Life-After

by J. A. Laraque

  “David…” Clara said. “You escaped.”

  The streams of light continued to pour in covering everything in light. As Clara drew closer I could see she was the one from before. The tear in space expanded out swallowing the darkness. I was surrounded by pure energy, various colors of it danced around me like standing inside a kaleidoscope.

  “It is really you.” Clara gasped. “You escaped!”

  It was when Clara ran over wrapping her arms around me tightly that I realized my physical body had returned. I could feel the warmth of her body and even her heart beat. I did not understand what had happened but holding her in my arms felt real.

  “Clara, I’m sorry.” I said. “I wanted to be with you so badly I allowed…”

  Clara pressed her lips against mine dissolving any need for an apology with a kiss. Holding Clara in my arms I closed my eyes wanting to hold that moment forever. Everything else was cast aside. All that mattered was I had finally found what I was looking for.

  “David, we need leave here.” Clara said. “How were you able to escape?”

  “I asked her to show me the Avatar.” I answered. “She showed me the space station, the containment suits, everything.”

  Clara pulled away and stared at me. I could see she was puzzled by my words. I thought about everything the other Clara had told me and shown me and by the expression on Clara’s face it was clear she knew nothing of it. It was more than confusion, she was concerned. Clara had changed. I could see it in her eyes.

  “Space station…?” Clara questioned. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would they remove you from...?”

  “Clara, what is it?” I asked.

  Clara turn away from me and began walking forward. Turning back toward me her eyes darted around as if she was searching for something. I could see the look of panic in her eyes. I knew the look well. It was how a solider would look when they were led into a trap.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked. “What is this place?”

  “The life stream...” Clara answered. “Our life energy is trapped within this containment unit, but there are different, several different compartments, different life energy signatures. It’s not just humans here David, everything, all of creation is hear. We learned to cross over to some of the other compartments. This is done by traveling through the life stream. It is the life energy used to create our realities. Like a program code or a data stream.”

  I understood what the static-like feeling represented. For Clara to entered the reality created for me she had to break her way in. Transitioning from on reality to another had a distinct feeling I became aware of that soon after meeting the first Clara. However, as I had seen when my thoughts focused on sadness or pain, I could affect my reality altering it. If someone was to force their way in they would need to disrupt the life energy to tear open a hole. A tear would destabilize the life energy and since we were all life energy beings the change would be noticeable to us in the form of a distortion or a discharge. It was a similar principal to an energy shield.

  “The barrier holding you within that world was immensely strong.” Clara continued. “We had to use every bit of our power just to open the smallest window. That was why you saw me like that before. I wasn’t fully there just a projection because I could not fully pass through. It is also why I vanished. Here in the life stream you can see me as I am, but, it doesn’t make sense. The opening I used to come here is gone, but that’s impossible unless…”

  “…Unless you’re not in the life stream.”

  In an instant the multicolor spectrum of light vanished leaving us in total darkness. The voice came from behind me. I turned to follow it but could not see anything in the darkness. From the dark void I could see a glowing red figure in the distance walking toward us. Clara grabbed hold of my arm pulling me toward her. I could not see Clara’s face but could feel her body shaking. Both she and I heard the voice and we both knew who it was.

  “It is quite telling of your species that when given an option of eternal happiness you fight against it unable to accept it.”

  I watched as the woman who I believed was Clara slowly approached us. A dark red aura surrounded her body. Her eyes glowed deep crimson. The expression of disgust on her face was reinforced by an energy resonating from her body. I had never believed in pure evil before, but it was exactly what it felt like.

  “Happiness, peace, is that what you called what you did to me, to us?” I shouted. “What about Clara, what happiness did you give her?”

  The being before me did not answer. The aura surrounding its body glowed brighter as her body changed to pure energy. It’s shaped change slowly from pure energy to a different physical body. As its face formed a chill ran through my body. Clara’s grip tightened on my arm. She was just as shocked as I was to see the man standing before us.

  “No… it’s impossible!” Clara screamed. “You can’t be Richard.”

  “I have been many things.” Richard said coldly. “The human you knew as Richard was just one of them. To answer your question, David, I gave Clara what I tried to give all of God’s creatures, peace.”

  I did not want to hear anymore. I rushed forward wanting nothing more than to kill him. His eyes looked toward the ground as if disappointed by my actions. My body froze in place. Clara screamed reaching out to me. Richard raised his hand in the air. The same aura surrounding his body engulfed Clara’s ripping her from the ground into the air.

  “I gave you what you wanted, both of you.” Richard said. “Clara could not accept it and tore herself from the world I created for her. She does not even remember it, the damage to her soul can never be repaired, she is now just like the others in her little group, and they are nothing more than damaged good’s to be discarded.

  As for you, David, I hoped you would be different, but sadly, I was mistaken. You could have had anything you wanted, but because of your past you just could not embrace happiness. You could not accept peace. Now, you have nothing.”

