“I’m not sure…this is necessary,” said Lucina, haltingly, as they settled into chairs across from one another, knees touching, hands clasped. She felt rattled after having someone poke and prod deep within her memories, and to inflict that on Killian, on anyone really, felt strange and unnatural all of a sudden, as if she hadn’t been doing that exact thing nearly all her life. But she also felt ferocious curiosity as she sat across from this admittedly enigmatic man.
He watched her with his hazel eyes, now unafraid to lock eyes with hers. “Sure is, ma’am. Never heard of reciprocity?” He smiled hesitantly, lop-sided, a little sad, but it felt genuine, and all the suspicion and care that had previously lingered in his glances and words had evaporated. He knew her.
She wanted to know what that was like, to truly know someone else, to have them know you back. The Empath, who’d lived all her life peeking inside minds, affecting emotional changes, pushing and pulling whomever was foolish enough to drop their guard around her, realized that there had never been any such thing as ‘reciprocity’. That old familiar sense of deep longing burbled up inside her chest, and she grasped his hands with certainty. There was now an undeniable electricity in the touch, and she fought the urge to stroke her thumbs over the palms of his hands. She stiller her mind, squeezing her eyes shut, then flicked them open, and met his eyes.
---
There was a sensation of falling, then, stillness. She blincked. The world was dark and cool. She rose from the forest floor, looking around at the twilit woods. Massive sequoias, as wide as small houses, shot into the sky almost eternally, their crowns vaguely visible against a bruised purple sky tinged with the remnants of sunset and flecked with bright stars. An aurora borealis waved gently over a mountain in the distance. Somewhere deep beyond the trees, an owl hooted, and a whippoorwill called back. A warm, spring breeze rustled the leaves far above.
A path stretched before her through the thick, heavy trunks of the forest, sometimes leading through the hollow interiors of the trees, sometimes beneath arching roots, or into little hollows full of heather. She followed the path and the sound of running water. Walking for moments or perhaps for eternity, she stopped before an ancient stone bridge stretching over a gurgling stream. Small will o’ wisps bobbed and floated above the water, little motes of bright or dull yellow light, like candle-flames without wick. “A memory well,” she murmured, recognizing the dream structure for what it was. She stepped onto the bridge and brushed her fingertips against an especially bright mote.
The clinic of Dr Internico, blood congealing on the floor. Her vision was higher up, at Killian’s eye level, and his gaze wandered over the room, picking things out she’d missed. Discarded wrappers, suggesting 23’s caloric deficit and psionic overuse. The tackiness of the blood, placing the kill at several hours earlier. His gaze then caught against Lucina’s form, leaning over the panicked woman on the ventilator. A wave of sympathy for the patient, a flood of warmth for the care with which Lucina tended to her.
She let her fingers drop. “Very recent.” Lucina scanned the floating lights, and they seemed to drift aimlessly, some following the stream of water deeper into the forest, some hovering close to the surface and out of reach, some an arm length away. But she knew that the memories, any memory, was available to her. This was all illusion, after all. She simply had to concentrate on something she might want to see. And she wanted to see something from the very beginning. A dim mote, barely flickering, nearly invisible seemed to almost accidentally float her way. There were no accidents in this place. She reached out and cupped it in her hand.
---
Killian stood staring out over the frozen, dense pine forests of the Wilds, breath misting into the air, before being whipped away by a clawing wind. The bluff they stood on provided no protection. The sun was low, and the darkening world drew closer around him. Gnawing hunger roused in the pit of his stomach, and he could feel his own frailty, but had no words for such things, not yet. The biting cold cut at his face and any uncovered skin. He craned his head to look up at his father, and he smiled.
The man’s face was indistinct, but details seemed to rise and fall, bubbling to the surface of her consciousness. Hazel eyes, dark red-brown hair, a thick red beard streaked with gray, broad shoulders, a sharp nose. A frosting of ice on his mustache. The way his voice rumbled deep in his chest. He said something, then settled his hand on Killian’s shoulder, squeezing it softly. He smiled reassuringly, that face misted in time and Lucina felt something utterly new to her; paternal affection. Her heart seized in her chest and her breathing grew ragged. The emotion had not been dimmed by the passage of years. She looked out at the scene, then back at the tall man, but he was gone, replaced by an icy memorial cairn, his footprints trailing off into the snow-laden forest. And a sorrow settled to the bottom of her heart, a leaden weight.
