Esteron, the story

Esteron, the story.

Far away there is this small village called Esteron. You can only reach it if you think of it. But you have to think really hard. Only that thought can bring you there. Passing sea and sand, mountain and lake, desert and prairie, forest and cliff, grass and sky. It is the most beautiful trip you will ever make. But be careful: once you have reached it, you cannot leave. There is, to be honest, a way to get out of there, but I doubt if you ever want to do that. Not only will you love this small village, but on your trip back, you will have to pass fire and ice, lions and snakes, witches and trolls, rooms filled only with darkness and the brightest light, mud and shit. And this is just the beginning.

As you know I work for the Nat. Mail Company. Not only do I work with computers, my dept. also has to deal with damaged parcels and letters that are ripped open. One day I walked into a big closet and in the closet was a parcel and in the parcel was a book and in the book there was a note and on the note there was a message. It contained how we could get to this secret small village, far a way from here, where magic sprees its happiness and where the people know the answers to all the questions. A place so peaceful and beautiful.

I didn’t pay much attention to the piece of paper. I picked up the parcel, got the book out and repacked it. I put the address on it and brought it back to the sorters. As I walked back, I noticed that I had something on my hand. First I didn’t know what it was, but then it scared the shit out of me. How the heck did that get on my hand? I walked to the toilet and washed my hands. It didn’t come off. I took some soap and washed it thoroughly. Still it was there. I was completely overwhelmed. I ran back to the closet, took out the now bookless parcel and looked for the message. All I could find was a blank piece of paper. The text was printed on my hand!

I could not ignore it now and tried to read what it said. It mentioned this small village and all the things about it, how to get there, where it was, who lived there. I first thought it was a joke. I continued doing my work and forgot about the whole incident.

On my bike I looked at my hand again and the print was only vaguely readable; it was vanishing. Would that mean that it would show up on the piece of paper again? I did not want to go back, so I rode on. Still I kept thinking about Esteron. I could not stop. A moment later I heard a bang and I was back in Amsterdam in a split second. I crossed the tram tracks and hadn’t noticed there was one coming. If a tram pulls its brake to stop at once, you hear a bang. Luckily the driver saw me and nobody was hurt, at least not outside the tram. I raised my hand by means of thanking and apologizing to him at the same time. A bit shaken I left the tracks and went on. But the small village couldn’t leave me alone. Soon I was off again thinking of it.

And there I was, flying with a dazzling speed through the sky, blue as my mother’s eyes. I passed water and beaches and high mountains. I didn’t even want to blink with my eyes; what I saw was amazing. And then it became all black, just like that. I could not see a thing. Over the mountains I went, watching the beach and the waters. And if pushed through a funnel, I suddenly stood there on the street, opposing a beautiful girl with long brown hair and big brown eyes. My journey had ended with a slurping sound in my head. I do not know how long I stood there, maybe 2 seconds, maybe 5 minutes, but I couldn’t do, say or think anything. Then she kissed me on my cheek and said:”Albert, don’t muck around and come on, we’re running late.” It was her who got me back in this world, by calling out my name. She took my hand and led me through a row of people, entering a building. The only word I was able to read was ‘gone’. ‘I am gone,’ I thought to myself. Where am I and where was I and where was I going to. I went to the toilet, climbed out of the window, walked to the front door (I now knew that we were in a theatre), sat on the edge of a big pot of plants and lit a cigarette. I looked up at the sky, down at the floor and up to the sky and its stars again. I wasn’t stoned. I hadn’t had some grass for ages. And still, this was the weirdest experience I had ever had. Still I didn’t know exactly where I was and what had happened. I finished my cigarette and inhaled a few times really deeply. The fresh air was filling my lungs and did me good. The moment I wanted to get up and go inside again, I saw my girlfriend appearing from the big hallway, coming up to me in slow motion. I closed my eyes and thought that I couldn’t handle it anymore. When I opened them, she was still on her way to me in slow motion. Everything went black and I was gone.

When I woke up, I was sitting in the theatre next to my girl, who was looking at me with a concerned look on her face. She shook her head, patted my hand and looked away to watch the people on the podium. I loved her for that. She didn’t ask me one question at that time and I didn’t want to answer one question at that time. She knew me and she understood it. I watched the performance with little interest. Obviously Esteron came up again. And this time it was serious. Sea, ocean, sand, hills, mountains, lakes, rivers, deserts, prairies, forests, woods, cliffs, valleys, grass, paddocks, sky and air all went along. I was sure this time; nothing could stop me now. I was gone.

I traveled with such a speed, that at the end I lost consciousness.

Zoom, zoom, I evaded all the stars and planets. I laughed; this was absolutely great. I sat on a little meteorite and the two of us were flying through the galaxy. It was normal to me at the time being that I considered my meteorite as my friend. We laughed and we talked about all kinds of things. Only, I cannot remember us talking at all, and still we did. After a while, my friend slowed down and eventually it stopped. As a force of habit, I just got off and fell in the deep dark space, without an end.

I yelled and yelled and when I heard a voice, I woke up and jumped up. Nothing but sand as far as my eyes could see. Left: nothing but sand, right: all sand, in front of me: sand only, and you wouldn’t believe it, my dear, what was behind me: sand. No noise, no objects, no birds, no rocks, no wind, nothing. Just complete silence. It was as if I had come to a vacuum planet. I stood still and couldn’t move an inch. I looked in the distance and my eyes were glazed into nothing.

Then where did that voice come from? Right. It must have been in my head.

It scared the shit out of me when I heard it again. This time as a real voice. I looked around, but couldn’t see anything. It laughed. It got annoying. It got me angry. After it stopped laughing, it said it was a cricket and was sitting next to my ear. First thing that came up, was give it a bang and kill it, but something stopped me. “I knew you wouldn’t do it,” and then it rattled on like a waterfall. Stories and stories he told me. He had done this and he had done that. He had been here and there. Met everybody and everything. ‘How can you have met everybody and everything, if there is nothing here?’ And he told me about this place, where there were big brown poles with green little papers on them. Of liquid so blue and so vast, there was nothing else to see. And there were beings like me. ‘Earth!! “One time I had been there to help a puppet on strings. It was a poor puppet of wood and couldn’t do anything. One day a fairy came and brought it life. And she asked me to watch him and to teach him.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Is this a dream? Am I in Pinocchio’s dream? Before anything was said or done, I flicked the cricket off my shoulder with my fingers and fell on the ground for a big sleep.

