Sa'lok

by Elin Wyn

  I clung to him in the darkness. At some point, our light went out, but I didn’t remember when. I traced the faintly glowing lines of his circuits.

  Now that I had him, I’d never let him go.

  Sa’lok

  We lay in each other’s arms, and we didn’t say a word for a long time. We merely sat there and enjoyed the silence, the steady rise and fall of Teisha’s chest all I needed to know that we were in the clear.

  Clutching her hand in mine, I kissed her forehead and closed my eyes. It should’ve been impossible, but Teisha had warded off a Gorgo infection.

  No serum, no cure, no anything. She used nothing but her sheer will to defeat the parasite inside her.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked her, and this time I didn’t feel a pang of anxiety as I waited for her answer. Slowly, she turned around and looked me in the eye, a smile drawn across her lips.

  “Tired,” she admitted. “But I feel good. I really do.”

  “You think you can walk?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Laying one hand on my shoulder, she pushed herself up to her feet. She didn’t stagger or sway.

  She merely stood straight and looked around, her green eyes peering into the darkness ahead. “I feel alive,” she continued, her smile widening. Offering me one hand, she helped me up to my feet and then patted the front of her jeans, tiny clouds of dust bursting into the air.

  “It should’ve been impossible,” I said, still trying to process all that had happened. “To fight off the Gorgo by yourself, it’s…” I trailed off, not sure of the word I wanted to use.

  My first impulse was to describe it as a miracle, but that would’ve been wrong.

  Teisha had pulled through an unwinnable situation. It was possible her earlier exposure to the serum had acted as a form of inoculation.

  Still, the credit was all hers.

  “You were right, Sa'lok,” she said. “Eliciting the right memories is the key to fighting off a Gorgo infection.”

  “Let’s just hope the serum will have the same effect on the general populace,” I said, thinking of Leena.

  By now, she should already have produced a few batches of the serum. With some luck, we could be close to putting an end to the Gorgo epidemic. And it was high time that happened.

  “You wrote the formula.” Taking one step toward me, Teisha went on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against mine, the sweetness of her mouth enough to make my heart beat faster.

  “It’s going to work, Sa'lok. Trust me.”

  I answered her with a nod. Truth be told, right now the only thing I cared about was the fact that she was standing in front of me, her eyes and smile as bright as they had ever been.

  “Now, let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  We kept on walking for the better part of an hour, cutting our way through the mountain as we looked for a way out. The tunnels, though, seemed to be going deeper and deeper, no alternative paths for us to take.

  We tried a few of the bifurcations, careful to mark our route just so we didn’t get lost, but it was useless—all paths seemed to lead deeper into the mountain’s core. Not just that, but they were also sloping up at a steep angle, forcing us to move toward the peak.

  Whoever had built this structure and carved these tunnels, had done so with the belief that something important was at the top.

  “Does this mountain never end?” Teisha asked after another hour of walking, raking one hand over her face as she leaned against one of the walls.

  By now, they had starting slanting inward, which meant we had to be close to the peak. I just hoped that my theory wasn’t wrong, and that we weren’t walking toward a dead-end.

  “We should be close now,” I replied, even though I didn’t know exactly what we were close to.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I grabbed my comms unit and tried it once more. All I got was static; the walls were simply too thick.

  Usually that wouldn’t be a problem, as K’ver comms units had been specifically designed to work anywhere, but something in this mountain seemed to be interfering with the electronics. “Come on, let’s just keep going.”

  Leading the way, I kept on walking up the sloping path. The walls started narrowing in on us, and the ground angled up so much that I had to walk with both my hands on the walls just so I wouldn’t slip.

  Our pace was slow and tortuous, but we kept on going all the same.

  “Look, up ahead,” Teisha cried out from behind me, and I raised my eyes to see a faint glow in the distance. “Do you see it?” There was a narrow bend in the tunnel, and a warm light spilled from whatever was hiding at the end. Upping my pace, I held my breath as I navigated the curvature of the wall, then exhaled sharply as the narrow walls finally gave way to a spacious hollow chamber.

  The walls here were smooth, as if someone had polished them, and the ceiling had jagged, angular lines that culminated in a single point.

  Runes had been carved into the smooth stone all around, with even the rock beneath our feet covered in that strange Gorgo script.

  Those were just details, though. What really drew my attention wasn’t the architecture, or the thousands of runes covering the chamber. No, what really got my attention was the blinding orb of light floating right at the center.

  “What the hell?” Teisha muttered under her breath and, just like me, she shielded her eyes with the palm of her hand. It took us almost a minute for our eyes to adjust to the brightness, but once they did, Teisha started walking to the glowing orb.

  “Careful,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder and stopping her. “We don’t know what that is.”

  As I glanced at it once more, I realized the orb wasn’t exactly solid. Thousands of minuscule flecks of light were floating around the same point, and it was from them that the brightness emanated.

  “Can you feel it?” Teisha asked me, and I answered her question with a confused glance. I had no idea what she was talking about. Grabbing my hand, she pulled me toward the light, and that’s when I felt it.

