Bright Star

by Grayson Reyes-Cole

  But I—

  You are protected. You have been protected since you were born. I thought you had come to terms with that. She can’t hurt you. But she will continue to suck the High Energy out of any and everyone she comes across. Don’t let her get the baby!

  What?

  Point and Monk’s baby. Protect her with your life, Jackson! You’re the only one who can, and she is so important. So important. When the time comes, I won’t have the Energy to save her, too.

  Fear was a tangible growing thing expanding to fill Jackson’s organs. Damn it, Rush! What do you mean you won’t have the Energy?

  You know I’m the only one who has a chance at stopping her.

  A chance? Jackson demanded. A chance? Rush, stop being so fucking cryptic. I understand now. I understand why you wanted her gone. I understand why you have never given in to her. I understand all of that. I still don’t know why you didn’t just stop her and why all of a sudden you’re the only one with a chance to stop her? Silence met this question. Then there was more than silence. There was a wall. An implacable, insurmountable wall.

  Find Point! The command came and then the wall was back. With an angry grunt, Jackson turned and ran.

  He found her by luck and luck alone. She wasn’t in the temple. She was, actually, in his bedroom. As he went past the door, he caught a glimpse, just a glimpse of yellow material. It was that yellow, the color Monk had called the Rushic yellow. Jackson turned and went into the room, closing the door behind him. His hand on the knob told him why she was in this room. Rush’s protective suggestion still lingered within these four walls.

  The pregnant woman was lying on the floor, her arms protectively draped over her stomach. Her breathing was shallow.

  “Point! Point!” Jackson screamed, slipping an arm under her shoulders to pull her up. Her eyes rolled, then focused on him. Her brow, wet with perspiration, was creased in pain. Jackson wasn’t sure yet if it was the physical kind or not. “Point!”

  “Jackson,” she groaned doggedly. “I can hear you, no need to yell.”

  Jackson try to smile supportively. “The baby—”

  “The baby is fine,” she told him. The pain on her face had not lessened. “I am holding her close to me.”

  “What happened here?”

  “The same thing that is happening at the SHQ. The same thing that is happening all over the world where Shifters aggregate.”

  “Bright Star?”

  “Yes, Bright Star.”

  “Come on,” Jackson told her, trying to ease her up. “Maybe if we get you out of the city. Maybe, if I can convince Rush to let us leave here. At least you can be safe until we can figure something out.”

  “Your brother knows we are as safe as we can be here.” In the lull between contractions, Point told him with a grace born of wisdom and patience. “Besides, Jackson, there is no ‘outside of the city’ anymore.”

  Jackson considered her words. He eased her back against the wall then frantically beat a path to the window. He looked out and saw the same cityscape he had always seen. This was still his city, his home. In the distance he could see the SHQ. It was pristine as it towered over that section of the city.

  It was then that Jackson knew something was wrong. Beyond the SHQ there was nothing but a verdant and abundant forest. There was no forest anywhere near the SHQ. They had been transported. That’s when he noticed the bright blue light flickering above the SHQ. Similar blue lights were positioned methodically as far as the eye could see.

  “What do you see?” Point asked.

  Jackson turned to see her face crumple in a mask of pain. He rushed to her side again. “What’s wrong, Point. What hurts?”

  “The baby…” she rasped. Jackson paled at the site of her hands clenched over her rounded belly. Then her brow smoothed and the pain had obviously passed. “The baby is coming.”

  “Oh my God!” Jackson yelped. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. That’s what my name is. I pinpoint things. I add all the factors together and I pinpoint them.” She grimaced. Jackson started to say something but she cut him off. “What did you see out the window?”

  “Everything. I saw everything I normally see, but it was different. It’s almost as if the city has been carved right out of the ground and transported somewhere else.”

  “What else?” Point urged grabbing his shirt sleeve.

  “I saw blue lights in the sky.”

  “How many?”

