by Hana Starr
Iilor’s hand came back down on her arm, and he whispered satanically in her ear that it was time for their big show. Chills broke out on the base of her spine and spread all throughout her body. She knew that this time, she would have no choice. She found that her will was much stronger than she originally thought of herself.
He came closer to her, and she finally opened her eyes. He had his sharp talons at the top of her eyelids, ready to take them. Gasping, she jerked her head away. He caught her on the other side and forced her to meet his eyes.
“If you do not open them, I will make sure you can never close them again. You only have those two options.”
She submitted, keeping her eyes open and staring at him with the intentions to pierce his soul. She hoped with every ounce in her being that Arden had realized what was happening and warned someone. Perhaps they could kill Iilor before Iilor and the Rath destroyed Ethra.
Chapter Five
There was silence over the crowd of Ethrans, all of them transformed into human bodies. The spread out as far as her eyes could see, all the way to the horizon. Perhaps it wasn’t the entire population, but it was most of them to be sure. Zipporah gazed down to the sea of humans that looked nearly identical to her. She pretended they were her family. She pretended that the men and woman in the front row were her mother and father, her siblings. The loves that she had lost. And then she saw Arden, and didn’t have to pretend. He was looking up at her, his chin held proudly in the air. His eyes were full of something she hadn’t seen in a very long time—love. The raw love pouring out of his expression overwhelmed her, and made her knees give in. Iilor caught her before she toppled over, knowing she was sick to her stomach. He couldn’t let her pass out before the big show.
In sickening detail he had explained what would happen in the following minutes. He had planted the other Raths along the borders of the crowd of Ethrans. They were prepared to strike when he gave the word. Thousands upon thousands of Ethrans led to the pen for slaughter, and Zipporah was to watch it all happen.
The Ethrans were trapped together in a large electric fence, unable to move. As beings of light, there is no issue with limited space. But being transformed into human bodies, they were squished and trampled together. Iilor’s plan had worked to perfection and he had used her like his favorite instrument. She watched them all, feeling nauseous.
“Now, for the big finale.” Iilor stayed invisible so that no Ethran would be able to change into his form. He needed them to stay weak for his plan to work. He made his voice as loud as he possibly could, and began to address the planet. Although this was not every Ethran, it was enough to be catastrophic. Then he would take Zipporah to the ends of Ethra and kill every last Ethran in existence.
“Your people took mine. You took everything. Rath was prospering. We were you neighbors. Your brothers. And you killed us all. Almost. You left a few brothers and sisters of Rath alive, and we have returned with a fury that cannot be satisfied!”
His hands touched Zipporah’s backside softly, scratching her with his talons to create a response. It was time. He had his fellow Raths to place some sort of machines on each corner of the square the Ethrans were trapped inside. Zipporah did not want to know what would happen when they turned the machines on.
For a moment, Iilor paused. He seemed to be talking to someone behind him. He let go of the grip he had on Zipporah. For just the faintest moment, he turned his attention away from her. Immediately, she knew what she had to do. Her eyes met Arden’s, and with a soft smile to him, she took her last look at him. Finally, she took two fingers from her right hand and plunged them unforgivingly into her eyes. A scream that could have reached Earth erupted from her mouth. Everything was black, red, and light. The Ethrans were free, escaping their capture with ease.
“What have you done!” Iilor cried, clamping down on her shoulder and jerking her body towards him. Although she couldn’t see his face, she could feel his fury radiating over her. Boiling pain poured from her eyes, but she was able to push it to the back of her mind. She focused on the fact that she had just saved an entire species from annihilation.
“I made the right choice,” she whispered, preparing her body for death. There was no way he would allow her to live now, now that she was of no use to him. She felt a blade pressed to her neck, and sent a prayer to the gods she had believed in on Earth. She prayed for them to accept her into whatever heaven existed. Death would be welcome now.
“You will not touch her,” Arden’s voice thundered through Zipporah’s ears. She felt the blade fall from her neck and heard a heavy thud—the sound of a body hitting the floor. Searching around in her new darkness, Zipporah found the fallen body of Iilor. Her hands groped in the darkness for his chest. When she found it, there was no rise and fall. He was dead.
“Arden?” She called out, holding her arms up for him to find her. She realized that she would never feel him again—never see him again. He would only be a light to her now. Nothing more.
“I’m here,” He whispered. His voice sounded airy and ethereal. Otherworldly. Zipporah wanted to cry. But she no longer had the ability. So instead, she backed herself into a corner near where she had fallen and tucked her head between her knees. Was she stupid or brave? Surely her eyesight was a small price to pay for an entire planet.
“Are they going to kill me?” She asked, trying to look in the direction that Arden’s voice came from. She heard a small laugh, but she couldn’t possibly understand what might be funny.