  The tiny lights started swirling faster and faster, like wheels spinning around an invisible axis, and I felt a strange presence in my mind. It felt like there were bugs crawling underneath my thoughts, trying to unearth them.

  “It’s kinda like how it is with the Puppet Master,” Teisha whispered. “Except it’s different. I don’t know how to put it.”

  She was right. The experience was eerily familiar to what someone felt whenever they stood too close to the Puppet Master’s core. But while with the Puppet Master there was a feeling of warmth, right now I felt like sharp icicles were working their way into my brain.

  It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

  “Stand back.” Yanking on Teisha’s shoulder, I dragged her away from the light. The moment I did it, the bright sparks started moving around so fast that the light coalesced and turned into something solid.

  I could almost feel the weight of that bright orb, the oppressiveness of it bearing down on my mind.

  I didn’t know what we were looking at, but one thing I knew for sure: we had to get the hell out of the chamber before it was too late.

  The thing was, it was already too late. I was dragging Teisha back toward the tunnels when a deep rumbling voice filled the chamber’s hollowness.

  “Hello, Teisha,” it said, and I turned around to see the orb’s brightness flickering with the same cadence of the words. “It’s been awhile since I’ve met someone like you.”

  Teisha

  “Teisha Jovansen,” the voice continued, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end. “Step closer. Come into the light.” I didn’t exactly hear those words, but my brain processed them all the same.

  There was sound, but it was coming straight from the depths of my mind.

  Before I even knew what I was doing, I started walking toward the orb of light. I would’ve gone all the way, if it weren’t for Sa'lok.

  “Don’t,” he said, his fingers wrapping around my wr
ist.

  “I’ve heard this voice before,” I said, that buzzing sensation from before coming back to haunt me.

  “Yes, you have. You know me, child,” the voice continued, except it wasn’t a voice. It was the voice of thousands, endless living and breathing beings crammed into one self-aware conscience.

  I had heard that same voice coming out of the mouths of those that had been possessed.

  Somehow, I was talking to the Gorgoxians. “You’re full of surprises, Teisha Jovansen,” it continued, and it each time it uttered my name, I felt like hooks were being sunk into my flesh. “There aren’t many capable of withstanding me. But you did, didn’t you? You’re special.”

  “What do you want?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Why have you come here?”

  “To claim what’s rightfully mine,” it replied, and there was spite in those words. Hatred. “This universe used to be mine, long before you were born, and it shall be returned to me soon.”

  My eyelids fluttered, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I went down on my knees, a wave of nausea crashing against me, and then I saw it—millions and millions of star systems, as many as there were grains of sand on the beach, stretching from one end of the universe to the other.

  I saw the birth of life, the endless cycle of stars. I saw it all in my mind’s eye.

  “Teisha?” Sa'lok’s voice came to me, but it was distant. “Please, talk to me.”

  I could feel him holding my hand, but at the same time, it was as if we were standing on different sides of the continent.

  Inside me there was a deep thrumming sound, and I saw as a blanket of darkness stretched across the universe, swallowing up whatever spark of consciousness it could find. It devoured it all, gorging on life, and it grew.

  Oh, how it grew.

  “You see? Long before humans drew their first breath, I was already old. I reigned supreme.”

  There was a thick layer of rage coating those words, and each one of them popped into my head like fireworks. A searing pain took over the back of my head, and I gritted my teeth on instinct.

  “You won’t deny me what’s mine. No one will.”

  “You...you’ve been stopped before,” I managed to breath out. Underneath all those images flashing through my mind, there was something the Gorgoxians didn’t want me to see.

  But it was there all the same, and I yanked on that secret thread of knowledge as hard as I could. The pain suddenly stopped, and I saw how life had spread across the stars, tiny seeds of consciousness pollinating the universe.

  The Gorgoxians kept on spreading, too, but tiny lighthouses of life sprouted all the same, keeping the darkness at bay. “You are powerful, but there are others as powerful as you are.”

  “The Ohmex are insignificant,” it bellowed, and I thought my head was going to burst open.

  I opened my eyes, to see shadows dancing around the chamber, the orb of light turning red as blood, painting the walls with a murderous crimson. “They’ll fall, just like you all will.”

  “What is it talking about, Teisha?” Sa'lok asked me, his eyes round with concern. He could hear the Gorgoxians, but it seemed like only I was seeing these visions of so long ago. “Who are the Ohmex?”

  “The Puppet Master,” I replied. “It’s talking about the species the Puppet Master belongs to.”

  Swallowing my fear down, I looked back toward the light. “Why do you hate them so much? What have they ever done to you?”

  “They exist.”

  It was a dry answer, but I could see it was the truth.

  Somehow, the existence of something like the Puppet Master was deeply offensive to everything the Gorgoxians stood for.

  The two of them couldn’t co-exist.

  “Ohmex thrive on freedom. They inspire it in life around them, setting it free to grow and die as it pleases. The universe wasn’t meant to be a free place, child. It was born out of chaos, and only power will stop it from returning to chaos. Not freedom. The universe is meant to be ruled.”

  “You’re wrong,” I cried out.

  “Am I?”

  There was an undercurrent of laughter in its tone, almost as if it was mocking me.

