H.E.A.R.T. Saga: The Children

by Linna Drehmel

  “Stay out of this Lexa!” Fredrik warned her.

  “Enough talking!” JorRobert yelled, turning the weapon and randomly shooting into the crowd, striking a surprised middle aged man in the chest. Without a word he slumped to the ground, dead.

  “Now mind wipe that energy mad woman!” he screamed as he plunged the hot end of the emitter into Jude’s chest.

  Symon, feeling the searing pain of the man’s death as well as the cold fear that these two would kill someone he loved, desperately tried to think of something that would stall or stop them.

  “Why just mind wipe Donna? I don’t understand,” Symon asked JorRobert. “Why not kill her yourself with that emitter?”

  JorMelony appeared only to her husband once more, begging him, “Don’t do it!”

  “You just don’t get it, do you Symon?” JorRobert laughed mirthlessly, ignoring his wife’s invisible soul. “I don’t just want her dead. I want her in pain! I want both of you… all of you… to suffer for what you did to us!” JorRobert screamed hysterically. “Now get to it or Jude here will join that dead man!”

  With her head held high, DraDonna walked boldly to JorRobert. “I don’t want to die, JorRobert, but I will do whatever it takes to protect the ones I love. Even if that means I have to sacrifice myself to a couple of madmen,” she said bitterly. She looked up at the big man and whispered softly, “I miss JorMelony, too.”

  Rage that had built up over the past few days suddenly exploded at the sound of his wife’s name. JorRobert drew his right hand back and hit DraDonna across the face with the emitter. He hit her so hard that she flew backward several feet, landing at DraDevon’s feet with a large bleeding gash on the side of her face.

  DraDevon looked down at his wife as best he could and managed to say, “Fight them my wife. Fight them.”

  Getting shakily to her feet, she looked into her husband’s eyes and said with tears in her voice, “You once told me that you would die for me. I am willing to die to protect you.”

  “Get moving, DraDonna!” Fredrik interrupted them. “Or I will give him this jolt of negative and stop his blood muscle. Then there will be no more question of which lover will die for whom.”

  With legs shaking in fear, DraDonna walked with as much dignity as she could to Symon and knelt in front of him. “Do it,” she told him. “This time I know you’re doing it for the right reason.”

  “I don’t want to,” he whispered to her as tears spilled from his eyes.

  “Do it!” she told him again. “Protect the people we both love.”

  “I’m so sorry, Donna. I love you,” he said with tears streaming down his face as he lifted his shaking hands to the top of her head.

  “I love you too, Symon,” she said softly. Then she yelled, “Just do it!”

  “No!” DraDevon shouted in desperation.

  Gritting his teeth against the torment in his soul, Symon reached inside of him and found the energy, splitting off the negative, channeling only that into DraDonna’s head once more.

  JorMelony’s soul now felt panic. She had to stop this. “JorRobert,” she begged again, “don’t do this! Don’t hurt my baby sister.” But the desperate pleadings of her soul could not penetrate her husband’s fevered brain any longer. She was desperate to find a way to stop this now, before it was too late and her sister was completely mind wiped.

  She looked at the slumbering woman in her husband’s arms and had an idea. “Okay Jude, now it’s time to make up for all the pain you put everyone through.”

  “Come on, Jude, save my baby sister.” She placed her transparent hands on the sleeping woman, causing her to moan. “Use my soul’s energy and wake up, Jude, for just a moment, COME ON!”

  In response to JorMelony’s command, Jude began to moan loudly and fling her arms and legs around. JorRobert was so startled by the life that suddenly returned to the woman that he dropped her.

  Symon, seeing this out of the corner of his eye, seized the opportunity and lifted his hands off DraDonna’s head and pushed all the negative energy that he could channel into one powerful bolt, casting it at JorRobert, striking him in the chest, stopping his blood muscle, killing him instantly.

