by Gann, Myles
“I’m nobody, remember?”
She smiled as the generators at the campsite ceased churning and the remaining remnants of light blackened in an instant. “Everybody is here, then.”
Her skin felt the constant friction of his hand running up her arm and around the back of her neck. She felt her feet leave the ground suddenly and her bare toes were soon digging into the cloth top of his shoes. Alice could feel his eyes looking into hers. ‘What are you feeling? It’s been so long since—’
“Remember? Like last time. I’m still nobody, just like last time. How many events can possibly fill up fifteen months and nine days? I’m not sure, but I think every single moment until now, I’ve had somewhere else to be. I’ve had someone else to talk to or some other thing to correct. There was always a piece of me…my past. I couldn’t shake it no matter how hard my spine tingled or how fast my feet flew. You took my past away, and I was left with a stable void inside, a black hole that didn’t destroy. It didn’t eat or drink, but any time I saw you, it extended like my power, and I suddenly forgot that I was human. I forgot the need for breath, the taste of food, and the way to feel. Everything we ever experienced together was through a warm filter that made your entire world sparkle, and that’s all that matters.”
His warm exhale pillowed above her head. “Why are you saying this?”
Alice felt his face fall to the flat of her head. “Tomorrow, I’m going to be everywhere at once. There will be a moment when I fight where every action in the world will suddenly be relying on mine. That’s why I’m treating this like the last time I’ll ever have nowhere else to be. That’s why I have to tell you that I do love you.”
Alice’s air escaped too quickly and her head was light. There were no thoughts strong enough to permeate the buzzing warmth consuming every sense and encapsulating the ever-long second of speech. Her hands moved down each arm. “What’s this?”
‘Porous cloth, wet on his wrist.’
“I don’t have my power anymore.”
Alice rebounded from his chest. “What? What’s that have to do with this?”
“I had to test it.”
‘Cut his wrists. Suicide.’ “He didn’t come out?”
“I had to stop the bleeding myself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Caleb gently pulled her closer. ‘You haven’t said you love him back….’ “Either way, it’s not responding.”
“You can’t go, then.”
“Don’t”
“Don’t what? You’ll die.”
“Please don’t give me a choice.”
She looked up, barely seeing his closed eyes. “You always have a choice. You taught me that.”
“And it’s true until you’re faced with something that needs to be done. I can’t leave now. My heart and brain have been screaming at me for days now to grab your hand and to run as fast as I can away from this and live anywhere, but I…can’t. Alice, I can’t. The world placed this in front of me, and I cannot run.”
“You’ll die against him without your power, won’t you?”
“I…,” Alice felt his hand flinch on her wrist.
“No more protecting. Tell me the truth.”
“The truth is of the moment. You and I are the truth of this night. The truth of the future is never certain.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s the system this universe offers us. There is a chance that I will die tomorrow, and that I’ll live. That we’ll be victorious, and that we’ll fail. The truth is that I will not stop or back down or run away because I will do anything to make this world right for you.”
“You can’t make this about me.” The moon rose slightly above a cluster of bushes and finally shown enough for Alice to see Caleb’s face. His energetic eyes were concealed behind locked lids while the stiffness of his cheeks was undercut by the swollen bags beneath each eye. “Open your eyes.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“Why won’t you open them?”
“You don’t trust me?”
“You’re hiding something else. I won’t let you protect me.” Caleb slowly opened his eyes. “They’re tired…and scared. You’re so scared. Caleb…,” ‘Widespread fear. Every rounded corner of his pupil is pleading with me to stop this any way I can. Please, don’t be scared. Don’t let him be this scared.’ Alice reached up to the rising moon and pinched her fingers. “There. This night will last now since I’ve got the moon. There’s no reason to look like that. To be that scared of something that’s not going to happen. We’ll just live in this night forever. Okay?”
Her hand only remained raised for a bit before Caleb gently pushed it back to her side. “Don’t stop the night, or the moment that is coming next. Nights like these are sublime…. They’re perfect. They’re worth fighting for.”
“Why did you tell me that then?” ‘He doesn’t know what you’re talking about.’
“Because I wanted to tell you how much of my soul you really have at your disposal. No matter what happens tomorrow, it’s all yours. Every bit of it the world hasn’t already claimed.”
Their hands dropped and Caleb quickly turned. “Where are you going?”
“Early day tomorrow. You should sleep too.”
Her hands gripped at her long shirt. ‘But I have so much to tell you….’
- - -
“Are you awake?”
Alice rolled over lightly. She heard the soft breath of Caleb as he slept facing the same way as her, but nothing else.
“Please be awake.”
The blankets in her hand rumpled slightly and were pulled up to her mouth to muffle her whisper further. “You always used to come when I needed you. He told me you were gone, but I didn’t believe it. You really aren’t are you? You can’t be. No, you’re just waiting.”
