by David Beers
"Shelter," she said, trying to get her footing back beneath her. She had seen her children and her mind forgot what she just put herself through, and if she continued forgetting, she would end up hurting herself.
She couldn't do anything for them, or anyone else, right now. She needed rest and when she woke, she could devote herself to this world and what it would become.
Briten said nothing, but walked forward, heading to a massive shape buried underneath millions of white strands.
He understood what Morena told him, and even in her weakness, she smiled as he helped her walk, because his understanding meant he was nearly fully developed. Morena looked forward at the shape, hoping that her son could somehow do something with whatever lay underneath it. He would find her shelter, because even in infancy, she felt the same love burning from him as the rest of her children.
Rigley followed the young alien, not because she wanted to, but because what other choice did she have? The world around her … she couldn't quite grasp what she saw. She wasn't walking on Earth, but some far away planet, one that she must have traveled to even though she couldn't remember the voyage. Because Earth was green. Earth held humans. The Earth she knew grew trees and asphalt roads, Wal-Marts and movie theaters.
This world, the one in front of her eyes and beneath her feet, possessed none of that. White made up this world, even more white than existed when she first arrived. No humans living in houses populated this place, but alien creatures standing on white fields like some kind of mute, yet beautiful, versions of Rigley herself. They all stared at Morena, following her with their eyes while colors floated around them.
This is what you wanted. Her children to be born. Now you have it.
Yes. She wanted to save all those children in all those capsules, and she had. Rigley didn't know what that meant to the rest of the United States; she had no idea how the world fared outside this wonderland, but she knew that Morena's children survived and now looked to be thriving as well.
What does that mean? she asked herself as they walked across the spongy strands.
That everything you ever knew is changing. That Morena and her children now rule this place. That your kind are in the past, even if they don't realize it yet.
What had she thought would happen? What did she think she was doing when she told Morena where to attack?
Shut up. Just fucking stop. You saved her children when you couldn't save your own. You saved her when you killed so many before. You did what was right, now help her raise them. Help her be their mother. You picked your side when you left the base, so don't start fucking doubting it now.
The thoughts continuously struggled for dominance inside her as the rest of the world focused only on the creature with the green aura. Rigley was too far inside herself to notice how far they walked, or the increasing number of creatures across the land. What world had she wanted? What had she wanted? Was this it?
Shutupshutupshutupshutup.
She didn't want to think about any of this—she only wanted to find peace.
And have you found it?
She didn't come back to reality until they stopped in front of a huge hill, one covered in the same strands she walked on.
Briten had stopped walking, Morena too.
Rigley's mind recalled Morena saying she needed shelter, but this place appeared to have none. Rigley could walk atop the hill in front of her and see for a mile, but she already knew that however far she saw, it all looked the same. Humans built houses. These creatures built … strands ….
Briten's pale blue aura spread, though not releasing Morena as it did. The aura moved quickly, ripping across the white field like a wind, encircling the mound. Rigley watched, her internal dialogue stopping for just a moment as the strange color wrapped around it.
Once the blue fully held the hill, the aura dripped down like thick syrup, long strings dropping to the strands beneath.
The white covering fell back, from the very top, an opening in the seemingly endless armor. As the aura kept dripping, the strands backed away, down the hill, revealing what they had covered: a house. No damage to be seen, it looked just as it had two weeks ago—before all of this.
The strands kept moving down, the roof peeking through, then the outer walls, and finally the yard, until the entire property stood alone, surrounded by white.
Briten's aura flowed back to him as quickly as it left and then both he and Morena walked into the house without turning to look at Rigley.
Rigley followed them into the house, her eyes wide as she stared at the furniture which had just been covered with an alien species, but now looked like it was bought off a showroom floor yesterday.
No one bothered closing the door as they crossed the house's threshold. Morena, with Briten's help, made her way across the foyer and into the living room. She sat down on one of the couches, and Rigley finally looked at her, pulling her eyes away from the house.
She was weak.
Vulnerable.
And Rigley was lost in the middle of it all.
Morena looked up at Rigley as Briten's aura lay her across the couch.
"How long before the humans are operational?"
"Do you have any idea where you're going?" Wren asked.
Briten understood who this man was now—the father of the body he inhabited. Michael’s father.
Briten didn't even glance up from the road to acknowledge him. The man had been asking questions since they got into the car. He would ask one, and when Briten didn't answer, he would fall silent again—maybe for ten minutes or so—and then ask another.
Briten wasn't angry or annoyed at any of them; he simply didn't care enough to answer. Most of the questions centered around the man's son, this question was actually the first about their destination. Briten knew the answers to the Michael questions, but this one … well he wasn't quite sure. He knew where Michael told him to drive, but that didn't necessarily mean they were heading to the right place. Briten crosschecked Michael's directions with his internal guide, the one saying he was moving toward Morena, not away. Michael wasn't lying. Briten didn't think the boy would endanger his father or friend with a lie.
