Euterpe never particularly preferred to reminisce. But the hazy afternoon heat of the city led his mind to wander, helped by the smooth melody that echoed throughout the small cabin in the middle of virtually nowhere.
He didn’t even know how he found this small shelter at the edge of civilization. Judging from the rotting wood and the lack of a floor, the cabin must’ve been washed ashore during a recent storm, had the privilege of drying out in the afterglow of the rain, and somehow perched itself on the ground the right side up on the beaches of City 3.
Euterpe wasn’t even aware City 3 had a beach, but according to Foxine, it was a byproduct of a still-in-construction area getting flooded with sand by an accident with a truck that was transporting sand to the still-then developing City 8, and from her words, the officials never bothered draining the sand, opting to fill it up instead and create something resembling a weirdly rectangular patch of sand.
So, after a few ventures circling the area, surveying for any regulars, Euterpe and his hypervigilant instincts deemed the artificial shoreline a safe location and opted to finally step onto the pale yellow grains.
A part of that was helped when he found Tristan there one day, but Euterpe didn’t have the heart to interrupt his friend’s brooding. He seemed too into his thoughts then.
“Perhaps homesickness?” Euterpe pondered then, but knowing the tight-lipped bartender, he’d never know for sure.
But now, he stood in the bone-dry remains of the cabin, slightly teetered to the side due to the softness of the artificial sand that crunched quietly under his shoes, staring upon what seemed to be a relic of the past. A boxy object, with quite several different buttons and plugs, but with a poke at what he identified as the power-on button, the machine whizzed on, miraculously. With a few more fiddles he found out the contraption was in fact, battery-powered, and by using a spare screwdriver he somehow found lodged in the pockets of his pants he unscrewed the bottom and found batteries of a shape he recognized and a brand he did not.
Curious and mystifying, indeed, this was definitely a relic of the Old World.
Struggling with the lid the contraption had, Euterpe finally popped it open after minutes of struggle, realizing there wasn’t any button to open the lid by itself nor was it a push-and-pop lid, revealing a perplexing sight to the young agent.
The shape within the lid hinted there had to be something to be inserted into it and of a similar shape as a millimeter-thick disc.
Euterpe glanced around the dilapidated cabin, his eyes catching sight of a flashy box lodged firmly in a crack in the wooden wall, intertwined with a frazzle of vines and green algae that seemed to be the only thing that kept the box with the previously wave-riding cabin that traveled all the way from god-knows-where to this particular beach in the Core Cities.
A bit of pulling and shoving with the box later, Euterpe yanks the box out from the crack with a “humph!”, nearly teetering off-balance and landing on his ass, luckily his reflexes caught him from getting messy with the sand hours before sundown.
He studied the glaringly yellow box, slowly turning lime chartreuse from the overabundance of algae clinging onto its matte-plastic outer shell, and narrowed his eyes at the bronze lock that kept its contents firmly locked into the box for the decades it has stayed afloat in the saltwater it drifted on previously.
After a few inspections of the lock and a helpful reading from his internal sensors later, he deemed it didn’t even need the firepower he kept on his gun holster tucked beneath his sweater. He sought around for a thin enough pin or stick and found luck beneath a mound of moldy fiber that previously seemed to be paper, words too melded and blurred by the moisture to make any sense of it, but Euterpe found a moderately rusted paperclip that had sunk through the documents and bent it with ease to the shape he needed. Biting his lip in concentration, he lodged the end of the browned strip of metal into the keyhole and jiggled it around to search for the pin mechanism inside, or so he thought it had from his knowledge about Old Age locks.
A few fiddles and hair-raising clicks within the lock later, he managed to free the lock from the box’s opening, and placed it aside on the heated sand, watching as it created a dip beside the heel of his shoe.
Prying the box open proved to be the easiest task among all the things he did that day because he found himself face-to-face with another mystery.
“What is all of this?” He mumbled the first phrase he found himself whispering in amazement to the coastal wind that drifted his locks of hair away from the base of his sweat-slick neck, providing his warmed skin a slight cool reprieve from the terror of the Core Cities’ midsummer climate.