---
She stood on the bridge, fighting to control her emotions, psychically struggling for breath. Her fingers gripped the stone as motes drifted around her gently, lights of another soul. She sniffed and drew a hand over her eyes. Normally, she was not so affected, but this was not an unwilling subject whose mind she was playing with. This was a man who was willing to share his burden.
“He was a good man.” She made the statement because she knew exactly how Killian felt about his father. “I’m sorry.”
Killian didn’t respond.
She walked on, however, over the bridge and into the closeness of the woods. The trees grew smaller, gnarled, and began to drop their leaves, the air growing autumnal and cold, thick with the smell of rotting vegetation and wet earth. The ground was slick with mud, causing her to slip now and again. In a clearing, she saw the dark forest open outward, forbidding and unwelcoming. A single mote floated in the center, and she reached forward to cup it in her fingers. A dark memory enveloped her.
---
Between the trees, Killian lay gasping, breath misting in the late autumn darkness. Gnarled oaks and hemlocks raised jagged, barren branches at the sky filled with cold stars. He hated them, those stars; they failed to shine with enough light. The pack on his shoulders cut into him, weighted with a fresh kill, and his ancient rifle dangled against his side. His fingers were clenched around the stock, as in the stygian gloom, something made a rattling, rasping growl in the back of its throat. The hollow of the tree he had shoved himself into was tight and small, barely enough for his small form, his teen years slightly delayed by poor nutrition. Roots scratched at his arms and dug into his side. But panic flooded him, and pain was delegated a distant second concern.
A faint drifting snow began as he let his breathing calm. The wet, muddy soil in the clearing before him barely glistened in the starshine. There was utter silence for long moments. No birds, no insects, no wind. Then, the squelching of mud. His heart beat accelerated, but he could see nothing. He strained his hearing, as if he could will himself to hear more.
Footsteps in the dark. A murmuring, susurrating voice, two voices, three, five, legion, all overlapping, interweaving. Calling. Scratching at his thoughts. It did not call sweetly, nor gently. It did not negotiate, it did not cajole. It demanded. It spoke of no hope, of no rescue, of the darkness between the stars consuming all, the passing of all mankind, of all life. His vision began to tunnel slowly, but he raged against the metaphysical attack, pushing back at the existential gloom. Then, he saw it.
An indistinct form passed through the hibernating trees, massive, lumbering, humanoid. It had once been human, said all the myths. It had once been just like him. But it was now a dark facsimile of human, a shape made in bitter mockery. An Abhuman. From its limbs trailed long, root-like tendrils, dragging in the slick mud. Skin like burnt leather, bits and flecks fluttering as it strode, pieces falling off and disintegrating as ash. A face, vague, as if made of bark then warped into a tangled horror, a single black eye like a giant’s marble staring out, seeking. The strange body seemed to flicker and stutter, like a faulty image on a screen. It paused in the clearing, and Killian strained to watch it, holding his breath.
It did not know he was there. But that did not mean the voices stopped in their deadly siren song, calling him to oblivion, to soul-rot, to a similar shambling, knurled damnation. Killian’s heart clammered wildly in his chest, and his lungs began to spasm in a desire for oxygen. But he dared not breathe. Dared not move.
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The black eye passed over his hiding place, faintly glittering in the starlight like obsidian. It did not pause, it did not linger. Then, it vanished, collapsing silently into a pile of ash. The voices ceased their soul-scratching, and the encroaching Black receded. He took a sob-stuttered breath, and began to cry like a child, though silent and full of despair. He stayed in the tree hollow until morning.
---
Lucina flinched back, eyes wide, her own heart slamming into her rib-cage like a maddened animal. The fear she had felt when looking into the Abhuman’s eye was not just primal, it was as old as the universe. Such beings could only be from the silent places between suns.
