Winter 2045

Zane Hannes

Zane leapt through the air from the upper floor of the burning building. A rush flooded his bloodstream and he caught a glance of Blaise flying overhead. Flames erupted from his breath that swallowed buildings whole.

Blaise hadn’t been forthcoming about his plans, but seeing the dragon let loose its chaos was a marvelous sight—he only wished he could enjoy it more. The crackling sound of the fire threatened the memories that have been urging to resurface. He forced them down as much as he could. The plan was simple—they had tracked the presence that had been in Enforal during the tournament—they had found it to be that of a young girl.

He was all in for taking out this girl. The closer they arrived to the settlement the more they were able to tell just from the power that had emitted from them like a radioactive element. It became clear that there were multiple sources of power emitting from her—and it was most likely that she had some of those gemstones of power—the monoliths—of her own.

The dark one made it clear that the mission was to reclaim them at any cost necessary, but he didn’t specify the girl’s death. That was going to be a joy he would savor all on his own.

Blaise and Emily had been along for the plan, but he still was unclear on the motivations behind their joining up. The dark one is very tight lipped about these things, and I know the each of them are apt to keep their own secrets. So long as they allow me to do what I do best, then they can keep their reasons to themselves.

Zane landed on the rooftop of a building across the block and he closed his eyes—sensing his immediate surroundings for any powerful object or person. There was an immense power near the center of the settlement, but it seemed to be different to the person he initially sensed.

Something he learned about this place was that power seemed to swell here more than any other human settlements he had the displeasure of traversing through. It seemed like humanity’s talent with power was gathered in this one central location. There were people all around who had been running and evacuating—others had been fighting back—and others still seemed to be huddling in what seemed like a bunker underground based on his guess. Small enough morsels that would have been preferable to the basic stock that he had been forced to feed on over the past few weeks, but in a sea with the chance of a shark—the minnows mattered little to him.

He had seen Emily before heading off to the settlement. She and the dark one had held back while Blaise and Zane took on the front lines—he had questioned why the dark one had stayed back, but that question was as helpful as throwing a stone to a void. But with Emily, he understood. She had no combat ability herself and her only boon seemed to be her experience and tenacity in surviving death. Not exactly the most helpful tactic.

There was so much off with her—they had gotten to some level of understanding, but it would have been foolish to believe that there would ever be anything close to what either of them would want—to truly desire.

Still, he felt in her presence the dull thudding of that voice deep inside—that tiny flicker of emotion that he had tried to rend from this body. He wished he could rip and tear that feeling from his chest, but something about that seemed...forbidden. He didn’t know how he knew, but he felt that if he fully snuffed the life of the body he inhabited, everything would be lost to him.

If he had to juggle these memories and keep them suppressed in order to continue on his own path, so be it. That was, at least how he thought before beginning the assault on the village.

He saw two people firing off bolts of what he could only call energy toward Blaise up above. The shots looked too weak to even cause anything more than a passing glance, but he saw an opportunity to cut down the brittle hope they had. He launched himself toward the ground and landed just behind them—causing them to turn around in surprise. He impaled the rightmost one with his stinger, and the look on the woman’s face when it pierced her heart stopped him in his tracks. The woman looked slightly like Emily—it wasn’t exact—but she had a similar facial structure. He felt disgusted at his reaction and removed the stinger, sending it through the man’s body just as fast, anger coursing through his teeth.

The memories threatened themselves again and he brought a hand up to his head and grabbed as hard as he could—hoping the pain of his grip could help him regain control. His eyes opened wide as a man stood opposite him—he looked to be wearing a robe as some of the other people had been with scraggly gray hair.

“Looks like you’ve picked a poor place to stop, friend,” the man—Ryker—had said. He stood tall with his hands behind his back until he brought one forward—snapping his fingers. Coins dropped from the sky around Zane, he looked up in confusion as they sparkled in the air. He had no desire for gold. Anything he needed would be taken by force as it should be.

The gold coins hit the ground around him and exploded—covering Zane with vicious burns and fulling his orifices with smoke and other toxins.

He held close the form of his body—the bombs had threatened to tear his skin apart—but he had been holding the orange gemstone in his hands—the skin across his body burnt, but he was able to keep himself together.

