“Two minutes 30 seconds, Aliyah. You better try to find a way to save her or her death will be on your conscience, forever. If you let her die, then I very much fear for your soul.”
She was released from her holds. Dwayne walked away, and the Dark souls followed. It took her only a second’s decision to go after him or save the child. She went after the child.
“Huh, and she thinks I’m the predictable one? Pathetic,” Dwayne said to his followers. “You, possess the body I was in. Six of you stay here. The remaining five can come with me and watch how this finally ends.”
“Yes, Dark master. Should she succeed in saving the child?”
“Highly unlikely, but I guess you’ll just have to finish the job, won’t you? I can’t do everything myself. Just don’t fail.”
CHAPTER 39
Even though he’d said her spiritual energies wouldn’t work in water, she tried anyway, until she was panting in exhaustion. She managed only to open six inches, and this part of the lake was approximately 25 feet deep. She tried diving into the water, but the forces of the current were like flying in a tornado, and she couldn’t control the direction.
She looked around frantically for something she could control. A tree. She focused her attention on a branch probably 30 feet long. It cracked with the increasing pressure, but was taking far too long.
“Break!” she screamed in helpless rage, and it did. With a power she hadn’t known she’d possessed, fueled by the very anger and mindset Jacob had warned her against, she brought the branch to the place she’d seen the child drown, and submerged it deep into the water. Another 30 seconds passed. “Come on, grab it,” she breathed. “Please, please grab it. Don’t give up. Don’t let him win,” she whispered in agony.
Then she felt the pull. “Yes! Yes!” she cried out in excitement. “Thatta girl.”
She pulled the branch up as fast as she could until hands and arms emerged from the water, then brown hair, and a head that went limp as soon as it was pulled to surface.
“I’ll be darned. She actually did it,” the Dark soul that had possessed Dwayne’s former possession said in almost admiration.
“You heard the Dark master. She’s weak. Don’t let her escape, and don’t let the child live. She has to watch her die for his plans to work.”
Aliyah felt them coming – an ability she hadn’t formerly had, but then again, this was the longest she’d ever left her body in this world. It made her wonder what other abilities she might have. She entered the child with no resistance whatsoever, as the child’s life was fading, and swam to shore.
They watched the child, miraculously swimming, and still very much alive. “This isn’t good. Where’d she go? Can any of you feel her? I’m not getting anything.”
“No, I don’t feel her either.”
“Find her! I’ll take care of the child,” the possessed body said.
Once ashore, she went limp and laid there, while Dwayne approached. He leaned over her with raunchy cigar and rotted-teeth breath. “Sorry, little girl, but call this the final cut.”
Just as he was about to slice the child’s throat, Aliyah grabbed his wrist, turned the knife, then pushed his body down on it. The fact that she’d just killed a human that had been dark enough to allow Dark-soul possession didn’t bother her one bit. She ran the child’s dying body to the closest neighbor ¾’s of a mile away. Short legs made it take longer. She knocked on the door and said, once opened, “Save the child.”
“Who?”
“Me. Save me. Then find my parents. I was kidnapped. I need CPR to get the water out of my lungs.”
Then, to their utmost confusion, the child’s body dropped unconscious on their front porch.
***
The Light knight felt them coming and knew it was time. He prayed that Aliyah’s soul was all right. He believed in her. He trusted her. So he stood, tall and firm, in front of her body, looking all of the Light knight that he was, and waited for them to get there.
“Where is she?” the Light knight demanded when seven of them arrived.
“Aliyah? Oh, she’s currently having a change of heart, or more-fittingly, a change of soul. By far, my greatest accomplishment. I’m quite pleased. I could feel her hatred, feel her darkening, finally giving in to what she’s had inside her all along.”
“Then why are you here, instead of enjoying your victory? You cannot get to her body with me here, so don’t waste your time.”
“No? Not even when at the moment her family is being tortured and her son’s life is in danger? How much darker do you think she’d become if she finally took a chance on trust, and you all failed to keep her son alive and safe?” Dwayne threatened.