The truth? Briten had to trust this boy some. He couldn't make it alone on this planet, and he couldn't fully control the kid's mind, so when Michael told him to take a left, Briten took a left.
"Turn the radio on," Wren said. "Turn it on the news."
What's he talking about? Briten asked Michael.
The middle of the car, in the front. He wants you to press the button with the red circle on it.
Why?
He wants to know what is happening.
What's happening? Briten said.
Yeah, like with the world. With Morena. What we're doing against her.
Briten reached forward and pressed the button, the idea that the entire species might be talking about his wife both startling and interesting him.
"Right there. Leave it," Wren said from the back seat.
Briten listened as the words flowed into the car, static coming along with them. This species was just so primitive, unable to remove noise from their airwaves … Makers, they still used airwaves.
Bryan gasped.
“Jesus…." Wren said, his voice a whisper.
What's it mean? Briten said to Michael. He heard what the radio said, but couldn't understand the desperation in Wren's voice. The person on the radio spoke too quickly, matching the fever that Briten now felt in the car.
Hush!
The boy grasped it, though. Perhaps everyone in the car did but Briten.
"I can't believe it …,” Wren whispered.
What's happening?
Michael was quiet for a few seconds, only the words from the radio filling up Briten's head.
"The President has gone into hiding in order to make sure no other attacks can reach him…."
The world is ending, Michael said. She's ending it.
Michael stood in his library, the boo
k that he had held in his hand now on the floor, its pages open and face down.
He didn't even know he dropped it; when the radio's words began filling the library—coming in from the speakers above—he simply lost track of everything he was doing, unable to keep up with the paragraphs on the paper.
She dropped lava from the sky. That's what the radio said. She dropped lava from Grayson all the way to Washington D.C.. The President was in hiding, and the dead buried under pounds and pounds of rocks. The roads were no longer passable; no one could travel on major highways moving up and down the East Coast. Thousands of lives gone in an afternoon.
And she had pulled the lava from where?
But Michael knew the answer to that. She pulled it from the hole she opened up out there in the forest, straight from Earth's inner sanctum.
He was reading everything he could in this library, trying to understand as much as possible about what he now saw as two separate species. He wanted to know what they meant to do, and maybe what he could do to stop them. He didn't need to read anymore to understand the first part though; the radio told him all he needed.
They wanted to kill everyone. They would wipe out all of humanity.
He watched as Briten came to understand what the radio told him, what Wren's terror meant, and seeing that chilled Michael perhaps more than the knowledge of what actually happened.
We're at war, Briten thought, his voice filling the library the same as the radio. He wasn't there with Michael, the red aura having left hours ago, and now when he thought or spoke, the sound system in the library filtered it in.
This thought held nothing but cold, so close to what Michael used to feel when his father started railing at him. No heat, just ice forming across the entirety of the alien's mind.
The air conditioner blew, cold air shooting out of vents lining the bookshelves, though Michael hadn't noticed it before.
Briten meant to kill, without any doubt. He meant to find his lover and help her in this genocide. Michael didn't know Morena, but if she was similar, then he saw little hope. How many had she killed today? The radio couldn't even give an accurate count; and now, this one, this new creature in his body wanted nothing more than to join forces with her.
Michael looked down to the book at his feet, seeing the bent spine. He didn't need to read to understand what they wanted anymore; he only need feel the air growing cool around him with every second. He could read, though, to find out if they could be stopped. Maybe he would discover something in these books.
Maybe.
He already knew something Briten didn't: death was creeping up on the alien, but his mind was so focused on finding his wife that he couldn't see it. Maybe Michael could speed that up? But if he did, would his body die with Briten?
Too many questions, one growing off another like an evil plant—each question sprouting more and more as soon as one budded.
He didn't have any other choice; where else could he go? He picked the book up and went back to his chair. Michael started reading again, half listening to the radio as it boomed from above, that and the sound of chilly air shooting through the vents.
3
After Bynimian's Destruction
Part of Helos forgot she stood in the presence of The Makers. Part of her was so wrapped up in the images before her that she could think of nothing else. Every part of the experience felt so real, as if she were there, right next to her daughter. The world around Helos nearly shone with the white strands. Helos knew that Bynimian hadn't begun in this fashion, that Bynums had evolved to be able to create like this. Perhaps Morena thought others had seen what she now witnessed, but the truth was no one had ever seen anything like it. Morena was the first.
Morena, and now Helos.
But Helos wasn't there, not truly, though she saw it as clearly as Morena.
Morena’s children walking the land, trying to learn about this new home.
