Chapter 8

Swimming through a giant creature's intestines was somewhat crazy to think about for a high school student, but it was the closest Aaron could come to describe what he was doing. Using the flesh surrounding him, composed of his own body's cells and Seren's, he found that he could jettison himself in any direction through the creature's body. The pocket of meat encasing Aaron was very liquidy, but the organic matter Aaron came in contact with became semi-solid upon contact. He used this method of travel to go as far down as possible. He had nothing on his mind except to escape the detection of Fulir.

Aaron traveled through the body of Seren like a cell permeating through the boy of the much large creature. While he could not physically see anything since Aaron connected himself to the creature's nervous system, he could sense things around him for miles. Occasionally he'd have to swim around bones, an exceptionally thick vein, or vital organ, but it was like swimming through a particularly thick jelly.

"It grows stronger with every successive generation?" Aaron asked.

"Precisely," Owen said. "The reason you were able to do something we could not is the Absorption Armor grows more powerful with each wielder. The soul within the armor fuels the suit like gas powers a car or organic nutrients to a plant. There are not many Access Armor in existence that has this ability."

"After the last of us passed away," Helena explained. "The armor only became stronger due to having a new soul to feed off of. You fed off our souls to power a new technique. With one less armor wielder within this particular Access Armor, you wouldn't be able to assimilate into Seren."

"So you guys are saying that you've never done what I've done?" he asked.

"That's partially true," Helena answered. "When I last used the armor, I could absorb some organic matter. That's why it's called the Absorption Armor, after all. But...but this…"

"This is unheard of," Owen answered. "To fully integrate into another, much larger organism to the extent that Seren can't the difference between you and itself is something none of us could have done before. It has to do with a certain genome we gave you humans."

"And what's that?" Aaron asked.

"Fulir genetically engineered humans to be the warrior class of Fulir," Helena answered. "Only they can become changelings because of their genetic makeup. Similar genes that allow them to transform also allow Successive Advancement Armors to become stronger when attached to a human being than someone not from Fulir or Mulus. You, humans, are the ultimate warriors meant to be subservient to their masters."

"But that can't be true," Aaron said. "I could only gain this power after assimilating all your memories into my own. That's how I figured out how to do it."

"That may be true," Helena stated. "But did you see one of us do this in our borrowed memories?"

Aaron was about to answer "yes, of course" before he tried to remember. He searched through the thoughts that they shared before pausing. The truth was he couldn't think of an exact memory where they did the same as he was doing now. It greatly confused Aaron.

"Well, if that's true," he said. "How could I do so only after looking at your memories?"

"Because you could decipher that the armor had the capability of assimilating foreign organic matter into itself and, by proxy, its wielder," Owen stated. "You hadn't been able to know that previously. One of the reasons Access Armors are the strongest weapons known is that any new wielder that gains access to one has the experience of its priors users at their disposal. No training or instruction is necessary."

"The only thing that one would be unknown to the wielder even with access to the prior wielder's knowledge is the new powers at their disposal with Successive Advancement Armors," Helena explained. "Access Armor that grows stronger the more users that have previously used it."

"So you're saying I'm stronger than practically all of you have been?" Aaron asked.

"Yes."

His stomach churned, and goosebumps appeared across his skin at the sound of his voice. He slowly turned to see his sickening grin at his feet. His red eyes locked onto Aaron's black ones.

"Now you use your strength to exact your revenge against Fulir," he said.

He backed away from the face only to see it slide toward him across the featureless black ground. A slight rhythm flowed beneath his feet. His red irises were truly disgusting the more they looked like gems.

"Go away!" Aaron finally said.

"I can see it in your eyes," he said. "Your hatred. Your disgust against those who have wronged you and the resulting sorrow. It is quite…"

The rhythm began to pick up in tempo, and Aaron began to feel his heart race at the vibrancy of the music. The man with holes started to lick his beige lips, his tongue as blood red as his irises.

"Delectable," he said. "I am delighted at seeing such a man as yourself, kind, humble and unassuming, become so...upset."

The music beneath him reached a pitch that caused the bones in his legs to vibrate. It was worse than an earthquake, as earthquakes happen outside one's body. It felt like this intense shaking was happening within his person.

