Silence

by Tyler Vance

  She had come home progressively more delirious each time, and Sheikoh had began to worry. The money he’d ‘earned’ disappeared. The irony hadn’t appealed to him.

  Then one night, Emili hadn’t come home. He had had to search the Four dens for her. If he hadn’t run into one of her new drug buddies, he would’ve had no idea where to look. Sheikoh had followed the rumors of forged glow and found Emili unconscious and beaten bloody in an alley. That’d been the last straw. Sheikoh spent the rest of her life playing prison warden.

  At first, he’d tried to wean her off the stuff, but she’d spent her time throwing up blood and thinking up ways to escape and score. He’d added a lock to her room, then barred her window, but Emili had been an intelligent, resourceful addict; she had always gotten out of the house when she wanted to. Sheikoh had to have a dog tracker implanted in her, or he’d never find her when she’d run away. They’d fought and threatened one another, but the two of them had always hid the full truth from Dorothi.

  So, for Dorothi, Sheikoh had finally relented. He had stood aside and let Emili destroy herself. There wasn’t a day that he didn’t regret it, but he kept a unconcerned front as guilt tore him to pieces. He had all but killed one of the two people in the world he’d truly considered family. While she had the drug in her system, Emili almost seemed to revert back to the girl he’d loved. They’d talked for hours about memories and laughed and joked. As addicted to Four as Emili had been, Sheikoh had been more addicted to the warmth of her presence.

  She had ended up taking exorbitant doses, hovering on the border of overdose every other day. Each week had begun to leech the life from her skin. Emili became a zombie, professing love for the chemical yellowing her eyes, lining her face and stealing her hair. And then her teeth.

  And then her life.

  Sheikoh watched it happen again.

  Her last words sounded in his ear.

  I’m sorry…

  Sheikoh was too.

  The dam burst, and he screamed.

  The memories on the walls and in his head rushed over him, spinning and howling like a swarm of hornets. He buried his hands in his hair and shrieked his pain to the sky of the hellhole he had been thrown into. Shades of memories battled before his eyes, the screams of everyone he’d ever known rang in his ears.

  Sheikoh screamed louder than he ever had in his life, trying to rip his throat open with the sound. Nonetheless, he couldn’t even hear it over the chaos surrounding him. Dorothi, Emili, Daneil, Anima, Chain, Indigo, Sanatous, the faces of the people he’d killed, they all half-materialized, darting around and physically slamming into Sheikoh. Pummelling him. Knocking him. Shoving him.

  Sheikoh screamed until his lungs were raw and spent. Bodies smashed into him and blasted him from every direction. He fell to his knees, and let his head hang. The forms stopped slamming into him.

  The area around Sheikoh charged with motion, and he didn’t even notice. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

  The air swirled and screamed violently, growing louder and louder until it hit a discordant shriek. The chaos funneled itself into a whirlwind of pain, of bone white powder, of pair after pair of yellow eyes that stared at him as they spun around before him.

  Sheikoh had eyes only for the body lying in the center of the hurricane. He gazed at the sleeping beauty and noticed the spark of her eyes riding the vortex around her. He got that he was dead. But he had always thought of dying as the end. The end of struggling. The end of fear. The end of pain and everything else. He wasn’t supposed to have to relive it. He’d never felt so cheated.

  Suddenly Sheikoh was screaming again.

  “Why can’t I just die?!” He demanded the sky. “Why can’t I just go to sleep?! WHY DO I HAVE TO LIVE THIS ALL OVER AGAIN?!”

  Sobs wracked his body, and he bent his head to the ground. His face burned. He flung a wild, animal shriek into the vortex of pain and memories. It’s echo swirled around and around and around and around, sounding long after he’d stopped.

  “WHY WON’T YOU LET ME JUST DISAPPEAR?! I DID IT! I’VE LIVED! I’M DONE! NOW, LET ME GO!”

  Sheikoh ripped at his hair, cracked and broken. His voice carried above anything else, and his memories dropped whatever they were doing to listen.

  “LET ME DIE!” Sheikoh shrieked at the heavens. “HIT MY SOUL WITH LIGHTNING BOLTS UNTIL THERE’S NOTHING LEFT! UNLESS YOU CAN’T YOU IMMORTAL ASSHOLE! SHOW YOURSELF!!!!”

  His challenge boomed over the silent storm.