I knew it was that cricket again. It was pulling my ear harshly and I was cursing that he should go the fuck out of my way, otherwise I squashed it with my shoe. Useless to say it didn’t had anything to loose and wouldn’t stop until I got up and agreed to help each other to find this secret little village called Esteron.

‘Have you been there?’ I asked. He hadn’t, but he knew where we could find it and told me everything about the sweet life there, trying to persuade me and helping him out. I think he succeeded. “I can get you there, because I am smart,” he dragged. ‘Is that so?’ “Yes, I am the smartest animal alive.” ‘Well, my little friend, let me tell you a story about an animal which was even smarter than you are.’ “That can’t be true. Impossible.”

‘The fox my friend, is much smarter than any animal on planet Earth. He deceives, lies and tricks all the others, inclusive human beings. There are numerous stories of this animal. And all will amaze you. If you have the brains to understand them that is, little cricket.’ He wasn’t happy now and kept quiet for a long, long time. Which was good in a way, for it talked the ears off my head.

After walking for days and days, we came to a wall of stone. There was a wall, right there. That was it. It looked like it was the end of the planet. We couldn’t go any further. The wall was so high, I could not see the top. It was a massive thing. Why was it there? Why? After a while I stopped thinking about it; it was there and that was the case. I told myself that it did not matter to question anything in a land impossible to reach for any other person, a land where nothing was. We decided to go left and see if there was an opening somewhere (I got it from the nutty professor in Tin Tin. He had a pendulum and it always directed to the west. West is left, so there we went.). On and on we walked, well I walked, the cricket sat on my shoulder. He had stopped talking about Esteron. He didn’t care for it anymore, he just wanted to go back to the place he fell in love with: planet Earth.

Our moral went from low to zero point zero. We walked for days and didn’t find anything. Maybe we chose the wrong direction. Maybe we should have turned right. But I didn’t want to go back. I couldn’t anymore. Where was Esteron, where was Earth, where was my girlfriend, how did I come here, how can I get out of here? Questions that couldn’t be answered, at least, not by me. But there was no other choice then to go on. Walking and walking with the wall to our right. It didn’t make sense anymore. We were lost.

Then, one day (I call it day, it might easily have been night. For all that matter, perhaps in this place night was light and day was dark. Perhaps there were no days and nights at all.) I saw something in the distance. It was not big, but it was something. There wás something. I quickened my pace and as we came nearer, I could see it move. It did not see me, but I got a bit cautious. Maybe it was something bad. Some terrible creature that would tear us apart. Slowly I approached it and I could distinguish some human shapes. I couldn’t believe it. It was a girl!

‘Hukhum,’ I coughed, ‘hello.’ Her eyes were as big as pancakes when she saw me. “Uh but uh who what…?’ She uttered nonsense only, so I sat next to her and tried to calm her down. I spoke to her and eventually she started talking to me. It appeared that she found the same text as I did at the post office. She too couldn’t stop thinking about it and desperately wanted to come. And now she was here with big regrets. Her eyes were red and swollen. Cursing all the time. She pointed a finger towards the wall, but I didn’t look at that direction. The girl was pretty. She had blond/reddish hair, blue eyes. Tender build, not tall and not small. I smiled and she looked at me, then at the wall and again she pointed her finger in that direction. This time I slowly turned my head and I would be damned if I didn’t look into a big hole in the wall. ‘What the fuck?’ “Forget about it, it is a trap.” I stood up and walked into the cave. “STOOOPP!” I froze. ‘Why?’ I said, still frozen and not looking back. “There are three entrances and only one is right. If you take the wrong one, you will fall through the ground and will be eaten by things, that you can’t even imagine.” Slowly I walked backwards. ‘You are saying that this is indeed an entrance, but is a puzzle.’ “Yes.” ‘How do you know that?’ “With the script I read, there was another piece of paper. The text on that had faded away, but I could pick up the words: before you can enter the wall, one must think sacred, but 1 will fall.”

‘Wow, that’s great, really great. Any ideas?’ “No.” ‘How long have you been here for?’ “Too long, I have no idea.” ‘What’s your name?’ “Sinead, and yours?” ‘Albert.’ “Sorry?” ‘Albert, A-L-B-E-R-T.’ “Oh, Élbert.” ‘Yeah Elbert, whatever. How did you get here?’ “Say, are you a cop or something?” ‘Huh, what?’ “All these questions.” ‘No no, I am always very curious. I like to know things.’ “Hmm, how did ú get here?” ‘I asked first.’

It appeared that Sinead was Irish, a genius in Mathematics and a strong liking in History. She was invited as a guest speaker among students all over the world at this conference in Thailand. They would talk about Asian countries, what the best economic way is to spend the money they would get from the UN. Sinead is not an economist, but her talent in Maths gave her a good look on how to spend that money. During the week of the conference, they were to visit an ancient temple in the middle of the rain forest in the mountains. There an old man gave here a map that was identically to the one I had. After visiting the impressive temple, she looked at the map in her hotel room that night. From there she had experienced exactly the same as me and now we were both wondering what had happened to our bodies on Earth. Had we completely vanished? Were our bodies still alive, but were we unconscious? Were we souls or ghosts here?

“So what do you thing about thinking old? You think we should think like old people? 1, is that the number or one object?” ‘Isn't that the title of a Beatles album?’ Old. What about old? Everything here is old. Or is everything new here? ‘Did the script tell you anything more?’ “I think it had something to do with ancient times. My friend recognised ancient letters; Greek, probably.” ‘Old hey? You reckon this place had connections with the Earth?’ “I certainly do.” Ollie, I thought to myself. I went back to the three tunnels and looked around. On some places I saw bones. Human bones. Say if it was Greek, then what about sacred numbers? Not 7, I thought, they counted the number 2 as special, almost miraculous. If we counted from the right or the left side, number two was always the middle tunnel. Why not? We had nothing to loose. ‘Hey, if you are up for it, let’s take the middle one.’ “My name is Sinead.” ‘Sinead,’ I tried to add. With both her hands she hold on to my arm. As we approached the middle tunnel, on both sides of us, the floor shook and opened up. I was disgusted by what I saw: creatures you never want to see, with claws, teeth, horns and a horrible smell. They were awful and I felt sorry for the unlucky ones who went before us. We were lucky and chose the right tunnel. We were through. Esteron: here we come!