  At the same time, DraDevon saw his own opportunity to liberate himself of Fredrik’s chokehold. He channeled his own supply of energy down his right arm, splitting the energy at the HEART stone grain in his wrist, the negative to his thumb and the positive to his forefinger. He brought both fingers together on the underside of Fredrik’s arm, burning him badly.

  Fredrik screamed in pain and let DraDevon go, ridding himself of the fingers that were burning his flesh.

  Free and spinning around, DraDevon swung a wild punch with his still energy charged fist, smashing it into the Second Councilor’s face, knocking him flat on the ground. “I told you not to touch my wife!” DraDevon screamed at him.

  DraDevon then scrambled to where his wife lay motionless on the ground. “What do we do?” he asked Symon desperately.

  Symon was now bending down over DraDonna as well.

  “Can you heal her?” he asked him, having to speak up because the people in the crowd were beginning to panic with fear from all they had just witnessed.

  “I don’t think I can, Devon. I’m sorry,” Symon said, his voice thick with guilt.

  “It’s not your fault, Symon, but… what do I do?” DraDevon asked, feeling close to panic himself.

  “Get her down to the HEART’s chamber. Devon, the HEART will know what to do,” Symon instructed him as TynLexa joined them.

  “Fredrik ran off,” she told them, trying to catch her breath. “I tried to catch him but I lost him in the crowd.”

  “We will have to deal with him later,” Symon said. “We have to get these two down to the HEART.”

  “Let’s go then,” DraDevon said eagerly as he tenderly lifted his wife’s limp body into his arms.

  “I can’t go,” Symon told them.

  “Why?” DraDevon asked.

  “I have to stay here and soothe these people. I can’t leave them like this again. I don’t know how many more might go mad if the HEART has to drop them all again.”

  “Then how is Jude going to get down to the HEART s chamber?” TynLexa asked him. “I don’t think that I can carry her that far.”

  “Devon, you take Donna down first. Lexa, you stay with Jude until he gets back and then he can carry her down and you can go with him then,” Symon instructed them. “I must stay up here and do my duty as Ambassador.”

  Shifting his wife’s weight, DraDevon looked down at his two friends. “I will be back soon.” DraDevon turned and walked swiftly for the temple.

  “Are they going to be alright?” TynLexa asked Symon.

  “I hope so, Lexa. I hope so,” It was the only answer he could give her. He bent down to kiss Jude lightly on the forehead. He whispered just for her, “I love you Jude.”

  Symon looked up at TynLexa and said, “You still owe me an explanation Lexa, don’t forget that. When this is all done…”

  “I know,” she interrupted him. “You just go do your duty as a servant of the HEART. We can talk later.”

  “Right,” he said, giving her a worried smile, then stood to face the HEART’s children, who were growing more agitated by the moment. Raising his arms, he began to address them. “Children of the HEART listen to me!” he called to them, but his voice was lost in the din of scared and confused people. “Please listen to me!” he begged the people to no avail. “Please!” he begged once more.

  Symon looked out over the crowd of people. They were descending into the same behavior as the night before, only this time it was worse. Everyone was here. The crowd was three times as large as it had been the night before. More people would mean more panic. People would be trampled, hurt or even killed because he failed to do his duty as their Ambassador.

  The old familiar weight of guilt came crashing down on him, and he fell to his knees.

  “HEART forgive me, I don’t know
what to do!” he called out to her.

  Have faith, my Symon, was the only reply he heard in his head.

  “Have faith? Have faith in what?” he cried.

  He squeezed his eyes shut as the panicking people began to surge around him. He looked inside of himself. He pushed past the feelings of pain, loss and guilt and found the power he needed to help the children of the HEART. The place he found the power was not from the HEART stone chip implanted in his head, but deep within his soul. Symon finally understood what the HEART had been telling him all along about where his true power resided.

  Seeing this power, Symon seized it and allowed it to fill every fiber of his being. He stood up and opened his eyes. He called out to all the people in a commanding voice, “STOP!”