  “How many? I don’t know.” Jackson cast his gaze around looking for something within the room that could help him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Point stated as she pulled a pillow from his bed and put it behind her. “Nothing can be done now.”

  Jackson gave up his search and started to use his High Energy to generate a basin of hot water and some towels.

  “No,” Point shrieked, “No, you use your High Energy now and she will find us. She’ll find my baby, even with Rush protecting us. You can’t use it.”

  Jackson stopped gearing his Energy. “I understand. Let me get some supplies. I will have to help you do this,” he told her soberly.

  She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. This pain did not come from the baby. Monk should have been there to assist with this birth. But he was dead, and Point was just now allowing the grief to break through. “He would have wanted you to help,” she offered, comforting Jackson even as her anguish struggled to overwhelm her.

  “He would have wanted Rush,” Jackson returned, surprised to find that he was no longer bitter.

  “He would have wanted Rush to do exactly what he is doing now, exactly what he is destined to do.”

  Constellation

  Bright Star was in eighty-six places at once. She was all over the globe siphoning the High Energy from unsuspecting souls. One in one hundred thousand dropped dead each minute. Her true body was easy for Rush to find. She hovered above the SHQ where the richest of Shifters could be found after all of the Followers had died. She used Sandoval who had always been a focal point and was just as strong as the once loyal Point who had betrayed her.

  Souls and High Energy shot into the sky like fireworks. Upward streaks of lightning that struck into Bright Star’s body. Her arms were out at her sides as she greedily accepted each sacrifice.

  And then, the Energy just stopped. The souls stopped dying and she found she could no longer locate Shifters. She called to them—it was the mental screech of a banshee and eerie longing of a siren—but no one, not one single Shifter responded. Rush.

  “You can’t stop me, Rush,” she roared. “Not yet. You can’t stop me yet.” But the Energy would not come.

  Bright Star pulled all of her replicas together again. Slowly, she lowered herself to the ground. As she did, the white dress she wore faded away. It was replaced by twined vines and flowers. A headdress adorned her head, binding the titian tresses that flowed down her bare back. Her feet were bare, but no matter, they didn’t touch the ground as she glided through the trees and up the side of the lush mountain, she inhaled the scent of crisp sea air.

  At the top of the mountain, the villagers turned to watch her approach. As they did, Bright Star smiled, until she heard their whispers.

  “Burn… Burn… Burn…” They all seemed to be chanting.

  “No,” she told them. “No. I’m not Burn, I’m Bright Star.” But her words went unheeded. They chanted the name anyway. “Bright Star!” she argued. “I will prove it to you. I will prove it to you all. I will bring him back to you. You watch. I will bring him back.”

  In the center of the village with fury and purpose coursing through her veins, Bright Star raised her arms once more. But she didn’t rise. Instead, she sank. The soles of her feet connected with the earth and a soft, shimmering web of translucent blue light began to spread through the rich earth. The translucent veins continued to spread in a circle around her. It reached the trees and began to creep up the bark. It reached the villagers even as they ran
and webbed its way up their legs and over their bodies. The threads spread faster and faster, binding everything they touched until they spread to the ocean and scabbed over it to shoot into the horizon.

  Even in the compound, Jackson and Point threw back their heads as they experienced the wedding of Bright Star and the world as they knew it. The High Energy and pain of Perma-Shift coursed through them all and the world seemed to cry out for release.

  “Elizabeth,” Rush called. The word broke into her reverie. She heard even as she grunted but continued to cast her spell.

  “Elizabeth.” This time when the word was hissed, she felt it was a curse.

  “Elizabeth!” This time the word was harsh as it called to her, seeming closer.

  “Rush.” She turned to see him, her beauty, her love and inspiration, standing before her. His chest was bare and he too was clad in the royal garb of the island.

  “You’ve come to save them. You’ve come to save everyone.”

