Esther Racah Writer & Literary Blogger

The Enchanted Manuscript Of Elisabetta Esther

  • The Vault Of Forsaken Keys

    The Vault Of Forsaken Keys

    The vault of forsaken keys was the place of shadows and mysteries, of wisdom and madness, and where the keys of all the world, beyond the earthly and the earthly, were kept. It is not known to what or to whom they belonged, yet they seemed to guard secrets that no one could know.

    As dark and gloomy as this cavern of fantasy and greed might seem, of recession and generosity, it had a particular charm, a sobriety so composed that it impressed me for the order and at the same time the madness that hovered in those ancient and decrepit halls.

    The scent of incense and ancient metal impregnated the air, which was coloured by semi-shadows, by metallic reflections that the shadows cast upon the walls.

    The endless and long corridors spread out into an infinite labyrinth impossible to decipher. Without being able to find an exact direction. But one constant thing was the vision of a light like a perpetual faint glow at the end of these corridors. And the more I proceeded, the more I found no end. It was as if I had remained trapped in that underground and undefined place from which I was certain I could no longer escape. Because in fact there was no way out. And I was destined to become one of the countless and anonymous metal keys arranged on the walls.

    My freedom had been devoured by that unnamed and unfindable place. My troubles and cries were worth nothing, I only lost my breath. It was as if gradually I was losing the faculty to perceive my breath. And it was as if I was transforming into something else.

    I never knew if I was dreaming. I never knew if I was a common mortal, a being born on a planet. Or, instead, I was the fruit of my own imagination and I do not know what I was, what I had originated from. I too felt like one of those countless keys, in that vault of forsaken keys.
    Elisabetta

  • The Arcane Forest

    The Arcane Forest

    The arcane forest was my place of refuge. It oozed with enchantments, and the trees did not possess a name. It was a place where I became invisible and mortal while still retaining my physical form.

    Softly, the wind whispered to me its hidden secrets, but I could not grasp their meaning. Such was my daze.

    The large clouds were gathering under a grey tone, and all the shades of white contrasted with the blue of the sky. The sound of the streams was like a melody which, however, had a gloomy and at times sinister sound. As if it reflected the image of my heart.

    Lost in my anguish and obsessive thoughts, I was seeking direction in that vast green and dark expanse, although the sun showed its light from time to time. I was lost in the chaos, in the noises that at times followed me relentlessly and at other times vanished into nothingness.

    The trees seemed to move, at times, and at other times they seemed almost dead, shrivelled, as if without vital infamy. But the mystery of that place was unusual and unexplainable. It seemed like a place of my imagination, which did not exist at all in tangible reality.

    In my wandering, it seemed that my shadow no longer followed me, but rather that other shadows not belonging to me had followed my path, as if curious about what I intended to do or where I was going. I was walking without direction and without any goal of finding myself or of finding the right destination.

    It was as if those shadows sighed, or wanted to whisper something to me — hidden truths, sealed secrets, confessions too indecent to be revealed to human ears, or too regal to deserve a particular listening. The trees seemed to encircle an arcane mark, or what seemed like the mark of death, or of the cavern, or the portal through which one might enter another world, a world not reserved for mortals and common souls.

    The arcane forest was my place of solitude alone, but also the place to which I truly belonged. No longer being part of the earthly world, of the world of mortals, of that realm I had tried to possess and understand, but which I then refused to belong to.
    Elisabetta

  • An Enigma In the Twilight

    An Enigma In the Twilight

    An enigma in the twilight was before me,
    In a decaying and decadent dwelling
    where I fell into a deep slumber.

    The silence after the storm.
    That was all I could hear as I stared at the ceiling, decorated and inlaid with grotesque figures, cobwebs, and peeling paint.
    I was reflecting on my life and my dreams.
    It felt as though I was already inside one of my dreams, yet I could not be certain whether I was conscious or not.
    The pendulum clock could no longer offer that familiar chime that once marked the hours — and with them, time itself.
    The deafening silence had filled the entire mansion, whose walls were adorned with portraits that stared at me as if they wished to reveal secrets — or perhaps their memories.

