Life-After

by J. A. Laraque

  As we walked out hand in hand it occurred to me that I no longer thought about an uncertain future. It was not the money or the fame that made me content. It was truly feeling safe and loved. There was nothing that would take away that happiness. I promised myself I would never allow that.

  Less than thirty minutes later as the helicopter made its decent towards the Unity building I caught Sara’s attention and directed her view to a giant sign just below us.

  “The Jonathan Kane Building..?” Sara gasped. “You had it renamed?”

  Two weeks before that event I received a call from the mayor of Maiden city. They were going to announce the renaming of the Unity building to the Zavior Building. I was about to graciously thank her for the kind gesture when I remembered sitting down with Lola as she told me what had happened to Jonathan.

  She was so proud of him, but I could see the pain in her eyes. Lola missed him more than I could ever understand and I knew she would never love anyone else like that again. While it was true that Jonathan had been honored many times I knew how important the Unity building was to him. I just felt it was the right thing to do. I only told Lola a week before the event. She started crying and wanted to turn away. It felt good to make her happy. It would have done little for me, but it did so much for her.

  “He deserved it.” I responded. “We owe him.”

  Sara nodded and rested her head on my shoulder as the helicopter landed. Ana and Angelica were waiting just outside the platform. I was surprise not to see any media swarming around looking for a picture. As we exited and they approached us, I noticed another woman behind them. She was dressed in a G.B.I. uniform.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked Ana.

  “David, this is Zoe Carmichael.” Ana answered. “She was sent here from the local Global Bureau of Investigations office. She needs to speak to you privately. I checked her out and she has full clearance.”

  There had always been security matters involving me since I had awakened. As with any person of importance there were those who wished me harm. A cult known only as The Damned believed humanity was suppose to be exterminated, that it was God’s will. They looked upon me as their Satan. A possessed human who was sent to prolong everyone’s suffering. There were others just as crazy.

  Beyond that, there were those who the Global Security Initiative could not track down. With the power I once possessed and my military background, there were still organizations out there who would have loved to have me. Alongside just normal anti-social types, having a member of the G.B.I need to speak with me was nothing abnormal.

  “Is there a threat against his life?” Sara asked the woman bluntly.

  “We just need to confirm something.” Zoe replied. “This will only take a moment.”

  The woman turned and began to head towards the stairwell. As I began to follow her I could feel that Sara had not let go of my arm. I turned to her and was surprised to see a look of fear in her eyes. There had been far worst news and even a valid attempt on my life and Sara had never looked the way she did at that moment.

  “I’ll come with you.” Sara said. “We’ll get this over with and then meet the others.”

  “It’s okay.” I said softly. “You go with Ana and Angelica. This will only take a moment.”

  As she released my arm I felt a chill rush through me. I brushed the feeling off and continued walking ahead giving a quick nod to Ana that I would only be a moment. We had worked together so long she knew what I needed without me saying a word. I knew Ana would see to Sara’s needs while I dealt with the G.B.I.

  I walked down the stairwell towards the security floor. I could not help but think about how Sara had responded. I did not want to just believe it was because of hormones or the pregnancy, but she had been much more emotional during the last six months. It was one of the reasons I did not want to attend the event.

  I pushed the thoughts from my mind as we reached the security center. I was surprised of how empty it was, but figured most were at their stations throughout the building. Zoe scanned us though the security gate and led me to a small room. She scanned her keycard once again unlocked the door and motioned for me to enter.

  I could see a wall of monitors at the back of the room and a control panel just below it. I walked inside and approached one of the monitors showing a display of the lobby. Sara and Ana were greeting the media. It made me feel better seeing her smile for the cameras. As I stepped closer my foot struck something under the table. I looked down at my feet to see a man lying unconscious underneath.

  “What the hell?” I shouted.

  I spun around to see Zoe closing the door behind her. She turned and looked directly at me. There was a look of concern in her eyes as if she was about to do something she did not want to. The shock in me quickly faded as I thought about her motive for bringing me there. A quick head turn back to the monitor showed Sara was still safe and nothing appeared to be happening elsewhere. I turned back toward Zoe who stood there silently still staring at me.

  “Who are you?” I questioned. “What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry, David.” Zoe said softly.

  Her apology sounded sincere, but I did not know what she was apologizing for. She reached into her pocket and in a flash I felt a rush of energy overcome me. I charged toward Zoe, but with lighting speed she stepped to the side. My body slammed against the door. Part of me wanted to rip it open and run, but something else inside me wanted to know what she was planning.

  My military training came back to me in an instant. I swung towards her face, not so much to hit her, but hopping she would back away. She was ready for that. With her right hand she grabbed my wrist. I yelled out in pain and shock of how strong she was. My scream must have frightened her. She released my wrist and I fell to my knees.

  “David, please!” Zoe said. “I’m not here to hurt you or your wife.”

  I did not listen to her words. With all my strength I leapt from the ground to tackle her. My hands and body passed though hers as if she was a ghost. I hit the floor and began to shake. I could not comprehend what had just happened. I rolled onto my back to see her standing over me. She still had a look on her face as if she was conflicted on whatever she was planning to do.

