by JH Terry
XIV: An Unexpected Visitor
“All right, Tom,” said Andrew as he and June were in Tom’s room. Tom was ready to go to bed. “We will be on the look out so that nothing shall happen to you while we are in our room.”
“All right,” said Tom, “good night Mom and Dad.”
“Good night,” said Andrew and June as they left Tom’s room. However, a few moments afterward, Andrew came back into Tom’s room.
“Tom, I wanted to give you something,” said Andrew. He reached into his pocket and gave Tom a silver cross on a silver chain. “This was your grandfather’s, who received it from other grandfathers, and so forth. I thought it might help you during your, um, anyway, it should help. Here, place it upon your neck.” Tom placed it around his neck as Andrew had asked. "There, it is a nice fit.”
Looking to the cross, Tom saw the initials W.U. smoothly carved into its back. Curious, Tom asked, “Dad, what do these initials stand for?”
“I do not know for sure,” said Andrew, “but I do know that it is very old, made completely of silver, making it a priceless possession. I use to wear it when I was younger to ward off my bad dreams as well.”
“What kinds of dreams?”
Quiet for a few moments, Andrew then said, “I’ll tell you about that at another time. I think it is best that you go to sleep right now.”
“Dad, if you believe it to be best, then we can talk about it tomorrow.”
Looking to Tom, Andrew said, “When I was younger, I use to have strange, vivid dreams that used to haunt me. They were not of the mists you talk about, but of great battles and creatures I never thought could have ever existed. Sometimes, those creatures would eat me up, devouring my entire body and I would awaken terrified of the dark of my room. I was about your age when my father gave me this cross to protect myself. At first the dreams dimmed in their horror, and finally they were driven away forever.”
“Why didn’t you give this to me before?” asked Tom.
“I wasn’t sure if it could work or not, I think it was entirely psychological anyway, the thought of protection by this cross was enough to make my dreams fade away due to my psychological inability to do so. Perhaps it will work, if not then we shall find that psychologist, all right?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Now, remember, your mother and I shall always be with you, guiding you to be the best you can be. Never try for the sake of others, even because it is what you were brought up to do. Just try for yourself, that way if you go wrong it is a productive change, not a contrived one to appease others. I didn’t get to be a good lawyer because I looked the best or was the brightest, it was because how well I understand others. You can only understand others once you understand yourself. You can only do that being who you truly are, not what some paper tells you who to be. I know that you are a bright boy, brighter than me anyway. You probably know this already, but just keep this little memento as a reminder of your uniqueness and never forget it, even when you are down on your luck. For Tom, you are better than any normal person. You have a brain that surpasses even those five times older than you and a heart a hundred times more caring than any person I know. It is because of this that I am proud of you, as well as your mother, of course, and I feel that you deserve this precious hunk of metal.”
“Thanks, Dad,” said Tom with a smile.
“Thank you for making me proud to call you my son. Sleep, I do not want you to be late for school in the morning,” said Andrew. As he closed the door, Andrew said, “See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Dad.”
Tom walked over to his window and opened it, allowing the warm breeze from outside come into his room. He went into his bed and put his cross around his neck. Looking to his cross he saw that it was not covered within his pajamas. He then buttoned his pajamas shirt to cover it fully.
Tom turned off his light, and fell asleep upon his pillow. At first, everything was pitch black in his mind. After a few moments, though, he saw two little red dots, which grew bigger and bigger, until all he could see were two red eyes.
“You know who I am now, as I know who you are too. It is nice to be acquainted with one’s nemesis. Yet, there is no need for us to be unfriendly to each other. No human doctor can end your dreams, nor make them deteriorate in magnitude. Man has not driven himself intellectually enough to do as such. There is one way, however.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Let me be your friend, tell me all of your secrets, let’s be truthful to each other. It is so hard to be only with myself with people thinking of me as different. Why must I stay in the shadows in order to survive? Be my friend, Tom.”
“Or what?”
“Or DIE!”
Suddenly, the throbbing pain returned to Tom’s right temple. Tom squirmed as he tried to alleviate the pain with his hand, by moving away from the source of pain, but it was not working.
“Never!” exclaimed Tom. “Never with someone like you.”
“Why be so cruel? I just wanted to be your friend.”