But there was nothing such as a village. I was puzzled. Where are we now? We followed the path in the tunnel. At the back of it was a dead end. Things were drawn on the wall, but we couldn’t figure it out. As we took a closer look, we could see that it were drawings. Twenty in total, of buildings, bridges, nature, statues, you name it. Under each of the drawings, there were wooden sticks sticking out. ‘What does this mean?’ “How am I supposed to know that?” ‘Just asking, it might have been in that script you read.’ “No, the only thing it said, was about the entrance.” ‘Oh.’ We agreed to say what we thought. Then in a corner we saw more drawings. This time they were 7 people on their knees, hands in the air and 7 hands, each holding a tool. Before solving the puzzle, I wanted to find out what would happen to us we if we should make a mistake. Soon we found out that if that was the case, the ceiling would drop and we’d be crushed. I could only imagine so, because there was powder, which looked like crushed bones. ‘Very nice, look at the powder, I think they were bones once.’ “Thank you for telling me, what your face. That really calmed my nerves down.” ‘Albert.’ “Sure.” ‘So, what do you think?’ “People, looks like they are praying or thanking.” ‘Hmm, you reckon the big one is a statue?’ And here I met the incredible brain of Sinead. I was deeply impressed by her ability of making links an making consecutive thoughts. Just like that. “Thanking, praying. To what/whom? What for? The seven hands, did they make something? What? The seven people thanked or adored something, but what? Seven, seven, seven, things made by hand, people kneeling. Thanks for what, praying for what: a miracle, a wonder? A wonder? Seven hands, seven tools and seven creations…” ‘The Seven Wonders of the World?’ “Indeed, Albert, the Seven Wonders of the World, she slowly repeated.” Like I said, deeply impressed ‘The Seven Wonders of the World!!’ I yelled, very excited now. Followed by my own silence. I didn’t put a mechanical trap on, did I? Sinead looked at me angry as well as frightened. Maybe it was because we did not have a choice, but to go for her thoughts. This couldn’t be wrong but I think she was still doubting. The yelling meant nothing to her. She had seen our escape from death and she looked at the crushed bones. ‘I don’t know anything else,’ I said. She nodded slowly. ‘Uuuuhh, you know what they are, don’t you?’ “Yes. Most of them.” ‘Most of them? What’s that suppose to mean?’ “It means that I don’t know them all.” ‘Oh, really…Better start with the ones you know then.’ With sweat on her hands and head, she pulled out the wooden stick that of what she thought was The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. No ceiling. Then the second: The Lighthouse of Alexandria. The third and fourth: The Golden Statue of Zeus and The Temple of Diana in Egypt. She stopped and looked at me. She raised one eyebrow and smiled a little, as to say that it was my turn. I raised two eyebrows and I didn’t smile. ‘The only thing I know is that the Great Wall of China is not one of the Seven Wonders.’ “What are you talking about, of course it is.” ‘No, not really.’ “Are you stupid? Have you ever seen it? Do you know how big it is? Do you have any idea how huge that wall is?” ‘Yes, it’s around 6400 kms and...’ “The Wall is one of them.” ‘It is not.’ “Yes, it is.” ‘No, it isn't.’ “Yes, it bloody well is!” ‘It is not,’ I said louder. “Is too.” ‘Is not.’ “Is too!” ‘Oh for crying out loud, woman, it is frigging not!’ “You’re hopeless.” ‘What? Why? Just because I know the Wall isn't among them. Listen, all the Seven Wonders are around the Mediterranean Sea: Egypt, Greece and the old empire Mesopotomia. The original makers of the list never went so far as China, they had no clue of what size that Wall was, if they had ever heard of it at all.’ She got a bit cranky, but I knew I was right. And talking about it, I remembered the other ones: The Grave of Mausuleus, the Big Pyramid. But before I could pull out The Colossus of Rhodes, Sinead rose her hand to The Great Wall of China. She yanked it out and I yelled: ’Nooo!’ The ceiling got loose and started to fall. As quick as she could, she put one of the sticks she was holding from the others in the hole she left behind. It was close, very close, but the ceiling stopped just about 20 centimeters above our heads. “I am sorry,” she said, “guess you were right. I was sure it was one of the wonders.” ‘Many people think it is among it. I can understand that, it is a massive thing and it should be one of them. Actually, it is on the list of the more modern wonders. And don’t worry, thanks to you we found out what this all meant and took the right tunnel. We’ll finish this one, Colossus of Rhodos. Let’s see if this so called secret village is behind this door. Are you ready?’ I could only hear a little growl, so I guessed she wasn’t, but there we had to go anyway I shoved her through.it was good there was not a hole immediately after the opening, otherwise I would have killed her maybe.

I thought it would be the end, but it was not. We had entered a vast room. I looked around and the floor consisted mostly of brown tiles. The ceiling was high, and before the tiles started, there was this strip where we stood on and this had just one colour. Again there was a drawing: the universe with not the sun in the middle, but what looked like three balls stuck to each other with XVI. Under that there was a horse. O no, what on the jolly Earth is this? I had no idea and neither had Sinead. The universe is big, yeah, so is this room with all its tiles. And that horse. I wondered what would happen here. Probably something with the tiles. I threw my Only Planner on a tile and WHOOM! A little pillar with a sharp point came out of the ceiling, and pricked the object from top to bottom. Back it went and I could see a perfect round hole in the thing I threw up. It peered through it like it was butter. Bye book. Sinead and I were looking at each other and she started to laugh. More out of a hysterical mood than from sheer happiness, I guess. I certainly didn’t find this funny. I almost cried. I didn’t think I was able to solve this riddle. Hopefully Sinead had a moment of brilliance again. Logic had never been my strongest side. We sat there and we talked a bit. She decided she would look at life with a different view. She would put more time in getting Asian countries better opportunities. Especially against Pigopia. The big country that saw itself as the policeman of the world. They only helped other countries if that would be needful for Pigopia self and only to look decent. Otherwise they just murder all over the world.

I decided that I would pay more attention to MacGyver the next time I saw the show. He would easily trick his way out with his pocket knife.

