Earthborn Awakening

by Matthew DeVore

  Eric still looked disheveled. He reached his hand into his trouser pockets and felt the small, round bead. “I heard a yelp from Jason,” he began, “then nothing.” He paused for a minute. “I didn’t want to alarm anyone, so I managed to climb the slope and found him on the ground. I think he tripped over something and hit his head.”

  “That’s how we found him,” Ethan said.

  Eric’s eyes lingered on Aleena, noticing for the first time that she was in the room. He rolled the bead between his fingers.

  “Did you see anyone else or any sign of danger?” Leon asked.

  “No, nothing.” Eric gritted his teeth as a wave of pain throbbed through his leg. In his pocket, he felt the odd triangular-shaped object brush against his skin. It made him look over at Aleena again. “After I found him, I tried to get help, but I lost my footing coming down the slope.”

  “You should’ve gotten one of us,” Ethan put in. “What were you thinking trying to climb up and down that slope with your bum leg?”

  “I wasn’t thinking, I guess. I just wanted to help.”

  “It’s all right,” Leon said. “What’s done is done. Next time though, call for help. Abby thinks you probably re-broke the part of your bone that was healing.”

  “Sounds about right,” Eric agreed, wincing with pain.

  “Get some rest.”

  Leon left the room, and Ethan and Aleena made to follow.

  “Aleena,” Eric called to her just before she left. In his pocket, he rolled the small communications device between his finger and thumb. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Ethan stopped at the door.

  “Alone,” Eric added.

  Aleena gave him an inquisitive stare along with Ethan.

  “Um, yes,” she said.

  Ethan shrugged and ventured into the corridor.

  Eric looked to Jason, relieved to see he was still unconscious. He removed the small silver triangle from his pocket while being very careful not to let the communications device get pulled along with it. He didn’t want it to fall out of his pocket only to roll across the floor and turn his bad day into a much worse day.

  “I, uh,” he hesitated, searching for the words to say. He wished Tomas, or whatever the Urlowen’s real name was, had given him a story to tell her. Instead, he was left to concoct his own lie to explain why he was giving her this strange object. “I found this in the woods” was all he could manage. He opened his fist, revealing the object in his hand.

  Aleena stared at it in complete shock, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  It was obvious she knew exactly what it was. Who is this girl? How would she know what an Urlowen device looks like? It took him a second to realize that this must not be the first time she’d seen such a thing.

  “Where’d you get this?” she asked excitedly.

  “Like I said, I found it in the woods.”

  “Unlikely,” Aleena said, suspicion written all over her face.

  “Really!” he pleaded. “I felt like it might be important to you. I don’t know why. Just a hunch, I guess.”

  Aleena took the item out of his hand and turned it over, looking at the engravings on its surfaces. She trembled with excitement. She didn’t believe a word of Eric’s story, but part of her didn’t even care. The fact that it was here, in her hand, overwhelmed any logical reasoning.

  “That’s all I know,” Eric said.

  Aleena nodded. “Okay, I have to go.”

  “I need to rest anyway.” He lay his head back and closed his eyes.

  Aleena made straight for the door. In the corridor, she grabbed Ethan by the arm without slowing. “Come with me,” she said, her excitement bubbling into her words.

  They nearly ran through the corridors, Aleena dragging Ethan behind her. They squeezed past the other dwellers, dodged children, and eventually made their way to the deeper, more remote sections of the cave.

  When they were out of earshot of everyone else, Aleena abruptly stopped and turned to face a baffled Ethan. “No questions,” she said. “Go get Allison and meet me in the chamber.” She didn’t wait for his reply, just took off at breakneck speed toward the stasis chamber.

