The Ghost of Sephera

by J. D. Tew

  On the unforgiving floor, I curl up in absolute pain. Stretching, I slide along the floor, pulling my lower half along. Each move is excruciating.

  The feet of the guards approach me as I writhe in pain. They disarm me. I feel the muzzle of a guard’s gun. It collides with side of my skull. My brain perceives a sensation of whiteness, and I feel a chill creep up my spine. These symptoms, I have heard, harbor the ominous signal of an approaching brutal end to a soldier’s fragile existence.

  “You’re dead,” the guard says, cashing a check that was never endorsed.

  Behind the guard’s legs I see a familiar orange gaseous light seep through the underside of the door. The orange light starts to take form, striking a ray of hope into my courage. Screaming, the guard about to execute me blasts off the floor, and with sickening thud, slams brusquely into the wall opposite.

  The remaining guards ran away, screaming as if they had seen the devil. Perhaps they had. The dead guard’s body lays slumped against the wall, deafening in his eternal silence.

  “Theodore, it’s okay. You’re okay,” Lincoln urges me.

  “Get me out of here. Get-me-out-of-here!” I yell, holding my blood-covered hands over my eyes.

  “It’s okay. We need the platoon’s trauma surgeonot down here right away! We have checkmate one! Give me some mucilage, Goddamn it!”

  “Is he going to make it?” Mariah asks, after charging in with a squad of her own. She cups her mouth and gasps loudly at the shock of seeing my bedraggled body.

  “You’re going to make it, pal!” Lincoln shouts frantically.

  On my back, feeling weightless as everyone helps to lift me, Liam rushes over to me. I can see Liam, Mariah, and Lincoln above me; they blur and fade in and out and I can only focus on the passing ceiling lights.

  I cannot believe it is ending this way. Is this the end? Is this what The human Lincoln visualized? My grandparents? I cannot feel pain. It is as if I am not even here. Am I? What? “Where are you taking me?”

  “Theodore! Snap out of it! Do not die on me, you son of a bitch!” Dan shouts.

  “Step back. Somebody get his friend out of here! He needs two milligrams hydromorphone!” the surgeonot yells.

  “I feel sick,” I say.

  “That’s the pain meds. Hold on, Theodore!” Mariah shouts.

  My view of the prison ceiling is swirling and I feel nauseous. As everything fades slowly in shade, a glimpse of Dan doubles, then fades into the layers of darkness.

  The darkest and quietest points in the universe reside mainly in the mind; the most frightening images are born in here: in the black void.

  I can feel pushing palms, downward against my chest, old school, as I slip further from my senses. They compress and release and repeat. I smell debris and dust from the explosions around me, even though I am no longer in the scene of battle. The sound is gone; nothing but smell remains and even that disappears, matching the rest of my sensory canvas—empty.

  In a way I need this emptiness—this solace.

  Is this death?

  Nothing. No one.

  Am I going to be invited to a digital afterlife? No. Eppa is gone because of me. Unless there is truly another entity as beautiful and soulful as Eppa. If my life is flashing before my eyes, I am missing it.

  Please!

  I don’t want to end up like Lincoln!

  Someone!

  Anyone!

  Please speak to me! Please! I should be in Sephera already.

  I start to feel a cushion beneath me. I prop my body up with my arms, bending at the waist to see what or who is lingering in front of me. In the dark depth of my mind, I see Odion. We are alone, and I am lying on a white gurney. Odion is as I remember. His hair is white; the hood of his frock is behind his neck and bundled over his shoulders. His varicose veins rib the lateral portions of his neck. He disappears and then suddenly reappears behind me. Within earshot, he waggles his fingers on my scalp and whispers in hushed tones, “Don’t ask for Sephera... you might just get it.”

  “What do you want! Get out of my head!”

  “I’m here to make sure you don’t quit. You’ll never avenge your grandparents if you just lie here defeated. Get up and face me like the so-called warrior everyone believes you to be. Or are you too much of a coward?”

  I rise from the gurney, lowering my feet quickly to the floor. Face to face with my enemy, I say, “Your end will come against my sword!”

  “Prove it! I’ll be waiting.”