  “What…” I stammered. “What are you?”

  “Please forgive me, David.” Zoe said.

  Zoe once again reached into her pocket and pulled out a small white crystal. My eyes widened as I recognized the design. It was the same that was used in Doctor Flag’s experiments. She leaned down placing the crystal on my forehead. I could not move even though I wanted to more than anything.

  The crystal began to glow a bright white. Zoe stood watching me. The look on her face, it was as if she was conducting a dangerous experiment hopping for a positive outcome. I could feel the energy from the crystal as the steady glow changed to a pulsating light. The energy from the crystal was being absorbed by my body. For a moment I felt its power coursing though me.

  Everything became blurry. I believed I was going to lose consciousness when my vision began to clear, but something was different. Parts of the wall and ceiling were different. Where there were freshly painted walls and crystal clear glass it had changed to charred broken windows and decaying walls. As the crystal continued pulsating everything around me began to change. A wave of fear came over me as I began to realize what I was witnessing.

  “No, God!” I gasped. “Please, no!”

  Reality was changing again. I was being taken away from my wife and unborn daughter. The world appearing before me was the one from the beginning. I was in the hollowed out charred remains of the Unity building. I was being taken back to where everything had begun. It was not just the building changing around me. Zoe herself was changing as well.

  My mind was shutting down. I did not, could not accept what I was seeing. It had been almost nine years without a vision or a dream. I had not seen her face since I had awakened. The pulsating light stopped. Zoe knelt down and to
ok the crystal from my forehead, but it was not Zoe. The woman who I thought was a G.B.I agent was nothing more than an illusion.

  “There was nothing else I could do. I had to save you.”

  As my eye lids fell shut I could see she was crying as she spoke those words. Clara was well aware of what she had done to me. What she had taken from me. I had lost everything once again and left hollow. Somehow as everything faded I knew I would not die. Death could bring peace and peace, at least for me, would never be allowed.

  15

  I could not move or even open my eyes. It was not because there was something physically wrong with me. It was because I could not only remember everything, but felt it as well. Fifteen minutes had passed since I had awoken, but I knew what I had experienced was not a dream. I could feel the cold ground against my back. I could smell the stench of death in the air and feel the ashes of a destroyed city blowing across my face.

  My mind struggled to place all my memories and experiences in proper context. Time seemed to have no meaning. My past and present were not clearly defined and I would not dare think of the future. What I had with Sara had to be real, was the thought in my mind. It felt real and if that was so then what had I awakened to? That was not the only question I asked myself. I had come to the realization that it was very possible that Clara had been behind everything. Perhaps my life with Sara was real and everything else was a manipulation caused by an entity calling itself Clara.

  “Please, David.” Clara said softly. “I know you are awake. We cannot stay here.”

  I knew she was sitting next to me, watching me. When I first awoke she was still crying. If everything was a manipulation then she was a master at pretending she was truly devastated for what she had done. I kept replying the moment in my mind, her standing over me apologizing for taking me away from that life. She claimed she was taking me from heaven to save me from hell. It was a strange, but familiar statement. Doctor Silva had said the same thing once.

  “I’m not doing this anymore.” I whispered.

  I remember slowly opening my eyes and seeing her sitting atop a pile of rocks. She had not moved me from where I fell unconscious. A small fire burned just beyond my feet. I pondered why one would need a fire in the afterlife. Clara was not looking directly at me. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying. I did not know if that is why she did not want me to see or was it that she was ashamed to look at me.

  “I’m…”

  “You’ve already apologized.” I said interrupting Clara.

  She stood and turned her back to me. I pulled my body to a sitting position resting against a rusted out security control panel. My entire body ached as if being ripped from one world to another was taking its toll on me physically as well as mentally. There was a residual feeling of rage within me. My words to Clara had them embedded within. She knew I was not just in pain, but I was angry.

  “I understand why you hate me.” Clara said. “But please, we can’t stay out in the open.”

  Her words made me take notice of my surroundings. By the positioning of the sun I gathered it was early evening. As my eyes scanned over the rotting buildings and the devastated city surrounding us, I could not understand how I could possibly be free if I was in the same wasteland I had always known.

  “How can you understand?” I asked Clara. “Do you know what you have taken from me? I don’t care about Richard or aliens or anything else. I was happy. I had what I wanted more than anything. Do you understand that, Clara? I did not care about anything else anymore. I did not care about you.”

  Clara did not say a word. She just stood silently looking ahead at nothing. I wish I could say that my words were just the result of what had just happened to me, raw emotional anger, but that was not the case. Doctor Silva taught me how to evaluate my life, to take everything and analyze it. That is what my mind had done for the last fifteen minutes. The conclusion I came to was that I would be willing to sacrifice the souls of humanity to have my own personal peace and happiness.

  “I don’t know what is real anymore, either.” Clara responded after several moments. “When we found you something inside me clicked. It was if I always knew you, but when you arrived I remembered everything about us and wanted to do anything I could to reach you.”