  She opened the hidden passageway, blew through the barrier, and stopped at the control podium in the center of the room. “It has to be,” she said aloud. She walked to the back side of the pedestal and slid her thumb across the vertical surface halfway up the base of the stand. Two glowing white lights appeared just below her swipe that moved to form a rectangle dropping nearly to the floor. The metal in the rectangle disappeared, revealing the inner workings of the computer console. In the base, there were various bosonic circuit boards oriented perpendicular to the ground, along with processors and memory devices. She carefully slid one of the boards out of the compartment until it hit a stop. Mounted on the middle of the board was a silver, triangular object nearly identical to the one in her hand.

  Aleena pulled the chip carefully out of the board and held it next to the one Eric had given her. There were only four chips of this design ever made, exclusive to the Elven attempts at achieving stasis. Of the other three failed chambers that had been built, two of the chips were removed and destroyed. The third had disappeared with its chamber.

  More importantly, it disappeared with its inhabitant.

  Chapter 20

  Ethan and Allison ran down the hallway leading to Aleena’s chamber. The energy barrier had been removed, and they entered to find Aleena standing by the control console holding two silver objects. Neither of them had ever seen Aleena so excited. Ethan noted that, for the first time since she’d woken, her eyes beamed with hope.

  “This,” Aleena said, holding out the silver chip in her right hand, “is the memory storage device made for my chamber. It logs various aspects of the chamber’s operation.”

  Ethan and Allison listened intently.

  “Only four of these have ever been made. Each has the same shape and size but are decorated with unique engravings. The designs were made to commemorate the creation of each stasis chamber.”

  Aleena extended her left hand, showing them the other chip. “When Eric asked to speak with me a few minutes ago, he said he found this in the forest.”

  Allison took both chips from Aleena and inspected them carefully. They were exactly the same size and weight, but the inscriptions were different. “Are you telling us that this came from a second stasis chamber?”

  Aleena nodded enthusiastically, “Yes, and not just any chamber. Councilor Valaan’s chamber!”

  “Who’s Councilor Valaan?” Ethan asked.

  “Valaan was a member of the Elven High Council, which consists of representatives in matters of governance for our people, as well as experts in areas of knowledge. Valaan was the Councilor of Magic. He advised the governing councilors on all matters related to magic. We also had Councilors of History, War, Technology, Science, and more. The councilors and our system of government were so respected that other civilizations adopted their own version. Even the Urlowens, although they twisted it almost beyond recognition. Anyway, Valaan was the greatest magic wielder in a hundred generations.”

  “If he was so indispensable, then why did he try one of these chambers?” Allison asked.

  “The Elves had tried two chambers before his, and each failed. The Council had a great debate over the matter and was leaning toward abandoning any further attempts, but this highly displeased To’olaan, the Councilor of Science. He believed that his team had identified the flaws in the previous two chambers and could fix them. Valaan and To’olaan were close friends, and the rumors were that To’olaan convinced Valaan to volunteer for the third trial. They thought someone powerful enough with magic could help control the chamber’s instabilities if something went wrong.”

  “I take it that didn’t work though.”

  “Not really, no. The chamber was built on Earth and kept secret to minimize fallout if something did go wrong. Valaan traveled from the home world to Earth for th
e test. After the chamber was initiated, the entire thing vanished with him inside.”

  Ethan’s eyes widened. “The whole thing just vanished?”

  “Yeah,” Aleena said, not pausing to catch a breath. “After months had passed and no sign of either Valaan or the chamber surfaced, the Council announced the attempt to the population and officially declared Councilor Valaan missing. The day the chamber disappeared was the last day anyone saw him. There wasn’t even debris to analyze to see what had gone wrong. The Council outlawed all further attempts to create stasis chambers on the home world or on Earth.”

  “Then how did this chamber get built?” Allison gestured to the room.

  “When our war with the Urlowens became desperate, the Earthborn ignored the law in favor of trying to save a few of my people. I wasn’t supposed to be alone in this chamber. Before we gathered here, we were attacked. I was the only one to make it safely into the cave.”

  The pain was evident in Aleena’s voice.

