Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  Michael?

  The man takes hold of the doorknob and wiggles it. “Michael! It isn’t too late!”

  Michael Sanderson?

  A series of screams and yells emerge from the door leading out into the world, the Dwellers hunting grounds. They have found prey. I will the man to look behind him, to see this Dweller behind him, but he steadily pounds on the door and continues to wiggle the doorknob and yells, “You can still be saved, Michael!”

  This man, he is trying to keep Michael from being taken, but he has locked himself in a storage room. Why? Why doesn’t he want to be saved?

  I hear muffled words emanate from beyond the door, “I don’t deserve to be saved.”

  The man wiggles the knob once more, before the cowering Dweller leaps across the room and forces the man to face it. The man’s blood-curdling and disturbing scream will be forever ingrained in my head. In an instant, the Dweller takes hold of his head and snaps his neck, ending his agonizing cry with one swift movement.

  The Dweller drops the man’s lifeless body to the ground. Not coordinated with the body it has taken, the Dweller’s hand paws the knob in an attempt to open the door; it succeeds. The door slowly opens, revealing Michael on the ground, leaning against a shelf of supplies with his eyes closed.

  The Dweller-infested woman tilts her head back and opens her mouth wide. For the first time, I hear a Dweller speak through its vessel. The woman’s mouth doesn’t move, just remains unnaturally agape as the Dweller speaks through her, “You won’t die slow.”

  In a split second, the woman takes Michael by the shirt and brings his face directly in front of hers, mouth still ajar.

  The quick motion of him being lifted by this Dweller startles Michael to open his eyes. As he witness the pure evil of this being, his voice shutters and trembles, “No.”

  The woman places her hand on his chest and begins to chant. The language sounds like the Rephaim’s dialect, but I can’t be sure. The Dweller is saying it so quickly and I forget to listen when I see Michael’s eyes widen and his breath catch, leaving his lips parted. A pearly vapor suddenly rises from his open mouth.

  The Dweller says, “You will lead us to them.”

  The vapor, it must be his life force, his essence, his soul!

  The pearly mist dances between them for only a moment, when the woman’s body begins to shake uncontrollably. The shadowy, fluid Dweller slithers out between the woman’s lips and latches onto the iridescent life force hovering above both of them. Michael’s fixed eyes and stiffened body falls to the ground, as does the woman’s.

  The inky Dweller surrounds Michael’s airborne soul, and then dissolves into it, becoming invisible within the atmosphere. Did the Dweller become part of the soul? They can’t do that! The Dwellers take souls, not become them. Or did the soul become the Dweller?

  I can’t see any trace of it, but I can feel its dense malevolent energy hovering near.

  ***

  Suddenly, the architect that is controlling this vision pulls me backward through the doorway, through the alley, until I hear my own panting breath in the present. I wake drenched in sweat and breathless. The panic settles in quickly. What if this altered Dweller has already made it to us? It is invisible; we wouldn’t be able to see it. It could enter any of us and we wouldn’t know it.

  Nate. That is what is trying to control Nate!

  I have to tell him. I dress quickly and head to the main cavern to find him.

  CHAPTER 20: DÉJÀ VU

  Jesca

  I run my hand over the smooth glass covering the original device on my neck as I stare at the candlelit lantern.

  Damn it! I can’t sleep.

  I can only blame myself. I set myself up for it.

  I roll onto my back, shift under the heavy blanket, and stare at the chiseled rock above me as the candlelight spotlights the hard work the colonists put into these burrows. The sounds of the mountain rock stretching and constricting keep me from folding to the exhaustion that every muscle in my body is screaming for. I close my eyes just for a second. When I reopen them, my surroundings are not the same.

  ***

  I’m staring up at a tree swaying and dancing, the sun peeking through the lush, green leaves. I want to jump up, see where I’m at, but I’m not in control and this body wants to remain here in this vision, this moment for a reason. The sound of crushing leaves behind me doesn’t stir fear in me, but rather a draw of a smile on my face. I should be afraid of what I don’t see; that would be logical.

