“Not funny,” Robert said on a glare, stalking to the back of the tent and entering the weapons room.
“What’s different now, and why are you being so nice? How do we know you won’t turn on us the next chance you get?” David stood, walking toward her. “Just like up there when you could have stopped Enoch, stopped the droids. And when you should have found Ava, not tried to kill her.”
“I can control it now, Enoch’s connection to me.”
David rolled his eyes, not convinced. “It’s not about being connected, you were programmed to be his spy, his assassin, to be used – you are his will.”
She looked down, fiddling with the front of her shirt. “Do I have any choice of my own?”
“Yes, of course you do,” I said, standing and then walking over to her, laying a comforting hand on her arm. She looked up and met my gaze, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Does it say anything in those books about how long it takes for such a Shadowing to come back?” I asked Anaya.
Anaya’s long fingers gracefully flicked to one of the pages, unfolding the page she had marked earlier. “If I am interpreting it correctly, we have two days.” Her green-blue eyes meeting mine optimistically.
I walked over to her and taking the book from her lap, I read the text.
“It was harder to come back this time, but I did it, and from the pile of tablets lying on my silver tray, I’d say I was dead for almost two solid days. I guessed that, eventually, I would not come back. It hurt more this time, my mind took a while to reboot, and some parts of my memories are blank. I can’t believe they would do this to me; killing me like it was nothing, how did they know what I was? How did they know I would come back, or did they even care? I think, no, I know they are watching, monitoring, trying to find ways to harness the powers that come with the disease, but I don’t know how much longer I can stay with myself, come back to my former. It’s dark sometimes and it’s breaking me, but I have to come back, I have to record this. You have to know what not to do, you have to. I have no way of hiding them from you, soon they will see the bump. I don’t want this life for you. I need to get out. I need to find a way to control the blood-shift, it needs to get us out of here. Father is dead, they killed him right before my very eyes. He wanted to tell me something, something that was worth dying over. I have to rely on the one thing I hate being, the only thing that can save you now is my disease.”
I flipped to the next page – blank, and the next page – blank.
“That’s it?” Quickly, I flipped through the rest of the book, all the pages after that were also blank.
“Let me see that.” Robert tried to pull the book from my hands. I hesitated.
“I won’t steal it. I think…” He took the book from me, held it to the light, folding the book so the pages were exposed to it. He smiled. “There are indentations, see?” He gestured, calling us closer.
“It’s impossible to read.”
“Perhaps it’s been enchanted?” Rion came closer, his arm holding me around my waist. His warmth sent swells of hotness over my skin when I leaned my back into his chest.
“There is something else we could do. If there was once an ink of some kind, we could use a chemical reaction to bring it out again.”
“Good idea,” said David. “Now, while you all stand around figuring that out, I need food.”
“Food?” Robert repeated. “Now there is something we all could use right now.”
Tatos groaned from the bunk. “I’ll go with you. There is no way I can sleep through all of your chitter-chatter.” He swung his legs off the bed, sat up with a big yawn, and then his face went blank. “Where is she?”
We all looked around, trying to figure out what he was talking about.
“Crap!” I rubbed the space between my eyes. “We need to find her.”
“How did we not see her leave?” Tatos shot us all a horrid, solid glare.
Everyone turned to the tent’s entrance, the fold flapped in the wind.
“Why would she even leave without saying a word?”
“Who?” asked Robert.
“We need to find her!” Rion turned, taking my cloak from my bunk to place on my shoulders.
I pushed it aside. “I don’t need that here.” I stared at the dark, blood stain tainting its shimmering, gray material. Every time I looked at the cloak from now on, Troy’s blood would always be there, a symbol of our failure.
“What is she up to now?” David grabbed his weapons harness from the table. “Damn! I was so hungry,” he mumbled.
“What’s going on?” Robert asked again.
“The clone, you idiot, she’s not here, or do you see something we don’t?” David said, fastening the harness to his cargo pants.
“Oh,” Robert finally said.
David and Tatos started for the tent’s entrance.
“Wait!” Anaya ordered. “I did not feel any ill intentions from her earlier, I think I know where she went, we just need to let her be for a while.”
“What?” David turned back.
Anaya nodded to him.
“Am I going to regret this later?” He stared at her.
She shook her head, smiling, placing a soft peck on his cheek. His blush was instant, and I almost felt uncomfortable at his embarrassment.
“Anaya is right,” I agreed, taking Rion’s hand which still lingered on the hilt of his blade. His eyes searched mine. I moved his dark hair over his shoulder. “What could she possibly get up to here?”
“Hello!” Robert called to us. “We can’t trust her! Look at what happened the last time? She almost killed us, threatened our entire scheme.”
“Do what you must,” Tatos said. “I won’t trust that thing.” He turned to leave.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Listen, we need to give her some sense of trust, even if you fake it, she needs it, don’t forget she is a copy of Ava, and the same basic rules apply – she needs to evolve.”
“I am done with that crap!” Robert took off, placing the journals in Anaya’s hands. “Tatos wait up!” he yelled, sliding a short blade into one of his many pockets. It clambered against the other metal objects he had stashed in there.
