Dance of Life: The Belief Chronicles: Book One (Chronicles of a Planet's End)

by Tatiana Beller

  Tristan had come to study the site while Emily was in the hospital. He had a pretty good idea of the layout. He wanted the whole thing to be dramatic and memorable. Geoffrey led them into the site. Tristan saw James Watson and the two women from Mexico City waiting in a car some distance away. He nodded to them discreetly and followed Geoffrey. There was a temple on one side and a rather tall pyramid on the other. They went towards the temple. Tristan saw the gun hiding in Geoffrey's coat.

  As they walked up the stairs, Emily helped Geoffrey up. When they finally got to the top, Geoffrey could barely stand. He leaned on Tristan as they headed deeper into the temple. There was a barrier to limit the access of tourists, but they ignored it and continued within. They sat Geoffrey down in a small shelter behind a stone wall to let him rest. Tristan was feeling the tension build. This was what he had planned from the beginning.

  They waited patiently. Geoffrey had the gun out. It didn't take long for them to see James and the two women approaching the temple from different sides. The plan was simple. Tristan weakened Geoffrey with the spiral and left him to their mercy. Then he would take Emily elsewhere and dispose of her. Geoffrey was leaning against the rock, observing them. Emily sat next to him, holding him, waiting to run if necessary. Geoffrey's intention was to kill them before they got far into the temple. Tristan thought it was extreme, but Geoffrey explained that with The Order, there was no other way.

  Tristan placed his hand into his pocket and took the crystal spiral. Then, he took out a water bottle and holding it in the same hand he gave both to Geoffrey while holding on to Geoffrey’s hand as well.

  Geoffrey felt the crystal and looked at Tristan with horror, “What have you done?”

  Emily reached out to separate Tristan from Geoffrey before Geoffrey could warn her against it. It was an act of protection, but the wrong one. The world exploded. Tristan had a brief vision of James Watson and the two women flying through the air before his body felt as if it would shatter into a thousand pieces. He felt the skin burning off his bones. Tristan was screaming in agony, hoping for it to stop. He saw Emily and Geoffrey also in the middle of the flames but mostly surprised. How could they not feel the pain? The fire consumed everything within him. Then images came into his mind like a bombardment of rage. He saw wars, and Geoffrey in the middle, killing with absolute joy. Tristan saw a hunger for destruction. He saw rage and violence at levels that even Tristan at his sickest had never felt. Tristan saw Geoffrey use this rage and destroy life afterlife. He saw and felt the glory of this rage, and then, he saw her.

  It was the most beautiful woman Tristan had ever seen. He saw her reach towards Geoffrey, and the rage disappeared. He felt the flames, and the fire no longer hurt. Then they were gone. He tried to look at Geoffrey and Emily and saw them as one person full of fire, unable to separate one from the other. Tristan felt the craving he'd felt for the woman underwater, and suddenly he was there swimming towards her. His lungs didn't mind the water. He craved her, and he knew he would die without her. She was there to meet him. She smiled and extended her hand. Then she saw the spiral in his hands and recoiled in horror. She looked at the one being that used to be Geoffrey and Emily. It began to grow larger and larger. Tristan reached out to her, but she swam away, desperate to escape.

  The flames reached Tristan, and he felt a burning hand grab his arm. Images came into his brain again. He saw Tom following Emily and the flames destroying him. He felt rage. As he tried to dive towards Tom, he felt the spiral leave his hand. They had it in their hand. They took it and let the fire burn so bright it turned blue. The crystal melted in their hands. Tristan flew backward and landed hard on the stone.

  He immediately stood up and saw he was back in the temple. He looked over to Geoffrey and Emily. The spiral was now shattered on the ground. Tristan grabbed the individual pieces and placed them in his pocket. A bit of glass cut him, but when he looked at the injury again, it was gone. Geoffrey was on the ground unresponsive. Emily was trying to wake him unsuccessfully. Tristan went up to them, took out a gun, and grabbed Emily.

  “Time to end this,” he said.

  He pulled her out of the temple and across the vast expanse of lawn. They stepped over James' unresponsive body. He held her close as lovers might walk. The full moon gave them just enough light to follow the steep steps up the pyramid. He came to the temple on top and pushed her behind the wall.

  He held the gun at her head and said, "Time to die."

  Emily struggled free, but couldn’t get away.

  Tristan smiled, “I’ve been waiting. I have been planning. Years now, I have waited for this moment.”

  He hit Emily across her face, and as she hit her head against the stone, he felt the pain as well.

  “What have you done?” He screamed and pushed her hard against the stone wall.

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  Emily felt Tristan strike her and saw him react. She only had one solution. He hit her again, and Emily knew she had to act before he hurt her so much she couldn't defend herself. She felt him pushing him against her. Emily turned to face him and kissed him roughly. He laughed and reacted.

  “I could do this before you die,” Tristan said. “You can’t hurt me.”

