Origin: Eternity's End

by Uneeb Qureshi

He helped his wife up and outside. “It is good to see you Dom, how are the preparations?”

  “It is going well,” he looked at Sheppard’s wife, she wore just enough to mask her abdomen. “And the child?”

  “Healthy thus far,” Sheppard replied heartily, “what did you need from me?”

  “A drink brother, come on. This is our last morning on Earth, we must celebrate.” Sheppard laughed.

  “Very well Dom,” he whispered to Anur to continue to get ready and she obliged. He grabbed the canteen and with his trusted brother they both drank quickly.

  Dom’s gaze was fixed on Sheppard’s, almost angrily at first but Sheppard had ignored it. Sheppard was tense. Something was a foot but he did not want to jump to any conclusions, he had trusted this man so far, he would be a fool to betray Sheppard now.

  “And what else did you come for brother?” Sheppard’s body was beginning to feel light, his liver ached. It was a sign. His body was counter-acting some poison.

  “Your family…” His men stormed into the tent grabbing his wife by the wrists and throwing her aside. Groping her as if she were a prize. They barked at her and called her various derogatory terms.

  Sheppard’s eyes grew wide and his body instantly rushed with strength. His vision blurred as he saw streaks of energy other than visible light in his vision. He ran toward his wife and immediately incapacitated the three men dragging her away. She screamed as some put pressure on her abdomen while others fought Sheppard.

  His body was growing weaker from the struggle. The poison was not killing him but it was sapping what strength remained in him.

  An immortal technician saw the scene unfolding in the distance and rushed to aid his Commander. Two of Dom’s men intercepted him keeping him at bay while Sheppard pressed on, there was one man standing between him and Anur.

  With a super human burst of speed Sheppard side-stepped behind the man and grabbed his neck pulling it with a swift jerk. He could hear the snap as the cervical vertebrae separated from the spinal column. The man instantly fell limp.

  Sheppard finally succumbed to the poison. He fell to the ground. His legs finally weakened after that surge of speed. He looked at his wife as she stood in fear and he whispered the words, Run.

  She immediately ran barefoot in the opposite direction toward the shuttles as Sheppard saw Dom’s men chasing after her. He grabbed the man closest to him by the feet slowing one of them down.

  In the distance he could make out some of his legion’s soldiers patrolling and catching sight of the scuffle. They ran toward his wife trying to intercept her. Sheppard knew she would be in safe hands.

  As he turned his weakened head the other way he saw the technician who attempted to intervene earlier. He was quickly subdued into a headlock by Dom’s bodyguard while Dom hovered above him. Dom shook his head.

  Sheppard could not hear the words but his mind and heart immediately shook from the next sight. Dom’s men grabbed the man’s wife and children and brought them to the left of him, the man screamed as Dom’s men shot each member of his family in front of his eyes.

  Sheppard closed his eyes as the blood spattered onto his face. There was a ringing in his ears and he did not want to see how it would end.

  Sheppard awoke in what felt like minutes. The last images that crossed his mind disturbed him. His head throbbed with an aching migraine. As he wrested himself from those thoughts he stood on his feet trying to get his balance back. The copper taste from his mouth and nose meant he had taken quite a beating before going down, but it was quiet here now. He tried to orient himself, what was I doing—

  He thought of his wife. His heart rushed with adrenaline as he thought of the possibilities. His men had found her, but did she make it onto the ship? He hurried through the corridors, it did not matter which direction. The poison was wearing off.

  His wildly pumping heart felt like it was going to burst. And his low blood pressure was not helping him in the least. He bent over onto his knees as he spit out the blood from his mouth, Anur please…be safe.

  He quickly recognized where he was from his surroundings, the basement of the Magistrate’s palace. He ran up the stairs as fast he could, the sheer size of the palace stairway was a testament to their peoples’ engineering. After looking up he saw several more flights of stairs into the Magistrate’s court.

