He made one last pass over the apartment, over the empty bookshelves and the fallen decorations, over the life he knew he was leaving behind for good. From among the fallen, he picked up a sphere of jade that was set within a snake swallowing its own tail. He held it in his palm, spun the sphere with his thumb, let the light shine off of it.
It glinted at him with a dual shiver down his spine.
He frowned at Enzokuhle as he made his way back down the hallway to the bedroom, still spinning the sphere with his formerly-broken arm’s thumb. He stared at the white comforter on the mess of their nest, but he didn’t see it. His eyes were through it, in the last night before his temporary leave with Aaliyah had ended.
It was too soon to leave her, and they all knew it. Regardless, his request to extend leave was denied.
He hadn’t managed to sleep.
Sick of staring at that particular plane of the room, he’d turned over to find Aaliyah awake, also. Typically, he’d have smiled at her, run a thumbpad over her cheek--
--to wake from sleep mode--
--but there was something so odd about the way she was smiling at him. Her eyes, typically calculative and shimmering in active, non-articulated feeling, were gravity wells carving and consuming chunks out of him. Her smile was completely off-kilter; not hers.
“Aalie?”
Her teeth peeked out with a hmph of a solitary laugh. She ran her thumb along his bottom lip and said, “Are you ready?” Her eyes shifted from her thumb and his lips, back into his.
He shuddered, then shivered, twice. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, chuckling and smiling, “Because I am ready.” Her smile dropped into a dark depth he’d never seen. She wasn’t smiling; she was chewing on him. “I’m tired,” she droned, her eyes half-lidded in bored, existential exhaustion. She raised an eyebrow, “Aren’t you?”
His focus flicked between each of her eyes. He was shaking. There was a shiver trailing his spine (and another), but her hand was on his face and her other arm propped up head her under the pillow.
The darkness deepened another fathom. Her upper lip was twitching, and she was practically snarling at him, “I am done, do you understand?”
He swallowed. He wanted her to continue, so he didn’t say anything.
‘That,’ was the voice of a recently-developed, dark part of himself he’d tried to hide since they’d gone on leave together, ‘and you don’t want me to see how terrified you are; but I do.’
“No more games,” she continued, sneering around her words. “No more cycles. I am done, Theta.”
A wave of cold ran through him, crown to foot.
“Do you hear me?” she hissed.
He nodded
‘Do you?!’ was the brain zaps that dark part always shuddered through his mind with when it manifested. It was shouting at him, but it rattled through his skull, not the room.
He nodded more slowly, swallowed, took a shallow breath, and said in slow, measured timbre, “I hear you, but I don’t understand you.”
She took a sharp inhale through her nose, her eyes sharpening away from its consumption of him and into something he couldn’t quite place. Then, he did: it was another fathom darker, another foreign intensity. She was looking so deeply into him, it was clear she was on her way to seeing through him entirely.
‘I already do.’
“Will you,” he swallowed, “please explain?”
She pursed her lips to the side and scowled, her eyes jumping deeper and deeper into him. There was a moment, then; another shiver (and another immediately thereafter).
They had history, but he wasn’t certain how. He was shaking, violently.
“I won’t--” she said, the darkness of her expression one fathom deeper into a facetious, serene smile as she shook her head at him. Then she stopped shaking her head, and that mask shattered. She was chewing him alive again. She tapped his lips with a forefinger and continued, “--because you’ll stop me.”
“Would you at least--”
She interrupted him to add, “And we won’t be having that.”
“Please--”
“You are as good as caught,” she whispered, that odiously serene smile slithering back across Aaliyah’s face as she tapped his lips with every syllable. Then, she caught his chin between her finger and her thumb and grinned at him as she hummed, “I’ll be seeing you--”
‘--Theta.’
She tapped his nose and spat condescension with a grin, “And I’ll have a welcome home present for you.”
As he was left to breathe through that--
In for five…
Out for five…
--Aaliyah’s eyes, as they had come to be these days, came back all at once: disoriented, delirious, horrified.
He tsked, tears swelling as he wrapped his arms around her and hummed, “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re right here. Deep breaths.”
And she sobbed, as she tended to do lately.
“Ball up your hands, release them, do it again.”
“Okay,” and she did.
“See?”
“Okay.”
“You’re right here.”
“I see what she does,” she whispered, harshly. “I don’t go anywhere.”
“It’s alright,” he whispered, still shaking.
“It’s not.”
“It’s alright,” he rubbed circles in her back.
“Lee?”
“It’s alright.”
But they all knew it wasn’t.