“Fancy magic trick,” Zane said. He took a step forward, but he felt a pin prick on his brain that told him the person he was looking for was to the south—near the entrance of the settlement—near the building he had just leapt out of. Finally.

He cursed, knowing he hated to ignore the magician in front of him—tearing him and devouring him would be a great joy considering the pain he had delivered, but his sights were much higher.

His head ached, and he turned and leapt—clearing the distance of one of the buildings, landing on top with a roll—his skin rubbing against the top of the roof and he let loose an angry grunt, pushing past it he continued to run. His head continued to pound. He slammed a fist to his temple as he ran. Stop. Stop it. Stop it now.

He stopped at the edge of the roof and felt his gaze turn down—he saw a lone man with blond hair on the ground with a severely burned person collapsed next to them. Not a girl from what I can tell, but this person is definitely the source of the power I was sent here to track...but something seems...off.

He leapt and landed behind them—and he saw as the both of them stared up at him with horror and disgust. Normally this reaction excited him—fear was like a seasoning on the food he consumed, the more of it you could draw out the tastier his end result would be, but with the pounding on his head increasing he suddenly felt light headed. He bared his teeth and started slamming his hand to his head again, screaming. The memories would not rest now. They consumed him entirely.

Zane sat alone in his small, dimly lit apartment, lost in thought as memories from the putrid human’s past flooded his mind. The room itself was sparsely decorated, with a worn couch that had been bought for cheap at a neighbor’s garage sale and a small coffee table picked up and cleaned from the local dump.

The apartment was cluttered with various pieces of furniture obtained from every method other than buying new—Zane had not the funds from his work to secure nicer furnishings. Times were tough and he had to reach deep into his pockets to ensure he had something to eat on most days.

The side table was filled to the brim with papers and magazines—various scratchings of failed and discarded song lyrics comprising any free space available outside the print of the pages. Those were tossed to the side in frustration as his muse had not been kind to him lately—but more in truth, his motivation has been drained from most of his daytime thoughts being consumed by the malfeasances of his current situation. It was just how things were—most things sucked.

All, except for Emily. He had met her and even though the rest of his life had been trending downward—the motivation of bettering himself for a girl who had finally seen the person he had tried to be was something beyond what he could hope for. Someone who had pushed him to be better, and someone who had understood his art and creativity—she became his intended audience.

The only source of light came from a single lamp on the table beside him. Zane could feel the weight of the memories pressing down on him, filling his mind with images of a past he had thought long since suppressed.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be transported back to a time long ago, when he was just a young boy growing up in a small burrough outside of New York City. He could feel the warm sun on his face and the grass under his feet, as he ran through the fields behind his childhood home. It was a modest house his parents could afford at the time, but the economy had toppled—and those without safety nets were unfortunately caught in the crossfire, but that was still in time to come. In these treasured memories those concerns weren’t in Zane’s mindspace yet. The air was filled with the sound of morning birds chirping and the laughter of his siblings. His younger brother and sister each had been his steadfast companions—and he remembered the early conversations he had with his mother—reminding him to always be their protectors. They would always look up to him no matter what had happened in their lives. This was a promise that was encoded deep into Zane’s heart.

Zane's parents had been his pillars of strength, always there to provide support and guidance. His father had been a towering figure of a man, with rough hands and a gruff voice that could be both intimidating and comforting. Zane remembered associating the comforting side of him more—as he was an especially sweet man with him and all his siblings. He always thought of his dad like a bear, the kind who would tear down trees and scare others away if they posed a threat to his kids. Zane remembered watching him as a child, marveling at the way he could build anything from scratch with his hands. His mother, on the other hand, had been a gentle soul with a heart of gold. She had a warm smile that could light up a room, and a kind word for everyone she met. It was her warmth that helped inspire Zane’s love for music later in life—he hoped to give other people that kind of warm connecting feeling she had given to others.

Despite their modest income, Zane's parents had always managed to provide for their family. They had taught Zane and his siblings the value of hard work and determination, encouraging them to pursue their dreams no matter what. Zane had always been a curious child, with a thirst for knowledge that could not be quenched. He spent hours poring over books in the local library, eager to learn as much as he could about the world around him. He loved reading, and of all the things that he wished could occupy his tiny apartment—he wished there could be more room for books.