As tears began to well unto her brims, Alice ignored them and continued to speak. “I’ve been hiding everything from him. I’ve done everything lately I told myself never to do. You could always tell him when something was good or bad, even if you were brash and pretended not to care. We always knew you did, and that hasn’t changed. Maybe you can’t trust me anymore because you know I love Caleb. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I can’t love-that you can’t just be a part of him.” She inhaled loudly and sharply. Caleb wiggled around a little as Alice held her breath and let the tears stream down to the blanket that was near tearing in her white hands. “I need you,” she whispered as softly as she could. “I need him back. We’ve been around each other but tonight was the first time in so long we looked in each other’s eyes and completely forgot what the world needed from us. He told me he loved me.” She bit down hard on her own teeth to keep from wailing. “He told me that the night before he could be gone forever because of you. Because he has so much courage in his heart that he’ll stand up to what you won’t. He doesn’t think you have a heart, but you have to. I know you do. The things you told me were beautiful and couldn’t ever come from a soulless monster.”
The wind blew through the tent.
She closed her eyes. “I need you to bring him back to me. I need him to see how much I love him and how I would do everything to see him smile like that again. I need to give him what he gives the world.” She couldn’t help but reach at the back of his shirt and grip a bit of it in her hand. “I need to tell him this. Just one more moment. Please don’t take that away from us.”
Alice rolled over and covered her mouth. Caleb’s breath remained even.
Chapter 27
Alice’s eyes opened as Caleb stood out of the bed.
---
Caleb stretched his arms and legs while keeping his eyes from the gathering convoy at the edge of the camp. He slipped into the large tent in the middle and back out, a bottle of water in his hand. The cap twisted off quickly and his mouth was full of the filtered cool, the volume of early morning flavor. Two small drinks coated his throat before
the rest filtered through his hair and wrapped around the top of his spine. He shook out like a wild dog, combing his lengthy bangs into haphazard straights to which his natural brown hairs shined against the orange stratosphere. The collar of his shirt stuck around his thin neck, but the refreshing cleanse of the small area kept his mind at ease.
He strode with his hands in his pockets back towards the gathering group and patted Stanley’s back. His friend cocked a gun and placed it in a holder with a smile before handing Caleb a scant vest that crossed over his heart. Various metal canisters hung every few inches and made a soothing chime with every adjustment to their situation. “What happened to your wrist?”
“Cut myself.”
“I thought you were a fast healer?”
“Were.”
Stanley gripped him hard where the vest buckled together and stared into his eyes for a long moment. His other hand came up and roughly shoved one end of the fastener into the clasp. “Alice is behind you in my world war two helmet. We’re moving out in a few minutes.”
Caleb smiled and swatted his shoulder again before taking a deep breath and turning around. He quickly walked towards her, careful to not look directly into her eyes or near her small frame. They came within a few feet of one another before he looked upon her, and he instantly cracked a smile as she snapped to attention, the helmet covering down to the tip of her nose. “Alice, reporting for duty, sir.”
He giggled slowly from somewhere deep in his throat before pulling her close. “Not a chance. You remember the deal.”
The helmet rose slightly as she planted her face firmly against his shoulder. “I know, I know, I was kidding. Although I could be a soldier cheerleader.”
He looked as far right as he could. “You’d lift their spirits.”
She kept her face completely buried for another second before pulling away, allowing the metal bill to smother her eyes in shadow again. “They’ve got you leading them. I don’t think their confidence could get any higher.”
“Caleb! This train will be back in a few hours let’s move out!”
Alice seemed to tense under Caleb’s tender grasp of her shoulder. His body stayed back, unable to brave some length between his mind and the need of the world. “Just like always,” he mumbled. “Alice….”
“You’re moving out.”
“There’s something—”
“That you’ll tell me when you get back.”
“What if there’s no coming back?”
Her hand sprung out and pulled him into another hug by two fistfuls of his shirt. “You are, silly,” she said with a shaken voice. “Go.”
He planted a kiss between the webbing of the metal helmet as she pushed him gently away, and as he back peddled, he said, “Only for you,” just loud enough for her to hear.
As he turned, Alice bit her lip and clenched her fists as two tears streamed down either cheek from beneath the helmet.
- - -
“You ready?”
Caleb looked forward to a pausing Stanley whose stride restarted next to him. “Will be.”
“At this point you either are or you aren’t. You can’t flip the switch back-and-forth this deep into it all.”
“Actually, yes, that can happen.” He took an unsteady drink of water. “You’re just along for the ride anyways.”
Stanley sneered at him for a moment as they climbed a short hill. “Don’t be like that. I’ve been on board for this entire thing, but what was I supposed to do? At what point do I walk up and say ‘hey, don’t do that,’ or ‘talk to me about this thing I don’t understand at all?’ Tell me when and where I went wrong, and I’ll apologize.”
The compound could be seen in the approaching distance. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then what are you mad about?”
“Have you come to do the right thing, or just to watch?”
“Heh, Caleb, switch places with me. Please, give me the chance to tear that bastard’s head off. Let me earn my legacy now.”
“Stanley, that’s not it.”
“Not what?”
“You’re choice.”
“What is then? Do I have one?”
“You can choose to forgive yourself.”
“What?”
