The transmitter in the core system will easily reach the whole of this small planet, keeping them separated permanently. I have done what I can for you, the future of mankind. Do not alter the technological masterpiece you have found here in any way. Leave everything as you have found it, and if you do, there will always be a hope for humanity.
I can barely whisper. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Only one with your DNA could open this vessel, Harry,” Aakesh says, his voice low, weary. “Your ancestor saw to that before he left. I had nearly coaxed your father here when he realized he was not truly in control. Do you know why he never came back? Because he gave himself to the black water, rather than be responsible for the choice you hold in your hands right now.”
I can't move. I'm out of breath, out of life. “No.”
“Yes.”
All I can do is look at him.
His eyes hold mine.
I believe him.
We are the monsters. We are the invaders, the aliens, the bad guys. I don't want this. “My ancestor did everything he could to prevent you from coming here. You managed to think around him, somehow. You planned this.”
“Parts of it.”
Maybe he helped convince us to keep the Hope safe by erasing all knowledge of it. Maybe he changed education over the years, slowly eroding facts that gave us more power. Or maybe we did it ourselves, arrogant, ignorant, and foolish. “Why are you dying in here?”
“My body is attacking itself. I cannot disobey that order. I have little time left.”
That's why Bakura didn't want him here.
I don't know what to do, and maybe it doesn't matter. My ancestor is the one who bound him. If I free them, we die. If I don't, they die eventually, and so do we anyway. There's no happy ending.
“They have found your Parnum,” Aakesh adds weakly.
We can fix this. We have to fix this. I grab a handful of papers and pull Aakesh to his feet. “We'll figure something out.” It's a hollow promise, ashen. I still mean it.
Aakesh says nothing, and his breath is ragged as I drag him back outside.
Parnum's voice hits me the second I open the door. “We cannot wait any longer! Aakesh is here, in this place! I should never have allowed it. I don't think it's weakened him enough. If we do not act—”He stares at me, startled.
I stalk toward them all with Aakesh under my arm and a fistful of paper.
My Travelers guard Parnum, their knives drawn. He looks frantic, fearful. “Harry. I found it. I found the way to shut this whole damned machine down.”
I have never heard him swear before, not once in my entire life.
I look at Demos, look at all of them, and lower Aakesh to the floor. “I don't know if we should.”
“Harry!” Parnum snaps. “We are going to be killed!”
“Maybe we should be.” I throw the papers to the floor, because right now the drama matters more than the words. “This isn't our planet, Doctor. It never was. We don't belong here.”
Everybody stares at me.
“Have you lost your mind?” Demos snaps.
“I'm not choosing Sundered over human,” I say, backtracking, hating myself for backtracking, but I'm afraid. “It isn't about that. This place—the Hope of Humanity—is a lie. It controls the Sundered Ones. If we shut it down wrong, they die. And this is their damn world, do you hear me? We're the aliens! Us!”
“You've lost it,” Tomas says with pleasure. “You've really lost it.”
Parnum is pale. But he's not shocked.
He knows. He knows. “This is our home now,” he says, vicious, fanatical.
“Then we need to share it!” I shout. He lied to me, again. He knows! “What the hell is the matter with you? We can share it!”
“No,” Aakesh whispers from the floor, almost too quiet to be heard. “No. We cannot. There has been too much blood.”
“Aakesh, shut up!”
“From his lips comes the truth.” Parnum looks at me steadily. “They will not suffer us to live. You have to choose, Harry. Our survival or theirs.”
“It's not our survival or theirs!”
“Show him.” Parnum doesn't move. “Show him what we found.”
Demos scowls and goes to the wall. There's a glass box, and above it in big red letters are the words EMERGENCY SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.
Inside that box is a big red button the size of my fist.
That simple. It would be that simple to kill them all. I shake my head. “No.”
“Harry.” Demos sighs.
“No. This isn't our world. Even if it was, I don't care, we can't just do that.”
