by Shay Zana
Fire.
Kitera’s eyes explode open from the burst in her head, the water stinging at her vision until she gathers herself enough to wipe it from her eyes. The ache returns.
Fire. Screams.
She sighs and shakes her head, hand going out to press into the shower wall, steadying the quiver that has abducted her knees. She focuses on that wall, ashen grey, speckled with glistening droplets of water, slightly reflective, mirroring an image of her palm.
Fire. Screams. Pain.
Kitera gasps and squeezes her eyes shut, crumbling into the wall, cradling her head. She begins to chant quietly in Nefnala, a riddle she remembers from her childhood. Memories cradle her mind as her hands cradle her skull. Honouring the mind within the skull.
She remembers singing the riddle as she runs through the forests of Nefnala, a young boy chasing her, vying for a kiss, so innocent and young. She squeals in laughter, glancing back to see him only footfalls from reaching her, calling for her.
“My Kiya, give me your kiss, my Kiya!”
She pokes her tongue out at him and slips from his reach, continuing to recite the riddle.
“Dance to our voice, Motherland
Wave to the stars and take our hand,
Send your light across the sky,
And together we will fly.
Our moons are high tonight,
Kissing your face with their light,
Smile with us as we fly,
Sing to our dancing, Mothersky.”
Fire. Screams. Pain. Death.
A small cry ruptures from her, smothering her forehead into the wall so hard that she feels her skull will crack. The memories of Olympus’ pain storm through her mind in a calamity, sinister claws scraping at her bone like nails to a chalkboard. Visuals scour over her, sounds screeching, smells rotten, feelings grating, the taste of it all rasping on her tongue.
She holds it in, teeth smashing into a grimace. But she wants to rave in a fit of destructive peak, just like the planet.
Just like the Demons.
A flash of new light surges in the curdling darkness of her knowledge.
Her environment shifts into a vibration of darkness, droning at her, numbing her skull, whispers growing to shrieks. Distorted faces surround her, growing out from the shower walls, clawing their way, screaming. They accuse her, eyes dark pits, weeping pungent blood. She shrinks away, the nerves of her back crawling as something grotesque makes contact with her skin. She flings around, pushing at their reaching hands, untangling their wiry fingers from her. She cannot escape!
“You did this to them, my Kiya.”
Kitera feels fingers lock around the back of her neck, rending her head toward the voice outside of the shower door.
Zivera. Pale and beautiful, but cold, silver eyes corrupted. Her white-blonde hair sways in a wind that is absent, a wind that speckles her skin with dots of blood.
“Ziva,” Kitera gasps out with strangled air, tugging at the harsh fingers.
“You failed them, sister. You gave them pain, and so now you will share it.”
She whimpers through her shrill fear as the hand at her neck gains strength and levers her body up, feet without surface. It is a vision! Just a vision! Her hands swat continuously at the lanky limbs and rigid grips, scratching at her, calling for her blood, pulling her into the wall. Closer and closer she is pulled, suffocating through the horde of bloody hands that grip her and shred her skin.
She finally screams.
She strains as they tug, feet finding purchase on the walls to push back. Slimy hands latch onto her ankles. Their strength is overwhelming, their sinews and veins exposed through ripped and decaying flesh. She yells as they wail, their vocals piercing, throats raw with jutting tendons and squirming muscle. A squelch through their muscle tissue, and out protrude gangly membranes, like the limbs of insects.
Oh, stars. She screams again as they worm at her, so near she can taste them, prying at her mouth, clipping onto teeth, writhing blood down her throat. Drowning her.
“Drink the blood of the fallen,” she hears Ziva whisper through her own gurgling sputters. The blood is thick, slimy and blistering her tongue with a metallic warmth. The hand throttles her as she gags, clogging up her airways as the hot blood slithers down.
“Kiya!” Boone’s voice from the other side of the bathroom door. The locked bathroom door. “Kiya, open the door! Kiya! Kiya!”