"Go away!" Aaron ordered. "Get out! Never come back!"

No matter how hard he tried to willing the face away, it never budged even a little. No amount of willpower was enough to get this creature away from him. He didn't even budge. Owen, he could cast away or silence at a moment's notice, and Aaron had no reason to believe he couldn't do the same to Helena, but this thing was impervious to any attempt. Aaron turned to Helena and then Owen.

"Guys!" he cried. "Make him stop!"

"Why would I help a cowardly rebel such as yourself?" Owen said.

"Aaron, you must understand," Helena said. "Our power is limited in this world. It's difficult for us to do anything."

"Then how are holes over here doing this?!" Aaron cried.

"My guess is as little power as we have," she answered. "His willpower is just that strong."

"I see your attempts to vanquish me, and they all fail, darling," he said.

"Darling?" he shivered.

"A man who has nothing left to lose is beautiful," he said. "You see a man's true self when his inner character is most tested. He is not who he pretends to be, not who he wants to be...his true self. That is what I enjoy seeing in a man. Especially when they're like you, someone who would never harm a fly if their life depended on it becomes...a monster."

His eyes widened in the realization that what this man was saying very much applied to him. Everyone he'd known abandoned him, and his world was shocked by a revelation that tore the fabric of all Aaron had known. He had previously considered using his newfound powers to kill innocent people to defend himself and was on the run from the most powerful forces on Earth. A monster was not something out of the question.

"That's not true," he said. "A monster would have slaughtered the innocents forced to attack him without a moment's hesitation. I'm a doctor, not a killer."

His grin became more smug than pleasurable, like Owen's, as the music began to slow to a more mysterious yet still exuberant melody.

"Oh," he said. "But you will be. If you intend to survive, you'll have to kill to stay alive. And when you do... I'll be there to taste it. It'll be just beautiful. I've felt the same sensation when a goody two shoes becomes an animal when given a chance. Corruption will be the highest form of beauty you will ever endow. Critics of music and the written word alike would relish the opportunity I had to witness the transformation of a kitten into a roaring beast. And once you do, you'll find the experience perfectly...sensuous. You'll never want anything again."

If there was ever a need for a universal sex offender registry...Aaron thought. It would be now.

"Okay, creepy man," he said. "What might your name be?"

"My name?" he asked. "Why, it's Gregor."

With the learning of his name came visceral disgust in Aaron's being, as if he had dipped himself into a mix of human blood and feces. He had never experienced something so gross in life until that moment. If Helena was deceptively kind if confused and Owen was self-righteous but ethically rigid, then Gregor was horrific.

It was hard to believe the man had ever killed in self-defense as he relished the pain and agony of others so much it went well past a fetish. Sadism was the very core of his personality. Watching people die wasn't something he was repulsed by like most people. It wasn't even something he paid no mind to. He relished it.

Gregor also didn't just like pain and gore but loved evil. To take an innocent person and pervert them into something new and horrific was his definition of a good time. Watching someone become insane and boiling with rage at the unfairness of life was something he would pay an arm and a leg to see. Gregor also wasn't sure why others didn't enjoy such reprehensible delights as he did. He was in on a secret of enjoyment and success no one else was aware of and desperately wished to share with the world.

However, despite his viscerally and objectively awful personality, another layer was beneath that. Gregor believed himself to be an artist. He didn't just enjoy making art. To him, everything Gregor had to do must be an art. If he wasn't composing a symphony or painting, Gregor was depressed. Gregor viewed his work as tempting people to commit evil actions like a craftsman would view sculpting. When a person's soul darkened, he looked at it like an art critic would notice the magnificent brushstrokes on a canvas.

"You're sick," Aaron said.

"You'll come around," he said. "I can tell."

He then disappeared. Aaron turned away from the spot Gregor formerly occupied as he tried to fixate on swimming through the bowels of Seren. After learning of Gregor's true identity, his conversations with those in his soul chamber were immediately hushed. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the feelings the hole-faced man invoked. Aaron didn't know what he was looking for at first, trying to think of where he might go as he traveled deeper into the planet's surface.

