Chapter 524
CHAPTER 524
THE JOURNEY OVER
Thirteen souls in total sat around an elongated and elegant gla.s.s table, their expressions uniformly sunken . They escaped, true, and lived, but . . . what now? Not only did they bear on their shoulders the death of their entire race, but there was no way the fourteen of them could prolong it . Even worse, they were stuck on a s.h.i.+p in the middle of nowhere with limited supplies . It was simple to see that it was only a matter of time before they died .
n.o.body spoke . Partly because there was little to say, and partly because they were still trying to figure out how they lived . They were certain the beam of desolate light washed over their s.h.i.+p, yet . . . it did nothing . Their s.h.i.+p was fine . It traveled past the gravitational pull of Adur and into the open vastness of cosmos . They weren"t even chased and were instead left alone to roam . Why? They didn"t know .
Eldon said nothing during the past four days of their journey . It wasn"t yet time . The wounds were still too fresh, their minds too distorted to focus on anything but the past . They didn"t see the future; rather, they couldn"t fathom there was even one to begin with .
He glanced around the room with heavy eyes; they were still not ready . Inside him, he held the power to change their helpless future . They could revive, grow strong, far stronger than those beings that caused this -- they could get their revenge . They could remake Adur -- no, not just remake, but forge it to be better, greater, something that could never be destroyed .
However, he had to wait . How long? He didn"t know . Maybe a week . Maybe a month . Maybe a year . Heart and mind were strange things; sometimes resilient beyond measure, and sometimes as fragile as gla.s.s . Right now they were as fragile as gla.s.s .
" . . . sitting in silence is pointless," Oyer, one of the people that waited for them on the s.h.i.+p, said . He was a relatively young man, praised for his intellect above all else . Ordinary-looking, he was on the shorter end of things, yet to reach even two and a half meters . "If the point was to brood, we could have done it just the same in our rooms . "
" . . . " a few groans were his reply as he shrugged . Though he, too, was pained, he tried to move past it . Why did they struggle to live, otherwise? Just to die like this?
"Oyer is right," Eldon said, realizing he couldn"t take the backstage . He had to be the fuel to push them forward . "We don"t have to do anything today . Or tomorrow . We can mourn, as we should . But . . . we still need to start thinking . "
"Thinking about what?" Itor exclaimed, irate . "About how absolutely f.u.c.ked we are?"
"Itor--"
"Itor what?!" he growled at Reli who tried to calm the atmosphere . "You know I"m right . All of you do . We are just . . . prolonging the inevitable . "
"Then why did you try to escape so hard?!" Elta fired back .
"Because--because . . . I felt like I had to . . . " Itor said, lowering his head .
" . . . we are stronger than this," Reli said, biting her lower lip . "We may not . . . ever get over it . No, we shouldn"t . But, we have to do something . Our entire world was wiped out . Everything we"ve built for thousands of years . . . gone . Aren"t you guys angry?"
"Of course we"re angry!!" Lyer, another one of the guys who waited for them in the s.h.i.+p exclaimed, slamming his fist against the table that didn"t even shake . "But what of it?! What can we change, huh?! Can we fight back?"
"Stop shouting, Lyer," Antya, the pilot who operated the s.h.i.+p, interrupted the angry young man, rubbing her temples . "n.o.body"s suggesting we fight . But, others are right . What was the point of escape if we"d just sulk in the s.h.i.+p as we slowly die? We are just trying to find a way to do something . Anything . " Now"s the time! Eldon thought . He thought he might have to wait a few days, but it was unnecessary; he had miscalculated something . Others grieved, true, but they were also angry . And their anger was far larger than their sorrow . They were angry at those beings who obliterated everything they knew without uttering a word . They were angry with themselves for being helpless against it . For running away . For being unable to do nothing . If he gave them a straw . . .
"We"re not helpless . " he said as every pair of eyes present in the room, even the silent Alana"s, turned toward him .
"What do you mean?" Itor frowned .
" . . . haven"t you guys wondered how we managed to survive that beam?" Eldon said . None of the people here were idiots; they immediately grasped the implications .
