Outside the Wall: Leaving Eden

By Sarah Bair

The world as people knew it ended several hundred years ago with the opening of rifts between the physical and spiritual realms. It didn't take long for a dark miasma to infect the world, changing normal life into twisted abominations.
Eden was the only place left unaffected. This was largely due to the efforts of Sylvia, a girl trapped between the two worlds, not quite a ghost, but not entirely a physical entity either.
A long time ago, she closed the rift for the region, earning the people's adoration and worship. Now, though, after being trapped in one place for a few hundred years, she's begun to wonder what life on the outside is really like.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Bair
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005037048

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Outside the Walls:

Leaving Eden

By, Sarah Bair

Copyright Sarah Bair, 2022

Distributed by Smashwords

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Chapter 1

Sylvia was not a goddess. Not in the traditional understanding of one, anyway. She wasn't all knowing or all powerful, but she did have some powers that normal people didn't. That seemed to be enough for the people of Eden to call her their god.

Rather than a god, though, Sylvia felt like it would be more appropriate to call herself a failed experiment, as that was where most of her power came from, instead of originating as some divine being.

No, she was a human. A human with very smart, very experimental parents and their friends trying to solve a problem that seemed imposable.

Not that Sylvia ever blamed them for what happened, and even if she did, several hundred years is a long time to hold a grudge, especially since the objects of any animosity would have been long dead by now.

As it was, they had never been close, Sylvia and her parents, but she still missed them to this day. They had talked to her, at least, treated her like another normal person, despite how distracted they always were trying to save the world.

Sylvia kept up their work when they died, studying the rift and its effects on the world while simultaneously doing all she could to keep the other side from passing through.

She was successful at it, too.

Now that she was a being caught between the physical and spiritual worlds, she had all the advantages that came along with it, such as being able to manipulate physical objects like a normal person, while also being able to see and interact with the things most others could not, allowing her to enlist the help of benevolent ghosts, or, eventually, mend the fabric of reality that had somehow gotten ripped so long ago.

Closing the rift had brought a new conundrum to her fairly simple life, though. Up until that point, Sylvia had spent all her time with the rift, holding back the waves of dark miasma trying to seep through, or trying to find new ways to do so. She didn't have time for much else, as her methods were only doable by her since she was the only being she knew of that was caught between the two worlds.

Without her work to do, Sylvia was suddenly faced with the question of how to fill her seemingly infinite time, so she found herself turning her attention to the wider world.

She didn’t know how long she'd been spending with the rift, but during that time; a country had apparently formed around her. They called themselves Eden, and they called her their goddess. She'd been flattered at first, but it turned out that a part of their 'worship' included keeping her where she was so that they could continue to do so.

At first, Sylvia didn't mind staying put as she spent most of her time finding new things she could do with her powers that didn't involve the rift. She also began sleeping a lot, though she no longer needed to eat or sleep, she enjoyed just turning off for a while, or enjoying the offerings of the people that they would bring from time to time.

Was it a bit boring to sit around all the time with no one and nothing to do? Sure, but it wasn’t as though Sylvia wasn’t used to it by now. At least she had a way to tell time now, with the people coming by once a month.

So far, it’d been about 2,560 visits since she’d begun counting after finding out about their schedule.

She could hear them now, entering the dome from beyond the heavy air-locked door.

The old, steam powered engine that powered the door was loud, rumbling throughout the dome as it came to life before finally opening with a final hiss and cloud of steam.

It was a sound that Sylvia came to look forward too, as it meant a short break from her solitude in her never-changing world. It also worked as an alarm, waking her from her bored slumber and giving her just enough time to throw on a new dress and untangle her long, white hair before the people arrived.

Her clothes were another thing that the people provided for her. They were always the same, though. Just pure white gowns down to her feet that flowed and moved with the slightest twitch. Comfortable, to be sure, but always the same, and never in any color.

As pale and washed out as the rest of her looked, Sylvia didn't understand why they always brought her things in white. Aside from her pitch-black eyes, no part of Sylvia was any less than a snowy-white. Not that she'd ever seen snow, but that's what people had compared her too before. It had been that way since she'd gotten trapped between worlds. Not that she could quite remember what she'd looked like before.

Regardless, she had prepared and quickly stepped out of her little one-room cottage and into the rest of the dome to greet her new visitors.

The dome was a place that her parents and their friends had built up around the rift as their first attempt to contain it using physical means. That hadn't worked, of course, so then it had been turned first into their research lab, and then into a sort of facsimile of the outside once they realized that Sylvia could contain it. They had turned the dome into a fake garden, of sorts, and built a small cabin in the middle. The hope had been that by painting the ceiling a sky blue and putting fake, colorful flowers all around the ground that Sylvia, who had still been a child at the time, would have been happier staying here full time.

It had worked, for a while, but by now it had all faded and worn away to the point the meadow had become little more than an ever-dirty carpet on the ground, and the blue dome 'sky' was just a reminder that she wasn't allowed outside.

Sylvia watched as the people came in, marching silent as a grave into the large open space. It was standing room only, as the only chairs in the place were inside Sylvia's cottage, and there certainly weren't enough to seat the fifty or so people that were crowding their way along the walls just to see her.

She'd long since given up trying to actually talk to any of them, as it seemed that part of their worshiping her meant they weren't 'worthy' to actually speak with her themselves. They'd either stay completely silent while she talked, or else they, or sometimes others in the crowd, would freak out. It wasn't worth it to keep trying, much as Sylvia wanted to.

So, she stood silently while the crowd gathered, muttering amongst themselves or whispering prayers that Sylvia had no way to grant, even if she could actually hear them from where she was standing.

It was hard for her not to feel bad for them. She’d tried to get them to pin their hopes and wishes elsewhere in the past, somewhere where they could potentially get their prayers granted, but her suggestions always fell onto deaf ears. They’d always call her modest before going right back to whatever they’d been doing before.

You’d think that being a goddess would mean people actually listened to you.

The crowd this time was mostly full of faces that she didn't recognize, though there were still a few regulars that she did. Their clothes were clean and crisp, most likely something brand new in order to look their best. The clothes were nice bright gowns and sleek suits.

Personally, Sylvia liked the hats that seemed to be in style now, all big and covered in ribbons and feathers.

No one had brought anything for her this time, which wasn't unusual, but was a bit of a shame, as Sylvia liked to eat the fruits and baked goods they would bring by from time to time.

It used to be that she'd show off some of her power while the people were here. Just something a bit flashy that would entertain, like floating around the room or summoning light, but she'd long grown weary of doing so, feeling more like a novelty than a person as people would gawk and marvel over her tricks.

Today, though, she was happy just to stand there and smile. After all, before her previous nap, she'd been spending time perfecting her latest 'trick', and once the people left for the month, she'd be left with plenty of time to preform it.

The people all muttered their piece before silence fell over them once more and they eventually all filed out the way that they'd come.

Once they were out of sight, Sylvia reached out to feel their spirits move with her mind and watched until they'd all filed far enough away for her