As he grew older, Zane had discovered his love for music. He had started playing the guitar when he was just twelve years old, a gift from an uncle had voraciously devoured his personal love and he had worked for hours playing and learning the strange instrument. It had been a rocky start, but upon being greeted with the challenge he had quickly become skilled at it. When he entered high school he would eventually form a band with some of the friends he had met through the school’s band program. They started out by practicing in his family home on weekends when they were able to meet up together, and as any early band they started by playing the songs they loved listening to on the radio.

Zane’s father had been an immense help in supporting the group of kids by being their sole audience member while they practiced. Zane hadn’t known this, but his father had been the bass player of a band that was moderately successful in his college years, but after meeting up with Zane’s mother, he had parted ways with the band to focus on his relationship and his soon to be family.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Zane's parents as a whole had been his biggest supporters, cheering him on at every performance and always telling him how proud they were of him.

Unfortunately, with every sweet and tender memory of childhood, there was to be paired with it a tale of tragedy. When Zane was just nineteen years old, his parents had been killed in a car accident, leaving him and his siblings to fend for themselves. Zane had been forced to drop out of college and take a job at the local warehouse for one of the big retail stores to help stabilize the family unit. The weight of responsibility had been heavy on his shoulders, but he had never given up hope. There were plenty of times when he had to give up on eating so that his brother and sister could bring food in while they continued their classes.

After their parents had passed, Zane had worked as much as he could to keep the house from going under—but unfortunately, said was not to be so. Zane’s uncle—the same one who had given him the gift of the guitar so many years ago had offered to take in Zane’s siblings, unfortunately, he could not take in all three of them as they would have to be stretching themselves extremely thin—and Zane had been a legal adult—it made sense at that point for Zane to take the money he had been putting toward saving the money pit that was their house and instead put it into a one bedroom apartment for himself.

He had done so, and now he worked by day, tried to revive the embers of his creativity by night by taking his guitar and playing gigs solo at the local bar he frequented more and more often. His friends of hold had left and their band had long broken up as soon as high school was over and each friend had gone their own way for college, so the fire and audience Zane had been playing for had all but vanished.

That was, until he met Emily. She had been in the bar one night when he was performing, and he had seen her in the crowd—she had looked like the most beautiful girl in the whole bar. Her hair was done up and it looked like she had been on a date herself, but her table was empty aside from her—but she didn’t seem like she was upset, so it didn’t seem like she was stood up. Dressing up for yourself—for your enjoyment. That’s so incredibly confident. He remembered thinking that when he stared at her, and he knew he would have loved to be able to have that level of confidence—a thought he had while he was about to prepare to play music he wrote in front of complete and total strangers. The irony of the situation was not lost on him, so he decided to throw away his nerves and played a song he had been tending to in the wee hours of his nights—it wasn’t completed by the time he decided to play it, there were sections that were not fitting right and the words weren’t exactly to his liking, but for those parts he decided to throw away the things that didn’t work and ad-libbed in new sections of what he was feeling in that moment.

It was a slower piece—meant to share the emotions of his heart accompanied by his acoustic—and he had locked eyes with Emily once and knew that the message came across perfectly. From that day, they had been talking more and more and she came to visit each one of his gigs thereafter before he got up the courage to ask her out for a coffee.

Despite the hardships he had faced, Zane had never lost his passion for music. He continued to play his guitar in his free time, dreaming of the day when he would be able to make a career out of it. And now, as he sat alone in his apartment, he knew that he was closer than ever to realizing his dream.

As Zane sat lost in thought in his apartment, his phone rang, interrupting his reverie. He looked down at the caller and it seemed to be an unknown number. He hesitated for a moment before answering, not wanting to be pulled out of his memories. But he knew he couldn't ignore the call forever, so he picked up the phone and heard the voice of a patron he had spoken to after one of his shows—the man had previously brought up the possibility for playing for a larger scale New Years Eve party, and Zane had figured he’d give it a shot. The man was pleased, and said he’d need to clear it with his business partner, but he had good feelings about it.

"Zane Hannes? You’re going to be a lucky man after tonight. The gig we talked about? It’s going to be headlined by Trevor Cassanti.”

