Spring 2045
Ally Fae
Time always complicated matters. It was a struggle recollecting one’s own past normally when so much “life” happened every day. It was so easy to preoccupy life with the minutiae of living that such small but important things become callously lost to the current that was the mind and its infinite passageways to lost information. This was a challenge with a single mind. This challenge, then, was doubled when one’s own life was doubled.
Ally was currently living a single strand of that double life in a time that has intersected with her own future. Twenty-one and newly resolute in her journey to stop the plans of the Creatures of the Night has found in her desperation latent abilities to distort and tear the world around her. This included crossing through to a point fourteen years in her own future after witnessing a vision of the Allison of this time. After vowing to find her future self, she banded with some new-found friends to solve the mystery of her future self’s apparent alliance with the Creature of the Night they each had history with—Sakonna.
She never should have existed in this time, and yet the universe has not recoiled at her presence—and time has seemed to accept her double presence within. Philosophers of the old world would have rewritten large swathes of text over the supposed will or won’t of the world—the act of existing where one shouldn’t, versus the very idea of a shouldn’t in the first place.
To Ally, she continued living on. The small minutiae of wills and shouldn’ts couldn’t be further from her frontmind as there were other, more pressing matters that deemed those thoughts as but stones to toss back into the river, coursing it upstream.
It had been months since she separated from those friends after the events of Enforal. She lay awake on a broken down cot she had been using as a temporary lodgings for the past few weeks in a small village called Bannes. The memories of the events at Enforal ran through her restless mind.
In her inner mind she was back at the scene when everything went wrong—when yet again her life changed at the tick of a second on the hands of a clock. Like a car crash paused just before the impact and then fast-forwarded through only to rewind when the wounds could begin to heal.
One moment she was sitting in the audience with LUCAS and Laven—Jace had been by her side—although only she could feel him there—as he had been protecting the fragments of the machine that LUCAS had told her about. That ICARUS...as much a mystery to her as much in this world, but she felt an inner calm having those pieces in her possession—as if they were a solidified confidence she could hold onto and ease her worries.
Even staring out on the field toward her older self—the person she had seen as a dark corruption of her own ideals—she felt calmed by the fragments. Curious, evermore so, but calm.
Everything had happened so fast—that monster—she recalled its name as Zane...something so horrible being called something so normal clashed in her mind as a dissonant figure. Dissonant was a good word for whatever it was—a sickly white and appendages that could erupt from its back like spider legs. And yet...so easily was it beaten down by that man in the robe. Something about him seemed...familiar. She hadn’t seen his face before—in the few moments it appeared on the big screen nearest the central tower, but something in her heart tugged in his direction.
She remembered asking Jace mentally if he had any idea why she had felt such a way toward someone she didn’t know, but he hadn’t been able to offer anything of substance—only a sly joke that he was her soul mate. Something in her wretched at the idea, but knew he was at least in the ballpark. The man vanished as quickly as he had thoroughly trounced the monster—it was honestly kind of inspiring seeing such an ugly creature beaten down so quickly.
Jace had scolded her for judging solely based on appearances—and asked her how she’d feel if she were cursed to look like that. It was a thought that she had begun to consider, but then the monster let out a noise that sent a shiver running through her entire body. It reverberated deep into her heart—a scream that echoed without the help of any technology. Then suddenly it was in the air—aiming toward the emperor.
Her older self appeared on the pitch, and then things only got crazier from there. The calm she had felt had vanished—being so close to another her had undone what had solidly kept still within. Then the screams directed her vision up—and she saw the great fireball in the sky.
It looked like the kind of meteor that was always used in representations of what had killed the dinosaurs of old—gargantuan in size and a color so bright she couldn’t help but turn at the merest of glances at it. The screams were funneled out by the rushing of footsteps—the hollow metal of the stands echoed below and people brushed past her roughly. They stormed for the exits, hoping to find some way to escape the impending doom.
Ally caught a glance of LUCAS as he looked up and a look of horror rang on his face. There was a fragment of familiarity behind his eyes—she didn’t know how she knew, but she did. He had seen something like this before, and he looked to his left—at Laven who had still been staring up.
Suddenly, a fear struck her core. LUCAS would ensure that he and Laven would get out safely, but what of her? When things calmed down he was sure he would check on her, but his reaction—immediately turning away from her told her what she feared was true.