  The people not only heard his voice, they felt it. Everyone stopped to stare at the incredible sight that was their Ambassador. Not only did his hands glow with the HEART’S energy, but his whole body pulsated with the rich blue light of the positive side of the HEART’S energy.

  “Link up!” he commanded them in a voice that could only be obeyed. Symon reached out to the closest two people to start the link. Symon looked into their faces and realized it was NayLara and NayMichael, DraDonna’s parents.

  They were surprised to see the crackling blue energy in the Ambassador’s usually hazel colored eyes. He looked into NayLara’s eyes and began to speak as if he was talking only to her. He spoke softly, but everyone on the link was able to hear every word he said.

  “Children of the HEART, I know that a lot of us have suffered pain and loss lately, but we must not let that take us over. Think not of your own sorrow, but of the sorrow of the person next to you. Let us all have compassion for each other and work together to help build up our new home that the HEART our MOTHER has chosen for us.” he said.

  His words began to soothe the pains and ills of their fevered minds. “Now go back to your homes, pack and prepare because our new home awaits us.” Symon looked up and saw understanding as well as contentment among the HEART’s children.

  Hope

  35

  After Symon’s speech, the HEART’s children above ground began working hard. The people cheerfully received instructions about what they should do from their HEART stone altars.

  Below ground the mood was much more somber as Symon stood over Jude and DraDevon stood over his wife. The two comatose women were both lying on small sofas in the computer room with small HEART stones placed on their heads as well as their chests.

  “Will they ever wake up?” TynLexa asked the one question they all feared to ask.

  The HEART computer was quiet for a moment while the image of the enlightened flower pulsated. It was almost as if they could see her thinking. “I cannot predict if my two daughters will wake or not. They must both heal in three stages.”

  “What are the three stages?” TynLexa asked in a shaky voice.

  “Mind, body and soul,” the HEART answered her simply.

  “Why did Jude flip around in JorRobert’s arms if she is not healed and ready to wake up?” TynLexa asked.

  “I have not found an answer to that in any of my file banks,” the computer answered. “However, their conditions are more different than you would think.”

  “What do you mean?” Symon finally spoke.

  “My Symon, the negative energy that you gave to DraDonna you started off with a slow trickle, but Jude’s was a fast but intense burst and did more damage. Jude was also injured in the crowd last night.”

  “Oh,” Symon said, hanging his head with the weight of guilt pressing down on him again.

  “My Symon, do not carry this guilt. It is not your burden to bear. I see as does everyone else that you did not mean them harm. I know that you have love in your soul for both of my daughters that sleep.”

  “HEART,” DraDevon said, trying not to sob. “At what stage of healing is my wife?”

  “I do not know that, my son.”

  “Is there really any hope that either of them will ever wake up?” he asked.

  “Have faith, my son,” was the HEART’s puzzling answer.

  “What do you mean by that?” DraDevon questioned the old computer.

  “Faith is things that are hoped for but not seen,” the HEART computer explained. “Every time you opened the MDC you had faith that there would be food inside. You did not see it, yet you hoped that the food would be there. This hope that your wife will wake is the same hope that all my children have of the new home that they will soon see. All of the trapped souls have faith that they will be set free on this new home planet.”

  “HEART, I don’t understand why we need a planet to free all the trapped souls. I don’t understand why they have been trapped in the first place,” TynLexa said.

  “I have processed this question many times over the last several hundred years while my programing was caught in the loop. I have come up with two separate answers. The first is that we are in space. Everything that is outside of this ship is a cold vacuum. Should I open the dome while in space, all on board would die instantly.”

  “What is the second reason?” TynLexa asked the HEART.

  “It is a little more complicated, my daughter. The old souls are trapped on the ship because they need to be on a planet that is made by a God. I am not a God, I was made by people very much like you, but the people who made me lived on a planet made by a God before the planet died.