They stopped and fell to the back of the group while Caleb looked at him directly. “Ever since the war, you’ve thought there was a larger shell that you had to fill to create a legacy. Not greedily, but you always felt that there was an obligation to the people that care about and know of who you are. There isn’t. There is who you are and what you’ve done. That never changes. If you want to be here, be here because it’s the right thing to do, not because of the hot air inside your goofy name.”
Stanley smiled for a moment, but his eyes soon averted and scanned the lush ground. ‘I learned when I took this little gold ring that promises have to be kept.”
“This will happen,” he said while a front line dropped into battle positions. “You will be here for it.”
Caleb departed from the back of the group as they all began positioning themselves for the initial strike. ‘No alarms yet,’ he thought while running through the trees, constantly correcting his path to remain parallel to the wall on his left. He hopped over a bush and landed; so began the waiting and projecting the best path to a service entrance fifty yards in front of him. ‘No way like the straight way.’
Deep thumps resounded, and the battle commenced at the front. Around the side, Caleb sprinted with his natural strength beneath the traffic of the focused moves of military soldiers. The door crashed inward, and a tensed Caleb found no one around. He sleuthed around the corner to see tremendous activity pointed at his guard. ‘They’re ignoring the back half. Stephen’s orders.’
He took a deep breath and pushed off the wall, seeing a straight path ahead of him with a heavy humidity condensing the air beneath an open lid. An open door was radiating with the feeling. As his frame partially filtered the light, he could see a standing, focused Stephen. “Close the door behind you.”
Caleb did as he walked in and adjusted the belt of grenades draped on his shoulder. “You sound normal.”
“Not for long. In a moment, I will sound like a stronger version of you. I’ll be faster, bigger, more experienced, and more focused. I will make massive echoes with my smallest steps. I will be the one with the mistakes of my past studied and restudied. I swear they won’t be repeated. I will be unstoppable, and when this is over and I am standing over your twisted body, you will finally see with your one good eye that I am what was always meant to survive out of all this.”
Caleb stretched and took a shuddering breath while carefully unclipping two flash bangs from his band. “If you say so.”
A small remote appeared in Stephen’s hands as they came from behind his back. His hand jammed a series of switches to their opposite setting and he grunted. Caleb pulled the pins on the grenades in his hands and felt his body relax in preparation for the next move.
- - -
A dust storm kicked up as Alice was yanking the laundry down from the clothesline and tossing it into the nearest tent. She shielded her eyes as best she could and thought wildly, ‘Is everyone else inside? I can’t see anything. No, wait, there’s a group of people.’ She ran up behind them between two massive gusts and tried to shout, “Get inside, everyone!”
Very few turned to acknowledge her as most were staring at the growing blue glow in the distance. It flared slightly higher, and the wind suddenly stopped; it seemed to curve around them all with the dust scrapping across some barrier mere feet above their head. Alice looked intently at the oncoming glow for long moments; each new stride, her mind attempted again to comprehend what she saw, but couldn’t. The crowd was eventually forced to part into two halves as her feet had grown numb. Between the two halves of the applauding crowd, Caleb stared into Alice’s eyes with an unconscious Stephen over his shoulder and a massive field of blue surrounding him. She kept her ground still. “Cal
eb?”
“Yes, it is,” Caleb’s voice said despite the blue aura.
“The Prince?”
“I did it for you. That’s all that needs to be said,” said Power in a distinctly passive fashion.
A few people took the limp body from his shoulder as him and her just stared; his eyes remained exponential while hers absorbed every bit of his inner lighting. “What happened?”
As the wind slowed, Caleb lowered his shield around everyone and stood. The sun broke from behind a cloud as he straightened, and three blue shadows appeared on the ground. “Doesn’t matter. Everything is finally,” his chuckle echoed, “finally right, now.”
His hands were held slightly up and open, and she gently walked until her body hit his and their arms completely surrounded one another’s body.
- - -
“‘I hope you have heard this story before.’ A man said that in a speech back in two-thousand-and-seven at his graduation. Perhaps he knew what those words meant, and perhaps he didn’t, but even in saying them, he caught the attention of anyone who listened. Why did he need it? Sure, it’s a great way to open a speech,” everybody chuckled, “but that couldn’t be the sole reason, could it? What else could a man possibly say to come to the defense of such a statement?
“Perhaps he did mean it one other way. It is possible that he meant it to say exactly what it says: ‘I hope you have heard this story before.’ That’s not something we’re used to hearing is it? People meaning exactly what they say…. Still, if he did mean it precisely as it is written, what does it mean? As the words state, it literally means ‘this isn’t about what I have to say.’
“Again, why? Because this is a man of action, a man that didn’t hate, didn’t discriminate, didn’t seek fame or glory, didn’t want money, didn’t want a handshake or a ‘thank you.’ This is a true foreigner: someone I could never follow or understand. This is a man that did what he did because the world needed it to be done. There is no conclusive evidence that this man ever stopped a dangerous domestic terrorist, or single-handedly ended the longest war in our nation’s history, or ever saved a single life, but he did, and not a single person in this room knows his name.