I don't know what's right. I just know what's wrong.
Parnum looks at the button, then at me, and I understand him as clearly as if he'd spoken. My look answered him in return.
The time to talk is past.
My Travelers aren't prepared, aren't ready for us to lunge at the same time, and Kaia screams as I tackle Parnum from behind.
I tangle my legs with his and we slam to the ground, inches from that glass box.
“Harry! Stop!” He's stronger than I am, pulling my arms apart, slowly overpowering me.
Everybody shouts, yelling things that don't matter. Parnum flips us suddenly, pinning me, and puts his hands on my throat. I see stars. I can't breathe.
“Harry!” shouts Toddy, and I hear a clatter by my ear.
Parnum's eyes go wide. He lets go of my throat and grabs Toddy's knife, and then brings it down so damn fast.
Once, in my ribs.
Once, in my side.
He weeps as he stabs me, weeps as I scream.
He forgot I have my own knife. I put it against his throat and push.
Blood fills my eyes, splashes on my hair, in my mouth, pumping his life away. I can't see. The blood, his gurgling, choking—
He goes limp on me, a heavy, cooling weight, his heart stopped.
He's dead.
I wail. It's the sound of my soul, tearing in two. I killed him. I killed Parnum. There's silence as I wail again, my cry a creepy counterpart to that tenor hum.
“Harry,” Toddy says softly. “Harry!”
I wipe sticky red from my eyes.
Demos stands by the emergency shutdown, his face hard. “Sorry, Harry. I want to live.” And he presses the button.
“No!” I scream, choking on Parnum's blood.
The lights go out. There's a whirring sound, and that tenor hum slows and sinks to a bass thunk-thunk-thunk and into silence. Now there's no sound but our breathing, my gasping.
They're dead. All the Sundered are dead.
“Demos, what did you do?” My voice breaks, cracks, echoes. “What did you do?”
Before he answers, there's laughter.
Sharp, bright cackling, far away like something in a dream.
What is that? It multiplies, zooms around impossibly fast. What? Am I hearing this? Am I going crazy?
“What's that noise?” Tomas whimpers, and then he screams. The sound races away, higher, like he's being thrown to the ceiling, and then cuts off.
Parnum's weight is slick on me, still warm. I struggle to push him off, weakened by my grief, by my wounds.
“Harry?” Demos says, his voice trembling, unsure. “Har—” He screams.
And suddenly there's laughter in here with us, crazy wild laughter, bouncing around the metal walls and feeding on itself.
“What the hell is happening? What's happen—” Toddy screams, his voice streaming away and up and suddenly hollow and distant like he's outside, but how the hell can he be outside? This thing is enclosed!
Jason said the Sundered die if the system shut down without proper access codes.
An emergency shutdown would include those codes.
They're not dead. The failsafe didn't trigger.
They're free.
Parnum. He's dead, he's dead. I push his body off mine, gasping for air. “Hello? Anybody?”
They're gone, Harry, Aakesh say
s, and he doesn't sound weak anymore. He sounds strong, resonant like a thousand voices speak beneath his.
There's a horrible wrenching sound, and I clap my hands over my ears as sudden sunlight spills down.
I am among the dead.
My Travelers are dead, every last one of them is dead, splatted, eyes vacant and limbs ripped off.
Aakesh stands in their midst, not a drop on him. I don't even think he killed them. His orange eyes are locked on me, burning mine, brighter and more painful than I can stand. I try to scramble back from him, my own blood seeping between my fingers. My hand goes through somebody's abdomen and I scream.
And then he's in my head.
Stabbing in my skull, right through my brain, the entirety of them all at once like being claimed in reverse, so big, so many, it hurts, it hurts!
I'm not hurting you, Harry, Aakesh soothes, and pushes deeper.
I curl on the ground, gripping my skull because it's going to explode. I can't feel his mind around mine anymore. He's in my head, he's invading my mind, I'm going to tear!