  “I’m so sorry,” Allison said.

  Aleena shook her head, trying to keep the memories from overwhelming her. “Anyway, this chip is proof that Valaan’s chamber has been found.”

  “By who though?” Ethan asked.

  “Probably the Urlowens,” Allison answered.

  “If the Urlowens found it, then how did Eric get the chip?”

  “I don’t know,” Aleena said. “Maybe he’s working for them, or maybe he really did find it in the woods. Though that’s really unlikely. I’m afraid our hideout here isn’t as hidden as you think it is.”

  Allison shuddered. “We’re going to have to move again.”

  “It still doesn’t fit though,” Aleena continued. “If the Guard know where we are and that I’m here, then why haven’t they attacked us? And why would they give this to me?”

  No one had an answer to Aleena’s question. After a few moments of silence, Ethan asked, “So what’s on the chip, then? Can you access it?”

  Aleena smiled. “I can.” She took the chip and placed it into the board behind the console, then closed the access panel and returned to the control station. “I was waiting for both of you before looking at it.” She pulled up the log and activated the projection display. The stream of text and images on the control panel’s surface launched into the air, orienting itself vertically and hovering a few feet over the console’s top.

  Ethan and Allison watched as the images took flight and spread out across the space in front of them. The text was written in a language they couldn’t understand. The images showed a chamber similar to the one in which they were standing, but it was much smaller, with only one bed.

  One of the images began playing video. A white-haired Elf in deep purple robes lined with silver embroidery entered the screen and worked for a few minutes at the control console directly next to the sleeping pedestal. When he finished, the man lay on the bed and closed his eyes. A few seconds later, sparks began to shoot out of the bottom of the console and the screen began pulsing red. The image became blurry and glitchy at that point, jumping from one frame to the next. The lights in the room seemed to flicker furiously, and then the man’s body began to glow, before a pulse of energy shot from him, filling the room. When it looked as though the pulse would hit the camera, the video abruptly stopped.

  “What happened?” Ethan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Aleena replied. “The log is riddled with catastrophic system failures, but everything stopped when the pulse Valaan created hit the console. I think he was trying to induce a stasis field with magic to compensate for the chamber’s malfunctions.”

  “Do you think it worked?” Allison asked.

  Aleena turned from the console to look at them. “If there was anyone who could do it, it would’ve been him. Though that doesn’t explain why the chamber disappeared.” She paused for a moment, thinking about the video they’d just watched. “I think we need to find out exactly what happened.”

  “Is there more on the chip?” Allison asked.

  “There’s a ton of data, but I won’t be able to sift through it all. I’m not an expert on how these things work. I was trained just enough to operate the chamber in case of an emergency. One of our scientists was supposed to be with us in the chamber.”

  “Bummer,” Ethan said. “Then how are you going to find out what happened?”

  “There’s really only one way to know for sure,” Aleena answered. “I have to find the chamber, Valaan, or both.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  Aleena shrugged. “First I’m going to start with Eric.”

  “And after that?” Allison asked.

  “After that, I think I’ll need to visit the city.”

  Aleena waited until the middle of the night before heading to Eric’s room. Allison told her that Eric was moved from the medical alcove earlier that evening. It was a fortuitous move, because Aleena no longer had to worry about waking Jason, the second patient in the medical wing. When she thought most of the cave would be asleep, she got up from the bed nearest the stasis chamber’s entrance, where she’d been sleeping since the beds were far more comfortable than the cave floor. Though she couldn’t bring herself to sleep in the bed on the far side of the room, the one where she’d spent the last ten thousand years.

  The corridors were empty, and she stopped by Ethan and Allison’s room first, peeking her head through the curtains serving as a door and whispering, “Allison, Ethan.”

  They threw their covers off and got to their feet.

  “We’re ready,” Ethan whispered.

  The three stopped just outside the alcove Eric was using as his room.