  Tristan yanked her clothes off her body and undid his pants. He pushed hard. Emily felt tears stinging her eyes and prayed that it would work. She focused her whole being in his destruction and felt her body reacting as she knew it would. Emily felt the fire consuming her. She felt him attempt to push her away, but she held on for dear life. He began to scream. She felt Geoffrey's rage in her. She felt the need to destroy completely. Emily knew Tristan was suffering, and it motivated her to keep going.

  She opened her eyes because she wanted to see him die. She thought of the women he'd hurt, and she wanted him to feel their pain. She wanted him to know what it felt like to be afraid and vulnerable. She wanted him destroyed from the inside out. It felt spectacular. She was no longer a victim and would never again be a victim. Emily would never let anyone hurt her for as long as she lived. She thought of Geoffrey's unconscious body, and the rage consumed her entirely.

  He wasn't burning as fast as she expected him to burn. He was in agony, but the pain was not enough. She felt the rage fill her again. She would not let him get away with this. He hurt Geoffrey. He hurt women. He needed to die.

  He opened his eyes and begged for her to stop. She stared at him and felt nothing but pleasure at his pain. She felt what it was like to be Tristan. She felt the power he felt in damaging others. Emily embraced the power. She channeled the power into making him feel the pain he’d caused. His skin began to burn. His eyes were in a desperate panic of a man who knows he will die. She saw his eyes, and then she saw it.

  In his eyes, she saw Tom's eyes. Every bit of rage left her and was replaced by grief. The pain she'd held for years flowed through her body, and she saw it flowing into Tristan. She pushed him away with all her strength. He collapsed on the floor, his body convulsing, making unearthly sounds. There were large patches of his skin missing. She could smell the burnt flesh. It made her gag. She pulled up her pants and stumbled out.

  She forced her legs to take her down the pyramid steps. Emily knew there was nothing she could do for Tristan. He would die. As she reached the bottom, her legs gave out, and she crumpled to the floor. She felt the cool breeze battle against her skin. She was soaked in sweat. Emily started trembling. She curled up, hoping to die.

  A hand touched her gently. She was sobbing in loud, gasping breaths. She felt arms come around her and pick her up. As she was pressed against a chest, she recognized the smell. Geoffrey. He was okay. Everything would be okay. That is all that mattered. Everything would be fine.

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  Much later that night, Tristan opened his eyes. He was utterly alone. Tristan felt as if he was surrounded by ghosts. He was expecting to be dead, but the pain was still there. He stood up and tested his legs. They were wor
king. He felt his skin trying to find the burns. His skin was in perfect condition. He had survived.

  Chapter 15

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  Emily woke in the hotel room and felt Geoffrey lying next to her. She leaned up against him and felt his arms encircle her. Contented to simply stay still, Emily thought about the last two days. She felt healthy. The injury was long gone, and only a thin scar remained. Geoffrey had gotten her back to the hotel. She still had no idea how he managed it. Geoffrey worried her. She woke up the next morning feeling on top of the world, but he had not woken up. He had fallen into some sort of a coma that had lasted twenty-four hours. She'd called a doctor, and the doctor decided that he was exhausted.

  He woke up and could barely move. Emily helped him sit up to get him to eat, and it had been awkward to walk him towards the bathroom the first time. She had bathed him and gotten him back into bed. Emily was terrified there was no going back. He couldn't die, and he couldn't live anymore. His body was breaking down. Whatever happened when she got hurt and then with the crystal took out something from him. It was as if he had begun the process to transition to death, but it hadn't been completed.

  She knew that the only realistic solution was to get him home. She had no idea how she would do it. If he could hardly walk, she couldn’t get him through the desert. They couldn’t stay in the hotel forever. She was going to take care of him. Emily owed that to him.

  “I need to get you home, Geoffrey,” Emily said.

  He opened his eyes and kissed her gently. “I don’t have to go home. That home is now yours.”

  “Even if I agreed to this, I need so much information from you. It isn’t fair for you to leave me with everything.”

  "I am organized. I have a long time to practice. All the information you need you can find in my cabin. I have the journals and financial files. I have made maps of the planets. Everything is there." Geoffrey said.

  “It is not the same. Help me get you home. Then we can discuss the future.” Emily said.

  Geoffrey sat up with difficulty. “You can get me as far as Los Angeles?”

  Emily nodded, “We can travel with you in a wheelchair. I can probably get you as far as the desert. I don’t think I can get you through the desert.”

  “I can get through the desert,” Geoffrey said. “Let’s go home.”

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  Tristan was walking. He'd been walking for a long time. His exit from the archeological site had been full of awkward questions. The three bodies of James Watson and the two women were no longer there. It was the daytime by the time he tried to leave. The guards stopped him. It helped he didn't speak a word of Spanish. In the end, they decided that he was a stupid foreigner and let him go. He had to go see the woman where he was supposed to deliver the spiral. He couldn't let that go. Tristan dreaded the pain he knew would come when the Sentinels realized he failed at his mission. If he explained Geoffrey destroyed it, then he could be forgiven for not delivering it. They might even pay. He had gotten a ride from the guards to the smaller highways. They insisted that it was only a few miles from there. Tristan assumed it was a lie. He walked all day and the roads that kept getting smaller. He was exhausted.