  “Then why has freedom been yielding to power? I’ve traveled far, moving from planet to planet, and I’ve been sucking the Ohmex dry each and every time. They’re dying. The freedom they love so much will be the end of them. All the sentient races they’ve allowed to prosper have turned their backs on them, and their power has been sapped. All those lives they’ve protected throughout the millennia...it was all for nothing. Their time is over.”

  “That’s not true...that’s a lie,” I tried to say, but I was growing weaker.

  The chamber seemed to be spinning around me, and I had to close my eyes so that I didn’t throw up.

  I could feel the invisible tendrils of the Gorgoxians’ consciousness filtering into my mind, working hard to tear down whatever barriers I had in place.

  “Don’t fight it,” the Gorgoxians whispered, and I saw all of my memories being blotted out by a dark shadow.

  I tried to think of Syra and the twins, but the darkness had already gotten to them. In my mind, I saw nothing but an abandoned house, those I loved turned into dust.

  Gritting my teeth, I thought of Sa'lok, remembering the warmth of his embrace, but I was at the end of my rope now—after fighting off the Gorgo once, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep the rest of them at bay a second time.

  “Sa'lok, I don’t know if I can fight it.” I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could, my words coming out between raspy breaths.

  The headache had spread from the back of my head to between my eyes, and I was struggling to think straight. Around my thoughts there was that maddening buzzing sensation, as if a million wasps were trying to stab my consciousness into submission.

  “Yes, you can,” he tried to say, but his voice was so distant. I felt him pull me up to my feet, but the disconnect between my body and brain was growing at an alarming rate now.

  I was aware of what was happening around me, but at the same time, it was as if it was all happening to a different person.

  “Don’t give up on me, Teisha. You’re strong, you can fight it off.” Throwing one of my arms over his shoulders, Sa'lok turned his back to the orb of light and started dragging me out of the chamber.

  “You can’t run,” the Gorgoxians said, a thousand different voices erupting into laughter all at once. “You can’t escape me. No one can. You belong to me, every single one of you.”

  “Stop, please stop,” I cried out, my brain feeling as it was about to explode. As gently as he could, Sa'lok laid me down on the floor. “I can’t go on. I just can’t. But you still have a chance. You can go now, and you can—”

  “No, Teisha,” he cut me short. “I’m not going anywhere.” He didn’t say it, but I could read in his eyes the words he left unspoken—if this is the end of the road for you, it’s the end of the road for me, as well.

  “I love you, Sa'lok,” I managed to say. Cupping his face with both hands, I pulled him toward me and kissed his lips.

  If Teisha Jovansen was going to be wiped from existence, I wanted her last memory to be of how sweet Sa'lok’s lips were.

  Closing my eyes, I finally surrendered to the fatality of it all.

  This was the end, and it was—

  Suddenly, the walls started to tremble.

  I tried to keep my eyes open to see what was happening, but it was getting harder and harder to do.

  The long shadows of oblivion were already closing in on me, and I was too weak to fight them off.

  The last thing I remember seeing was a vine.

  Sa'lok

  Thick vines burst through the rock so fast they slammed themselves against the ceiling. Some were as thick as my torso, and they all seemed hell bent on tearing the whole place apart.

  The thickest one jerked back like a whip, and then it launched itself against the Gorgoxian light orb. Right be
fore it hit its mark, an invisible force pushed it back against one of the walls.

  “Come, Teisha, let’s get out of here,” I said, but she was already unconscious. I just hoped it wasn’t too late for her. Picking her up from the floor, I started heading toward the exit, but a few vines sprung up from the floor and blocked the way.

  Then, just a couple of seconds later, the arched ceiling of the tunnel in front of us collapsed. “Fuck,” I muttered.

  We had just lost our only way out, but on the other hand, if the Puppet Master hadn’t stopped me, Teisha and I would be dead by now.

  Turning on my heels, I watched as more vines burst out from the floor, all of them whipping hard at the crimson orb of light in the center of the chamber.

  Despite the Puppet Master’s best efforts, it didn’t seem like he could reach the strange Gorgoxian consciousness—every time a vine closed in on it, the lights started swirling faster and faster, and bright sparks of it jumped out from the orb to swat the vines away.

  “I need a little help here,” I cried out, hoping for the Puppet Master to hear me.

  I had no idea how he had found us, and I wasn’t entirely sure if he had managed to shake off the Gorgo infection in its entirety...but I had to hope.

  Without his help, we were as good as dead.

  “Run,” I heard his faint voice whisper inside my head, and only then did I notice a tiny little vine brushing against my wrist. “As far as you can. Don’t look back.”

  Right at that moment, the thickest vine started slamming itself against the wall, doing it over and over again.

  The rock cut into the vine, green sap dripped down its length, but the Puppet Master just kept at it. He only stopped when the rock finally cracked, creating an opening that allowed for sunlight to filter into the room. “Now, Sa'lok, go.”

  I didn’t hesitate.

  Keeping my arms tight around Teisha’s inert body, I made a run for it. My boots slammed themselves heavily against the ground, beads of sweat dripped down my forehead, and the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my own heart.