Sunny. 3mph winds blowing east. Eighty-four degrees fahrenheit. High humidity expected.
Eight years before Kovaki’s speech in the town center, Kovaki stared out of the window in her classroom, lost in thought. Summer air warmed the window’s glass and kids played in the courtyard outside. Beside her was her friend Haise, staring blankly at nothing in particular. Neither were paying any attention to the teacher.
Haise straightened herself in her seat, turned slowly, and leaned towards Kovaki. Haise quivered as she moved, as though she was old and decrepit, but she, like Kovaki, was only thirteen. An intricate pendant dangled from Haise’s neck, swaying with her movements.
“There are… only fifty days left,” Haise told Kovaki in her frail, high voice.
Kovaki turned to Haise, eyebrows raised.
“Seriously?” Kovaki whispered. “That was fast.”
“I want to spend… more time with… you… since I will be going then,” Haise whispered.
Kovaki looked at her friend intently. Haise had been brought up deeply religious by her parents, and even after their passing, she had maintained their spiritual fervor. Ever since Kovaki and Haise had met, Haise had made it clear that she wouldn’t be around for long.
“My bones… are weak. My family and I are… not used to this… gravity,” Haise had told her when they met. “My parents are gone… they couldn’t survive… but I will be ascending… in a few years. I’ll meet God.”
Those words buzzed around for what had to be the thousandth time in Kovaki’s head.
“Alright. Meet me after school, ‘kay?”
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“So, Haise, tell me,” Kovaki started. Her friend was sitting with her on a bench, hot to the touch at the summer’s peak. “And I don’t mean to be rude when I ask this, trust me. But what do you think is gonna happen when The Shades comes? Are you really sure you want to be left behind?”
Haise turned to Kovaki, sweat dripping down her face from a mix of heat and everlasting exhaustion.
“Have I ever… told you where my family… is from?” Haise breathed.
“Not really.”
“Somewhere… on a moon in a distant solar system… is a society… of people with the collective mission of finding… our galaxy’s true God.”
Kovaki bunched up her forehead. “What do you mean?”
“The different civilizations of Zysti galaxy… all had their own religions… before they discovered each other—the Great Discovery… and founded our galactic society. Many religions fell apart during the Great Discovery… and left everyone wondering… who really made the universe. Which religion was correct.”
Kovaki pondered this for a moment. She hadn’t considered how religions would have been affected by the Great Discovery over a hundred years ago. She hadn’t even considered what pre-Discovery religions would have been like. To believe that people thought a God or Gods made just one intelligent species on only a single planet was hard to wrap her head around.
“Go on,” Kovaki urged.
“These people… from all over the galaxy… formed a group called Noctis… on a moon somewhere. They dedicated their lives… to find where the true God was. This pendant…” Haise held up the pendant hanging from her neck and displayed it to Kovaki, “... is the symbol of Noctis. My family is from the moon… where they reside. My parents… heard about The Shades… and thought they found Noctis’ true God. Remember that science lesson?”
“Which one?”
“The one on… gravity.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“My parents and I… grew up on the low-gravity moon… where Noctis is. The gravity here… was too high… and they died before they could see… The Shades.”
The sudden mention of Haise’s late parents left Kovaki speechless and uncomfortable. After a short moment of silence, she replied:
“I’m sorry about that.”
“To answer your question… I know that The Shades… is when the true God pays a visit. I’m sure of… that. I want to stay behind for my parents and… a better path… forward for me. My disease makes my… bones deteriorate… and I want to see God before then. Before I die. Ascending will let me… escape death.”
“You’ve said The Shades is when God pays a visit, but what do you think is gonna actually happen then? Like, what does it look like? How will I know that you’ve ascended when I come back to Manim after The Shades?”
Haise looked to the sky above, dotted with wispy clouds.
“During The Shades… Manim is covered in clouds. Every… inch of sky… gets covered in storm clouds. It lasts a day and then dissipates.”
“I know. But everyone on the ground during The Shades vanishes; everyone knows that. What happens to them? Aren’t you afraid of that happening to you?”
“Why would… I be? What happens to them is… a miracle. The souls who colonized this planet… who stayed behind during the first Shades… they ascended. The same will happen to me. I will meet God… and he will help me move to a… higher plane of… existence.”
Haise looked Kovaki square in the eyes.
“To answer your question… I do not know what… will happen. But I imagine… it will be beautiful. If you want… you can join me… down here. Ascend with me.”
Kovaki studied Haise’s face for a moment. She bit her lip, deep in thought.
“Sorry Haise. My mom would miss me … a lot. Also I… I haven’t ever been the most religious. Not sure if God would be happy about that.”
