The Other Side of Life (Book #1, Cyberpunk Elven Trilogy)

by Jess C Scott

  The strong winds began to lose their power. A soft, rain-watery aura of white gold hovered above Tavia and Dresan…and then above Nin, Anya, and Leticia. Anya thought she heard a choir of angels, singing in a language she didn’t know, but which cleansed her soul.

  Everything settled. Calm was restored.

  Anya took a long, deep breath of the fresh, purified air. She was filled with awe, when she saw the renewed Bloodstar in all its splendor. The gaping hollow, which had eaten away half of the Tree’s roots, was completely covered with fresh earth.

  “Anya,” a voice called out to her.

  It was a voice she knew well—Nin’s voice. But he lay as lifeless as before, unmoving and still, in her arms.

  “Anya…” The voice came from afar.

  Anya looked up, and saw Nin. His body—his spirit’s body—was radiant, and he was smiling his familiar, patient smile. “We did it, Anya. You did it.”

  “Nin?” Anya’s voice was shaking, sounding like it was going to crack. She felt like her whole world was spinning out of control. “What’s happening?”

  Anya felt a sudden gust of wind blow past her. When she looked down, all that was left in her hands was Nin’s crystal pendant.

  “Don’t worry, Anya. Everything will be all right.”

  “Are you alive? Where are you?” Anya asked in bewilderment, looking at Nin, while looking for him, at the same time. His tattoo had taken on the same crystal light glow, like the halo which surrounded Bloodstar, a few moments ago.

  “I’m on the other side,” Nin said simply, in a bittersweet kind of way, recalling the first time he’d made a short mention of it at Helli’sandur, never thinking he’d…

  “What other side?”

  “Na’urtha—the other side of life.” Nin’s face was composed. His eyes gleamed with a curious mix of angst, aching sadness, and deep insight and wisdom. He looked away, avoiding the disillusionment and frustration in the eyes of those he was leaving behind. “I finally understand it all now. Elvenhuman blood didn’t only mean the blood in the vials—it required a selfless act from a human and an elf to make it complete. When Julius sacrificed himself, so Leticia would live…that fulfilled the promise in the parchment.”

  Leticia gasped. “He did that…for me?” The pain in her heart was more than the pain she’d ever felt in her entire life. She started to sob, uncontrollably, recalling Julius’s last words to her.

  “You should be happy for him,” Nin said gently. “Now, he will be at peace.”

  Tavia said pensively, “Perhaps Julius is also on the other side of human life…”

  “But what about Nin? What does it mean to be on the other side?” Anya asked one more time, first looking at Tavia and then back at Nin.

  Nin’s eyes showed a glint of anguish. Neglect not, the other side of life, he said to himself, the last line of the poem. He looked down, wondering what to say, and said nothing to Anya. More words would only lead to more pain.

  Anya didn’t even know what or how she should feel. She felt as if Nin had departed from life all over again.

  By now, Dresan and Tavia were standing by Anya. Tavia put her arm around Anya’s shoulder, a gesture that was well-intentioned, but offered minimal comfort.

  “Na’urtha is where the most blessed of Elves go,” she let Anya know. “It’s where ‘the chosen dead’ go. It’s where the soul knows no boundaries.”

  Tavia stood her ground, facing Nin with a tight, terse smile, longing to hold Nin in a tight embrace. Her Elven cousin was so near, yet so far—abandoning the mission had not been an option, and they now had to go their separate ways. Dresan kept his stoic, silent stance, even though silent tears were building up and tearing him up inside. They were going to miss Nin, terribly. He was no longer on the same physical plane as they were, and they were powerless to turn back the hands of time.

  “You never said much about Na’urtha,” Anya said softly.

  Nin wondered if he should have, at Helli’sandur. But it wouldn’t have made any difference. He had given his life for another, and this was the consequence.

  “Everything will be all right,” Nin repeated. Tenderly, he said to Anya, “Take my pendant and keep it with you. I will always be with you. I will look over you and keep you safe.”

