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Chapter 13
Kylan swore as the small plasma welder nearly took his hand clean off. Its blue flame was starting to die, and the repairs were still nowhere near done. As he worked on the suit's external damage, he could hear the small hum of the suit's internal components diligently performing internal repairs. Watching the suit go through its automated repair sequences, he couldn't help but notice how similar their tech was to the infection itself.
He shook his head quickly, eager to chase out any thoughts that would remind him of his life on this miserable planet. And what he had lost, or rather, of what he had let slip from his grasp.
Kylan stopped and sat back. Around him lay strewn bits of rubble and machinery, scattered over a devastated and barren landscape. In the distance, he could see smoke trailing up to the sky from deep inside the nearby city limits. As the smoke rose higher, Kylan could see the underside of the cloud lit from the dim glow of a thriving fire.
The momentary lull in his thoughts allowed all those repressed images of his former existence to spring back, reanimated deep inside his mind. Flashes of a lightly swaying field of wheat, a decrepit old barn, and a man's familiar warm smile passed through his vision.
Kylan clenched his eyes shut; trying to hold back the flood but it didn't help - it never did. Without warning, the images shifted to form a rain of blood, desperate, wrenching pain, and a blue-eyed man reaching out to Kylan as he was quickly pulled into the gathered darkness.
'Kylan!' the man's scream echoed across his memory, bringing him back to that one agonizing day. The mental image shocked him abruptly, bringing him back to the present. He fell backwards on his haunches, dropping the welder. Cradling his face in his trembling hands, his whole body was shaking.
Through trembling lips, his mouth moved as if to whisper a name. Yet no sound could be heard from between his hands.
Although absorbed as he was in his own little world, even Kylan could feel something stir, just beyond his senses. Sitting in front of the broken suit, he felt something pull at him, as if a smoky hand from the burning city was beckoning him towards the fire it held within. Lifting his head, he felt the blood run cold in his chest.
In the distance, a pristine farmhouse greeted his vision, standing like a jewel amidst the ambient carnage and death that had soaked so deep into the planet. Every brick, every shingle, every detail was perfect and untouched. Everything was exactly as he remembered it from that summer.
His mouth was agape as he stared. Slowly, he got up and began walking, almost unthinkingly, towards the familiar building.
There, on the front porch, rocking slowly in her old chair, with her hair tied as always in front of her neck, sat a familiar old woman. She looked up from her needlework, like she had all those years ago when they first met, and smiled at him.
"Well now, you're late," she told him.
"...Selly?" His voice caught for a moment, "Selly we need to... We need to leave...And-"
She cut him off with just a look. "You're late, Kylan," she repeated sternly.
"Late?" he asked, blinking rapidly. ".... How? Wait, why aren't you calling me Richard?" he trailed off, as Selmar Gutherie gathered up her work and started walking towards the front door.
"The tea will get cold if you don't stop asking useless questions. Now move your lazy ass," she replied as she moved through the doorway. "We're years overdue for our talk as it is."
"No Selly," he called, running quickly behind her, "you don't get it! We have to leave and-"
She fixed him with such a glare that he stopped speaking straight away, his arm still outstretched imploringly towards her. "You're the one who doesn't understand," she said. "Anyway, there's nothing left for me here or anywhere for that matter."
"What?"
Once inside the house, she gestured to the far rocking chair, "Sit down. Shut up. I'll get us the tea."
When Selly vanished into the kitchen, Kylan grabbed the nearby table as if testing to see if it was real.
It felt real.
Everything was untouched and unchanged, like nothing had moved, much less breathed, over the years. As he looked around the room, his eyes widened when he caught sight of an old blue coat that was slung lazily over one of the chairs. Quickly, Kylan picked it up and rolled the fabric back and forth over his fingers; once again disbelieving it was actually real. It couldn't be.
Without thinking, he buried his face in the fabric, feeling each fiber brush past his cheek as he nuzzled into its nostalgic warmth. A familiar, yet painful, scent caught his attention, instantly bringing back the intense memories he was hoping to avoid thinking about.
"You still take it straight, don't you?"
Kylan spun on his heels, his heart in his throat and his eyes moist, "Umm no, not anymore." Kylan replied, still clasping the coat tightly to his chest.
Selly walked through the room, carrying two small cups filled with steaming hot tea. She laughed as she passed him a cup and sat down, "Well, looks like you finally got over that hurdle."
Kylan felt a rush of strange emotions, as he stared at the coat still clenched in his grasp.
"I'm sorry," the old woman said finally. "I've always been a bit of a bitch." She shook her head, and snorted once, "There's sugar in the small pot, on that there side table, if you'd like."
"Thanks," Kylan mumbled.
Selly took a sip of tea before clearing her throat. "You know something, Kylan? My mother was a very unique person. You'd have liked her I think. She seemed to just know things, you know? My Father though, he liked to nail things down. Learn things through science and all that. They both got a hold of popular idea from when I was a girl. People used to say that if you traveled far enough, you'd find yourself."
