Chapter 11.

It was time for a new era of her life to begin, she could tell. The waters in front of her showed no changes in her reflection other than the wounds time was slowly carving into her, but she could feel it lurking somewhere between her shoulder blades. A lazy finger was pulled through the water enough to distort the transparent reflection, and then an angry fist shattered it.
Of course things would change one a final peace and solace was found. The cycles of life would not stop for a mere mortal no matter how much pleading was done. Good would be overcome by evilness, but the darkness would too pass like the darkness of the night. They had taught her of balance well.
For it was at a school of balance that she was staying, if it could be called a school. The word monastery fit it better, or at least the practice of stoicism made it feel like a place of monks. Life was lived to the fullest through the simplest of things deep within the ancient hallways buried deep within Chrystalis. How ironic that a people of humility and modesty chose the most shimmering of planets as their home.
It was a fitting place to live, and if fate would let it, she would have happily called it a fitting place to die. But amongst her brothers and sisters (as they called all of the participants) there were whispers and divinations of a change in the life of them all, and that soon enough more than half would be gone. Not that she really believed the divinations, it was a hazy practice started by rabbits who enjoyed staring into the swirling waters of the river instead of staring at runes of virtue. Few accepted them as true, and they most often were incorrect.
But even the unreliability of the waters could not calm the gut feeling she had. So she rose from the glittering shore and started down the smooth hallway, occasionally lit by faint murmurs of candles that cast gold explosions through the crystal. Past the rooms of pale sunless plants, past the greenhouse filled with pale sprouts that would soon wither if not harvested soon, the path took her.
How long had she been down here? Long enough to shackle the emotions that once ravaged her long ago. Now she even had control over her subconscious and didn’t even dream. Or so it had been up till a week ago, then strange dreams started plaguing her mind. One of the brothers had suggested she spend some time at the waters to see if they could lend any help, so all her time had been spent roaming the banks of the rivers. But this had only further cemented her disbelief in the aquatic divination. It was a diversion though, and a pretty one at that.
All of her siblings of the order had already gone into the bed rooms, simple rooms of golden crystal pocked by rectangles carved into it, each box big enough to hold just one rabbit of average size. It was a coffin-like bedroom for a corpse-like person. Indeed, that was what they all were. Void of feelings and expressions, each with a blank look upon their sleeping faces.
They had been so kind to take her in all those ages ago. Every night when she would wake up writhing and clawing at her own skin one of her siblings would be there for her. They would read the runes to her, and she would drift off peacefully into the numbness of sleep. Once the dreams stopped coming to her, they moved her to the chamber with her other siblings.
At first it was difficult to adjust to the lightless halls and nearly-mirror like crystals. But over time her eyes grew to be permanently dilated and capable of seeing through the haze of reflections and shadows. The sprouts they grew and the water they drank had nearly magical properties, encouraging the body’s natural adaptation to lightlessness.
So into her box she slid, on her back with the ceiling barely skimming her nose. The founding siblings said that peace of mind could be found when the body was at peace, so the sleep chambers were made as small as possible to restrict movement. She used to wake up with bruises on her forehead and knees every morning, but over time the calm of the school smothered the desires to lash out in her sleep.
There was to be no trust in emotions, they said. Emotions could be the cause of childhood trauma, hormonal fluxes, or even possible head injuries. They caused people to war, rabbits to rage, and the problems of the world. It was encouraged that they tell themselves this every night before sleep; supposedly it influenced the subconscious to slumber. But it seemed to make the whole brain sleep; it was as if thoughts were a sin of the utmost evil. Before coming, she had never though herself to be capable of actually thinking nothing for long periods of time, but now it was all she could do. Time didn’t exist; there was no hurry, no change in life aside from the waters. And even the swirls of minerals in the water seemed to be curling and fading in the same patterns.
The sudden thought of those hypnotic waves seemed to overload her brain and sleep suddenly stole her clarity of thoughts away. It had been so long since she had actually been able to control her thoughts, it was a shame.

Sleep’s hold on her was weaker this night it seemed. Ever since the dreams had started, her sleep had been weaker. She was afraid to go to her siblings with her problem though, out of fear of being told of her emotional weakness. That fear had been installed in her subconsciously, and she knew it plagued all her siblings as well. They were supposed to be in control of themselves.
So when she suddenly jolted out of a nightmare and her skull made a dull thud against the ceiling, she didn’t cry out. She had been dreaming about the waters. They had pulled her in and brought her to a place where there was wind, oh how she had loved the wind. Dancing in the wind were the same shimmering crystal swirls as there were in the water. The crystals seemed to slink together in lines, and it seemed like she was in a mass of shimmering snakes. It was so beautiful, even for someone in the heart of Chrysalis. For the first time since her early weeks there, she cried.
It was if finally all the cosmic dice had rolled her a reason to burst out with emotions. How long had she been there without an emotion on her face? How long had it been since she had smiled? Surely there was nobility in the suppression of everything pleasurable, but what was wrong with smiling just this once?
So she tried. In this barely-awake stage, she dove into her memories. Something happy was needed. But everything seemed to just be flashes, just flickers that died too fast. There were some people laughing. A little bunny with her short hair pulled up into little spiky pigtails. Was that her? The coloring seemed right. But that couldn’t be her, she didn’t remember it.
And then her body convulsed with sobbing. She threw herself out of her box and hit the floor, hitting her left arm against the ceiling with a pain that tore up into her shoulder. Her haggard, lung-searing breaths she tried to still while wide-eyed she tore her eyes across the room looking for anyone awake, but they were all asleep.
She needed to go someplace where no one would see her. She pulled her robes closer, in hopes of keeping the sound of the fabric to a minimal. She skittered into the hall, the slight click of her nails ringing in her ears and tearing at her nerves. Down the hall, maybe into the room filled with the plants? No, that was too close, they might hear her. The water called to her.
Although the stoic in her told her to go back to bed and to spend more ages in a conscious coma, the child she had awakened chose to ignore the mist in her mind. She could always justify it by claiming she had to divan something. So it was to the waters she went, and she didn’t just go to the pretty golden bowls set by the river that were used to divan. She pulled off her robes, crumpled them up and put them behind the bowl. Even though they all slept at the same time, she was afraid of being caught.
How long did she stand up by the water? She knew she had to go in, or perhaps she’d never have this day again. Perhaps time was pulling at her again. So she threw judgment to the wind and did not just step in, but she threw herself in.
The sudden ability to breath was stolen away and she floundered in the purple stream. She was able to gasp for air just before the seemingly peaceful water’s undertow caught her and pulled her under and away from the shore. Her eyes were opened in the water, and she felt strangely calm aside from the burning in her lungs. The minerals in the water were swirling around almost just like her dream. Except now the minerals didn’t look so beautiful, in fact they looked quite powdery. She reached out a paw into one of the strands of powder, and all of the clumps clung to her fur and…was it burning? Was not her fur withering and the skin beneath it blistering and turning white?
This perplexed her greatly, and as she was wondering why the previously glittery waters were now wild and silt-filled, the waters brought her up. But they brought her up to a roof of sorts with no air. Her paws grasped at it in hopes of finding air, but she was only driven against it more, her head knocking against it. But the force of the water kept pulling her to the right, and the roof ended. She gasped for breath in a room she had never seen before.