  He disappears. How long can this go on?.

  “Man, I miss my bro,” a male voice says.

  “Come and get me if he wakes up.”

  A door shuts.

  Mariah! Is that you? I am so thirsty.

  Why isn’t anyone answering me?

  “Oh, my God. His eyelid just moved. Your eye moved, dude! You gotta be shitting me. Come—on. You can do it dude, just open those fricken eyes! Open! C’mon! Open-open-open. Yes. That’s it. Holy shit! Mariah. Damn it, she left. Where is that button to call the nurse? Why don’t I listen when they tell me these things?”

  “What does a guy have to do to get a glass of water around here?” I ask.

  “He’s awake! Theodore! Dude, are you fricken kidding me? You had me so flipping worried.”

  “How long has it been?” I ask.

  “You have been comatose for a few days, you jerk.”

  “I can see you’re working on that potty mouth of yours,” I say.

  “Yeah. It’s a work in progress.”

  “Am I dead?” After asking, I feel an overwhelming urgency to cry. I keep running the prison scene through my mind; the cell; my time there. The tragedy of losing Gullette, the honorable guard who died so that I could live. And for what? He warned me to escape, and when I didn’t, he stayed to face danger, thanks to my greed and my selfishness. It keeps playing and playing.

  “Dude, it’s okay. Get somebody in here!”

  “No, just wait.” I say, grabbing his arm. Ow! My abdominal wound is hurting just like the most bitchin’ painful hernia anyone ever experienced back on Earth. “Just come here.”

  I grab him and hold him, because I need someone now. I hug him, ignoring the pain for a blip of comfort, after the interminable spell of tyranny that so dominated and oppressed me, slowly stripping me of my humanity. I will be haunted by this experience forever; I cannot wish it away, but can only cope with it. Tomorrow will be the most difficult day of all; the first day of freedom.

  To have a real body pressing against me is a far cry from hallucinations in a cold cell. I feel Dan shift away from me to peer toward the door.

  “Yeah, come in! He’s awake!” Dan was beckoning at someone at the door, and he turned to me. “It sounds like you’re talking in slow motion, dude.”

  “Theodore,” King Trazuline says, greeting me at my bedside. “You are now in the infirmary of Freebird. You were shot in the leg and abdomen at the apical portion of your liver. The surgeonots were able to repair your leg and heal it with dephlocontis, but your liver suffered significant tissue damage and we are using a radical method of regeneration. They say you are doing well. You should be out soon, but you will have some lingering pain.”

  “Traz,” I say, pausing. “It’s weird seeing you here.”

  “I’m only here for the remainder of the day, so if you need anything, let us know. The council granted me a pardon to visit you here. I’m still serving my sentence for disturbing the peace to save my daughter. I only have three months of planetary confinement remaining. I have to return to Karshiz upon completion of this meeting. You had us worried. I really feel very badly that it took us this long to get you out. For one thing, we had to find out the exact location of the most secret prison in the galaxy. Next, once we did that, we had to find a way in.”

  “Thanks, Sire.”

  Trazuline sighed. “We can curse the Council all we want, but we must admit this: they’re really efficient at what they do. In the end, only a very highly placed sour
ce allowed us to get in, and if it weren’t for him, you likely would find yourself in your grave.”

  “Drey.”

  “How did you know?”

  “He came to me; he warned me through telepathy.”

  Startled, Trazuline sits straight up. “Telepathy?” he mutters to himself, his eyes distant.

  “Maybe he’s Sepheran too,” I blurt out what he was thinking.

  “Nah.” Trazuline shakes his head. “Lincoln is one Sepheran too many for me,” he jokes. “Maybe he found a nanocom device, much like we thought Zane did.”

  “Can I talk?” I ask with pleading eyes.

  “Of course, Theodore.” Trazuline appears as an uncle, generous and kind with his time.

  “I mean, really talk.” As he nods, I am full of shame as I admit to the king my weakest moments in the prison, saying, “I was in a position where I had to give some information away. I omitted what I could, but I did blab out some secrets.” I was thinking back, although the prison gave me no choice, I was still accountable for what I did.