“You just saved the world, you idiot. They’re going to do something far better than kill you.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she didn’t have time to think about it. As her head remained tucked into her knees, the colors behind her blinded eyes slowly began to fade in. An icy cold feeling rushed through her brain, and she toppled over in a pool of blood.
****
Zipporah couldn’t feel much, other than a throbbing pain in the depths of her eyes and a hand holding hers. Her consciousness faded in and out, but she heard someone whispering to her softly. Perhaps it was her mother. She couldn’t quite remember, but she might have been home from school with a migraine. She got migraines a lot when she was little.
“Mama,” she tried to whisper. She could feel the dead skin of her chapped lips scraping against the other. The hand squeezed hers again, but didn’t say anything. She was comforted, knowing that her mother was with her.
“Zipporah,” a voice whispered. She didn’t quite recognize the sound, but it also set off a little bell in the back of her head. A flood of warmth to distract her from the pain.
Suddenly, without warning or reason, all of her consciousness slammed back into her head at once. She jolted upward and was immediately sick. The vomit sprayed down her front and the blankets that covered her body. A hand went to her back and rubbed it gently while another person cleaned her up.
“Oh my god,” she cried. “I’m blind.”
“You saved our world,” Arden’s voice soothed. “You will be greatly rewarded.” His hands held her shoulders tenderly, as if he was holding her up and keeping her from breaking all at the same time. Her ears twitched upward at the realization that Arden was touching her with human hands. Fear jolted into her heart, unsure of what to think. Did this mean that the remaining Rath could kill the Ethrans after all?
“How are you touching me?” She asked, reaching for his body to feel it for herself.
“We were granted a gift, Zipporah,” he whispered to her. “But you have to choose if it’s worth it.”
“What do you mean?” She questioned, sitting up a little straighter in the bed. Her mind raced as she wondered what possible gift he could be speaking of. Of course having him touch her was a gift, but what else could there be?
“Surely you remember what you spoke to the elders about, yes?” He asked her, touching her face softly. She nodded, remembering everyone left on Earth, slowly dying. She knew that there was still hope for them to be saved,
but unsure of how diminished that hope was since she lost her eyesight.
“The elders can heal your eyes, but you would become part Ethran. You would lose a lot of your human memories, and would never see me as a human again. We could never be together. But if you stay this way, I have been granted the power to remain in my human form while I am in your presence. If you become a part of Ethra, you will be unable to perform the tasks needed to save what is left of the Earth. It’s your choice. They are giving you the choice to be a part of us.”
Zipporah turned her head in the direction she thought Arden was coming from, unsure of what to say. She had already sacrificed her eyes, knowing that it would be forever. She could make peace with that. But she couldn’t make peace with allowing everyone on Earth to suffer and die. She couldn’t make peace with living in harmony with Arden, but nothing more.
“But what would we be if I became a part of Ethra?” She asked, biting her lip. What would they be either way?
“I could be myself,” he whispered. “and I would love you still, although you may no longer feel the same way about me.”
“Blindness is not the worst thing that could happen to me. I will accept it. The billions of people on Earth are worth more than one pair of eyes, I think.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and sighed. The darkness was tiresome. She wanted so much to be able to open her eyes and see Arden’s generated face looking softly at her. She wanted to know what the room around her looked like, or if there were other Ethrans standing near. She wanted to be able to do many things that her eyesight had afforded her, but she held onto her will.
“They said a few more days rest and you would be able to walk around again. Then we can get started. Human anatomy is unfamiliar to us and the Ethran healers are not totally sure how to treat you, but they are doing their best.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek gently.
“The Rath? Did you kill the rest of them?” She questioned, moving her head towards him again too quickly. He squeezed her hand happily and nodded, stupidly realizing that she couldn’t see.
“We killed them all. After you blinded yourself and Iilor was killed, their invisibility faltered. I’m still not sure why, but they were gone almost instantly. You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
Inexplicably, Zipporah felt a ping of sadness for the end of a species. As Iilor had said, they hadn’t all been evil. She turned her face away from Arden’s voice and smiled, half relieved and partially sad for the loss. She knew that Iilor had some bits of decency in him. She wished that had been enough.
“You are the bravest being I have ever known in all of the cosmos.” Arden’s hands were again on her face, touching her lovingly. She wondered if there was ever a chance in the world that they would be together. Maybe in some other world, where nothing bad ever happened.
“I don’t feel brave,” she whispered, grasping her own hands in her lap. Arden’s hand tenderly brushed across her face, but he offered no other compliments or encouragement. Zipporah didn’t mind this, however, and knew that his word was true.
“I’m sure you have plenty of things to do,” she said finally, “don’t waste your time here. We will be together again soon enough.”
Arden’s hand stopped on her check and turned her face to his. She could feel his warmth shine on her, and wondered for a moment if he could be in both Ethran form and human at the same time. She wondered if the bandages were removed from her face if she would be able to see the outline of light in her destroyed vision. He held her for a moment, and then he was gone. No more words, nothing exchanged. But that was enough for her. She sighed and mentally closed her eyes again, slipping back into the sleep that seemed to consume her.