Her breath bursts from her lungs as she jerks her head back with an effort, regurgitating warm blood. “Boone!” Her voice cracks after a moist cough. “BOONE!” Something slashes through her back, tearing apart muscle and grating her spinal cord. She arches back in recoil, nerves screaming, sirens spurting in her, vision flooding red. Her body takes over, willing her hand to curl into a weapon, lashing out at a wailing face as it gasps at her throat, like a dying fish. Her fist splatters through the skull, fingers stretching out to sink into brain fluid, snagging onto something hot and pulsing. The wailing face wails louder, bursting her eardrums, but she cringes through it and snatches back her hand before the flapping mouth can bite at her neck.
The faces melt, the flailing limbs fall dead, their fingers releasing her body. They snivel at her and shuffle back through the walls. Her red vision falls to the lump of quivering brain in her palm, an acidic burn wafting up with the scent of burning flesh.
“Where are your gods, now?” Ziva drones darkly, a demoniac smile before also melting.
Blinking lights tear at her as she screams, her hand melting away to the bone.
Now, it is in her head, searing and poison.
“Kiya!”
Kitera slams her forehead to the wall. The lights explode. Her palms thrash at hot water, neck angling up to release a howl of cruel depths. She screams while her fists beat, not conscious of the reconstructed flesh. Her tears are hotter than the water as they join the flow, slipping down her cheeks as her body slips down the wall, leaving a trail of sorrow. She sinks into the shallow waters of the shower floor, drawing her legs close to her chest and nourishing her knees with broken sobs. The darkness cannot hide the scent of blood.
The stuttering notes of a hacked locking mechanism do not even register to her, nor does the swish of the door opening, or the rushing shadow that engulfs her.
“Fuck! Hey, hey, hey,” Boone repeats softly as he gathers Kitera’s naked body in his arms, sweeping her out of the shower and folding her to him protectively. She weeps into his shoulder, shivering and producing spasms of alien words from her mouth; her native language, he assumes as he carries her with him down to the floor. She continues to dig into him, keening loudly, body racked in terror, as he lowers himself down and leans against the wall, cradling her in his knees. Her head is bleeding, did she do that to herself? What did she see? He wishes the Zodiacs would stop tormenting her, she is breaking. The steam from the shower will keep her warm and hopefully comfort her, he thinks frantically as he holds her so tightly, as if any gap between them will endanger her.
After a while, Kitera’s body stops quavering, and she slumps weakly, drained and gone. If Boone’s cybernetic senses were not able to detect the life within her, he would have thought her dead.
“Kiya?”
She does not answer, and when he smoothes aside the bloody wet hair veiling her face, he discovers her sleeping.
THE DEMONS
Sleep had been the blissful blessing Kitera had needed. Boone had taken her to her quarters, and settled himself beside her above the blankets, arm draped protectively around her. He had taken up most of the room on the bed, and had ended up squeezing her to him in his sleep as if she were a teddy bear, but his warmth and the security of his presence comforted her. When she woke, so had he not long after, her stirring magnified in his senses. She had quickly discovered she was wearing his hoodie top, which was so oversized that it acted as a dress. He also patched up her forehead with elixir, and then fetched them both a coffee, its creamy consistency gliding down her sore throat, and
they had sat in silence until she assured him that she was fine. He let her keep the hoodie.
Really, he is more like a big brother to her, rather than a younger brother.
Now, Kitera quietly enters the starboard observation room, her usual meditation spot. The room is the least damaged in the vessel, just a few glyphs no longer glowing with Altair's entity, and the holographic stellarium is currently not operational.