“My duty is to Aliyah, and only Aliyah. Those are my orders, and those are the orders I follow. The entire world can fall, but it would change nothing. I will continue to abide by my duty.”
“You may very well get your way – the world falling into eternal Darkness, that is, as Aliyah will never forgive you if her child dies. In fact, she’d hate you and never again believe in goodness or the High master. She may very well destroy him, herself, in her vengeance.”
“It’s not Aliyah’s soul I’m worried about, Dwayne. It’s yours. We will win, and your punishment for your treachery will be severe. You won’t ever be let out of imprisonment, ever again, and you will have to live with that for all of eternity.”
“Not with my new possession, I won’t.”
Aliyah’s knife made of stone imprisonment, white light, and the blue emerald, emerged from her body’s pants pocket and floated out of the Light knight’s reach, but still he refused to move away from her body.
“Ha ha,” Dwayne chuckled. “If you could only see your face. What? You didn’t think I knew what she was going to use to try to kill me?” Dwayne rapidly maneuvered the knife, threatening different parts of her body. “Where is it, Light knight? From which direction will it strike? How can you possibly save her now?”
At that, the Light knight jumped over her body, completely covering hers with his own. He felt the ice-cold blade penetrate his back. Once, twice, three times, and he cried out each time it entered him.
“Idiot. Apparently it didn’t occur to you that you can’t protect her if you’re dead. Enjoy your Orientation ritual. Perhaps you’ll be cleansed of your memory before you realize that you failed!”
Dwayne flicked the Light knight’s dying body a good fifteen feet away from Aliyah’s own.
***
Aliyah was moving as fast as she could to return to New Jersey, to the Light knight, to her body, when severe pain flared in her back, her gut, her chest.
“Oh no,” she cried.
Her only regret was her son. That she wouldn’t be around to raise him. The entire world probably heard her grieving, angry, tortured shriek.
Only then did she realize what Colton had been apologizing for. He must have told Dwayne about the blade from Otherland. But he would have only been able to tell Dwayne what Aliyah had confided, not what she hadn’t told him.
She landed fifty feet away and saw his Dark soul towering over her body, with the blade floating, glimmering, over her lifeless-looking body.
Dwayne felt her spiritual presence and looked up. “Right on time, Aliyah. I thought you’d have to be returned here in restraints to observe this moment, but you came of your free will. I guess you weren’t able to save the child. That sucks. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re not the only one who failed. So did your Light knight.”
Only then did she see his sprawled body, his white shirt entirely covered in red.
She pushed her hands forward, and knocked Dwayne over from his kneeling position.
“We didn’t fail, Dwayne,” she said shakily. She continued toward him. “You did exactly everything we wanted you to do. It was all a set-up. I’m surprised you didn’t suspect, what with me coming to you so willingly, but you’ve always been too trusting, Dwayne. You never stopped carrying that futile hope tha
t I’d finally give in to you.”
“What’re you talking about? What. Does. She. Mean?” he yelled to the other Dark souls.
The winds picked up, and parts of him began being pulled in by the knife handle. “What’s happening?” he said with alarm, trying to pull himself away.
“You thought you beat me, but you didn’t. You’re coming with me,” she continued walking forward, raising her voice louder and louder over the whipping winds and his angry, fearful shouts. “Any last words?”
“I don’t understand! I don’t know what’s happening? What did you do?” he cried, no longer the Dark master in control and all-powerful. He was actually quite pathetic in his fear, as she’d always known he was. That’s why he’d spent his entire life trying to compensate for it.
More and more of his soul was being entrapped in the stone handle.
“No. No! NOOOO!” he screamed.
“Dwayne, I win.” she said simply.
CHAPTER 40
The Dark souls fled, now without a leader. Aliyah returned to her body to feel the fleeting remains of human life, but instead, she felt perfectly fine. She sat up and looked and patted all around her body, looking for the wounds, but there weren’t any. Then why …? She’d felt it. She’d felt the punctures, the pain, everything, but her human form was so far from dying.