We talked about this and that, and after 6 hours we had nothing to talk about. She walked along the ridge and looked over the tiles. In the mean time I was looking at the balls and the horse. Why in the universe, the planets, where is the sun? I don’t know. Horse what, balls + XVI what. “How many squares does a chessboard have?” Sinead asked. ‘Uhhm, two rocks, two knights, two bishops, a queen and a king. That makes eight. Eight times eight equals sixty four. Sixty four squares.’ “There are sixty four tiles here, with two different shades of brown. It could be a chessboard.” My heroine. ‘The floor is a chessboard. Amazing. That explains the horse, namely: a horse is a knight in a chess game. We have to jump like a knight over this floor. Beautiful.’ “But what about the three balls and that number 16? You reckon it has something to do with where to start?” ‘Maybe.’ “Maybe the three balls make an atom. It looks like that, doesn’t it.” That’s it and the atomic number 16 stands for.’ “Sulfur.” ‘Do you know what the international symbol for sulfur is?’ “It is an S.” My goodness. ‘What about taking the chance to jump like a knight, starting from bottom left and ending at the top right?’ “Go for it.” ‘Ladies first,’ I implied. “I don’t wanna go first.” ‘Me neither, but I think we don’t have another choice.’ I jumped on the first tile. Then two imaginary steps to the right and from there one above. I hesitated, looked at Sinead. I could tell she was worried. I shook my head (I don’t know why) and jumped. We were lucky again. For how long would we be lucky like this? And how many puzzles like this before we reach Esteron. I wanted to go home, that was the only thing I knew. We had three of these puzzles and not a lot of people had come this far. We went through the opening and came in a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a small room, with in the middle a condor.

Now what. As we started to talk, we heard this hissing sound. I did not see any snakes, but what I did see was water. And not just a little bit. My goodness, the water was flooding in this little room and we were trapped like rats in a cage. Soon the water reached our knees and our waists. Oh shit, we are going to drown. And this time: Houston we’ve got a problem. In despair we climbed the bird. The water kept flowing into the room. And we were doomed. Then I saw other edges, located on a higher spot. Damn it, they were better spots than here. We tried to reach them, but the current was too strong. The water reached our necks. We were holding hands and started to pray. Suddenly the condor moved. It raised its wings and went up, right through a hole in the ceiling. A bird in distress flies away. I didn’t want to think about how clever it was or how obvious or that again we were lucky, just get the fuck out of here. What if we did climb on those ‘better’ spots?

The bird took us right up through the ceiling onto the roof. It was light and there were trees. This must be it! We found Esteron. The thoughts were running through my head and I smiled. I was so happy. There was the sun, birds, trees, and water. It took us blood, sweat and tears, but we had made it. I then realized how difficult it was to breathe. We must have been so high. And it was still light. Again I am not sure if it ever gets dark there. I got a bit dizzy, but I acclimatized fairly easy to the thin air. And so did my travel companion. We laughed, finally it was over. Now it was just a matter of finding people (people?) and be happy for the rest of our lives (how long that may take). We drank some water from the fresh water pool and ate some fruit.

We enjoyed the surroundings and let it all take in. after a while we decided to wander around, searching for some life. We couldn’t. Nothing nowhere. On our way, we found 5 flat stones piled on top of each other. They were all carved and each represented something. The top one had arrows diagonally pointing down. The second stone was carved with a circled arrow, which had little arrows coming from the center, pointing away from the center. The third had one big arrow pointing down, the fourth stone was clean and the fifth stone was strange. It looked to me as if the drawing meant a human being. That was very odd. Maybe not, because I supposed more people came across the note we found. But how many people came this far? And who put all the puzzles here. Someone or something knew that human beings would come here. Anyway, on the rims of the stones (and around the drawings), were big brackets.

We copied the carvings on the stones and walked on. We crossed a small creek and went through a nice garden. Here I needed to sit down. The dizziness came back. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the air or maybe the fruit we had eaten. Everything started to move around me. Everything got very bright colours. I lay down and my head was spinning.

Merde.Prince? Prince Vaillant or The Artist Fucking Kinky Arses Probably? Not King of my Castle, that is Wandoo Project (?). Prince, prince, she prints a document-prince/prints. And who the heck is Shakspeer? I am the white prince on his courage horse. Macbeth.

O, I get it, it must be the catcher in the rye. Of course. It's like the song in which master Pinleg lures the days. The days of rouge red paper, in which he can hear the ocean shine. You made it very difficult for me Dale, but none the less, I found out your meaning. Very clever, a girl dancing on the music of the 16 lights. Bright. I may have come back from the case I held my party in. Making use of our glasses of wood, drinking the fluid that comes floating from the sky. I myself have been here, it was beautifully decorated with the thoughts of the creatures that live in the grass. Proud to be a friend of their's. Makes me wonder why I bombed the earth sitting in a drop of silver rain. I like that too, you see earth a million times, but nothing is clear. Seeing many of us going down, I realise how hard earth is crying. Tears coming from it, falling on the sky. I land with both feet on the ground and sail through the laugh that is protecting our souls. I stand up and look up. It is lighter than on the sun and I wonder why. The wind. The wind just woke up and sends his men to all the directions of the universe. A billion feet are marching over the fields of death and are arriving at the end of the world. From here they whistle and disappear in the same way as they came. I sail on and hold my piece of dirt against my heart. The wings of tomorrow will ignore me now. I am lucky. Maybe next time they won't.

Where was I? what a dream. I dreamed I was in search of some place called Esteron. Pretty realistic dream. As I turned my head, I looked right in the eyes of Sinead. That was a nice thing to look at, but put me right back to Earth. Well, Earth…

Apparently Sinead had hallucinative dreams too. She had woken up before me and had already explored the surroundings a little.

‘Sorry?’ “A wall of about 20 meters high and of course no left or right ending. Pretty depressing, actually.” In front of the wall we found a dry fountain, with arrows pointed to the middle of the fountain tube. ‘Well, they come in three now.’ “Hmm?” ‘They come in three now: the stones, the fountain and this wall.’ “Uhuh. You think they connect?” ‘Do you?’ “I am afraid so.” We walked back to the stones. Although I wasn’t very happy, I remember singing a song of the Rolling Stones: Angie. Very good song, not a happy song, though. I think I got reminded because of these stones, containing the answer to this riddle. Funny enough, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Which was pretty annoying, for I only knew a few sentences.

Looking at the arrows made me crazy. Not because they were only arrows, it was insolvable. What can a few arrows mean? Life and death for a start. And if that isn’t enough, then you got me. Think! Think, you stupid imbecile. Then again, don’t think, just look at the drawings.

