by T Swanepoel
Chapter 12 - Gravitated
Someone called my name, faintly, from far away.
Then everything was silent.
“Valerie? Valerie!” It sounded closer this time.
“Hang on, Valerie, just hang on!”
Silence.
The urgent voice came again. “C’mon, stay with me! Please, please, please! Fight, Valerie, fight.”
I tried to, I wanted to, but the darkness pressing on me was strong.
“We need to hurry! It’s flickering already.” It sounded like Alex and I waited anxiously to hear it again. “I have to do it now. Right now!”
“You’re still too weak. We have to wait at least another day!” It was someone else.
“No, it’s too risky! Stop the car, right now, stop it!”
I couldn’t hold on any longer and everything was silent again.
There was a funny sensation in my toes, a warm, bubbling sensation. I tried to identify it; it felt like the hot water from a Jacuzzi, but on the inside of my skin.
It slowly grew into my feet and ankles. Then it reached my shins, but my left shin and knee felt hotter than the right. The bubbles continued upwards, into my stomach and chest and arms, but the heat around my left shin and knee got warmer and warmer.
There were voices around me, but I couldn’t make out the words.
By the time that the bubbles had reached my head, I felt more energetic but my leg was burning hot. My face started to burn as well.
Two male voices surrounded me, very close. They were familiar, but I couldn’t concentrate; the burning in my leg and my face became unbearable.
“I’m burning! I’m burning up!” I screamed and opened my eyes.
The burning and the bubbling stopped immediately.
Everything was bright around me, bright white; so bright that I squinted. There were two figures; one was holding me and the other stood close by. Both of them were shining brighter than everything else and I could see I was shining as well.
“Great, now I’m all white again!” the one said disgusted. It sounded like Benjamin!
“Aaawh, you’ll get over it,” the other one answered.
My brain was still a little slow and tried to interpret the scene around me.
“Alex? Benjamin? Is it you?” I asked doubtfully.
“Hey Sleepyhead! You awake now?” Alex asked.
It was Alex. Tears welled up in my eyes and I closed them, unable to get any words out. Alex was alive! My Alex, alive, my heart rejoiced. That was all I wanted, for him to be alive. Even if he hated me forever and a day, at least he was fine.
And Benjamin was alive too! I wanted to hug them and hold them and scream with joy. But I controlled myself just in time. I didn’t deserve to live. I had betrayed them both, and they could have died because of my betrayal.
“How is it possible that you are both alive? And Alex, weren’t you in a coma? And kidnapped?”
“Yes, it’s possible. Yes, I was in a coma. No, I wasn’t kidnapped,” Alex said and then he turned to Benjamin. “You can put her down now, it’s safe again,” he said irritated.
“Yes, my great leader. Anything you say, my great leader,” Benjamin mocked, but then did as Alex told him. He bent over and put me on the hard rocky ground of the grassy plain. I pulled up my knees and wrapped my arms around them.
Alex’s car was standing next to the road and we were about fifteen meters from it into the veldt.
By now, the tears were flowing over my cheeks. Benjamin sat down next to me and put his arms around me, holding me. Mixed feelings were tugging at my heart. I was ecstatic about them being alive. But on the other hand, the shame of betraying them was eating me, swallowing me whole. The feelings were too strong, I felt as if I was going to burst through my skin.
“You’re fine now, don’t worry. You’re safe.”
His words only made me cry harder. He was comforting the biggest betrayer of all times, the very person that almost had him killed.
“How... how... can you hold me? I....be....betrayed you? Don’t you ......hate me? I almost had you ....killed.” I stuttered through my sobs.
“Poor girl. There’s so much to tell you,” he said, holding me even tighter.
His reaction didn’t make sense to me. I took a few deep breaths and calmed down a little. “You shouldn’t have rescued me. I’m the biggest betrayer of all times. I betrayed my own.... friends.” I couldn’t keep it together.
“Valerie, calm down. We need the weather to stay clear, all’s not safe yet. Calm down immediately!” Alex ordered sternly.
Now I was only making everything worse, endangering everybody once more. But I couldn’t control my emotions. His words upset me all over again.
“You’re not helping, Alex,” Benjamin scowled. Then he lowered his voice and whispered in my ear. “Valerie, none of this is your fault. It’s all Artemis.”
“No, Benjamin!” I shook my head and struggled with the words through my overwhelming emotions. “It’s not... Artemis. I betrayed you, I did! Me!”
