The Sphere of Time

by TIME, S. O.

  “Thank you, for everything,” Hana says as she and Aldrea walk up beside me. I turn to them both and we all smile at each other.

  “I’ll find Kou, I promise.”

  Hana nods and with that, I face the tunnel. I get myself acquainted with the controls of the cycle, and slowly pull forward. After a few moments, I increase the speed slightly a few times before going full throttle. The cycle rockets forward and the lights above pass me by in a blur.

  It doesn’t take long before I finally emerge from the tunnel, inside the city. All around me I see burning buildings. The massive, glowing barrier starts several blocks behind me, half hidden by all of the smoke. Behind me, the tunnel doors seal; in seconds it looks like part of an ordinary driveway.

  There’s a heavy amount of dust in the air and it’s hard to see. I send out a pulse to get a feel for the area, and immediately regret it. Pain and nausea sink through my body like a nymian’s claws, and I topple off my cycle as I cry out. Rubbing my bruised shoulder, I roll onto my knees just in time to throw up. I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting to lessen the pressure that pounds through my skull. Something is wrong—profoundly wrong, in a way that goes beyond the simplicity of human violence and animal savagery.

  Something is wrong with Death.

  Throat burning, I manage to pull myself back onto my helocycle. Steadying myself by gripping the handlebars, I fight the instinct to send out another wide pulse in search of answers. Instead I let only a small tendril of my senses reach out, like a serpent’s tongue tasting the air. It tastes like screaming.

  Abruptly I realize the problem—souls, dozens of them, lost and unguided. Their fear, pain, and anguish hang in the air, reaching for anything to hold them or guide them. These are not the souls of the recently departed—these souls are older, angrier. Insane. A brief memory runs through my mind.

  “What happens when a soul gets lost?” Sahra asks, eyes wide with curiosity.

  I hesitate for a second before responding. “You know, I'm actually not sure. All I know is that it's dangerous for a soul to remain outside for too long. Nothing good can come of a soul getting lost.”

  Despite the chill this realization gives me, I find myself calmed by the memory of Sahra. I focus on her—her wondering smile as she passed through the portal to the waterfall, her nervous hold on my hand, her shy gratitude before she stepped through her Tear. The pain slowly recedes as the image of translucent, blue Sahra is replaced by the more solid form of Alma. I cannot be crushed by the weight of these lost souls. I have too many living ones still left to save.

  I shake my head to clear it and activate the helocycle again, refocusing on my mission. I need to find Kou.

  I look down at my holo to figure out where to go from here and then glance around the area to orient myself. With the fire roaring in the surrounding buildings, it’s hard to hear anything else. The only thing louder than the flames is the sound of destruction in the distance. This whole section of the city has been evacuated. Those who didn’t have that luxury remain here on the ground, motionless.

  Ahead of me a nymian turns onto the street. Its head swings my way, and it charges with a roar.

  Chapter Thirty

  I don’t know if it’s due to shock, or if it’s the energy of Death still running through me, but I don’t feel the mortal need to run away. My body doesn’t start shaking the way it did before, and my heartbeat remains steady. I stand there in the smoke waiting for it.

  The nymian lets out a powerful cry, beating dust and ash from the ground as it charges forward. The trail of sludge that falls from its maw sinks into the earth behind it with an ominous hiss, leaving a dark fissure in its wake. With detached unease, I notice a couple of bodies caught in the nymian’s trail; the newly dead flesh bubbles and melts under the sludge before the bodies disappear into the fissure. Forcing myself to concentrate on the beast itself, I wait, merely sliding my feet into a better stance until it gets within striking distance. Right as it gets within range I raise my hand and open my palm in its direction. I open a Tear that the nymian can’t avoid as I focus on leading it as far away as I can possibly make it go.