****
Zipporah woke up again a day later, feeling worse than she ever had in her life. Her skin was on fire with fever, and she knew that some kind of infection had set in. Panic struck her heart, knowing that infections in wounds as serious as hers could be fatal. She began calling out for anyone that might be around to hear her.
“What is the matter, Zipporah?” A voice came to her ears. It wasn’t Arden, but someone else that she hadn’t met yet.
“Are you a healer?” She asked frantically, reaching out for whoever was near her.
“Yes, I am.” The voice replied. He sounded friendly enough, but slightly detached. She instructed him to wet her skin with cold water and to check her wounds and describe them to her. He sounded apprehensive, but followed her requests anyway. She decided not to question why he was able to use a body to tend to her wounds, too concerned for the fever that was taking over her.
“You have to get my temperature down. I think my eyes are infected.”
He removed the bandages from her face, gasping at what he could see.
“Tell me what you see,” she commanded, panicking at his surprise. He stuttered for a moment, then, put a mirror in her hands.
“Look for yourself.”
Zipporah, infuriated, threw the mirror down, prepared to explode her anger onto the healer—when she saw him. Out of one eye, she saw him, blurry as he was, standing in front of her. A gasp escaped her mouth and she dropped her anger immediately. She jumped up from her sedentary position and landed on her feet miraculously. Her body was still boiling with fever, but for some reason, she could see just a tiny bit of the world.
“Did you try to heal my eyes?” She asked, taking up the mirror and looking at herself as best she could. Nothing would focus in sharply, but she could see her general shape and features. If she focused intently enough, she could see the bruising around her eyes and the dried blood that had not been wiped off.
“No, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, to be honest. We had a storage of human medicines for Ethrans in human form. I just used what I thought would work the best.”
Zipporah laughed incredulously. “But I was totally blind. I gouged my eyes. How did they repair?”
He just looked at her and shrugged, seemingly impressed with himself that she was even still alive.
“I am a very skilled Ethran healer, but human anatomy frankly baffles me.”
She shook her head in disbelief, accepting that he had no idea what he did to heal her. She felt her forehead—her fever was breaking much more quickly than she thought it would have.
“Do you think more of my sight will come back?” She asked him, looking in the mirror again.
“It’s hard to say. Your eyes look like they have mostly reformed. Which I gather is rather impossible for your species. It is possible that more eyesight will return, or you did not completely blind yourself with the first blow.”
Whichever the case, Zipporah was happy that she had a little bit of residual vision to view the world around her. That is all she had wanted, after all. The first person she wanted to tell was Arden, but he wasn’t there.
****
After a shower and a proper change of clothes, a few Ethrans helped guide Zipporah to where Arden was. Even though she had recovered some vision, she couldn’t see well enough to get around on her own. They led her into a small room, where Arden’s silhouette stood at a window, surveying the world in front of him. She wondered if Ethra took his breath away, even if he saw it every day.
“Hello, stranger,” She rasped from the door. Her voice was still a bit hoarse from lack of use and dehydration. Arden turned around, looked at his newly changed human body, and then to her. Her eyes were slightly open—just enough to see the love spread over his face. Her heart melted at the sight. He was surely the most beautiful thing she could have seen.
“You can see me?” He asked, quickly advancing toward her. She nodded, not giving him the full scope of the situation—and not having time to. He gathered her gingerly in his arms and pressed his lips to hers, releasing a passion that she had never felt.
“I am so happy that you’re ok,” He whispered into her ear. The two Ethran girls that had led her to him backed out of the room, giving an odd and somewhat disapproving look to the couple. Zipporah
didn’t catch it, but Arden did. She tucked her head into his neck and breathed him in, relieved and in less pain than she was before. Zipporah was ready to take on her next battle: saving the human race.
Chapter Six
Zipporah sat around a table, face to face with the elders she had saved just days prior. They all offered her words of gratitude and favors if ever she needed them. For an Ethran, their word was their most valuable gift. They did not lie to each other. There were no empty promises for them.
“I hope you will accept our gratitude, and know that we do not take your sacrifice lightly.” Zipporah had regained most of her vision in one eye, but the other still remained completely dark. She was content with that, and accepted that she would be partially blind for the rest of her life. Arden’s hand came close to her own and laced his fingers through hers. Him being by her side meant the world to her, and she wished that she could tell him right there how important he was to her.
She listened to a well thought out plan that had clearly been devised over many months. They had been planning long before she had come into the picture. Together, the seven elders and the two lovers sat and discussed how they could possibly save the Earth from impending doom. They knew now that the darkness on Earth was caused by the Rath. After examining the Earth once more by telescope, they discovered that nothing had changed.