Haise smiled at her.
“That’s… okay. We all meet God eventually… one way or another.”
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Today was the day. Kovaki stepped outside her home on the streets of Nur and looked at the sky. The weather was flawless. Not a cloud in sight. The temperature was mild and welcoming, and the sunshine felt warm on her hardened skin. But her heart was pumping. After today, she would never see her best friend again, and the anticipation of the event that would occur today only made her nerves worse.
Kovaki walked to Haise’s house, mulling over what she’d say to her friend. Part of her hoped that The Shades was just some big hoax, a blend of legends that culminated in widespread hysteria. She hoped that everything she’d heard about The Shades wasn’t true, that her friend was just wasting her time, but she wasn’t sure what to believe. With how gorgeous the weather was, Kovaki was having serious doubts that a planet-wide storm would happen at all.
Kovaki knocked on Haise’s door, and a few moments later, it opened, Haise occupying the doorway. The inside of her house was dim, lit only by ritual candles and cracks between blinds on the windows. The house was surprisingly big, considering that Haise was an orphan; apparently, her parents had left her a considerable sum of money upon their passing. Haise was wearing her Noctis pendant, heavy and intricately made of polished wood, coated with sigils on every square inch. The center of the pendant had a larger symbol, engraved in what looked like real gold, a strange series of lines surrounded by a thick golden circle. Haise looked overjoyed.
“Hi, Haise. I just wanted to say ‘bye.’ Thank you for… for being such a good friend.”
“Thank you for being… a good friend, Kovaki.”
Haise pulled Kovaki into a big hug, which Kovaki returned. She tried to fight the tears threatening to well up in her eyes. The tug of second chances told Kovaki to take her back, to make her come, to do anything to see Haise one more time, but deep down she knew it was already too late. Haise had made up her mind long ago.
After a long embrace, Haise pulled away. Her fate was sealed.
Kovaki racked her brain for something final to say. “Hey, uh… Good luck on seeing God. If that’s how that works.”
“Thank you.”
Kovaki looked at her friend once more, and then waved goodbye, turning away to go back to her house.
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The Battle Academy, Kovaki’s school, was the pickup point for all students. Every citizen of Nur was to be evacuated in spaceships provided by the Zystinian government, and all students of the Battle Academy were to sign in at school before boarding the evacuation ships. After helping her mother board up the windows and doors of their house, they walked to the Battle Academy to await pickup.
Upon arriving in her classroom, Kovaki noticed it was filled with many unusual things. There was a disproportionate amount of adults– the parents of everyone in her class present to ensure their child’s safe boarding of the Zysti-provided evacuation ships. Even Kovaki’s own mom was by her side. The second thing she noticed out of place, other than the fact that all of the desks and chairs were pushed to one side of the room, was that the other wall was occupied by several complex-looking machines, with many of her classmates clustered around them. Each machine had a digital console with the Zysti galaxy insignia engraved above it and a flat, clear panel at the machine’s base, and the rest of it was encased in dark plastic. Fingerprint scanners.
Having them present was justified—the Zystinian government had to take responsibility for the safety of their people. Everyone in the town had to scan their fingerprints on these machines, and anyone who didn’t was reported as missing. Kovaki already knew how to fool it.
Kovaki and her mom walked over to a machine, and Kovaki followed the instructions on the screen. She pressed her thumb on the cool glass until the screen indicated she had been successfully accounted for. She gave a thumbs up to her mom, who smiled, and then hung around the machine for a moment, waiting for any attention to fall away from her. Once her mother and her classmates seemed occupied with something else, Kovaki swiftly pulled out five index cards from her pocket, each with one of Haise’s fingerprints on it. She shuffled around through the papers until she found the largest one—the thumbprint. Kovaki shoved the rest into her pocket and pressed Haise’s thumbprint on the glass. Beads of stress-induced sweat formed on her nose, as the processing was taking longer than usual. Then, after five heart-stopping seconds, the “approved” symbol appeared on the screen, and Kovaki finally let out a breath.
Her insides panged at the deed she’d done, but an uneasy sense of relief washed over her. Maybe, if The Shades wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, Haise would still be around when she returned.
A long period of nervous waiting then fell over the classroom, everyone discussing The Shades, their parents’ experiences with it, and every range of theories as to what its true nature really is. Alone, without her friend, Kovaki’s nerves set in, anxious at what was to happen on her planet in just a few hours.
Almost making her jump, Kovaki’s mom interrupted her thoughts.
