Despite the fact that his skin was gray, instead of pale like ours, he appeared sharply contrasted against the dark exterior walls, though his long white hair certainly added to the effect. He and Miriam only shared the same crimson eyes, coupled with their black horns, wings, and tails.
I had yet to meet Miriam’s mother, Ishtar, but I knew from my love’s thoughts that her brother Gabriel took after her the most, both of them having the same tan skin, white hair, and gold eyes. Of course, the black draconic features were consistent among all of Gilgamesh’s lineage, but black hair like Miriam’s and mine wasn’t the norm for his kin.
Certainly, any variation of coloring was possible, as I was reminded of the woman with pitch-black skin coupled with her white draconic features, but dark hair was seen much more commonly among Ragnarok’s lineage.
No one spoke for a long few moments, with Miriam waiting for her father to begin the conversation.
Finally, he did, his sharp red eyes focusing on me, his tone flat as he spoke in the Ryujin language. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble, son. I almost regret giving into my daughter’s plea. A moment of weakness, I suppose.”
Honestly, I was a little surprised by his statement. “How is this my fault?” I asked seriously. “You gave Miriam permission to transform me, and yet Ragnarok still attempted to take my life. How does that make me the problem?”
His eyes narrowed, his tone colder. “You were still an insect then, and my brother’s actions were not expressly forbidden. He was within his right to act as he desired.”
His use of the word insect was derogatory in their language, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed.
Miriam finally chimed in, her eyes frustrated, but her tone respectful. “Father, you know what that would have done to me. I would have sought death myself if he succeeded. I showed you what it’s been like for me the last eighteen years. And you yourself were curious about what he would become!”
Gilgamesh completely ignored her, his gaze having never left mine. “And then you unlawfully attacked my brother, almost beating him to death. A grave sin.”
“Father!” she exclaimed.
His eyes finally focused on her, his tone almost apathetic. “I love you, my daughter. And I’ve taken great care to cherish you ever since I made you…” His tone abruptly became harsher. “But your life is of no importance compared to my brother’s existence. Your death is only a sorrow for your mother and I, while my brother’s death is a sorrow for our entire race.”
“That’s bullshit!” I snapped, though the effect was lost. Because the concept of ‘bullshit’ wasn’t a curse word in their language. They only had one word for defecation, and it was almost never used in conversation. “He’s a plague to your people, and you know it!”
His eyes narrowed again. “And obviously you don’t know your place,” he said between his teeth, before his expression smoothed over. “But no matter. Our Mother is coming, likely to exact judgment on the person responsible for inflicting pain on one of Her original beloved children.”
I felt a pang of dread grip my chest, the effect intensified by Miriam’s horrified reaction.
“Father, you can’t mean…” Her voice trailed off.
“Yes,” he said sharply to his daughter. “She is coming, and no matter how powerful your little beloved thinks he is, there will be no stopping Her wrath.” He then abruptly changed subjects slightly. “Your mother is already mourning your death, my daughter, and she has no intention on seeing you before your demise, whether it be from Our Mother’s direct administration, or as a result of Michael’s destruction.”
The fear in Miriam’s heart only escalated at his words, before she looked at me urgently, wishing we’d never come after all – feeling guilty and terrified that we had. I knew what she wanted to do, and while part of me didn’t want to run away like a coward, I knew she was right.
I had already died before, and this might be the very reason why I was in a loop in the first place, with me dying repeatedly over and over again, after my sister saved me. Hypothetically, the idea should give me some comfort that this might not be the end…unless I sincerely was dying each time.
After all, I didn’t recall any of the previous time loops, which should be in my past, indicating that this version of me wasn’t the same person who Miriam originally met. Not to mention, I’d already considered that this might only be a loop for my sister, and no one else, the rest of us dying while she got to imagine that the original me was still alive, instead of this false version that was about to die for the first and last time.
That was a disturbing thought, but even if it wasn’t true, starting this cycle all over again – with me forgetting again – would just result in me being stuck in the same cage, unable to break free. Plus, my sister had indicated that we had done this a lot, which meant the next time might be like all the others, with this being my one-in-a-million chance to make things different.
Without another word, Miriam grabbed my arm roughly and took off, leaving her father behind without a single word of farewell. Both of us exploded radiation out of our wings and backs, zipping through the hallways and exiting her father’s castle as fast as possible.
