Lyssa and The Keeper

I am the Keeper. I watch, I keep, I remember. Stories, primarily. My mission is to record the stories of all living things, to keep their memories and have them survive the violent death of the universe. I make sure that proof remains that something existed before rebirth so that those who come know, so that they can learn.

Within my domain, walls are lined with books upon books. Tomes upon tomes. Lives remembered. Secrets put to paper. But there’s still so much more to collect. Still so much more to salvage.

Time and time again, however, I find myself returning to one place. A place apart from, but connected to, the reality of the physical. On Earth, there was once a sanitarium, an insane asylum, that stood in a forest long ago. But it’s gone now, taken from its spot through some arcane means. If one knows the secrets of planeswalking, as I do, they can find where this place has gone.

It stands there as if untouched by time. Lights still on, gate still open. But its denizens have been changed. What were once humans have become monsters, and extra-planar entities have made roost here as well. In the walls, crawling in dark shadows, slithering beneath the floor tiles. Most are beasts, mindless creatures that only seek their next meal. They know to keep their distance from prey stronger than they are. But they’re not the ones who concern me.

It’s the intelligent individuals that dwell here that concern me.

A mother, a daughter, a creature that was both spider and human, and so many others. Either pulled into this dimension by some outside force or found a way through by other means. The mother and daughter are the ones that concern me most, however.

The Bedlams. Enigmas, even to me. Lyssa, the mother. A hedonistic, nigh-deific figure. She spends her days doing any combination of indulging in her lust, experimenting on gods-know-what, or planning. Plans upon plans, secrets upon secrets.

Thankfully, her daughter has a more level head. I’ve enjoyed many a conversation with young Lady Abigail. She’s an intellectual, far more bookish and introverted than her criminally insane mother. She’s been the one to tell me about this place, its denizens, and ecology.

The reason I come back is not for Abigail’s conversations, as much as I enjoy them. I come back for Lyssa. Not out of carnal urges, those have left me millennia ago. It’s simply to figure out who she is. Or rather, who she was. I always get the feeling she’s hiding something, keeping secrets. Whenever I ask her about her past, she gives me a different answer every time I visit. In one she was a nun, in the other she was a witch, in the latest one she was a patient. None of these answers satisfy my urges for truth.

Now I walk these halls again. Drawn to mysteries kept from me, kept from the Keeper. Curiosity and duty guiding my actions, I navigate the non-Euclidean chambers of this labyrinth, walking though the shifting hallways and corridors with purpose.

Her lab’s door is a metal slab against a wall of white tile. A single slit, eye level, closed. As I am a guest, I tap my knuckles on the door. A hollow, metallic ringing resonated, signaling my arrival. A moment later the slit opens, two glowing red eyes peeking out. I don’t need to see the face to know that she’s grinning ear to ear.

The slit closes, the sound of numerous locks clicking open, and the door swings open.

Alabaster, almost bloodless skin; long locks of raven hair; a maw filled with teeth like knives. So much like myself, yet so very different. Where I am slender, and gaunt, with an heir of formality and poise; she is like something a morally depraved, perverted twelve-year-old would draw. Hips wider than two people with thighs that touched, two mountains of flesh attached to her chest contained in an ill-fitting, undone straight jacket. Her face was, admittedly, beautiful. Heart shaped, large eyes, a button nose, and an ever-present grin betraying mischief. Some men find her alluring, like a sex goddess on Earth. I simply find it repulsive.

I stifle a sneer before making the usual formalities.
“Hello, Lyssa,” I say, keeping my feeling behind lock and key.
“Nice to see you again,” she replies with her usual chipper demeanor. “I was wondering when you’d stop by again. I was starting to get worried.”
“I don’t need your worry. All I need are answers.”
She shrugs, sighing. That damned grin never leaving her face.
“You’re just gonna keep poking aren’t you,” she asks, more amused than annoyed. Was this some kind of game to her?
“It’s my only purpose,” I say. “And I’m going to stop until I have the truth out of you.”
She simply giggles in reply.

She invites me into her laboratory, to which I graciously accept.

The laboratory itself is made up of older Earth technology, roughly late sixties to eighties. There were also more magical aspects. Elder signs, shrines and statues to the Outer Gods and Elder Things. Nothing about this was surprising. Her powers, her deific status- it all seemed to tie to the larger mysteries. She is a puzzle. And I grow more frustrated as the pieces refuse to line up.

I must keep my composure.

She pulls up her chair, a beaten and worn office chair. Held together more with duct tape and adhesive glue than with screws, it seems. I take a seat on a stool facing her. Her posture is calm, relaxed even. Legs crossed, head resting on one hand, other hand resting on the armrest. Her grin is still there, mocking me.