  “When I get you to the new planet, all my children will have to leave the ship by walking down through the ship and go out the hatch door on the underside. This will enable you to acclimate to the change in pressure from the ship to the new planet.

  “After all my children have left, I will open the top and set all the souls free. I know that all the old souls of my children have a hope that they will be freed at this point. I have faith that once the old souls are set free that the new souls of babies will be able to find their way to the bodies that are created for them. Like the body that grows within you now, my daughter.” the HEART stated.

  “TynLexa!” DraDevon said looking up at her. “You are with child?”

  “After all we have been through, DraDevon, you and your wife should be my bonded friends too, and call me Lexa like Symon does.”

  “I’m honored Lexa,” he said. “But…”

  “You’re with child?” Symon interrupted with the same question.

  “Yes I am,” she said.

  “How far along are you?” DraDevon asked her with concern for his newly bonded friend.

  “Not long, Devon,” TynLexa answered simply.

  “Did… did Timothy know?” Symon stammered, almost afraid to ask.

  “No. I never had the chance to tell him with all that was going on with Jude; it just never…” she stopped, because her voice wavered as tears fell from her eyes. The pain of her husband’s death was still so fresh in her soul.

  “I’m so sorry, Lexa,” Symon said. “I promised Timothy’s soul that I would take care of you. I promise now that I will see to it, both you and your child will always be taken care of.”

  “We all will, Lexa.” DraDevon added.

  “Thank you, my friends.”

  “HEART,” DraDevon said, “I understand faith now.” He bent down to kiss his wife’s forehead and whispered, “I have faith that you will come home to me.”

  Free

  36

  All DraDonna knew was darkness. She could not feel her arms or legs. There was nothing; just blackness. She was so alone, in pain.

  She had been in the darkness before, in dreams. But never like this. There was so much pain and she could not move. She didn’t know where the pain was coming from because she didn’t have a body. She would have wept if she had eyes to cry with.

  “Help me,” she whispered, or was it just the whisper of a thought?

  “Get up, little Donna,” she heard the lovely voice of her childhood friend.

  “I can’t stand. There is nothing; I…I don’t have a
body,” she told the voice.

  “You do have a body, Donna. You can see me if you get up and open your eyes,” the voice told her.

  “I can’t,” DraDonna cried. “I feel so numb and weak.”

  “Take some of the energy of my soul, child,” the voice offered.

  DraDonna felt warmth wash through her, and some of the pain ebbed. DraDonna felt as if she could indeed stand. She opened her eyes stood up. She finally saw light and color but none of it made any sense to her. The light and color swirled around her in a torrent of different shapes and hues.

  “What?” she said, not understanding what she was seeing. “Tatiana, are you there?”

  In response to her question, one of the shapes of the swirling throng stopped in front of her and the form instantly became her lifelong friend Tatiana. “Yes, child. I am here.”

  “Why aren’t we on the mountain? You look different, more solid; and why do I hurt so much?” she asked a long string of questions.

  “The difference, little Donna, is that it was your mind I had met before so you created the mountain place that we met at. This time it is your soul that is here, so you will only see what is.”

  “Am I dead?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Tatiana answered her cryptically. “Your body still lives. That is why you have so much pain.”

  “Was it you that saved me?” DraDonna asked her.

  “No, child,” she answered, gesturing to the swirling throng as three shapes approached them. Two of the shapes were more solid and brilliant, like Tatiana, and one was weaker and more transparent.

  “Who…” she started to say when the three took shape. The two stronger shapes were JorMelony and JorRobert. The third, weaker shape was that of Jude.

  “It was me, little Donna.” JorMelony admitted.

  “JorMelony!” she cried, wanting to hug her sister but not sure if she could. “I am so sorry for everything that happened. I can’t help but feel like your death was partly my fault.”

  “It was not your fault, DraDonna,” JorRobert told her. “If anyone should be apologizing here it should be me.”