She blinked away the sting of tears and focused on the tiny blue specks that were beginning to fill the black backdrop of the cavern like stars emerging after dusk. “What’s going on?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Teller replied.
The soldiers raised their rifles in readiness but remained in awe of the sparkling display before them.
“Look,” Sasha said. “There.” He pointed to a much larger, pyramid-shaped crystal that was fluorescing so intensely a small blade of azure light stretched out from within it and into the room.
“And there,” Teller said, pointing at a similar crystal not far from the first.
Within a few seconds, more than twenty oversized crystals were projecting their stream of photons into the center of the cave.
As Freya stared at the center of this light show, the billions of elementary particles coalesced. Slowly, a shape formed. Freya recognized it—it was K’in.
The serene face of the animal, transparent and glowing blue, stared at her, its head cocked to one side. The ghostlike emanation waddled with a familiar gait to the woman and stopped in front of her and Kelly.
Freya pried herself from Teller’s arms.
K’in blinked his translucent eyelids and studied Kelly’s lifeless body. Freya reached out to touch the animal’s snout but felt nothing. Yet K’in ruffled his gills and shook his head as if acknowledging the gesture.
The animal lowered its pointed face near to Kelly’s and hovered there—motionless. Sasha, Teller and Minya watched the strange ghost in silent awe. Freya didn’t speak. Her heart was full of hope she dared not voice. Please.
The phantom animal backed away from Kelly and glanced at Freya. It padded toward her, fixed its warm gaze on her, and lowered its head, nuzzling her midriff. A tingling warmth spread up through Freya’s body. Her eyes were fixed wide open and wet with tears as the realization hit home. Is it possible?
The light of the crystals faded and with it the form of K’in. For a brief moment, Freya thought she caught the tiniest smile on the creature’s thin lips. Then he was gone.
* * *
It was dark again, except for the spotlights, now seemingly dull and pathetic, dotted around. For a long while, everyone remained silent in the dim glow. Deep in their hearts, they had hoped K’in would bring Kelly back to them. Even Teller was saddened it hadn’t happened. But it was the way of the world. Despite all they had seen, escaping death wasn’t part of the greater plan.
Teller stared at Freya, who was frozen to her spot, her gaze somewhere off in the distance, her mind unable or unwilling to comprehend what had just happened. He took a step over to her and put his hand gently on her shoulder. She slowly turned to him, her face full of anguish and apathy—as if the meaning of her own life had been ripped away.
“I’m sorry, Freya. Come on. Let’s get you out of here. The chopper should be here any minute. Time to go.” Teller nodded toward the exit.
Freya stared blankly at him for several seconds before clearing her throat and sniffing back the tears. “Just give me a minute, okay?”
“Sure. C’mon, boys. Let’s get the hell outta here. Someone get Victoria and help me with Kelly.”
The soldiers complied. One scooped up Victoria in his arms while two others helped lift Kelly and carry him out. Sasha nodded once in sympathy to Freya and followed the Americans.
Freya fixed her gaze on Kelly’s form for as long as she could until the soldiers had carried him so far into the darkness of the tunnel he was no longer visible. “Bye, Kelly,” she whispered. Though she tried to regain composure, tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t help but think of her discussion with Kelly just a few nights earlier. She and Teller had asked him what his thoughts were about everything he’d been shown while being joined with K’in.
“What have I learned? I learned that humans are never really complete,” he’d said. “We search for something or someone—our Huaca, our special place. The person, place, or thing we believe will make us whole. To fill the void. But perhaps we’ll never find it. Because the ones who can show us are extinct. We killed them all a long time ago. K’in and his species. Some of us, if we’re lucky, find something close to it. Someone we feel is our other half. And if we’re really lucky, the other person feels the same way.”
She let out a heavy sigh. But what if you find your other half and they are taken away? Didn’t she deserve a chance? She’d lost her parents when she was young, too young to understand. And then Benjamin, her godfather. And now Kelly. Yes, he was an ass, but the overwhelming ache in her chest from losing him crushed her heart, making it apparent all too late that she loved him—and had never got to say it. This must have been what Kelly felt every single day after losing Izel and Carmen. How did he live with it? Deal with it? But then she remembered he didn’t deal with it.
A light scuffle of boots on gravel broke Freya’s train of thought and brought her attention to Minya, who had sidled up to her. The woman looked decidedly uncomfortable and never made eye contact. Minya paused for a long moment, her lips parted as if she wanted to speak but didn’t know how to find the words. Freya stared at her, waiting.
“Sometimes,” began Minya slowly, “something happens we never thought possible. Someone comes into our life who we feel connected to ... in way we cannot describe. They make us whole.”
Freya nodded solemnly. “But now he’s gone.”
Minya fixed her gaze on Freya’s and held it for a few moments before speaking in the most empathetic tone she could muster. “I do not talk about Kelly.” She pulled from her pocket a crumpled picture of a small boy with dark tresses and bright eyes and showed it to Freya.