We just sat there, Sinead looking at the stones, me listening to the Stones. We didn’t say anything. One time I thought I saw a tear falling from Sinead’s eye, but I never asked. You wouldn’t know what comes in mind if you are in a situation as I was. You start thinking about life, philosophizing about everything. And I mean Everything with a capital E. Nothing is save anymore. What is life, why is life, what makes Sinead so pretty, what makes her not pretty, who else finds her attractive, did I turn the light off at home, will the fire department look for us too, but what if there is a fire, what would be on fire, would that be the work of a pyromaniac, will he get caught, does he or she have a partner, what would he or she think and does the pyro feel regrets, will I still call my daughter Nikki, how did I come up with that name? Would she look like a Nikki, what if I get a son? Will I get children at all?

…

No. That cannot be. I played with an answer inside my head for a while now, but I wasn’t sure about it. And although we thought aloud, I did not say it. Then suddenly, Sinead said:” You think that is a sun?” ‘Why would you think that?’ “Just asking.” ‘I think it’s the sun.’ “Yeah, so do I. And this could be the rain?” I looked at her fingers, which were ‘impersonating’ rain. Very clever, I thought. “And I think,” she continued, “that this stone which has nothing on it means nothing. And I mean nothing: air. Which brings me to the only meaning the fat arrow pointing down has: the fourth element: earth! It is pointing down, to the bottom we stand on.” Very, very clever, I thought and secretly applauded in my head: well done Irish woman.

From here it was easy. Put some soil, water, air and fire in the tube of the fountain and ready we are. I got some soil, Sinead got water. We walked up to the fountain, put the water in, put the soil in, I blew in the tube and the rest was up to the sun. Our four elements combined. That was where the brackets stood for, we figured out. But nothing happened. How’s that? We did it right, didn’t we? The problem was, it was getting dark! We couldn’t believe it. Without the light, we couldn’t get out. And who knows how long it would take to get light again? At the same time we yelled:” The fifth stone.” I don’t know why, but suddenly Sinead put her hand on the tube. We both looked around. And darkness had almost fallen, when a stick came out of the ground. On top of it was positioned a big diamond. The last bit of light shone on it and see, the reflections of the diamond touched the wall on more than a thousand spots. Each point the reflection touched was linked with something in that wall. The thing I saw was amazing, thousands of light rays beaming through the twilight, hitting the wall. A few seconds later we heard a deafening sound; the wall was coming apart like the sea came apart for Moses. I was nailed to the ground and if my jaw weren’t attached to my head, it would have dropped on the floor. Never and I mean never had I seen a thing like this. It could not happen and there it did, right in front my very own eyes. We both gazed like snowmen through the opening the immense wall left behind. Not because we wanted to know what was behind it, oh no, my mind totally went blank. I just couldn’t do anything else then stare at what had just happened.

As we walked through, the wall started to move again. Only this time it closed. I was facing the wall, too scared to turn around. I might get a heart attack if I turned around, not being able to cope with what might be there. Or what might not be there. There wasn’t a choice though. So I did and saw that we were standing on a little hill, with at its bottom only water. It was fully light on this side of the wall. I could see animals in the water, which weren’t up to much good. They looked like prehistorical beings. Big mouths with big teeth. There was also a bridge. A narrow bridge, which seemed easy to cross. For a change this may not be a riddle. We soon found out it was. When we were about to cross it, we saw that one of the big tiles the bridge consisted of was gone. It was broken and we could see some ‘leftovers’ of the tile that should have been there. ‘Better not cross it,’ I said, ‘shall we take a rest? I don’t trust this bridge for one penny.’ “I agree. Let’s get some sleep.” We lay down in the grass (I think it was grass, because it looked like it), talked for a while and soon fell asleep, holding hands.

I won’t bother you about my dreams, well to be honest, I cannot remember them. I think I had more than one dream. I think everybody has more than one dream every night. The only thing I remember is that I was eating ice cream with my parents and sister. Before buying it both my sister and I wanted to buy the ice cream. My father held a note of 5 guilders tore it in two pieces and said:” Here, you both get ice cream for all of us.” The ice cream man wouldn’t take our money, so we couldn’t buy it. I was disappointed, but later my father bought us the ice cream anyway. Now I have to laugh about my father’s action. Pretty cool move.

But let me continue with what happened.

…

We slept on the top of the hill. The view was nice and I walked around just for the sake of walking. I had a lot of respect for the creators of this world. I realized we had escaped death more than once now, but if I blocked that thought out of my mind, then I saw a nice world. The trees were big and green, the flowers were colourful, the water was fresh and clear, the temperature was perfect. Everything here was how it should be. Sitting there on that hill, I took it easy, laid back and enjoyed the view and these thoughts for as long as I was able to hold these thoughts.

I became curious of what was wrong with the bridge. I walked up to it, making sure I didn’t step on it for one centimeter. I watched the hole where the fourth stone should have been and it struck me that somebody had fallen through it. Poor man must have done something wrong. I looked at all the tiles now and something was written on them. On every stone there was a big letter. The even stone number had the same letter as the one in front of it. And all the odd number stones had different letters. Strange. At that moment I heard a dark voice. It scared the shit out of me and made my heart jump a few beats. When I turned around I notice that it was Sinead. Apparently her voice gets hoarse in the morning. “Have you seen the drawings on the wall?” she said. ‘Good morning, Sinead,’ I replied. “Yes good morning. Have you seen the drawings on the wall?” she said again. ‘Have you slept well?’ She looked at me for a moment and said:”Yes, thank you. Have you seen the drawings on the wall?!,” she said a bit irritated. ‘The view is excellent here, have you noticed that?’ “Albert! Stop being so annoying. There are drawings on the wall, it can mean a way out of this place!” ‘Well well, have you seen the letters on the bridge?’ I think she wanted to be very angry and surprised at the same time. Eventually she was none and said no, I haven’t. ‘Well, you have a look here and I’ll come with you to the great wall (which almost crushed me to death).’ “Sorry?” ‘I said I’ll come with you to see the drawings on the wall.’ “You said something after that.” ‘Yes I did,’ and turned around to walk up the hill towards the wall. “I heard you,” Sinead yelled after me. It made me smile and I just raised my arm and waved at her still walking up the hill. “Asshole,” she said just loud enough for me to hear.

I felt good. The sleep had done me good. I was well awake and the sleep had cleared my brains. A new day, a new chance. That all blew out of the window when I actually reached the wall with its inscriptions. And I snapped. ‘Noooo!’ I hit the wall with my fist. Again and again, as hard as I could. Blood spouted from my hands, making the wall turn red. I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t stop and kept hitting it. Sinead came running to me:” Stop it!” she yelled and cried, “stop it!” She grabbed my hands and pulled me away from the wall. I fell on my knees and let myself fall on the ground. I felt so miserable. I felt like I was nothing. I wasn’t able to get us out of here. I don’t know how long we lay there (Sinead was lying next to me), but suddenly it was getting dark and we saw the moon sending some light to us. I was sure my parents could see the same moon. They felt so close, but there was nobody, but Sinead and I. We both couldn’t sleep and I kept thinking about this stupid labyrinth. All night I thought of it and I just didn’t know what to do.

