7246
DEVON
Gaos shines brilliantly in the distance. Karrat and I begin to slow as we begin to approach. The ground underneath us turns to a sloshier glowing mossy substance. Its incandescent light glints the lunar light from above. The Gaosian dwellings catch me by surprise—they almost look like they’re clay spires twirling around in a double-helix. Karrat turns to me, “I’ll never understand the Lunfilios.”
“That’s who built this place?” I ask.
“Yeah, sure did. I don’t stop by too often, I’m only here for parcel delivery. They kind of creep me out...the way they phase into those structures, you know?” You look toward the double-helix a few yards ahead of you, it seems to have a flowing sort of energy pulsating through it. What a strange thing, for a home to be as spaciously confusing as this one were. “They aren’t all like that here...the buildings,” Karrat says, snapping your focus back toward him. “It’d be right quite inconvenient for anyone who isn’t Lunfilios to have just these things around. There’s more...natural buildings constructed right in the back side of town for travelers. Only downside is it brings a sort of divide in the town so it’s almost like there’s two versions of Gaos. One for the Lunfilios and one for everybody else.”
“I remember tensions being high around them...because of their leader’s son, correct?”
Karrat turns to me and I see a seriousness in his beady eyes, “People lump races together for everything—crime, advancement. It’s how we live. Everybody does it, and everybody is aware of it. Them most of all. I don’t think you could find anymore people that could despise what that stupid boy had done more than the Lunfilios.”
“Yeah, I bet. It’s hard to earn trust when one person could lose it so easily.”
“Trust, that’s a funny word that both means so much more these days and not at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know. I’m just here to deliver a package. This is where we part ways, I think. I’m probably going to be spending the night here so that I can rest up my lungs.”
“That’s fine with me, I’m going to go look around for a bit.”
In reality I had no idea what I was doing here, following the journal of someone who most likely wanted me dead. A strange curiosity moved my feet that I could only place as something I had to do. My feet move on their own, now. Not guided by curiosity or adrenaline or even some otherworldly being. I move my feet and imagine a time when that was all I could do—when moving my feet was a feat praised. I remember my parents more now. It hurts to know that I’m probably never going to see them again, and through everything that’s one of my more recurring thoughts. I wonder what this world would be like if I was never born?
I shake my head in the cold of the air. No, I’ve got to stop thinking like that. It does nobody any good, and me a whole lot of bad. So, I move my feet at normal speed as I find myself walking under the bottom arch of the helix, stopping as I look closer at the pulsating light within. I can almost make out the form of a Lunfilios. Just what could they be doing in there...living? Sleeping? I’d never know.
The back roads of town have noticeably more of the sloshy moss. I’m ankle deep in what feels like goo, and I can’t help but notice that it feels like tiny little feelers are working themselves all over my feet. I continue on until I find a larger communal-looking building with oval shaped holes cut out of the top in a circle. A glowing gold light pours out from the inside that reminds me of candlelight, blowing and fading. I find my way inside and the loudness of the room doesn’t pierce me until it all comes at once.
There is no door. I shouldn’t have focused on that as much as I did, but it was just so strange—everything was just so open and free, that there was no door. Back on Earth having no door was an open invitation to have everything you ever loved taken from you. You know, if you think about it, I was one of those people who took from others with open doors. Alex always left her door open for me.
Inside my heart jumps, to what I think is most likely off of the side of a cliff. Sitting around a small, controlled fire sits Jesse Anderson, but of course this isn’t the real Jesse Anderson. He was somewhere else. Noah turns to me as I enter, and by the look on my face I knew that he knew.
“You’re alive.” No emotion behind it, he was just reciting a fact.
I had so many things I wished to tell him, so many emotions to convey, but all I could do was nod. There was no way to say everything, not without losing it. I could only ask one thing, “When you said that I looked like someone that you knew...that wasn’t Jesse Anderson talking about Roland Duschand. That was you talking about me.”
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He’s the only one in the room, I had just noticed it. I wouldn’t have cared if he had a whole platoon with him, nothing and nobody else mattered in this moment. My heart rang like it was finally ready to yank out the spear buried so deep inside it. But of course, that’s when all of the blood comes out.
