He tried to draw breath, but no air came. The form of the tall, raven-haired woman began to blur and distort. He ambled toward his former companion and savior. Ben’s body screamed. He fell to his hands and knees and spat blood onto the cracked marble floor. The flames of his Avatar had begun to dissipate in wisps of black smoke, and he began to suffocate as he felt his lungs fill with a heavy liquid. Ben lifted his fading eyes to the woman.
You did this.
He intended to say, yet no words left his lips.
He crawled on his knees as he could no longer ignore his body’s agony. Ben’s vision began to darken, and he fell, prone, into a pool of blood on the cold stone. He felt his body jerk as barbed arrows were ripped from his back.
The crash of a door bursting open and slamming against a wall kept him lucid for a few weak heartbeats.
“What the fuck is going on here?” a feminine, husky voice said. The sound was distant, yet the visitor’s familiar, smoldering presence brought the young man a small measure of comfort.
Who is that again?
The young man drew on his last reserves of consciousness and willed his eyelids to open a crack. He saw the blurry form of a short figure in brilliant white armor approach him and crouch to turn his numb body over. The action forced his eyes shut, and he heard a sniff.
“That woman with the white hair,” another voice trembled. “I was too slow, Ain. Ann didn’t make it either.”
Ann?
The young man felt weightless as he drifted aimlessly across a void devoid of light or sound. Fragments of memories of lives he had not lived began to surface in his mind.
He walked through a wooded area under the cold glow of dawn. Rifle slung over his shoulder, his brother by his side. The pair spotted their quarry in a thicket about fifteen meters ahead.
He turned to the young, auburn-haired woman and handed her a spare pen he kept for those late-night cram sessions. After chewing her lip, she hesitated and dipped her head in thanks as she discarded her empty one.
She strapped herself in tightly to try and get some sleep. Nightmares of the ship’s hull being breached kept her from getting any good rest the cycles prior. She gazed out the port window once more to say goodnight to the orange-red dot that would be their new home. One more month, she thought as she absently pushed away a floating, stray packet of dehydrated rations.
He awoke with a start as he collided against a cold curved wall. With weak arms, he tried to steady himself against the smooth surface. He opened his eyes and was greeted by pitch-black darkness, and a moment later, a feint oscillating blue ring of light appeared on the wall before him. An eerily off-pitched whine was heard, and the ring flashed red.
“WARNING. Primary cell failure. Auxiliary power is less than zero point zero five percent,” said a feminine voice in a monotonously cheerful tone.
The sound grated on his ears as the voice repeated the warning several times. He lifted a shaky hand to hit the ringed display, managing only a weak thump. The whine stopped.
“Self-repair initializing. Please stand by for diagnostic logging.” Indecipherable glowing blue symbols replaced the ring and cascaded in front of him. “Subject L2156. Male. WARNING. Imprint synchronization incomplete. WARNING. Health and vitals critical. WARNING. Irregular neural activity detected. WARNING. Auxiliary power is less than zero point zero two percent. Logging. Initializing capsule purge. Please stand by.”
A deafening screech assaulted his ears as the capsule shook violently. A vertical line of bright light bloomed before him, and he felt the air in his lungs forced out as a cold liquid blasted his chest. The capsule opened, and frigid salt water filled the space. His weak body floated up towards a turbulent grey ocean surface. His vision went dark, and he drifted once more.
Raindrops battered his aching form lying on a muddy forest floor. The young man opened his eyes to see a twilight grey sky with angry swirling clouds of red and black. He propped himself up on his shoulders and surveyed his surroundings. The blackened fingers of burnt trees reaching out to the sky surrounded the clearing in the charred forest.
He turned his head toward a familiar presence that tugged at his mind. A woman in black armor that glimmered with the stars of the night sky sat with her back against the stone wall, exhausted, in a shallow cave of a rocky outcrop. She had shoulder-length black hair and fair skin. Her cheeks were dyed red by thick bloody tears that flowed from tired grey eyes.
