“He did it all because of his greed for total power. The treaty would have allowed us to learn from each other. He would have been exposed. He saw vulnerability to his own people as a weakness rather than strength. Aren’t we supposed to uplift each other, not tear each other down?”
“Stop.” Father’s disappointed face appears in my mind.
“He was afraid we would use his practices against him and abolish the hierarchy. The invisible man, behind the war. How do you think they got through the gates?” He shouts. “You think you’re a monster, think again. He’s the cold-hearted Devil the Earthlings speak of. How can someone be so evil? How can an Emperor behave this way to his own people?”
“Stop it!” The mirror I saw in the underground passage flashes before my eyes. I remember how it looked so much like a crystallised mirror. It didn’t matter that I could pass my hand through it, what did, was that it sprouted thorns, my father had it hidden, and how it had a piece of Rimorr in it. I don’t want to listen to the truth the Prince is providing, but I can’t help it, it feels real. It feels- true. I am ashamed to be an offspring of someone who could be so vile. I’m not the beast, he is. I was blinded by perfection, the bubble he kept me in, if it weren’t for my desire to know more I would still be swimming in ignorance. The Prince as bad as he may seem guided me to a loophole within my bubble and I resent him because now I feel lost. His honesty has put me through a state of rehabilitation. I feel grateful but for me to accept his truth I have to release my rage. My anger at my father, at myself. I always thought I wasn’t enough even though mother consistently drilled into my head otherwise.
My Blue Flame sprouts through my fingertips, whipping out to touch the ground. Tamari stands up.
Ragged breath. Shaking hands. Tears slide out of my eyes. My shoulders slump with more than the weight of the world.
All this anger.
“I knew you carried the Blue Flame. She does too.”
“Ramiyah.” The flame stops spraying from my fingers. “You speak as if she’s still here.”
“She’s within you.”
“That’s impossible. You cannot bring back the dead within the living.”
“You’re living proof of it.” He steps closer. “Don’t you feel her? Don’t you hear her calling you?”
Why didn’t I see it sooner? Myah had diffused into my body to be one with her other half. The spirit of Ramiyah. I wasn’t just meant to learn her memories. But how did her spirit get inside me? The voice that spoke to me wasn’t my subconscious, it was her. An old soul that had developed wisdom after seeing all the horrors of life. A stronger force than I. It was she who took control and killed Tamika.
I feel violated. My body invaded.
There is nothing Dakarai can do for me. This is something I have to handle on my own. I realise I may have been too quick to seek help. My enlightenment has already begun. I feel my hold on my double loosen.
“Come on Calista, the dark awaits you.”
But what does that mean for Ramiyah now that she is collecting her other parts? What is she brewing inside the walls of my flesh?
My tears dry up. The truth is more comforting than the lies. I can almost feel my control rebuilding itself. This is the beginning of something new, and it scares me.
And yet I feel relieved. As the weight lifts, I feel my shoulders rise. My gate opens. My wings prepare for flight. I raise my head and match the Prince’s stance. Legs separated and shoulders square.
The burden is no more.
“We do not see things the way they are, we see things the way we are”
- Anais Nin
22
Two peas in a pod
{Calista}
When I let myself back into Dakarai’s apartment, I am met face to face with my brother. He looks at me as if he is expecting a hug. I am still in a foul mood and only move to greet him with our formal handshake. The back of our wrists tapping with our forearm forming an X and finally the bump of our shoulders. He’s not having it. His fingers tug on mine, and I’m encased in a shower of thin clothing and his warm body. It feels like home, and it disturbs me because home no longer feels like home.
“I heard what happened. Come on sis chin up, when did you allow your crown to slip?” The moment I became obsessed with our father’s approval. Even though that is all in the past now, my crown still hasn’t repositioned itself. “I feel lost. I don’t know who I am and who I want to be anymore.” He gives me a look that indicates that he too had been there.
“It’s a phase we all go through, but what’s this I’m hearing about you dying?” “It’s true. I was kidnapped. Tricked. Now my life force is taken. If I don’t get it back, I could die.” Keyword: could, but I have a feeling stemming from my true form, death is not coming for me anytime soon. Still, with my doubts, I keep my mouth shut.
“Tell me more.” He perches on the arm of the sofa and outstretches his arm for me to sit. After many huffs, puffs and shuffling, I finally give in. Where to begin? There are many gaps in my memories. “It’s all confusing really…” I trail off. He gives me that ‘he wasn’t about to let me off easy’ look and fixates me with a stern gaze that reminded me of our mother. When she’s deeply disappointed with us, she’d narrow her eyebrows, frown and ever so slightly raise her voice. Not to mention, she’d continuously repeat her words like an ongoing echo with no end.
I asked for their help, and whether I had changed my mind or not, I was going to get it. “The more I think about it, the more I realised maybe he was right. I wasn’t kidnapped. I was at the right place at the right time for a reason.”
“So, what you saying, you willingly went to wherever you are now.” I can see the wheels turning in his head with the building up of questions. “I am not separate from my environment. Everything that happens to me is because I will it.”
“I know sis, an internal and external locus of control, I’m guessing yours is now internal.” Yeah, something like that.