  “But…I don’t want to be safe,” Anya said in despair. “I want you back here…with me. There must be a way—there must be something we can do!”

  Tavia tightened her hold on Anya’s shoulder. Anya could say no more.

  “Go now,” Nin said gently. “Dresan and Tavia will help you find your way back. Remember, I am with you—always.”

  With that, he was gone.

  Fighting back tears, Anya started to follow the others who had already started to make their way out of the compound. No one spoke.

  Anya felt she was still standing in the light of his halo.

  “Anya…”

  She felt a light wisp of air against her neck, and saw a faint glimmer of Nin’s soulful form. She put her hand out to take the mini thumbdrive he passed to her from his N-Gage device.

  “It’s yours to keep.”

  Anya turned, and let the tears fall, when Nin left her with a light kiss on the side of her face.

  Anya, Leticia, Dresan, and Tavia took the train back to The Velvet Underground. Everyone was still quiet. They just sat, each one occupied in his or her own thoughts, not wanting to believe there was one less in their midst.

  Anya placed the blue box containing the remaining vials on the table. She was overwhelmed with guilt. She felt responsible for Nin’s death, and couldn’t understand why it had to be this way. They had been a team all along—it was just so wrong for Nin to end up having to face such an outcome, by himself. She couldn’t look at Tavia and Dresan, whose eyes were pained with the loss of their leader and comrade.

  Tavia and Dresan bit on their lower lip, keeping their gaze down. They knew they couldn’t fault Anya or Leticia—if it weren’t for the girls, they’d never have uncovered Julius’s plans. But maybe Nin wouldn’t be dead.

  There was not a breath of a sound, and no sign of movement either, from anyone. Anya was the first to break the silence.

  “Nin wouldn’t want it to be this way,” she whispered, feeling a sharp pang in her heart, when she said his name.

  None of it made any sense. What point was there in saving the universe, if the people she cared about weren’t there to share the new world with her? Why should a good person have to die in order to bring salvation to the rest? It filled Anya with a furious embitterment she had never harbored before. Now, she realized how relatively smooth-going her life had always been, up to this fateful day.

  Anya ran a hand over one of the vials, before turning to Leticia. “Do you know whose blood made up the elixir?” she asked.

  Leticia stared back. “The human and Elven blood, in the one…” She couldn’t bring herself to say Julius’s name. She felt sick to the bone. She was aware of the elves’ underlying tension and emptiness. Would Tavia and Dresan turn on them now, for what happened to Nin?

  Anya nodded, already tasting the incongruousness of her question. Whose blood formed the elixir made no difference as to the sacrifice involved.

  Leticia thought about it. “I think it was Tavia’s…but I really don’t know about the human one.” She glanced at the box. “I don’t know whose blood is in there too.”

  Dresan went up to the blue box. He held two of the vials up to the light, one labeled ‘H’ and the other labeled ‘E.’

  “Same texture, same color…” he noted. It was the same thing Julius had said to Nin.

  All of them looked at the vial in Dresan’s hand.

  Then all was quiet again.

  Chapter 20:

  Anya’s bike was as she had left it at the stone church. She looked up at Zouk in the distance, where the city’s skyline bled into the dawn on the horizon.

  “Maybe we should…” Leticia said, leaning in to look through the church’s open d
oor, “…stay here, for a while.”

  Both she and Anya had been going without an ounce of rest, and they were feeling the exhaustion setting in. They had nearly fallen asleep while riding on their bikes on several occasions, which was a dangerous situation to be in. Admittedly though, it couldn’t even be compared to the events they had just gone through.

  Anya angrily wiped aside the tears that streaked down the sides of her face, before riding back to her apartment, with Leticia on the passenger’s seat. She felt like she deserved to go straight into the jaws of Hell. She felt so useless—she could have, should have been more aware—she’d been there, facing Nin, right up to the last moment before he was hit by Julius’s bullet—why didn’t she do something? How could she have allowed it to end, the way that it did? All she wanted to do was close her eyes, and drown in the symphonies of her battered heart.