  “It’s okay,” Trazuline says warmly. “They are the Council. They’re supposed to be neutral. In my opinion, it’s no different than giving true testimony in court. How can I blame you? Theodore, I know that you will always do the right thing.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mariah pops in my ward and asks, “Are you guys done with him? Can I have him all to myself now?”

  “Sure. I don’t see why not,” the king says, as he leaves.

  “Hey, Mariah. I saw a Dieton in my cell? I am sure of it; isn’t that strange?”

  “No... not at all actually.” She was reflective, meaning she wasn’t in the know as to who planted it there.

  “That gutless warden totally lost his cool. I pushed him to the boiling point. The warden ordered a guard to remove my temporalysis.”

  “What? They removed your temporalysis? You must have really pissed him off. Wow!”

  “Yeah. He goaded me into a fight, I got under his skin, and he just lost it. The timing of it was insane. Did you even know that he was about to kill me off?”

  “Rangier Central Intelligence was monitoring you with the tiny disc—the one you hid under the nasty ash pile in the corner of your cell—so, yes. We were ready to rescue you anyway, but we had to accelerate our mission because we heard the death threats over the intercom.”

  “Not a second too soon,” I say.

  Mariah glanced down at my bedsheet. “Since I was released before you, I was able to listen to some of your accounts. I hope you don’t mind. It’s so—weird, to hear the events from someone else’s perspective. Any-who, King Trazuline’s army warped into Zeerowan’s airspace for your rescue, releasing hundreds of hybrid fighter jets to support your release. We were jamming and intercepting communications to the warden while he was fooling around in your cell. The Opposition was supported by fire, and well Lincoln was the typical one man wrecking squad.”

  “Where is the rest of the crew?”

  “Preparing for the races. Will you be up to it?”

  “Hell yes! I need some time to relax.”

  The door opens and in walks a Drita Phychiatron, a Rangier-designed robot used for debriefs of battle-scarred casualties. Its program focuses on providing rehabilitative psychological assistance. She was slender and moved robotically, but her body was a wonderful representation of a human woman, alluring and doctor-like. Her human features were artificial, probably made of silicone and other inorganic materials.

  “Hola Mariah. ¿Le importa si hablo a solas con Theodore?” Drita asked.

  “Yeah. No worries.” Mariah then turns toward me. “I can’t have you all to myself it seems.” She turns back toward Drita. “I prefer English, when I am around my English speaking friends. Thank you.”

  “Mariah.”

  “Yes, Theodore?”

  “When I was down. I had a nightmare, and hell, I can’t even feel what’s real in my head or just...” I inhale and then exhale deeply “...or just crap mangled and jammed in by some damn Omnian.”

  “You’re scaring me, Theodore.”

  “This nightmare, it was as clear as you appear before me now. Odion was standing over me. He placed his cold six fingers of one hand on my chest and he said, ‘I’ll be waiting.’“

  “I’m sorry, Theodore. But I have confidence that if you do meet him again, his neck will be at the thrust of your sword, on your own terms.”

  “Thanks,” I say, reassured by her absolute confidence in me.

  As Mariah is walking out the door, she says, “ Oh, and you should know. The mission to rescue you... it would have never happened if it wasn’t for Lincoln. He surrendered to the Council for an inquisition, after your incarceration. He gave us the blueprints of the entire prison. We didn’t even know the planetary rock the prison was on! He pinpointed the location!”

  “Well, he is the messiah.”

  “Theodore. It’s just a title, and you are both more than just a title.”

  “Wait. Has anyone discovered Lincoln’s whereabouts?”

  “Nope. He’s gone again. Kinda gives new meaning to the missing Linc, doesn’t it?’ Mariah says as she passes through the door frame. As she exits, the two door panels slide inward and lock.

  Drita steps into my field of view and asks, ‘How do you feel about that? About Lincoln taking off, when you might need to talk to him about your traumatic ordeal?”

  I release a tiny laugh and say, “Years ago, my grandfather told me that a man’s bond with a friend rises from his desire to protect him. Lincoln and I share that desire. So I’m okay with him taking off. I know he’ll come back to see me.”

  “Heartfelt. Well Theodore, I am supposed to ask, and usually messiahs don’t care to take this opportunity, but do you want to take a leave of absence? I can put forth a request instantly.”

