Lux Aeterna (part 5 of 26)

Do I dare play with the idea that something rational could come out of my lonely afternoon thoughts? It’s 3:22 now, after lunch but before supper; I know because my clock says so, even though time doesn’t exist out here. …What in all the sane worlds is going on here?? When did all of this happen? Why did it happen? Why is everything happening now? I… I’m just an ordinary young woman who never wanted any of this trouble to start in the first place!

Living on Sion IV, the fourth colony to be built orbiting the Earth, was a mundane and uneventful life. The old wars had been forgotten in the rivers of time and legend, and we were experiencing a kind of peace, the kind where you can smell trouble but can never see it. It was most certainly rumored to be there, but was never actually there to begin with. My friends and I were happy--bums, maybe, but we were happy bums. I especially liked being around Tobi, who I had known ever since I discovered her crying in the sandbox when we were toddlers. She was like a sister to me; both of us being the only children in our families brought us closer still. I love her, though I don’t know if she lives.

I know why I can’t remember much about The End, because when I “woke up”, I remember a lot of people saying that my memory had been partially erased. I kept everything from my past, within reason, and from the time when I woke up I remember a lot, but between the Night and the Day, there was nothing. I felt a sharp pain in my head, like something had drilled into my skull, and I remember a lot of people being afraid of me. When I looked into a mirror, I learned why.

I was… “changed”… I had been transformed into a living ghost, a walking dead, a body as pale as milk. I was like a china doll, white all over, even in my eyes and hair. I was so terrified of my own image that I shrieked in horror and ran to the only safe haven I knew of, the room where I “woke up”, and shuffled myself into a corner, weeping. I stayed there for a whole day, refusing any kind of contact at all, but I was so afraid that if I could, I would have run from myself.

Of course, nowadays, I accept my looks and even flaunt them a little. I never liked looking pale, but I got used to it in time and even accepted the fact that yes, I was still quite a beauty. Tobi would have flipped and sang about it, if she had been around. No, I haven’t seen her in ages, I haven’t seen any of them--neither my colony or the Earth or anything familiar--nothing familiar at all, ever since that day.

When I was finally sane to get back out of my corner and walk around again, I went straight to the dining room and ate anything I could find. Hard bread and cold soup were delicacies to a neglected stomach like mine, and tepid water was greater than ambrosia. While I was eating, I met two people who introduced themselves as Gerrand and Xyphon, and they became my friends and companions from that moment on.

These two were as physically different from other humans as I was, but we were still basically the same. Gerrand was a tall, dark-skinned, handsome stranger with four arms, and spoke coolly and confidently, though with little emotion. Xyphon had a tail, feathered wings, and bird-like feet, but the rest of him was human, and a rather sprightly one at that. It was these two who taught me their ways--that of an organization that had been struggling in vain against a group known as “The Demon’s Twenty”.

They told me that yes, there had been originally twenty members, but half of their number had been killed or sent to prison, for reasons largely unknown to them. The others were still loose, fighting against the kind people who had taken me in. It sounded simple, but I wanted to know what my significance was. Gerrand and Xyphon told me that I had “special powers”, several skills that (they believed) excelled those of even the highest-ranking members of their so-called rebellion.

I didn’t believe them until I figured it out for myself. It seemed as if the Demon’s Twenty had been waiting for a lull in their prey’s activity, and chose that time to attack. Alarms went off as the entire world tumbled, sending everything crashing into the wall. I found myself leaping away so I wouldn’t fall under, and to my amazement, I had broken through the ceiling! I emerged in a new room where one member of the DT was already running amok, frightened and surprised and expecting to die.

I was able to realize what my friends “below” had said, and slew the creature without any effort at all. Now, of course, I was even more surprised, and it took me awhile to absorb what I had experienced. I didn’t have much time, of course, as the entire area was being overrun by the DT. Still feeling afraid and doubtful, I ran through the confusion and helped anybody who looked like they needed it.

I’m embarrassed to say this, but I single-handedly killed seven of the remaining ten Demon’s Twenty purely by accident.

Two more of them were picked off by the rallying rebels. Seeing as how I had such unfathomable skills, their weariness and fear was destroyed and replaced by courage and strength. They swept through the whole place and combined their efforts to slay the last Demon, but even their new courage was not enough to get them to face up against the strongest Demon of them all. Still wet behind the ears and a little afraid, I volunteered to take on the boss by myself.