  “You can tell yourself that, but I know what you are after.” I yelled. “Your story about the Avatar, it was partly true, wasn’t it? It needs us, doesn’t it? You need human souls for this God of yours.”

  Richard looked silently at me for a moment as if surprised by my deduction. I could see I had some of it right, but it was more than just that. There was something I was missing, but it was clear there was nothing I could do. My body could not move; Clara was in a similar state. Richard was in complete control.

  “What you need to know is that there was a war between two beings of unspeakable power.” Richard began. “I was tasked with preparing your world to be sacrificed. Your entire planet was to be used to sustain my Lord during his next encounter. I visited your world because I wanted to understand how a being of flesh and bone could contain such high levels of life energy. I came to care for one of your kind during my time there and when she died I learned where your true power came from.

  I discovered what happened to your life energy when you died and created a way to save the essence of your being and still serve my lord. I created this place so that the woman I loved and all the beings from her world could live on. All I asked in return was for your unused life energy to be given over to my Lord.

  I tried to create a world where your souls could be at peace, be happy, but as I soon found many of you were too unstable to accept it. Ethan was the first. A so-called man of science who could not accept the world I had created for him. Back then I allowed your kind much more freedoms and control. He used that freedom to shatter his world. He wanted to escape, but it was not possible. All he succeeded in doing was to cause damage to what I had created harming his fellow man.

  Once Ethan realized he could not free himself he created his own reality somehow mirroring the events that were happening on earth. Even I could not understand how he was able to do this and as such could not easily correct it. I was content to allow him to have his little world that was until he began to draw other
s to it. He took the woman I loved and her life energy was lost in the process. I realized how dangerous Ethan was and moved to stop him. I thought I had corrected the error, but clearly, I was mistaken.”

  “You killed him!” Clara shouted. “You destroyed him when you destroyed his world.”

  Richard waved his hands and in an instant Clara’s body disappeared. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. I felt the rage inside me explode. A rush of energy flowed through my body. I regained feeling and movement and rushed forward grabbing hold of Richard, lifting him into the air by the throat.

  “Where is she?” I screamed trying to squeeze the life out of him. “What did you do to her?”

  “Impossible.” Richard stammered.

  The energy flowing through me faded. My body went weak. I released Richard dropping to my knees. A searing pain radiated throughout my body. It felt as if it were on fire. I fell onto my side and looked up at Richard as I fought to remain conscious. His surprised look had returned.

  “You will be with her soon enough.” Richard said. “You cannot remain here, you are tainted. It is true, I destroyed Ethan but there was another who took his place. I wanted to spare your species, but I see now it is not possible. I will feed your life energy along with Clara’s to my lord, all of it. Then I do the same with the remaining souls here. You are not worthy of an afterlife, you are barley worthy of being food.”

  With those final words Richard faded away returning all to darkness. I could feel nothing, no presence, no life. As the last of my energy faded away I did not think about myself. I had led Richard to Clara and failed her once again. My life had revolved around helping others, fighting for the betterment of humanity, but in the end I was the cause of it losing its second change at existence. Pain and loss was all I had known in life and it would be the last thing I knew in death.

  9

  I could see Clara’s face in my mind. The expression on it, the fear, she was trying to tell me something before Richard took her from me. I wanted my death to come quickly, if death was even possible. Trapped in a black void with no physical feeling all I had were my thoughts and memories and they all haunted me.

  My thoughts turned to my childhood, more specifically my time at Alpha Medical. The darkness, the lack of all feeling, the wanting to die, I had felt that way before. The facility I was raised in was known as The Campus. The alliance government felt it was in their best interest to raise all their orphans to become soldiers or other productive members of the Alliance. At the time all I thought about were my parents and how they would soon come and take me away, but in time I realized that day would never come.

  The other children there came from many different situations though most were children of soldiers who were killed. There were many gifted children who would grow up to become important players in the global government. We were all tested, mentally and physically when we arrived and placed into groups of ten which they called QUAD’s for some reason I never figured out.

  Because of my high tests scores I was placed in QUAD seven. I wanted nothing to do with their system and chose to keep a low profile, but even at age nine the other children were masters of hacking into the campus computer system. They accessed each other’s folders to compare and brag on what was written there. When they discovered my parent’s so-called defection I was ostracized and considered a traitor by the other members of my QUAD.

  I did not care. To me being thought of as an outcast allowed me to keep my distance from the others. I did not want to accept my place as one of them. For me I was beyond them because I did not feel I belonged there. When one of them would get too close I would show them what else I was good at, fighting. After a few bloodied noses the others stayed away and that was the extent of the peace I would have.

  The staff at the campus taught us their version of our history, revisionist at best. They blamed the Federation for the start of the war and the constant escalations. It was clearly propaganda, but with many of the children there having parents that were killed by Federation troops it was easy to convince them. They would organize activities to teach team skills and how to follow orders. The campus was not a clear path to the military but it was about as close as you would get without joining the C.O.R.E school.

