Yori reached his hand out towards the two children, but knew them to be too far away. Watching the two run off down the road through his fingers made him feel as helpless as he did confused. The scenery didn’t seem familiar to him and the children were no one he remembered. If the houses looked Japanese, then he could have thought the rural quality to be from a countryside town he visited when he was younger. However, they didn’t match anything in Japan. ‘They look European…sort like…’
His eyes widened in shocking realization as he took in the town in more detail. The thatched roofs for some homes, stone masonry for others, each he saw before. The architecture looked identical to where they had just come from. He couldn’t believe his eyes completely. It didn’t make any sense to him that such a place would be in his mind. Recent memory or not, it didn’t add up. ‘…this is Atlantis!’
Chapter 130 – Crack the World
“What’s going on?!” Yori shouted to the sky. His head tilted towards the clouds as though seeking an answer from them. It seemed stupid to expect a reply, but if the woman created the illusion then she might have answered him. Silence told him that he should feel awkward for the scene. He flipped his eyes side to side. Slightly paranoid someone in the illusion saw him, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It felt to him that the children were the only others in the world.
He ran off down the road after the children. ‘If it’s just us then there must be some meaning to this! I have to figure this mystery out!’ Yori searched down alleys and around homes with no success. He knew that they had to be around the town somewhere. Desperation built in his muscles urging his legs to move faster to find them.
Everything around him was foreign and he wanted answers. ‘If I find them maybe I can figure this all out!’ It turned into his only hope. He had left a fake memory to fall into what he could only assume to be an illusion created to confuse him. He didn’t even know if they stole everything from his mind.
Wandering around the town gave up no answers for him. The children were nowhere in sight. The town itself didn’t seem any more familiar to him. He hoped that enough searching might reveal the town they stayed in briefly, but nothing about it he recognized. He only had two outcomes from his investigation. ‘Either this is a completely fabricated memory meant to be the next stage in the interrogations or this is a composite of my memories to create something new, which also might be the next stage as well.’ Each option had their merits, but Yori didn’t want to settle on one until he understood his situation better.
With the town exhausted, he went out into the fields. While he hoped that they didn’t double back at some point, the only remaining place unsearched was beyond the town. Yori knew that a lot of unexplored ground existed outside. Therefore, he just pointed himself in a direction and went rather than over thinking the problem.
“Looks fairly generic,” he sighed with disappointment. He knew that he shouldn’t have expected anything to look familiar to him. If his hypothesis was correct, then he didn’t have enough time in the land for anything to be familiar. One hill and one tree looked just like every other one. “Hopefully, they’re around here.”
Yori walked aimlessly for a time that he could no longer count. He didn’t even know if any sense of the word, time, existed. The sun didn’t seem to change regardless of where he went or for how long. He wanted to give up his fruitless search, but trudged on with only the hope of answers at the end.
In the distance, the voices of children pulled Yori away from his line of sight. He found them at last. He ran as hard as he could in the direction not wanting to be late and find them missing. Over a hill and in a large field of flowers, he found the two children he saw before. They sat in the field picking flowers and laughing. He felt the scene oddly cliché, even for an illusion. “You can’t be serious…what sort of meaning is this supposed to have?”
Uncertain on how to continue, Yori took careful steps not to disturb the two if they could be aware of his presence. The two seemed in their own world with not a care to anything else. Closer to them, he started to make out their conversation.
“When’s your daddy coming home, Athene?”
“I don’t know. Mommy says that he’s working hard for the King.”
“My mommy says the King’s bad!”
“But mommy says without the King we’d all die!”
“But if the King is gone there will be another King.”
“So even if the King is evil, we’ll get a new King that’s good?”
“Definitely!”
‘What do they mean?’ Yori paused outside of the flowers. He remembered the conversation he eavesdropped on in the village the night before had similar words. It didn’t add too much to him yet, but it coming up again made him certain the King had a greater significance to the country than Ayumi let them to believe.
He could see her desperation, but she never explained herself. He needed to understand the role the King played. ‘Why will everyone die if there’s no King? The land will still be here even without the King. So what happens? And an evil King and good King?’ Yori pressed his hand to his forehead, feeling his mind going in circles just like before. ‘Nothing is making any sense. This is all too vague! I need a clear answer!’
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Yori turned his caution away and started in for the children. Even if he was in an illusion there seemed to be the chance for answers to what Ayumi hid from them. He had to know. He didn’t care about the risks. “Hey! You—“ Before Yori could say anymore an explosion drowned out his words. The children stood up looking straight at him in shock. He felt as though their stunned faces accused him of the noise, but he quickly learned otherwise.
The girl started to cry running part way through the flowers before stopping. “The town’s on fire! Mommy!”
“…mom…” whimpered the boy, unable to move from his spot.
“Mommy’s in danger! I have to find her!” She began running again, passing Yori as though he didn’t exist. The boy chased after her once he realized that she ran off.
Heat so uncomfortable that it made his skin crawl and washed over Yori. He hadn’t turned around yet, but it felt as though the town stood behind him. It shouldn’t have been possible, but he looked over his shoulder. “What?!” When he saw the town burning close enough to glaze his eyes he staggered back facing it fully.