  He pressed on, reaching the final step out of breath. He could hear the screams and voices of men coming from ahead. He paused just shy of the court allowing himself to catch his breath. He did not want to enter the next area unprepared. He shuffled to the side of the palace stairway and hid behind a wall to eavesdrop.

  Bodies were strewn across the elegant flooring and several limbs placed on spikes everywhere. He grew more worried by the second as he overheard the next conversation.

  “Please! Please let us go!” The screams of agony were from the Magistrate.

  Sheppard peered over the corner and saw the Magistrate’s body stripped of clothes and tied across circular disc next to the throne. Dom was torturing him.

  “You said you’d help me!” The Magistrate began.

  Dom stopped sharpening his blade and looked at the man with his head cocked to the side, “And I did. But you still disgust me.”

  “What have we done to you?” His screams grew louder as Dom’s men tightened the ropes. The Magistrate’s limbs stretched farther with each tug.

  “Your people are the reason I watched my mother, father and my entire village be destroyed when I was child!” Dom screamed, “You mortals couldn’t bear to share this world with us, you sought to kill us all!” Dom dug the blade into the Magistrate’s quadriceps causing the man to shake violently in pain.

  “Please!” He screamed, “We are not those men! We are a good people, we wanted to share this world with you!”

  “Oh?” Dom said, “Is that why you asked me to kill my own brother and abduct his wife? Is that what you call sharing?” He turned the blade and began to slice the thin fibers of his muscle with an upward motion. The Magistrate’s screams turned to howling as he ran out of breath.

  “Enough!” Sheppard yelled, exposing himself.

  “Ah brother! Look who comes to steal the show,” Dom said with his arms wide open, “Come, let us end this together and show this world that they will no longer oppress us.”

  “These people need not suffer Dom, let them go.” He glanced at men surrounding him.

  “Where is my daughter?” The Magistrate screamed with what air was left in his lungs.

  Dom walked up to the Magistrate. Sheppard approached the throne to get closer to both of them.

  “You and her will see each other soon enough…” Dom said.

  “Dom, where is she.” Sheppard demanded just meters away from him.

  “Your men gave us quite a bit of trouble for sure brother, but rest assured she will end this war soon enough.”

  War?

  “You bastard’s child, you son of the Undergod!” Screamed the Magistrate with his dying breath.

  “Your time has come old man, I have had enough of you.” Dom looked at the brazier right in front of the Magistrate and saw to it a fitful end. “This man would not let you have your bride Sheppard, now we shall see to the end of him.”

  He walked behind the large disc hanging from the wall and, in the blink of an eye, cleanly cut the rope holding it. Sheppard lunged at the disc trying to save the old man but was too late. The side of the disc the Magistrate was tied to fell flat on the large brazier, slowly burning him alive.

  Dom cackled maniacally as he heard the blood curdling screams. Though Sheppard hated him utterly for his remarks to Anur he did not deserve such a painful end.

  “No!” Sheppard screamed as he rushed toward the brazier. He was immediately attacked by Dom’s men.

  “Don’t kill him boys! He just needs to come to his senses.”

  Sheppard made quick work of them, they were strong but foolhardy. But their sheer numbers soon got the best of him
.

  Dom did not flinch. He sat on top of the glowing hot disc unscathed, without a care. He took time to analyze Sheppard. If he could sway Sheppard to his whim, he would have the support of the remaining immortals.

  “Tell me Sheppard, are you with me or against me?”

  Sheppard spat on his face, refusing to acknowledge him.

  “Now that wasn’t nice…” He nodded to one of his men above the court. His wife appeared, bound by the wrists and feet, in the arms of a larger man. He lifted her just above the ledge as if threatening to drop her.

  “I ask you one last time…are you with us or against us?” Sheppard’s heart began to feel like it was pounding outside of his chest, what is he—

  He looked beneath them and saw the large spire that protruded from the throne. No! He wouldn’t!

  “If you do what I think you’re going to do you will regret ever laying hands on me and my family.”

