In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  The atmospheric pressure violently shifted. It started at the heart of the machine and then shot over the crowd in a ring of white distortion. Prysm shrieked, gripping her father’s leg as tight as possible. Her chest lost weight; her whole presence did, bringing an unsettling sickness upon her body. Disoriented by the sudden power, her father took a shaky step back; those responsible for awakening such a beastly machine staggered away as well. Prysm’s mother snatched Justus at his wrist, helping to escort the weak child over to Prysm and Gannon’s side. “Is this safe?!” she called to her husband.

  “Probably not,” he calmly reasoned.

  “THEN WHY ARE WE STAYING?!”

  He looked at her, his white eyes glowing in temptation. He continued staring as the pressure fluctuated, bouncing between crushing and nonexistent as a ghostly, eerie purple hue began to take over. Hollow, cursed screams burrowed into Prysm’s ears; she squeezed her frightened body between her father and mother for safety. The Eyla around her were wailing with dread, fleeing to the farthest corners of the soul-proof room as their captured friends were fused with the demonic energy in the second vial.

  The dark matter… It was greedy. It devoured every sacrifice it was given—strings of black, tormented smoke pursuing spinning fractals of light until it overcame and absorbed the souls with hungry flashes of purple.

  “We are staying because we are about to win,” her father finally said. “Hell has been obliterated and reaped to the bone.” He cast his ambitious eyes toward the machine’s ivory spire that was slowly turning black. “And the sealed gates of Heaven are next! I can’t have any competition when I repair all of His damage, now can I?”

  With a deafening boom, frigid black lightning exploded from the spire. Prysm’s mother reacted immediately, throwing one child into each arm. She was launched back by the sheer force of the explosion, soaring as a bullet through the air, only able to be stopped when she collided back-first with another thrown soldier.

  Prysm and Justus trembled all over, unable to move in their mother’s clenched arms as they watched their soldiers explode against walls—some actually broke through them. Tables were smashed; test chambers ruptured and flooded the room, pooling around the many soldiers knocked unconscious by the blast.

  Not even Prysm’s formidable father could withstand the force, struggling to get back to his own feet. He was heaving, bleeding all over, but his drive stood him back up, allowing him to stare at the phenomenon.

  A hole. There was a physical hole ripping through the sky. Prysm had never seen colors besides gray and black ink the clouds, but above her, there was light—and not from a machine or wires. It was a flowing river of gold, white, purple, and pink… A waterfall of magic so beautiful that just looking at it made something twist inside of her.

  Clashing rings of pure white and nefarious black battled in a ragged ellipsis along the edge of the wondrous cascade, cracking and booming like a thunderstorm. Bolts of hot white lightning and ones of cold black ice clashed along the rim of the hole, relentlessly striking the palace. The foundation was shifting beneath them; the entire castle was at risk of collapsing, but her father remained static.

  From the strikes of black, demons of every line emerged, parting from the bolts as dripping, inkly forms. They gurgled, snarled for revenge, but none descended on the humans. Instead, they soared into the sky and through the hole that emitted only the purest of light, tearing into Heaven by the thousands.

  Everyone but Gannon cowered. He was laughing, laughing in such a maniacal way that Prysm couldn’t help but stare. He bared his open arms to the war he descended upon Heaven, cheering on his captured demons with irate cackles and wet chortles. “YES! FEAST! BREAK THEM DOWN!”

  “M-Mommy…” Justus stuttered. “What… What have I done?”

  “More importantly, what’s happening to Daddy?!” Prysm squealed. “Something is wrong!”

  “…Nothing is wrong, Prysm,” she shallowly corrected. “That is who your father has always been.”

  “Huh? No, no, it’s not!” She squirmed out of her mother’s tight arms. “I need to help him!”

  “PRYSM, NO!” The mother swung for her flighty child, but Prysm had already taken off, racing toward her father in hopes to bring him back.

  Running felt like wadding through goo; her legs could hardly hold up against the wind, but seeing her father in such terrible danger gave her all the strength that her young body lacked. “DADDY! Get away from there!”