Freya stared at the picture.
“Nikolaj,” Minya whispered. “It matters not how he happened. He makes life worth living.” She gave a knowing nod and a weak smile to Freya’s belly before wandering slowly out of the cave.
Freya stood alone in the dark, stunned, and unconsciously rubbing her abdomen. It was so warm. A light smile broke across her face. K’in had known. In his way, he’d told her. Perhaps the animal and his species hadn’t enlightened humanity in one fell swoop but one human at a time, showing them what it meant to be bonded with another and be whole—to really love, to understand there was something beyond the physical, beyond even death.
Kelly wasn’t really gone; he was free. Free from his pain and anger. He was where he belonged. And he’d left behind a piece of himself within her. She was closer to Kelly now than he would ever have been able to let her be in life.
Freya sniffed hard, wiped the tears from her face, and marched out of the cave toward the bright-white light of day that shone at the end of the tunnel passage—toward a new beginning and a new life.
Location: Three years later, Connecticut, USA
Even after living in the big white house for the last few years, it was difficult to get used to. Not because she was in a small town on the coast of Connecticut, instead of gallivanting around the globe. Not even because she had given up her life in the military to concentrate on being a mother and the inside of this place had become her universe-cum-prison. No, this was strange because it was her Godfather’s house. The place that she had called home growing up, at least when not moving from base to base. This was Benjamin Lloyd’s home. And while he languished in prison, he had offered it to her.
The smells were the same. The walls were the same. Even the way the fifth stair creaked was the same. Sometimes, walking from the drawing room to the kitchen, she’d see a little ghosted-version of herself running past, calling out to Benjamin to come see the pond she’d made in the garden. And then of course, closely following her memory, a three-year-old little boy scurried behind, clutching his latest artwork. Today was no different.
“Mommy! Mommy, I made you another picture.”
“Come show me, sweetheart.” Freya dropped to floor, resting on the balls of her feet, to meet her son. Her hair was pulled back in an efficient pony tail as always, but she�
��d swapped military gear and corporate, tight-fitting, skirts for a pair of comfortable jeans and oversized wool pullover that hung off one shoulder.
“Do you like it?” he asked, a smile fixed from ear to ear, his bright blue eyes shining from behind a mop a wavy chestnut hair.
“Do I like it?” she asked with mock indignation. “Kelly Junior Nilsson, since when have I never liked one of your pictures?”
The young boy giggled.
“But I must confess, I don’t know what this one is.” Freya took the picture and examined it, cocking her head and rotating the paper this way and that. A black crayon had been used to haphazardly cover almost the entire surface.
“It’s a hole!” he said, beaming with pride.
“Of course it is! And what a lovely hole it is, too.”
“Can we go and see it one day, mommy?”
“The hole?” she asked, confused.
“Yes.”
“Sure we can. Where is it, honey?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Far away. In another place. It would take a long time if we walked there. Shall I draw you a map, mommy?”
“That’s a great idea, my little Mr. Man. Go draw me a map.”
Kelly Junior giggled and ran off to his room.
Freya got to her feet, groaning as she did so. She held up the picture, crinkled her nose, and studied it. He never drew normal things. Trees. Other children. Cats or dogs. They were always abstract. The sky. The bottom of the ocean. A hole. But of course, little KJ wasn’t normal. She’d known that from the moment he was born. From the moment he’d opened his eyes to reveal a sparkling, iridescent blue that she’d seen only once before. In his father’s eyes when he was bonded to K’in. Whatever had happened to Kelly then had changed him on a genetic level, and he’d passed it on to his son.
Sure, KJ in many ways was just like any other three-year old. He ran and jumped and played. Cried when he couldn’t get his own way. He was also a little carbon copy of his father. Cheeky and charming, and well on his way to becoming a womanizer, despite Freya’s best efforts. Already a local celebrity in the small town, almost every shop keeper knew him and every female patron fawned over him whenever they crossed paths. KJ would even make noise, bat his eyelids and smile as wide as he could at a specific pretty woman or girl he’d scoped out nearby—just to get attention. And of course it was only the pretty ones.
But there were subtle differences. Small things that perhaps only a mother would notice about her son. His tendency to sink into his own thoughts to the point that no amount of calling his name could draw him from his trance. The fact that he would sit for hours at a time in the garden playing circus with a host of local wildlife, birds, rabbits, voles, that seemed to follow his instruction to crawl and jump over the obstacle course he had made. Any other mother might think that cute. For Freya, it screamed of K’in’s and Wak’s ability to bond. To control. All she could do was observe. Sit and wait to see how these little nuances would manifest as he grew.
Freya sighed, then pinned the picture to the refrigerator with the twenty-six other drawings he’d made that week. It was a rolling board of artwork. Time to make his lunch. She flicked on the kitchen TV, but kept the volume low. It wasn’t that she wanted to watch anything, only that the deep, soft voice of a man narrating some documentary was comforting.