  A flash of light shocked through the vortex swirling around Emili. She rolled herself up to her feet in the center of the storm. Her arms hung unnaturally limp at her sides like they were still dead. Sheikoh’s eyes narrowed first and then widened. His fury drained into confusion.

  Disbelief.

  Emili hung in the air for a moment, head and arms lolling in the rushing winds. Then she flicked her arms up, and the maelstrom exploded outwards. Sheikoh’s arms instinctively shot up, protecting his face. Furious gusts tangled his hair and tugged at his clothing.

  It was over in a second.

  He cautiously lowered his arms, staring at the figure across from him, eyes wild with hope. Emili..? Could it… be?

  Sheikoh met her gaze, and an icy shiver traced his spine. He immediately knew that this was not the girl he’d known and loved.

  This was not Emili.

  Chapter 14: A Sycrarian’s Curse

  Magic glared from her eyes. Emili’s face was half hidden behind a pair of flames, spurting radiant, flaring sparks into the air. Like the eyes of the Celestials’ he’d faced, only… well, more. The Celestial’s glow hadn’t extended past their eyes. Emili’s however leapt and danced above her sunny, blonde hair like fire. White fire. Edged with brilliant rainbow.

  The room around them had suddenly been bleached white. They were alone inside an empty, stark-white box. Sheikoh couldn’t tell how far it all stretched; there didn’t seem to be any shadows at the edges of the walls. If he hadn’t felt the ground beneath his feet, he would’ve thought he’d somehow ended up in the middle of a cloud.

  The only colors were his and Emili’s. Sheikoh thought through the possibilities, trying to determine what entity hid beyond those white flames. Only one explanation made sense.

  “So… There really is a god, huh?” Sheikoh asked nervously.

  He’d never really believed in a supreme being. Until now.

  “It would seem so, my lord,” Emili intoned in a Celestial’s eerie voice. “ What is thy bidding?”

  Sheikoh started when he heard the Celestial double voice reverberate from Emili’s mouth. Then he forced out a laugh at the statement. God had to be joking. That was a joke. Right? This was God.

  Sheikoh’s laughter fell flat and hollow. It elicited no response from the creature inside Emili. He quickly stopped, fidgeting under the menacing impassivity of Emili’s flame-eyed face.

  “Yep that’s me, good old God, creator of the heavens and the earth dot dot dot. But no, really, mate- uh sire, I mean… what is going on here?” Sheikoh asked Emili’s body uncertainty, unsure how he was supposed to address a deity. “Why can’t I just, you know, move on?”

  The flickering, rainbow-outlined flames of Emili’s eyes watched Sheikoh for a few moments without a change in the girl’s expression.

  “I don’t understand what you mean, my lord,” God finally responded in the double-voice of magic.

  “Okay, stop with this lord thing. I get it, I’m sorry about what I said before, you’re the supreme deity and I’m a lowly human and all. Why not just give a break, you know?” Sheikoh’s mouth exclaimed suddenly before hurriedly adding “ma’am.”

  ‘Wow… you really should be medicated or something,’ he derided himself ruefully. He steeled himself against an explosion of God’s hellfire wrath.

  Nothing happened. After a moment, he heard the reverberating double-tone again.

  “I am not any manner of deity. I the Sycrarian exile. I assumed you some manner of dei
ty; your voice was the crystal focus that summoned me here,” the Sycrarian mused, looking at Sheikoh with an appraising flare in the twin flames of its eyes. Sheikoh looked back confused.

  “Wait, I summoned you? What are you talking about?” Sheikoh asked whatever was inside of Emili’s body.

  The walls of the room suddenly reverberated with the sound of Sheikoh’s screaming. ‘-YOU IMMORTAL ASSHOLE! SHOW YOURSELF!!!!’ Sheikoh felt a flush rise on his cheeks.

  Did this thing… see… everything?

  “Well, I have a question,” Sheikoh said, narrowing his eyes at the creature. “Why didn’t you just appear here? Why are you inside of Emili’s body right now?”

  “You summoned me here, I came. You couldn’t see my essence, so I was compelled to appear before your person. I took possession of the only empty vessel available,” Khryzt explained without inflection.

  Sheikoh nodded, looking at the leaping, white flames of the creature’s eyes thoughtfully.