“What? No way,” Zane said. Trevor Cassanti was a living legend in the guitar business. He was personally responsible for three legendary bands each of which had become Grammy award winning groups thanks to his guitar work. And now he...Zane was going to front line for such a big name? It was a dream come true.

“We got the I’s and T’s crossed and dotted. You can even bring a +1 if you’re still interested.”

“Still interested…” Zane said. “You say that as if this isn’t the event of the century.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinkin,” the man said. “Excellent to hear. I’ve just met Trevor a bit ago, he was interested in hearing your vibe. Says he’s a romantic for the scene you got going, and of course I was hyping you up.”

Zane felt a surge of adrenaline course through his body as he heard the news. This was it, the chance he had been waiting for. He could feel the ghosts of his past cheering him on, urging him to seize the opportunity. He looked to the side and saw his father and mother—looking down on him with tears in their eyes. They each placed a hand on his shoulder—a weightless gesture that held his heart heavy.

Without hesitation, Zane answered, "I'm in. Let's do this."

He quickly got dressed, his heart beating rapidly with excitement and nerves. He was texting Emily in-between his assembly and she had been so happy for him, and happily accepted the invite. He grabbed his guitar and headed out the door. Emily lived a few blocks down from his, so he went and picked her up—and he saw that she had looked as charming as she had the first time he had seen her. She was wearing the same dress as when they had first met and she stepped out to his smile extending across his face. They kissed and headed off toward the venue which had been a bit of a walk across town. He had felt a sense of purpose that he hadn't felt in a long time, memories of his parents and his childhood continued to flood his mind. But this time, they were accompanied by a new feeling—hope. He knew that his parents would be proud of him, and that their memory would live on through his music.

~...~

“Zane Hannes”

The Chronamaly sought out Emily Majors on that night as her trail had been a long one—long had he sought out the one who escaped death so frequently. The excitement of the night had been so palpable—and yet, it was not her who would be devoured on this night of a million lights.

Throughout the excitement—the liquor, the buzz, the lights, the fervor, he saw Emily Majors hanging in back of the group. She had a bottle of her own in hand and was jogging in a rhythm of her own design. It was not hard to assume that the each of them had consumed copious amounts of alcohol at the ball drop and some time before in a crowd where they could get away with it. The Chronamaly had assumed they had been raucously partying in Times Square like all the other nameless people sent spiraling out from the crowds of bodies moving out.

But that had not been true, they had been at a club a few blocks down from the square. They had the time of their lives, and they were on the way to head back to Zane’s apartment after such a successful party. Along with the group was a few people their age they had met after Zane’s performance at the club.

Zane pulled Emily closer as he threw a hand up in the air—he had been so happy. Why was it that the Chronamaly had been blind to these details? Was it because it didn’t care? Could it have been capable of caring…? It figured it was possible, after all, it had desire to break free from its cycle. That is why it chose the boy, after all.

Were the memories he had seen enough to change his decision? Was it enough to induce the feeling of regret? He wasn’t sure, but there was something to the point of them coming through—the fact that he had suppressed them for so long seemed to amplify the strength they carried.

Time stopped, the group walking back were paused in mid-motion. Another set of questions lie in front of the Chronomaly. Why had he believed they were high school sweethearts? That was such an easy assumption to make, but like his others—remained untrue. Zane had met Emily while playing at a bar. These differences kept adding up, and the most troubling parts of it all was how little it should have done to change his feelings on the matter.

Did it matter that they met at a bar, and not in high school? Did it matter that they had come back from a work gig that went well versus getting wasted at Times Square? It shouldn’t have—he was not human. He had no stake in the affairs of humans, and his decision was made solely because of his own desire.

...Or was it? Was there something deep down that considered the act of taking a high school sweetheart—a typically cliché lost love away from his group of shitfaced friends? Was that something he deep down believed they would grow and recover from?

If that were the case, it must have been too much for the Chronomaly to reason with the fact that the person he had taken had a past—a history with people depending on him. A history where he was striving toward the global good. At the end of the day, was that not the job of the Chronomaly? To preserve time from those that callously took more?

These memories were deeply troubling, and the more he remembered, the less he liked—about the situation, about himself, and about everything that had happened up to this point.