But it was already too late.
The sea of crimson clouds exploded above us, as a massive draconic monster almost the size of the entire city appeared out of thin air, an invisible bubble popping it into existence.
An invisible bubble…warping it into existence.
Chapter 17: Mother
In the last week, there had been quite a few times when I should have been terrified out of my mind. And yet, for the most part, I hadn’t been.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case now.
As Miriam and I watched the behemoth midnight dragon descend on the city, we were both frozen in the air in fear, clinging to each other in terror as we experienced a horrifying existence invading the minds of everyone on the planet.
I barely managed to keep this monstrosity out of my head, shielding Miriam from the painful onslaught of words that followed.
‘MY CHILDREN, GATHER BEFORE ME.’
It’s massive slitted red eyes scanned the scene before it, a pair of massive black bony wings stretched out to slow it’s descent as it landed next to the volcano, being almost as tall as it was once it settled, tremors rattling the city from the heavy landing.
Similar to the second pair of wings coming out of Miriam’s back, this creature had a pair of thinner arms originating from below its enormous wings, leaving no doubt that Ryujin had somehow originated from this horror.
My gut reaction was to warp now, to get away as fast as possible – except for one major problem. If this behemoth was responsible for the Ryujin race, and if it could do everything we could and more, including warping, then it was almost a guarantee that this monster could sense me no matter the distance.
After all, if I could sense all of Gilgamesh’s lineage even when we were worlds apart, then surely She could sense all of Her lineage, despite distance.
And warping right now would only bring attention to ourselves.
‘I’m sorry,’ Miriam pleaded in my thoughts, tears filling her crimson eyes. ‘You were right. We shouldn’t have come to see my father. I’m so sorry.’
I couldn’t respond, just holding her tightly as she turned into me and buried her head against my neck, waiting for what was to come.
Unsurprisingly, we weren’t the only ones consumed with terror.
Slowly, the air above the city began filling with trembling Ryujin coming out to greet the god who had summoned them. In the back of my mind, I realized that even Jericho had heard the Dragon’s summons, beginning to apologize to me when I focused on her, feeling helpless to do anything.
In her head, it was like watching a loved one teetering on a cliff, with her being too far away to make a difference as they lost their balance and began falling.
So all she could do was ask for forgiveness for being too afraid to come to my resc
ue, not that she could do anything anyway. She’d already suffered enough as it was.
I caught a glimpse of Ishtar for the first time as she and Gilgamesh made their way toward the monstrosity, but she didn’t even so much as glance in our direction, her tan face contorted in grief, partially hidden by her long white hair.
I realized the Dragon must have announced Her arrival to the Originals prior to now, because I also noticed Ragnarok on the other side of the city in the distance, even though his castle was fairly far away. He was slowly floating closer to Her too, as if in anticipation of being addressed directly, though I doubted he would dare speak out of turn. After all, just one crimson eye was several times larger than a building, never mind the rest of Her.
And sure enough, not long after, She swept Her gaze over all three-and-a-half-thousand Ryujin, half of them with stark white features, before settling on Ragnarok.
‘MY CHILD, I CAME WHEN I SENSED YOU HAD BEEN INJURED. WHO AMONG MY CREATIONS ATTACKED YOU?’
Apparently already knowing where I was, Ragnarok did the mental equivalent as pointing at me accusingly, finally speaking up.
‘Him. He humiliated me in front of our people, and nearly killed me.’
‘LET ME SEE,’ She commanded, prompting him to grimace slightly as She peered more deeply into his mind. Her slitted crimson gaze then shifted to mine, staring directly at me, past several hundred other Ryujin floating between us.
Ragnarok began to speak up again, suggesting the penalty She should administer, only for Her to interrupt without looking at him.
‘SILENCE. I CARE NOT FOR YOUR PETTY INSIGNIFICANT QUARRELS.’
Instantly, his complaints ceased, seeming shocked that She wasn’t actually here to vindicate him, all while the pressure around my head increased a hundredfold.
‘UNUSUAL,’ She continued after a moment. ‘YOU ARE KEEPING ME OUT OF YOUR MIND. OR PERHAPS YOU HAVE HELP,’ She considered as Her focus shifted to Miriam, despite the fact that Her eyes themselves didn’t really need to move at this distance.
