“I’ll get you your five, that’s what we agreed upon. Now let me do my job,” Bran stated. He stepped forward.
“Congratulations on making it to the final part of your training. Now for your final test…” Bran grinned. He raised his hands and they eroded into a blue mist, his eyes dissolved into a white light as blue fog misted out of his eye sockets. He swung out his arms. “Your eyes are mine!”
Before Jaylen could react, everything went dark. A sharp shock rocked into his brain. He let out a screech and fell to his knees clawing at his eyes. But instead there was nothing to grab at but empty holes. Fire surged from his sockets, the pain was immense.
He heard others scream around him.
“What did you do?” someone wailed.
Bran didn’t answer. He tore out their eyes. Raisa shuddered from the cries. It took a few minutes before the cries died down, before the pain became slightly more bearable.
Everyone’s eyes floated in a ball in front of Bran. They burned into a blue light and into dust. “You must survive the night and learn to see the unseen, only then will you get your eyes back,” Bran snapped.
Jaylen felt a hand on his back. Anu? It helped him up and lead him away. It wasn’t Anu’s as her muffled cries were behind him.
He felt his clothes becoming soaked through with blood. The only reason he was conscious was because of his power of the stars.
Jaylen only heard thirteen pairs of shuffling feet, as they were led back to the barracks and left alone.
He later learned that seven cadets died almost immediately. Their bodies couldn’t take the shock or the loss of blood.
The pain never subsided but Jaylen was able to suppress it, he hoped the others were able to do the same. He didn’t think he’d be able to survive through it if it weren’t for the stars.
Jaylen called for Niven but only Anu answered. No words were muttered. For Jaylen, Anu’s touch was enough. They held each other until Anu fell asleep in his bed. Jaylen got up and felt around. Seeing the unseen, he saw nothing, just black. He made his way to Niven’s bunk.
“Niven,” he called. He heard nothing. “Dammit, Niven.” He shoved him. His body was cold.
“Niven!” Jaylen felt his pulse, it was still. Jaylen moved his hands to his chest, it was wet, not from his eyes, but from a fresh wound. He’d killed himself.
Jaylen stumbled back.
Jaylen put a cover over Niven’s body and hesitated before he ceremoniously closed his eyes.
Jaylen let out a heartless chuckle as he realized how useless of a gesture it was and left.
He remembered the path to the beach, feeling his way under his feet. It was easy remembering the path, as he went there every night for the last two months.
As he sat on the beach, he tried to look out into the night sky. What was the point of coming out here? Only a coward cries. That was what his father always told him, “Don’t let the traitors, the gods see you cry.”
He cried, he didn’t care about anything, he couldn’t see the sky any more. An energy blade manifested in his hand. If he couldn’t see the sky anymore, then he was going to swim the eternal sea forever.
“See you soon, Niven.” His blade plunged into his chest, he didn’t scream or squirm, as the pain of having his eyes torn out was far greater than being pierced in his chest. The warmth of the blood rushing over his body was actually comforting.
He lay back as the feeling rushed out of his body, he couldn’t move anymore. As the life ran out of his fingers, he faced the starless night and let out one final smile.
Waves of turquoise and skies of green filled his vision, sparks of jade eclipsed the waves. The breath came back to Jaylen, his movements returned.
He was surrounded by turquoise waves intertwined in solid shapes and objects, trees were intricate twines in the sands and grass.
Was this death?
He was in the universe, the waves and seas were the natural movements of it all. The trillions of jade sparks were stars. They felt… imperfect… they felt… wrong. Why would he want to live in this imperfection forever?
Something broke the silence, a cry echoing out over the heavens. Why could he hear cries when he was dead? They got louder. He knew those cries, Anu’s. He had to help her.
He felt the wound on his chest, it was still warm. If he was dead would he still have that wound? If he wasn’t dead how could he still see the turquoise seas and turquoise skies? He looked at his hands. It should have been impossible as he had no eyes.
He saw his pulse in his turquoise veins, the intricate workings of his body. He jumped to his feet, the sounds of the base came back into his world. If he was dead, he wouldn’t have heard living sounds. He exhaled; if he was dead, he wouldn’t felt the warmth of his breath.
He never fell asleep. He was not dead. He was seeing the unseen. He could see the universe for what it truly was, imperfect, hurt, but real. The real universe.
The wind picked up and gusted sand around him, he took a handful of it. He was holding small balls of energy. Millions of them, crushed underneath his feet. He’d done it, he passed.
He looked at the hole in his chest, the only thing keeping him alive was his power as he was sure he had fully bled out, but why didn’t he die?
After looking through his chest he laughed.
“I missed.”
He was over relying on his eyes. He would no longer.
He made his way back to the barracks. As he went into the quarters, he noticed it was colder than usual. Some of the waves of the cadet’s had seized to flow. More than half of them. There were no more sparks in their bodies.
Anu still cried silently into her pillow. Jaylen made his way to every cold body and moved them into a more dignified position and stood over Anu.
To him, she was a beautiful turquoise wave against an unmoving turquoise bed. Her flows were getting slower.