What is it that he truly wanted? Zane was the name he called himself after consuming his prey...he had taken the name when he could have simply gone with no name—or if he absolutely had to, gone with Chronomaly. Yet, he decided to use his name. For use of a name brings upon an expectation of socialization with others—names were useless as a singular being. That was how he had lived before. Was his desire a sense of other?

Who so callously took…

His mind was sent then to Emily Majors—the Pathfinder. Those who simply desired their own. The Pathfinders of their own simply wanted...just as he had. Just as anybody would. They simply had the power to get what they wanted.

He then thought on the harsh words brought on by Arkanus—the truth hiding within as he experienced the prison of his own actions. The events of the cosmic casino had not washed away from him—far from it. It was the actions of the monstrous side of him that was to be punished. Even then—while his other side sought and killed numerous alternate lives of Emily Majors, there had been a part of him—deep inside that had despised that monstrosity that had chased and hunted down.

There were two dark ones at the casino. That much he remembered. But neither of them had been Arkanus, had they?

No, the truth was that seed that had grown and taken root underneath the entire construct...that seed was his obstacle, but it was a seed borne of his own splitting consciousness. He may have destroyed the seed—the physical artifact, but had he truly removed all that doubt? He didn’t think so. From that moment on he had followed a single path that had been splitting him down the middle and having both ends fighting for dominance.

The monster had taken control because it knew brute strength. It desired power, and was able to find enough power for a time, but power only lasted so long. There would be a time when the other self—the dormant mind would begin to lash back. The self hidden deep under the surface.

Before he could reason it out he felt a terrible sinking but familiar feeling in his gut. He knew now this familiar feeling—the darkness that held over him like a reaper. It wasn’t some demon who had been judging his actions from afar—it had all been within. The power to suppress his innermost desires was starting to weaken, and he...he was afraid. He was afraid of collapsing under all of the pressure.

Here standing at the forefront of his memories—the story of the boy he had chosen to consume. He now had a choice—to adapt or to die. He had pushed these memories down for so long that he didn’t believe he could last any further.

Then, his eyes opened. He was staring out at the blond and the burned. Suddenly, on the blond man’s person Zane could easily sense two gemstones, and the decision was made.

So close his two selves felt to a compromise. Their fingers were mere inches from each other before the fire resumed burning in Zane’s eyes. Power was within my grasp. I can still push it down. So much further that he drowns and loses this foolish confidence.

Zane’s stinger stabbed the burned man’s neck, causing blackened blood to spew as the artery was ripped and torn from his body. Zane brought the meat to his lips and wiped it across as he took a deep bite, spraying blood out onto the blond man’s face.

“I will not kill you,” Zane said, “You are not the girl that I was tasked for. I will have knowledge of her location. But first, I will strip you of the power you do have.” His tendrils reached out and wrapped around the blond man’s arms, twisting him around and lifting him off the ground.

“You’ll never touch her,” the blond man said.

In his eyes, the blond man saw a void. He could feel the fear and the joy returned. It was like a stoking of a fire in his chest—the excitement from the orange gemstone seared his flesh. He didn’t care that every inch of his body was raw. He sought the power, and then his eyes turned to the dragon flying above the campground.

I will have you for my own, and then I will conquer even the dark one...I will never stop searching for more power.

Down beneath his front mind—the second mind, defeated, retreated under the surface. But it saw an opening today and was glad that it had taken it. Any chance it could get to break the monster’s will was a chance it could use to establish dominance once more. The more it could pick and pry, the more it could do whatever it could to protect her.

And so, it sat in the back of his mind, the cloak of the reaper hanging over the monster as he grabbed the two monoliths off of the blond haired man. One of them wasn’t a full gemstone—it looked like a fragment of the onyx black stone—the other piece had been with the woman with the lance. He was curious what had happened to her, but upon feeling the chilling cold of the gemstone, he saw—and he grinned with a wild smile.

“I see...that is where you are. These events are shaping up to be something interesting...indeed.”

A horrified look overtook the blond man. He had thought Zane had figured the location of his girl. While that wasn’t true, he liked the fear emanating off of him, so he didn’t bother to correct.

“You’re coming with me, and we’ll see how the rest of this plays out. Maybe I’ll even make you into a nice pet.”

Now then, Allison. What business did you have at the Cosmic Casino? Only fate would tell.