    Was the enigma in the twilight merely a product of my imagination,
    Or could it be that this ancient and dilapidated place
    held enigmas my heart perceived as a potential object of interest —
    a heart now emptied of all the feelings it had carried through a lifetime,
    senselessly and heavily, like a tremendous burden?

    The only clock that marked the hour was an old timepiece,
    And it seemed to have stopped at exactly 22:22.
    The strange air of the mansion allowed the night to seep in
    With a peculiar glow that filtered through the curtains — thick, but not too thick.
    It was a house rich in memories and forgetfulness,
    in joys and grudges, in violence and death,
    in life and love, in ugliness and beauty,
    In magnificence and horror.

    Absorbed in my thoughts and lost in my memories,
    I fell into a state of deep melancholy and sadness,
    as if an abyss had swallowed me whole
    and forced me to live a life in a non-existent world
    of sorrow and ghostly recollections.
    Elisabetta

  • Beneath The Ocean Vault

    Beneath The Ocean Vault

    Beneath the ocean vault, there was a secret place
    where the hidden truths and the most recondite secrets had been buried.
    Among ruins covered by coral and algae
    and a rather unsettling expanse of swirling water.
    It was there that the crypt under the ocean lay,
    as if the sea had been its roof and also its home.
    Mine was a simple vision,
    it may be that I was dreaming,
    it may be that I was having these hallucinations.
    I only know that it was not the fruit of a conscious and calculated imagination.
    It seemed that I had abandoned myself
    to the sound of the stormy waves on an autumn evening.
    When the faint light of the sky merged with the water of the ocean
    until merged as one unity.

    I closed my eyes and I abandoned myself to my imaginative madness,
    And I saw with even more clarity that marvellous and fantastical landscape
    which did not belong to me,
    But which in some way symbolised something of my past or of my future,
    because I, in the end, lived in the past and the future.
    My present was in oblivion.

    Beneath the ocean vault, my dreams had ceased to whisper visions and desires. In their place remained nightmares that drew their fantasies from bitter disappointments and atrocious memories. And it was in this labyrinth of water and darkness that I found myself entwined, clutched as if unbound by invisible chains.

    I found myself in an oceanic crypt where the sea creatures had turned into ghosts, hunting me like prey and a victim of their tortures and torments. My invocation to the cruel fate of a possible change, where I might have grasped a flower of hope, was to no avail. In the endless and vast infinite.
    Elisabetta

  • Infinite Stairs Of Waiting

    Infinite Stairs Of Waiting

    Infinite stairs of waiting
    The more I wait, the more I feel trapped in the dungeon of anguish.
    The more I climbed the stairs, the more I tried to ascend,
    the more it seemed I was descending downward with no result.
    All of this made me frustrated
    because I could not reach my goal.

    In my stillness I found myself,
    But at the same time, I lost a part of me.
    It was as if everything I had learned
    I had lost and forgotten,
    and everything I did not know
    I had unconsciously acquired.

    Confused and bewildered in a place of nowhere
    I strived to believe in my dreams but all I could do was fall from the stairs

    It was a game of illusion and reality.
    I had ceased to discern what seemed deception from what was truth.
    Both had blended together.
    It was as if there were no longer any meaning,
    and no longer any need to possess the domain of wisdom and knowledge.
    Everything had shattered into the abyss of ignorance and madness.

    And I proceeded on a thin thread between creation and destruction.
    My perplexities and hopes echoed as if they resounded through enigmatic structures, without meaning and expectations.

    Spirits that I could not discern, that I could not distinguish, whispered to me encouragements to pursue. But every time I fell and plunged into another flight of stairs, they laughed, almost as if to make fun of me — and to mock my inexperience and incompetence.

    In solitude I found myself lost, and there I languished like a creature from other worlds, indulging in my languor and melancholy; I was certain that I was towards myself and my image no longer had reflections in any mirror. The staircase was truly infinite like a steep ascent without end; there was neither a beginning nor an end, everything was an infinite perpetuity of distress and anguish.

    Infinite stairs of waiting were my dwelling for eternity, and there I had to… to… I didn’t know anymore.
    Elisabetta

  • The Submerged Temple

    The Submerged Temple

    The Submerged Temple stood in all its ancient majesty and decaying splendour.
    The reflections of the water and the shadows of marine creatures created dances of shadow and light upon the sculptured stones.