Jaylen placed a hand on her face. It was slick with blood and tears.
“It’s going to be okay.” Even in the state she was in, she was still perfect to him.
“Lay with me,” she asked.
He got in her bed and held her, his shirt sticking to hers.
“I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“I…I can’t do it…I can’t see the unseen…” Her body was getting colder, she wasn’t going to last long.
“I’m…tired…”
“It’s okay. Just think of nothing. Darkness.”
“That’s all I see.”
“But against the black is an ocean, the most beautiful ocean you’ve ever seen, filled with jade as etiquette as stars, millions of them fill the ocean, they spark with an unrest as the teal waves swelled over them. A sky of oceans and calmness. The universe, a sea of dreams and stars.”
By the time he was finished, Anu was asleep. Jaylen wanted to be with her in her final hours. He lay with her until morning. As the sun rose, Jaylen awoke next to a warm body, her chest moving up and down. She survived the night.
…
Jaylen stood in front of a door. It was weeks later, this was the final true test. He wore black robes with a hood concealing his face. Two Jour soldiers lay dead next to him.
After his last night on the island, Bran killed anyone who couldn’t see the universe for what it truly was. Leaving only six people to pass. One more than his quota. Anu was one of them.
Afterward, he taught them how to form physical eyes, exact copies of their old ones. Jaylen blinked, they felt false. He didn’t need them anymore. They dissolved into a blue mist and a blue fog came out of his eye sockets. He felt more right without them.
The physical world broke away from him, he could see the flows of the universe once again. Seeing through the walls, there were twenty pulsating lights in the room. He needed to kill nineteen of them.
He burst through the door and his hands turned white.
They all stared at him. Jour politicians, mouth agape. Behind them, a skyscraper-
filled city illuminated the room from the window that made up the far wall. The star-etched night was above them.
Jaylen stepped forward. One of them approached him with confidence.
They were all archangels, they never knew true fear.
He was going to bring them death.
Jaylen moved fast, he sprinted toward the one approaching him. A thin energy blade materialized in Jaylen’s hand and stabbed into the man’s chest.
As he exploded into dust, a energy blast came from Jaylen’s right.
Even pure energy had a source. In a blur, Jaylen raised his hand and as it touched it, the blast disappeared.
The woman who sent it stared at him in awe as he plunged his blade into her.
A man came swinging from his left and he, in a volley of strikes, stabbed him all over his body. Jaylen’s hands became a blur, as his blade pierce him over twenty times.
Before the man’s body could fall, Jaylen forced out his hand, and a shockwave blew the man’s remains onto three politicians close by.
They were dead before they had a chance to react. As Jaylen pulled his blade from the last of the three, an energy sword and energy blast came from both of his sides.
He caught them both with his hands, the politicians who sent them staring in shock.
He was the universe.
He was the waves.
They were going to have to try harder than that.
As he killed them one by one, the waves of the turquoise sea became less and less chaotic, smoother as their power was what was wrong with the universe. He was its protector.
As he stood over the nineteenth politician, the man pleaded and begged Jaylen for mercy. They would never have mercy on the universe.
The politician’s eyes exploded out as Jaylen ended his term. All around Jaylen, blue dust floated in the vibrant air.
The last of the twenty stood next to him, staring out of the window. Captain Bran. The remains of his comrades smoked around him.
“You’ve done something beautiful today, Jaylen. A treaty of peace was very close to being signed. The fools, to think that peace was really the answer, when both sides had completely different ideologies, when both sides wanted to kill each other. Thanks to you and the other eyeless, the leaders of the loyalists are dead and the only thing left to take care of is their weakened army and their remnants.”
“Why didn’t you tell us who you were, Councilman? You are one of us.”
Bran smirked, he was the acting Jour councilman for the Citadel, Raisa was the vice-council.
“The very first. But who or what I was had no matter in your training. You know what to do.”
“Why do I have to kill you?”
Councilman Bran continued to stare out of the window. The skyline glow painted the room yellow.
“Jaylen, do you believe in our cause?”
Jaylen hesitated and then looked down.
“No.”
Bran didn’t muster or move, his eyes content on gazing out of the window.
“But you can see it, can you? The fault’s in our stars, in our universe.”
“Yes.”
“The others fight for selfish reasons. For power, for pride. But there is only one reason to fight for, and that’s for the universe. Our powers are unnatural, they are the reasons for the faults in our skies and our lives. We must be eradicated to heal the unseen, loyalist and separatist. I’ve been preparing for this day for centuries, since I saw the true faults in this universe.”
Jaylen raised his hand, was this what he had become, a killer to save the stars?
“Everything must come full circle.” Bran smiled.
In order to keep secrets secret, in order to get rid of all loose ends, in order to separate from Jahum forever and to save the universe. The cycle of violence must continue.
His hand pieced Bran’s back and he disappeared into a mist. As Bran’s clothes floated to the ground, Jaylen turned his attention to the city beyond the windows.
“Objective completed,” Jaylen muttered. Good, make your way to the extraction point, we’ll be raining down hell, a voice said in his head.