As every morning, the sun shone its rays upon us. Three little birds were at my feet, singing sweet songs of melody pure and pure. Every little thing is gonna be all right, I thought now, asking myself where I’d heard this before. I walked to the left, to see the panorama. Still it was beautiful. I could sit there for hours, but something had to be done. So I walked up to the wall to see what was really on it. Yesterday I didn’t have the chance to do that, since I was busy trying to knock it down. I shook my head. This again was a piece of miracle. No blood on the wall. The thing is, I wasn’t surprised anymore. When I looked at my hands, I noticed there were no wounds, nor had I any scars. That was very nice. I didn’t feel any pain. Was this land or planet part of Esteron? A place so peaceful and beautiful? Maybe they know of no pain. And therefor we are on the right track. Excellent.

The wall was covered with numbers. It was very strange. I read them over and over again, but could not figure them out. I imagined they were systematically carved. I saw all kinds of animals and there was a Buddha. I do not know if it was Buddha, but it looked like him. It made me shiver. I realized that we had to be sure of everything. There was no option for gambling. If we took a chance on that and we did it wrong, we were dead. In here with all these enigmas, there were millions of possibilities. We had to be absolutely sure of what we were doing. When I glanced back to the bridge, something strange had happened. Where was the hole? There was no stone missing. The bridge was perfectly normal. Amazing. This was getting very awkward. I went back to where Sinead was sleeping. The soft breeze blew her long hair away from her face. Her reddish hair looked like gold in the morning sun and I couldn’t resist kissing her on the cheek.

I walked back to the wall again, to read the signs. With my back I sat against it and went through all the possibilities in my head. Sinead woke up and stretched out. Nice figure, I thought. “How are your hands? Do they hurt?” ‘No, I don’t know, but I don’t have any wounds or scars.’ “Let me see.” She took my hands in hers and I was sure there was a spark flying between us. “Good,” she said, dropping my hands like they were stones,” let’s get moving.” Guess not… ‘You know, I have been to Hong Kong. When I was there, I visited a temple of Buddha. The guy on the wall looks like Buddha and it came across that when I was there in that temple, a monk came sitting next to me. I kept very quiet, because I wanted to show them the respect they deserved. The monk said ‘come with me, I tell you about Buddha.’ In their zodiac, they believe in twelve other animals than we have in our zodiac. He named the animals and I asked him why they chose those animals. ‘No no,’ he said, ‘we not chose them; they chose Buddha. Long long ago, Buddha order all animals to come to him. No all animals come, only twelve. Buddha was happy and put them in zodiac.’ He also named all the animals that came to see Buddha. If I am not mistaken, Sinead, they’re on this wall. This is a rat, this an ox, there’s a tiger, a rabbit, this must be a dragon, a snake, I guess a horse, goat, I think, a monkey, rooster, dog and probably the pig. You see, they are all on this wall. I am absolutely sure this the right interpretation.’ Her eyes were smiling. I believed in it again and so did Sinead. “But what about the numbers?” They were all put there in the shape of a circle.

It was a clock. At one o’clock there was the monkey. The monkey was the eighth animal to come to Buddha, she thought out loud. On the bridge there should be a stone with the letter I. We walked to the bridge, but the first two stones started with Y. The third was K and the fourth was I. “It is wrong. The fourth stone is a trap. It is wrong.” We were quit sure that since Y doesn’t correspond with an animal, they were all right. But we didn’t take a chance and decided that the only right stone of that four must be K, the third stone. On the wall the K is the dog at two o’clock. “You reckon they made a difference between summer and winter time?” ‘Yes.’ “Good, let’s work out the path on the bridge.’ We counted all the animals an hour later and worked out the tiles on the bridge. First number three, with K, then the sixth stone, B. After that, numbers 7, 9, 12, 13 et cetera till 24. Bingo, we made it to the middle of the bridge. There was a mirror. No, we didn’t have to walk through it. We quickly understood our mission here: just the reverse of the first half. So we said and so we did. Mission Impossible: accomplished.

That was a terrible part of the labyrinth. I was hoping they didn’t come more difficult. On the other hand I was thinking that solving these riddles were not so hard after all. But that was just after-talk. You can’t solve a riddle that easy if you don’t have any help. But we were through and that was the most important thing. I tried to figure out how many more problems we would get, but that was just guessing. I thought about 7 in total, for that was the holy number, if I am not mistaken. Well, Rome was built on seven hills, you had the seven sins, Seven Wonders of the World, the seven branched candlestick and hey, how many days in a week? As I said, it was just a guess.

We quickly left the area that mentally asked a lot from us. There was a tunnel. Before we walked in, I glanced over my shoulder, feeling slightly regretted I would never enjoy a view like this anymore. Then it was over. Sinead took me by the hand (mmm) and on we went. Tired, but not scared anymore of what would come. Just let it come and we’ll see. Live or die. If it was going to be the second: a pity, but no more than that. That’s the way it was then. The tunnel seemed endless. It curved all the time and it was so dark that I couldn’t see my hand when I had it right in front of my face. Still holding hands and with the other hand feeling where to go, we just walked and walked. Suddenly there was a light way ahead of us. It still took half a day to reach it, and when we did, we were up for yet another surprise.