“Where’s that Haise girl?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Oh, she’s just running late,” Kovaki said, fighting to keep the competing guilt and panic out of her voice. Her mom seemed to buy it, as she nodded and turned away. Kovaki, contemplating what she had done, kept looking outside the window for a sign of the storm, but the clear sky continued to shine down on them harmlessly.
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Her teacher barked orders at the class, telling them to make their way out of the school. A long walk later and Kovaki found herself standing with her schoolmates in front of a huge silvery-gray ship with a ramp lying on the grass in front of their school. Zystinian officials ushered people inside, and as Kovaki’s place in line got closer, she could see dozens and dozens of other similar ships nearby. The whole town was evacuating. Except for Haise.
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Kovaki marveled at the ship as it flew out of the atmosphere and into orbit. The vessel, along with the dozens of others leaving Nur, was to dock with a much larger flagship already in orbit around Manim, housing all the inhabitants of the planet for a day while the storm below ran its course. But, so far, Kovaki couldn’t see any storm. Her confidence was steadily growing, though cautiously, that The Shades was a hoax.
But then she saw it. Kovaki wasn’t sure how she had missed it at first, but two foreboding walls of solid cloud were slowly, steadily emerging from both poles of the planet. Over minutes and then hours of space travel, Kovaki watched in horror as the light gray walls grew and grew until they swallowed the entire planet whole, meeting at the equator. Manim was now a ball of thick gray cloud from pole to pole. She was so engrossed, Kovaki hardly noticed when their evac ship docked with the Zystinian flagship.
The Shades had arrived.
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Stepping back onto Nur’s soil once more felt wrong, almost. Somehow, in some way, everything had been left exactly the same. Kovaki’s first instinct was to rush to Haise’s house, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to see what was there. Or wasn’t there.
Every house in every neighborhood had the entrances boarded, nailed, or screwed shut. Except for Haise’s. She had left her doors unlocked, welcoming whatever mysterious force the storm unleashed. Kovaki put her hand on the doorknob and pushed the front door open, heart pounding.
It was almost completely dark. The ritual candles had been extinguished, but aside from that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Except Haise’s unsteady voice was nowhere to be heard.
Kovaki stepped inside, and the light pouring in through the front door illuminated something lying on the living room floor. It was a journal, emblemed with the same symbol Haise had been wearing on her Noctis pendant. Hand shaking, breathing ragged, Kovaki picked it up.
Opening the journal revealed Haise’s diary, thoughts and ideas captured over many years. Kovaki flipped through each page, familiar with some of what she read, until she reached a blank page—blank except for a date and a few words beneath. The date was that of The Shades, and the words, unmistakably in Haise’s handwriting, read:
I see it. I see the image of God in front of me. It’s getting closer.
Kovaki, I was right. It is beautiful.
Kovaki read these words again and again before putting the journal down. She was dazed. Her previously terrified face transformed into a wide grin.
“Haise,” she said, “you did it. You really did it.”
“You met God.”
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Kovaki could only distantly hear the urgent voices of news reporters coming from her television.
“...Nur authorities have reported the absence of a thirteen year old orphaned girl named Haise Menss. Some suspect…”
A ringing in Kovaki’s ears was growing louder and louder, slowly consuming all of her senses. It wasn’t even grief—in fact, she hadn’t stopped smiling for several minutes now. Realizations were consuming her mind in a euphoric symphony, everything in her life making sense in a way nothing had ever before.
There was a God. It was residing on the very planet she lived on. Her best friend Haise wasn’t gone—she had ascended. Kovaki was filled with first a rush of joy and pride at her friend’s triumph, immediately followed by a deep, burning jealousy. Haise was right. She had escaped the binds of mortal life and death and ascended into a higher plane of existence—and she had done it all without Kovaki. To think that she had been so close to ascending with Haise; it seemed inconceivably unfair. Kovaki had missed her ticket.
But who’s fault was it? Her own. It was her own fault for not believing her only real friend and her religious journey. But it wasn’t just Kovaki who hadn’t believed—it was everyone. Nobody in her town had joined her, not even from Noctis. Kovaki had to correct this. She had to make up for the opportunity she had lost.
Now, she knew God had to be real. What else could explain such a phenomenon as The Shades? It was a routine rapture belonging only to the true believers.
Suddenly, Kovaki got up from her chair and started walking to the door. Her mom cried after her, panicked and confused.
So Kovaki would make them all believe.
After a short walk, Kovaki arrived at Haise’s house to find police cars surrounding it. It had taken them days to figure out that Haise was gone. They’d pay for ignoring her—but that would come later. She snuck in through the unlocked back entrance, stepping into Haise’s dark home with determination. She quickly located her living room where the Noctis pendant lay, grabbed it, and put it around her neck.