    It seemed like an underwater cathedral, with statues of angels swaying among shells and corals and green-golden sand.
    The reflections of the sun through the Gothic windows made those ancient ruins shine with a radiant, yet melancholic light.
    The silence was unbroken, save for the sound of the water, which made everything sway and resonate, caressing the ancient vestiges with its gentle, aqueous touch.

    Gentle were the melodies of the ocean, creatures visible and invisible belonging to the marine realm.
    They had taken possession of that monumental structure which bore so many memories, sorrows and joys that, over time, had merged into the very stones.
    I daresay I could not express the awe I felt when I awoke with this vision in the middle of a summer night, after a harrowing and fierce thunderstorm.

    Gentle were the memories of that vision, which I was certain had been a dream, yet at the same time I found traces of it.
    It was as if I had slept in a submerged boat, beside those vestiges, and that a part of me had remained there.
    And only my heart knew the truth, for I myself was not able to determine the veracity of the events, or whether it had all been born of my imagination, within my creative chaos.

    The Submerged Temple might have been my soul in another life, or in a life yet to come.
    Everything was nebulous in my mind. Memories came and went — sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly — and I could hear thunderous roars but also gentle melodies.
    Everything was chaotically swirling within my heart — emotions and sensations that belonged to no place and no time, except within my imagination and my memories.
    Elisabetta

  • The Eleventh Gate

    The Eleventh Gate

    The Eleventh Gate stood in the underworld — silent, unmarked.
    I wandered, neither living nor dead,
    Caught between shadows that whispered secrets I could not grasp,
    Searching for meaning in that endless twilight of souls.

    17:17 appeared to me
    While I was confused by the thoughts that crowded my mind
    And darkened my heart,
    Searching and hoping for a way — for a way out —
    Which did not seem obvious,
    Given that I found myself in the labyrinth of death,
    In a world suspended, beneath that of the mortals.

    How I found myself in that world, I think I have remembered it:
    that chariot of skeletons and spectres, of demons from the underworld,
    had overwhelmed me and taken me away
    into their grotesque world of nightmares.

    Monsters adorned in sparse and ancient garments
    wore grotesque masks and stared at me with their dead,
    Yet burning eyes,
    as if they could read my heart,
    and they sneered at my fears and weaknesses,
    and at my ethereal, mortal being.

    I had become a captive of that world, a world of shadows and wraiths.
    Subjugated to their power, I could not resist,
    And my steps grew heavier and heavier,
    as if they echoed the weight of my heart,
    which had become a heap of metal shards and thorns.

    Exhausted and bloodless, I surrendered,
    and no longer felt that languid sense of torpor and melancholy.
    Horror and chills had gripped my entire body,
    And the beating of my heart stopped
    like a broken pendulum clock.

    I crossed the Eleventh Gate, seventeen times seventeen,
    And with each passing, a part of my heart fell
    upon the ground made of bones and carcasses and mud and buried souls.
    And thus it was that I collapsed,
    into a terrible slumber.
    Of death.
    Elisabetta

  • The Doomed Spell

    The Doomed Spell

    The doomed spell of the underworld was cast on me
    While I was wandering in my silent ways on a summer night
    Resentment and fear were far from me but the danger of death was following me
    Like an ominous shadow behind me
    Ready to decide when my end was going to happen

    And suddenly, like a storm in a clear sky, horror manifested itself before me.
    And, to all my fears, a bewitched and gigantic carriage, guided by a demon who struck blows upon his demonic horse with sharp teeth and a spectral gaze,
    a carriage populated by spectres, spirits and skeletons, all assembled as in a gathering.

    My long dress became soaked with mud and earth as I crossed this road of disgrace and death.
    And behold, the spectral coachman with his evil gaze headed directly towards my person to put an end to my existence, unleashing all his strength and aggressiveness and violence against me, and I almost perished — death brushed me, if it hadn’t been for a miraculous touch that diverted my figure from such horror.

    Shaken and bewildered, I relived the miracle of life, of rebirth, and it was there, in that fleeting and transient instant, that I was born again, assuming a new identity, even if my appearance had not quite changed — but my heart had become of bronze, copper and silver.