  Not expecting to hear the screech of his child, Gannon looked back, astounded by her courage—but that did not mean he appreciated it. “Prysm! Go back to your mother!”

  “Not until you stop acting weird! You need to—!” The floor groaned and split, throwing her onto the ground and sending her sliding into her father’s feet.

  Frantic, he scooped up Prysm and shoved her into his chest, father and daughter watching the heavens rage as the stream of demons finished pouring in, leaving only fervent gusts and strong uncertainty.

  A cloud of smog darted up beside them, Typo staring above in despair. His body was bending and pulling toward Heaven, naturally trying to join his brothers and sisters in the attack, but he remained glued to the physical world, never more stricken in his life.

  “What?!” Gannon ordered impatiently. “What is it, Typo?!”

  “…Hell is literally breaking loose,” he exclaimed quietly. He looked his Lord in the eye, never more serious throughout his eight hundred years. “RUN.”

  The portal supernovaed; they were thrown to the floor, everything ringing and stinging. Prysm could hardly see as she curled up into her father’s pounding chest. Lights so bright that they physically ate away at her eyes descended, bullets of gunk and fire blown back into Earth’s atmosphere as the brief hole between worlds was sealed shut.

  Prysm whimpered, squinting as she watched trapped, forever separated creatures of burning light be devoured by falkas, shis, and so many other demons. Most did not even strike with their flaming swords of justice; they were too frightened by what had just happened, flying for their existence. Others were the exact opposite, coming to the aid of their frantic allies and lashing out with sabers of fire, purifying the demons with a simple stab and turning them to dust.

  Despite the overwhelming number of demons, the angels had the strength, shifting within seconds from the hunted to the hunters as demons crumbled and filled the air with steaming ash. Within a minute, all evils were obliterated, leaving a brigade of infuriated, flaming creatures that had no way of getting back through the resealed gates. Warping in anger, their focus quickly found the source of such madness—and it was not the machine.

  They dove like vultures, blades drawn and rearing straight toward the royal tyrant.

  “LORD!” Typo cried.

  Prysm screamed as they descended. She closed her eyes and held on tight to her father when she was harshly grabbed at her mushy sides and pried away. Terrified, she reopened her eyes, her lungs nearly exploding when she found herself held in the air by her father and a legion of flaming angels upon her. “DADDDYYY—!”

  Everything went dark.

  She didn’t remember anything after that. From that point on, what memories could be formed were fragmented and usually did not hang on long, even less so her consciousness. She didn’t have any recollection of how much time passed between each episode; she would open her eyes and see her mother’s crying face—sometimes she remembered vials, heard screams, and even saw her father smiling down on her as though she was a fillet of freshly butchered meat.

  But never did she know the current location or state of her body—not the outside, at least, but inside, she ached at the bone… Felt a constant wave of sadness never before experienced. Grief and pain were emanating in her dark mind at all times; sometimes, the faces of those angels appeared and struck her with even worse emotions. Aside from what was inside, though, she saw nothing.

  Until she finally awoke.

  Her first, concrete glimpse
of the world in what seemed like forever was dark. The chubby skin she used to love poking had vanished to the extreme, leaving her a bag of bones so graciously covered by the thinnest tarp. Her eyes had been sealed for so long that they did not feel right being open; her vision most certainly was not clear, even less her mind. Being able to move her limbs herself was the most foreign thing, even more so when she saw the shackles attached at every joint.

  “Come on, honey! Faster!”

  “I’m trying, Mom!”

  The voices that she knew by heart but had not heard in so long almost killed her. Head throbbing and body trembling, Prysm’s weak eyes found the faces of her mother and brother in the dark room that she was chained in. Justus looked different—older, and he was hard at work, a small knife in his hand tirelessly running back and forth across her shackles in an attempt to cut through. Her mother was focusing on the progress, but when Prysm groaned, she redirected her sight, immediately stricken by overwhelmed, joyful tears. “Prysm…”

  “…M-Mom…?” Prysm’s tongue was so dry that it could hardly fold the word correctly.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” she sobbed quietly. “Yes, it’s me! Mommy’s here… She’s got you…”

  Prysm wanted to cry too, but her ducts had been out of use for so long that all she felt was pressure building up in her thin, bony face. It was so difficult to speak that she simply took to rotating her head, trying to get a sense of what was happening. She didn’t even recognize herself—not only by weight, but her legs looked so much longer—arms too. Waves of white hair overcame the silky black strands of the past, but most unbelievably, her skin… It wasn’t just pale, but it had a faint glow.