Could I go back to the surface? He thought. That sounds unlikely. Fulir seems to have eyes everywhere. I can't risk them tracking. Or maybe I could disguise myself. But how? Well, if I could merge with Seren, then maybe…

Something that he detected was odd. Through his shared nervous system with Seren, he felt less than a mile to his right was a slightly uncomfortable amount of pressure than usual. Once Aaron focused on it, he found it was one of the tunnels one could travel underground through. Usually, these tunnels had no pressure, and this one was similar in that there was little to be found. However, since Aaron was so close, he could feel something specific was off.

"What do you think it is?" he asked as he turned to Helena.

"I'm not sure," she said. "It could be some miscellaneous debris. Maybe a transport vessel in the main tunnel rather than at an intersection of them."

"Maybe it's reinforcements to take back the Access Armor you stole," Owen said.

"I say it's worth checking out," Aaron said. "It may be worthwhile."

"I can assure you it won't be helpful," Helena said. "Anything you think might give you an advantage over Fulir is long gone."

"That might be true," Aaron said. "Or it might not be."

"And why's that?" she said.

"I think that another feature of the Absorption Armor passed down to me was that I can not only make organic properties of other creatures my own," he explained. "But that I can enhance them."

"So you're saying that your sense of touch is greater than it was originally with Seren?" she asked.

"I know it sounds wrong," Aaron admitted. "But it's a possibility nonetheless."

"Then, by all means," Helena replied. "Go."

He nodded before turning and swimming to the hollow tunnel. Once he felt he had reached the wall, Aaron stabbed his hands into the fleshy fortification. He pulled it apart with his enhanced strength before exiting the interior of Seren's body. After detaching the veins he made from Seren's body from the creature's flesh, he fell onto the floor of the tunnel below. Once Aaron stood up, he was amazed at what he saw.

"Helena!" he said. "Did you know this was here?!"

"No!" she answered. "I...this is amazing!"

"How horrid!" Owen yelled.

Aaron looked around to find that the tunnel wasn't a tunnel anymore as it was a large room. It may have been a hundred feet across from him and a mile wider. It appeared the space had been a tunnel through Seren that was now enlarged by some means. Like sewing needles scattered throughout the chamber floor, its walls and ceilings were silver spikes with orbs atop them.

In the middle of the room was a black pillar that reached from the floor to the chamber's ceiling in the very center. Inside the dark post, a dozen large, rectangular containers emitted bright yellow light that bathed the room in a yellow luminescence. More minor, square containers of light dotting the ceiling also provided warmth and sight to the otherwise dark place.

Streams of light blue water and light purple water flowed across the floor of the chamber while waterfalls cascaded from the walls of Seren. Plants grew from beds of soil planted along the bottom of the room. They were a wide variety of everything from trees to vines to bushes, all bearing fruit of some kind or flowers. The fruits were strange in shape, some looking like thick draping curtains of plant flesh, while others were compact bundles like grapes but much larger.

But what indeed took him back were the shelters and buildings within the room. The structures that formed the city were as organic looking as the innards of Seren, maybe more. They were the color of human flesh and had blood veins of reddish-purple blood flowing through them. Most entrances on the buildings had two hands forming a doorway that had their fingers intertwined like a couple holding hands when closed.

Human beings were walking around in clothing that looked practically ancient. Their clothes didn't look modern but looked like plain homespun garments from before the middle ages. The color scheme rarely includes light brown, dark brown, white or black. They didn't look dirty but couldn't be mistaken for something a civilian in the twenty-first century would wear.

When the people walking about noticed him after he dug through the wall, they all took notice of him. Some ran away in fear while others stared on in disbelief. However, many of the humans walked up to him with anger in their eyes. Those who approached him formed a semicircle to surround him and prevent him from getting to the others in their town. Aaron backed away slowly before running into the wall behind him.

"So this is where they were all this time," Owen said. "I should have known they'd be in the deepest recesses of Seren they could go."

"Incredible," Helena gasped. "I'm... I'm proud of them for managing to make it this long."

"Just who are these people?!" Aaron yelled. "How could a human being get here?! I thought you said Fulir could detect anyone inside Seren!"