Helos saw Morena lying down, understanding—at least somewhat—how weak her attack made her. She saw the human hovering around like a lost animal. The oldest of Morena's children standing watch, protecting her from anything that might try to harm his mother.
Helos wanted to be there, more than anything she ever wanted before; she wanted to be with her daughter. And yet, here she was, across the universe. Perhaps even outside of the universe, on another plane of existence. She could only watch … and yearn.
The images in front of Helos changed, quickly. The white world transforming to one resembling Bynimian. Bynums going about their lives, no longer standing in white fields trying to understand the basics of life. Helos watched time speed forward, changing the world Morena created to what it would be.
Bynums spread across the land, figuring out ways to live on top of the ocean, walking on water in ways that they couldn't on Bynimian. She watched as they built cities in the clouds, as they began controlling the entire world. She watched as humanity tried to fight Morena, but with each passing year, fewer and fewer humans existed to carry on the battle. They hid in the mountains, but eventually Bynums spread there too. They hid in deserts, tried to hide underground, but Bynums always found them, and when they did, they killed what they found.
Helos watched as the white world full of youth turned into something different from the Bynimian she knew. Her people turned to hunters, with them barely knowing or understanding that they used to be different. Her people, once so peaceful, turned conquerors.
She watched as a single ship took off from the planet, now devoid of almost all human life. The ship shot into the sky like a star. The view of Morena's new world faded away as Helos followed the ship out into space. She didn't know where it was heading or the reason behind its departure, but it moved through the black of space with ease. She couldn't see who was in it, but she knew all the same. Morena. Her daughter. Because Helos was watching her life unfold, what was to happen.
Finally, the ship landed, finding another planet, leaving the former one in some forgotten place that Helos could no longer see.
Morena exited the ship, others trailing behind her. The planet appeared to be deserted, but as time moved on at a rapid pace, beings emerged from the planet … and more blood was shed. How many years did Helos watch pass as Morena and her group of conquerors took over the new planet in much the same way they had the previous one? And in the end, Helos stared at a planet that resembled both the previous one and Bynimian. In the end, Morena colonized another planet, and then that singular ship left again—leaving behind the past and ripping through space to find the next.
And it happened again.
And again.
Ad nauseum.
And finally, Morena died, just as every Var before her—but Bynums stretched across the universe like a blanket, one that brought disease instead of warmth, one that killed everything it came across. Morena colonized hundreds of planets, and while each one wasn't already occupied, many were—and as Morena arrived, those already there ceased to exist, their species as extinct as the first planet Morena conquered.
Morena would spread across the universe in a way that no other Bynum ever considered. She would, if allowed to continue, eventually cause the destruction of her husband's own species. Helos' daughter would become a plague across every species to ever live, besides her own.
The vision Helos saw disappeared, leaving the swirling colors of the circle. They didn't light up, didn't attempt to speak. They swirled in silence, if not in peace exactly, then perhaps in contentment.
Helos understood.
4
Present Day
Rigley couldn't stop staring at this new world. It occupied her mind like a sore tooth, she unable to keep her tongue from going to it even though pain shot out each time. Some part of her couldn't comprehend this place, one that she helped create. Some part of her looked out at these creatures dotting the landscape and wondered what she had done.
And yet, part of her was happy.
Part of her loved what she saw. Becau
se she saved these children, even if it meant she killed others. These fully grown creatures, they lived because of Rigley—no one else could claim that.
She stood on the porch listening to the sides battle, each side a part of her and yet separate, as if something else controlled them other than her conscious mind.
A phrase fluttered through her thoughts like a butterfly over a flower bed. Lazy, without hurry or worry. Something Abraham Lincoln said that she remembered from her school—a house divided cannot stand. Or something like that, something close to it. The butterfly rested there in her mind, touching down lightly, letting her glimpse its meaning.
How long had she been divided? How many years had she battled herself, if not in this war, then others? What was one more battle? She could handle it; she had to.
And then the phrase flew off, leaving as it came, without a care, and as the thought left, so did the meaning.
Rigley looked out at the auras, some dancing with each other, some solitary, as their owners stood completely still like unplugged robots. She didn't know what they were doing, but they needed to hurry up. Rigley also didn't know what the U.S. was doing, but she figured a lot more than standing around staring into space.
She didn't hear the alien approach from behind her; instead, she saw the pale blue preceding him from the corner of her eye. Rigley turned, giving up her view of the children, and faced him.
He didn't look at her, but past her, watching the others as she had moments before.
"We must prepare," he said.
Rigley's head cocked to the side, knowing that she heard him speak, but unable to believe it.
"What?" she said after a few seconds. He still didn't bother looking at her.
"We must be ready when they return, your kind."
"You're talking?" Rigley said, feeling dumb as the words left her mouth.
"It would appear so, yes," Briten answered.
"What does that mean?"