Cutting the crusts of yet another piece of wholemeal bread on autopilot, Freya prepared her son’s favorite: peanut and jelly sandwiches. But even this reminded her of him. Of Kelly. She didn’t really know why, but sandwiches always did. Whenever she made them, all she could see was his face, mouth full of sandwich, pointing the rest at her as he explained the next hare-brained part of his ill-thought out plan. Flicking the hair out of her eyes for the fifteenth time, she thought, damn I miss him.
A shrill squeal broke her train of thought. Coiled and ready to sprint to her son’s room, she was cut short as he came careening around the corner, his arms held high, tears streaming down his face.
“Ow!” he cried.
Freya dropped down to the balls of her feet and held out her arms for a cuddle, which was gratefully received. “What happened, Mr. Man? Did you hurt yourself?”
KJ sniffed, and held out his right hand revealing a clean one-inch cut across his index finger. “The paper cut, cut me,” he stammered between sniffs and sighs.
“Okay, okay. Remember what to do?”
“Yes,” he whimpered.
“Here we go.”
KJ held up his finger to Freya’s lips. She lightly blew across the fresh wound as he counted to ten.
“One, two, free, four ...”
By five, the wound was already closing, zipping up from one end to next.
“Eight, nine ...”
And by ten it was sealed. Only a faint pink line remained which itself would eventually disappear. Another gift he’d from K’in. But one she definitely had to keep secret from everyone else. KJ had the ability to heal, like an axolotl. Perhaps to even regrow limbs, like Victoria had done. This would scare the children. Hell, it would scare the other mothers. So instead, Freya pretended that she was magic and that a kiss or other gesture could make things all better. KJ bought it, for now.
His face still wet with tears, but now smiling, KJ threw his arms around her neck and laid his head on her shoulder. He silently requested to be picked up. Freya hoisted him up and twisted her body from side to side, rocking her little man. Then it caught her eye. The giant black space in the middle of a snow-covered land projecting from the TV. She picked up the remote control with one hand and turned the volume up.
“... global warming has over the last few years begun to defrost many parts of Antarctica and Siberia, revealing enormous sink holes and even underground lakes and cavernous systems. Many of these holes are several miles deep and the caverns many hundreds of miles long. Scientists are still investigating what secrets to our past these natural time capsules may hold.”
Siberia. The original corpse. K’in. Freya’s mind raced.
KJ turned his head to see the TV. “Look, mommy. My picture. The hole.”
Freya locked her gaze with her son’s, his bright eyes shining back at her. Cobalt flames danced within. “Your picture? Is that what you drew?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh. Can we go?”
She held him closer to her chest and pressed his head to her shoulder, adrenaline coursing through her veins. She didn’t want to think why he wanted to go. Or what they would find there. But she knew it was inevitable. Necessary even. To protect him, she had to understand him. And maybe the answer was in a sinkhole thousands of miles away in Siberia, where it all began.
“Maybe, sweetheart, when you’re a big boy,” she whispered. “When you’re a big boy.”
Gareth Worthington holds a degree in marine biology, a PhD in endocrinology, and currently educates the World's doctors on new cancer therapies. Gareth has hand tagged sharks in California; won honorable mention at the New York Book Festival 2012 and 2013 for his writing; and trained in various martial arts, including Jeet Kune Do, Muay Thai, and MMA at the EVOLVE MMA gym in Singapore and Phoenix KampfSport Switzerland.
Born in Plymouth UK, Worthington currently resides outside of Zurich, Switzerland.
Other Titles from
Vesuvian Books
IT TAKES DEATH TO REACH A STAR
Stu Jones & Gareth Worthington
The world you know is dead. We did this to ourselves.
The epidemic struck at the end of the Third World War. Fighting over oil, power, and religion, governments ignored the rise of an anti-bacterial-resistant plague. In just five years, the Earth was annihilated. Only one city survived—Etyom—a frozen hell-hole in northern Siberia, still engulfed in conflict.
The year is 2251.
Two groups emerged from the ashes of the old world. Within the walled city of Lower Etyom, dwell the Robusts—descendants of the poor who were immune to The New Black Death. Above them, in a metropolis of p
ristine platforms called Lillipads, live the Graciles—the progeny of the super-rich; bio-engineered to resist the plague.
Mila Solokoff is a Robust who trades information in a world where knowing too much can get you killed. Caught in a deal-gone-bad, she’s forced to take a high-risk job for a clandestine organization hell-bent on revolution.
Demitri Stasevich is a Gracile with a dark secret—a sickness that, if discovered, will get him Ax’d. His only relief is an illegal narcotic produced by the Robusts, and his only means of obtaining it is a journey to the arctic hell far below New Etyom.
Thrust together in the midst of a sinister plot that threatens all life above and below the cloud line, Mila and Demitri must master their demons and make a choice—one that will either salvage what’s left of the human race, or doom it to extinction...
www.ItTakesDeathToReachAStar.com
Children of the Fifth Sun Page 44