“Listen now, please? Will you just listen for one second?” Alex sounded cross now. “I know Lisa told you about... about us and... and who we are,” he stuttered, looking uncomfortable. “Well, Artemis or Duncan is also from this solar system. To be more precise, the moon.”
My sobs stopped and my eyes grew wide. Of course! It was so obvious, right in my face.
Benjamin removed his arms from me and stood up.
“Duncan has the power of deception, or manipulation. He has the ability to ‘plant’ thoughts into your mind, he can even overrule your own thoughts and instincts. He did all of this,” Alex continued.
“And his powers are strong! After all, the moon is closest to earth. His link is the strongest apart from yours, even though he’s relatively small. If you look up at the sky, the moon and the sun appear to be the same size. Well, that’s why solar eclipses are possible, because from earth they are exactly the same in size. But anyway, back to the point. He probably told you that we’re all...” he stopped. “Are you following?”
I nodded weakly.
”Just think about it for a moment. He manipulated you into thinking that he had been helping you. Isn’t it true?”
Alex was serious now. He bent down to his knees in front of me, so that he could face me.
“He told you not to trust us, didn’t he? So it’s really not your fault, Valerie.”
I wasn’t all bad? I wasn’t the worst betrayer in the universe? I didn’t respond; it was a shock to my system, this sudden change of my self-image.
“Do you believe me now?”
“But why? Did he want to use my power for... for money?”
“No.” Alex sighed. “Look around you. It’s all about life. Life on earth.”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Life?” I repeated.
“Life is so precious and so rare in this huge universe that it causes extreme emotions. Some would kill for it, others are proud of it.”
I chewed his words over for a moment. I could understand that, having seen and experienced it myself. It was true.
“Earth, you… really are one unique little planet out of all the billions of planets. Actually several billions,” he said, staring into my eyes. I could feel the emotions starting to well up, his eyes were intense and it seemed that he wanted to say something else... and then his eyes dropped. “Me on the other hand…I am the same as several billion.”
I did not like that fact at all. He was special to me, beautiful. The sun! My sun, I thought. In my heart, he would always be my personal sun, literally.
Benjamin felt the tension we were generating, because he abruptly interrupted the silence by clearing his throat. “We need to get going, guys. The area is not safe and who knows what they’ll try next.”
His words yanked me from my haze.
“Let’s get going then,” Alex agreed.
I tried to get up but was still weak in the knees and fell back again. They
both extended a hand to me to help me up. Without thinking, I took Alex’s hand even though Benjamin’s was closer. Alex turned round immediately after I was up, walked away and climbed into his car.
The emotions inside me that had been so strong moments ago disappeared, so that I felt like a burst balloon. But the damage was already done. It was definitely going to leave a scar. At least they were both alive, and that made me happy. Alex was alive and with me.
I looked down to my feet. “Hey, wow! My knee doesn’t hurt anymore.” I removed the torn piece that was wrapped around it and all that was left was a thin, pink scar beneath the white glow. This scar was visible.
“I absolutely looove how the earth heals me! I want to get down and kiss the ground, I’m so happy right now!” I yelled, feeling better already.
“This time it wasn’t earth, Val. It was Alex. But you aren’t entirely fit yet, he was still very weak himself. So you need to thank him,” Benjamin said.
“Alex healed me? I didn’t even know that was possible,” I mumbled. I wasn’t keeping up any more. By now I should have known to expect anything new, no matter how impossible it seemed.
Benjamin opened the back door for me and helped me into the car before climbing in next to Alex.
I waited for Alex to start the car. “Alex, Benjamin, I want to thank you both, for rescuing me. Honestly, thank you from the bottom of my heart.” I meant it.
“Off course, that’s why I’m here,” Benjamin answered.
“Sure,” Alex said bluntly.
I still couldn’t believe how things had turned out and how lucky I was. I had the two best guardians in the whole wide universe.
“And Alex, thank you for healing me just now.”
“Anytime.”
I didn’t understand why he sounded so curt, but nothing could extinguish my happiness.
“How does it work, by the way? Can I heal you guys as well?”
“I’m not sure how much you know, but maybe I should start from the beginning. But I have to warn you, we don’t have all the answers. We’re learning as we go, from personal experience and from others,” Benjamin explained.
Alex wasn’t listening at all, he concentrated on the road. Benjamin turned sideways in his seat to face me.
