Chapter Twenty Three
When Drellic regained consciousness, after witnessing the stripping of Siren’s atmosphere, courtesy of the Architects, he discovered that he was still weightless and floating within a pulsing orb of the same black and scaly skin, he had been staring at in the Siren sky, for the last hundred years.
A moment later, he heard a man’s voice call down to him; a voice belonging to neither the ambassador nor the High Overseer.
“Drellic Kail; a pleasure to finally meet you,” said the voice. “I’ve been told by my superiors that you were the first human to ingest the blood of our great ancestor and creator. As a result, you cannot be killed as easily as other members of your species. You Drellic, I’m told, are a rare breed. I like rare breeds. I like challenges.”
“As do I,” Drellic boasted, while squinting at the emerald light shining down on him, struggling to catch a glimpse of the alien speaking to him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“During the short time you have left to live, you may call me, Death. Because that is exactly what I am to you, Kail. I am your end, incarnate.”
“Really?” Drellic laughed. “I would’ve thought flying through an unpressurized environment, at four hundred degrees below zero, would’ve done the job. But I take it you can do better?”
“I can, actually,” Death boasted. “And I will. Starting right now.”
A split second later, a patch of the ship’s outer hull, just behind Drellic, split in two and instantly depressurized the chamber. Drellic was sucked back out into space a moment later, but was secured to the inside of the ship by a smaller tentacle, tightly wrapped around his chest.
The tentacle held him in a stationary position out in space for several seconds, before a layer of fire surrounded Drellic, causing the tentacle to instantly turn to ash. Drellic then kicked off the remains of the tentacle before they faded away and used his super speed to reenter the ship, before the patch of skin closed behind him.
“Impressive,” Death scoffed, still unseen and speaking from an unknown location.
“Thank you,” Drellic gasped. “What else do you have for me?”
“More,” Death simply replied.
With that, Drellic’s body was thrust upwards, through a long slimy tube and back out into space. The incredible rush of air produced by the ventilation system inside the tube, propelled Drellic out far beyond the reach of the ship, in a matter of seconds.
Upon being exposed to the vacuum of space again, the Starblood inside him did what was necessary to save his life and in turn keep itself alive. Drellic’s body reignited and water molecules from the disintegrating planet below were used to create a temporary atmospheric shell around him.
Eventually, Siren’s gravity slingshot him around the planet and back towards the same Planet Farmer that had launched him. And while the Planet Farmer’s skin had become resistant to the human body, the incredibly hot protective layer of fire and oxygen around Drellic, allowed him to reenter the ship unharmed. He then watched as the layer of skin he had passed through, healed itself and the compartment was sooner after, re-pressurized.
Upon his reentry, he found himself in a different part of the ship, where he was still weightless and alone in the dark.
“Very well, Kail,” Death exclaimed. “You leave us no choice. We wanted to do the honorable thing and give you a quick and painless death. But it would appear that that is not an option for you. You’ve become quite powerful. But you are not Aia. You are not invincible. You do have a weakness. And I believe that in time, the unforgiving environment of space will end you.”
Death only paused for another brief moment, then said, “So, by all means, Drellic. Take all the time you need.”
Seconds later, Drellic’s new environment on board the ship, became unbearably cold. He could feel his sweat turning into tiny icicles on his skin. The consciousness of his Starblood did its best to warm him and keep his heart pumping normally, but the temperature was decreasing too rapidly.
Finally, his heart froze, as did the blood in his veins. But the Architects knew he wasn’t dead. The Overseer knew quite well that the Starblood would return to thaw him out, unless the deep cold was kept constant.
Furthermore, Drellic could not be kept on board the ship. Even a constant state of one thousand degrees below zero, Fahrenheit, would not keep Drellic at bay forever; not unless he was suspended alone in deep space.
When all was said and done, the Overseer sent Drellic’s body out into space, encased in a block of ice; roughly the size of his body. Then over the next few hours, while Siren burned beside him, three Planet Farmers were used to build a giant sphere of ice around Drellic’s body; a sphere roughly the size of Tyrran, which would be the Architect’s next target. Bouldon and Kier-en had already been destroyed, long before this time.
Once the sphere was completed, it was carried by the Planet Farmers’ tentacles, to the edge of man’s solar system.
Unbeknownst to any Architect, Drellic’s mind had remained conscious throughout the entire experience. The Starblood had purposely shut down his body and was lying in wait, until the Architect fleet had left the region.
Once their mutual enemy was gone, the Starblood restarted Drellic’s heart and immediately used the water molecules in the ice around him, to create an atmospheric chamber at the center of the ice world.
A few days later, Drellic’s brother Daelon, who was doing his part to enact Drellic’s secret plan to preserve mankind’s legacy, discovered the ice world and attempted to save his brother. But he was killed by a single Planet Farmer, which was left behind in case such a rescue were attempted.
Once Daelon was killed, the Overseer knew that Drellic was the sole survivor of mankind; a survivor that had been successfully neutralized.
Drellic was never seen or heard from again, until he was discovered by a group of modern human astronauts from Earth, fifteen billion years later.
Epilogue
It all began with a dream. Only it was a dream that I had first dreamt when I was just a child, and space was only something I had read about in books.