  “So I summoned you? I somehow forced you here?” Sheikoh asked. The white-flame-eyes flickered with green and blue sparks, and Emili’s head nodded.

  “Explain,” Sheikoh ordered, watching the color-edged flames in Emili’s eyes spit rainbow sparks above her hair.

  Was he saying he was forced to obey Sheikoh..? Then again…

  Anything seemed possible in this strange world.

  “It is as I said, my lord. You called and I came. Of course, I assumed that ‘immortal asshole’ was some outer world reference to me, the Sycrarian exile. By definition, we are undoubtedly immortal,” the Sycrarian’s power-filled voice murmured in response. “Though if you wish me to leave-

  “No! No, that’s quite all right, mate,” Sheikoh told the ‘Sycrarian’ hurriedly, who nodded Emili’s head solemnly.

  “As you wish,” it replied in a haunting double-voice.

  “So what’s your name, mate?” Sheikoh asked, thinking hard.

  “Before my exile, I was called Khryzt Arian,” Khryzt murmured introspectively. Sheikoh shivered a little at the creature’s alien voice.

  “Why were you exiled? And where were you exiled from?” Sheikoh asked Khryzt slowly. The thief wasn’t about to start making plans based on the information of a being that he knew nothing about. There was a pause, as though Khryzt was trying to remember.

  “A vision took hold of me as I lay in my former home, spanning the depths of the Black Moon. My mind was wrenched by the image of myself entering the challenge ring to face the most powerful of all of the Sycrarian, Zynia Faet. I knew that I would not survive the battle. Fear drove me out of the Black Moon. I dared to disobey the orders of the Celestial Crescent, so I was exiled for all of eternity. I exist alone to wander the Transcendent Plane in punishment,” Khryzt Arian told Sheikoh, voice dripping with regret.

  “You have the power to release me from my exile. I will exchange any willing service if you would only let me go...”

  “Let you go? What would that involve?” Sheikoh asked.

  “You could… Grant me permission to finally… dissipate…” Khryzt’s double-voice finished.

  It was ironically exactly what Sheikoh had been demanding when he’d inadvertently summoned the Sycrarian here. The teenager felt a flash of pity, but he just couldn’t let go of the revulsion that gripped his stomach at the knowledge that the creature was inside of Emili’s body, even if it wasn’t really her body.

  Sheikoh’s eyes widened a fraction. He narrowed them back into an expressionless mask. He knew that the idea didn’t bear thinking about. The notion was be morally abhorrent, a perversion of nature. He had seen enough movies to know that playing god never ended well, so Sheikoh wasn’t going to try anything until he knew whether his idea might work.

  “I could help you return to your people, couldn’t I?” Sheikoh asked slyly.

  Khryzt’s fiery eyes spat a whirlwind of colored sparks. The creature hesitated a moment before nodding Emili’s head in assent.

  “The Celestial Crescent is subject to the will of an Outworlder,” Khryzt confirmed in twin hopeful voices. Sheikoh nodded back.

  “Okay then. Here’s the deal. You bring Emi to life, and show us how to get back to the outside world, and I’ll get you back to that Black Moon of yours. Sound like a deal?” Sheikoh offered with glittering eyes, holding a hand out to the Sycrarian.

  “You vow that you’ll end my exile and force the Celestial Crescent to forgive my crime?” Khryzt echoed, sounding desperate. Sheikoh nodded at the Sycrarian with a jittery smile. Khryzt didn’t make any motion to grasp Sheikoh’s outstretched hand, so he simply held it up.

  “So what do I have to do to get you back there?” Sheikoh asked with a smile.

  “Offer your forgiveness to the plane,” Khryzt told him hungrily.

  “I, Sheikoh, give Khryzt forgiveness for any crimes that he’s committed, as long as he brings me and a living Emili back to Earth,” Sheikoh intoned with excitement, wondering if this was really possible. He hoped with every fiber of his desperate being that he wasn’t lying unconscious in the rubble of Sanatous’s house right now. This was all very unrealistic.

  “The terms are acceptable,” Khryzt responded gravely in its eerie voice, the white flames of its eyes flared with multicolored sparks.

  “Firstly, we must revive this empty body. The only way that we might accomplish that requires that we draw out the body’s individual soul. When this Emi lived-”

  “Emili. Emili Wray,” Sheikoh quietly interrupted the Sycrarian.