"Slaughter them all!" Owen said. "It's your only chance of survival!"

"Do you have no compassion at all?!" Helena yelled. "Aaron, take your armor off! Show them you're not a threat!"

"But they look ready to attack!" he replied. "What if they try to kill me?!"

"They only look menacing because they believe you're a threat in that Access Armor!" she answered. "If you don't want yourself or innocents to die, then you have to risk letting yourself be at their mercy!"

"But you don't know what they might do," Owen said. "Do you? Aaron, I can tell you these people will not greet you with open arms if you let yourself be at their mercy. They have only survived this long by being aggressive and treating outsiders with suspicion."

As the twelve began to close in on him, they transformed. Multiple terrifying animals burst through their skin. Some were ape-like, but unlike the ones he previously faced, they had numerous upper bodies growing from the same waist, creating a weird monster. Others stood on four legs to take on a bovine appearance, with cow-like horns crowing not just from their head but along their entire body. These horns waved in the air like reeds in the wind.

One also became a furred quadruped but with the claws of a crab. At the end of their body was a bee's stinger that stretched in the air like a worm. Another two became similar-looking bipedal turtle-like monsters equipped with shells that looked like layered bedrock. The only one among them who hadn't changed was a pale girl with bright red hair who looked to be in her late teens. Her blues glared at him with suspicion.

"No, it's not true!" Helena yelled. "They'll be peaceful so long as you comply with them!"

"You want to take that risk?" Owen asked.

Aaron closed his, remembering the vision Owen had shown him of how he rushed to the aid of those closest to him rather than everyone else.

If I fight now...He thought. I'll betray the ideals a doctor is supposed to uphold. To preserve life rather than destroy it.

"Exactly," Helena said.

"But you'll never see your family or Elizabeth again," Owen stated.

His words instantly changed his mode of thinking. He plucked the stem of the palm leaf from around his neck to find he still had one-half of the scarf-like projection flowing from his body. With the front in his hand, Aaron willed it to stiffen and sharpen into a blade-like structure. The changelings backed away at the sight of the leaf-turned sword, unsure what to do.

"Stay back," he said to them. "I have too much to live for to die here."

"Yes," Owen said. "Now that you've formed some guts, you should-"

"Aaron!" Helena yelled. "These people can help you get your loved ones back!"

"They what?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "They may not look like it, but they do have some potential to return your life to normal if you surrender to them. All you need to do is take your armor off and go with them. They won't even consider killing you if you do that."

Hope surged through him.

"Are…?" Aaron said. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," she said. "Like you, all they're concerned with is protecting their loved ones and keeping them close."

"She is so obviously lying," Owen said. "They distrust you like you would a wild bear in the forest. If you make yourself vulnerable-"

"So you're absolutely sure they can and will help me?" he asked.

"Positive," Helena answered.

He willed the armor to withdraw into his body. The conifer scales retreated beneath his skin. His hair protruding straight into the air receded into his scalp. The white bark on his hands and feets vanished. The frond still around his neck and in his hand shrank back into his body until he was complete without protection. Aaron smiled at the beasts around him.

"See?" he said. "Friendly."

One of the ape changelings with three bodies sprouting from one waist walked over to him. One of the three pairs of hands wrapped around Aaron's throat. The creature's fingers e the breath out of him. It lifted him with its thick, black-furred arm into the air while one of its pairs of eyes glared at him. He struggled a little bit, kicking his feet to no avail as the choking gesture made him gasp for breath.

"I say we kill this trespasser," he said. "Better safe than sorry."

"I agree," the only non-changed human said. "After what happened last time, he's a security risk."

"It was quite weird how the boy looked like he wanted to fight before giving up so readily," the turtle changeling said with a feminine voice. "Was he testing us to see if we would take him seriously?"

"He could be like we are," the cow changeling said. "Merely fleeing Fulir like we are."

"And you want to ignore all the times guys like that have attempted to infiltrate us to destroy our way of life?" the other turtle changeling said. "For goodness sake, this isn't even the first time an Access Armor wielder has claimed to be on the run from Fulir trying to get to us."

"I know, right?" the crab-clawed changeling said. "It caused so many of us to die last time."