  “I won’t need to save them if you stop this right now. Bright Star, you can save the world. You can save it, if you would just stop. You have the power. You have the power. If you would just…stop. Bright Star. Stop.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she bit her lower lip. She was considering his words. “I am not—”

  “You can be—”

  With a quick and bashful shake of her head, she cast her eyes down. She smiled shyly. “I’m not.”

  “Bright Star,” he pleaded, “Elizabeth… you are more committed than I am. You can get these people to follow you. I can’t. You are stronger than I am. Recognize the truth in that. You have long been stronger than me. This is your destiny, not mine. You have always been stronger than me. It’s you. It’s you.”

  Her eyes snapped to his. Her mouth dropped open in shock. “Never say that! Never! You are the one. I am a vessel!” And with those screamed words, the binding spurted. The entire earth pulsed with the blue web and then the web disappeared. The merge was complete.

  Rush said nothing. He waited. He waited. Then her body, her creamy skin, began to pulse.

  Bright Star’s limbs started to glow with an inner orange light. Bright Star heard Jacob Rush—Guard—screaming for her, and then she looked up, directly at the sun.

  Peculiar thing. The yellow ball was bright and ferocious. Its rim became electric as she watched. She became warm and not only warm. She felt, Gods, she didn’t even know what it was she felt, but she knew she was rising. She knew it and embraced it. Around her, the earth was also burning. Volcanoes were erupting. Geysers were spewing sulfur and lava. Electricity shot spontaneously through the air, causing explosions. As her body heated up, so did the core of the earth. If Rush allowed her to die, then they would all die.

  Then Jacob was there with her. And there was a faint glow of light around his body, and—she noticed fadingly—a stronger light around her own.

  And higher, higher they rose, side by side with their eyes closed now, their arms outstretched. The light that had started out a dim blue glow had grown into a white-hot sphere too bright to look upon. Bright Star could feel Elizabeth down there, the woman who had offended her, the woman who had taken Rush from her and the world. Rush was saving Elizabeth. And like a god on Olympus she struck out. She could see in her mind the child crouched under a low-limbed tree to avoid the affects of the sun. Bright Star could see lank brown locks turning into wild titian curls then becoming flame and her soft brown eyes becoming ash.

  Bright Star saw it. In her mind she watched that child disintegrate. In her body she felt the extending of herself as if she were pushing hard against a wall, felt herself send the energy that would destroy that child, and she didn’t just feel that. As if he were there holding her hand, pushing beside her and smiling approval, she knew Jacob was helping her, she knew it as well as she knew that child had burned and they had victory. And that is when she opened her eyes.

  Those below saw those eyes opening as gaping black holes. From her upturned palms, a red glow started to pulsate and her levitating body rotated to face Jacob Rush. Then her arms came out straight in front of her as she aimed her palms at him. Then his eyes flew open, white-hot light emanating from them. And the light was coming from his nostrils, beams of light shooting from his ears. As if in pain, he bent his head back and arched his back as light escaped through his fingertips his feet, his elbows, and his knees. The light soon overcame him, then just as suddenly, was gone.

  Slowly Rush sank to the ground, watching above him as Bright Star’s black eyes grew wider. He tried to look into them but could find no characteristic to latch on to, not one single feature in those eyes to let him know what was there. He then watched her ascend even higher with a speed they had not been able to attain together. Still a part of the entity above, the defeated half of this incited High Energy system could shudder with combined ecstasy from the luscious, succulent power coursing through her, and the draining of his own by the second. Jacob watched her rise.

  They all watched her rise. Suddenly they were covering their ears as a powerful booming noise from above shook the ground and assaulted their hearing with its thunderous boasting. And then the light surrounding Bright Star was gone and she was hurtling toward the ground faster and faster until she fell, her landing broken by the hard ashes of that little girl. Her skin was covered in gray ash as she flailed, trying to get the scent of charred flesh out of her nose. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything but swipe at her nose as she grew more and more nauseated and weak. And then the ashes were in her eyes and she was blinded, grappling for a stronghold so that she could stand, though she was being strangled by that very same ash. Clawing into the dirt and moaning, Bright Star felt nothing like she had only moments ago, when she had ascended.