She didn’t blame him, they hadn’t traveled together for very long—and they haven’t been in this kind of situation before, there wasn’t anything wrong with his reaction...but it still hurt. She held Jace close to her heart and thought one single wish—against the fear that had mounted an assault:
I wish I was home.
And suddenly she blinked and the world grew silent around her. Her legs failed her and she collapsed to the ground—which had then become soft—saving her from any serious damage of the fall. Grass had replaced the surmounting number of bodies moving and a slight breeze had told her one thing immediately—she was no longer in danger of the meteor. The taste of the air—the slightest of notes plus the confidence of Jace inside her had told her that her wish had come true, although like any wish there was always a caveat.
She had been transported to where Nassau had existed in the old world, but of course, Nassau was gone. Now, where it stood was a field on a large hill that overlooked a port town that looked...pleasant. The word hung in the air and it almost seemed a detestable word compared to what she had just been through, but pleasant was what it had been, and any other descriptor would not have fit it so kindly.
She did not yet move, for her mind was still racing and it needed time to properly process where it had been and where it was now. She...was separated from those friends. She was separated from that monster...the being that she couldn’t settle its existence in her mind cleanly. She knew monsters—at least, people who were monsters through their actions. That was something entirely different. How could she reason with a world that allowed such a monstrosity like that? How effortlessly he claimed his life—the primal fear that erupted from her chest when she saw that monster and its many different appendages.
Then as if the world had taken a breath before a final denouement came the meteor, which upon recollection came clear that it was not just a rock from the outer reaches of the planet’s reaches, but instead a ship that had been crashing down to the planet’s surface.
From where did it originate, who had been on board, and why had they chosen that spot to make a landing? She figured being so far away from the scene she would not find those answers anytime soon...however she would forgo ever finding out if she could ensure that her friends made it out safely.
I wish them to be safe.
She didn’t think that the wish would specifically come true from her desiring it—Jace had told her that it was the power of the fragments that allowed her so much energy to fulfill her previous wish, and her body told her she had not the fraction of energy left to even begin to think of doing something that required that much energy.
All she could focus on was breathing, slowly. In...and out. Her mind had finally begun to catch up with itself and she simply watched the sky fade into the violet hues of the night as her eyes would begin to close.
Since then, she has replayed those moments before arriving in the port town of Bannes dozens of times—wondering if there was a way to ensure her entire group—much less everybody in that audience could be brought to safety, but then she remembered how expended she had felt at moving just her own body—she needed two full days up on that hill solely to begin moving again. By the time she could finally move she was starving. Thank god I appeared on the outskirts of Bannes...if food and water weren’t so close I’d have been done for.
Now, she awoke from a nightmare where those feelings were as bright and hot as they had been the night of—they resurfaced so simply even though it had been months at this point since their origin. The feelings came rushing back to her in that moment and she held her breath tight as she clutched her fist to her chest. It burned and she rolled into the fetal position to try to settle the feeling—she felt constricted in herself, twisted in knots and it wasn’t until she felt the comforting hand on her back that it started to release.
She stretched her legs back out on the cot she had been renting—grateful every second her hunting skills had been polished to a razor sharp edge. It had been insurmountably helpful in bartering for lodgings while she recovered and incorporated some sort of pattern of normalcy into her days as of late.
“Thanks,” she said, outwardly. It was the first time she had physically spoken to Jace in quite some time. They had gotten into such habits of mental talk that the physicality had seemed unnecessary.
Jace had been kneeling at her bedside—his face was drawn downward in a silent look of concern. His blond hair looked as perfectly messy as it always had—it hung perfectly in the way she liked over his eyes, mysterious with the air of edge.
“Don’t thank me, thank yourself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that.”
“Amazing,” she thought back, returning to what was comfortable between them. “You try to reassure me and admonish me in one breath. I am going to punish you hard for that cockiness in the book.”
She felt him grin behind her—she didn’t even need to see it—his form was vibrant in her mind’s eye, “You know me. Always aiming to surpass expectations.”
She rolled over and stared at him up and down. More than looking at his face she looked past him at the wall. It was stained a faded yellow color with cracked paint that revealed the poor coating underneath. It looked like the room had at one point been painted a white-if-not-beige, but the time had worn away the attempts to fix it up.