"All the more reason I should kill him," the gorilla changeling holding him said. "It'll be nice and easy."

As his fingers tightened around Aaron's neck, he began yelling at the woman in his soul chamber.

"I thought you said it was a sure thing they'd let me go!" he cried.

"Look," Helena said. "To be honest, I knew they'd treat you with suspicion, but I never thought they'd go in for the kill. I have little experience with Earth."

"Then you lied to me!" Aaron said.

"No," she said. "I just didn't anticipate they'd kill you that quickly. I wanted to minimize the casualties of everyone involved, both you and them."

"I told you to fight them," Owen said. "I told you your life depended on it, but you didn't listen."

"Look," Helena said. "These people are scared. Every day they live on the verge of endangered lives and must be careful of those they trust. I feel for them. You must as well."

"It's a little bit hard to do that when they're talking about killing me right in front of me," Aaron said.

"So you found out they were savages the hard way," Owen said.

"I agree," another of the ape changelings with three bodies said. "Kill him before something like before we came here happens."

"No!" the cow changeling said. "Take him to Christopher. He'll decide what to do with him!"

"Christopher is too busy with this matter!" the ape-changeling holding him said.

"No, he's not," the cow changeling said. "This is exactly the decision our chief should make. It's not for us to decide. Have you not forgotten how many of us Fulir captured when we escaped?"

"I agree," a turtle changeling said. "If we kill him when it turns out he's innocent, we'll commit a grievous misdeed. If you want to think of it from our perspective, having an Access Armor user on our side can never be bad."

"Now that I think about it," another ape-changeling said. "Having another Armor wielder is always good for keeping Fulir at bay. What do you say, Ryan?"

The ape changeling continued to glare before shaking his head.

"You were lucky," Ryan said. "If they hadn't been here, I'd enjoy breaking you like a twig."

Still holding him by his throat, the changeling turned around and began walking to a specific building with the others. It was a triangle-shaped house made of peachy flesh and dark blood veins. While being carried there, Aaron continued trying to breathe through the tight grasp of the monster. The only one who followed the changeling to it was the red-haired young woman.

With one of his many hands, the changeling grazed the front hands that formed the doors. Once he did, the hands forming doors opened. He tossed Aaron in there, the young man landing on the squishy floor of blue muscle. The high school-aged woman walked in after the changeling threw Aaron inside. She firmly planted her black onto his throat.

"Leave him alone," a voice to the front of him said.

When she took her foot off him, Aaron sat up desperately, trying to catch his breath. Aaron found there was furniture made out of flesh similar to the matter of the house. When he looked to the source of the voice, sitting across from him was someone sitting in a seat made of the pale-fleshy skin.

A black robe reached from his shoulders to his knees. He had long black hair that fell almost as long as the red-haired woman's. He had a long beard of the same color stretched down some length. His skin was very tanned. He was handsome, but his regal appearance was worn from age. Stress, tiredness, and sorrow appeared in his black eyes.

"Welcome," he said. "My name is Thomas Olier. What is yours?"

“Aaron Vulier,” he replied.

"I am the chief of this place," Thomas explained. "Do you know where you are?"

"Um…" he said. "Inside...Seren? The tapeworm thing that lives under the Earth...somehow."

"And how do you know it's named Seren?" he said.

"Well…" Aaron said. "See, in Access Armors people live inside it…"

He stared at him, expecting the man to gawk at his answers. Despite clearly being mindful of his surroundings, this person's voice was very calm and normal. He sounded like a reasonable, mature adult who was just a bit too down to Earth to truly grasp the weirdness of their present reality. It was almost scary how Thomas sounded like a respectable teacher rather than the chief of a supposed village inside the Earth. Aaron couldn't say anything with a straight face to this man.

"Live inside your head, that is," he uttered, to his embarrassment. "And they told me...that Seren is...what this thing is...I can assure you I'm not on drugs."

"Well, you've assured me of something else," Thomas said. "You're not a spy from Fulir either."

"Yeah!" Aaron cried. "I... I'm not...but how did you know?"

"Because you acted the same way someone who's just acquired an Access Armor would sound like," he said. "Scared, confused and perplexed at the nightmare that your reality has just become."