The gesture instantly made me defensive.
‘Leave her out of this!’ I demanded, holding my love more tightly. ‘She has nothing to do with what happened between me and him.’
Instantly, Her thoughts were more hostile. ‘THE PAST DICTATES OTHERWISE! YOU ACCUSED HIM OF KILLING HER!’
‘I was confused,’ I admitted, forced to shrink back against the overpowering tone of Her mental presence, wondering what She was after if not retaliation. ‘I wouldn’t have harmed him had I realized my error.’
‘PERHAPS,’ She agreed less aggressively. Almost apathetically, as if the decision had been made, and now She was bored. ‘BUT THE PAST DICTATES OTHERWISE. OR AT LEAST, ONE VERSION OF IT DOES.’
My eyes widened in shock.
‘What?’
‘YOU ARE AN ANOMALY. AN EXISTENCE THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST, YET DOES. I PERCEIVE YOU HERE, BUT NOT THERE. AN IMPOSSIBILITY MADE POSSIBLE. ONE I DIDN’T NOTICE UNTIL NOW, WHEN YOU ATTACKED ONE OF MY PRECIOUS ORIGINAL CREATIONS.’
I didn’t respond, uncertain of what I could possibly say, until I realized she was waiting for a reply from me, as if I held the explanation to an unanswered question.
‘I…I don’t understand,’ I admitted. Of course, I knew She must be somehow referencing the time loop, but I wasn’t able to comprehend what She was getting at. Was She implying that She could see a loop where I didn’t exist? That She could see beyond this timeline?
At the very least, I realized now that She must be here because of the divergence itself, not because Ragnarok was harmed in any way. She was more interested in the fact that there were multiple versions of time, which was both comforting and foreboding.
Surprisingly, She didn’t elaborate, so I tried again, feeling pressured by Her unyielding gaze to give a more appropriate response.
‘You can see the past?’ I tried. ‘Like I can sometimes see the future?’ I added.
Her slitted crimson gaze narrowed at that, before the pressure around my head began to reverse, feeling like a blackhole sucking me in.
She then began showing me images against my will, much like the visions of the future I had, revealing an infinitely long road with a depression next to it, like someone had begun digging a ditch, but then stopped when it flooded with water. For a moment, I didn’t understand why such imagery would be coming from Her mind, until I realized She was using what She knew of me from Ragnarok’s thoughts to illustrate.
Because otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to comprehend Her unfiltered thoughts.
‘YOU EXIST IN THE DITCH, FLOODED WITH WATER, WHILE I EXIST BOTH ON THE ROAD AND IN THE DITCH, SIMULTANEOUSLY. YOU ARE HERE, NOT THERE.’
I tried again to comprehend what She was implying. ‘Like, a separate dimension?’ I guessed.
‘PERHAPS. BUT TIME IS NOT SO SIMPLE AS TO BE ILLUSTRATED WITH SUCH METAPHORS, BECAUSE TIME ITSELF IS AN ILLUSION OF LIFE.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I repeated, truly having no idea what She was trying to explain.
‘WHEN LIFE TRAVELS DOWN THE ROAD, THE SURFACE DOES NOT APPEAR AS LIFE REACHES IT. NO, THE ENTIRE ROAD HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE. FROM THE MOMENT THE UNIVERSE CAME INTO EXISTENCE, ALL POINTS OF EXISTENCE OCCURRED AT ONCE. HOWEVER, BECAUSE LIFE CANNOT EXIST AT ALL POINTS AT ONCE, INSTEAD TRAVELING DOWN THE PREEXISTING ROAD MOMENT BY MOMENT, THE ILLUSION CREATED IS THAT OF TIME.’
‘But, what does that mean?’ I asked uncomfortably, beginning to feel more and more like I was staring down a snake preparing to attack its prey. She wasn’t trying to be ‘helpful,’ but was instead wanting something from me – a further explanation, which necessitated that I understand these concepts. ‘That the past and future are illusions?’
