her imagination.

The closer they got, the notably slower everyone else was getting, clearly rattled and unnerved, debating whether to turn back despite how far they had travelled. The chilling wind that whistled through the barren trees branches did not help, nor the ominous lighting the moon gave to the mansion, casting a deep and large shadow over all of them. Since they were arriving from the back end of the mansion, they had to pass through the garden which Melody was unsure if it was also a graveyard with all of the statues depicting both humans, monsters, and angels, a lot of them worn or broken, missing limbs or with large cracks in their stone. She kept her spear raised, expecting the resident of the mansion to lash out in the darkness with cover of so many figures, as did the others, huddling together in a clump, backs against each other, weapons drawn in a circle of trembling nerves. After a slow journey through the garden, they reached the base of the mansion, at the back porch.

"We should climb," whispered Nanjala. "If we try to break through the boarded up doors and windows, we'll make to much noise and alert the monster. The windows above are open. We'll catch them by surprise!"

In reluctant agreement, the group worked together to climb up to the next level, the architecture of the building providing plenty of footholds and things to grab onto. They clambered up to the second level to the long balcony that overlooked the garden since they could all fit through the door there, the other windows too small for Aldo's wide tortoise shell and Carol's spindly legs. Up on the balcony, were two pedestals overseeing each corner, one sat a gargoyle statue of a creature, a horned demon with wings and a tail, sharp protruding fangs at either of the corner of its lips in a malicious snarl, its legs crouched in a predatory perch looking down, feet armed with claws and Melody assumed so would its hands however the gargoyle's arms were missing, one from just above the elbow, and the other from the wrist, broken off and damaged. The other pedestal was empty aside from a small clump of sculptured stone where the ghost remains of perhaps the gargoyle's twin used to be. Melody was unnerved by the rest of the details in the architecture, finding more faces carved into the building, so many eyes watching her and she had to keep reminding herself that they were just statues and nothing more. The others were also at unease, some daring to touch the statues and faces, prodding them with weapons to see if they would move and pounce but they all remained statues stuck to the building.

Nanjala was the one bravest to open the door to the balcony, letting out a silent breath of relief as it was unlocked, and slowly opened it. With delicate footsteps, Melody followed Nanjala inside, the others behind, Carol having to crouch awkwardly in her tall daddy-long-leg-like monster form to fit inside despite the high ceiling.

"What now?" Melody mouthed, looking at the group.

They all glanced dumbfounded around to see if someone would take leadership and no one did, so Melody just pointed at a random direction and led them down a hallway, passing doors and paintings that were on the floor, leaning against the wall and facing the opposite way, where they had previously been hung left marks on the wallpaper, a clear divide between where dust had gathered.

Melody was beginning to regret this even more by the second, not because she was scared or hated the odds of success but because of the lack of a plan. She had whispered to the others if they should find the food stash first or defeat the monster hoarding it all and was met with blank stares, awkward glances and shrugs. Spontaneity was fine, Melody felt like any other situation she would have preferred a looser plan, just a general idea, a goal to achieve and improvise it along the way, to respond to whatever was thrown at her in the moment but having absolutely nothing was bad, especially when she the one in the group who had no mask, and no sense of an idea of what she was capable of in a fight having only memories stretching back to under two hours ago. Having only met this group today and somehow Melody had been made the leader of this skirmish, all of them looking to her to make a decision when they came to another fork in the hallway, which both directions ended up coming to the same location regardless. Never mind finding someone to trust not to kill and betray you in The Eternal Abyss, how about someone you could trust not to be stupid? It was a wonder how they all survived this long.

"Alright, how about we start searching the rooms for the food packets?" Melody suggested quietly. "See where they are being kept."

The others looked at her, then each other until one of them took the initiative and nodded in agreement, the others copying.

"Great" Melody sighed, heading towards the nearest door and pausing as she saw that the door knob had been taken off, revealing the round whole where it should be, and then she noticed at the bottom of the door was a piece of wood attached, slightly elevated above the ground, enough space to put your foot under. She looked to the other doors and found that all of them were the same, though clearly was not a part of the original design. Melody crouched down and peered through the hole in the door, it was fairly dark inside and she saw a window where a glimpse of light was passing through the drawn curtains. Melody stepped back and found that the others were watching her, instead of finding their own doors. Muttering some curses to herself, Melody clutched onto the hole where the door handle was supposed to be and opened it, the others flinching and baring their weapons, teeth or claws. Only to reveal an empty room the size of perhaps a small bedroom, with suggestions that there once were furniture inside with the markings on the floorboards.

Melody tried the next door, revealing another spare room, the same for the third. The rest of the group in this time had regained a semblance of courage and opened doors themselves, finding some with actual furniture in it and looked lived in or was being used for storage. Melody stumbled upon a room that looked like where the monster had been constructing parts for its tower to escape, and then another where it perhaps slept, being the only room with an intact bed as well as sets of clothes, the clothes themselves functional but the size suggesting that the inhabitant was a woman, a short one perhaps too since some of the trousers and one pieces were cuffed and tailored considerably shorter. If there were clothes like these, it must mean that the monster was fortunately not gone berserk and was able to transform back, not that any monster that lost its mind would be capable of constructing that that tower. However, maybe they could catch the person off guard, wait until they took their mask off before ambushing them and taking the house over. 

