Work Text:
All children are born with memories of the stars in the sky. It is knowledge embedded in their flesh, seeped in with their blood, and it is only through rigor and repetition that they learn reality is otherwise.
The world is the tower. The tower is the world. There is nothing outside the tower. There are no stars in the sky.
Most children take these words as truth. For the strong and the brave and the clever, they will be allowed to ascend the tower. For the others, the weak and the helpless, they will stay as they are: free of the confines of immortality, the promise of anything. They know the pains and pleasures of mortal men, the joys and sorrows of love and marriage and parenthood.
Most children forget.
But not Rachel.
Though she has never seen them, she is nonetheless certain that there is a world outside the tower. That there are stars in the sky. When she is a child, this means she babbles about these beliefs and her parents, kind but indoctrinated, chuckle and say all children will grow out of such things. But she does not grow out of it and when these facts are repeated to her in school, she sits in the middle row and shakes her head.
Rachel, her teacher notes, is something the matter?
And she stands at attention, feeling her cheeks heat up at the absurdity of it. But how certain she is of her own belief, she cannot stop the words from spilling out.
"That's wrong," she says, and it's the most she's said in class all year, "There are stars in the sky. There is a world outside of the tower." She hasn't even finished talking and the room is swept over with laughter. The girl in front of her is clutching at her stomach, the boy two seats to the left falls to the floor. Even her teacher cannot swallow her mirth, covering her mouth with a hand. She is no longer a child and everyone knows only children believe these things.
And Rachel stands, even as her cheeks are flushed and her hands are clenched, until she is allowed to sit back down.
-
She does not see her parents again after that episode. She is called to the principal's office in the middle of after-school athletic activities and taken from there to the district center.
It is a very foolish thing, to believe in something she has no proof of. To believe in something which all evidence from everyone she knows and trusts states otherwise.
But in her dreams, she is stretched out on a field beneath an endless night sky, twinkling with stars. Their light is so close, when she reaches for them, she can feel their warmth, shining against the palm of her hand.
And then she wakes.
-
After an intensive round of questioning, where she is made to repeat her belief and confess to having no evidence to support a world outside the tower or stars being in the sky, she is wheeled from the room with bright lights all shining in her face to a lightless room.
In the time it takes for her vision to adjust, her guards have released the bonds on her wrists and taken their leave. Rachel pushes herself to her feet, rubbing at her wrists, and takes in the shadows of the room.
The sole source of light comes from a gigantic drawing of a single red eye, scratched into the ceiling. It looms overhead and seems to look right at her. Absurd, given that it was a two-dimensional etching with no attempt having been made at realism.
"Rachel," a voice calls from the other end.
She's tired and hungry and scared but she's not yet ready to repent.
"Rachel," the voice says again, "Come here."
She steps forward and the drawing of the eye follows until its red light is shining down at the end of an immense table.
"Come. Sit. You must be hungry."
She seats herself at one end of the table. On the other end, in a darkness which the eye cannot illuminate, is the owner of the voice. She sees a pair of glowing eyes, golden like the artificial suns, and cannot suppress her own shiver when they blink.
"Please, eat," the voice beckons, and she hears the distant clink of silverware, as if the other were seated leagues away.
Rachel looks down and sees her plate is no longer empty. There's a tall glass and a wineglass and a fork and knife. Although her parents have taught her how to eat, she nearly drops both utensils when the food touches her tongue. The flavor is rich, aromatic, like nothing she's had before. A deep chuckle bubbles up from the darkness and she flushes, scrambling to eat the rest.
"Rachel," the voice says at the end of the meal, "I have asked for you because I have a proposition to make."
Because she has been raised to be polite if not unfailingly obedient, she merely nods. The eyes blink once more before curling at the edges; a smile.
"You are not wrong," it goes on to say, and she doesn't know how badly she wanted to hear those words until then. "There is a world outside of our tower, just as there are stars in the sky."
A hundred things clamor to be said at once, leaving her speechless. There was no reason for her to trust this darkness, certainly not over the words of her teachers, her parents. But her chest clenches for how sweet and right the words sound and when the voice says —
"If you complete this task, I shall bring you to the stars."
— everything in her mind convalesces to a single point.
"Yes," she blurts out, "Yes," she repeats with more emphasis; irrational, absurd. "Anything."
The eyes crinkle at the edges again.
"Good," the voice purrs.