“Hey. You’re finally awake,” said the woman, voice made low by what he assumed was exhaustion.
“I know you,” he said, almost questioningly.
The woman chuckled and closed her eyes. “So, not quite fixed up then.” She took a shallow breath and sputtered crimson droplets from her pale lips in a choking cough. “Looks like Dee is on a one-way trip to oblivion.” She met the young man’s gaze intently and raised a hand with an outstretched finger beckoning him closer in a ‘come here’ gesture.
He lifted his nude aching body to stand and amble toward the bloodied woman, sheltered from the torrential rain in the cave. His weak legs gave out from underneath him, and he fell to the damp pine-covered ground before her.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“He’s quite possessive, you know? He didn’t want to lose this fragment, the memory of his first Wielder.” Her head began to sway, and her eyelids sagged. “But he knows it’s what she would’ve wanted.”
The young man was confused by the woman’s words. He felt a pressure build in his temples as if his empty mind was a large vessel filled with a dense, thick liquid.
“I don’t understand. What is this place?” he asked with a weak breath.
“You’re in need of a patch-up, you see? Something must’ve happened to drive you over the edge and shatter your mind.” She leaned her head against the cold stone wall to stop it from bobbing and swaying. “He watches and remembers, but for you to receive his memories directly will probably mess you up beyond saving.”
“My memories? I can’t even remember my name.”
“No… His own. What he observed while inside you. Take what he shares, and it’ll fill in the blanks. You know, the missing parts. Hopefully, that will restore you to something normal... This form,” she lifted a weak thumb to jab at her chest, “will be the conduit for the sharing… a translator of sorts.”
“I still don’t understand,” he said as he shuffled to sit beside her against the cool stone.
“You will,” she paused and turned to meet his gaze. “You’re cute. She would’ve liked you… Say, will you do me a favor?”
He dipped his head.
“If you find her, will you tell her what it felt like?” the woman asked sweetly.
“Find who? And tell her what?”
“D3394, Deidre or Dee, take your pick…” She leaned closer, and the young man felt her sweet, warm breath on his cold lips. “Tell her about this.”
He felt soft lips, moist and bloody, caress his own. He tasted the sharp tang of iron on his tongue, and his mind exploded in a kaleidoscope of colors. His body went rigid as a searing agony ripped through his head. Images of uncountable, incomplete moments from lives he could not possibly have lived cascaded through his vision. He felt his stomach churn at the nauseating display.
The images slowed to a crawl, and he beheld a scene of waking up in a steel capsule that opened under the turbulent waves of a grey sea. A voice had called him L2156 before he floated to the surface. He saw his companions. The teasing grin of a veteran Berserker with her sharp wit and rough sense of humor. The soft blue eyes of an obsessive Priestess turned Keeper, eccentric yet endearing. An aloof Archer with big green eyes and an obscenely long, thick braid of raven-colored hair, the reliable and knowledgeable leader.
Violence, loss, and bonds formed and strengthened. Then betrayal. Hatred. And an Oath.
The young man opened his eyes to find the woman gone. The rain had slowed to a light patter on the loamy soil of the clearing. Two suns shone dimly in the grey sky. One blue and one blood-red illuminated the charred fingers of the surrounding forest in a serene purple light. He walked into the mud and looked down to see a naked, robust, healthy body.
“I’m Ben,” he said to himself.
A presence bloomed in his periphery, and he turned to face the source. The massive feline, comprised of angular obsidian glass-like material, lounged atop the rocky outcrop. Slow black flames billowed from its form as a long, thick tail droned through the air while swaying like a pendulum in front of the cave’s entrance. He met the beast’s gaze and dipped his head.
“Thank you. I can’t imagine what it cost you,” Ben spoke softly.
The entity huffed a deep bass that shook the air in the young man’s lungs before turning his head away. He walked up to the rocky outcrop and climbed the steep incline. His Avatar regarded him with crimson eyes, once more with what Ben thought to be amusement. Even though the entity’s features were rigid, he felt the emotion.