  “What…?” That was all she could voice—and the questions just kept mounting the more she saw. All the chains and bolts attached to her—the freshly removed tubes and needles strewn across the floor—the puddle of goo she sat in still plastered to her skin and glopped in her dyed hair. Again, she voiced the only thing that she could: “What?”

  Her mother hushed her, patting down her face. “Prysm… Don’t worry about it now, sweetie. Just think about getting out of here, alright?”

  “Mom, we have approximately ninety seconds until the next patrol,” Justus whispered, breaking through the cuff on Prysm’s wrist and moving on to the next. “I don’t know if I can get—”

  “Yes, yes, you can. Just hurry. If we don’t get her out now, we won’t ever.”

  “Mom…?” Prysm tried again.

  “No, no, conserve your strength, honey. You’ve been asleep for three years… Just wake up… And get ready.” Her mother plunged a needle into Prysm’s arm—a rush of fire began flying through Prysm’s veins, lifting her eyes, clearing her mind, and calming her tremors.

  Three years? She had to be lying. How was that even possible? “What?”

  “Seventy-five seconds,” Justus announced, moving as fast as he could.

  “I said ‘no,’ Prysm,” her mother pressed. “Just listen. When we free you, you need to run like you never have before. I don’t care how weak you feel; you’ll feel even worse tomorrow when your father harvests your heart. You fight! Do you understand?”

  The last cuff keeping down her wrist snapped. Her mother immediately took Prysm’s hands and tried to pull her to her feet, but a shackle around the child’s neck prevented it.

  “What?!” her mother exclaimed. She spun toward Justus, who looked equally as terrified. “Justus, I thought you cut through it?! Why—?!”

  “…Her skin grew around it,” he painfully whispered with a touch to Prysm’s neck. His gaze flashed to the door; incoming footsteps pounded at their ears.

  Her mother’s face—it just shattered. She looked back at her daughter, forcing a smile. “I see… Then I guess I must fight too, right?”

  Justus cocked his head, uncertain. “What are you talking about, Mom?”

  She grabbed his shoulders, giving him a light peck on the forehead. “My duty to my children. That’s what.” She couldn’t help but laugh, on the verge of tears. “At least He made sure I’d have a place to go when I died, right?”

  “DIE?!” Justus squealed. “W-WHAT—?!”

  She grabbed Justus’ hand and shook it hard; her purple eyes began to glow. “I don’t know what will happen—but I’ll get you and your sister to safety, alright? We’ll find the Encryption; they’ll be honored to have us! But… If something goes wrong and we get separated, I trust you to protect Prysm, ok? Prysm and Prysm alone. Don’t turn back for me.”

  “But…!”

  “PROMISE ME YOU WON’T.”

  He couldn’t. He could only stutter.

  She scoffed. “Good enough… Come here.” She tightened her grip on his overworked hand, grabbing the chain that kept Prysm’s neck shackled with the other.

  As a hunter, she watched the door, waiting for the moment it would open. The footsteps boomed ominously, heart rates throughout the room increasing tenfold as the countdown came closer and closer to its end.

  There was a pause at the door and then the release of pressurized air.

  “NOW!” Visible sound waves launched out of the mother’s mouth when she screamed, shattering the patrolling Elite into a million pieces. She paused before screaming once more, directing her voice at Prysm’s chain and slicing it in half. Once she was freed, she took her daughter’s malnourished palm and bolted with her children through the open door in a race against time.

  Already beyond those doors, a Haxor was seen running away with a hand on his cuff, alerting the palace. The alarms were deafening, the shaking air and floor nearly being enough to knock them down altogether, but their mother remained stable, her body swallowing the invisible waves and enhancing her strength.