Countless thin, rectangular plastic casings revealed themselves before Euterpe’s wide eyes. Some had graphics of people and characters he didn’t recognize, with equally foreign record companies to match, some didn’t even have any illustrations on the cover of the casing, and were just clear windows to the shape he needed exactly for the box contraption that led him on his odd journey into the past he was unknown to.
A brief query to his inner database provided a puzzling answer, apparently, this was the old-age CD, but this one was much smaller than the big, black plasticine ones antique collectors often owned in Isonation, and way thinner and malleable than the ones he was familiar with today, though the shape was recognizable now, in retrospect, yet Euterpe himself didn’t own any CD drives nor did he favor those glass dishes, and when held up to the dappled sunlight, revealed a dazzling array of rainbows that reflected off the metal and tinted the cabin with a stream of glamorous hues, and vaguely, he saw the varicolored lights bounce off the silver rim of his glasses.
It was almost psychedelic to stare at, Euterpe notes to himself.
A look at the contents splayed out on the molded wooden table nailed to the walls of the cabin, Euterpe found himself eyeing one particular CD, it seemed homemade, judging from the yellowed paper and the marker scrawled on top proclaiming its contents to be “Use in Car”. Though Euterpe didn’t understand why a CD, something used to store data had to be used in a car, since the contraption he theorized to be some sort of portable battery-powered CD player that had somehow stayed out of the water the decades it had traveled across the vast expanse of the sea he faced, and thus was operable with a little lag and glitch here and there, judging from the loud distorted beeps it emitted from its tiny speakers on the side of the flimsy metallic casing whenever he tried a function button or two on the contraption, or the extremely faded out small window display that was fixated on the front of where he assumed the disc had to be attached, surely this mystical machinery of deceptively small size and age was capable of reading out the stored data on the small display screen regardless of whether it was used in a car or not.
With much inquisitivity, Euterpe picks up the case, opening it to find a near-pristine CD beneath the aged paper, and with great care, he gives the fragile piece of plastic a look over before placing the CD into its spot in the player, before closing the lid on the disc.
Seconds later, he heard a whirring from within the lid, before the display bounced to life. Seeing it as the cue to press the button he identified to be the trigger to read whatever’s on the disc, he gives the button a push, before the whirring starts up again.
Perhaps it was because of how long Euterpe hadn’t seen anyone use a CD, or rather his lack of knowledge in older machinery of the past people, but he recoiled when he heard the speakers on the side burst into a garble of noise, static, it seemed.
But before he could debate switching the thing off to clear it of what seemed to be a glitch, the static faded into music, then a sweet, sultry voice.
Too much of the past, for one to memorize.
“Lyrics?” Euterpe blinked, incredulous. “I must be mistaken, this is no simple data reader, perhaps this is a music player?”
His queries were unanswered however, yet he found himself uncaring of the true purpose of the player, as he found himself captivated by the slow tempo and reverb of the music throughout the flimsy rotting wood enclosure washed ashore by chance, the acoustics, he could tell, were a little warped with the age of the speaker, but thinking about replacing the speaker with something of higher quality later filled him with a sense of childlike excitement he was shocked by as well.
Too many words remained for one to read through the lines
Silklike cyan locks bound within cerulean and canary ribbons flowed back to the forefront of his memories in tandem with the seafoam washing upshore outside the shade of the cabin. In that quiet moment, unlike any other associated with those darned locks of hair Euterpe could only trace back to a memory of pain and so, so much smoke, he found himself in the absence of the expected panic that would freeze himself to the spot and have his heart hammering at miles a minute until he frantically suppressed the panic and the noise and drag his body out of his terror-induced stupor before a stray gunshot pierced the core within his chest into nothing but scrap metal.
But he wasn’t caught in the crossfire right then, he was safe, resting in an abandoned cabin filled with relics of the past on a lazy midsummer afternoon, his mind enraptured with a melody that brought up a cozy feeling only his darling sister Calliope evoked when she was…still…
He had so much he wanted to say to his sister before everything suddenly changed and his sibling turned into someone he couldn’t even recognize. So many words, so little time.
Yet, he hadn’t felt such peace in a long time when he found himself reminiscing about his sworn sister. It felt odd, now that his mind’s reaction had subverted his expectation, yet he supposed he welcomed it. Euterpe smiled softly to himself.