Melody moved away from the neatly stacked clothes, and checked under the bed to see if that was where the food was hiding, a smart move she would have done herself, to protect it whilst she slept, but what she found instead were multiple notebooks and stationary supplies, the pens and pencils tied to elastic bands and hair ties for some unknowable reason. Melody picked the top book of the collection and flicked through the pages, skim reading it to discover it was a detailed log spanning the owner's time in The Eternal Abyss, their entire time of residence in this mansion and the sector, starting from a few months ago. Only a few days of arriving, the person had won all the food at the drop-off and claimed perhaps one of the best shelter The Eternal Abyss could offer, a large expansive mansion that was situated in a fortified and protective hill, difficult to scale. It noted each day the portal opened and who arrived, though that was more of an afterthought as the notes concentrated on the parameters of success. It seemed that the monster had timed itself and theorised potential methods of escape, making endless notes on perfecting it only to be squandered by those on the other side of the portal. The monster had gotten so close at escaping that The Abyss management had to take matters in their own hands and use magic to stop them, or changing the timings of the portal opening or when they sent the new prisoner. Each time, the monster marked the changes, trying to work out the next strategy used against them.

Ah, so that's why escape is impossible, Melody thought. They shoot those beams of magic. Though she had this strange thought that that was unusual despite having only been here for a couple of hours at most. Maybe in some cases they would use magic, like when another prisoner tries to escape using the metal platform when another is being freed they use magic, but- how? How did she know that? How did she already know so much about The Eternal Abyss when its inner workings were unknown to the outside world? Who was she? Melody's fingers went to the back of her neck, gingerly tracing the scratch marks that would be forever there for as long as she remained in The Eternal Abyss, never to heal unless she was freed. How? How did she already know that she would be immortal down here? That any injuries she had sustained before her imprisonment would never heal?

She looked at the latest page finding that there had yet to be an update to detail her arrival, the monster had not returned to the bedroom yet. It was likely what Melody thought and that they were trying to fix that tower still.

"We've checked all the rooms," said Georgi, appearing at the doorway. "No food packets."

"It must be downstairs, the bottom floor," said Melody looking around at how organised and neat all of these belongings were. "They seem quite the logical person, maybe its just as simple that the food it kept in the kitchen or a pantry with a house this size."

"Right."

There was a pause.

Melody looked behind, seeing the others lingering behind Georgi.

"I'll be just a minute," said Melody, wanting to read the rest of the notebooks. "Feel free to go ahead without me."

The group looked at each other anxiously.

"You are the ones with masks. You'll be fine. It looks like you were correct and there was only one person living here."

"Yeah." Georgi puffed up his chest, appearing as confident as a blob-fish monster on land could be. "Yeah, we'll go check downstairs, if you're alright by yourself."

"Yep," said Melody, returning her focus to the notebooks, just wanting a small break from babysitting.

There was a moment of hesitation before the others left and headed down the stairs, slowly out of caution though more likely nerves.

Melody searched the other notebooks, one a log a dedicated diary of counting the days and when the next food dropoffs and blood moons were, which Melody made a mental note of as she did not want to rely too heavily on the brains of her new friends. Another notebook was an estimate map of The Eternal Abyss and the different sectors the owner had explored, though there was a significant gap in their knowledge. What was interesting was that there were pages in theories of how far away this sector was from another sector, perhaps the sector they had arrived in the monster wanting to know since whatever the country they came from would own it. However, what was more intriguing were the estimations on the neighbouring sectors to this one, the layout and the size based off of the titled names and any other information the monster had gathered, who seemed to be attempting to work out how long it would take to travel back, though it was phrased more as calculations on how much time had passed. Had they lost count of their days? Did they forget and now had no sense of how long the rest of their sentence was? Was that the cause of desperation to escape?

Melody picked up the last remaining notebook, opening it to a random page and finding not notes and calculations, but something far more intimate, writings of memories, of people, seeing names and attempts of sketches. Upon instinct, Melody shut it, feeling that it was going far beyond the invasion of privacy despite having nosed at the other notebooks. She had gained enough information already, what she needs to know was where the food packets were being held.

She gathered herself picking up her spear and stood up, hesitating to leave and join the others as her eyes were drawn to the blueprints of the escape plan hanging above the bed like some kind of motivational poster. She recalled the tower and the warm light of the portal, imagining instead of dropping down from it, to be reaching out to it, to go pass and be on the other side, to know freedom despite just having only a couple of hours imprisonment. What was the world like outside of The Eternal Abyss?

There was a scream, followed by several others. Melody snapped out of her reverie and clutching her spear, raced out of the room and down the grand staircase.