  The sound of treaded leaves gets closer to my resting head. I start to panic inside, but the body I’m prisoner in continues to lie still, grinning at the sound of an approaching being. I feel my heart begin to race. Wait, is that mine or the person I’m being commanded by in this vision?

  Ira told me that they would intensify. I have to calm down. This isn’t really happening.

  “I know you have heard me.”

  The rich, deep voice sends a shiver of excitement down my spine. The spine-tingling, yet eerie, sensation feels like the vibes I got during Corinna’s and my shared vision of Sam.

  I roll over onto my stomach to see a noble man dressed in antiquated military uniform standing before me. His eyes are the first thing I notice, the truest blue and eerily familiar. My eyes quickly move to his full lips displaying a tender smile, but it doesn’t hold. The smile falls away as he rummages in his deep coat pocket.

  As he searches, he says, “I have something for you.”

  His words warm me, but his strong, working jaw worries me just the same. I hear my voice in the vision for the first time. It sounds innocent, simple, and untaught “Wh—What—is—it?”

  My words are chopped, like they are freshly learned.

  He pulls something shiny from his pocket. My curiosity is piqued instantly and I rise to my feet and walk toward him. This admirable man towers over me, a good foot taller. His sandy-brown hair hangs around his ears and rests just above his brow on his forehead. Without my guidance, my hand extends to brush the brown hair from his brow. He visibly reacts to my touch, closing his eyes to accept the moment. When he reopens his lids, he clears his throat and puts his hand out to me, palm open, displaying a shiny, copper metal attached to a thin, crimson leather cord. The amber metal looks like a ringlet with a cord tethering it on either side. I lean in and look at the object closely; it has been brushed to shine brightly.

  My fingers take hold of the ringlet and hold it close. As I turn it at just the right angle, my reflection, the one that does not belong to me, is exposed on the plated copper. Her hair is dark and long just like mine. Her eyes are a mossy green just like mine, but the shape of them is different. Her skin is darker than mine as well; hers is a deeper tan tone. Her lips even resemble mine in a way as she smiles at her reflection. I think of Sebastian and his vision of a girl, a Native American tribal princess. Is this her?

  The gentleman asks, “Do you like it?”

  He searches my eyes for the excitement he hopes it brings me. He tries to keep his smile reserved, but he is obviously proud of the joy he has brought me and he can’t keep his lips from stretching wider. His voice carries the joy as well as he tentatively reaches for the ringlet and cord.

  “Here, let me help you,” he says.

  He takes the copper treasure and attaches it to my wrist, his hand grazing the back of my own as he fastens it.

  I look up into his eyes. He is no longer focused on fastening the wristlet, but rather completely on me. The weight of his blue-gray eyes lay heavy on my heart; I’ve felt that weight two times in my own life, by Nate and Xander.

  The words the body in this vision utters matches the words in my true heart “Th—Thank—you.”

  My hand runs carefully over the smooth copper resting on my wrist as this man places his hand under my palm, while resting his other on top of it.


  I look up into his eyes as he says, “There is something else.”

  He carefully takes his fingers and turns the tethered ringlet over to reveal an inscription on the backside. Even though I know the writing well, the girl must not since she doesn’t say anything in response to what it says. Instead, my eyes meet his and I feel the need to seek an answer from him.

  Responding to the curiosity the girl must have on her face, he says, “It says ‘Always.’”

  He moves closer and brings my hand that he still holds to rest gently on his chest. I feel the slightest patterned tremble under the cloth of his shirt as soon as I touch him. Realizing that it is the beating of his racing heart, my own quickens to match his.

  His words are gentle, “I’m yours, Onawah, always.”

  “Onawah!”