Jacob! She must have felt his pain. The love of her life. The only man-soul she had ever loved.
She grabbed the knife lying on the ground and pushed her weighted, human body to stand and run to him. She pulled him onto his back, and pressed her face to his chest.
The beat of his heart almost couldn’t be felt, but it was still there. There was still time. She pressed the blue-emerald on the knife against his wounds. Preservation. Purification. Holding tightly onto him, they quickly journeyed to Otherland, directly to the High master’s court.
She’d had to carry him, as he was nearly unconscious. She placed his flickering body gently down in the middle of the golden and white court.
“Please. Save him. … Father,” her voice so full of agony, of pleading, she hardly recognized it.
“Do you hear me? Save him! Please!” she shouted. “He’s done nothing but serve you his entire existence. He sacrificed his entire human life to be able to serve you. Reward him in return. Save him! He has no more memories. He is an innocent now. Let him finally live the life he’s never had.” Aliyah’s sobs echoed throughout the globed-room. Nothing to respond to her but for her own heart-wrenching pleas.
“You said I’m never alone. I’ve spent my life feeling unworthy of asking you for any favors, praying to you continuously like others do, asking for this, this, that, and everything else under the sun, acting like you’re nothing more than a genie that grants people’s wishes. I’ve rarely burdened you with human requests, human prayers. I ask you, no, I beg of you now, save him! Please … please,” and her final plea came out only as a whisper as she dropped her head in resignation.
“Everything is as it was meant to be,” the voice finally came, echoing throughout the court, demanding one’s respect and awe. But not Aliyah’s.
“Another cliché, are you serious? Is that all you ever speak in? You’re the High master. Can’t you do anything?!”
“You’ve always questioned me, Aliyah.”
“You’re right. I’ve never trusted you. You’ve spent your eternity up there, away from everyone else, looking into your crystal balls or whatever, watching things go on and allowing it all to happen, but Jacob? Jacob never questioned you. He always trusted you. He always believed. Up until his ending. And instead of rewarding him, you’re just going to let him die, so that then he can be your eternal Light slave. How fair is that? Don’t you even dare use another cliché and tell me life’s not fair. You see, you’re not the only one who knows things.”
“Oh, God, he’s dying,” she moaned. “And you’re just going to let it happen.”
Suddenly, she knew what she had to do, so she lifted her face, and said resolutely, “Take me instead. Let me die. That’s what I deserve. Not him, not him. He’s too good. He’s just too damn good, and I’m … not. And I know that, so just … please, if you have any mercy at all. Let his human body live, and take me instead. I can’t survive knowing he sacrificed his entire life and died for nothing. I can’t –,” she gasped with the clutching pain and a new onset of tears, “I can’t live without him.”
“You won’t have to,” He said.
Aliyah looked up with a brilliant smile into the blinding white, and began to giggle in her happiness, “You mean you’ll save him? Thank you. This means so much to me. I will never ever doubt or question you at all. Thank you!”
She waited for her Light knight’s eyes to open. Waited for his body to stop flickering. But when it did stop flickering, it wasn’t to return to human form. His body was gone. The Light Knight’s soul with its brilliant blue eyes floated into a standing position, while she remained kneeled on the floor.
“Wait, I don’t understand. You said – . You said you’d save him.”
“No, Aliyah, that’s what you heard. I said you wouldn’t have to live without him. Light knight, you have always served me well. You know now what you are to do.”
Aliyah looked up at his spiritual form as he beckoned her to stand.
“Jacob?” she whispered, while trying to stand on wobbly-legs.
The Light soul looked at her fondly, so much love in its eyes, then stepped toward her and into her. Aliyah fell to the floor, feeling pain – a fusion of what she couldn’t understand. At first, she resisted it, but then, for the first time in her life, she chose to stop fighting. She chose to give in. She chose to accept, and with that acceptance came peace, restful, quiet peace.