When the first star fell, and the place of our birth was destroyed by the Great Nova, my grandfather brought my mother to the new world.
She fell in love with her new star, her new planet and her new future. A few years later, I came into her life. She said that was the moment she decided that everything was perfect.
My mother told me that on the day I was born, a second sun appeared in the sky, then vanished; as if Aia herself were welcoming me into the universe. But I searched the same sky every day for many years thereafter, having never seen it for myself.
My dream came as soon as I had abandoned my search for Aia. I dreamt of the second sun; a wayward sun, traversing the universe on its own, searching for something so simple and innocent that it could not understand how to obtain it.
I dreamt of a great sadness within the star and a longing to be heard; a longing all people feel when things are at their worst; or even at their best.
My dream repeated each night for many years thereafter. It then came to me less frequently; until finally, it came to an abrupt end, last summer’s eve. That was the last time I saw my wayward star.
Most people who write these days, are more interested in the future than anything else. Where are we going? What will happen next?
I, on the other hand, write to uncover and understand the past. I want to know how I came to live here; in a galaxy so far away from the one we came from.
People used to believe that mankind began on Earth, in the Milky Way, three million years ago. But Daelon’s Talin and Drellic’s thirst for revenge have both taught us that Earth and Mars, originated in a galaxy, that has been nonexistent for ten billion years.
Now, one million years after Drellic’s death, no one cares about the billions of years of human history that predate the original estimated age of the universe. But I care. I care, bec
ause she cares.
Even after the last human being takes his or her final breath, she will still be here. She will be the light that guides the beings of the future; the ones who will determine whether the universe will be either a beautiful or vile place to live.
It was when I realized that about her, that I realized the point of my recurring dream. I realized that even someone as powerful as Aia, needs a friend. Her sadness comes from eons of regret and having no one to share those feelings with.
It must’ve been that thought that called to her. Because on the day I decided to start writing about Drellic’s return to Earth, the Shadow Colony, the end of Tyrran and the end of Siren, I saw it. I saw the second sun. And I think I was the only one who did.
I was sitting in a diner, sipping coffee and writing about the Hades mission to Charon that unleashed Drellic upon the Earth, when I saw a tiny star fall into the desert, outside my window.
The impact produced a blinding light and a wall of sand that completely erased the sun in a bright and cloudless sky. But when the light faded and the debris settled, a little Caucasian girl appeared, standing alone in the parking lot.
She had curly brown hair, freckles and was dressed in a gray dress and matching blouse, as if she had just escaped some hellacious private school. But I knew who she really was; even if no one else had noticed the incredible celestial event, which had just taken place ten feet from their booths.
When she walked into the diner, a waitress spotted her all by herself and asked her if she needed help. She then pointed to me and said, “That’s my dad.”
I smiled and waved and pretended to be overjoyed. But I was frightened to the core. She may have chosen the form of a well-mannered ten year old girl to put my mind at ease, but as anyone who has read these stories knows, an encounter with Aia is not to be taken lightly.
Even after she had me sitting there for hours and told me everything I had ever wanted to know, about the missing five billion years of human history, I was still scared for my life.
It wasn’t until I asked her about the Architects, and their true form that I was so captivated by her explanation, that my heart finally stopped racing.
“Tell me,” I said. “What did they look like? I mean, really.”
She didn’t say anything at first. She just innocently pointed up at the ceiling, as if she were trying to change the subject.
When I looked up, following her finger, I saw an ordinary housefly bouncing around in a corner; aimlessly searching for god knows what.
I didn’t understand it at first. But then I remembered what she told me about the Emerald Flies. I never understood their place in the story, until she pointed out the housefly in the diner, that day.
That was why they used those holograms. I would imagine that a tiny insect would have a hard time communicating with a human being, without vocal chords; not to mention a form of telepathy only compatible with other Architects. Hence the mysterious night terrors and unfortunate deaths.
So, I suppose that my story is now over. There’s no more to tell. At least, that’s what she tells me. But I’ll always be proud of myself for my final words to her, just before she vanished into thin air.
As she was leaving, she turned to me and said with a smile, “You’ve been waiting for me, for a long time.”
To which I replied, “Actually, I think you were waiting for me.”
“The Narrator
The Spiral Times
THE END
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks, go to the following people; without which, this work would have never been completed:
My good friend, co-worker, and the greatest romance author of all time, Theresa Marguerite Hewitt
My brothers in Aspired Infliction
My dad, for introducing me to this wonderful genre
Jeff Wacker, Jeff Naish, and all those who have been reading along and supporting me, since the beginning of “Sci-Fi Tales”!
Robert Jason Rupert, to whom this work is respectfully dedicated (RIP)
Dedication to Robert Jason Rupert
Although Rob and I were never close, I still saw a great deal of him before his passing and grew to really look up to him, as an artist, philosopher and musician. I’m eternally grateful for the time I did get to spend with him and all that I had the opportunity to learn from him. I know that many of his closer friends, feeling the same way, may read this. To all of you, I can only say that I was deeply affected by Rob’s untimely taking, and that I hope this small gesture of dedicating my tale to him, is well received.
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The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 78