Bannes was a coastal town near the Scarlet Seas that extended past the edge of the world. People came and went—the town wasn’t built to hold people long term. Soon she would have to leave—especially considering her few weeks here qualified her to be one of the longest staying residents. Staying too long would attract too much attention to herself. Any attention was unwanted. Anything extra...I couldn’t even begin to imagine how bad that would be.
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“How humble the mighty Allison grace our presence,” Jace said.
“Humble is quite an interesting way to say scared.”
“Framing, mi amigo, it’s all in the framing,” he made a motion with his hands that made him look like a director on set.
She laughed with a nervous sound. “It’s not something I’m foreign to. We’ll head out today. I know we’ll need to.”
“We don’t necessarily need to today. Only if you’re feeling up to it,” he looked at her with a look of concern.
“I’ll never feel up to it unless I start it.”
Jace sighed and sat back against the wall and raised his arms behind his head. “As it’ll be. Now that we got the big things out of the way, decisions and all, what are you thinking about for grub today? I’m sure that fisherman would love to see you again—maybe before you go you can ask for another meal.”
“He was nice, but he’s too forward. I don’t feel that way about him and if I let myself fool him into thinking so I’ll feel even worse about it all. Plus, he’s a terrible cook. Fisherman he may be, but he burns everything he touches.”
“Shame,” Jace said. “I can only imagine a well cooked seafood dinner...it just sounds nice, you know? Maybe you can write one for me when you’re feeling up for it?”
“I know what you’re doing…” Ally started. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been in a lull with your story. It’s just…”
“I know,” he nodded, placing a hand up on her cot and tapped twice. “You haven’t been feeling it since you got separated from LUCAS and Laven. I saw how happy you were in feeling like you belonged.”
Ally said nothing, only wiped a tear she felt disgusted at shedding.
“We’ll find them again. Or better, I know it. Life has a weird way of placing us where we need to be. Partings will only be temporary.”
“I’m afraid that sort of thing isn’t fated for me,” Ally said. “I’m terribly unlucky with meeting back up with people who mean a lot to me.”
“Well, that pattern is something we’re going to break. If we don’t try then it will forever remain the pattern.”
It was Ally’s turn to sigh. “I know. I promise I’m not giving up. I don’t really believe I was left behind because I’m unwanted.”
Jace looked up with a look of pure passion. “Now that’s what I like to hear!”
Ally was confused at his sudden jubilation. “What is up with you?”
“I haven’t heard you be this positive in a long while!”
“You call this positive?”
“Listen,” he said, flashing out his hand and giving her a face. “It’s a sliding scale with you. I gotta take what I can get—almost like I’m working with clay, you know?”
Ally laughed. “So I’m clay?”
“Listen, clay is a respectable art form and I’ll not have you slandering its capabilities.”
“Right, and how much clay art have you been responsible for? Do you even know the first thing of its construction?”
“You don’t need to be an artist to appreciate art, and you don’t need to have written a story to know its characters—you know how much I appreciate a good model.”
“...Yeah,” Ally said, resigned. “I promise I am going to work that into your character. I think it’s nice you’re more...worldly.”
“Worldly? That almost sounds like you’re saying it as a detriment. You could say things like ‘creative, knowledgeable, cultured.’”
“Yeah yeah, sing your praises.”
Jace smiled, looking up. “What key, madame?”
Ally rolled her eyes and she knew this as her signal to get up. She swung her legs over the side of the cot and sat up—the headache from her dreams finally starting to fade.
“Okay, so I think we’re going to head to Draymont. It’s a day’s walk from here but I hear they’ve got a hunter’s guild set up there. I think I can sign up and we can make something new there.”
Jace thought on this, rubbing his chin and then turning to her, “And maybe our fine friends will have already shown up there.”
“I wish,” Ally said, gripping the edge of the bed, and biting her lip. “I know that they’re going to be continuing their quest far from here. I’m sure they’ve got plenty of adventures far from here they’ve got planned out.”
“No adventure of theirs will be complete without this,” he held up the silvery opal and the shard of onyx. “They’re going to want these back at some point I assume, and we’d be happy to be rid of them if you’re aligned with me on that.”