  “Your family? She’s a mortal Sheppard! The same people who cast us out of our homelands! Yet you cannot get it through your thick head that they still hate us! No matter what you do there will always be those who don’t understand us. They will hunt us down till the end of days and make sure every one of us dies. Why?” Dom asked, “Because they fear us Sheppard, they envy us! Because every moment we live is every moment less they have to live… They will do everything in their power to survive, if we don’t kill them now then they will destroy us…and you know that as well as I do we are your only true family…”

  “I choose…” He looked at his wife, tears bawled down her cheek in streams and she shook her head knowing the decision he was going to make. As he saw her make that gesture he knew what she wanted him not to say, “the mortals,” his heart stopped.

  At that instant his wife was dropped back first toward the ground below. Thousands of words and memories crossed his mind. Get her! Not now! No! You Fool! This can’t be happening…

  With outstretched arms he lifted the men that bound him by the wrists and threw them aside. Time slowed down to his aid, but it was a luxury he could not afford to waste. He sprinted toward the throne, his wife merely meters from the tip of the spire before he leaped.

  His outstretched arms just barely caught her. But he missed his step. They both fell toward the spire at an awkward angle. He looked her in the eyes and imagined a future that he would never see.

  In what felt like years, he landed back first onto the spire. It pierced his lower abdomen and thrust through him quickly. His wife was no more fortunate than he was. The portion of the spire that pierced his torso had pierced her ribs and impaled the right side of her chest.

  He began breathing heavily while she let off what sounded like muffled screams. She had no air to breathe. He lifted her and himself off the spire, causing unbearable pain. He felt more helpless than he had been in his entire life, he was unable to do anything for her. He told her to breathe slowly, as he lowered her to the ground.

  He tore off his shirt and padded her chest to slow the bleeding. Her lung was clearly punctured. He turned around and saw Dom’s men keeping a distance from him, their job was done.

  They thought he would turn to their side after losing her, but they were wrong. Sheppard’s resolve now turned against Dom.

  He tackled Dom over the railing of the balcony. They both hurtled nearly three stories to the ground below.

  Sheppard landed with his back first, slamming his skull against the concrete pavement. His pierced torso bled fiercely upon landing but he stood up regardless of the pain.

  For seconds he felt disoriented, barely able to see Dom and comprehend anything other than his balance. The city around him was burning, women and children screamed as they tried to escape the fires. Several sections of the city began to burn to the ground as the fighting continued undeterred.

  Betrayal.

  He tried to catch up to Dom, but he had already escaped. Bullets and projectiles were being sprayed from every direction causing the air to buzz like a swarm of bees. Sheppard could not continue he had lost too much blood already.

  Amongst the chaos his comrades found him. Dar led a charge through the crowds. Her stealth and cunning made her invincible near the shadows. Jo rushed to Sheppard’s aid.

  “Where is Anur!” She screamed, Sheppard could only read her lips, he pointed to the Magistrate’s palace.

  As Sheppard and his legions reclaimed the palace they arrived back to the throne room to see Anur barely moving. Medics and technicians slowly staunched her bleeding. The gravity of the situation was made heavier as they realized the womb was not damaged. They rushed her through the streets back to the legion controlled camps, Sheppard comforted her the whole way and she whispered back.

  “The child…” She began.

  “She’s lost a kidney and most of her right lung.” The medical officer rushed through the report, “In addition, almost all of the ribs on the right side of her chest are fractured and she’s suffering from considerable shock.”

  He grabbed the surgeon by the collar and pushed him against a pillar. He screamed at him in rage. His legionnaires separated the two, holding their enraged Commander still.

  “Commander!” Yelled the surgeon, “The child still lives.”

  A beacon of hope had lit up in his pitch black heart. The child she said…

  “Save it, save the child now anyway you can. Would she be able to recover then?”

  The surgeon shook his head, “She’s already weakened by the pregnancy, her heart has been pumping enough just to keep the baby and her alive. We will have to open her up to get the baby out, and even then the blood loss will be considerable…we will try our best...”

