<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v517/memories/memtempstory.jpg" align="right">The building was secluded from the rest of the places that were in the area and closer to the forest. It appeared to be an old shrine that had been long since forgotten, left alone to the whims of nature but had yet to fall into any state of disrepair that it should have been in. Most would never actually realize that there was something there, that the shrine actually housed something that could've been as old as time itself.
Or at least as old as the first time somebody finally let go of their own precious memory, all most alive, but not quite with their emotions.
Few would believe that there was an underground cavern beneath the shrine, or that it had a path that lead to it and that it was not only a shrine but a temple as well. The cavern temple was the part of the shrine that was actually old, the part that did not seem new in the slightest, but ancient in every way. It was in the air as you walked along the darkened path to the temple. You could taste it on your tongue and never find another word to describe it but old. It simply had history, there was no way around it.
The route to the old temple through the building above was never changing, all ways the exact same way. The one that cared for the place knew it by heart, because not only did he care for the building itself, but for the cavern that was below it. His true duty was to watch over that which rested there. He would travel the path, fingers turning the handle on the door that one would think lead to the basement, but did not.
Instead it lead to a rocky set of stairs that looked as if they had been made naturally. As the caretaker walked down the steps he could hear the sound of water running accompanied by the occasional echo of water dripping in the distance. His fingers slid along the cool wall, feeling the warmth slip away from his finger tips into the stone as he walked along. The noises that the cavern made were all around him, enveloping him in their familiar sound. It was comforting to his senses.
He had lost count of the number of times that he had walked down the stairs, but he knew that slowly the time was coming to an end when it would just be him walking down them into what could pass as a dark abyss. Still, he was going to continue to treasure these last moments of quiet solitude that was offered to him by this shrine, this sacred place.
The stairs eventually widened into the cavern, the entire area illuminated by a soft glow. Stone walls glimmered from the low torch lighting that hung from fixtures, casting shadows in every direction as the caretaker walked along. By no means, was the cavern small. It was large, at some point in it's past history a temple that offered the chance for people to come and pay homage, if they so chose. Except that those people were long gone and all that was left were relics and decorations from when they had been there. It was truly a forgotten sanctuary.
In the back, far away from what would think the main part of the temple where the trinkets and baubles were, rested a pool of water. Stalactites and stalagmites enclosed the pool within their confines, only allowing one to come forward and face the pool directly, not from either side. Water flowed freely into the pool, the sound echoing faintly, but there was no visible sign of where it was coming from.
The surroundings of the pool were not created to be studied for long, the pool obviously calling for the attention immediately of whoever looked at it. There were no light sources near the water, but it glowed brightly from within, and it all ways appeared as if there was something flickering across the surface of the water. It could have been an image or a reflection, but it never stayed the same for too long before just fading away into another ripple that crossed the water's surface.
The caretaker stood at the pool, staring into it and watching the images as they passed. Unlike any other, he could actually see them for what they were. Holding his hand above the surface, not actually touching it, he let his own consciousness graze the edges of the others that were within the pool.
He could sense them, the Memories within. They were all there, lurking just beneath the surface of the water and waiting for their chance to come out. For so long they had been within the pool, each a memory of something specific: a winter's day, a lover's quarrel, an assassination, and so many more. The most important moments in the lives of people long since forgotten by time, but each and every single one somehow finding it's way into the pool of memories to exist and be saved for a chance at becoming something more than what they were. So many of them and all waiting for that moment all their own, a moment to be free and come into the world the caretaker existed in.
Except that none had come forward with the qualities that it would take to nurture a Memory. To bond with it and give it the strength that was needed to take on it's next form, to allow it to take the step from being a mere thought to a more physical form. It was meant to be a chance for life beyond their existence in the pool.
Hand still hovering above the pool, the caretaker watched as it glowed brighter than before and a flash of thoughts hit him. They were not his own, but the thoughts of those Memories that were waiting.
'We're ready, keeper, and we're waiting.' That was what the thought seemed to say to him, the voices of the Memories not as firm as he imagined them to be. It was just that after so long of tending to the pool he had learned how to understand the voices, the Memories. The caretaker's lips quirked into a smile that the light of the pool danced along.
"It won't be much longer," he murmured, sweeping his hand just over the surface of the pool. Watching it as he did, he could call the ripple that followed his hand anticipating. The swirls and images increased for one moment, the chatter of the Memories rising until it finally died down. Like the voices of a crowd that are eagerly awaiting a competition to begin and then fall into an awed silence when it really does.
Just like the caretaker they could sense that there were people upstairs now. These people, unlike those that had come before, would be able to free them -- they were sure. The pool returned to innocently glimmering with it's own light, the water continuing to drip down into it every so often. For the time being, the Memories had fallen silent.
Smiling to himself, the caretaker pulled his hand back and gave one last glance at the pool before turning to head back up the stairs to the old shrine. If he focused enough, he could all most imagine the voices of those upstairs. Perhaps it was two people or even three, he wasn't sure.
What he was sure of was that it was time for the Memories to be released.
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