  To my chagrin, it doesn’t go spinning off into another galaxy—not even close. But the Tear does manage to send the beast a block away, buying me time. More encouraging, the short travel Tear doesn’t drain nearly as much energy from me as the Tear that Hana had me open. I get back on the cycle as the confused nymian begins to get its bearings. At least now I know my capabilities. I check the map on my holo to see how far I am from Kou’s last known location. Just a few kilometers away—I’m almost there.

  I set a course for Cerros Towers and hope the roads are still intact. The city I drive through looks nothing like it did just a few weeks prior. The streets are empty. Where there used to be merchants and live music and performers, now only rubble and destroyed pieces of art remain. The closer I get to Cerros Towers, the more public safety notices I spot. Some are painted on the walls of buildings, some flicker on holographic street signs. A few of them read locations for underground bunker locations, but there are also signs that read, “Safety in Haven.” I stop to check my holo and a street marked as Haven Avenue appears nearby, south of Cerros Towers. It’s just off of the route I need to take. If I take the overpass a few blocks from here I could see it from above. I start moving once more. The overpass turns into a highway for pods that allows me to travel over all of the destroyed buildings, avoiding the debris that now fills the streets. As I get within a five-block distance from Haven Avenue, more signs appear, many with arrows or short directions. I pulse out and to my surprise, I do sense souls gathered ahead. They’re in distress, but there’s a hint of relief in their energy as well. I don’t sense Kou or Hitori, and I wonder if our troops are there.

  I have to weave between the pods littered across the highway. I understand now why Hana gave this cycle to me. If I had flown, I would be much more easily detected, but if I’d had a standard pod, I wouldn’t have been able to move across this destruction.

  As I near Haven Avenue, I begin to find the blasted corpses of nymians. Some of them have been killed with precise shots to the head or back of the neck, but a few of the bodies are shredded, split in half with their charred innards stinking up the air—their sludge leaving massive holes in the ground where buildings have now caved in. I notice one of the nymians has a human arm in its slack jaws. Smears of brighter red human blood are present among the pools of dark nymian ichor, but any whole bodies of the defending forces have been removed.

  When I reach the part of the overpass that crosses Haven Avenue, I peer over the edge. Below me I find a street busy with people, far more than I've seen in one place since I returned to Maluii. Men and women dressed in military uniforms patrol the sidewalks, while larger clumps of soldiers are gathered on either end of the street with military vehicles and makeshift barricades. Civilians and soldiers alike are working together to fortify the buildings along the street, pass out food to lines of people, and set up emergency tents along the road. Between the uniforms and the lack of energy shields, I realize this must be one of Isao's encampments.

  I stay low to remain hidden above them, but not before I hear rustling to my right. I gingerly send a limited pulse in that direction and my body freezes at the two energy readings I find inside a pod on the highway. I wonder if they’re Isao’s troops scavenging the pods. They’re directly in my way forward and I’d have to backtrack quite a ways to get around them. I begin to activate a Tear in front of me that I can use to transport me past them when the rummaging in the pod stops and a man and a little boy step out. They spot me on the cycle and for a moment they don’t move, but then the man steps in front of the boy.

  “You must be here for Haven. There’s a way down over this way that we can take,” he says to me.

  “You mean you’re choosing to go down there?” I ask.

  “Of course,” the man responds, as if confused by my question. “Isao’s troops saved us before. They�
��re keeping us safe now. Thanks to them, all of the beasts in the area are gone.”

  I look back to the street, at the people milling around with purposeful energy. With Isao’s strategy, they will have to look out for every single nymian. They’ll have to fight them off before the beasts make it to the people, and there will constantly have to be people on watch. One mistake, and people will die. But if they kill the beasts too close to the encampment, the sludge will destroy the land. There’s no winning here. Not with his strategy. With Hana’s plan, there will be no need for further destruction of life. We can keep the people safe, even with the possibility that further Tears will open. I consider trying to explain this to the man, but I sense his resolve—he trusts Isao. He and his son will be staying here.

  “I’m just passing through,” I finally say.

  The man scoffs and shakes his head, “In that case I’d reconsider and head off the other way. The fighting only gets worse the further in you go.”