Townspeople fled in all directions from the spreading fires. Whatever explosions started it, the center of the town held a large crater. Stone and earth debris laid strewn everywhere. The blast sent pieces into other homes wrecking more outside of the radius. Cries and screams of pain echoed through the roads from the injured or dying. Anarchy existed and no one knew why.
“What’s happening? Why is the town burning suddenly? Is there an attack?” Before Yori could get any answers the town shifted on him. He found himself standing back at the home when he first saw the girl. She cried knelt in front of what remained of her house.
Something crushed half of the walls and the roof collapsed inward. Beams of wood stuck out while a large chuck of stone rested within what used to be the primary room. Yori saw blood thrown around the walls and debris with only a hand visible. He averted his eyes, understanding the scene too well.
“Mommy! Mommy!” A black veil ran over Yori, wiping away all of the horror that surrounded him. The girl disappeared and all he heard was her voice repeating. “Come back! Mommy!” Her voice soon faded away to the other unknown voices.
“It’s that girl!”
“The one that survived!”
“She’s from the town that they attacked!”
“The rebels…”
Yori felt the voices pounded in his head making him wrench his eyes closed. He couldn’t shut out the voices. ‘Rebels? What’s…happening…ugh…sister…’
“Welcome to the Military Academy! Your conscription papers have already been processed. After you finish your basic training you will report to the Academy for Meso Prosecho. Good luck, Cadet Athene!”
“Yes, sir!”
“You hear she’s from the town wiped out during the rebellion?”
“They say she’s the only one that survived!”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the new graduate from the academy. I’ve been assigned to the South Gate.”
‘Academy? Different voices…from before…’ He wanted it to end. He didn’t know much more his mind could take. It all moved too fast for him.
“Right, I heard about you from the Captain. Can’t believe they’re sending us children now.”
“I’ll pull my own weight, ma’am!”
“You better. Rumors are you’re the prize of the Academy and that even General Alexander himself says you have great promise. You better live up to such accolades.”
“I will, ma’am!”
“You act confident, but we’ll see how long that lasts. I don’t know what Command is thinking putting an eleven year old in charge of a squad, even with your marks. I’ll be watching you, Second Lieutenant Eudokia.”
‘Eudokia?!’ Yori’s eyes opened once more with the pain suddenly ignored. He knew that name. ‘That’s Ayumi?! What’s going on?’ The void disappeared for him as though in response to his request.
He found himself standing before a tall stone complex. Stone columns lined the outer walls acting as support and decoration to the inner main walls. The structure spread out in grander size than he had ever seen in illustrations of the Ancient Greek buildings. It made him wonder if perhaps similar structures did exist, but time took them away.
However, he knew he couldn’t focus on the building. Yori turned his eyes down to the courtyard they stood in. Soldiers walked on patrol at the outer perimeter, but none of that mattered. Before him, he found something that he didn’t expect to see. A young child, in the White Atlantean Military uniform, matched a younger appearing Ayumi. Across from her, the tall woman that he remembered seeing in the white room. “What’s going on? Why am I seeing this? Is this real?!”
“I understand! I’ll meet your expectations, Lieutenant Commander Athene!”
‘Athene…the same name as the girl…’ Yori began putting all of the pieces together the longer that he watched. ‘The woman from before, that’s interrogating me. This is her, Athene is her name. These must be her memories! It wouldn’t make sense for her to show me fake memories of herself. So this must be real, but why am I seeing this?’ The conversation between the two in front of him already ended, but he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to pay it any mind.
He felt like he was getting close to a breakthrough. Yori traced his path since meeting the woman. He needed to see the full picture to understand the reason. His first thoughts assumed this all had to be a part of the interrogation method, but he ruled that out. Showing her memories for extracting information made no sense. He knew that much.
‘She claimed to have already had access to everything. But now that I think about it, it doesn’t add up. Why would she say that and then go about everything else? If she was already inside my mind and could reach what she wanted, she did not need me. She used that to trick me! She wanted to use me to guide her to it!’ Yori nodded to himself, liking the direction.
His reasoning felt correct. A strange sense of an exterior push gave him an odd feeling of understanding. The pieces connected together perfectly. ‘The fake memory must have been an attempt by her to drag out information. She probably made a construct from what she did have access to create it. But this…’
Yori looked around him at the South Gate Headquarters. He knew none of it and the appearance of events from the past that he had no knowledge added a new direction. The direction it sent him in didn’t make him feel comfortable. If his deduction was correct, then it brought up an entire series of new questions.
‘Why am I seeing Ayumi? Why see this woman’s memories? Is it because of me? I know Ayumi so related memories surfaced? But if this is what I think it is…then why am I even here? How did this happen?’ He searched around hoping to find Ayumi still and possibly a new path to follow. She had to be the key to everything. Ayumi was the reason they stood in Atlantis and for dragging Yuki to be the new King. She was the center. She had all of the answers. ‘I can find my answers here!’
Excitement built up in Yori with the anticipation of knowing that he could find what he sought. ‘That’s it! I’m searching! I’m searching through her!’ The epiphany hit him suddenly and hard. It shot him out of the memory that he stood in.
Yori found himself in a white room much like the one he started in. However, the memories on display weren’t his, but the woman. In front of him larger than the rest expanded an image as though beckoning to him. As he stared at the image, it started to bleed into his mind. Yori’s eyes widened in shock and realization. “It can’t be…all this time…have I finally grasped the truth?!”