Kylan took a sip of tea. "Why Selly? Why did they have to leave?" he whispered.
She stopped, her face suddenly looking tired and hollow. "Some things are beyond our control. We have to make do with what we're given. Some things we just cannot hold onto."
"It's just... The two of them..."
Selly looked down for a second, before continuing. "It was a popular idea when I was a girl. That you could find yourself if you just went far enough, I mean. Some people thought it meant that you'd find out who you were inside, if you traveled the galaxy. I swear that's one of the reasons why people terraformed the nearby planets, and all that shit." Selly smiled, a far away expression on her face. "My Father, like many physicists before him, thought that given enough distance and variation that molecules eventually had to repeat themselves. And that there were bound to be copies, or similar variations of a person, if we only searched far enough. More spiritual people, like my Mother, swore that some people came into this world with copies of themselves, for other reasons."
"Selly, I-"
'Now let me finish, boy!" she scolded him. "Honestly, are you too impatient to enjoy some tea with a doddering old woman?" Her eyes became clouded, but still she pressed onwards. "Years ago, there was a large group of people who thought that as the soul grows and cycles through lifetimes, that it will one day grow too big and eventually have to split in two. Like some sort of giant, ethereal, cell or something of that sort."
"Wait, what exactly are you saying...?" Kylan nearly dropped his tea, eagerly sitting forward in his chair.
As she reclined in her chair, Selly's enigmatic smile could have rivaled that of the Mona Lisa herself. "People nowadays are so caught up with soul mates, aren't they, boy? They'll sit crying for their soul mate to come and save them, that no one stops to consider the bigger picture. God, you never used to see all of this crap when I was a girl."
Kylan just stared at her.
"It's so much more interesting, don't you agree?" She smirked before taking another sip. Settling back, Selly stared through the open front door as she spoke. "Now, personally, I've always believed that we each have a purpose. You know, fate and all that shit. I was always taught that if we don't step up and do what we're here to do, then someone else will have to pick up the slack somewhere down the line. Sort of like course correction for the universe, karma, or something like that." As she looked back at Kylan, he could feel goose bumps gather under his skin in anticipation of what was to follow. "It seems that the four of you have something special to do. But you've already lost some of them. You're not quite down to two, unless I miss my guess. The question is, child, can you succeed where they failed?"
Kylan's hands were trembling as he spoke. "Four? Selly..." He struggled to get the words out.
An unrecognizable emotion flashed in the old woman's eyes. Her smile once more reached up to her eyes. "Hmmm," she said, looking outside, "It seems that your suit has finished its repairs."
"What?" he asked, looking over to the outside world through the open door. "It can't be. It was extensively damaged. It can't be done that fast!" As he turned back to face Selly, he was overcome with dizziness, and his eyes clouded over for a few moments.
When he recovered, he found himself sitting in the middle of some old ruins. Wooden planks, and broken beams, were strewn about. The sides of the walls had fallen over, and in the distance he could see the now familiar column of rising smoke. Gone was the pristine farmhouse. Gone was the old wooden chairs and old, fluffy pillows. Selmar Gutherie once more faded back into the world of his memories.
"...Go to the heart of the matter boy," a whisper on the wind reached his ears.
"Selly?" he called, turning around as if to chase the wind, "Selly, wait! There's so much that I need to ask you still..." As he turned, a sparkle of the clearest blue caught his eye.
There, hanging from of the broken and burnt pieces of wood, shone a clear blue pendant.
"My god," Kylan gasped as he walked slowly towards the beautiful blue light, his arm outstretched towards the pendant, as if with a mind of its own.
Slowly and painfully, Kylan took the pendant down from the timber. As the crescent shaped silver pendant lay in his hand, Kylan couldn't keep the pain inside any longer. Tears streamed down his face, in a downpour of regret and shame.
As he held the pendant, a thin streamer of light cascaded over the sea-blue jewel. Twin streams of blue light danced above the stone, and slowly rose into the air in a double helix. When the light merged at the apex and fell back towards the stone, a familiar, but very unexpected image appeared above the jewel.
Gone was his family. Gone was the image of the happy couple, and their new son. Instead, a younger Kylan was smiling back at himself, arm-in-arm with a clear image of Blaine by his side.
His vision blurred with tears as the image faltered, disappearing back into the stone. "Blaine." Dropping to his knees, he clasped the pendant tight to his chest, as his whole body was wracked by spasmodic sobs of sorrow. "I'm so sorry."
************************************************************************ Author's Note:
Well, I hope that you're enjoying the story so far. I really need to thank Kane for his help with this chapter. I hated it with a fiery passion until he kindly helped me out! TY!
If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, drop me a line corporeal09@yahoo.com
'Till next time!
Gene