-
She is not the first to remember, nor is she the first sent to the boy trapped at the base of the mountain. The instructions given to her by the voice on the other end of the table are not unique either. If she succeeds in dredging up 'humanity' in the untamed beast of a child, then she will be allowed to see the stars.
It's a ridiculous proposition.
It's an offer she can't refuse.
-
The child who becomes her charge is truly like a beast. When Rachel climbs down to the base of the mountain, she's knocked to the ground from the rope with a feral cry. In that moment, more than stars in the sky, she thinks —
I am going to be eaten.
And she does a shameful thing, something she had not done throughout the questioning and even the dinner table under the red eye. She cries. She curls into herself underneath this foreign mass of tangled black hair and uncut nails and sees the light from the entrance and thinks of her parents and home and cries.
Her saving grace and the characteristic which set her apart from the others who had been lured into humanizing this, this nearly-feral child, is her plain and unassuming build. She is no one strong or brave or clever. She's a foolish girl with a head full of fantasies and she can no more defend herself than she can put up a fight.
It is in this, this acute act of weakness, that her life is spared.
The child which she has been sent to tame hunches over her, wiping at the tears streaking down her face. When she catches her breath and realizes that, though she scared and bruised and helpless on the floor, she is not dead. And then she looks at the other. At her charge. And despite the ragged dress and long hair, the child before her is a boy. A boy about her age, even.
"Hello," Rachel greets, touching the hand that was pressed to her face while swallowing her fear and uncertainty. From this angle, the boy looked almost human, "I'm Rachel."
And through you, I shall see the stars. — This, she does not say.
-
"You've returned," the voice greets, on the other side of the table. There is an undercurrent of surprise in its tone. "But not yet succeeded."
"Not yet," Rachel admits. And though the boy could neither speak nor write and had no name she could make out, though he lacked every aspect of civilization despite being the same age as her, she can still see the stars and the sky. They're closer than ever. "But I will. Soon."
"Good. Very good."
-
She doesn't realize how slow it is, to bring humanity and civilization, knowledge and communication, from one individual to another. She's only just taught him how to greet her and how to say good-bye. He takes to the former much better than the latter; doing everything in his power to make her stay.
But there are no supplies in this chamber: no books or papers or writing utensils. No food, even. And the boy, for all his confusion, seems to understand a firm no, at least. Rachel needs only say this and he'll back away with an expression like a kicked dog as she slowly pulls herself up the rope, up to the entrance of the cave.
Slowly, slowly, she teaches him. Her name is the first word he learns and after establishing it was for her and not every object in existence, his favorite thing seems to be shouting it at random. She'll be reading aloud from a picture book or showing him how to peel an orange and the boy will interrupt her, shouting Rachel! while beaming, with a smile that stretches from ear to ear and she thinks —
How is it possible, that someone with so little can feel happy?
-
She begins to grow fond of him, as a teacher grows fond of their star pupil. Her charge makes it very difficult not to, when every meeting feels like the first time in ages. He'll beam just at seeing her face and when her feet touch the ground, he'll shout her name again and wrap his arms around her.
She is a fool.
-
"No," the voice with the golden eyes says from its end of the table. "Absolutely not."
"But why?" Rachel protests, "I feel as if I've taught him all I can and it would be so much more effective if he could... practice with others, outside."
"Rejected."
"Do you expect me to be everything to him?!"
"As per the terms of our agreement, yes." There's a slow blink before the eyes hold her gaze. "Rachel," the voice drawls, "If you are dissatisfied with the agreement..."
What does she think of, in that fraught moment? Of her pupil or of the prize?
"I understand," she says; a lie.
-
In the century it takes to teach the boy who is her ticket to the stars nuanced speech, Rachel caves and names him. Had he asked for it? Or had she tired of referring to him as a unnamed being? Either way, he had clasped his hands as if in the midst of being blessed and she remembered the eyes on the other end of the table.
"Baam," she says, "I'll name you Baam."
"Baam," the boy repeats, playing with the sound against his mouth. He frowns, but has been taught enough to affect a playful tone. "I like Rachel better."
Rachel laughs, mussing up his hair. "It's a good name," she insists, "You'll come around to it."
They talk, but never argue. And even when he points out the contradictions in her lessons, it is with curiosity rather than criticism. And though their time together seems to stretch towards eternity, he never stops looking ecstatic at her arrival, nor desolate at her inevitable departure.
In the century it takes to civilize Baam, to teach him how to read and write and speak his mind and listen to others, Rachel realizes the meals in the table under the red eye had had some trace of immortality serum. There was no other explanation for how she had stopped aging.
