Chapter 7 - Remembrance of a Sinful Heaven

Pouria didn’t have much to get into the asylum. He had two allies, and whatever they could bring to assist. The odds were fully stacked against them, but Pouria couldn’t stand idle when he knew where Kaino was. The opportunity was presented perfectly, and while he hadn’t a clue where in the facility Kaino was, he knew that Thunder had to know the importance of what was in his possession. Thus, he expected Kaino to be well guarded, and most likely being abused for his knowledge.

With the talk that the fire-blade-wielding stranger had with Thunder, he’d spoken of his lust for a Soulflare of his own. And while it seemed that he already had one, Pouria deduced that he may be using Kaino to try and increase his current flare’s power. But he was still unsure if that was the case. It was clear though that Kaino was being held against his will and begrudgingly compelled to help The Stormcloud.

Whatever torturous methods they were employing to force Kaino into submission, Pouria knew that he and his new group would have to stop it.

It wasn’t even a full day after Pouria arrived, but he got to work with the little amount of sleep he had, directing Vevlan and Osefin to assist him in various ways with his plan, fueled by nothing but his bitterness and his desire to right his wrongs. Sleep didn’t matter until the plan was completed.

They ordered delivery on all three meals of the day as they used the kind Doctor’s office as a workshop to coalesce the details on everything they knew about the asylum. While blueprints weren’t available to them, Dr. Ibmoz’s memory served them well in constructing a scrappy layout of the building. All three men pitched in ideas on how they could enter. The entire place was locked down tight, and Vevlan went over to the asylum himself halfway through the day to scan the perimeter, returning with a rough idea of the exterior defenses.

“Nobody was going in or out of the asylum by the front or back entrances.” Vevlan explained to Pouria and Osefin as they sat around the main table, which was the doctor’s desk, now completely overrun with paper and documents. “The police don’t seem to care, which is just another reason why Pouria should oust every fucking Crystal Canopy member and-”

“Calm down, focus your rage at the problem, Vevlan.” Pouria instructed, channeling the knowledge of his old trainer’s teachings. “This will get us there.”

Vevlan nodded with a sigh to release some tension before continuing. “The lack of police is good for us, though. Nobody will intercept us if we plan on getting to the building. However, the issue lies within the Stormcloud’s security. For how insane they look, they do know how to lock a building down.”

“Right, which means we have to look for some hole in the security.” Pouria said. “I had a thought. How could Thunder get out last night to go to the warehouse?”

“Ah! Good thinking, Pouria!” Osefin said, raising a finger. “One of the gangs I helped in the past had a base with an underground entrance. I had to go down a manhole to get inside and treat their men when I visited. Perhaps they use the sewers to leave and enter?”

“I think that’s correct.” Pouria said. “If you didn’t know, the sewer systems in the city are self-cleaning, but they still need a maintenance vent unless the systems break down. That might be how they can slip out to still defend their territory and bring in supplies while still holding onto the asylum.”

“You think that they dug there or something?” Vevlan said, pondering aloud. “Those things are deep and very tough to get into.”

Pouria raised an eyebrow, the comment sounding odd. “Have you been down there before, Vevlan?”

“Uh, maybe like once or twice when I was younger. I got up to stupid shit as a kid.”

Pouria nodded. “Wish I could say differently.” He said, remembering how easily he’d been taken. The memories stung a little, but he emerged stronger in the end, which he often reminded himself to lessen the trauma. “Anyway, if you still know how to get through the manholes, we could pinpoint which one they are leaving out of and use it ourselves to sneak in.”

“How would we pinpoint it, though?” Osefin asked. “I don’t think checking every single manhole would be a good use of our time.”

“I can handle that. I have a device that can see heat signatures through walls.” Vevlan said.

“Wait, isn’t that like black market tech?” Pouria exclaimed. “You are very well connected to have something like that.”

“Yeah… got it a long time ago. I just like keeping tabs on people, it helps to have people owe you stuff.” Vevlan replied calmly.

Pouria noticed a slight shudder in Osefin’s posture as he exhaled. He wasn’t a masterful reader of body language, but he knew it meant something. It was clear to him now that the Doctor may not actually be Vevlan’s friend as much as he was in debt to him.

He hoped that it wouldn’t mess up the plan.

----------------------------------------

With the plan in place, Pouria needed to get some rest before the operation began that night. His partners in crime went home to sleep in their own beds, set to return an hour before the plan was to begin.

He fell asleep across the couch in the break room, ready to wake at three when his friends returned. He hoped he had planned enough, but there really wasn’t much else he could do. His brain wanted to continue to think about the plan, and it only began to doubt it more and more.