  He nodded, “Do it, do whatever you can.” He stood by his lover’s side and held her hand.

  “Don’t doubt yourself Commander…” The surgeon replied, “What you did was one in a million, had you landed any other way on that spike… the child may have died as well…”

  Nurses wrapped the baby girl in blankets, handing her to Sheppard. He walked over to his wife with the child clutched to his chest. They had completed stitching her abdomen from the delivery, but they could do little else but provide her blood at that point. Her injuries were terribly grievous, she was suffering from severe internal bleeding and pneumothorax.

  With every breath Anur felt excruciating pain. She reached for the child with what little strength she had left and bawled in tears. Sheppard helped her hold the baby as she kissed it on the forehead.

  “My little girl…” She brushed the child’s head, leaving streaks of her blood on the child’s skin. “I want to call her Atha…after my mother…”

  Sheppard nodded, wanting to give her anything. Any hope to keep her with him.

  “Anur!” Sheppard screamed. He left the baby in her arm as she closed her eyes. “No, no, no!” He barked, “Don’t die! Please… don’t die!”

  It was too late.

  He screamed in anger, throwing surgical instruments aside, “If I agreed to help him, she would have lived!”

  No one near him said anything. The baby girl started crying again as soon as Sheppard started shouting. He was too distraught to be reasoned with. “You shook your head Anur…when he asked me to help him…why…”

  Dar felt the most culpable for the atrocities, she had no idea how such events would have turned out. She did not play on her instincts. They had never failed her before…

  “Sheppard…” Dar said, “She shook her head because of you Sheppard…she knew you all too well… She gave her life so that you and the child might live...she may not have known that she couldn’t be saved, but who would?”

  His breathing slowed to a halt as everyone around him awaited his orders.

  “It’s not your fault Dar, or anyone else’s. It’s mine alone…” His friends tried to console him but he motioned them silent.

  She nodded as he continued, “Destroy all evidence of our exist-ence from this world, banish those who are here to the winds and let this w
orld forget its eternal children… we are not welcome here anymore…”

  As he said those words all of his subordinates around him looked at one another. Had their Commander finally broken down? The crowds began to disperse as the clashes in the city continued. Their cleansing would begin now, and Dar would be the one to see it done.

  For the second time in his life, he had failed to keep a promise to those he cared for the most.

  Monica clasped her mouth shut at the story ended, with every word the immortal Federation Magistrate said of the tale she wished she could take ten words back for insulting Sheppard. He had lost more in his life than anyone could imagine.

  “I’m sorry if the tale was, gruesome…I was there that day you see…” Lib began, “He and I had bound fates ever since…”

  Monica beckoned to ask, “What happened next?”

  Lib let his arms wide open, “All this.” He smiled, “Dom had escaped aboard one of the shuttles with his men, leaving many to die in the city. In orbit, another mutiny across all the ships that had yet to dock, and aboard the colony vessels…all hell broke loose for lack of better word.” He motioned his servants out of the room before continuing, “The first colony ship immortals had ever built became a warzone, and the battle proceeded onto the next ship and so on. Soon each side had secured its own vessel and Dom’s people warped deeper into the cosmos with whatever technology we had present at the time…they did not get far at first, but the chase was difficult on both sides…”

  “So they survived the journey?”

  Lib nodded, “Those ships were designed to travel for over hundreds of years at full capacity.” And he added, “Guess where they landed?”

  Monica shrugged, “Here?”

  “Correct, nearly a hundred years later we found them again on this world and we pushed them back even further,” he pointed to the floor, “And that was when Sheppard created the Immortal Dominion. It stretched from Earth to this planet.”

  “So, since then. They let Dom’s men go?” She asked.

  “For a time.” He replied, “Sheppard was stretching his forces thin as it was. On Earth he began to cull their last immortal city of all hostile mortals and he banished the peaceful ones to the winds. Warning them never to speak of what had transpired. But…” He shrugged, “Mortals will be mortals now won’t they?”