He peeked through the peephole of the door, spinning the sphere, still. Enzokuhle stood close to him, crossing his arms. Lithos sighed and opened it to check both ways, the pack heavy on his shoulders.
The windows that ran up the height of the central stairwell were broken. The sirens blared through them with an updated warning.
“Alert: Evacuation of Aegea is still in effect due to falling debris and unstable infrastructure. Please, keep eyes to the skies, take cover when needed, and evacuate when possible. Take only essentials with you. Currently, the safest location is the Subterranean. Estimated time on foot is... one hour, thirty-two minutes. Red-irised individuals affiliated with the Entity will be dismissed entry. Travel by air is not recommended. Repeat,”
No mention of CosmoCorps participation.
There’s no mention of CosmoCorps participation.
Red-eyed citizens… oh, ancestors.
Should--
“Lee?”
“Mm?” he asked, pulled from his reeling mind.
“Is there anyone there?”
The wind howled. The glass shimmered garnet at the far end of the hall, where another window that ran the height of the building whistled goodbye.
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Did you listen to the update?”
“Yes?”
He turned to face his friend, staring into his eyes intently.
Enzokuhle listened again, and he watched the same realization dawn on him, “Oh.”
He nodded.
“Oh, ancestors, this is dark.”
He nodded.
You have no idea, friend.
They stepped out into the hall and headed back down the stairs. They were silent, but for the glass they broke under their boots; shimmering garnets. They reached the sixth landing--
Should I tell him?
--and stared down the chute together in silence.
Lithos dropped the orb down, and a few counts later, the blue light of the gravity catch ignited.
Silver linings.
“So, we…” Enzokuhle tightened his hand around the chute handle, “we just…?”
“Mmhm.”
“And it’ll catch us?”
“Hypothetically.”
Enzokule took a few deep breaths.
“Try to, uh--”
“Most definitely,” Enzokuhle muttered. “I’m not trusting a single program in the system right now.”
Lithos was in and sliding down the walls. He tried not to think about the slime collecting along the side of his hand.
“Oh, ancestors,” Enzokuhle whispered from above him.
“Enzo?”
“Mm?”
A splatter of slime hit his shoulder and he shuddered. “Look, uh--”
Enzokuhle sighed.
“--don’t… let her touch you.”
“What?”
He swallowed, watching the collection chamber (and its garnet light blaring) slide ever closer.
“Who?”
He kept his eyes down, tried not to think about the knots in his gut.
“Aaliyah?”
“Yes.”
“Why… not?”
“Just, please,” he said, closing his eyes and jumping the rest of the way down into the collection chamber.
The gravity catch caught him and lowered him to his feet.
“It works,” he said, collecting the orb that had rolled into the corner.
“Not taking chances.”
Lithos stepped out of the containment bin’s door and listened as Enzokuhle slid and whined and thunked down into the bin, absentmindedly rolling the jade sphere around in its holding with his thumb. He shrugged the pack off his shoulders.
“Thank you,” Enzokuhle groaned, “for the foresight.”
“Mmhm,” he said from the inside of his shirt.
Enzokuhle stumbled out of the bin door, sighing and raising an eyebrow at him, “Can you elaborate, Lee?”
He started to shake his head, but said instead, “Something happened when she came back. Take my word for it?”
“Hm?”
“Don’t,” he laughed, but it was more a vessel to release his sorrow; a way that wan’t a sob, “touch her.”
Enzokuhle blinked, took his shirt off, and started rubbing himself clean the best he could with it.
“Take my word for it,” he whispered as that chill traced his spine twice.
Stop that.
‘No.’
Please, stop that.
“Fuck.”
“Lee?”
“What?” he asked, blinking his friend back into focus.
“We gotta get moving, friend.”
“Oh…” he said, staring down at his now-open pack.
Enzokuhle was zipping up his change of pants, his eyebrows knit in worry. He was suddenly much cleaner, had a new shirt on.
“Oh.”
How long was that?
“Oh, right.”
“Lee, are you okay?”
He shrugged off the slime and the ash and tossed it into the containment bin before slamming the door shut.
“Lee?”
“No,” he said, slipping quickly into the change of clothes, “but I’m trying.”
“I know you are,” Enzokuhle sighed, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Be careful,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
Enzokuhle’s worry bordered on fear. His hand almost recoiled, but he tsked. He was nodding, though.
His eyes drifted down the other end of the alley; northward.
The smoke drifted down towards them, coiling and constricting the skyline from sight.
“You ready?” Enzokuhle asked.
He nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
He grabbed two hand towels from the bottom of his bag and handed one to his friend. Then, he zipped it up and shrugged it back on. He stumbled forward a few steps.
“I love you.”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
He kept nodding, walking out of the alleyway.
“Lee?” Enzokuhe’s voice shouted through the sirens and the towel over his face.
“Yeah?”
“Do you need a minute?”
“We don’t have one,” he said, continuing to walk much too fast into the wall of smoke. His own towel flicked the back of his knee.
Enzokuhle fell in beside him with some effort and tapped his arm, “Lee, cover your face.”
He shouldn’t have to be the one to tell me that.
I’ve failed every last one of them.
He held his towel over his mouth and nose. His eyes were leaking and burning.
Together, they coughed through the smoke. It was through vague remnants of landmarks that they were able to find their way up to the hospital.
It was the source of the fire. High above them, it roared as it consumed multiple levels. A set of windows broke, and it rained glass from its side.
On the curb in front of the smoldering front doors was a woman in a black CosmoCorps uniform. She sat with her head resting on her knees. She was balling her hands into fists and stretching them back out.
“Aalie?” Lithos shouted, running towards her.
Blearily, she raised her delirious gaze to him. She had second degree burns on the side of her face. One side of her uniform was completely charred. The sleeve had burned away. Her hair was singed.
Dark.
This is dark.
She offered a sad smile at him before she broke down in horror.
“It’s okay,” he rushed over, collecting her in his arms.
She wailed in his shoulder.
They were in over their heads, collectively.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she shouted, “okay!”
“Tell me.”
“She’s--” she was gasping through her sobbing, forcing out what she could, quickly, “she’s gone, for now?”
“Okay.”
“Who--”
Lithos held his hand up to Enzokuhle.
“She’s angry,” she whispered, pulling her head back, pouring her terror into him. Her eyes were distant, overwhelmed.
“Okay.”
“She’s… doing it,” she said. “Whatever it is, she’s--”
“Do you have any idea--”
“She’s looking for you two--” she said, turning her head to stare Enzohule in the eye.
They exchanged glances, Lithos over his shoulder at Enzokuhle (whose face was wide and receptive).
“--specifically.”
“Okay,” Lithos swallowed.
In for five…
Out--
“Lee,” she insisted, grabbing him by the shirt. “You gotta get out of here.”
“We’re--”
“Not going together,” she shouted over the sirens, “okay?!”
“We--”
“Lee,” she shouted, “this isn’t a discussion.”
“--have--”
“She has me, okay?”
“--to keep--”
“Lithos…” Enzokuhle said, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Listen to her.”
“--moving,” he sobbed.
“She--” Aaliyah pointed upwards to the smoldering hospital behind her. Her face was twisted in disgusted, horrified guilt.
“Deep breath.”
“--blew it up--”
“Oh, Aalie,” Enzokuhle sat down on the curb beside her, keeping two feet between them.
“--and they think it was me.”
Lithos redirected her, running a thumbpad across her cheek.
Restart.
She laughed, but it was more a sob than anything else. She laced her fingers with his and leaned against him. “Someone was in the hospital? He just… appeared?”
They were listening, intently. Enzokuhle leaned toward her, slightly.
“Horrible eyes,” she said, her voice shaking. “Trying to… keep her… from…” she pointed upwards.
“Color?”
She pointed from her left eye to her right, “Black entirely, white entirely. Trying to stop her.”
“Noted.”
“He called her Chi,” those calculating, amethyst eyes were in his, shifting between them.
“Okay,” he swallowed, choking on his grief.
“She-- I’m scared for him...” she whispered. “I could hear him after they were gone, after the….”
“Name?” their friend asked, his voice breaking, too.
“Not sure.”
Lithos nodded.
“Run. Try to figure out what we know already about the garnets--”
“Okay.”
“--and try to learn what you can before she can get to the--”
“Okay.”
“--circuit.”
Enzokuhle had his tablet out. He was taking notes. The projected keyboard glowed green in the smoke.
“What else?”
“She keeps calling you Theta,” she said, pointing to him.
‘He knows. You know he knows.’
They both shuddered twice, collectively.
She pointed to Enzokuhle, “Mm, she’s real upset with you.”
“Me?!”
‘Furious.’
Lithos and Aaliyah collectively shuddered, twice.
“She won’t use a garnet on you, Enzo--”
“Okay.”
“Wait--”
“--so, use that to your--”
“--why is she--”
“--advantage.”
“Okay.”
“--mad at me?!”