Kitera had dressed herself in warm, concealing garments, feeling a strange coldness inside Altair, and wanting to cover her injuries. She wears a warm navy blue cloak draped loosely over herself, made of a soft, silky material that shimmers an iridescent white in the light. The feel of it reminds her of her innocent childhood on Nefnala, where she would ride the beautiful, slinking adek herds, her legs smoothing over their long abdomens of silken hide. Extracting animal hide is considered a sacred privilege, as her people only take such superficial material from the dead. Their numbers are small enough to not need to hunt for furs often.
She feels at the soft, silky material, reminiscing. A beautiful silver and gold design is weaved along the cloak, tribal in nature, but elegant and complimentary to her figure. She is barefaced, with no jewellery or body art. She is not in the mood to honour her body by decorating it in usual Cipher custom, not after the recent events, not after so many deaths. It would be disrespectful, to celebrate her physical form when so many others have lost theirs.
She approaches the transparent skin and peers out at the beauty of space, tilting the hood of her cloak back from her head. She finds herself captured by the many stars and the depth of the black amidst them. It is an ocean, an ocean of life, of power, of eternity, and an ocean of the gods and their cruel power.
“Lu Asta.”
Kitera gently lifts her hand and presses it to the window, tracing a line of stars in the distance and seeing the faint glow of cyan entity trail behind her fingerfall, Altair reacting to her touch. She smiles, her heart warming with love for Altair, and the very reality of having the sentient ship back just beginning to sink in. But why did she not know it still lived? Why did the Zodiacs not inform her of this?
"Gods of all stars," she summons gently, her stare distant, as if speaking to the stars themselves. "I need your guidance. We need your guidance desperately, for without it, we may all perish."
The Cipher lowers her head as her own words strike deeply, reaching for the pendent that always brings her comfort. With determination, she picks her head up, sucking in air through her nostrils. She sits, crossing her legs beneath her, her cloak gathering around her like a blooming flower. "Nemura na’at ek," she asks for help in the tongue of the Nefnala. "Nemura alaf ek naatil. Kitana ze’anduina."
Kitera closes her eyes slowly, feeling a sting in her eyeballs from her tiredness, but it soon passes. She relaxes all of her muscles, clasping her hands together comfortably on her legs as she sits. Taking deep, slow breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, she begins to feel herself drift as her mind clears of all thoughts. The light of the space beyond slips to a fade. Her body is no longer a part of her, only her mind exists now, free and transcending. All the normal background chatter of her mind is gone, no longer is her brain constantly racing with thoughts, memories or feelings. She has tapped into her subconscious, nothing on her mind, clear and pure. She is one with the Zodiacs.
All her primitive senses conform into one, to not see, hear, feel, smell, taste, but just to know. Just the ultimate sense. To sense.
For what feels like an eternity, she battles for gravity in the mist of her mind. Darkness foils her escapes to beyond, and light eludes her seeking reach. Pathways cross and entwine, rivers of memories flow unchecked, until a great entrance lights her way, like the hands of her gods.
She senses something she does not expect. Guidance. Not the presence of the Zodiacs themselves, but their guidance none-the-less. The pressure, a growing hunger in the distance like a stalking predator. Like metal grinding against metal, the shriek of the damned, flesh squelching and sinews strangling. Dead meat, wasted mass, empty shells.
The birth of shadow, growing in darkness, grasping at power, tearing through a portion of reality, breaking apart life and crawling their way into a place they do not belong.
The Demons.
They are another race of gods, existing at the peak of another existence, pulling at the threads of another dimension, forcing their way through, challenging the Zodiacs.
Kitera's eyes spring open, the whites dominating, and she draws in her breath with a quiet hiss, her lungs suddenly swimming with air. She can sense so many things, terrible things, things that were, things that are, and things that will be. It is inexplicable to her, the raw, infinite power of these gods.
Another dimension, cold, lifeless, empty, a void of dark. There they exist, at the apex, the pinnacle of evolution, dominating that universe. But they will not stop there. They campaign onward, crushing as they go, seeking to dominate all universes and their stars.
The infinite expanse of dimensions.