Ally nodded, and then she stood up and stretched. “You’re right. We’ll meet up with them eventually. We should just work to become even stronger so when that happens we can do a better job at protecting them and ourselves.”
“Atta girl,” Jace said, pocketing the fragments. “Now, let’s happily leave this drab sight behind. I know you chose this place over the other spots in the area to feel bad about yourself. I’m done with that for now.”
Ally looked over the room and knew how drab it really was—and then she saw a titan roach in the corner of the room—its disgusting body wriggling in rhythm of its many legs shaking unnaturally and she knew deep down he was speaking the truth.
“I always speak the truth,” Jace began. “You just don’t always want to hear it.”
“Yeah yeah, accept your win and shut it,” she said, shaking her head—forcing herself to look away from the roach. “Let’s get going. Maybe we’ll stop by the fish market to pick something up for the trip. Something not from Tidry’s, though.”
“Fair enough. I don’t think I can handle another weak man’s tearful goodbye.”
“He wouldn’t tear up.” Ally said, stretching and imagining the sight in her mind’s eye. “He seemed the sort to get mad and hit a wall.”
“Much so the same to my point,” Jace said. “One man’s tantrum is another man’s surprise gym session.”
Ally shook her head and she watched as Jace faded from her view. He did need his rest—she had his assistance in training at the local sparring center the previous night. Her time in Bannes has been specifically searching out opportunities to strengthen herself and heighten her abilities.
I refuse to be weak anymore. I refuse to rely solely on Jace to stay alive. I will get stronger. I will be my own protector. Jace had whined—sure enough. But his protests are easily silenced when the protester originates from your own mind. It was a continued process, but she has noticed some progress in her muscle mass since that day—her arms were something she was especially proud of. It was crazy how much a difference it had made in how other people approached her—with signs she could fight...they didn’t. Before, she had to worry about being captured or overpowered. And while Jace, if available, could have been something to rely on, now, she had avoided almost ninety percent of onlookers and others she didn’t want to speak to outright—speaking on the nature of those who would—they prey on the weak and those they would find no resistance from.
She exhaled and let her frustration with the general population leave with it. It was a problem that had existed before the world had changed—and she had an inner fire burning that this was a feature of humanity that carried over. She wouldn’t let her feelings die—only simmer until she could do something about it. That was long term, though. First, she needed to pack her things and prepare to move on to Draymont.
She pulled her bag up onto the bed and opened the latch on the front—it contained all her life’s belongings over the past few months:
She took out the bottles of water that contributed to most of the weight of the bag—then moved out the dried meats wrapped in a strange new material that she could only imagine in the old world—super metal that was nearly frozen to the touch. She couldn’t touch it with her bare hands—instead balling her hands in the sleeves of her top to move it around. It kept the meats she had nice and refrigerated. The metal was something she had to accept and couldn’t explain, as the Bannes citizens swore by its use—ironically of all it was Tindry the fishmonger who had introduced her to it.
Moving the cold meats aside, she pulled out her spare clothes—fabric bought from the local shops—enough to fit and wear in case she was unable to clean and wear her primary clothes. This included a jacket she could put on if she goes too far past the coastal barriers where the climate was a lot colder.
She then pulled out her spare threaded wire, adhesive, and medication. She has it in case of an emergency—she’s been having bad headaches lately that have become incapacitative—too strong for her to manage alone.
When she has it all out in front of her and catalogued she returns it in order and re-latches the bag shut. She shoulders the bag and breathes a sigh of relief. One final look at the room that she’s called hers and realizing just how disgusting it really was. She couldn’t face it while she was living here—but it really was the epitome of her tanking mental health over the past few weeks.
She could feel the darkness like a voice whispering behind her mind as she lay in her pre-sleep exhaustion. Her fears and doubts seemed to come alive inside her mind—sending her images of the world upside down and burning. A subterranean terror as if the innards of the planet itself were being torn away to reveal the demons inside.
Her dreams aside, she shook her head in a determinant stance as she said goodbye to this ratty old room for the final time. The door closed behind her and suddenly she took in the hallway of the inn in a new light, too. The wallpaper was peeling and was dyed an unhealthy yellow color.