  “Then I will search for this Emili Wray,” The Khryzt told Sheikoh in its powerful, menacing voice.

  The Sycrarian sat down and shut Emili’s eyelids over the white flames in her eyes. Sparks escaped from underneath Emili’s lashes and twinkled with different colors. Sheikoh paced for a while, before sitting across from Khryzt. He watched the brilliant sparks float around while he waited anxiously. After what seemed like forever, Khryzt opened Emili’s eyes. Their sudden flickering startled Sheikoh.

  “Emili Wray is already dissipated. I cannot bring her back,” the Khryzt informed him. The Sycrarian’s double voice dashed through Sheikoh’s hopes like a sliver of ice. “But there might be another way…”

  Sheikoh waited with baited breath.

  “Did you love her?”

  He started.

  The creature sounded genuinely curious. Sheikoh looked at it with a wild desperation, before glancing back down. He had loved Emili, but he had never told the girl. Sheikoh was ashamed. He suddenly realized that he had something in common with the flame-eyed creature; both of them had proven cowards.

  “Yes. I still do,” Sheikoh whispered quietly.

  “Only Outworlders love. It is the signature of creation. You and this Emili Wray might share the traces of your death shattered bond. If so, we could recreate the soul’s structure and then reinforce it with the energies of the Transcendent Plane. Shall I, my lord?” Khryzt suggested in its double-tone.

  “Do it, mate,” Sheikoh told him with a hopeful nod.

  Memories of the happiest moments that Sheikoh had shared with Emili flickered through his mind faster than he could comprehend. He could feel a well of warmth light up his chest. It grew and grew, faster and faster, until it burned throughout his body like a raging inferno. Sheikoh raised his face to the white ceiling and opened his mouth in a scream of pain, but nothing came out of his mouth. Sheikoh could feel something crawling through his throat. He wanted to gag but he couldn’t.

  Suddenly, tendrils of sapphire light forced themselves out of Sheikoh’s mouth and eyes, leaving a sense of relief in their wake. The floated in the air and wrapped around one another until they’d taken the weakly glowing silhouette of Emili. It was easily the most beautiful thing that he’d ever seen.

  Then he flinched as the soul twitched and jolted under the barrage of an internal explosion of white life. Sheikoh turned and saw the solid Emili’s mouth was open in scream, gushing rainbow-outlined power into her soul. Sheikoh turned from the
Sycrarian and watched it glow brighter and brighter until he had to cover his eyes before the blinding light.

  Khryzt stopped blasting power out of Emili’s mouth. Sheikoh’s neck snapped over to the soul and his heart leapt. Emili’s soul opened its brilliant eyes and looked at him for a moment. Then the soul walked into Emili’s body and disappeared with a ripple of light. Emili’s eyes were still leaping with white flames.

  “Now for the last part of our agreement; yours and Emili’s passage back home,” Khryzt reminded Sheikoh, who bobbed his head quickly in assent.

  “Let’s do this, mate. And thank you so much for everything that you’ve done. Really,” Sheikoh expressed fervently. Emili’s neck bent in a limp nod.

  “Travel between the Transcendental Plane and the outside world is only possible through the two artifacts, the Transcendental Amulet and Codex,” Khryzt explained to Sheikoh in its eerie voice.

  “So that explains how I got here…. And why Dream wants that book…” Sheikoh thought out loud.

  Was Dream after the Sycrarian’s crescent thing? Was that why the Celestial wanted to codex and amulet - to get here? He shot a guilty glance at Khryzt.

  “…But they didn’t come here with me,” Sheikoh told the Sycrarian, forcing himself to hold the white-flame eyes rather than glance over Emili’s features. “The amulet and codex brought me here but they didn’t come with me?”

  “They came with you,” Khryzt told Sheikoh. “You seem to have carried them here inside of you. You just have to find them inside. Close your eyes and picture the amulet and the codex; they’ll be there. Then, hold onto Emili when you attach them to one another. Thank you, my lord. Farewell.”

  The white fire in Emili’s eyes died in an instant and the girl collapsed onto the white floor. Sheikoh ran to her side, and felt her neck for a pulse. He instantly made out the strong beat with a flare of ecstasy. He sat down next to Emili and crossed his legs, pulling the girl’s unconscious head onto his lap. He brushed her hair out of her face and stare at her lovingly for a minute. Then Sheikoh closed his eyes.