Leaving the glade more quickly than she’d arrived, she pushed through the twisted bark and the grasping roots, which slowly gave way to the more familiar sequoias. She drew a calming breath, a little shaken by the encounter. These things were out in that wide world she so wanted to see, and it gave her pause. Perhaps she was naive to see something more than the Tower. She bit her lip, sitting down on a root for a moment, but through a gap in the trees, she noticed a small wooden building. Motes of light floated in the thin paned glass windows. “No rest for the weary,” she murmured, before approaching the structure.
It was a library, per the sign nailed to the side of the door, all rough timber aged grey by the elements. She pushed the door open, and found the motes illuminated a space full of books, as well as a small living space tucked among the shelves. Lucina found a particularly bright mote, cupping it in her hands.
---
The plains were tinged with spring sweetness, and a gentle morning wind was blowing. Fortunately, it blew upwind, away from the large buck, and towards Killian. The sweet, high grasses, sharp green against cerulean sky, rose up around him. His hand was on the wooden stock of the gun, the ancient rifle clenched in rough hands. He sighted down the barrel, drawing in a deep breath, letting his heart rate slow, letting his focus narrow to a point. Aiming for center mass, the crack of the shot came as a surprise to him, as it should have, and the sharp smell of cordite filled the air for the briefest moment, before being whisked away by the wind. He stood, smelling of crushed greenery, and strode towards the animal. A clean shot. It had collapsed in a heap.
Processing the buck took enough time that the sun was beginning to slip towards the horizon by the time he was done. He lifted his game bag onto his mare, and began towards Hull. The massive, ancient spacecraft jutted from the landscape, a kilometer in height, partially buried in the grasses, like a massive wedge pointing at the sky, silhouetted by the sun. It was most likely human-made, per general consensus, and made of a strange ceramic material. When the craft had come down, or what it contained, were mysteries. No one had been able to penetrate the material, and there were no doors or windows. But it made a great windstop for the large and wild storms that swept through the plains, so the town had taken advantage of its leeward side. A small town had sprung to life in its shadow, then withered away, sometime in the last century. When he was younger, his loose clan and family had lived in the long abandoned buildings, sourcing them up as they could, but they’d all since moved on. Or died.
The walk was long and the crickets had begun to sing in the darkened grasses by the time he approached home, the world even darker beneath the shadow of Hull. Killian felt that familiar, dull spike of fear as the night encroached, but his altered eyes took in significantly more light than normal. The world was lit enough. He forced himself to stop at the tombstones, stroking their rough edges, picking a few weeds from around the bases, which he promptly fed to the mare lipping at his hand. Kitty and Helena. There were no names carved into what amounted to rough, flat stones collected from the Plains, but he didn’t need names to remember. Finally, he allowed himself to acknowledge the chopper-jet parked on the other side of the small cluster of buildings. Lights were on in his house, the old library that he and his family had lived in when he was growing up. Clenching his jaw, he yanked open the door and slammed it behind him, startling the man at the fireplace, admiring a 12 point antler rack on the mantle.
“Cap! You still sneaking up on people?”
The man in the suit laughed, and it took Killian several moments to place him. “Sergeant Major Jase, it’s not appropriate to call a superior officer ‘Cap’.” Gāisǐ, but he hated being called ‘Cap’. Then he let a small smile out at the man’s crestfallen face. “It’s been years, Sully, forget the rank stuff. What’re you doin’ out here in the middle of my Nowhere?” They shook hands affectionately. “And dressed like a yuppie? Big city got to yer brain, rotted it out?”
Sullivan Jase seemed unwilling to let the handshake falter, and he pumped his old Captain’s hand up and down enthusiastically. “Good t’ see ya, good t’ see ya, Killian. Looks like the sun’s turned you into some good leather.”