“With a friend like you one could never feel safe.”
“And?”
“Of course you do not understand what I am talking about. You do not know what friendship even means.”
“At least you shall not be the one to teach it to me, young Tom.”
At that moment, Tom felt a tender hand touch his temple, causing the pain to go away. Swiftly, the two red eyes diminished and the scene before Tom’s eyes was black as it was before. Sensing the presence of someone very close to him, Tom opened his eyes and raised the ruler neatly hidden at his side towards the juggler vein of the head before him.
“Looks like you don’t even need to train if you took fencing,” said a familiar feminine voice.
Tom turned on the light to see Miss Fairdy dressed in a navy blue dress reaching just above her knee with long sleeves made of spandex, and sneaker-like clogs in black. She wore a belt with various black compartments and at her side there was holstered a long sword in its scabbard.
“Oh,” said Miss Fairdy as Tom moved the ruler away form her neck. “It’s just a ruler. Thought it was a knife. That would have been really dramatic.”
“Miss Fairdy, what are you doing here?” asked Tom bewildered as he rose from his bed, but he retained the ruler in his hand.
“There is a lot to explain, but first extinguish your light.”
“What?”
“Trust me, there is something you must see outside of your window. If what I tell you is just a ploy to hurt you, I give you permission, on my honor, to use that ruler on me in whatever way you find to be fashionable.”
Pondering, Tom obeyed Miss Fairdy’s request and turned off the light. He crept in the shadows and stood next to Miss Fairdy at the shadowy side of the window.
“You see out there,” whispered Miss Fairdy as she pointed outside to a bush, where there could be seen the two red eyes of the black creature, “in that bush across the street, there is someone planning to kill you. He will only kill you if he knows that you cannot be manipulated. He will try every ploy, every measure that results in his goal. He knows that with your power by his side he shall be invincible.”
“He almost succeeded today. Mrs. Purplinick’s headache medication was actually enough PMA to send me to the next world. Luckily, I did not trust her. Something in my intuition told me not to.”
“Thank goodness, I am glad that you were able to notice her as false. I felt as if she was something more than she said that she was, but I guess my logic had more weight on the matter than my intuitions. If it weren’t for your intuition, many things would have been lost. Tom, what would you choose: invincibility no matter what form it may be, or truth, no matter what form it would take to preserve it?”
Without a moment’s thought, Tom said, “truth, but I would not kill to maintain it.”
“Why not? Sometimes to preserve what is right we must destroy those who try to destroy it,
for if we do not the consequences end up dire.”
“If I kill someone in this scenario, I would be the same as them, a murderer.”
“That is the thin line present in all situations. You may be unwilling to kill someone who tries to kill you, but then in the end if they do kill you your cause is lost. They will rule all of the worlds that depend upon your ability to suppress it.”
Tom thought of what Miss Fairdy said, but resolved not to kill, no matter the circumstance. Seeing his resolution, Miss Fairdy said to Tom, “You are the one then, that is why he searches for you so ardently. Luckily, he doesn’t know I am here yet.”
“To whom are you referring to?”
“To that black creature that has filled your dreams for a month already.” A look of astonishment came upon Tom’s face.
“You know about Reilly A. Pete and the dreams?” asked Tom as he and Miss Fairdy sat on his bed with the streetlight shining lightly upon their faces. Tom placed the ruler a safe reaching distance away from him on his bed.
“Yes, I have my own sources of information. I am only sorry I didn’t come earlier.”
“What is he, exactly?”
“Reilly A. Pete, now referred to as Norbis, is one of six Bluoids who serve Unop’s spirit. Norbis is the head of the Bluoids and the only one born in your world. The other five come from five of the nine provinces of Altium, an island surrounded by water that goes for thousands of miles around and beneath the land. This water is called the Sea of Mortis, or sea of death. It is filled with rigdells, plitards, and other serpents who can raise their heads fifty yards into the air and still have their bodies more then half covered in water. It is a land where myth becomes and is reality.
“The five other Bluoids are from Altium. They heard of Dena’s Prophesies. Dena founded Altium, a land that was once a part of the earth you come from. It was Dena’s perfect world, lacking the evil folly and ways of humans. However, there was Unop.