Perhaps he had underestimated how much music had brought him memories he thought long-forgotten because he found himself leaning against the wooden walls, listening to the track that had caught his full attention.
The ebb and flow of the crowd floods the world and paradise
Along the path of time
Time. The force that guided him through the early dawn and his blissful innocence, bringing him the ones he once could call his family, bringing them close and brutally tearing them away the day Callie bled out under the weight of the rubble, sky blue hair dyed a striking sangria, like the ebb and flow of the sea tides whose ambiance accompanied the dark-toned music in a unique natural harmony, giving, then taking.
Perhaps it was only fair to trade the stability of his old family he still missed despite the burn of his old scars and battle-induced bruises with the one he had now.
A small, yet nagging voice calls out to him, an innocent inquiry, intrusive and neon, how long until the family he had now would be taken away from him along the tides of time?
Euterpe refrained from pondering further.
Every night brings a dream, but the day relentlessly keeps me awake
All the rest will be torn up whenever a choice is made
Dreams, when was the last time he dreamed? Beyond the cool steel of his gun, beyond the glare of his scope as he eyed down target after target, beyond the blood that always made its way to his hands, caking his nails. He had briefly ghosted over one when V was still around, but that dream died with the mess of blood-coated wires and biomatter that splayed from the base of his mutilated, caved-in head that lay not far away from where it was supposed to be attached, a trail of mahogany in its wake.
He had heard the most common question that was asked to little fillies of the peasantry was somewhere along the lines of what they wanted to be in the future, what legacy they wanted to leave behind when they grew older, old enough to serve society in their own way.
Euterpe was so sure that he wanted to remain in the same position as he was intended for when he was engineered from the work of skilled, veteran scientists who painted him to life with the wonders of modern biotechnology and magic research, he had thought serving society through the barrel of his gun was what he wanted to do with the measly 50 years of life he had. That was his choice then, and it took away the mundanity he found himself longing for now that he was in Tristan and Co.’s company.
The choice he made that day, in the form of turning heel and escaping from the battlefield like a coward, had effectively shattered that dream he perceived as his own. In retrospect, perhaps the act of defiance against the truth of his existence was not completely in vain, despite going against everything he had worked for with blood, sweat and tears.
It did, tear through the illusion he lived in for so long, and now here he was, trailblazing on his own, able to live the life he could possibly dream of, however directionless and lost.
“Oh Callie, Kleio, V…” Euterpe felt his eyes brim with moisture, heart suddenly heavier than before. “…if only you were here with me.”
Every living soul in the fray striving for their own safe place
Life is too long to end at a grave
Had Euterpe thought of ending it all? He had, he admits to himself, with reluctance. Logically, he knew how foolish and cowardly it was to do so, what use would he be if he was 6 feet deep underwater? Yet he silently acknowledged to himself the thought never quite left his head.
But with the entry of Tristan, Rae and Simon into his life, he confesses the trio had singlehandedly gave him the second chance at life he oh-so desperately wanted the day he followed the noise of clashing blades and saw Rae descend from the skies like an angel of death and together with Tristan, offered him a place to stay, led him to meet people who had more ambition than he ever could, granted him a new perspective on how even the Vice-Leader of the EdEN Corporation was equal to him, and now here he was, regaining the same determination for a cause he ardently believed in, fighting his way through Clarissa’s and X10’s forces and protecting as much people he could on the way not because he was born to do so now, but because now he genuinely just…felt for the cause Foxine and Tristan were zealously fighting for. Perhaps this is how Zephyr felt when she ran from EdEN with XI?
If he was forever just going to be an aide to a cause, so be it, at least let him choose one he has faith in.
“Reminder to self.” Euterpe cringes at how shaky with emotion his voice was. “Thank everyone loads later.”
Just a drop of water suffices
Encompassed and swallowed through space by the universe
Back to the source
Gone are those years living for a reason
Euterpe rethinks back to Melpomene, whose magenta gaze still burns as intense in his memory before Tristan saved him from getting wholly diced by the person he used to call his own. While all that was left of Melpomene was the scarf she always wore since the day he witnessed her inauguration into the Helikon Special Operations Squad, her words lingered like the harsh sourness of gunpowder in a faint breeze, stinging his senses like millions of tiny needles.