But somehow I don't, and he's so deep in my mind, with all of them, in my thoughts, invading. I can't think. Please, it hurts so much—
The pain lifts. Like they heard me.
Gasping, I look around. Wait ... where'd he go?
I'm alone with corpses. There's another horrible wrenching sound and more sunlight. The Hope is getting torn to pieces, ripped away like old paper.
I have to get out of here.
I crawl down the hall we came up, slipping on my own blood as it stains my shirt and slinks down my legs and arms. My head won't work right, and when I try to stand, I stumble back and forth like I'm drunk.
I can't think around him. That mind is too big. I can't reach the shiny black squares, but it doesn't matter. The doors are all smashed holes.
There's no more urine-ash in the air. It's clear, cold, like it ever was, and I shiver.
The Sundered are flying.
Not leaping, flying, like they were meant to do. Humans are everywhere too, but not for long. They're being brought here to die, dropped, torn apart in midair, screaming. Given to the water.
A little red flesh-star flies over my head, squeaking happily, and I stare at her. That's Quimby. She's squeaking, whole, flying. But she died. She was dead.
Motherwater brought her back.
I scream with revelation, wracked as thoughts not my own pelt me like stones. Sundered die. Some Sundered pretend to die, and the water takes them in. The water. Mother. Creator. Lover? Motherwater heals them.
They come from the water.
The water loves them. She loves them as much as she hates us.
Bakura lands in front of me like a bomb, spraying mud, some random dead man impaled on his tail, floppy and slack-faced. Bakura smiles as he reaches for me as if to add me to his collection.
Stop.
Gorish?
Gorish. A thousand voices under his new resonant voice, somehow no longer childlike, but with power. He lands between us, his curved, froggy body graceful in ways I can't understand, no longer less, no longer cute, suddenly more. He's not yours. You know this.
Bakura grunts, glares, and leaps away. Obeying. Obeying him.
Gorish turns and looks at me.
We lose something when we die, Harry.
The words aren't mine, the thought echoed by a thousand voices. Gorish “died” many times. I feel it, know it, like I know he volunteered to be with me, to save his people.
He was the way he was because he'd been so damaged.
Is he the same? Does he still love me? I reach for him with a shaking hand.
Patience, Harry, he says gently, touches the top of my head, and flies away.
I don't know what that means. Yes? No?
I curl on my side on the ground. It's too much work to move again.
People are brought from who knows where, people who have no idea what's happening or why this is the last thing they see, why they're hurting and afraid and alone. It isn't fair.
It was never fair.
There has been too much blood.
And then there is you, says Aakesh in my head, and I scream and clutch myself and twist because the voice is so big.
“I cared for you!” I shout, or think I shout, and it doesn't matter because he's in my mind.
You followed the behavior of your peers.
I can't argue with that. Can I?
You obeyed your fears.
I wouldn't let Aakesh go. I was afraid. For me, only me.
The sun rises in the sky, moving to noon in a whole new day. Fewer people are brought now, fewer people left. It was easy to clean up this world. The alien scourge is gone.
The alien scourge ... Sandra. “Aakesh.” It's a weak sound, tiny, pitiful. “Please. Not her.”
She is already gone, Harry. If she'd lived, she would not thank you for it. This is mercy. Someday, you will understand.
No, I won't. No, it's not.
I'll never understand. All I have is failure, and I can't even hate the Sundered for it because they lost so much more than I.
I'm done.
I can't weep anymore. I reach for the dazing, numbing power of acceptance, cling to it. And wait. Someone will send me to death.
“Go on,” I croak to their laughter, their cries.
“Well?” To no one, no one's looking at me.
“What are you waiting for!” I scream, but nobody comes near, nobody at all. I only see Sundered in the air, flying, playing. They're really playing, somehow innocent in spite of the blood, joyful, united, free.
Damn you all! Damn you all! I can end this on my own! I don't have to wait for you! I defended you!