They are breaking through. Scattered Planet, the one galaxy that was part of no specific dimension, but melding with all at the origin of time, the birth of the gods. Here, they begin their campaign of devastation.
Now she knows what the Zodiacs are afraid of, these evil beings which she simply comes to name Demons, who crusade through the stars of dimensions, killing all life, distorting all nature and its code, and defeating all gods who fight to protect their dimensions.
The Zodiacs are warring with these Demons.
A war of the gods.
PART II: THE WAR
WE ARE STARDUST
The crew quarters inside Altair are just as they were before. Calm, serene, dark, and emanating a more dim cyan glow than the rest of the ship, just as soothing as the sea on a windless day. Natheus waits in the doorway, not sure what he is waiting for, but waiting.
The violent destruction of Olympus still echoes through his eardrums. He can still hear the roaring of the planet, the rumbling of the skies, and the sickening reverberations of the ground. He is sure neither Serenity nor the UEU have any weapon that can cause such events. Truly only gods can be capable of such power, yet Kitera insists that the Zodiacs are not responsible. She said that their entire dimension was being torn apart. What did she mean by that? Surely other dimensions are just myths, a question in science that will never be answered. And even if other dimensions do exist, are they alternate realities or parallel universes?
The two terms are often referred to as the same thing, synonymous, but in other meanings, they are not. An alternate reality is a variant of one’s own reality, the same, but taking different paths. A parallel universe is more general, and has no specific connections with one’s own universe, and the laws of physics can be completely different or reversed.
Natheus frowns as his mind races, consumed by his never ending thoughts. Which is it? An alternate reality, or a parallel universe? She used the word 'dimension,' so maybe it is something different, something no myth has told, and no scientists have even pondered upon.
Or maybe he is thinking too much into it.
Slowly, as if the thought has drained all of his energy, he moves from the doorway, placing silent steps toward the bed where he sleeps. He reaches at the metal cabinet beside the bed, and his hand picks up a small, slick device, holding it carefully in his large hand. He keeps all of the footage of him and his wife on this device, and he had regretted that after it was thought that Altair had been destroyed.
Now, as the visual memories are back within his grasp, he opens his datakey with a lazy unfolding of his palm and begins to transfer all of the data from the device into his datakey via his neural-root. He should have done that from the beginning, and now it is a lesson learned.
As it transfers, he sees images of his wife flash over the screen of the device. Her wavy chestnut hair, her olive tanned skin, and her beautiful brown eyes. Ten years apart. It seems like a lifetime, but he
still loves her, with all of his heart, and he hopes she does too.
"Nath? Where have you been?"
Natheus turned to see her approach, her eyes glistening at him in the sunlight. They were on Earth, in Utopia, the suspended City of the Ciphers. The small skycity could relocate to any place in the world. Only Paragons, dignitaries, and their families or trusted friends were allowed into Utopia. It was sacred.
"I had to speak with my Cipher. I'm sorry I left without waking you."
She smiled and tucked a disobedient strand of hair behind her ear, moving up behind him to wrap her arms around his waist, and if he was not so tall, she would have liked to rest her chin on his shoulder, but instead she could only press her cheek into his back. "What did your Cipher say?"
He placed his hands gently over hers. "That I am not to make my Sacrifice yet. It's just a hunt, to recruit another Paragon child."
She was secretly glad that he was not being sent to make his Sacrifice. She did not want to lose him, not yet, and she was not sure if she ever would be ready to lose him. "That's a shame," she lied, knowing that the honour of the Sacrifice meant everything to the Paragons. Such an indoctrinated culture, she thought, but of course she had never told him that. "But at least you get to come home again, to a woman who loves you."
Natheus turned then, twisting around in her arms as she kept them around his waist. "Yes," he said, his hand caressing her soft cheek, seeing the slightly freckled complexion under her suntanned skin. She smiled and looked to his lips, and he got the message, leaning down slightly so that their lips could meet.