The mission of Noctis was to find Zysti’s one true God, and Haise had found it. Now, the pendant Kovaki wore held a new meaning—making sure everyone else believed. She would form a new Noctis: The Nova Noctis.
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“You all have come here for a divine reason. It is not a coincidence that, from every corner of the galaxy, you have ended up on this planet, in this room, all together as one community. You may think you are here to start a family or a business or to become another of Nur’s many corvyte miners and live a prosperous life, but it is Manim’s holy power that has brought you here. You are here because you… believe.”
Kovaki’s last word echoed throughout the dimly lit, white-walled room, resonating in the hearts and souls of her followers. She wore a long dark cloak held together by the Noctis sigil. Almost six years of work had gotten her here, preaching in front of dozens of dedicated devotees of Nova Noctis. But, finally, she had begun to make the people of Nur, if only a fraction of them, believers. Each of Nova Noctis’ weekly meetings made her soul shine with joy and passion, and every additional filled seat reinforced her devotion and her foothold in Nur’s society.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a well-dressed man standing in the doorway to the room, fading sunlight around him pouring inside. His hair was sleek and well-combed, and he wore the signature black-green uniform of a representative of the Zysti Multiplanetary Government. Kovaki ignored him, continuing to wrap up the day’s meeting.
“Sooner than you think, the day of salvation will come. We will all ascend together then. And when that day comes, and the fingers of God pluck you from the constraints of mortal life, only the true believers will be granted ascension.” She threw a quick, almost indiscernible look at the Zystinian government representative patiently waiting at the doorway. “So tell your friends, your family, your children, and help pave the path for us all. Thank you.”
The members of Nova Noctis rose from their seats and Kovaki stepped off of her podium to personally greet them. She shook the hands of some of her followers, embracing the ones with tears in their eyes, and once the last devotee left the room, she turned with a sweep of her cloak to the government representative.
“How may I help you?” Kovaki said, putting on a convincing smile. Before replying, the unsmiling representative briefly looked her up and down.
“Miss Kovaki Etonie, I have orders from the Zystinian government for you to shut down the religious organization by the name of Nova Noctis.”
Kovaki recoiled at the words, her smile wiped away. A seed of panic formed in her mind.
“Nova Noctis is a legitimate religious organization,” Kovaki responded, keeping any emotion or sign of weakness out of her voice.
The representative gave a brief, exhausted sigh.
“The foundation of your religion is collective suicide. Your organization is legitimate, yes, but The Shades is a dangerous phenomenon we don’t fully understand yet. You are telling people to stay behind instead of evacuating the planet, and if that were to happen, it would lead to mass casualties. While we are not sure exactly what happens during The Shades, we know it kills people. Any religion, even a legitimate one, requiring people to die for its cause is forbidden.”
Kovaki paused for a moment, staring at the representative while fighting the urge to bite her lip. If the Zystinian government was going to get in her way, that was going to be a problem. Possible outcomes and solutions whizzed by in her mind.
Before she could respond, the representative continued:
“You have three weeks to dissolve your religious group, and if it is not dissolved by then, an intervention will be necessary. Good day.”
With that, the man walked away, leaving Kovaki to her turbulent thoughts.
Kovaki turned around, taking in the entirety of the Nova Noctis building. She then clenched a fist, her unusually hardened skin tensing up, and punched a small hole in the concrete with rage.
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“But the freedom we are seeking is exactly what they want to halt. The nonbelievers want to keep us under their thumbs, keep us acting like good little citizens, but we can’t let them control us. We will not!”
Since Kovaki had first proposed the idea of an anti-Zysti revolution to the rest of Nova Noctis, some members had left. But, while her numbers were fewer, the fervor and passion of her and her followers had grown exponentially.
“Many of us are already under their control. Thirty percent of all employed citizens of Nur work in the mines of Manim, mining corvyte for the Zystinian government. Some of us in this very room work there. You may think it brings our colony wealth like it did long ago, but now, they’re just using it as a distraction from the truth! A truth only we are awake to—WE ARE SLAVES!”
The room filled with raucous yelling and fast-paced chants. She waited for it to die down, feeling a rush of intoxicating power through her veins.
“In just one week the nonbelievers will come to us, wanting to destroy all that Nova Noctis has built up and stop us from our ascension. We won’t let them! We’ll fight back! Be patient, but be ready, for their day of reckoning will come.”
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Right on cue, an immaculate Zystinian government ship, immense in size, landed in front of Kovaki. Before the shutdown sequence could even finish and the ship’s high-pitched whir could fade away, the same green-suited representative as before stepped out of the ship, surrounded by four armed guards. The representative strode officiously towards Kovaki, whose cloak was flapping around in the wind. Behind her was the entirety of Nova Noctis, faces apprehensive. The representative’s face was as emotionless as before.