  The heavy feeling in their hearts lifted, as they rode into the city streets. New trees and shrubs seemed to have cropped up overnight—along the pavements, in the city’s parks, in people’s private plots of land—which turned Zouk into a flourishing urban garden city. Anya and Leticia noticed that the winding alleyways, sidewalk cafes, and hidden gardens, seemed fresher and more alive than the gleaming skyscrapers and the noise and neon of the capital. They passed by a floral shop which was close to overflowing with the most vibrant, fragrant flowers they’d seen in a long time. Most of the flowers were usually half-wilted at best, by the time they got to the store. Had it been just two days, since hearing about the parchment and Bloodstar?

  Anya swerved on her bike, when someone smashed a GVMT phone down onto the road in a fit of rage.

  “Massive GVMT malfunction across Zouk City,” Leticia read the text headline on one of the giant 24/7-broadcast screens on the city’s buildings.

  Anya and Leticia would have gotten some shut eye right away, if Leticia had not switched on the television for the morning news.

  “Breaking news,” they heard the TV announcer reciting in a hoarse voice. The usually bright-faced announcer, Robyn McCall, had frazzled hair, and looked like she had been working for the past twenty-four hours straight. “Xenith Corporation, one of the Big Four of international pharmaceutical megacorporations, has had its headquarters in Zouk City completely overrun by…”

  The announcer took a breath, as the screen showed a building that was covered with all sorts of plants, and vines, and shoots that snaked in and out of the building’s windows, threatening to swallow the entire building into the ground.

  “Plants!” Robyn McCall continued, incredulously.

  Anya and Leticia sat on the sofa, as the screen showed updates around the world, where similar vines and shoots were engulfing oil refineries, companies that didn’t abide by environmental standards, and anything that choked the systems of the natural world.

  “That’s my dad…” Anya murmured, when the screen showed clips of environmental activists around the world. The one with her dad showed a group holding up handwritten signs, with messages like: “Earth—1 / Xenith—0.” They were standing in front of Xenith’s center of operations, in the United Kingdom.

  “Yeah.” Leticia wouldn’t have recognized Mr. London, were it not for a cleft in his chin, and the longish bone structure of his face. “He’s in the U.K.?”

  “Mr. London is in…London.” Anya gave a quick smile, shaking her head slightly. Her dad looked to be in high spirits, which mattered more than his exact geographic location.

  “I guess legends really do exist,” Leticia said, sinking back into her seat.

  “I hope they don’t try to start excavating at the same site again,” Anya added, suddenly wondering if the same thing would happen all over again, as she tried to block out her feelings of sorrow.

  “I doubt it,” Leticia answered, motioning to the TV screen, and turning up the volume. She too, wanted to ease back into a life of normalcy, if it was possible. The station was broadcasting an interview with the chief scientist at Xenith Corporation.

  “It was amazing, what we witnessed,” the chief scientist declared, adjusting his glasses, which sat at a slant on his nose bridge. “After some investigation, we found that the whole Xenith team had been duped by Julius—”

  Former heir to the Xenith empire, Anya said to herself, as she read the text that ran at the bottom of the screen.

  “—into believing we were searching for a cure for all the cancers in the world. On returning to the lab, we discovered some secret documents Julius saved on his computer. He believed he had found an elixir to everlasting youth.”

  “An elixir?” the interviewer interrupted, before handing the slim microphone back to the scientist.

  The chief scientist nodded, scoffing a little at the notion. “We believe he was a little…misguided, in his zeal to prove himself to his father. Having witnessed what had taken place at the excavation site, and the events going on since then, the Xenith team has decided to look elsewhere for a cure for cancer.”

  “Samuel Lycata,” concluded the TV announcer, “the CEO of Xenith, could not be reached for comment.”

  Leticia turned off the television. She didn’t want to hear anymore, now that the whole ordeal was over.