Her body became still as she just laid there, staring up into the brilliant light, her eyelids closing for longer periods of time every time she blinked.
“Sleep, little one. Joy comes with the morning,” were his final words she heard spoken.
***
“You need to rest. Then you will wake up with all the understanding you need. I love you,” she heard whispered in her ear.
“Jacob?” Aliyah said groggily, opening her eyes and finding herself lying on the cold, hard ground. She saw him beside her. “Jacob?”
She reached to touch his body, but it was as cold as the ground. A peaceful smile touched his lifeless lips. At least he hadn’t suffered in his death. At least, he’d found peace, she consoled herself.
Exhaustedly, she walked. Her body felt like a lead weight, and it was only will that kept her feet moving to the only place she wanted to be at the moment. With her family. Even though it was 2 in the morning, the lights were still on, welcoming, and even before she’d reached the door, it was being opened for her.
“Aliyah, you’re still alive. I’ve been so worried.”
“Mama, you called me Aliyah,” she said.
“Yes, that is who you are now. My grieving for Savannah has passed. I accept you and love you for who and what you are now.”
“Oh, thank God. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that I’m no longer her, and that I can never be her again.”
“We’ve been waiting for you. I kept the stove going all night. I can see in your eyes that you’ve been through something terrible. But I can also see a lightness in your eyes that wasn’t there when you were here earlier. That tells me something good happened, as well. You don’t have to talk about it right now. Get something to eat. Take a shower. Your bed’s all ready for you,” her mother’s voice soothed her.
“Mama, I appreciate all of this. I really do. But let the others have my old room. I can sleep on the couch.”
“Oh, honey, it may have been over 30 years that you were gone, but it doesn’t mean I ever stopped being your mother and paying attention to your needs. We’ve been quite busy today. Savannah’s room is gone, and it’s now my own. Your room – .”
“You mean I get to sleep in the big bed?” Aliyah said exc
itedly, like she was no more than a child.
Her mother laughed. “Yes, it is now yours, for you to stay in as long as you want. Jasper’s sleeping in there now, safe and sound, with three people at the door watching over him. We’ve been taking shifts.”
Aliyah grabbed her mother up in a hug. “Mama, you’re the best. Thank you,” she said tearfully.
CHAPTER 41
Aliyah woke up smiling, feeling completely comforted, and filled with contented and pampered feelings of being the most loved in all the world. With eyes still closed, she threw her arm around where Jacob was, and it plopped disappointingly onto the mattress.
Only then did she open her eyes to look at the empty space of where he should have been. For a moment, she felt the pain of his loss.
But only for a moment, as she heard in her head, “Rise and Shine, beautiful. Today’s a big day for us. We’ve got worlds to save and duties that only you and I can fulfill.”
This time, she didn’t grimace at the word duty. Instead, it made her feel good, like she had a purpose. She inhaled the sweet aromas of breakfast and coffee, which convinced her completely to pull herself away from the comfort of the bed and face the day, because there was no way she was missing breakfast.
Jasper felt the same, as he laid there, brilliant green eyes wide-open, waiting. He rewarded her with a huge smile when she peered over the bassinet. “Yeah, you and I are on the same page, love. We want the same thing. Food. I don’t know how you went without it for nearly 12 years. In this world, it’s heaven. At least, it will be when you can finally get off of that yucky formula that stinks like sweaty feet.”
Aliyah entered the bustling kitchen, carrying Jasper.
“Good morning, sweetheart. I hope you slept well. Have a seat.”
“Mama, I’m a big girl. I can get my own coffee and breakfast. I don’t need people catering to me.”
“Oh, hush, it’s the least we can do. When you’ve got a daughter and family member responsible for great things in the world, it’s a true honor to be a part of that. The rest of us in this family have to do what we’re good at, even if it means serving you and letting you gather your strength for what you’re up against. Sit,” her mother demanded while handing her Jasper’s bottle.
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