  “I have someone I have to find.” I adjust my position on the cycle. “I wish you luck here.” Both of them bow to me, and I take off past them.

  The bridge curves around some of the buildings and continues forward. The buildings are structured in a way that allows the tiny bit of sun that remains to shine through all of the streets, but the smoke that lingers in the air keeps the sky a consistent, dusty auburn. I can see into the buildings with broken windows clearly; they show signs of the struggle these civilians faced during the early moments of the attacks. Pieces of art hanging off the walls, paint smudges all around, holographic cinematography left on and unattended. Lights inside some of the buildings flicker through the dust. The black sludge from the infected nymians is evident everywhere. Buildings appear melted away, and entire floors seem to have caved in from its acidic nature. Entire sections of the bridge have been melted off.

  The immediate stillness of these streets gives in to the echo of explosions deeper inside of the city. I press forward, periodically pulsing out short distances for energy signatures. Underground I sense groups of souls—likely people hiding in the bunkers. I sense Naomi again, though it’s only for an instant before she’s felt somewhere else. I hope that means she’s stopping time and guiding the souls of those left. There are groups of people scattered around me, fighting. Some against nymians, others against each other. Those must be the service station points Hana showed us earlier. Everyone’s energies mix and intertwine more heavily when I try pulsing out long distances, and I’m unable to make out Kou or Hitori within the massive roar.

  The longer I travel, the louder the explosions get. I narrow my pulse and pick up Try’s energy on the main street ahead of me. I find an off-ramp and head down to the street. He can’t be more than a few blocks away but the clouds of smoke are much thicker down here, hindering my search. After a few streets I’m able to identify where some of the explosions are coming from—a mess of Isao’s troops, government forces, and nymians fighting at an intersection, all blasting and clawing at each other, each side taking every opening to eliminate each other. I’m shocked to see the humans still fighting each other in a mixture of bloodthirsty rage and desperate fear, even under nymian attacks. Off to the side of the road, I notice one of Isao’s troops is blasting the body of a fallen civilian. The look in his eyes is empty. He carries on, even after watching a nymian approach him. Once to him, the beast rips into his torso. The man does not scream. He does not try to fight or run away. Where is this branch of Humanity headed?

  I press forward to Try. I hope he has information on what’s happening, something that could give order to this madness. The eerie silence of the city just a few kilometers south has completely switched to the chaos that now surrounds me as energy attacks fly in every direction. The explosions that echoed from the distance now surround me with such a profound intensity that they send shockwaves rippling across the streets. The sudden flash from a nearby explosion blinds me for a few seconds, forcing me to slow my helocycle. I do my best to skirt the fighting, head ducked low as I make my way to Try.

  Finally, I see him up ahead, fighting off two nymians with two of Isao’s troops. If they’d been fighting each other before, they show no signs of it as they work together to take the nymians down. Try is surrounded by his red energy as it burns against the lights from the other attacks that surround us. The nymians that they’re fighting also seem to be coordinating their attacks, as if they can somehow communicate with each other through their screeches and body movements.

  As Try charges his attacks, Isao’s troops parry the nymians slashes and then move out of the way so he can fire off his red blasts. One of the nymians is able to dodge the attack, but the other one takes it full force to its upper body and drops to the floor as Try’s attack carves through its abdomen. Black sludge pours out of its body and melts a hole into the ground that the nymians remains sink into. The other nymian screeches and charges for an attack, but is met with a counterattack by all three of them that leaves it riddled with holes. As it’s own sludge flows onto the ground, enough of the street corrodes away that the area becomes a sinkhole that swallows this nymian as well. I stop my cycle as I reach Try, and Isao’s forces stare at him now that the nymians have been defeated. They all watch each other. After a few brief moments the two troops back away, and Try walks toward me as he notices my arrival.

  He shakes his head, his eyebrows creased. “They’re going to destroy the whole city. Even if we kill every beast, their blood or whatever that is flowing out of them melts through everything it touches. If their rampaging doesn’t do it, their blood will.”