And still, the stars shine bright.
-
"I have done what you have asked of me," she says at the end of it. This is true. She has done the best with her limited abilities and resources and though Baam is perhaps nothing more than a shadow of herself, he is nonetheless civilized enough to converse at length with her, to read a book and write out his thoughts, to ask her to come back tomorrow and every day after that, to tell her she is his everything.
Had she not longed for the stars, had she not insisted on their existence, would she have ended up somewhere similar? Married to someone of a similar social standing, someone else with no hope of climbing the tower, to become a wife and then a mother and perhaps reassure her children that there was nothing more than the tower, that there were no stars in the sky?
"I have no reason to be dissatisfied with your efforts," the voice says.
"But."
And Rachel's heart sinks.
"But?" she echoes, glad to be seated, glad to have ate little.
"It seems the boy has become quite attached to you. He would be sad to see you go."
"I have told him about the stars," she blurts out, scrabbling at opportunity, at hope. "He could come with me."
"No," another crinkle-smile, "But it is kind of you to offer."
"This is not what I was promised," she says, throat clenched and eyes wet.
"You have been gifted with immortality," the voice retorts, "A prize you could not have otherwise received. A commoner like yourself should be satisfied with that."
But Rachel is not. She could never be.
-
She is helpless with fury when she goes to see Baam and he greets her with concern and alarm.
"Rachel," he pleads, cradling her face, "Rachel, what's wrong? Who hurt you? How can I help?"
"Rachel, tell me what to do."
She wipes the tears from her eyes and looks at Baam and sees him as he is for the first time once more. He is a boy without company, trapped at the base of a mountain, unable to exit, unable to escape, and here she is, telling him stories of the wider world, giving him advice on how to make friends or date girls, when this — when she — was going to be all he ever had?
Everything is such a farce. She looks up at the rope, traces its trailing form to the entrance of the cave where an endless stream of light filtered in, as damning and golden as the voice, as Baam's eyes.
"I wanted to see the stars more than anything," she confesses. "But I don't think it's possible. Not anymore."
And Baam, who is supposed to be nothing more than a shadow of herself, he breaks her heart then.
He takes her face in his hands and beams at her, as if she's descending from the rope all over again.
"I don't know why you're sad. Isn't this wonderful, Rachel?" he asks, and his voice lilts in the same way as the liar at the other end of the table under the red eye, "I'm so happy."
She freezes into the embrace and he seals the deal —
"Now you can stay here with me. Forever."
-
After the feelings of hurt and betrayal subside, after she is choked with anger and frustration, made to hurt at the wretched irony of it all, there is nothing but bitterness remaining.
How could she have thought Baam was anything like her? He was content in his cave; he thought she was the only person in the world and was happy about it.
She had been born amongst people, in a family. She had lived in society and gone to school and learned of the world and despite all that, had thirsted for more. For something that had never been within reach.
It's not Baam's fault; of that, there is no doubt. But when she sees him, she is made to remember the false promise. Taking care of him had been her only chance at seeing the real sky, at seeing the world outside the tower, but making the effort had damned her to this hollow enclave at the mountain base for time eternal, chained to someone who saw nothing wrong with the way things were.
-
If it were up to Baam or the voice on the other end of the table, she would have stayed at the zeroth floor indefinitely, drifting between the shadowed dining room and the poorly-lit cave.
But though Rachel is still weak and helpless, she is also deprived of intent.
As an act of apology, she cuts Baam's hair. He lets her of course; he would have let her do anything.
This is the last time, she cannot bring herself to say. When she climbs up the rope this time, she will not come back. Perhaps she will be killed; perhaps she will be tortured. Death would be a mercy at this point; what good was immortality for someone like her, who could never be satisfied with the zeroth floor?
Even at this point, where it hurts to look at him for how ultimately different they have always been, she thinks of him as much of a pawn and victim as herself.
-
"Rachel," Baam says, when she's combing the stray hairs from his face, "You'll come back, right?"
For all her faults, she has never knowingly lied to him. And this, being their last meeting, is no time to start.
She smiles and it's probably a sad smile, and she's taught him enough about body language that he knows something is wrong.
This is what should have happened: he would give chase and catch her and she would get him to let go and back away with a simple 'no'. Then she would say farewell and ascend up the ladder and meet her fate for insubordination somewhere along the line.
-
And this —
This is what happens instead:
He does not catch her and she, despite being no one strong or brave or clever, she gets a second chance at seeing the stars.
-
-
-
/fin