  “Who figured out what to do at the Tree?” she asked. Despite not wanting to dwell on the subject, she couldn’t cease her thoughts from drifting back to Julius’s last moments.

  “Nin figured it out,” Anya replied.

  “How?”

  Anya could recall every single detail, from the first step onto the Amazonian floor, to the first time that the golden symbol appeared, and to the most poignant moment in her life, as Nin lay in her arms.

  “I think he said orn, ilfirin, lir, which revealed the symbol…and he just knew what to do.”

  Leticia nodded slowly. “He was right,” she said. “He was right about the Tree of Life.”

  “Yeah,” Anya breathed. Having his life on earth taken away, was what he got for being correct, with his interpretation of the poem. In the extreme, confusing mix of her emotions, Anya considered it an honor that she and Leticia had ever met the Elven trio.

  “You know,” Anya said to Leticia, who was half-asleep on the sofa. “When I said I stole his heart…I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Maybe you did…” Leticia murmured.

  * * *

  That night, Anya and Leticia rode over to Julius’s home, to get back Leticia’s bike that was parked there. There was no sign of anyone, or the Lexus and bikes the elves had hijacked the day before.

  Leticia turned back for a last look at the home, as she got onto her bike. They decided to get away as soon as they could. Anya secretly hoped the earth had literally consumed the underground lab.

  The girls made their way through the night traffic in the streets, before heading out to the stone church. Anya watched the lights of the receding city, from several glances in the mirrors by the handlebars. Anya’s memories felt like they were in decay. She edged further and further away from the world she thought she knew, with each breath she took.

  The two girls enjoyed the peace and serenity of the abandoned building, the same way Nin did. Still, Anya felt an unusual kind of emptiness, as she ambled in, along the cold floor of the walkway in between the pews.

  ASK and it will be given. SEEK and you will find. Anya read the scripture text, on a cracked black acrylic poster at the back of the church.

  Leticia knelt before the battered wooden cross, quiet in prayer. She’d grown up in a Catholic family, and still believed in the power of the Almighty. She prayed for the souls of Nin and Julius, and wished them well in their respective resting places.

  Anya didn’t feel like praying. Kneeling before the cross felt like a hypocrisy. A merciful god would have spared Nin. Her hatred boiled to a level that almost made her head spin. Even lowlifes still got a second chance at life.

  She bit on her lip, thinking of what she wanted. She didn’t want Nin all to herself. She simply wanted him back: his compan
y, his words of wisdom, his friendship, his promising touch…

  Anya almost wished he had never kissed her. Maybe then she would feel less ‘connected’ to him. Then again, it wasn’t the thrill of a wild romance Anya was pining for. What she wanted was Nin. She was only aware of it, now that he was really gone.

  Anya left Leticia alone after a minute or so, and took a walk outside. The whole earth seemed to breathe easier, and the air seemed to be alive with magic. Anya thought she saw little glitters in the dark, like the shadows she’d seen at Helli’sandur, dancing under the light of the moon.

  It was impossible, not to think of Nin, and the first time she had encountered him, at the stone church. She turned her head to the side, hiding a tear, even though there was no one to see her. She held his pendant.

  “Where are you?” the words escaped from her lips.

  A gentle breeze blew. Anya felt the light touch of a hand on the side of her face, before hearing a faint shiver of silver bells. She gazed around.

  “I’m here,” the wind seemed to whisper back.

  Anya thought she saw the gossamer wing of a butterfly, when her light pendant took on a glow. Nin appeared, in his soul form, standing before her. He startled her, with his unobtrusiveness.

  “Hello,” she said, a thrill running through her.

  Nin lifted one of her hands—a feeling light as the air itself—and gallantly kissed it. “How have you been?”

  A shade of anguish went over Anya’s eyes. “Missing you,” she said softly. He was one person she felt completely at ease with, even if it was during a moment where she didn’t feel particularly strong, or like she had it all together.