    The moon shone high in the night of storm and serenity, and the echo of my horror and of my spasms of fear and distress spread through all the firmament, making the stars hear my tale of misery and miracle.

    The doomed spell ruled over my mad destiny and had crumbled like a kind of majestic castle.
    It is splendid, but within it, my gloomy, shadowy soul was falling to pieces.
    And, filled with sorrows more than joys, it was crumbling apart under the weight of life — and of that night of nightmares and atrocities.
    Elisabetta

  • The Ninth Seal

    The Ninth Seal

    The ninth seal
    Because the hour was nine. Or almost.
    Paris wept softly blue through cobblestones and gaslight.
    A monster came,
    not with claws nor teeth,
    But with wheels,
    A chained demon in place of horses,
    and the roar of hatred and madness disguised as an engine.

    He saw me.
    He chose me.
    He had determined that I had to die by his shameful hand
    The madman with the skull face,
    The carriage forged in a nightmare,
    drunk on fury,
    under a wicked spell,
    his infernal claws trembling not from fear —
    But from the thrill of ending me.

    And I,
    Just a girl in a pale embroidered dress,
    Crowned with strands of gold and unarmed,
    But not unguarded.

    For something stopped him.
    Something unseen.
    A force older than rot,
    stronger than rage,
    woven from secret whispers and gold light
    spilt from my angelic protector gaze.

    The wheels screamed.
    The demons reared.
    And time stopped to exist
    As the carriage froze inches from my heart.

    Behind me,
    two hags —
    with teeth like monuments and gums raw as hunger,
    bald as ancient ruins,
    laughed as if grace were weakness
    and survival, shame.

    Their laughter didn’t touch me.
    I walked on,
    not broken.
    Not bowed.
    My feet were flame and precious gemstones.

    I passed through death
    I passed through judgment
    as one who had died before —
    and been reborn
    With mirrors behind her eyes
    and dustless bones.

    No prayer was spoken.
    No sword was drawn.
    But a pact was sealed in starlight and crystal blaze.

    And so I say:

    Nine are the circles, nine the keys.
    I cloak myself in stone and destiny.
    He who looks sees nothing, he who listens hears no sound,
    But I stand guarded, armed with beauty,
    And no evil enters where nine times I have said yes.
    Elisabetta

  • The Oracle Of The Withered Roots

    The Oracle Of The Withered Roots

    The oracle of the withered roots stood silent above me,
    As I wandered beneath a sky split by its eye
    While silence whispered thunders and nightmares,
    And the origins of the world gnarled like a bone-stuffed monster
    Its speech was in a tongue older than rot.

    They called it the oracle,
    The tree that remembered all betrayals,
    and fed on forgotten truths.

    Around it, ash-walkers and crawling fates
    circled around the blue flame of judgment,
    and I, unnamed, felt the mark sear through my skin,
    As slashes that revealed my defeat and destruction.

    All kinds of nasty creatures surrounded me as I was their potential prey,
    They were ready to violate and devour me,
    They were there to rip my heart apart into infinite fragments of dreams.

    Each tree was the custodian of skulls and arcane rituals,
    As they moved forward their sacred flame,
    A blaze blue like the deepest abyss of solitude.

    Tempted to adore this blue flame or this blue fire by all these creatures that at times seemed obsessed by it, at times frightened.
    From these spirits and monsters, I could perceive fears and enthusiasts and enthusiasms that alternated in their life, which could not be called joyful, gentle, or even glad.

    The oracle of the withered roots gazed through its curious and overbearing eye, trying to peer into my heart, but in vain. My soul was a labyrinth of torments and delights, and being unable to discern its true essence, it grew angry with me and condemned me to a restless and uneasy life, to wander in search of myself.

    The skulls smiled at me with their grin,
    which seemed more like a mockery,
    as if to say: “Soon enough, you too shall join our kingdom.”

    The other winged creatures brushed past me
    With their curious, cunning eyes,

    as if to urge me to leap
    into the abyss of the unknown —

    At first, it appeared to be a small pond,
    in truth, it concealed a chasm of nothingness.
    Elisabetta

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