“Anaya?” David turned for confirmation from her.
“Let us wait for Kronan.”
He nodded.
Dave stalked back in. Rion tucked my hair behind my ear, gifting me his trust and consideration.
“Come, Bongi, we need to eat soon,” Rion said to him, and leaned over to kiss my forehead.
At the mention of food, my stomach rumbled.
“Say no more!” Dave’s smile beamed. The three of them left.
When the tent was empty, except for the slow patter of water dripping from the tent’s edges, it was deadly quiet with a chill running through before the flap closed again.
“I never welcomed the silence as much as now,” I said, falling back onto the bunk, and with my arms stretched over my head, I drew in a huge breath.
“Maya?” Anaya’s voice floated toward me. “What is it, I know you’ve had something on your mind since…”
I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. “It’s Mom.”
Anaya’s warm scent engulfed me as she sat down on the bunk beside me, the mattress dipping with her weight. I let it linger for a while, she was the closest thing to Mom right now.
“My sister would be proud,” she said, laying her hand on my cheek.
I met her eyes. “It’s not that, I know that.”
“You miss her.”
I sighed.
“It’s not your fault you…”
I cut her off before she could finish explaining with, “It’s not that.” I sat up taking her hand and placing it in my lap. “If she’s not dead like the clone said, then where is she?” I glanced down at our hands on my lap. From all the exposure to the sun, my skin tone was almost the same golden brown as hers. “I don’t know how, but when you lifted the dead spell, there was something that washed
away with it, like a memory, something important about Mom.” My eyes met hers again. I held back tears. “You have to tell me you feel it too, and when I went back there, I felt her presence lingering in that fortress.”
“Maya.” Anaya stopped my anxious rumbling. “Did you not wonder how you were able to do the things you are able to do all of a sudden? Or, how I am able to draw on spells more powerful than even Kronan can handle?”
I swallowed. “Her?” I wanted to cry, okay, so I did spill tears.
“She’s with us, around us, in us.”
“So she sacrificed again for us, for this damn prophecy,” I said, twirling the diamond pendant around my neck, then fiddled with the bracelets on my wrist; remembering that the clone had the companion gauntlets. “If the clone finds out, she will harness Mom’s power through...”
“Don’t think like that,” she said, lifting my chin so our eyes met. Her warm eyes comforted mine, her kindness reminded me of Mom in so many ways.
“I failed both Ava and Mom.”
“No honey,” she consoled, wiping her tears. “You are very brave, strong and smart. If anything, you should heed Arriana’s words. Everything happens for a reason.”
“I am tired, so, so tired,” I sobbed into her chest.
Anaya held me to her as my sniffles escaped, cries and concerns coming out in moans and loud weeps as I released the restraints of the emotions I had held back since my father’s death.
“She will come back to us.” Anaya stroked my hair.
“Why did she leave us?”
I sat back, wiping tears. I narrowed my eyes on hers. “You knew. You knew this was going to happen?”
Her silence was all I needed. I felt mad, hurt, disappointed, rejected. I searched her eyes. Could she be so caught up as a Truth Seeker of the prophecy that she didn’t care what happened to any of us? How could she let the prophecy rule over all else? I was starting to see things from Ava’s point of view. I started to hate the prophecy. I would not believe we all merely existed because of it, that we were tied to it, ruled by it. It’s taken from us, twisted our realities, but I wouldn’t let it break us. My thoughts lingered, suspended – moments passed. I tried really hard to push down the hate and anger I was feeling toward Anaya. Her hand reached for mine. I pushed it off, stood from the bed.
“I dislike you very much right now. Never touch, or speak to me ever again!” I shrieked.
“Maya, you don’t understand.”
“I am done! With you, with Kronan, with this dammed prophecy. You say events just roll inside of your head, that the prophecy speaks to each individual Truth Seeker and you just follow blindly along?” I pulled the beads from under my shirt and tore them from my neck. They bled to the floor in droplets of turquoise and pearl. I stomped some of them into the canvas, forcing the material into the soggy ground. “I am not Minoan,” I said with some satisfaction. I didn’t want to take the words back. I meant them at the time, and they lingered and clawed at my heart.
“I made a promise,” she began.
I stood trembling. “You let her die!” I spat.
It threatens to take you,
transforming your thoughts and motives.
You start to question your own sanity.
Never fear, for it binds you.
This, too, will come to pass,
There is a lesson for you here.
It’s not the blizzard you survived,
it’s the way you tasted each snow flake.
Don’t slip away,
there is only up from here.
Always remember; you make who you are.