“Calls you Beta,” she said, pointing at Enzokuhle. “You know too much? She’s not risking it.”
“What does she want?” Enzokuhle demanded. “What garnets?”
“You,” she said, staring them both in the eye. “Both of you.” Then, she shot her eyes to Lithos, furious. “You didn’t tell him?”
“I promised--”
“Lee, you’re shutting down on me--”
“Ancestors,” Enzokuhle lamented, “abort shut down, PoSC-FPS!”
“You can’t shut down, Lee.”
“I love you,” he said, running his thumbs though the tears that wouldn’t stop streaming.
“I love you,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Aalie.”
“She’s so angry.”
Dark.
This is dark.
“Please don’t say you’re sorry.”
“Pushing to Comms,” was Enzokuhle.
“Please don’t shut down.”
“Abort. Aaliyah! Please!”
The words in the smoke read, “Entity is actively pursuing Acting General LiThos + DNomCom Director EnzoKuhle by way of former MedCorps Director AaliYah.”
The gravity of the message in its jargon were their own shockwaves.
“Entity has periodic control of former director, including Aegea Hospital incident. Avoid physical contact with afflicted citizens. Pushing multiple messages as able.”
“Lee,” her voice was desperate, suddenly, and that tone alone had both of their alarmed attention. “She’s back. She’s coming back. You need to go now.”
He kissed her forehead and peeled back abruptly.
“She’s so angry,” she said, shielding her face with her hands on the curb.
He grabbed Enzokuhle’s arm, and together they ran to the north, around the block, and back south about five blocks up, sobbing collectively.
“Lee--”
He was running. Upon further reflection, he realized he was going as fast as he physically could. His lungs burned. There was a black hole in his chest.
“--slow down!”
“We have to keep moving!”
“Lithos, for our ancestor’s sake--”
“We have to--”
“--I can’t keep up!” he coughed.
“--keep moving!” he sobbed.
“Lithos!” he shouted, grabbing his arm, “please!”
He devolved into sobs in his friend’s arms, clutching on for dear life.
“I’m sorry,” Enzokuhle said into the crown of his head. He wrapped his arms around him, the tablet still in his hands. “Lithos, they need to know what you do, urgently.”
“Enzo,” he wailed, “what am I supposed to do?!”
“Deep breaths,” Enzokuhle said, projecting the keyboard again.
The smoke coiled around the frames for each and every letter.
“What does it even want?!” he shouted into his shoulder. “It won’t tell me! It won’t tell us!”
“Lithos--” he squeezed him with his inner arms, his hands occupied typing behind him.
“What am I supposed to do?!”
“--we need to tell them.”
“Enzokuhle, they’ve written us all off!”
“You need,” Enzokuhle said, slowly, “to breathe.”
“That was so much debris! That had to be every--”
“My friend!” he stopped typing and pulled back.
“--single StarCruiser the corps has!”
He tucked the tablet under his arm, put his hand on his shoulder, and stared him in the eye, “You need to pull yourself together, General!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Lithos,” he grabbed him by either shoulder, “listen to me!”
‘I know where to find you, Theta.’
A shiver, then another.
“No,” he whispered, “no, no, no.”
“Lee--”
“Does it even matter?” he sobbed, “if we run?”
“You tell me.”
“That… what-whatever she is….”
The thread of pushed messages displayed between them on a garnet background with large, bold letters. The smoke wisped through it. It continued, “Entity identified as Chi /ki/, intent unknown. Civilians likely conscious and aware, but unable to utilize own motor function when taken. Entity overtakes body of host. PMMAA.”
“Enzokuhle--”
His mahogany eyes were set in his, and he was silent.
“--it knows where I am.”
‘Mmhm.’
“I hear her, and she--”
“Woah, woah--” Enzokuhle’s fingers were flying again. He’d pushed the message, “Entity able to communicate with minds, methods unknown. Possibly able to determine our location. PMMAA.”
“What am I supposed to do?!” he shouted, “What do I do if it takes me over?!”
“Lithos, my dear, dear friend,” he pleaded. “Hear me.”
“Enzo.”
“Breathe. In--”
“Ancestors, this is too dark! This is too dark!”
“Breathe in!” he shouted.
He shuddered a breath through his compounding dread.
“In for five!”
In for five…
“Out--”
Out for five….
“--and again! In for--”
They stood like that on the sidewalk a while, with Enzokuhle shouting to breathe in and out, with Lithos sobbing through it, with the sirens blaring.
They were shapeless and adrift in the smoke, together but alone.