‘PRECISELY. THERE IS NO FUTURE, ONLY PAST. THE CONCEPT OF ‘FUTURE’ IS RELATIVE ONLY TO THOSE BOUND TO PERCEIVE REALITY THROUGH THE LENSE OF LIFE. THE ENTIRE ROAD ALREADY EXISTS, AND LIFE HAS ALREADY TRAVELED TO ITS FULL LENGTH, WHICH IS WHY I CAN PERCEIVE THE ‘FUTURE’ AS YOU ALSO CLAIM TO HAVE DONE. BECAUSE IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED. BUT UNLIKE YOU, I AM DIFFERENT. SUPERIOR. I CAN EXIST SIMULTANEOUSLY HERE AND THERE, EVEN THOUGH THERE SHOULDN’T BE A ‘HERE AND THERE.’ HOWEVER, YOU ARE ONLY ABLE TO PERCEIVE GLIMPSES OF THE PAST. OR RATHER, GLIMPSES OF THE UNFOLDING FUTURE THAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.’
As She spoke, I attempted to do what She was describing, only to unexpectedly have a powerful sense of déjà vu regarding the conversation with Gilgamesh – feeling like I could remember it going much differently, even though it clearly hadn’t.
Was the sensation suddenly plaguing me truly a memory? From a different time loop, perhaps? Or something else?
I didn’t quite understand what She meant by seeing the future this way, but being able to remember using this method was a big deal. It almost felt like a muscle I hadn’t been aware of, which felt easy to flex now that I’d done it.
However, I didn’t get long to consider the implications, since She was waiting for a response.
‘So then, the way to view the future is to perceive the past – at least, in reference to the fact that all points of existence of the universe have already occurred.’ My brow furrowed. ‘But I’ve changed the future,’ I retorted uneasily, feeling like she was hinting at what was to come – something unavoidable. ‘I had a vision of a bomb on a plane, and I changed it. I prevented it from happening.’
Her slitted crimson eyes narrowed at that. ‘NAÏVE. WHAT HAPPENED, HAD HAPPENED. YOU CHANGED NOTHING.’
‘No,’ I disagreed. ‘Had I not gotten involved, then that plane, and the city below it, would have been wiped out. Even if all possible states of the universe exist, not all states of life exist – after all, that’s why we perceive time…’ My eyes then widened when I realized that what this Dragon believed wasn’t necessarily true – at least not entirely, because otherwise… ‘Clearly, you are confused by the fact that there is a here and there, because otherwise you wouldn’t be discussing this with me. You are perplexed by the fact that there’s
a ditch to begin with, when there should only be a road.’
Her slitted eyes narrowed again.
‘PERCEPTIVE. HOWEVER, I DO NOT CARE ‘WHY’ THE DITCH EXISTS. ALL I CARE FOR IS THE METHOD TO ERADICATE THIS ANOMALY. A SOLUTION I SUSPECT WILL BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT INVOLVEMENT FROM LIFE.’
I considered Her thoughts for a moment, wondering if She was implying what I assumed. That the universe itself was going to fix the problem, possibly by erasing everything in the ditch from existence, which sounded similar to what I’d already seen in a vision. Yet She seemed uncertain of that fact, despite Her words.
Thus far, I had felt like She was a god in comparison to my own existence, but was She really? I mean, She claimed that all points of existence happened at once, and that life was the reason why we had a perception of time – that life traversing across those preexisting points of existence, created that illusion.
But then, where did life come from? Who or what was the origin? Or was life itself something divine?
Honestly, I wasn’t sure, nor did I really care right now. But what that did tell me was that this creature was no god. She was just as fallible as anyone else, being bound by the same rules of life.
‘If you can see into the future, I assume whenever you want, then what do you see?’ I asked, getting directly to the point.
Unexpectedly, she became enraged, a wave of hostility so overwhelming that a few of the Ryujin passed out and fell from the sky.
Panicked from the drastic shift, I desperately clung to Miriam in terror, having thought I was being more careful with my words than that.
‘NOTHING!’ She roared in her thoughts. Even Jericho was cringing back on Earth from the powerful mental presence. ‘I SEE NOTHING BEYOND THIS ANOMALY! THERE IS ANOTHER DITCH FAR UP THE ROAD, BUT BETWEEN THIS DITCH AND THE OTHER, THE ROAD IS OBSCURE!’
Another voice whispered to me then. A familiar one, manifesting as if from a long-forgotten dream.
‘Your past. It’s all you have left, even despite my best efforts. It’s all we have left.’
‘Amelia?’ I said to myself in surprise.
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