  The unexpected deep voice calling my name makes me jump.. The gentleman looks up over my head, searching for the voice, and then looks back down at me. His hands come to rest on either side of my face as he speaks quickly, “I love you, Onawah.” Without another word or warning, his lips crash against mine, taking my breath away.

  ***

  Drawing in a deep breath to fill my lungs brings me back to consciousness. The sound of my gasps and panting echoes in this small carved outlet I’m occupying. The sound is desperate, like I’ve been deprived of oxygen for far too long. Was I holding my breath in my sleep? Wait, I wasn’t sleeping. I just closed my eyes for a moment, and then I was there in the vision.

  I want to crawl out of my skin from the adrenaline coursing through me now.

  That man’s touch. Feeling his racing heart. His strikingly familiar eyes. I can’t lie here anymore. I need to get up. I scoot off the cot, head out the entryway and take a left. The candlelit lanterns staggered through the passages are sparse, but I can see well enough to make out a soft, opaline glimmer reflecting on the stone wall of the tunnel a few feet down. As I step closer toward the reflection, I hear the trickling sound of liquid hitting a pool of water.

  I come around the corner of the passage and enter a hollow cavern occupied by a shallow iridescent lagoon just like the one in our facility.

  A drop lands on the water and the ripple catches my attention. The ripple spreads out over the small lagoon, and then stops when it meets the edge of the water. I find myself hypnotized and calmed by the repeated drip, ripple, drip, ripple pattern and I walk over and sit at the edge of the water. All of a sudden, a weak wave of queasiness rolls through my core then dissolves away into nothing. I’m about to scan the walls for alternate ways out from this enclosed cavern when his troubled voice precedes him, “I’m sorry, I followed you.”

  Nate.

  “How did you find me?”

  He comes into the suffused light of the cavern. His eyes widen as they take in the surroundings. He stumbles over his words as he pans from one end of the sea-green lagoon to the other, then focuses on me. “I felt something wake me. It felt like you.”

  Did he—oh shit, did he sense my vision? He couldn’t have! He can’t hear my thoughts anymore. I question him, “What felt like me?”

  Nate walks toward me, mesmerized by the water just as I am. His voice trails off, “Your presence. Remember when your nightmares would wake you and I’d be there?”

  His sentimental explanation softens my anxiety and I follow him with my eyes as he comes to sit next to me. This is strangely déjà vu.

  Nate says, “Jes, this is like the pool in our facility.”

  When he looks at me, the reflection of the water on his eyes bring back the memory of the first moments Nate and I shared in front of a lagoon of water just like this. So focused on his eyes searching mine, I nearly feel his hand covering mine. Immediately, a distinct fever instantly soothes the length of my arm then spreads through me quickly. A swelter that had been absent has found its way back to me just from this small touch, this small gesture.

  Nate looks down at his hand covering mine then back at me with such devotion, it makes my heart pound and my legs weaken. The intention in his voice matches the passion in his sparkling eyes as he says, “Do you feel that?”

  I do. The nerves of being in his presence, the anxiousness of hearing him speak, the intensity between us, the fervor that gathered between us in those first moments in our facility, they are all there filling me, making me whole again, making me the Jesca I was.

  I don’t think my heart could beat any faster or harder without bursting out of my chest. I answer him with bated breath, “Yes, I do.”

  His fingers lightly graze my skin from temple to chin and I lean into the warm trail it leaves, bringing us closer to each other. His voice is sultry, bold and mesmerizing all at the same time when he says breathily, “It was never the device. It was always us, Jes. We just got lost.” His fingertips settle below my chin, and tip my face back so my eyes lock with his. Decisively, he says, “We have been given another chance—”

  He moves in close and I let my eyes drift closed as he breathes his light breath on my lips.

  His throaty, deep voice raises goose bumps on my arms when he continues, “Another chance to find each other.”

  “Jesca! Nate!” Ezra’s voice rings through the tunnel, breaking the spell we are under.