“Unop was the son of a human mother and an Altinium father from Denia, therefore his father was very small, almost dwarfish. His father died when Unop was four years old because he had killed a noble thunderbird, the most beautiful and prized in Altium, in order to steal its eggs and sell them for a huge profit. The punishment for such treason was, and still is, death. Unop’s father was executed.”
“Thunderbirds exist?” asked Tom.
Astonished, Miss Fairdy said, “Yes, they have feathers and are bird-like in their characteristics.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes, anyway Unop’s mother taught Unop to hate the Altiniums and most of all Dena. After a certain age, Unop began to develop his evil powers, making a force so great that any human who touched him came under his spell. After he raised enough human troops, Unop came with his army upon ships to conquer Altium and purge the world of its vulgar uniqueness. However, Dena knew that they were coming.
“Dena used the energy source within his body to propel Altium to another world filled only with sea which he had read about. Using his powers, he transported Altium to my world today. However, by doing so all of his energy was used in the process, causing him to die.
“Before he died, though, he wrote a book of prophecies that he left in in the province of Gordana in the island of Altium. In this he said that in the future Altium would be overrun with evil again, but this time it would not be an Altinium to save us, but one from another world, one of those humans whom he had considered so evil.
“Knowing that this fate of an evil world might come, five Altiniums and one human set off to Denia, “the land of mists,” where they thought this evil was to arise from. However, due to their extreme want to rid Altium of evil, they were corrupted since in their hearts they wanted to destroy, just as the evil forces of Unop wanted to do.
“That happened exactly one hundred and forty years ago. In that year, your school was opened, and Mr. Pete mysteriously goes to the war front and dies, despite his constant protestations against slavery, and his love of the Northern United States’ way of life.”
“Why did that happen to him?”
“He was the one meant to fulfill the prophecy, Tom, but due to his cowardice, he fled and was later corrupted by Unop. He was unwilling to stand up for the truth that is why he was and is weak. He haunts your dreams rather than fight you one on one. He acts cruel to hide his cowardice, but he is still and always will be a coward.”
“What do I have to do with any of this?”
“You are the next chosen one. Do you think it is by chance that you moved here at the age of five, exactly ten years ago? Or that these dreams started exactly the day, the month you were born and where you turned seventeen years old? Tom, Norbis and I know that you are the one to end this thing now, and forever. If you do not, their forces shall not only take over Altium, but all of the other worlds that exist as well.”
“How can I trust you? You were the one who told me that you saw this house being torn down.”
“I did see it being torn down, when I has twelve years old.”
“But that was at least fifty years ago.”
“Yes, but a week here is only a day in Altium,” said Miss Fairdy. Tom seemed flabbergasted. “Soon it will be two o’clock. Norbis will be coming in here to check up on you soon when he realizes that you are not asleep. I think it would be best to hurry.”
“Hurry to where?”
“To Altium, of course, but there are some other things we must attend to first. I will tell you about that once we get downstairs.”
"Wait, Altium?" asked Tom with concern. "I can't just go to Altium.
"Why not?"
"Well I have school tomorrow. And I have to let my parents know."
"Do you really think Norbis will let you live to see tomorrow? I'd not tomorrow it will just be another day."
"Yes, I see. You are right."
"Then hurry. We have to make haste. We cannot concern your parents with this either. The less they know the less likely Norbis will target them.
“Yes I understand,” said Tom. However, upon realizing the time, he said, “Peter will be here soon.”
“What? At this hour?”
“Yes, we were going to dig around the foundation in order to get into the cellar.”
“It is good that I came when I did then. The cellar has no windows and is constructed of two rows of bricks upon each layer separated by a 8 inch thick sheet of steel. Not even the machinery used when it was attempted to break it apart fifty years ago even crack the bricks. That is why it was left and this house was built on top of it.”
“What are we to do now?”
“I want you to get your backpack and fill it with an extra pair of clothes and a jacket. Put on some pants, sneakers, socks, and a t-shirt. When you are ready come downstairs, I shall be waiting for you,” said Miss Fairdy. “Also, Tom, my name is Akemi, please call me by it for now on.”
“All right,” said Tom.
With a little smile, Akemi turned around and quietly left Tom’s room.