A big room it was and not just a big room. Now I understood how it was possible for the light to get so far down the long tunnel. The ceiling was made out of nothing but gold. Unfortunately I could not reach it (and scrape some off). The walls were full of diamonds, pearls, opals and all the most beautiful gems you can come up with. Also in the room it was full with life-sized sculptures of gods. So I thought. According to Sinead they were: Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Zeus, Athena, Ra, there was a sphinx and a centaur. These were not the only ones, there were many more. But as it turned out to be, Sinead’s knowledge of only these gods was sufficient. I can tell you we came out of it, but it was close. Not close as in it took long, close as in the-fucking-walls-started-moving-towards-each-other-and-there-was-no-such-a-thing-as-time-at-all. All the sculptures were half built in the wall. And when we searched for an exit or an instruction to get us out, the latter only served us. ‘She with the good heart will survive,’ it said somewhere. Actually it was written all over the floor. It took us quite a while to find it. ‘I think we have to count on you again, my dear.’ She laughed a bit. How can they know if Sinead or I have a good or bad heart, I wondered. I reckoned it was about the conscience. “It is so beautiful here. Just look at all the diamonds. There are millions of them, she said.” She walked to pick one from the wall, but didn’t. I was still annoyed that I left that big diamond on th either side of the opening wall, that I went to the closest wall and just took a diamond of it. Oops. The second I did, we heard an enormous crack-sound. It was almost deafening. We both lay down on the floor and waited. Nothing happened. At least, that’s what we thought. It was true, though, but one minute later the walls started moving; not fast, but still they were. And to my opinion any speed was too fast. I wondered if I good solve the riddle of the good heart, now. We were looking at each other. Sinead with outrage. My mind was working as it had never done before. It had to do something with the gods. The sentence was crazy, they could never know that. Never. I was so busy I didn’t notice Sinead had gone half hysterical. She was running around like a chicken without a head. One time screaming, the other time calmly talking to herself. I don’t think there was a lot to walk around for her, for the walls still moved closer on us. But when I did see her, I got scared. When I looked her in the eyes, they were the eyes of a dead person. Never had I seen so much frightening. She was completely out of it. Terrified, absolutely terrified. There was nothing I could do and I felt a tear rolling from my eye. It brought me back to where I had to be: the room. I looked at all the sculptures, but they didn’t mean anything to me. From the other side of the room I heard Sineads voice: “Apollo: sun and youth; Ares: war; … Athena: wisdom;… Aphrodite: love; centaur: horse and man, half horse and man. Good heart, giving, patience, love. Love! Aphrodite. Exit. Aphrodite is the key, she is the exit,” she said calmly. My goodness, there was an exit behind Aphrodite. There was no time to waste, I could touch both the walls when I spread my arms. Sinead was at the other end. I run over, lifted her up, and carried her to Aphrodite. I put her down, put my hands on the goddess’ chest and pushed with all my strength. She moved backwards and in the floor appeared a shaft. There was no choice but to jump. I grabbed Sinead and threw her in. I didn’t need to jump. The sculptures had come so close that they slowly pushed me in the hole. At the last moment I saw that they fitted perfectly in each other. I knocked my head against the god that shoveled me into the hole. I fell and fell.

This was close. Real close. It has to stop. When we stopped falling, we were in a big space. Not a big room, no, a space. And it was vast. We couldn’t see the end of it and there were no walls. It was like we were in the galaxy with a floor. I took Sinead’s hand started to walk in a direction. It didn’t come to me that the direction we had to walk in might be the solution too. Perhaps if I paid more attention to that, it would bring us to the exit. But I was still in a little shock from our escape from the other room. We just started walking in a direction. Just straight and there was nothing, not a sign of anything. I talked to Sinead, hoping to get her back to her positives. Nothing worked. I kept on talking and holding her hand, and we walked for hours. Once in a while we stopped and rested. It only occurred to me that I hadn’t been hungry all the time. Not even in that garden where we ate some fruit. We walked the entire day and I was telling her about Holland, about friends, anecdotes, about my journeys, everything I could come up with. You know, I think I haven’t mentioned that it was dark. Not really dark, but that kind of darkness, that you find when you are on a big field in the open air, and you can see the stars and you can still see each other because of the moon. Something like that, but then without the moon and the stars.

I became tired and we stopped. Sinead still was in her own world, so I lay her down and told her to get some sleep. I am not sure if she heard me, but I hoped she was tired and would fall asleep anyway. I stayed awake for only a few minutes, thinking if I would be missed or not, or if I kept living my own life on Earth. Will I never be able to return? Will I always stay at Esteron if I am not dead by the time I reach it? Are we only souls here? Not in a body anymore? And what if I have completely vanished from the theater, will they search for me? I’m sure the alien circus has a great time: boy disappears without a trace from a big crowd; what a mystery. And if they found out that an Irish had suddenly disappeared too, that would be food for the media. Every newspaper would dedicate its front page to us: ‘2 people abducted by aliens.’ Then, all kind of proof will come up to back up their stories. I was too tired to continue thinking and fell asleep.

There they were, a whole army of them. They looked like little, white balls and they were all flying criss cross through each other. They lifted us up and took us to the sun. We played games I’d never played or even seen before. They entertained us the whole time and Sinead and I were happy. The little balls flew us back through the stars, left, right and right again at the big one.

Did I hear something? No, impossible. Again. What was that? Sinead again; she was back. “Where are we?” ‘To be honest, we are nowhere. This is some kind of huge infinite space. We have been walking for at least a day, I think, but there seems to be no end to it.’ “Great.” Yeah great, I thought. There wasn’t much to say. I didn’t tell her I saw some intact skeletons on the way. All the bones were in order. Nothing happened to the people, I guessed. They had just died out of exhaustion or sadness, or maybe hunger? She proposed to walk again. ‘Sure.’ I didn’t really care. I said that it had no use. She denied that and started to jabber. “It definitely makes sense. Maybe we find something. It is your fault that I am here.” … I raised my eyebrows; sorry? …“Without you I wouldn’t be here.” … What? Are you all right? I thought. … “Now, I am facing death almost every day.” …I couldn’t help smiling. Just a little smile. How could she blame me?. … “Being scared that I will never see my family and friends, trees and the sun.” ‘Ho ho,’ I said,’ we have seen trees and the sun out here.’ I didn’t know why I said that, it was probably the most stupid thing to say. “You amadon, you bastard! I hate you. Get the fuck out of my eyesight. It is your fault, you stupid fool. You you… I hate you!” First I couldn’t be bothered to what she said, but it wasn’t right, so I took her at her shoulders. Now she yelled even more. “Let go of me! Let go of me. I’ll kill you, let me go.” It went on like that, but eventually she got tired and stopped. I didn’t find it necessary to say anything (I might have said something wrong again). Besides, I didn’t know anything to say anyway.