"Well…" he said. "Thanks."

"Or it could just be excellent acting," the red-haired girl said.

She turned to Thomas, her blue eyes aggressive compared to his exhausted expression.

"Let me take him," she said. "I'll give him a good fighting chance by letting him wear his armor, and I'll put on mine. I'll ensure this spy never has a chance of spoiling our lives again."

"You guys have Access Armor?!" Aaron exclaimed.

"I make the decisions, Kaitlyn," he answered. "As the chief, I say he lives and shares our hospitality. After all, you were given our trust that you weren't angry of Fulir, weren't you?"

"The difference between me and another of your stray dogs," Kaitlyn said. "Is that I would find a way to survive with or without you all."

He turned back to Aaron.

"Don't mind her," he said. "She likes to pick a fight even when it's not needed. Welcome to Remnant Village Twelve."

"Twelve?" he asked. "You mean...there are other cities in Seren?"

"Used to be," he said. "Not enough to form even a small country, but we were greater in number before...certain events. We're among the last of the human escapees hiding from Seren. While I don't think you're an agent of Fulir...how did you know where to find us?"

"I…" he said. "I didn't. I was just running from them, and then I stumbled upon this place. The better question is...how did you guys manage to live here without Fulir finding you? From what Helena and...I mean, what the previous wielders of the Absorption Armor told me, they can sense anything Seren senses."

"Did you see all the needle devices surrounding the village?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah," he answered.

"Those are suppression spikes," he explained. "They prevent certain alarms from triggering wherever they are. When planted into Seren, they send signals to its nervous system that prevent it from sensing anything out of the ordinary. With them scattered all over the area, we can live here without the threat of being caught...for now."

"For now?" Aaron asked. "You mean there's a chance that Fulir is still after you?"

"Fulir is extremely totalitarian," Kaitlyn said. "Anything threat to their secret about the nature of earthlings getting out is a threat to their rule. While we're not a major deterrent to them as there are too few of us to do anything, and they have Yeltael to alter people's memories continuously, Fulir will never allow us to live in peace. But I think you already knew that."

"We can only do our best to hide long enough until Fulir is aware of our present location before moving again," Thomas stated.

"Oh," he said. "What's Yeltael?"

"You mean you don't know what Yeltael is but know what Seren is?" Thomas asked.

"See!" Kaitlyn said. "I told you he was a spy!"

"I seriously don't know what you're talking about," he said.

Thomas sighed.

"What Seren is to the surface of the Earth," he said. "Yeltael is to the sky above. It's a living being completely subservient to Fulir, allowing them to control the surface. Just as Seren controls earthquakes, soil composition, and the altitude of land, Yeltael controls the air temperature, wind speeds, and storms. However, while Seren is in charge of controlling the sustenance that feeds human beings, Yeltael's position is to manipulate the minds of human beings continuously."

"So…" Aaron said. "Is it like a big...bird or...sky worm?"

"It's beyond imagination," he said. "Even more so than that of Seren. Yeltael isn't so much a creature that lives in the sky but is the sky. It can be intangible, so human beings can't detect it. However, it has the power to alter memories of anyone on the surface of the Earth that doesn't wield the Access Armor. If Fulir wants a person's memories erased or altered, all they do is give commands to Yeltael, and that person is their puppet. Yeltael can even stop time along the planet's surface for a brief time for anyone that isn't a changeling or armor wielder."

"Can Yeltael read minds?" Aaron asked.

"No," Thomas said. "That is impossible for it. At least currently."

"Well, how did you guys get here?" Aaron asked. "And how did you get all this stuff? I can't imagine you made it yourselves."

"That's correct," Thomas said. "All the Remnant Villages are composed not of human technology but extraterrestrial technology. All of what we have is stolen or copied from Fulir. As for how we got here... it's only of two ways."