“All right, all right, Sully, I ain’t a water pump,” chuckled Killian, extricating his hand and moving to drop the bag on the rough wooden table set against one of the walls of the small library. He set his hat on a hook then motioned for them both to take a seat as he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from a shelf between two moldering books. “Glad to see it’s just you. What’s with th’ chopper? Outer Government sent ya?” He settled on the ancient leather armchair, avoiding a spot where one of the springs poked through. The chair creaked as his weight settled. He took a swig of liquor and passed it to Sully.
The suited man sighed, rolling his eyes. “It ain’t the Outer Government nowadays, you know. They’ve been trying to get the name ‘North American Allied States’ to stick, but so far, no takers. But I’m out here on their behalf, yes. Chopper-jet’s a perk, don’t have to drive out here to your kingdom of dirt and grass.” He drew deep on the whisky. He’d always been a drinker. Good to know some things didn’t change. Passing the bottle back, he took a sharp breath, wincing. “Lovely turpentine y’got here. You been reading all these books?”
“Free liquor is delicious, not sure what yer talking ‘bout.” Killian squinted mock-menacingly at his old friend, then smirked. “And more ‘r less, since I was a kid though.” He drank deep himself. Nope, still pretty bad. “So? What does NAAS want then?” He stressed the acronym sardonically.
Now Sully fidgeted, inspecting his finely trimmed nails surreptitiously. “Well, uh, they wanna offer you a job.”
“No.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, Killian. Hear me out.”
“Naw.”
“It’s not directly for NAAS.”
“You gone deaf, Sully?”
“It’s for one of the Families.”
That gave him pause. “What?”
Sully grinned. “Yeah. Thought that might get your attention.” Pausing to assure himself there would be no further interruptions, he continued. “Family Moloch placed a request with NAAS for someone experienced in combat and…Abhumans.”
Killian was stone-faced, sitting back in his armchair, half-shadowed by the dim lighting, his hand wrapped around the bottle-neck tightly. “Shénme guǐ?” His eyes reflected oddly in the low light, like a predator in the grasses.
Sully was nervous now, Killian could practically smell it. “Well, they’re ramping up their Children programs. More psychics. More potential for, uh, rogue elements. They want someone with proven mental fortitude to lead their security team. Also, someone who’s well trained on a railgun. It’s actually common practice for the Families to hire soldiers from the Ash Forays.” He held up his hands placatingly, as if Killian had made some threatening move. “It’s a cush job, with all the amenities of the Tower, barely any work. It’s basically babysitting and training of a small local security group. And you don’t have to stay here no more.” He waved an arm at the library, at Hull in general. “Livin’ like a hermit in the wilderness.”
“I like the wilderness.”
“Sure you do. And the danger? The constant threat of attack? Hunger, cold, illness? Big fan, are ya?” The ex-soldier set his face and frowned. “You and I both know you ain’t out here ‘cause you wanna be.”
Killian didn’t respond immediately. He studied the amber liquor in its bottle, swirling it around. “What about that…thing in Paint Creek?”
“What thing in Paint Creek?” The reply was glib and the suited man made a waving, dismissive gesture, brushing the question away. “Look, I know you don’t make snap decisions. Sleep on it. Think it through.” Sully set a large envelope on the table. “Contract and phone in there.” He tapped it gently with a fingernail. “Call me, let me know. Come up outta exile, Killian. Time to rejoin the land of the living.”
---
Lucina stepped from the Library and inhaled deeply the sweet air, watching the dark sky for a moment. Then, she continued to walk. Slowly, the ground beneath her feet became frozen, cold, covered with piles of snow. The motes danced and spun around her in the quiet.
The world seemed massive to Lucina, even seen through the eyes of someone well-used to that world. It was dizzying. Mysterious. Dark. Light. Warm. Cold. She wanted to inhabit it, not exist as some ghost in the Tower walls, a plaything of the Family.
“Paint Creek?” She spoke aloud, but Killian still did not answer. She broke from the trees suddenly, and before her stood a massive, bone-white tree, leafless, stained here and there by crimson rivulets like lines of rust, the shapes and curves of it confusing, nonsensical. This thing was wrong. She froze, but a single mote stood before her. Hesitantly, she reached out.