“It’s been three weeks,” he said. “Are you going to shut down your organization?”
Kovaki let the words linger, giving him a long stare before answering quietly.
“Never.”
The representative lifted his hand, raised two fingers, and pointed them at her. At once, the armed guards behind him split off and approached her.
“Arrest this woman,” he ordered.
But as the words were coming out of his mouth, Kovaki reached over to his raised hand and broke his extended fingers. As the guards surrounded her, the representative let out a cry of pain and her Nova Noctis followers let out a collective yell, charging towards the guards.
Kovaki fought off the swings of the guards’ electric batons, evading their well-trained attacks while sending punches and kicks to their unarmored faces. She was one of the lucky few of Zysti galaxy to possess a supernatural power—a Val—that made her skin into an impossibly hard, exoskeleton-like material she called “pure carbon.” Her Val made Kovaki an unusually effective fighter, rendering their baton strikes and shoves from their riot shields useless, while also giving her an offensive advantage.
Quickly, the swarm of enraged Nova Noctis members overwhelmed the guards, shifting the focus of the confrontation from Kovaki to the angry mob. Screams, yells, and grunts overwhelmed the senses, and at first, it was hard to tell who was winning. As Kovaki emerged from the chaos, she saw the four guards pitifully trying to tackle dozens of her followers. But with their nonlethal riot gear, and with such small numbers, they didn’t stand a chance. Emboldened, Kovaki led the way towards the ship where the injured representative was retreating, her followers in her wake.
Suddenly, great shadows and a deafening whir halted Kovaki’s approach. The sun was obstructed by three more large government ships. As they landed, countless armed guards began to pour out. A small, indiscernible object soared out of one of the clusters of guards and landed in the middle of the angry crowd. Kovaki noticed an oddly-colored smoke billowing out of it only moments too late.
The effects of the tear gas were swift and painful. Kovaki’s breath became labored and each inhale burned, blurring her vision with copious tears. She could feel herself coughing but couldn’t hear her own coughs over the cacophony. The first image she could make out was a masked riot guard taking down and arresting a Nova Noctis member. She watched helplessly as her followers, one by one, were put in cuffs and dragged away.
One guard pushed Kovaki to the ground while another, in a swift, practiced motion, restrained her arms and began to cuff her. Was it going to end like this? Was she going to spend the rest of her days in a Zystinian prison, forever unable to ascend?
Rage and determination burned in her eyes. Not like this. One way or another, she would meet God. And she would do anything to achieve that.
Kovaki focused on the guard pinning her down and aimed a kick at his helmet. The helmet went flying off, and the guard was dazed. Kovaki lifted her chin and pulled back her head. With all the force she could muster, she headbutted the guard with a sickening crack.
Kovaki felt blood drip down her cheek. It wasn’t her own. She was unharmed, thanks to her Val. But as she saw the guard fall limply to the ground, she knew he had been killed instantly.
For a moment, she watched the body. There was no remorse. It had been so easy to do the motions required to kill him. A life ended at her hands.
It felt good to punish the nonbelievers.
Looking around her, Kovaki noticed that some of her other followers had resorted to killing in order to escape. One of her earliest and most dedicated followers, Gorr, had strangled a guard. Kovaki ran over to him amidst the chaos.
“Find anyone you can! We’re getting out of here before more of them arrive!”
Gorr nodded and urged along another fleeing Nova Noctis member, and Kovaki led them sprinting away.
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Kovaki and the meager survivors of their confrontation with the Zystinian authorities huddled together within an abandoned house, lying against peeled-paint walls and a decrepit wooden floor. The stabbing cold of Manim’s spring was particularly harsh that night. With the authorities still searching for them, they were left homeless and ostracized. The one thing they still had was each other and their undying faith.
Kovaki remembered her now long-past days preaching to the people of Nur, the days where she was looked at with reverence instead of fear and worry. What happened to that? She had only wanted to teach them to ascend instead of cower in fear from The Shades. Did the people of Nur expect to just run from salvation every time it came, for the rest of their days? But Kovaki’s efforts to help Nur had only led to her ruin.
The fire of rage was now a steady burn alongside her passion. Her faultless devotion to The Shades was now tainted with the hatred of those who had wronged her, and she would take her revenge for it. Over time, she would rebuild her power and her followers, using any means necessary to do so. Kovaki had an idea—a way to force everyone to believe. She’d make the nonbelievers pay for her lowest moments.
And they would pay with their lives.