That is why you live, comes Aakesh's answer.
“Shut up!” I scream, though Aakesh isn't here, and though nobody pays me mind.
I grab the dry, crusty mud and pull. My fingers worm into the ground. Pull. The black water's not that far away. I can reach it. I can touch it. Make it kill me. It wants to, anyway.
Aakesh takes me instead.
He grabs me off the ground and touches my stab wounds. He pours burning, perfect power into my blood, healing. No, Harry Iskinder. You will not die. We fly high, higher, like he never plans to come down. Do not be afraid.
I gasp. He shows me, shows me with thousands of eyes all over the world, shows me joy. I see laughter, the un-Sundered flying and clinging and joining in some way I don't understand. Most of them have gotten rid of their genders, and it doesn't matter at all.
There is so much joy. There is so much relief, release, renewal.
You will not be alone. He promises, speaks in my mind, against my skin. This is your reward and your punishment: you are mine now.
I'm claimed.
I see happiness and celebration. I see grief for Sundered who were lost. I see, feel, know that those who lived are one. How can something so beautiful make me weep so hard?
You will never be alone, Aakesh whispers against my ear as the sun shines bright on the flood of black water.
● ●
● Extras ●
Need More? Read On!
The following short stories are experimental and may not be everyone’s cup of tea. Sundered Ones don’t think like humans. Expressing their tales in ways humans can understand turned out pretty tricky.
For other stories with runaway Fey princes, alien Earths and parallel worlds, ancient warriors, and magical mayhem, visit RuthanneReid.com, where you can sign up for free books and sneak-peeks in your inbox, peruse the wiki for trivia, and bug the author via email.
P. S. Don’t forget to check The Sundered’s page on RuthanneReid.com for questions and answers from readers!
● Love Makes Whole: A Sundered Epilogue ●
Paint Something (Harry)
If you didn’t know anything at all, you’d know that the boy knew sorrow. He sat on a small round nub of land surrounded by black water. It wasn’t normal earth, either, but dark and smoo
th, wrapped in a sand so fine he almost seemed to be sitting on silk.
But it wasn’t silk. And that wasn’t water.
It was ebony-dark, placid enough to reflect the clouds and sky with colorless clarity, but that wasn’t all. Once in a while, though nothing touched it, a tiny finger of water would splash on the land—never quite close enough to touch the boy, but nearly.
When it happened, he jumped. As if it aimed for him. As if it were alive.
It was.
So was the boy, which was a compromise.
He was still a boy, though barely. He had the shoulders of a man and the chest to go with them, but his face was young—brown, a good-looking face, unlined in spite of the sorrow that twisted it.
His hands looked so much older. They could be artist’s hands, long and clever, but they were scarred, calloused, and dirty. He did not reach for the water to clean them.
“Paint something,” said a smooth voice, strange and warped by a thousand other voices beneath it.
Harry made a noise of pure disbelief and turned his face away.
A being crouched in the water beside him: a being as seamlessly black as the water, every bit as fine as the sand, this being’s irises glowed forge-fire orange and his long hair moved with a graceful will of its own. His beauty surpassed male and female, eerie and perfect, symmetrical in body and face. His smile was subtle—but his burning orange eyes made it dangerous. “Paint something,” he repeated.
The boy rubbed his face, marking brown skin with darker smudges. “Make them shut up.”
“You are not accustomed to our voice,” said the being.
But their voice was not one voice at all but a thousand voices, two thousand, joining all the time in unceasing weird unity, even as they all said something unique. The boy’s head throbbed with it, with the new concept of never-silence. “I don’t want to paint anything. I haven’t in years, anyway.”
The being smiled. Where the water touched his toes, there was no distinction between it and his skin. “Harry.”.
Harry shivered. The water reflected things, beings flying effortlessly and changing shapes for no apparent reason, a disorganized symphony of hooting, singing laughter. They felt like freedom, like unshackled thoughts burst loose from a madman’s skull.
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