  Her fingers soon found flesh, cool flesh as hands reached out to take her. Arms came around her and hot, hot tears coursed down her face. She welcomed them as they washed the ash away and when her coughing subsided. She looked up to find Jacob smiling down at her. He too was covered with ash but Bright Star knew it was his own. She pushed back from him and she heard laughter, she heard the laughter come from all directions as she swiped at her face with the sleeve of her ceremonial robe. She felt hot, sticky sweat all over her face. Though when she looked down at the sleeve she found it drenched crimson. She looked up toward Jacob and found herself faced with him and Elizabeth. They stood side by side, the same benign expression cursing their faces. “I will not burn with you,” Elizabeth said. “She will not burn with you,” Jacob said as well.

  “You can’t have her!” Bright Star groaned.

  “You can’t have her,” Jacob told her. And, after those words, the spirit that was Elizabeth was gone from his side. “She is free from you. She will be born into the soul of another.” They were surrounded by the tribesmen who had persecuted her so many lives before. Those who chanted Burn! Burn! Burn! And in unison, like soldiers, they turned and walked away from Bright Star’s dying body.

  “Nooo!” The scream caused a ripple through the ground that ripped the earth open to accept her. Like a geyser, though the soil that had been eagerly awaiting her, spit her from its pursed lip of a ridge. “Jacob!”

  In the sky, she saw him. He was physically alone, but she knew. She knew that Elizabeth stood just there over his left shoulder. Elizabeth, the one he had always loved, was no longer a part of her. The only being on earth who wasn’t. “Jacob!” She dragged him to her with her High Energy. Elizabeth would never have him. Elizabeth would not stop him from achieving his destiny. “Jacob!” she screamed it again.

  As her voice pierced the blackened sky, she could feel rivers swell, drenching valleys and mountains with their shared tears. “Jacob, you have not succeeded in separating us. You cannot separate us.” Her words came out of the mouths of each and every witness beneath them. The words came out of the mouths of every individual sleeping, eating, breathing in the world. Every one. Every single one.

  The words came, but they were not tru
e.

  Jacob lashed out, his Energy sought to insert itself between Bright Star and the subjugated assembly below. It didn’t work. They were one. Like a splitting atom, driving a wedge between Bright Star and Earth would only serve to destroy them all. With Herculean effort, he flexed, contracted, squeezed his muscles, his brain, his Energy, until the force he exerted started to work with that of Bright Star’s. He could not work against her. He could only use the Energy she expelled, the Energy that doubled and re-doubled itself as it spread through every soul. He could only use its momentum, to help him do what had to be done.

  Suddenly, black veins spread in a tainted web over her alabaster skin. Her body began to twist and curl, convulsing and breaking and rebuilding all at once. The scream torn from her body was more than guttural, more than visceral. It sounded like an earthquake and thunder and flooding waters at once. Black tears turned to diamonds as they welled and dropped from beneath her eyelids.

  “I am the Prophet and I am the Soul!” Her tortured voice called to them all. She opened her eyes and the entire distance—including the red horizon—glowed blue. Her body began to rise on a watery blue cloud. Her chest thrust upward, her head flung back. She screamed it again in a voice that was its own accompaniment, a double voice of soft and dark, yet reaching to the edges of the world. “I am the Prophet and I am the Soul.” She repeated the words over and over again. She repeated them until the blue light that lived inside her became a beam out of her throat as well as her eyes.

  *

  Goodbye, Jackson. The voice was stark and emotionless.

  It stopped Jackson in the motion of laying a cold compress on Point’s forehead. What are you doing? Jackson demanded from inside Rush’s mind.

  You want me to save her, Rush explained as though he were speaking to a frightened child. But I can’t do that. I can’t continue saving her. Instead, I’m going to save you. All of you.