Why does this woman make me feel this way?

“Playing shrink again,” she asks.
Thus begin the games. “I’m not ‘playing shrink’,” I say. “I want the truth. I know what you are, who you are. But that’s not the complete story. Who were you? How did you become what you are? Where did you come from?”
I evidently made my frustration known as her grin deepens. I find my knuckles going white as my hands clench into fists.
“Your guess is as good as mine, stranger,” she says, twirling a lock of hair between her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t even know myself.”
“You’re keeping things from me.”
“A girl’s gotta have her secrets.” Her comment was delivered so off-handedly. It only stoked my frustration. I must keep myself calm, stifle my anger.
“My purpose the collection of secrets,” I say. “I make sure these things survive the heat death of the universe so that the next can learn from the previous.”
She leans forward, her eyes hard, the grin gone from her face. I’m taken aback by her sudden intensity. I’m leaning back, my eyes wide. If my heart were still beating, it’d be sinking.
“Some secrets,” she says, her voice cold and matter-of-fact. “Are better forgotten.”
Suddenly I’m face to face with her, foreheads touching, eyes staring coldly into hers. An unfamiliar feeling has overtaken me. My hands are wrapped around the stool’s seat tightly, fingers digging into the leather. My teeth are grinding together.  A fire is burning in the pit of my stomach.

What is happening to me?

“I can’t leave a story unfinished,” the words come out as a hiss through gritted teeth. “Just because you can live without purpose, indulging ever single thought that crosses that empty skull of yours doesn’t mean the rest of us can. Some of us are bound by obligation and purpose, driven by ambition and an end goal!”

The room goes dark, shaking, light flickering. Shadows twist into tendrils as the tension builds and builds and builds. None of that matters. Nothing matters other than this confounding mistress. This bane of my very existence given shape and sentience.

Her bloodstone eyes feel like they’re gazing into my soul. Her breath comes out in hot bursts from her nose as she bears her teeth at me, a low growling coming from the bottom of her throat. My face is stone resistance, keeping the full extent of my rage from being shown.

Lyssa eventually pulls away, sitting up in her chair. Straight backed and business-like, contrasting from her earlier joviality. The room returns to normality, the lights no longer flicker, and the shadowy tendrils retreating back to whence they came.

“Why do you want to know so bad,” she asks. There was something wrong with her voice. It was… calm. Unsettling so. “Why do you have such a vested interest in me and my origins? You’ve made it clear that this isn’t business. In fact, I’ve never seen you this passionate about anything.”
I return to my previously assumed position in one smooth motion. The rage gone from my face, and back to a neutral expression. How did that slip out? How can she do this to me? How dare she?
“You’re the only person I’ve met,” I say in a low voice. “That’s like me. Maybe through learning about you, I can learn something about myself.”
“Like you?”
“I don’t know about my past either,” I admit. “It’s a blur. I only catch glimpses on the rare occasion sleep finds me. You’re the only one in this vast universe that knows what’s like.” I clench my hand, balling it into a fist. Tendrils crawl up my forearm, wrapping around my wrist. They seem to bloom like a perverse flower from a planet that knew no sun.
She was silent for a long moment.

“What do you see,” she says suddenly.
My voice is hushed, quiet. “A sunset on a hill. A woman’s face. A man’s voice. A cold altar. Darkness, all consuming darkness. Dissident whispers.” Something hot rolls down my cheek.
I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. It’s wet.

Tears? When was I capable of tears? What is it about Lyssa Bedlam, what is it about this encounter, that rouses these emotions out of me?

“I see things too,” she says. Her voice comes out soft, sincere even. “A man, a cross, the asylum, a red sky, then the darkness. I don’t know what it all means- as I’m sure you don’t- a handful of images doesn’t a story make.”
I nod. “Why us,” I ask her. “We could’ve been normal people, leading normal lives. Why did we have to become like this?”

She didn’t answer.
“Did you get what you came for,” she says, steepling her fingers over her chest.
“Yes,” I say. I quickly compose myself, brushing the errant tears from my face and reigning in my emotions. Once again, the overwhelming sense of calm returns to me. “This has been an eventful chat.”
“Let’s never do it again.”
“Agreed.”

I stand from my seat and walk to the door. I can feel her eyes on me, following me.
“Keeper,” she calls out. I turn to meet her gaze.
“Never mention this to anyone. Never ask my daughter about information about my past. Speak of this to anyone, and I’ll make you wish you could die.”

The words stab like a knife made of ice. Twisting, wrenching my insides cold. The calm never leaves my face.
“Your secret is safe with me.”

Her grin reemerges, as placid and cheerful as ever. “Good,” her voice returned to normal. “I’m glad we talk.”

I say nothing and take my leave.