After a while we were sitting next to each other, Sinead sobbing the day away. We were talking about our lives back then, for a change. She asked me the saddest thing I had ever got involved in. I thought for a while, but the first thing that came in mind was really the worst thing. Even after consulting my memory for a while, I’d tell her the first thing. ‘When I was young, I went on a holiday with my parents and sisters to America. Everything was big and I loved it. The whole vacation was excellent. Then one day we went to Las Vegas. I couldn’t believe my eyes; there were hotels so big, glitter and glamour everywhere, so many people. Fantastic. We went to our hotel and my parents talked to the receptionist. I heard him say: “Room number 1126, 13^th floor. Go right when you step out and follow the hallway. Have a pleasant stay and good luck if you go to the casino.” With my little rucksack I ran to the elevators. I wanted to go ahead of my family. As I neared, one of them closed its doors, but then they opened again. Inside was a boy of about my age. He had seen me coming and pressed the door-open button. “Thirteenth floor,” my father yelled. “Be careful,” my mother added to it. She didn’t want me to go alone, I was too young. I waved and the doors closed. The elevator started its ascent. Cool, I thought, to the 13^th floor. As a kid I had never been so high up a building before. Then with a shock, the elevator stopped. No sign was on the display. I didn’t really mind, I actually found it funny, being stuck in an elevator. The boy didn’t think quite the same. He was starting to panic. It appeared he had asthma. The air-conditioning stopped working and after a minute or so, he started to breath heavily. He was gasping for air. I looked at him and his face was turning red, he was waving his arms in the air, moving his eyes up and down. I just stood there and didn’t know what to do. Then he calmed down and breathed normally again. We started to talk. Well, it wasn’t really talking, I couldn’t speak one word English. Then again he did not speak one word Netherlandic. But we figured out each other’s names and where he was from. He liked soccer and he knew Ajax (of course…). I looked at him, at his black hair, his blue eyes and he had some freckles. He was exceptionally white. I think he liked me, because suddenly he grabbed my hand and kept shaking it. It got a bit sore at the end, so did his I think, because he gave me my hand back. We talked about everything we could understand (which wasn’t much). We imitated all kinds of animals and we laughed. That’s when the elevator started to move again. We stood up and danced. You could see that Justin (that was his name) was soaked with relieve. He was really happy. Well, considering his health problem I wasn’t surprised. He almost died in there. Still laughing and dancing, the elevator stopped again. Shit. I wasn’t too happy about it either now. We waited, but nothing happened. We sat down and I could hear his breathing becoming louder. He inhaled for long times, letting go a shrieking sound. This time it was bad. He caught and almost choked. It was the worse sound I had ever heard. His face became red and he hit his chest and the walls of the elevator. And still no one was here to rescue us. What was wrong with these people? Didn’t they know that there was an elevator stuck? He breathed more heavily all the time. Then he collapsed and didn’t move. The moment he fell, the elevator started to move again. This time straight to 13. My parents and sisters stood there as well as Justin’s parents and some paramedics. The last I saw of him was that his face had turned blue. Later I heard he survived it. We got a card from his parents, saying that Justin was all right. Though he didn’t want to go into elevators again.’

Then, Sinead told her saddest story. I can’t remember all the details, but it was a bit like this: when Sinead was kid, she was playing with a friend in an old closed factory in Ireland, when a bunch of people came in. Sinead and her friend hid and watched them. A few of them had a sack around their head. These people were beaten up. When one man asked if they could remove the sack, so he could see the sun one last time and sniff in the air ‘freely’, they agreed. After having looked at the sun and after a few sniffs, they shot him dead, point blank. It appeared that right that man was the father of Sinead’s friend who she was with. She couldn’t have told it in a shorter way, but I was dumbfounded. There was nothing I could say and felt something in my throat.

All this time we kept on walking, but we hadn’t come any further. With mixed feelings we walked on. Nothing and I mean nothing was there to be seen. ‘What would you like to do?’ “I would like to swim in a swimming pool.” How do we get out of here? No clues, no nothing. Are we doomed to die in here?

Maybe there was something where we started. Something at that shaft. Maybe it went down some more. I can tell you there was nothing in front of us, there was nothing behind us and there certainly was nothing beside us. Nor above us. So the big question was: was there something beneath us? No, come on. Isn’t the truth sometimes harder to believe than a lie? Were we fooled once again? Fooled in an unbelievable amazing way? I started to laugh out loud. I couldn’t help myself. If it was true, then it was really unbelievable. If it weren’t so, then we would die here. And my brains then had gone nuts at the end. Since we had nothing to loose, we started to scrape the floor. We scraped and scraped. And when our fingers got sore, we continued with our feet. All the time nothing, but there was nothing else we could do, and at one point… There was this tiniest, most little ray of light. Unbelievable! We dug if our lives depended on it and soon enough the hole was big enough to get us through.

Eureka: light and fresh air.

But the story, the story, I don’t really care about it now. I also think that it is getting too long. A bit boring. Maybe I should write about wo... Well, the story, my adventure with Sinead. Something incredible that happened to me five years ago. It is sure that I do not want to go through it all again. Yes, Esteron was fantastic, I have learned a lot. Many questions have been answered. I know things that human mankind will never find out. It has helped me many times. But you know, there was something that happened, approaching Esteron. Like I said, my side of the story is getting too long, so I will only tell you about the last mystery. Two we survived, then came the third. It was a maze, a labyrinth. Literally. The biggest you could ever imagine. To come out of one is very difficult, it can even be you will never get out. I am pretty sure a lot of people know a system to reach the end. If you don’t, here is what Sinead whispered to me: if you enter a path, put a cross at the begin. You come out of that same entry, you add two more crosses to the one you already put there. If you exit from another path, you take the first one again and put just one cross next to the first one. Eventually (you do not take the paths with three crosses), you reach the end. At a certain moment Sinead passed out. She couldn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything, I just took her in my arms and stroked her hair and face. She calmed down and even smiled to me. I told here I would go and see if there was anything at the exit of it. The exit was not far and when I reached it, I couldn’t see the beauty of Esteron. I remember the people being very friendly. They said I was the only one who had ever made it to this little secret village. But I couldn’t be bothered. Nothing I saw was real. I told them about another person who was still in the labyrinth, they need to get her. I never saw her during my stay and only after months, I realized where I was. And yes, it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. More beautiful than I could ever had imagined. But it was too late. I didn’t want to stay here any longer than I had too. Still that was two years, but after these years I went back. I have never known what happened to Sinead. Had she died in my arms? Just one hour before I found the end? Or did the people find her and take her to Esteron. I don’t know. It was thanks to her I am still alive.

Now I am sitting behind a laptop, telling you about it. If you ever find a piece of paper with a message printed on it, throw it away and never think of it again.

Stories don’t always have a good ending. If I think about it, I still get upset and sad that she couldn’t hang on for one more hour. One hour! But it is over, I came back and will live my life till the end, never forgetting what Sinead has done for me.

The End.