"You either escape here," Kaitlyn said. "Like I did. Or-"

"Or you're like I am and the ancestor of one of the first humans," Thomas interrupted. "You see, thousands of years ago, when we were first biologically engineered by Fulir, some of us were able to resist Yeltael's control. They rebelled or fled from Fulir into the bowels of Seren. They now form their way of life, apart from their masters. Through oral tradition, we know of Fulir's capabilities and have passed down from our ancestors the technology to keep fleeing. It's nerve-wracking knowing that we could die or be captured at any moment. But if we surrender to Fulir our lives will become nothing more than servants or cannon fodder."

"Their lives are of higher quality with Fulir than here," Owen said.

"So neither options are perfect, I take it?" Aaron asked.

"Do they sound good?" Thomas asked. "We're not a resistance movement. We're merely survivors."

Within his soul chamber, Aaron turned to Helena with a scowl.

"I thought you said these guys could help me get Elizabeth and everyone else back," he said. "The way Thomas here makes it sound, they avoid conflict with Fulir at all costs."

"I said they could help," Helena said. "But as to whether or not they will is up to them. It's a real sacrifice for them to go out of their way to help outsiders."

"So then you were lying again?" he said.

"Ohohoho," Owen said. "Hear that? Someone appears to be onto your little ruse."

"No, I wasn't lying," she said. "But, to be honest, I was trying to help you, just not in the way you'd expect. Aaron, this is the safest place for you. Now that you found a place you can hide in, you should try your best to keep your head down. You must stay here even if you can never recover anyone you once loved."

"But I don't even know these people!" Aaron yelled. "I don't care for them...I haven't lived with them my whole life like I have my parents, Gale, Elizabeth, or anyone else! They're strangers! I don't feel safe here!"

"I can assure you nobody here feels truly safe," Helena said. "Their very existence is a crime."

"That's not what I mean!" he said. "I've known my friends and family for years and never once wanted to leave them! They're not my protectors! They're the reason I live! The light of my world! I'll never be happy if I don't get them back!"

"And you want to sacrifice the happiness of everyone else here?" Helena asked. "If you launch an attack on Fulir or attempt to take back your loved ones now, you'll endanger these people."

In both his soul chamber and outer reality, Aaron was looking down at the floor, all the while wondering what he could do. He realized this all had to do with what Owen had shown him. Aaron only aided those closest to him when everyone around him started dying. If he asked or demanded the support of those in Remnant Village 12, he'd be committing the same selfish act that Helena warned against. That guilt hung over his head like a swinging blade, threatening to cut into him if Aaron lifted his head even a little. As he weighed his options, his main thought turned to Elizabeth.

I almost had her. Aaron thought. Almost. We were so close to being together forever. She would have made me the happiest man on Earth. Even if my parents hadn't said yes, we could have eloped once we became adults. And now I don't know where she is. I don't even know if she's still alive. Elizabeth, wherever you are, I just hope you can remember.

Tears started welling up in his eyes.

I know that's too much to ask...Aaron thought. And it may even hurt you if you do...but that's all I want right now.

To his disgust, tears began to fall from his face to splash against the fleshy floor below. While he detested crying in front of others, there was no way he could hold back the waterworks at this point. Where he was so alien, so far away from home, so unfamiliar to him that any warmth Aaron usually felt by having his loved ones close by was absent. Only darkness and the cold surrounded him now.

Am I asking these people to risk their lives for me selfishly? Aaron thought. Can I do that? I have to get my friends back...I have to!

He then looked up at Thomas, about to ask for their help in recovering his Elizabeth. Then he saw how dour the man was, his expression beyond somber. Aaron could see an eternal sorrow in Thoma's eyes. Immediately, Aaron knew that Thomas would say "no" as it was too dangerous. Aaron shut up but cried more.

"What are you crying for?" Kaitlyn asked. "Do you think that's appropriate for a nearly grown man to-?"

"Kaitlyn," Thomas said.

He looked up at the grown adult, understanding the young man's plight.

"He has proven to me he is no spy," he said. "Any doubt in my mind is long gone. This boy is, unfortunately for him, no agent of Fulir."

"Unfortunately for him?" Kaitlyn said. "You are such a sentimental fool you won't even think of others. He's just one stray dog!"

"I give him the same pity I do everyone who seeks our aid or stumbles upon us," he said.

Thomas stood up, Aaron's eyes following him.

"Come," he said. "And I'll take you to your new home."