  “All right, we’ll run lookout,” Allison whispered. She ran ahead to the bend in the path and watched for passersby.

  Ethan went in the opposite direction, back the way they’d just come. He stood where two paths combined, flanked by a column formed from a merged pair of stalagmites and stalactites. Even at night, they left the electric lights that were mounted in the corridors lit.

  Aleena peered into Eric’s room. He was lying on a small rock ledge that protruded from the side wall. The floor sloped the length of the room, starting from just under the rock ledge on which Eric was sleeping down to the entrance by the opposite wall.

  Aleena walked next to the ledge and sat on the floor by Eric’s torso, then closed her eyes and concentrated. The last time she’d manipulated someone’s dream, it was her brother’s. Her father had grounded her for a week the next morning when he found out, and it took her brother that whole week before he slept through the night again. Her purpose that time was to terrify him because he’d taken her favorite toy. Tonight would be very different.

  Eric twitched a little, and then suddenly a beautiful blonde appeared before him in a flowing white dress. Her eyes glowed a brilliant green and her voice was harmonious.

  “Eric,” she said. “I am Aleena of Avenfall.”

  He felt uneasy but couldn’t place why.

  “You found a trinket in the woods today. Where’d it come from?”

  Eric’s eyes shifted beneath his eyelids.

  “I found it,” he said softly.

  “I don’t believe you. Where’d you really get it?”

  The girl walked toward him, and he was taken with her instantly. There was something about her that seemed irresistible.

  All of a sudden, they were slow dancing at his old high school prom. She looked exactly as before: blonde hair, flowing white dress that moved as though it were in a breeze, a soft but angled chin, and ears rising gently to a point. She had her arms wrapped around his neck, and his hands were resting on the small of her back. He knew it was dream—nothing so amazing had ever happened to him in real life—but he still had a nagging feeling of danger.

  She leaned over and kissed him just below the ear, then whispered, “Eric, where’d you find it?”

  His resistance faltered a bit. “It was given to me,” he said. In that instant, he felt a seari
ng pain burn against his leg in the pocket of his tuxedo. He gasped, dropped his arms from her waist, and thrust his hand into his pocket. He felt a small oval-shaped object that seemed to sear his fingers as he touched it.

  “Who gave it to you?” she asked, more forcefully that time.

  Eric looked up, hand still in his pocket. The girl was dressed in dark green armor. Light from the dance floor blazed off the silver lining, sending streams of light in every direction. She’d instantly transformed from a vision of tranquility to a fearsome force of power.

  “Was it an Urlowen?” she pressed.

  The pain from the object burning against his thigh increased. Just behind the girl, the silhouette of another appeared. He couldn’t see the face, but the build and armor were instantly recognizable.

  “I didn’t tell her anything!” he yelled. “Not a word!”

  “Who are you talking to?” the girl asked.

  “Leave me alone. Please, leave me alone!” Eric called out. “I did what you asked. Don’t kill them!”

  Aleena knew she was losing control. Dream manipulation was tenuous at best. Controlling a dream was like guiding water; you could stick your hands into it, but if you ever tried to grasp it and take control, it would slide through your fingers.

  “You’re all right, Eric,” the girl said. She was speaking softly again and wearing the white dress. “It’s only a dream.”

  Aleena tried to calm him. She wasn’t trying to scare him, only retrieve a little information, but she’d apparently triggered some deep-seated fear. The kind of fears somehow linked to real life but muddled in the dream such that you could never be sure what was real and what wasn’t.

  “Leave me alone!” Eric screamed. His thigh burned as the man in the distance began walking toward him. Now others appeared and were following him. They were armed, and they didn’t look pleased.

  In a moment of realization, Aleena turned in the dream and saw the unmistakable outline of the Guard walking toward her. Five of them passed by her, their faces obscured by the haze often found within dreams. The sixth stopped in front of her and offered his hand. The gesture was familiar, but unexpected.