“Gross,” she said, noticing one of the help-hands was approaching from the end of the hall. She looked to the side as she passed without speaking a word.
Outside the sun had cast its crimson light over Bannes—it was an unsettling feeling she felt tension from. She dearly missed how calming blue had been as a color for that peaceful sky of old—now deep scarlets painted the sky across.
The marketplace wasn’t so far from the inn—a two minute walk as she joined the crowd that had been awake for hours now doing their daily activities before they moved on to wherever it was they were destined to go. The crowds were always comprised of different people, but they held the same benefit of allowing her to blend in. A part of her would miss the energy of so many people gathered together. It helped the illusion of the society of old.
Meeting with one of the other fishmongers—thankfully Tindry was nowhere to be seen in the outer markets. Either he was elsewhere or was harassing someone else—although that possibility upon reflection didn’t make her feel any better.
“There’s a face I know I can sell to!” The fishmonger calls out, motioning for her to approach and separate from the crowd. The sun beat down and Ally stepped closer under the awning to protect herself in the shade. “Mighty fine catches we have out here—tell me what you’re in the market for.”
“How’s the salmon look?” Ally asked. “Either that or cod.”
The fishmonger’s face drooped. His form was like that of a disappointed child who had just been told he couldn’t do his favorite activity. “Not great. Water’s still not evened out for them to continue to populate the way they used to. Still got the many head problem.”
The ecosystem of the world had changed greatly since the world turned over. People largely stayed the same so if you had stayed within their bounds you could almost fool yourself to believe nothing much had changed, but taking any sort of step to the wilds abound revealed that the truth was very different.
The different kinds of fish around the coastal regions had begun to mutate because of their new environments. For the region’s salmon and cod population—they started growing additional heads off of their back fins. The picture of it was nightmare inducing, but the issue came that the second head wasn’t just that—but instead an attempt to adapt to the higher toxicity waters of the coast. In an attempt to adapt the fish have formed toxic sacs that rested in the cheeks of the second face. What had attempted to be an evolutionary adaptation became the sole killer of edible salmon and cod species without specialized preparation.
Fisherman who captured these new kinds of fish on the line would often end up hooking that second mouth that acted toward bait just like the primary head—and if they did end up on the line, it was only a numbers game for hooks that would pierce that toxic sac and flood the nearby pools with the toxins. The marine life that had not yet adapted to the toxins would be killed, and those that had would only continue to propagate and continue those lines of fish.
“That’s fine. I would have liked to have something to remind me of old times before I headed out, but I won’t die if I don’t.”
The fishmonger moved to a look of surprise, “Say it ain’t so. Yer finally heading on? Where to?”
“Draymont,” Ally said. “I think my next destination is waiting for me there.”
He nodded, “It’s a well known spot there. Plenty of folks that leave here head down that way. Might even see some familiar faces down there.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for. What do you have for crabs and stullfish? Hopefully those are better than the others.”
Stullfish were a new mutation from crayfish that had similar wiggly legs, but have formed harder calcium carbonate shells. They were an example of positive mutation—at least for society nearby as the shells that had formed were too heavy for the fish themselves to navigate from out of the water so it made them extremely easy pickings for fishermen to clear up.
The fishmonger looked down then turned to look at his ledger posted up by a spike on the wall next to him, cocking his head to read closer. “Yeah...we’ve got a good load of each.”
“Load of stullfish isn’t always a surprise,” Ally said.
“No, but they are appreciated in fine numbers. What kind of order are you thinking for today?”
“Two pounds of each.”
“Two? Sheesh kid, you planning on feasting before you go?”
Ally shook her head, “No, I just have a way to store it for the long term. It’ll give me something to pick at over the coming days.”
The fishmonger nodded, tallying the numbers in his head, “Suits you. That’ll be five each.”
Ally reached into her pocket and took out two silver coins. It was a sight of how conflated coins had become in the last few years. Thankfully, she was able to scrounge up a nice chunk of change offering to help others at the sparring facility—it only helped to keep her in shape and earn some money on the side.
The Fishmonger bagged up her food and she exchanged it for the coin. She took the wrapped up fish and wrapped it in a second layer of the super metal to keep it cool and stuffed it in her bag, then thanked him before heading off. She retreated from the group for the final time.
Draymont was only a decision away.