I found #13 as he was tossing a few of my would-be comrades into the wall, shattering their skulls and backbones. He took a single look at me, his green eyes glowing behind a pair of thin shades, and smiled politely. “Ah, Ichi, I’m glad you saved me the trouble of going through this entire place to find you. I’m relieved to see you again. I thought you would evade our grasp forever, but I figured you might be ‘relocated’ here.”

“I have no damned idea what you’re talking about!” I shouted. “How do you know my name? Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

“The answers to those questions are all classified as top-secret,” he stated. “You may, however, address me as #13 of the Demon’s Twenty. I wouldn’t want you just to call me by any name.”

“Well, Number Thirteen, you seem to be looking for me, then!” I shouted. “Why’s that? Here I am, if you’re looking for me!”

“Now I didn’t need to tell you that, did I?” he shrugged with a warm smile. “Yes, I’m glad you’re here. You seem to have come to your senses. Will you come with me, please? It would make everything easier if you did.”

“I wouldn’t follow you even if you dragged my dead body behind you!” I snarled in reply. Thirteen frowned, apparently discouraged, but didn’t back down.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I really thought that you would--and gladly too, and without all this violence. We really only had to tear this place apart to look for you.”

“For what?!” I shrieked, the volume of my voice alone sending him shirking back. “What do you want me for?! What, are you going to kidnap me and force me to use my powers for some kind of evil scheme?”

“That’s classified information,” he stated again, as firmly as before. He took a few steps forward and reached out to grab me, but I repelled him again with my voice--and a new threat that I was just starting to figure out.

“Stay back! Don’t take another step! I’ve got powers and I’m not afraid to use them!”

“Apparently, you’re the only one who feels that way…”

“What?” I asked, barely hearing him mumble something. Thirteen shook his head and tried convincing me to forget about it.

“Never mind. I guess I’ll have to knock you unconscious, though, since you won’t come willingly.”

“The hell you will!” Before the large man could take another step, I had ran towards him in a frenzy, shoving him back hard through the room. He crashed into a gas pipe, spilling out a steamy substance from the can. My glassy eyes shot wide open as I read the label on the canister as FLAMMABLE.

“Oh, damn…” The flames dancing in the room were joyously fueled with the gas, sending a tremendous explosion to wash the room in fire. I was tossed back severely by the blast and crashed straight through into the other room, where a wall painfully broke my fall. Even more flames belched out at me, as if Hell itself was reaching out to grab me, but I stayed still and safe as I watched the fires consume the room.

Thirteen never came out.

Amazingly, my body barely had a scratch on it. When the paramedics came rushing to my aide, I had to cover myself as most of my clothes had been burned away, and my beautiful long hair had been shorn by the flames, leaving me without eyebrows and barely enough on the scalp to comb through. I felt a slight stinging sensation from where the explosion had struck the hardest, and a bit of discomfort from landing against the wall, but I was otherwise fine. In the aftermath of the attack, once everybody had gotten over the initial celebration of being liberated, I learned from my two new friends that it must have been my “special powers” that saved me. Needless to say, I didn’t find them much of a bother after that.

Well, I’d say that about a year or two passed since then. My hair grew back to its long glory, and of course I was given new clothes to wear. I was hailed as a celebrity for single-handedly wiping out nearly all of the Demon’s Twenty, and was assigned to a position of high rank in the organization, right up there with Gerrand and Xyphon (who train me every day so that I don’t lose my edge). Things have gotten quiet since then, which means that I’ve had plenty of time to think things over.

There’s so many things on my mind that I don’t understand. Who was Thirteen, and why did he attack us? He said it was for me, but why go after me? Up until then, I had been just an ordinary girl living in the fourth colony around Earth. Was it because of my powers? Where did I get them, and how? I certainly wasn’t born with them. One doesn’t go through their whole life without learning about something like that. Was it right around Night, or before Day?

I think it all really started on That Day, when the Enemies attacked Sion IV. I remember people being killed, and I lost Tobi in the fray. I was then surrounded by these strange-looking people in robes, and…… the next thing I knew… I was waking up here, in this organization. What happened to me while I was Asleep? Did somebody “give” me these powers? But why? Was it the organization? No, because they don’t even know where Earth is, and besides, they don’t indiscriminately attack people. Was it the Demon’s Twenty, or another power? No, because how do you explain why I’m here now? It doesn’t make any sense at all…