  He finally arrived in the town with a tiny church, a small store, and a square. A few houses spread out from the square. A couple of dogs wandered through town, hoping to find food. Cows and horses walked through the village freely, and there were even chickens wandering unattended across the square. Tristan stepped into the store and asked for a name. He bought a soda and some chips because he desperately needed food.

  Tristan followed the directions given to him. He arrived at a one-story house in the middle of lush jungle vegetation. Tristan opened the gate made up of a few sticks and some wire. He stepped inside, and a large black dog came barking at him. He quickly stepped back out and waited. A face peeked out from a doorway. It was a child. The face disappeared, and he heard quick Spanish discussed. An ancient face appeared out the door and smiled. Tristan recognized her from the Sentinel's instructions.

  The woman walked out towards the gate, opened the gate, and extended her hand.

  “It is gone,” Tristan said. “Geoffrey broke it.”

  He got a toothy smile in response. The black dog approached barking. The woman gave the dog a look, and it retreated whining. She signaled for him to follow her into her house. She stepped inside. It was one room. The back of the house had an outdoor kitchen. Two younger women were cooking. They looked at him and laughed. The older woman motioned to a plastic chair, and Tristan sat down. One of the young women put a plate of food in front of him. It looked amazing. He hadn't had a real meal in a long time. He tried the food, mostly beans, and rice. Some pink onions were burning spicy and a small tortilla with some sort of beef on it. It felt like he landed in paradise. He ate gratefully and thanked them.

  The older woman sat across from him with her own plate of food. She called out a name, and a child came into the room. The woman spoke rapidly Spanish to the child, and the child translated into broken English.

  “You broke the glass?” The child asked.

  “I didn’t break it. Geoffrey broke it.” Tristan clarified.

  The child translated, and the woman laughed again. The woman spoke to the child again, and the child turned towards Tristan. “It was as it was meant to be,” the child said.

  “You mean this whole horrible mess was meant to happen?” Tristan asked.

  The child translated, and the old woman nodded. She said something to the child, and the child translated, "You have done your job. You can go home."

  He finished eating, and they waved him out of the house as if grateful to be rid of him. The whole thing felt anticlimactic. He wandered back towards the highway. It was getting later in the afternoon, and he wanted to hitch a ride before it got too late. Tristan had not slept in thirty-six hours. As he arrived at the highway, no cars were willing to stop. Tristan continued walking, hating everything about his life. When a car would drive by, he would make the universally known sign to hitchhike. Nothing.

  It got dark, and he wondered if he would have to walk all the way to Cancun. He wanted a lovely hotel and restaurants more than anything else in the world. At intervals, he would check his cell phone for signal, but he was still too isolated. In one of those moments, he was wandering on the side of the road holding his cell phone high, looking at it when he heard the car, the screech of tires, and he felt himself flying through the air.

  He landed on the ground and felt his arm crack as he hit. He pushed himself up on the arm, screaming and looked at the bone on his arm. It was pushed through the skin. Then as his brain reacted to the horror, with the most excruciating pain he could imagine, he saw the bone push itself back into place. He kept screaming as he felt the bone reattach itself to the other section, and then he saw the opening on his skin heal over. He touched his whole body looking for injuries and realized he was perfectly okay.

  He laughed loudly. He jumped up to his feet, and bounced from one foot to the other, dancing away the gift he'd been given. He twirled in the air, and when he handed, he saw a Mexican family standing on the side of the road staring at him. They obviously thought he was insane. He calmed down and looked for his phone. He picked it up and dusted it off. Against all logic, it had also survived relatively intact. He patted the dust off his body and turned towards the family with his full charm.

  “Cancun, please?” Tristan asked.

  The father in the family nodded, “Cancun?”

  Tristan nodded in return. The man headed to the car. There was damage to the hood and the windshield from Tristan's body. Tristan took out his wallet and handed the man several hundred-dollar bills to pay for the damage to his car. The man took it and shook his head, officially confirming Tristan was utterly insane. Tristan was placed in the middle of the back seat with a baby on his lap, two small children on one side, and a moody teenage boy on the other. H
e held the baby awkwardly as the car started on the third try, and they drove away.

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  The arrival to the Los Angeles International Airport had been pretty painless. Geoffrey had a wheelchair the whole time. As they stepped out into the curb, travel became more complicated. Emily got help getting him into the bus that would take them to the car rental. He leaned on her trying to manage the walk to the rental place as they got dropped off. Emily left him on a bench in front of the building and went inside to get the car. An hour later, they were on the I-10 heading East.

  Geoffrey had fallen asleep again. Emily stopped at a store, leaving Geoffrey in the car with all the windows open, and went inside. She felt so entirely out of her element. It had not been so long since Emily lived in Los Angeles, but it felt like a lifetime. She felt like she'd been through hell. She bought everything she could think that could fit into packs. They would need food, water, sleeping bags, and more. She purchased a first aid kit and some extra clothes.

  She put everything into the car and continued driving. After a few hours, she knew she was getting close to the turnoff. She woke Geoffrey.