  Sharply, Nate’s fingers drop from my chin and his warm presence disappears, leaving me chilled. I open my eyes in time to see him shake his hand out, and then pump his fists as he walks toward the opening in the cavern. He did that same thing with his hands in the truck earlier. I gather my senses and my breath deeply, wondering if his reaction was solely from Ezra’s call or from something else, me.

  My head is still spinning from Nate’s tender touch then brash recoil, when Nate angles his head toward me and mutters, “Coming?”

  Is he serious? He laid his heart out a moment ago, and now he is cold and non-emotional? I shake my head and scoff before answering in a mocking whisper, “Yeah, sure.”

  Nate leads us through the tunnel, keeping his distance from me and his eyes straight ahead.

  Ezra calls again, “Jesca!”

  “Coming!” I holler.

  I hear Tessa yelling for Tom and him talking in the near distance as we walk back through the tunnel, Nate leading. The open cavern of the common area comes into view. Everyone is awake, some rubbing their eyes and yawning. Siobhan and Jake are crouching next to Shiva and Tessa is in her father’s arms. Nate has already disappeared among the meandering colonists and guardians.

  I scan the room and find him talking with Xander, shaking his head about something that has been said between them. Xander is leaning over Nate dominantly, talking quickly. Are they arguing? Xander must feel my eyes on him, because he looks in my direction and steps back from Nate like he has been caught or spied saying something he shouldn’t have. Nate notices his shift in behavior and angles his eyes in my direction. The weight of their stare is different suddenly, foreign. They both drop their gaze at the same time. Xander grabs a duffle bag, hands one to Nate and they both disappear into the outlet behind them. I see Monica and Luke pass them, exiting the same outlet with full duffle bags. We must be loading supplies.

  I hear Tom say audibly; “Take what you need.”

  I start toward the doorway after Nate and Xander when Ezra blocks my advance. “Where did you go?”

  Good question. Where did I go? Why did Nate come for me? How did he know I was there? Why did I feel a Dweller and the sensation disappear suddenly? Why are Nate and Xander acting so strange? Too many questions.

  I answer simply, “I needed to walk. Nate came to look for me.”

  Ezra searches my eyes for an answer before he asks, “Why?”

  “I woke from a vision.”

  This sets Ezra off and he calls behind him, “Daniel, Sebastian!” He crosses his arms and watches me until Daniel and Sebastian come on either side of him. He asks, “What was the vision?” />
  I tell them the details of what I saw, the man and the young girl named Onawah. How I was the girl in the vision, feeling and seeing everything through her eyes.

  Sebastian’s eyes widen. “Onawah. I distinctly remember that name from the records I researched relating to the Creek Indians.”

  “What does it mean?” I ask.

  Sebastian taps his lip before he speaks, “It means wide awake one.”

  Ezra adds, “She is the same girl in your vision, Sebastian, isn’t she? The wide awake one receiving the legacy within her to protect her tribe, her family?”

  Daniel corrects us, “Our families.”

  I think of the man she was with in my vision. Who was he?

  On cue, Sebastian asks, “The man in your vision, was he her lover?”

  Feeling the heat on my cheeks rise, remembering the sensation the uniformed gentlemen stirred in me, I answer, slightly flustered, “I don’t know.”

  Ezra tilts his head to the side snarkily. “Now is not the time to be modest, love.”

  I smile sarcastically and return his jab, “I get that, Dad, thanks.”

  Slightly shy about it all, I look down as I think back on the vision. “He loved her. He gave her a token, a bracelet.” I realize that I’m touching the wrist the invisible bracelet had rested on in my vision. I drop my hand, clear my throat, clear my mind and look at Ezra. “I saw her reflection. She resembled me. I’m not sure who the man is.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to confess that the man’s resemblance made it completely possible that he is an ancestor to Nate and Xander. I couldn’t tell him that I thought that the vision gave me the feeling that I was repeating history. I sure as hell couldn’t bring myself to tell dear old Dad about the Earth-moving kiss I shared with this specter in my vision.