Luanna Spektor was seething with anger. The book told her hardly anything she needed to know. Did the Abydonians and Manumits defeat the clones on Proxima Borealis? What happened to them when Earth was destroyed? Was there a second book, as the ending seemed to promise? Why were only some of her memories unlocked? Why did she need this book to remind her of her memories…what had happened to her? What happened to Baron von Drǽfend?
She couldn’t contain her rage anymore. She screamed out SYMBYTHU’s name, knowing he was watching her. He must be, after all, since she was a stranger—or a prisoner—in…wherever the hell she was. She would have an ear-full ready for him when he responded.
He appeared presently, a blank expression on his face. He had seen her throw her fit and was ready for the worst. Uncontrolled rage seemed to be one of the first symptoms of the hyper-hysteria that enfeebled the mental fitness of his previous attempts. “Commander Spector,” he said with a learned air of authority. “I see my book has made you unhappy. Please, elucidate the reasons.”
“I’ll elucidate the damn reasons for you, whatever you are. Where is the second book? You seem to go into great detail about what happened to Earth, but what about my people on Proxima Borealis? You must have written more. And why can’t I remember anything? Pieces of my life come back to me, but they’re fragmented…why?”
SYMBYTHU smiled. “I am a cyborganic organism created by Baron von Drǽfend many millennia after you played your part in the story of the universe. You may think that makes me your enemy, but I assure you that is not the case. As to your second question, the people of Earth, your distant predecessors, ignored my warning—ignored my sacred book because of their own hubris. They couldn’t fathom the story I told them was true and they continued with their cloning programs nonetheless. I never wrote a second book after seeing their blasé disinterest in the first. For your other questions…all will be answered with time.” He believed enough words had been said so he turned and left the room.
Luanna stood there in disbelief. The Baron created that…thing? The self-named “cybernetic organism”? What even was a cybernetic organism? How could she trust him?
She had to find a way out of this prison.
----------------------------------------
Jaxson Landry and Mads Wolfram experienced much of the same type of awakening that Mars had, except Jax unknowingly had many of the same questions that Luanna had posed to SYMBYTHU; he had family on Proxima Borealis after all and he needed to know what happened to them. He wasn’t angered by reading Prodigium though, he was simply curious about how he was reading this story of his life if he died when the Earth erupted from the cosmic forces of nature initiating from Mars’ and Odina’s battle. Had he somehow survived? Did others survive from Earth?
When he finished reading the book, he tried changing into his Hamrammir form but discovered that he couldn’t.
Why?
He found himself afraid of the answer.
Mads was just angry his last act in the story was of him being forced to run from the battle—the battle which determined the fate of the world, nonetheless. The only other time he had to run from a battle was at Hyderabad Pyrἰnas when they were betrayed by the millions of civilians they were trying to liberate. He lost nearly all his Berserkrs there and the feeling from the memory of that loss burned him.
That burning loss, manifesting itself inside him now as rage, carried Mads’ memories back to him, extrapolated from his cells by the seething anger. The only gap in time—that he knew of—was his briefly-covered-by-the-book time returning to Lagos Pyrἰnas from Hyderabad. He felt he would be fine not remembering all of it…
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
As he sat on the couch that had formed neatly around him from his hours of sitting and reading, he looked around the room. To the side and behind him, something glimmered and caught his eye. He got up to investigate, his body feeling more alive and reinvigorated than when he first woke up in this strange place, and found that the glimmering object was a mirror, tucked away in a corner of the room. He stopped in front of it and stared at the reflection looking back at him.
----------------------------------------
Luanna was going through her second reading of the book; except she wasn’t really reading it…she was timing the turning of the pages as she thought about the ways she could escape her room. She thought she was either in an underground facility or one tucked away in the mountains, maybe on Proxima Borealis somewhere since Earth was apparently destroyed…if this book was to be believed.
As she thought through her problem, she believed the air shafts were her most likely means of escape. They had to go somewhere after all and that somewhere was a place different than her current prison. But what about the cameras? If she knew where they were, she could disable them. So far though, she hadn’t seen them.
She decided she would chance it.
----------------------------------------
The room was dark, as was her mood.
Ella Fleury threw the nearest thing to her—a small, medical-looking device—across the room. She only felt anger and she didn’t know why. Like the others, she didn’t know who she was, where she was, or anything else. And this manifested within her as pure, unadulterated anger.
She jumped out of bed. Unlike the others, she had no muscle fatigue whatsoever. As she landed squarely on her feet, she felt as if she could run a marathon right then and there. She walked towards the door and tried to open it. To her surprise, the door slid right open, beckoning her into the hall. She acquiesced.
The hallway was brighter than her room but still not bright enough to belay the eerie aura circulating around her. Shadows jumped across the ceiling as she walked along warily in silence, taking in her surroundings. She thought her mind playing tricks on her when she swore the walls themselves were moving; yet when she approached to inspect them, the movement stopped, and the walls appeared normal. She kept walking, trying to find answers. She wandered for over ten minutes without any discovery, just empty rooms, an endless hallway, and curiously unnatural shadows.
She rounded a corner where a tall figure stood no more than ten yards away from her. The figure looked human, but she knew instinctively that it wasn’t. Without thinking, she charged at the creature, throwing her heel into its chest with a flying-sidekick. She found herself on her backside moments later, her foot, shin, and knee throbbing, and the creature not having moved a centimeter from her attack.
Before she could act again, the creature spoke in a strong, musically-beautiful voice, “Ella Fleury, I am not your enemy. I have spent a lifetime saving you from the abyss. I am SYMBYTHU, and together, we can save the Earth.”
Memories flooded back to her with the realization of her name…Ella Fleury. A childhood spent in wonderful, carefree, loving bliss; teenage years spent honing her mind and body to bend to her will, to bend to her self; and a young adulthood in a beautiful city—no, a Pyrἰnas—preparing herself for a lifetime of leading others. Then a beautifully handsome man’s face came to her, and the memories instantly stopped. Who was that, and why did the memories end with him?
SYMBYTHU offered Ella a helping hand up and she accepted, rising gingerly to her feet and trying her best not to show a limp from the shooting pain in her leg. SYMBYTHU said, “Please, follow me, Consul.”
Though this confused her further—how could she be the Consul? What happened to Kai Blake?—she followed SYMBYTHU with more trust than she thought she should have.
He led her to a room—an exact replica of the room Mars, Jax, Mads, and Luanna had been led to—and bade her to sit on the white couch in the center of the room. Like the others, Ella was handed a worn, hardcover copy of SYMBYTHU’s book, Prodigium. Unlike the others, who were given full-color copies, she was given a black and white book titled: Prodigium, The SYMBYTHU Histories, The Gray Edition. The menacing ouroboros on the cover unlocked more of Ella’s memories when she saw it, memories of a secret war with a great and terrible power—memories of her leading the charge against the terrible power—and of her warriors…Berserkrs?… wearing a patch on their uniform sleeve identical to the world-devouring ouroboros splayed on the cover of Prodigium.
SYMBYTHU left Ella hurriedly after this, as something more pressing had come to his attention.