“Yes. I first recognized you inside that prison cell. I was well adjusted to my new life here, little made sense at first, but I adapted.”
“You were transported to this time when the real Jesse went back.”
“Yes, I suppose that it what happened. I also suppose that I was incorrect in my beliefs back on Earth. The Next Level doesn’t exist in Heaven with some god, it’s here. Sayar is the next level. I learned how to live here, and everything was okay for a while. I lost my...well, his legs in some combat mission. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but we’re in a time that we can just get new ones.”
“There is so much wrong...with everything about you I don’t even know where to begin,” I say.
“Oh, well then let me continue, and maybe you’ll find your place. Sound good?”
I was both disgusted and curious. Within my heart were conflicting feelings battling on a vicious warscape. Logic had no place on the battlefield. I nod.
“I don’t pretend to be blameless.” He says, quieter. “I saw my life from an outside view, everything that I did. I don’t apologize for who I am, but I apologize for what I did to you. I saw how worthless my teachings actually were, and so I had to discard that part of me when I got here. Bonnie, Craig, Dante, all those who didn’t make it. They were lives wasted because of my foolish goals...and now I’m here.”
I say nothing.
“I was sure that this was my hell, for the longest time. That is...until I found you. The second I saw you I knew that you weren’t Roland. You had a look about you...that was one thing I remembered.”
“I didn’t ask to be a part of any of this.”
“But you did.”
He was right, it just felt like the thing to say at the time. I signed up for it, was there of my own will, and even pushed away the one I loved most.
“I knew this wasn’t hell because you were here. You didn’t deserve hell.”
“I...did. Or do, I’m still working through that.”
His brow furrows, and then softens. “You have to learn to forgive, Devon. No matter what you did, you have to learn to forgive yourself.”
“How could I?”
I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. My mind told me that this was the worst person I could be talking to about this...but at the same time it also seemed like the best person.
“Nothing sets you on the wrong path forever. Anything can be worked to make right. I’m here.”
That you are.
“I’m here and I’m doing what I can to make things right for these people, I’m sure you haven’t forgotten that Cross is still running around, rampant?”
I take in a deep breath, walking over and sitting by the fire with him, watching the smoke funnel out through the ovals in the ceiling. “There’s...something about that. Alex...she’s...like us. She’s here too...inside of Cross.”
This is the first time you see him lose his cool, but only momentarily. “I...I didn’t know.”
“What am I even doing...sitting here with you? This is all so wrong.”
“You don’t have to forgive me, I never expect you to,” he begins. “But you need to forgive yourself. Because with that knowledge or not, Cross needs to be stopped, and you can’t let your guilt stop you from making the right choice.”
“So what are you planning...for any of this?”
He takes in a deep breath, “It’d be an easy thing to say that everything I’ve done has been left in the past, but you know it isn’t that easy. Everything affects everything.”
“I think...that we have to work together to stop him from destroying everything, and that includes finding out why he wants to kill all of the council leaders.”
“Are you sure you want to be near me?”
“My heart’s split in two...both figuratively and literally. I’ll have to sort my feelings out on my own time, but I can’t sit by and let this world die. I have to make a choice I can be proud of.”
“So...that’s it, then?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Okay.” He stands and makes a motion to put the fire out, using the waves from his hand to resonate with the fire’s and cancel them out. “We’ve got someone else traveling alongside us, if you don’t mind?” He says, nodding to the stairway at the far end of the room. “Go on and say hello. I feel they may need your help to come down and formally join the team.” I turn, confused. The staircase is on the same side of the wall as the entrance; I’d completely missed it when I came in. I stand and walk over toward them, climbing them slowly. The small burning scent of a tiny candle greets me first as I look to see an old shape sitting back in a chair, turning the page of a book titled, “Telos.” He pulls it down and looks at me with a gentle smile.
“Hello, Devon. I hope you don’t mind me calling you that...I heard you both downstairs.” Andrew Cress. He hides a gigantic sadness behind his eyes. If anyone needed to forgive themselves....well, it isn’t just me. I’m sorry if the choices I’ve made don’t agree with you...but I think I’m on the right path to doing the right thing. I’ve learned that you don’t need to love somebody to respect them, and if I’ve done anything to turn you from me...please respect me to make my choice.