  “M-mom?!” Justus cried, as one after the other, doors opened, and soldiers poured in.

  “STAY AWAY FROM MY BABIES!” she bellowed, the change in wording and pitch altering both the intensity and range of her strike. This time, the waves shot from her mouth in horizontal arcs, taking out an entire wave of men in her path and staining the blue walls red.

  Still, rows and squadrons kept filing out into the large hallway after the first, and she could not conjure a scream powerful enough to kill them all in one go.

  “EMBRY!”

  Prysm cringed at the sound of her father’s voice, looking back on winded legs as he came charging up from behind. He took aim at his wife, a readied strike of lightning wrapped around his fingers.

  “Pardon the language, kids.” She reared her neck back toward Gannon. “FUCK YOU!”

  The waves were unpredictable and fueled by rage, just as she was. They descended toward Gannon more quickly than all the others in ragged, moving circles of all sizes, each honed in on the man that she always hated.

  Fingers electrified, he slashed the air before him, cutting through the solid waves and turning them into fragments of glass.

  “Shoot…!” The mother whipped her head to the front, screaming yet again to get rid of an oncoming wave.

  Even Prysm in her decrepit state knew it was futile. “Mom… You can’t—”

  “Like hell I can’t!”

  “Mom!” Justus exclaimed. “Typo is behind us!”

  She growled. It was frighteningly low and unstable in pitch, an animal cornered and desperate for their life. With a heave, she dug her heels into the floor and spun around, whipping her children behind her and wailing at the top of her lungs, sending out waves at rapid-fire in all directions. They sliced ice pillars in half, destroyed walls, detonated Elites and slaughtered Haxors, and most importantly, it forced Typo’s descending figure to retreat and shield Gannon.

  Embry continued to scream, watching the kingdom crumble around her as she formed a natural barrier of debris to shield her family.

  Exhausted, her scream turned into a squeak, and she hit the ground on her knees, panting. A trickle of blood dripped from her nostril as she pushed her body to its breaking point, and immediately, the air molecules began to heat
up and shake beside her.

  “Whatever you do…” she panted. “Don’t… Get cut…”

  “Mom…” Justus whimpered, keeping Prysm on her weak feet. “We can’t—”

  “NO!” she sobbed, her purple eyes bloodshot with pain. “FIGHT! YOU HAVE TO FIGHT TO LIVE! IF YOU DON’T FIGHT, YOU WILL DIE, BUT IF YOU FIGHT, YOU MIGHT LIVE!” Tears burning her face, she looked into the eyes of her children for the last time. “LIVEEE!”

  The world turned white as her vocal cords reached their limit, her powers physically shoving Justus and Prysm through the walls and knocking them into thin air, sending them into a free fall toward the snow-blanketed ground.

  ***

  Seek sat up erect, panting and bathed in sweat. Catching her breath was impossible; she patted down her body with frantic slaps, making sure that she was physically there and not just an indent in the ground. Thankfully, the latter proved to be wrong.

  Shaking, she leaned back on her palms, still trying to regain her bearings. After she had been forced to relive that nightmare—tell everyone in the Encryption the truth about her and Justus—she could not stop thinking about it, specifically her mother because she had to be reminded of her sacrifice every waking moment… Even now.

  Mentally and physically drained, Seek had gone to take a small nap in the tunnels, and Embry followed to keep watch over her. She was still staring at Justus’ projected map, trying to figure it out when Seek awoke. She smiled the child’s way, but Seek could not mirror her expression.

  After they had been blasted out of the palace, Seek and Justus wandered through the snow drifts to skillfully evade the army until they reached the cities—and even then, they had to be extremely careful. They were in hiding for months until they finally found the Encryption, but to this day, nearly five years later, Justus had yet to forgive her. She never knew how much abuse he had endured daily until he blew up on her one night shortly after their escape; she never realized it because she was the chosen one—the Revere that did not mutate while in vitro and retained the vital, supernatural gene.