The entrance from the sewers could work, but if the guards intercepted them, they would all get mowed down in the single file hallway. If they got in, the secret entrance could also be surrounded by guards. And once they were inside the building, they had no clue what to even expect.

It almost felt like suicide.

Pouria tossed and turned, fighting his own mind to settle itself down, begging for sleep. It was a long battle against his paranoid mind, and Pouria eventually lost. He groggily opened his eyes in defeat, looking around the dark room. He sat up, angry and disheartened. He couldn’t even trust himself to go through with his own plans.

It was then, in the clutches of the night, that Pouria accepted that the angel was right about him. He didn’t deserve the city.

He hunched over, clutching his face in hands. He gripped his messy, unshaven beard, feeling each of his dirty hairs between his tired fingers. He could taste and smell his breath, it was rotten, like his twisted soul was spewing out of his mouth. His eyes hurt like hot branding-rods had been stabbed into them repeatedly.

Perhaps his death would be a just punishment for his crimes against humanity.

He sat up, looking at the door. He was thirsty.

He checked the clock on the wall above him. ‘11:30’.

With a groan, he slowly stood up and tossed the thin blanket off of him. He rose to his feet, and walked to the door. He had no clue where a sink would be in the building, but he knew that they weren’t uncommon in a doctor’s office. As he gripped the handle and opened the door, however, a sound came to ear. A voice.

“Mr. Mayor.” it called out to him from the darkness. The male tone wafted out from down the hall, like a distant ghost in the wind. A light breeze blew from the direction of Osefin’s office, where the plans were. Pouria recognized the voice well.

It was, without a doubt, Kaino’s voice.

Pouria’s brain ignited as he ran down the hall with a reignited spirit. The wind began to blow harder, and he began to feel stinging across his whole skin as if he was being hit with sand. It was a sensation he remembered well. He pushed forward, the wind blowing with such strength that he could barely open his eyes or move forward without a struggle. He was confused, but he didn’t stop moving for even a second to question it.

As he opened the door at the end of the hall, the wind changed direction almost instantly, it blew him off his feet with a mighty gust as he fell face first into the room.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But it wasn’t a room. No, the room wasn’t even in his sights. It was a vast expanse of sand. He was somehow in The Wastelands again.

A pale, blue sky hung over the endless sand and buried buildings and hills, peeking out from beneath the mesa.

He got up, turning back to find no trace of any room behind him, no hallway, no doctor’s office, not even the door he’d fallen through.

But when he turned the other way, and saw the figure of his friend upon the hill before him, he suddenly felt uneasy, but excited too. It was unmistakable, his most trusted ally, waving to him from afar. Pouria ran up the dune toward Kaino with all his might as the researcher ran away, down the other side of the dune.

Pouria ran up, each footstep shuffling the sands beneath. And as he crested the peak of the dune, he saw his grand city in the distance, spanning miles across the horizon.

But Kaino wasn’t there. Kaino was nowhere to be found.

Pouria frantically looked around for him, but he could only see the city and the sand. The heat of the Sun bearing down upon it all.

“He’s in the asylum for a reason, you know.”

Pouria almost jumped backward. Right in front of the city, a man wearing glaring sunglasses stood inches from the city’s mayor. He peered through his eyewear, straight into Pouria’s frightened face. The light around him was blinding, almost like the sun was stronger where he stood, creating an aura of heavenly light. Underneath a puffy beret, long, dark, unwashed hair like vines stretched down past his shoulders, frazzled out like frayed strings on his black, woolen jacket, seamlessly merging in a mess of dark tentacles.

“They don’t want people like us making society look messy.” the man continued. His tone of voice was subtle and devoid of life, but it had a strange allure to it, like a whisper beside Pouria’s ear, piercing the silence of the dunes.

“You know Kaino?” Pouria said, mouth slightly agape, the pace of his breath increasing.

“You cleaned society, didn’t you? That’s why everyone loved you so much. You miss that praise, and that’s why you are back, you prideful worm.” he replied, stepping over Pouria’s question with as much care for it as one would have with a piece of gum on the sidewalk.

“No. I am not here for praise. I am here to right my wrongs, I want to truly fix Soulflare.” Pouria said, taking a step back, and then another. But the man still felt uncomfortably, frighteningly close no matter how far back he went.

“Us Sungazers are blessed by the Lightkeeper with the discernation of true and false. You only lie to yourself.” the man said eloquently. “The city is unfixable, rotten to the core.”

“You aren’t making sense. How am I here? Where is Kaino?” Pouria said fiercely.