" . . . you had something to do with it?" Lyer question .
"--not me," Eldon said . "But something bigger than me . " he extended his arm and opened it up . Right then, like a mirage, a swirl of crimson-black smoke extended upward like tendrils . The pressure extended outward like an overwhelming shockwave, causing everyone in the room to turn pale and short of breath . "I was given strength, in the last moment, to resist . I took it . It"s the sort of strength that transcends the reason . I . . . I don"t know why it gave it to me . But, I don"t care . I"m confident that, with it, not only can we survive . . . but we can thrive . We can grow strong . So strong those creatures will be nothing . We can get our vengeance . We can rebuild Adur anew, so that it never crumbles again . "
**
"You lied to them . " Lino said simply to the faintly smiling Ataxia .
"I had to . They were at the bottom, and a simple rope was enough . I needed a ladder . " he replied .
"But the ladder wasn"t there . . . "
"They didn"t need to know that," Ataxia sighed . "You know it, Lino . What it feels like when there is absolutely no light to see or warmth to feel . When it seems as though the entire world is against you . "
" . . . "
"In those moments, salvation . . . is impossible," Ataxia said . "No amount of hands diving for you will ever reach . They were angry . They felt pathetic . I needed to orient those feelings outward . To a specific goal . "
" . . . the archangels?" Lino said, referencing the creatures that destroyed Adur .
"Hm," Ataxia nodded . "In the darkest moments, I didn"t give them light . I simply gave them more dark . The bloodied sort . They hung onto that . The straw of hope that, one day, they"d be able to crush those creatures beneath their feet . "
"--why aren"t you showing me the rest?" Lino asked as he saw the memory vanis.h.i.+ng, Noterra replacing it .
" . . . that is for my heart," Ataxia replied . "I hope you understand . "
" . . . " Lino said nothing, merely nodding . "Ashtar wasn"t the first, wasn"t he?"
"No," Ataxia shook his head . "After I made them Writs, they fell asleep on top of the s.h.i.+p, consolidating their strength . My plan was to land with Alana and quickly establish a temporary residence . Edifice told me life would spring out here, so I just had to wait . I never intended to face them early on, because they would need time to adapt to their manufactured ident.i.ties . "
" . . . so what happened?" Lino asked .
" . . . malfunction," Ataxia sighed deeply . "We took the pod and dove toward Noterra . Midway, something broke . A part of the pod exploded . I was still inexperienced . . . and she suffered for it . The pressure crushed her lungs, bones, and mind within moments . She was dead, Lino . As dead as one can get . And I asked the Edifice to restore her . . . but it said it couldn"t . It used all its strength to help me . "
" . . . so . . . you turned to the other one?"
"Not consciously," Ataxia said . "I just screamed . Screamed and wailed like a child . And, it replied to my call . "
"They brought her from the dead?" Lino questioned with a hard gaze .
" . . . ha ha, no; they cheated me," Ataxia laughed bitterly, anger clear in the tone of his laughter . "They simply cloned her essence . It was no longer Alana . However . . . I had nothing else to hang onto . So, I put Alana"s body into the pod and buried it until later on . "
" . . . the First Scripture?" Lino asked .
"Hm," Ataxia nodded . "I put the clone one into a separate dimension and had her experience everything that would transpire . That you had already seen . "
" . . . ooof," Lino sucked in a cold breath as the story slowly came to a close . It was certainly far bigger and different than what he had expected . "Your story . . . is truly remarkable . "
" . . . hardly," Ataxia said . "Tragic stories are on every corner, Lino . I failed countless times in my life, far more times than I succeeded . While some can be a.s.signed to powers beyond me, most . . . simply fall on my shoulders . I had a grandiose plan when I came to your home . . . and I was beyond certain in achieving it . But . . . I was wrong . When I met you, I was truly desperate . They were close to finding out the truth . Especially Alladin; I imagine he suspected something was off for a long time . Too many variables arose while I was blindsided, too indulged in my own arrogance . The truest tragedy of my life," he said, sighing . "Began only after I descended upon Noterra . . . "