“It may come as a shock to your belief system, but hear me out. We believe that everything is alive. As in everything: from the smallest little quark to the biggest galaxy out there. I don’t want to get too philosophical, but it boils down to this: something alive cannot be born or developed out of something dead. So if we classify ourselves as alive, then everything must be alive; with varying degrees of intelligence, of course.”
He looked as if he was gloating as he explained, but I didn’t react to his words.
“So basically, we are each here on earth as ambassadors of our host planet or star, manifestations of the conscience or intelligent part. My star is a red dwarf star called Barnard’s star, not far away from earth.”
“But why are we... or rather you all on earth then? Why not on Mars, for instance?” I asked, absorbed by the logic, trying to make his truth my truth.
“Well, it is such a rarity to be able to host other forms of life, as the earth is capable of. We are here to experience the beauty and magnificence of life on Earth.”
Wow! No, wow wasn’t big and strong enough. Awesome! Or incredible, maybe. No part of my studies had prepared me for any of this. Except maybe that one philosophy lecture on Tuesday. If only that Professor was a fly on the wall. He would have asked how it all worked, I was sure.
“Okay. So how does the connection and power work? If I am the earth’s conscience, shouldn’t I be able to hear its thoughts?”
“Her thoughts,” he quickly corrected.
“Her thoughts.” It would take time to really get used to the idea, even though Duncan had told me the same.
“Like I said, we don’t know everything, only what we have experienced. But we do know a little about how the connection works. We believe it’s a combination of things, but the biggest contributor is obvious: gravity. Gravity keeps everything together. You see, the great thing about gravity is that it doesn’t travel at a finite speed like light for instance. Gravity is a property of space and matter itself. So no matter how far you are away from your planet, you have a connection. But the strength of the connection does depend on the distance. So we Reds have a weaker connection than the sun, for instance.”
I tried to wrap my head around his words.
“You with me?” He saw that I was frantically thinking about everything, but I didn’t want him to stop talking. I was busy hearing the most incredible revelation of all times.
“Yes, the further you are from your planet, the weaker the link. Easy. Go on, go on,” I said. “So when the earth ‘heals’ you, it actually uses some of her gravity, or mass. The energy transforms, and you receive it in the form of... uh... spiritual energy
“It’s very important that your link never exceeds its capacity during a transfer of energy. You can imagine what energy could be unleashed by a star connection, but it would exceed the capacity of the link and the human body could not tolerate that.
“In your case, if big amounts get transferred, you run the risk of disturbing the balance. That’s why Alex healed you just now, why it wasn’t safe to let the earth heal you. Your glow was flickering, like a dying ambassador’s.”
I was slowly starting to understand what had happened to me just now.
“But why would the earth risk it all to heal me?”
“The earth loves you, Valerie. You are a part of her. She will try to save you even if it kills her.”
“Duncan almost managed to get that right,” I grumbled. “I still can’t believe how easily he fooled me!”
“Yes, well, apart from his power, there are additional aspects that work in his favour. For one, the earth only sees one side of the moon. It’s locked in rotation with earth in such a way that earth never sees the other side, the dark side.”
I was about to ask what Duncan had planned, but Alex interrupted my train of thought.
“Okay, that’s enough for now. You can continue with this later. I think Valerie needs some rest. And I think I need some rest as well. Would you mind driving, Ben?” he asked, still sounding irritated.
I figured that’s why Alex had been so reserved – he was just tired.
Benjamin was enjoying our conversation and looked as if Alex had stolen his ice cream out of his hands.
“Sure,” he said, obviously peeved.
Alex stopped the car and they switched places. I wanted to know more, but I had to admit that I was extremely tired as well.
“Where are we going, by the way?” I asked as I shifted around for a comfy spot. I had the whole backseat to myself.
“A safe house. It’s best for now, ‘till we’re all properly rested,” Alex answered. He switched on the radio and let down his chair.
“What day is it? Isn’t it test week already?” I couldn’t afford to throw away a year of studying.
“It’s Saturday today. We’ll go back tomorrow, but we need to recover properly first.”
Then I thought about something else.
“You never told me what was wrong with you, Alex. Why were you in hospital?”
“Valerie, please not now. I’ll tell you later, promise.” His voice sounded droopy already.
I didn’t feel like arguing any more. A lot had happened in a relatively short time. I felt overloaded, physically, emotionally and mentally. But I was safe. Benjamin turned up the radio and I recognised Natasha Beddingfield’s Take me away.
I fell asleep shortly after and didn’t wake up until late the following morning.
***