Hundreds of pillars of serpents hurtled from the sky and into the city as genocide rained from the heavens.
Jaylen didn’t see the destruction, the attack ships raining down. All he saw was a chaotic sea of turquoise waves and jade stars that made up his sky, the very sky, the very stars he was going to destroy to save the universe.
Those stars disrupted the seas, the waves, the very lives that shaped the universe. They weren’t supposed to exist. They all must be destroyed.
…
Jaylen shivered awake, he lay on his bed in the Citadel. He still saw the turquoise sea. With all those people with the power, it felt wrong. Shuddering jades surrounded him.
His eyes reformed as he sat up, the turquoise around him returned to the cold silver metal. His display appeared on his arm. He messaged Anu to meet up, she was in the main hall.
It only took him half an hour to make it to the hall, it was sparsely filled. It usually was at this hour.
The only ones awake were the people who had just arrived from a long journey and the ones pulling a late shift.
Visitors arrived by the hundreds at all hours. To accommodate, most businesses never closed. The docking workers, government officials and the behind the sceners never slept.
Artificial lights lit the halls as the sun hid behind the planet they orbited. Anu waved at Jaylen from the third floor. When he arrived she leaned against the railing, looking at the black orb of Glion. He stood next to her and leaned against the railing as well.
Anu wrapped her arm around his.
“What are you doing up at this hour?” Jaylen asked.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“You can never sleep.”
“Not without you, you know that, why did you ask?”
“Just trying to make conversation.”
“Then why aren’t you asleep?”
“Because you weren’t there.”
Anu laughed. “You’re the one who left without saying bye.”
Jaylen didn’t saying anything.
“What’s wrong?” Anu asked.
He looked into her eyes. She was the only one he could talk to, the only one who truly knew him.
A killer.
“I took an innocent life.”
“Oh.” She looked up at him.
“A new born, barely a few hours old. And I killed him, I killed a soul who barely made an impression on the world, a soul who didn’t know right from wrong. He didn’t have a will in our fight or our cause.” Jaylen looked at his hands. “Why did he have to die, what’s the point of our cause? If we’re going to take an innocent’s life. My only mission is to fix the universe. If taking a child’s life is the only way to achieve it, then I don’t want to fight anymore.”
Anu pulled her arm away and stepped back.
“What are you saying?” The look of compassion left her eyes and what replaced it was fear and betrayal.
“I’m not saying anything,” Jaylen muttered.
“Are you still with the cause?” Anu asked.
What could Jaylen say, he thought he could confide in her, after all they’d been through.
“Jaylen!”
If he couldn’t even speak freely to the one he loved, then maybe his mission wasn’t worth it, she believed in it too much.
He needed to escape.
“Yes,” Jaylen whispered.
The tension ran out of Anu’s body.
“…good. Don’t have thoughts like that.” She grabbed his hand. They never had talks about leaving or anything of the sort. He knew how ingrained into the cause she was, but he never had a reason to leave either. If he was going to leave, he was going to need to convince Anu to come with him.
His head dinged, You have a mission, time frame: four hours to complete. Limitations: none, lethal force recommended.
Jaylen stepped away from Anu.
>
“What’s the mission?” he relayed back. I need you to infiltrate data center 2b in information hall A and delete information folder J1SHL37B6 and replace it with folder A1LKC64A1. There is a physical drive with the file and the code to bypass security in your room. Once you arrive to the data center you will have 30 minutes to complete your mission. The center is heavily guarded but this mission is of the highest priority. Lethal force is suggested to leave no loose ends. The voice ended.
Jaylen turned to Anu “I have to go.”
She didn’t answer him, she just released his hand.
“I’ll talk to you later.” As he turned to leave he left silence behind.
…
Breaching the information hall was easy, there were hundreds of people coming and going, as this was the center of information for the Citadel, and ultimately, the universe. They had data on everything, data about newly discovered planets, species, political standings, laws of each civilizations, birth rates, races, every bit of data was stored here.
There were ten data centers on the Citadel, but this one was the biggest as it housed the data of the council leader’s races, the five largest races in the universe.
The walls were translucent. What looked like green shocks of electricity ran through them. It wasn’t really electricity, but moving data.
Nobody paid Jaylen any mind until he arrived at data center 2B. His pass got him in, but as he passed the guard, he got a questioning look. But it seemed harmless.
The nanomachines are gone. Time to do this. He memorized the layout of the center earlier. He crossed the halls, it wasn’t as majestic on the inside, a series of halls with hundreds of doors.
He took note on the prevalent amount of Avalour in the center. “I might have a problem. There are only Avalour here,” he sent out. Don’t worry about them, your mission hasn’t been blown, they’re trying to prevent what we are going to upload from getting out. It’s been like this for weeks.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.” It’s not supposed to.
He passed a guard, tapping on his wrist, without the nanomachines, the electronics were down. The guard glanced at him and moved his hand to his side arm.
Chaos in the Starless Nights (In A Universe Without Stars book 1.5) Page 7