In this life, it is all about design. The body’s perfect design. The mind’s extraordinary design. Destiny’s design. The color of your blood, the design of it, and the loss of it. But the one design that threatens to break, tear down, and ruin the very fabric of all life is the Shadowing disease, and how it is designed to take, pull and twist everything you own, all your feelings, your thoughts and turn it all against you. To take you, and to take over you. It will become all, that is its purpose. For a while we had thought it to be a thing, a person, or even an evil ancestral spirit coming back to avenge its fall from power. The Shadow is all of those things. It’s like gravity, it turns you, twists, and takes all of you toward it. It’s the push and pull, it chokes, claws and splinters all that is good and pure. It requires one thing to survive – guilt. It will take anything from you; sorrow, regret, pain, panic, fear and your grief, and turn it into rage. It grows like a dark, bellowing smoke; stifling, consuming, and acts on the one thing it was meant to do – survive at all and any cost. There is a story of how it came about, where it all started. The murder of a brother. The first brother of human kind. Banished by his God to live all eternity in the wallowing and guilt of his unforgivable sin, on a place called Earth. Tormented with blame and regret, and sorrow turned to anger. Seeking redemption in all the wrong places, he struck a deal with a fallen immortal. The fallen could not lift the curse of immortality, but it could take away his memories and the feelings which tortured him. So, the fallen exchanged his memories with a disease that came from his very own torment. The fallen wanted revenge. He believed his kind superior, and humans did not deserve what they were given. He would prove this. He would prove that humans were unworthy, disgusting, and lustful creatures. First, he wanted to take the one thing he desired; Earth. Caine, the bearer of the curse as he was once named, was tricked with the Shadowing disease that would affect every single blood relative until the end of time. And like Caine, each blood relative would commit an unforgivable evil act – kill, and after a mortal death that very evil act would raise him or her from the grave, become an eternal Shadow and seek out others to turn – to rule over all. It was successful in the year known to humans on Earth as 2030, when all the pure humans died out. The original carriers known once as the Brotherhood, Illuminatus, were a cover for what lay behind it all. The Shadow. Illuminatus seeks the perfect evolution of man, but it is said that one still remains; a star that holds the secrets to the Elite Circle of Souls destined to purify all life. She holds the knowledge that could ignite the two souls who hold the key to the most powerful weapon ever created – the only weapon against the Shadowing disease; the White Devine. Should the wrong two souls ignite, it will all come down like gravity swinging an entire planet out of orbit and suck the living into a black hole, taking all in existence as we know it along with it. I was desperate to get to Legentium, because he could tell us who she is; this star that holds the answers. She was the last of her kind, and we were the first. Legentium could read my soul, purify my blood, and if I was a copy of Ava, I could possibly be ignited with Troy and do what was expected of us. Yet, I was afraid for all the wrong reasons, afraid that by the time they saved my prime, Ava, it might be too late. Illuminatus was now exposed, they had nothing to hide, and they had Ava and all that came with her. Her soul and blood DNA held all the answers to the ultimate race, but also to the one thing that could stop them.
I left them arguing and bickering, we had more desperate troubles ahead. While Enoch was asunder, I had two days to get it done before he awoke and reawakened his will through our tied blood disease. My prime was not dead. I could feel her, like a thin thread holding our lifelines together, because every so often her conscience tugged on mine. Our minds often weaved together to create one solid blanket of memories. Soon, it would become difficult for us to tell each other apart. The only way I could tell I was the clone was my lack of physical sensation. But it was my lack of compassion and guilt that should have told me. My boots sank into clingy, red mud as I made my way through the maze of tents and huts. The sun was starting to push through gray clouds and burn off the hazy fog covering the entire village in stark, morbid loss. The mud became thicker the further I left the village behind. The effect of the shielded dome was wearing off, which could only mean Kronan was getting weaker. All these things, a blatant reminder that we were running out of time. I had to find Troy, I needed to s
tay close to him in order to keep the Shadowing disease at bay. It started feeling very much like the Change Ava had once gone through a few months ago; bones that ached for conversion, veins burned to evolve, and a flickering mind. The very air I breathed started to burn my lungs, tightening its intentions over my chest. The next evolution of us was Troy, and to be ignited with him. I had to be strong for this thing that had fallen upon us all. There was no choice. The longer we took, the stronger the Shadow became, transcending all, and linking Ava and me to all who had been affected by the disease. Exposing the one thing that could unfold it all – Troy. I stepped carefully over fallen debris, bent over branches and flattened grass patches so as not to slip in the smooth sludge. As water and mud puddled over my boots, a memory came to me, well, not my memory really. We all know what happens when either of us relives a memory – we truly do relive it…
With a slow screech of metal, the guards closed the gate behind us, the air vibrated and silence fell, a soft pitter-patter of rain echoed throughout my bones. I turned back, staring at the huge iron gates, the winged pattern of our military badge spread from one wall to the other; I was no longer welcome in Vista, regarded as an outcast. A stranger. A crazy Changed one. Sam stood staring through the metal spokes on the gray, iron gates of disapproval, and as the wind picked up some of her inflamed hair it brushed and streaked it across the dark, gray sky – like fire against ice. I waved, water darkening the soft material of the gloves Maya had given me, the golden pattern almost fading with each drop. I loved the rain so much, but everything seemed out of place because of it. I will never be happy; our Keepers have made sure of that. All because I was not meant to know what feelings were. I kept my eyes on the soaked forest floor. I wanted to feel like this forever – forever gray, forever numb, forever sad. The more negative thoughts I had the worse I felt, and the worse I felt, the more I welcomed the pain and anger that harbored inside me. It was the only part of me I could control.
I slipped out of her memory. “Sam,” I said to myself with a heavy sigh.
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