Ben reached the peak of the outcrop and crawled to sit against the beast’s slowly breathing rib cage. The exact spot he had observed Dee’s fragment recline upon meeting her for the first time in the crimson desert. The slow wafting flames licked at his bare skin, yet he felt no warmth, cold, or pain. He caressed the side of the entity, and he felt a connection form. Thoughts were conveyed to him less intrusively than the brute-force method of communicating intent the beast had employed during their previous meetings.
The Avatar rested its head on outstretched claws, tail still whistling a deep drone through the air below the pair.
“Tell me about Deidre,” he said as he gazed absently at the silhouettes of two dim suns in the grey sky.
Ben began to imagine a tall girl, awkward in her skin. She was shy and lacked social empathy, which tended to cause misunderstandings and, more often than not, trouble for herself and her companions. She was remarkably intelligent and had a talent for discerning the mysteries that would elude even the most prodigious of minds. Yet she was also a dreamer, content to idle and laze about as the world passed her by.
“That sounds perfect. Do you think I’ll ever be able to live like that someday? You know, find somewhere to call home and spend my days with… spend my days. Yeah. Just somewhere away from things around every corner that want to eat you.”
The Avatar ignored his babbling and continued to project its thoughts.
When fate beckoned, and her new home was threatened, Deidre reluctantly took up the mantle of teacher, defender, and savior.
“Where is she now? Her… grave?”
Ben felt his heart begin to ache. The familiar, terrifying feeling of drifting across a void brushed his mind. He shivered.
The pair lazed atop the rocky outcrop for what seemed like hours. The young man was content to stay for a while to allow his aching mind to heal. He let the thoughts of loss, hatred, and vengeance stew in his subconscious and imagined an idyllic cottage overlooking a valley. A place he could call home, with full bookshelves that lined the walls and good company to share a peaceful life with. The rain had continued to fall in a soft hypnotic rhythm, and Ben felt it soothe his thoughts. He turned to face the beast, who stared off toward the charred forest.
“Before all that, we’ve got debts to pay,” he declared to the Avatar.
The entity met his gaze, eyes dripping molten black-red liquid. A snort of amusement came as a reply, and thoughts of obscure foes, both terrible in strength and number, touched his mind. The beast turned away once more. Ben gazed up at the sky and recalled his Keeper.
“And I’ve got to see this, ‘Convergence’ through before I can even think about a quiet life in the countryside.”
Ben was torn from his musing as a bright light shone between two dim red and blue orbs obscured by grey clouds in the sky. He felt a familiar radiance pour over his being, and his vision brightened until he saw pure white.
His body ached dully, and his muscles felt stiff from inactivity. He lifted his hand to his sternum and felt a rough texture under his slightly numb fingertips. His middle back and chest felt tight as scar tissue had replaced skin. He eased his eyes open slowly as the bright blue glow through the membranes of his eyelids promised an unpleasant blinding. The pleasant smell of the sea wafted through an open window, brought by a soothing breeze that caressed his body. He heard the bustling of a busy city street and a muffled conversation from an adjacent room.
When his vision adjusted to the light, he saw a plain wooden ceiling, and he turned a stiff neck to see that he was in a relatively small, empty room. A table stood at the foot of the comfortable bed, and upon it, a basin and rags were placed next to numerous incandescent vials of red, green, and brown liquid. Some were empty, others half-full, and Ben recognized them to be similar to the elixir Ann had given him while he recovered at the outpost in MoonVale.
A door to his left creaked open, and the sounds of conversation grew louder and clearer.
“…master Durrene be back today?” said a familiar feminine voice.
“No. He practically lives at the temple nowadays. The High Priest says he won’t last till the end of the week,” a deep voice spoke from behind the woman.
Ben turned his head to the door to see who his visitor was.
“Ben? You’re… awake,” Jor said, big green eyes wide as she brushed a lock of short black hair from her brow.