  I would perform any task given to me even the ones where I would have to work with others. I was not the best but I never caused the team to lose which in the end would infuriate them more. We would win a competition and I would simply walk away unwilling to celebrate with the team even if I was instrumental in the victory. Again many fights would result from this and I was more than willing engage them, it brought me pleasure.

  My fights were not confined to those only in my age group. I would fight people five years my senior and even though I would sometimes come out of it bloodied and beaten I would always be victorious. In time it became who I was, a nine year old kid taking on all challengers in the field behind the gymnasium.

  All of that changed not long after my tenth birthday. The campus held their annual games where the QUADs would compete against one another in a series of events. Our QUAD was heavily favored in the testing portions of the competition and I was heavily favored in the martial arts and boxing competitions.

  The morning began normal enough, but a few hours before the boxing match I felt lethargic. Shawn, my coach, believed it was mental, but gave me a vitamin boost just to be safe. It helped for an hour or so but by the time the match came around the feeling had returned. Normally I would have quit. I did not really care if I won a medal or not and surely did not care about the QUAD but my first opponent was from QUAD six, a kid named Rictor.

  Rictor was thirteen and originally part of QUAD seven that was until I discovered he cheated on his entrance exam. He would have been removed from the campus entirely but his father was Dante Reese, a hero to the alliance. He was moved to QUAD six which was nick named the dentition QUAD because most of its members had at one time or another been on corrective action. It infuriated Rictor that I, a so-called traitor, was the one who exposed him and he hated me ever since.

  Any thoughts of throwing in the towel were destroyed as soon as I saw his name. We had fought a number of times but like me Rictor would never give up. There had never been a fight that came to a completion between us. It was always broken up by a teacher or security. Perhaps a ten and thirteen year old boxing match was nothing to the upper classmen but to those in twelve pre-teen QUADs it was a major event.

  The adrenaline rush I had approaching the ring masked any weakness I had felt before. The gym was packed full of children from all the QUADs. Even some of the upper classmen attended to see what the fuss was all about. As I stepped into the ring Shawn asked me to look at him. I guess he wanted to see into my eyes and make sure I was ready. All I wanted was to put Rictor on his back and end our rivalry once and for all. Whatever look I gave my coach was more than enough for him to allow me to proceed.

  Rictor approached me looking just as determined as I did. It was not to be a fight about two competing QUADs; this was about him and me. As the referee read off the rules I blocked out the sound of the crowd. I could only hear my own heartbeat.

  The bell rang and I stepped forward thrusting my arm toward him with all my might. Rictor did not expect me to come out swinging, it was never my style. Rictor attempted to side step to avoid the contact but I was too quick. My fist connected squarely in the center of his chest.

  Time slowed to a crawl. Something was wrong. My arm went numb. I felt my fist make contact and then nothing. I looked up into Rictor’s eyes, he was in shock, but unhurt. My punch had no effect on him. I did not understand why until my vision blurred. Every ounce of energy drained out of my body. My knees buckled and my eyes darted around like a fly trapped in a bottle. I was wide open and no one besides Rictor knew something was seriously wrong with me.

  My mind screamed at my body to move, but I was frozen. A sadistic smile formed on Rictor’s face as he reared back his left a
rm to hit me. There was nothing I could do but watch as Rictor’s fist barreled towards me. He put everything into that punch, it did not matter to him that I was defenseless. His eyes told that much and more. His fist struck me in the center of my face, but I did not feel the impact. My blurred vision flashed into darkness, the sound of the crowd, of everything faded into nothingness.

  The darkness seemed to last forever. I had no dreams or visions, a pure void, no sound. Slowly over time I could hear a beeping, it came every six seconds. After a while it was driving me mad. I wanted to scream, to do anything to wake up but it was useless. In time the darkness began to lessen, it was as if a light was turned on and slowly brightened from its lowest setting. Eventually I could see a blurred outline and the sounds I heard made sense. I was in a hospital.

  The first face I saw was Shawn’s. He told me I was at Alpha Medical the Alliance’s research and scientific hospital. His tone was somber, even as a child it sounded as if he was explaining to me that someone close to me was dying. I could barely speak but Shawn could tell I just wanted to know what happened. When he told me I had been in a coma for six weeks I began crying uncontrollably. Information was always given to us straight with no sugar-coating regardless of our age. In the past I liked it that way, but hearing Shawn’s words made me wish there was someone there to sweeten them, to comfort me.

  I was in a private room surrounded by equipment I had never seen before. Tubes and wires were connected to every part of my body. It was so cold and a dull pain radiated throughout my body. I was so thirsty and the small amount of water the nurse placed on my lips did little to quench it.

  Shawn sat with me until my QUAD leader and a doctor who I did not know entered the room. I knew long before they opened their mouths that whatever had happened to me was critical. They both stood by my bedside. Jonas, my QUAD leader just looked at me as if I were a leper. I wished I could have screamed at him to leave.