For him, it would be a cyclic journey. He knew he was beginning his journey at the same place at which he would arrive at the end of it. But somehow, he knew it would be different after the journey, and different in a final, unalterable way. His home was about to transform, and once it did, there would be no going back. It would never be the same again.
The journey itself was somehow important. Simplistically, it seemed a little pointless to travel to a place hundreds of miles from his home in order to board a train to take him back to his home. He had wondered why he couldn’t just stay at the castle and wait for the others to arrive later that night. But the old man had told him that the journey was an important part of the process, and somehow the boy knew this to be true. Somehow, spending hours on that train would be some kind of transformative experience, and when he arrived at the castle again, he would be seeing it with fresh eyes.
Standing before the train he felt like an ancient stone statue, standing still in the same spot whilst time rushed by around him. As children and their parents all hustled and bustled about him, boarding the train, carrying heavy luggage, shouting, laughing, crying, he once again wondered whether he would ever truly feel a part of this kind of activity. Everyone seemed to act as if they instinctively knew their allotted place in this dance of life. Yet he, standing still in the midst of it, letting it all rush by him, wondered what his allotted place was. Did he even have one? Or would he be eternally separate?
His heart was beating now. He’d been waiting for this moment his whole life. Up until now, he had always felt like one of the ghosts of the castle – there, but not really there, while the real people lived their lives around him. Now, however, he was about to join in, but he was not really sure he knew how. He thought about how he had seen other children seem to gravitate towards each other, forming little friendship groups that then proceeded to battle it out in some everlasting struggle for survival. Would that happen to him? Would he be taking part from now on? Would he find his own true friends?
The eleventh hour. It was time.
Stepping forward to board the train, his bubble suddenly burst, the noise of his surroundings suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks and something within him took over, compelling him onward. Finding a place to sit on the train, he prepared himself for the full day’s journey ahead. He knew exactly what awaited him at the other end, probably more so than most of the other new starters, yet still he felt that sense of apprehension.
Mercifully, his solitude endured throughout the journey. He supposed many of the other new kids had already found each other, already begun to form those bonds that would dictate the course of the ongoing war that took place in the castle. Yet he felt glad to have been left out of it. He preferred the idea of getting settled before deciding who to gravitate towards.
As the landscape rushed by, he thought about what lay ahead of him. He wondered just how many great secrets the castle would offer to him when he returned, for this journey would transform him somehow, he knew, and the castle would recognise this. Yet he, unlike any of the others, had been born in the castle, had lived there his whole life, and had already learned many secrets hidden within it. So why was this? What made him different? He felt, somehow, as if he was being trained for something, for some specific goal, and now, joining in with the other children, he was entering a new phase of that training. He would be alongside the other children from this point on, yet still on some slightly different path.
This pensiveness stayed with him throughout the long journey and eventually, night began to fall. All of a sudden, the train stopped, and people began to pour out. So he followed. He saw the other new starters being gathered together and latched himself, loosely, on to that group, whilst the older children went in some other direction. It being their first time, the new kids were to take another path.
He felt slightly detached, as he went along, only vaguely aware of the others around him. That was, until the great castle itself loomed into view. Then, he snapped to attention. How many times had he seen it? Yet now it felt as though he was seeing it for the first time. Now he knew this was a moment of destiny. Now he knew why he had had to undertake the journey, despite ending in the same place he had begun. Some old part of him had been stripped away from, and the boy now arriving at the castle was not exactly the same one who had left there that morning. Like a snake shedding its skin, he felt his old self slipping off and disappearing into the night.
And, of course, the serpent was set to be his guide for the next seven years.
Omega Synthesis 