The figure shook his head. “Ignorant.” he spat. “But predictable, given your recent failings. If you wish to find Dr. Phantom, I’m not here to stop you, because we know that it will lead to your long overdue death.”

“Who the hell even are you?!” Pouria screamed, running at the figure. He blinked, and suddenly, the man had vanished in a single nanosecond.

And in Pouria’s confusion, he swiveled his head to see the city behind him as it broke into chaos. The cloud cover flew at incredible speeds through the sky, as meteors began to approach in the distance. They sped down as Pouria ran forward to try and do anything he could to prevent the tragedy, but as they hit, the whole metropolis ignited in white flame as it burnt down the entire horizon’s worth of buildings into nothing but dust and ash.

Pouria screamed, crying out to the sky above, up to the piercing sunlight that now baked the desert around him. It suddenly became clear to him what was happening, but what happened next didn’t scare him any less because of it.

A shadowy figure launched into the sky, eclipsing the sun and casting a shadow over Pouria. He looked up at them, shielding his eyes the best he could to try and see them, but the silhouette had no distinguishable details beyond his four swirling wings that flew around his body like the figure was their nucleus.

“The only reason your pathetic society hasn’t collapsed yet is because our God hasn’t got the time to snuff you out.” a new, yet familiar voice called out from all around Pouria. “But I do, The Exodus Angel, servant only to the Lightkeeper in the Heavens, guides my hand to take part in the extinguishing of mankind.”

Pouria could barely open his mouth to reply before the Sun flew closer, pulled toward the planet to bathe it in brilliant, holy death. It was but a moment before Pouria was seared alive in the inferno, and his screams echoed his mind in his final moments.

And those screams, the same ones from the dream, pierced into reality as Pouria launched up from lying down, body slick with sweat. He peered up at the roof, seeing that the room’s light was turned on.

Everything hung still and quiet. Pouria just sat there, shivering, and yet his body felt warm. It all felt real, more real and vivid than any other dream he’d ever had. Unmistakable from reality itself. His feet felt tired from running, his skin burned and felt warm to the touch, and his eyes were still in pain from looking at the sun.

It… wasn’t a dream, was it? He couldn’t understand how that person had done it, but they were a servant to The Exodus Angel, just like Thunder, that much was clear. How many were there? Did they have Soulflares that were powerful enough to pierce dreams? Pouria had never experienced anything like that, not even a Soulflare could do something like that; and yet… It happened.

There were some people out there that believed a deity known as The Lightkeeper, who created reality itself in a blinding flash of light, had given humanity Soulflares to help them survive the harshness of the current age. Pouria didn’t believe in God, nor did he care for religion blinding and brainwashing his city, praying for a savior that wasn’t real to save them from the harsh cruelty of the world. He was a realist, just like Kaino, which made it even stranger that the man from his dreams claimed to know Kaino as ‘people like us’.

All this chatter about his obsession with ‘The Eye of God’ and whatnot certainly left Pouria confused about Kaino’s actions, and his fate.

Pouria stood up, looking at the clock. It was nearly time, Vevlan and Osefin would arrive any minute now, and they would drive in the doctor’s car to the asylum to begin their raid.

The exiled mayor came to his feet, and walked out of the door to the break room, his footsteps weak, his mind confused.

That was when he saw a man standing right outside the door.

“Don’t think that we don’t know where you are at all times, Pouria.” the man with the sunglasses said, removing his eyewear. Beneath were blind, gray eyes that were shriveled with heat and seared with flame. “The only reason we haven’t decided to end you yet is because your flare keeps you safe from him. He doesn’t want you yet. However, know your time will come.”

A loud ringing pierced Pouria’s ears, a merry, yet terrifyingly sudden song.

Pouria awoke on the couch once more in a flush of shock and panic, hearing the doorbell from outside his room playing a tune.

A dream within a dream. Heart pounding, hyperventilating, eyes dilating to adjust to truly awakening. Pouria was pissed, confused, and scared all at the same time. A servant of god with a Soulflare more powerful than anything Pouria had ever seen. He had to calm down as the thoughts in his mind slowed down once more.

He looked at the clock again, just to be sure.

It was time.

Pouria looked around the room to center himself, and then stood up.

But a paper fell off his lap as he came to his feet.

He picked it up, holding it, touching it. He couldn’t tell if it was real, but it slowly became clear that this piece of paper was as real as reality itself.

Upon it, scrawled in cursive with a delicate and flowy handwriting, was a message.

‘Remember me, I am Alua, and we will certainly meet again. Enjoy your night, if you survive it.’