“It’s not too late to come back.”
“We can still make this work, brother.”
“You’re nothing without us.”
But he recalled how Tristan valiantly burst from virtually nowhere, swath of flaming red forming into a familiar red spear and guided his hand back to his holster, defending what ounce of honor he still had left with all of his might.
“You can aim correctly, right?” He remembered he nodded at Tristan’s query as Mel continued to spit poisonous accusations that left more searing scars than the battle-earned shadows of vicious slashes that had already embedded his skin prior, a great contrast to the bartender’s uncountable acts of affectionate benevolence.
“Aim for the ribbons, will ya?”
He mutely supposed if he was a moth, Tristan would be his flame, and feverently ignored the blooming feeling in his chest at that metaphor.
Here it comes, the moment of the scene of lost and found
Euterpe wonders if the brief sound of something similar to papers fluttering in the wind was fully intentional in the recording, but he’d be lying if he proclaimed he didn’t like the slight effect with the music and the lovely vibrating baritone of the singer’s voice.
Personas played out on the stage
Will return to the self when there's a curtain call
Euterpe diverts his gaze towards the sun, the sand, and the sea outside from the gaping holes the cabin had, revelling in the sunset rays that tinged his skin a pleasant, cozy golden tangerine, light diffusing from shadows he and the walls cast in the enclosure that lit up even the darkest of corners, the tangy smell of salt accompanying the wind that ruffled his hair. Normally, he’d screw up his nose at the sharp scent of saltwater, but this time? Under the slowly darkening sky, the light azure darkening into an array of amber, then crimsons, maroon, then finally ending in a deep sapphire that edged at the appearance of the glistening belt of stars that were always vividly illuminated within the dim lightless city he found himself getting quite infatuated with…
“Is this how it feels to be free?” Euterpe grins at the thought, with only the wind and the sky to know of the joy upon his sunkissed expression, the music of the old world blissfully muting the intrusive thoughts that previously pervaded his brain day in and day out.
Selfishly, he wished to stay in this moment , for however long he could within the unconventional cradle of peaceful euphoria he discovered within the confines of the coast that belonged to a desolate city long abandoned by authority.
He allowed the rest of the track to play, without any more memories to follow but a pleasant awareness of the near-elysian sensations that rejuvenated him like water to cracked earth, allowing for every feeling every dip and rise in tone strung along with the aid of its lyrics to flow along just this once in this rare moment of reprieve.
And he has never felt any happier.
Every night brings a dream, but the day relentlessly keeps me awake
All the rest will be torn up whenever a choice is made
Everyone has their own desire leading to the ultimate
Life is too long to end at a grave
Just a drop of water suffices
Still, I wish to embrace the world with my thoughts
A eulogy
Time to leave where I have stood so long
Letting you go, recover traces overlapped
Ends, then begins
The player skids to a halt with a click, signalling the end of the track.
Euterpe stares at the cracked wood-plank ceiling, focusing on the algae and flora that clung onto the rotting edges, the afterglow still carrying him at mellow high, before he let out an unsteady exhale, squeezing his eyes to take a deeper breath to steady himself, before choking out a breathless chuckle.
Looking towards the sky again, to Euterpe’s slight dismay, the ether above had already started to gradiate into a darker shade of midnight, signalling the coming of the evening with the remaining saffron fading into the ocean horizon, now an unlit ultramarine, only refracting a few rays of remaining daylight on the uneven yet still surface, casting the world beyond in a tranquil sort of darkness in a gradual prelude to the rapidly-approaching night.
Euterpe eyes the aged disc player atop the molded desk, then at the open box of discs that sat innocuously in the sand.
Maybe…just maybe…
That night, if Tristan, Rae or Simon noticed a few traces of sand around the living room, or happened to stumble upon Euterpe knee-deep in spare parts consisting of power cords, batteries, steel wire and spare speaker components with dust and rust stains up to the elbows as well as several buckets with an extremely grimy towel hanging off the side in the middle of his room, or even an uncharacteristically obnoxiously yellow box that was unseen before in Euterpe’s workspace still caked with some sand, none of them brought it up.
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