  “That’s why we need to evacuate,” I reply.

  Try sighs heavily but doesn’t reply.

  “That was pretty intense there,” I say.

  “Those beasts weren’t anything to worry about; it’s like they’re getting weaker.”

  “I was referring to that little stand-off at the end,” I answer. “I wasn’t sure if you’d all hug it out or go for each other’s throats.”

  “Oh, the troops? Yeah, it’s a shame this is all happening to begin with. No one knows what to do. Some of these guys can’t even tell who the enemy is anymore.”

  His tone is casual, but his body is taut with tension, his hands shaking slightly from adrenaline. “Our Branch hadn’t experienced war before the first nymian outbreak. It’s only natural that many people don’t know how to react to or process what’s happening. It’s like they’re losing themselves to it.”

  He’s right. Even the veterans I sense are an uneven mix of emotions and reactions—blasting away a human is a whole different experience from slaying a beast. I think back to the insanity I witnessed at the Fall, when one of Isao’s troops killed his fellow soldiers. There’s also the soldier that blasted the civilian until he was eaten himself. Maybe the serum is releasing that primal, hateful part of our psyche left behind by our ancestors on Earth.

  “Where are Kou and Hitori?” I ask.

  “We all got split up. I think Kou is up north and Hitori ended up going to one of the underground bunkers to heal wounded civilians and troops. Come on, I’ll ta—”

  An ominous rumble from a few blocks ahead interrupts Try. Suddenly the ground beneath us shakes as one of the towers begins to crumble. Loud metal screeching fills the street as it topples over, and shrieks—both human and nymian—ring out, their high pitch rising over the growing roar of collapsing metal and glass. I watch in frozen horror as the building tips onto the overpass I was using to travel over the destruction. It lands with another earth-shaking rumble, and the supports hold for only a brief second before collapsing under the new weight. Debris begins to fall all around us, shaking me from my stupor as a massive plume of dust and smoke rushes outward from the epicenter.

  “Adeline!” Try shouts, abruptly running toward the encroaching cloud.

  “Where are you going?” I yell.

  By this time the smoke is almost upon us and Try shouts back to me, “Go north! I’ll catch up!”
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  Before I have time to respond to him, the smoke reaches us, and Try disappears into it at a sprint. Eyes stinging, I get onto the cycle and peer through the dust. Without the bridge, I have to figure out a new way to get past the rubble.

  I turn the cycle west, hoping to avoid the disaster zone and perhaps find a way back onto the overpass. Anxiety hums through my body as I push the cycle as fast as I dare with such limited vision, jerking it left or right whenever a streetlight, or broken sculpture, or dead nymian appears in my path. As I get further from the collapse the air clears slightly, and eventually I reach a road that slopes up. I speed up, excited to have found a way back up to the overpass. I’m near the top when I hear the sudden, sharp snap of a metal cable. The road lurches left and shudders, and I let out an instinctive yell as I struggle to brake. Before the bike can slow, the road in front of me cracks upwards, splitting away from the section in front of me, and my cycle flies off of the edge, flinging me off of it. I instinctively try to float, but the drain on my energy makes me stop—fear of losing my ability to make Tears overpowers my fear of falling. I land hard on my back as I slide and roll, losing my breath and wheezing at the impact. Smoke quickly fills my lungs and I hear a loud crash somewhere off in the distance—the cycle. I start to raise my head when something hard strikes my temple, and everything goes dark.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  W aking is a special kind of pain. My body feels hot, then cold, then hot again as I blink my eyes open. The left one is difficult to blink—barely dried blood works like wet glue on my lid. My body feels so heavy. I focus on the coldness of the ground below me. It would be too easy to just lay here. Would anyone find me? Would anyone look for me? I could just close my eyes and wait for the darkness to take me. I exhale humorously through my nose. No, I can’t. I have to get to Kou. I have to get to Hitori. I have to keep my promise to Hana and Aldrea.