  “Hmmm. Yes, but after Odion’s death. Earth, two weeks, with all of my crew. Somewhere secluded.”

  “You got it.”

  23 THEODORE & DAN: GARDUNGEN’S PEAK

  Theo

  We are aboard the ship, Freebird, soaring across the Karshiz desert. I stare through the observation screen. My foot itches and I scratch it. Liam is talking to me, but I am daydreaming again and his voice sounds filtered.

  It was good to be back on the planet Karshiz—home of King Trazuline and Nilo. I recalled my many adventures on this arid, desert-like planet. My crew was imprisoned here—ironically, inside King Trazuline’s palace when he was still maintaining his façade as Zane’s lieutenant—when I turned away with a clean break from Zane aboard the Uriel. And recently, when I had to rescue Liam from the band of Skiorfs.

  “Theodore. Is everything alright?” Liam asks. He asks me again, as I am unresponsive. “Theodore. Is everyth—”

  “Yes. I am just thinking about Lincoln.”

  “Let us focus on the race. You know how amazing Dan is at rail riding and sand surfing. This will be a good relief[1] .”

  “Nice try... distraction? Really, Liam?” I ask. “I’m excited, even though, it probably doesn’t seem like it.”

  “Theo?” A slender hand with soft fur like the inside of a leather glove strokes the recently trimmed hairline on my neck. Goosebumps travel up my neck, making me shiver. I feel her hands massage my shoulders. “You okay, Theo?” Princess Tezmarine asks. I turn to look at her; she kisses my lips. She is Karshiz like Trazuline, her father. She is looking especially irresistible today. I can always lose myself in those eyes.

  “I just miss Lincoln,” I respond.

  She is so predictable, in a good way—always calming. “You’ll see him again. I heard he was campaigning all over Sephera,” she says nonchalantly, as if there are more important news out there.

  “What!” I shout.

  “That’s the rumor,” she says. “Let’s go, we’re here.”

  “No-no! Tell me more,” I demand.

  “People are talking. I’m the daughter of the King of Karshiz, so I hear everything. Ok
ay-okay. I heard Lincoln was flying all over the biomes of Sephera, gathering people to fight the Dacturons.”

  “Odion’s going to lose! Gosh, I hope this is true.”

  “Relax. Don’t jump to conclusions. Come on, we’re here and I’m dying to see this year’s race.”

  “We have to hurry or will miss Dan’s debut,” I say. “Let’s go!”

  Liam tugs away at my shoulder. “C’mon, I can’t miss this!”

  The hatch lowers. We are on an air lot, which contains over three thousand docking stations. After taking a few flights of decorative stairs, we step on a hover platform that brings us to ground level. As thousands of people—and space beings—stream past us, I can feel the crackle of racing excitement in the air.

  The announcers are playing on a reel, at the front gates, on a plasma screen. “Welcome to the one hundredth sand surfing competition! This is your host and entertainer, your snob-gabbling dinky town masquerader and word trader. You voted for me and now you have me: Chati-fo-sho! I bring you the most fierce sand surfing competition. You have never known action until today. Oh-do-we-have something for you-you-and-youuuuu! Ha-ha.’ Walking under the gate to present my ticket, he just will not let-up with his flamboyancy and shiny space-trendy shoulder projections. ‘Yes you! And if you think the dunes were wild before, if they drove you onto the edge of your seat and to your feet, you are going to die from anxiety. The battle begins now!”

  An Elon voice follows, making an official announcement: “All riders check in. All riders check in. Ten morgets until launch.”

  “Theodore! Tezmarine! Over here!” It was Mariah. She was dressed in traditional lightweight Karshiz clothing, a white toga and some sandals that weaved up her ankles.

  “We have like twenty minutes. We need to find Dan.”

  “Relax Theodore. All we need is for you to lose your cool,” Mariah says.

  “Lose my cool, hah!” I say.

  The race culture is a living and breathing dream, one that is given away by the body odor and unique flowery perfumes of a thousand passing spectators, caramelizing under the broiling heat. I feel like I am part of something amazing, just by being here.