  Clara leaned against a wall and lowered her head. She was so much different than I remembered. Even the Clara who told me my afterlife was a lie was different than the person who stood in front of me. She had cut her hair to ear length. Her clothing was ragged and she appeared to be more muscular. Her physical features resembled a soldier, not just any solider, but Sara.

  “When we were able to see what they were doing to you. It was so strange.” Clara continued. “I was watching us sitting at that restaurant overlooking the lake and while I could remember the moment I did not feel it. It was as if I was watching someone else’s memories and while I could be touched by the moment it was not my moment.”

  “What…” I stuttered. “What are you saying?”

  Clara turned to me. A tear fell from her eye. The look she gave me, I could see her thoughts though her eyes. She was thinking the same thing I was, that perhaps everything about us and our history was a lie.

  “What Richard showed you about our final days, it was not a lie.” Clara began. “When I closed my eyes I was ready to die. The last of my strength drained out of me and then there was nothing. Then from nothing I began to feel cold. I did not know what was happening. I did not know how long I was unconscious, but I did know that I felt alive.”

  Her experience was similar to mine. When I pulled the pin on the grenade a feeling of nothingness came over me and then I felt cold. I wondered if the grenades had failed, but if that was the case then the blast from the alien would have killed me. What came to me as Clara continued is why Richard would need to go though such an elaborate deception to pacify the human souls he was collecting.

  “When I opened my eyes I was over there.” Clara pointed towards a spot in the street. My eyes widened as I realized it was almost the exact spot where I landed after the grenade blast. “I knew there was an attack, Richard had said that much, but I did not realize the extent. The sky was thick with smoke and ash. I could barley breath. There were several buildings on fire. I could smell rotting corpses all around me. My God, David, it was a nightmare.”

  I had not thought about what Clara had gone through for such a long time. Her experiences with Richard in that bunker and watching everyone around her die must have been horrific. I did not realize she suffered more once she awakened. I believed she went from that world directly to her afterlife but I was mistaken.

  “I wandered the city looking for any signs of life.” Clara continued. “Days passed and I couldn’t find anyone. For a moment I believed I was the last person alive, but then something else occurred to me. I had not slept or ate since I awoke and yet I did not feel hungry or tired. The realization drove me mad. I began to believe I was dead and had gone to hell. I wanted to escape. I found a shattered window with a large glass shard sticking out. I though myself on it hoping to be free.

  Just as my neck touched the glass I awoke in a hospital bed. A rush of doctors and nurses ran into the room. I was hysterical. I didn’t know what was happening to me. An older man told me I was in Alpha Medical, that a team had found the bunker and discovered me there a few weeks ago. I was relieved. I thought I was saved, that I would be able to be with you. That was my first question. I asked what happened to the people in Naxum Research, what happened to you.”

  I was beginning to see a pattern. There was always the loss of someone special and then the act of finding someone new. Clara and I were separated and tried desperately to remain positive. I fought to escape and she had to accept that she was trapped. There were common points between Clara’s story and my own experiences. What I had not figured out was the why. I needed to understand why would all this need to be done in the manner it was.

  “They would not tell me anything at first.
” Clara said. “The doctors ran numerous tests and only after several hours did a man wearing an Alliance uniform tell me. He said everyone in Naxum had died and told me everything about the attack. I didn’t want to believe them. I demanded they show me proof. They said the entrance was directly hit by the alien energy weapon and there was no way to reach anyone down there.

  They wanted to interrogate me about Richard and why we were in the bunker with those people. The autopsy they had done on the corpses showed they were exposed to a radiation that was similar to the one left behind by the alien’s energy weapon. I told them I would tell them everything if they took me to Naxum Mountain, but they refused and left. I knew they would come back for me and take me somewhere I couldn’t leave. Later that night I escaped from the hospital and made my way to Naxum Mountain.”

  In both our stories we were hospitalized and under suspicion by the government. An important point was always to accept what had happened and move on. There was also the radiation. In my story I was exposed directly by an energy blast, but Clara’s would have come from the facility that was working on The Awakened Project. Even with everything I was learning and putting together there was still the real possibility that everything I was hearing was part of the grand manipulation.

  “The world outside was the same as when I awoke.” Clara continued. “I had hopped perhaps I was crazy and that everything that had happened was a dream or hallucination. It took three days to make my way to Naxum Mountain. I had to not only avoid the military patrols, but also an invading enemy I knew little to nothing about. Sometimes during the night I would hear the sound of metal soldiers matching. It kept me from sleeping, but unlike before it took its toll on my body. When I finally reached Naxum I could barely stand.

  As out of it as I was I knew right away the military had lied to me. There was a large crater near the east side of the mountain. It was clear someone had dug a hole from within the mountain and escaped. There were signs of a fire fight. I found blood and shell casings on the ground. I began crying not knowing if you had escaped. I started to believe that maybe the military had executed everyone who had escaped from Naxum.”