“It’s… the Sixth Dynasty…” His eyes widen as I speak their name. Before I can finish, Dakarai enters with…Maliyah. She’s too close for my liking. Now the moment I had with my brother is gone. He still looks at me in a daze, I know he’s waiting for me to confirm their existence and their purpose in all of this.
“Nailah, can I speak to you?” Dakarai asks.
“Not now,” I mumble.
I don’t know what it is about Maliyah, but she just aggravates me.
I step into the kitchen. “So…” my attempt to remove myself didn’t work, she joins me in the kitchen. She seems as graceful as a cat. She smiles, her eyes assessing me. A bit creepy, though it’s supposed to be friendly. I just want to be alone.
“Michael hasn’t said much about you.”
“Likewise. He said the bare minimal, how he has a nosy neighbour. I didn’t know what to expect.” Her smile widens into a little laugh.
“He was probably exaggerating, you know we’ve become pretty close since he arrived three, four months ago…” Pause. “But hey who’s counting. So how long have you two been together?” She reminds me of…What’s HER name? T something. Silver hair. Brown hair. Very distinct features, yet similar attitudes and behaviour. Maliyah continues to watch me as I struggle to remember.
“Well, we’ve been together since when I can remember, I can’t give you a specific number since we grew up together. What about you, you got a mister?” She looks away.
“I did, but I dunno…things got a bit complicated. Bare lives lost,” She says, every so often mixing her speech with slang.
“Figurative or literal.”
“I suppose both. He’s not dead or anything. But I am.” I give her a confused look. Either she’s deluded, or just playing with me. My mind flickers back to Myah, and the night the Prince showed me the Civil War. Ramiyah had been blown to pieces, but even at her death moment, she had called to someone. And it wasn’t her brother. Dakarai is right to be suspicious of her. She is hiding something, and strangely en
ough, I feel like we are both linked. Is she a ghost as well? A hueman disguised as someone they are not. A façade, I am not ready to uncover.
“You’re joking right?”
“I’ll leave that for you to decide.”
The conversation with the Prince strips itself from my mind.
“You’ll never be brave if you don’t get hurt.”
23
S.A.R.A.H
{Calista}
“So, Cali…” Dakarai starts. I know where this is going. Apparently, I’m selfish, so I might as well talk about something other than myself.
“What’s got you on edge, I heard what you’ve discovered on your assignment is not what you expected?”
“Are we really going to do this now?” He sighs.
“Yes, I came and barricaded you with my problems, it’s only right that you know…”
“I was suspended because they found a tape with us witnessing a girl being killed in an alley. Her body was never found because we have her, and since they could never pin us as suspects, even though we removed her body from the crime scene, they decided to suspend me. That’s not even the weird part. She knew our names. There was also another woman, who spoke of the same bizarre things as Sarah…”
“Sarah?”
“The one who was killed,” Khari said filling in the gaps.
“There’s this so-called SYSTEM. Apparently, she could get us all out. This…” Dakarai gestures at everything around us, “…is not real.”
“You sure she wasn’t…”
“Pretty sure.” Khari comments. It seems I’m not the only one whose world has been flipped upside down, with confusions constant tapping. “That’s not even all.” Dakarai waves his hand, and a body appears in front of us.
“What the…”
He lifts the back of her shirt. “SARAH is an acronym.”
“Have you figured out what the code means?” They shake their heads.
Selective Android Relaying A Hijack. What hijack? If she’s an android, a device of some sorts, then she cannot be dead. Just deactivated. I reach out my hand and run my fingers over the shimmering codes. Static jumps off her body and tickles my fingers.
“What did you do?” Khari arises out of his slouched position, fully awake.
“Hello Calista, at last, you have arrived.” The android unfolds itself to sit cross-legged. Life returns back to her shrivelled skin. My mind screams to get away from her as quickly as possible but my body decides to keep still.
“I understand this will come as a shock, but I know you guys, and you know me. Just not in this form. The SYSTEM isn’t safe. You aren’t safe. For now, Calista you have all the answers.”
“I’m pretty sure, I don’t. If I did, there would be order and balance within my mind.”
“Self-doubt. It has always been one of your weaknesses,” Sarah smiles.
“Tell me about it,” I give Dakarai a look. He really is agreeing with this thing.
“Step into the darkness, Cali. It is your friend. There you’ll find all your answers, and you can leave the SYSTEM.” My heart pounds in my ears. I no longer hear the androids voice, but the Prince’s. I scramble to my feet and point my finger at the android.
“No, stay back.” I half shout. “This isn’t real. None of this is real. You cannot be here.” Surely, I must be dreaming.
“You have nothing to fear Cali. The real enemy cannot harm you here.” She smiles again. Who the Kutawala? I have a feeling she is talking about someone else.
My stomach turns. Fear paralyzes me. Dakarai gets up and tries to calm me down. I smack his hand away and step back.
“What’s the problem, my love?” He asks softly. “Does this make sense to you, what are you afraid of?” He grabs my hand again. We play tug of war. He eventually wins.
“What does the Sixth Dynasty have to do with it?” Khari askes no one in particular. I am unable to reply.
“They live. They never died except one: Ramiyah. Now she returns.” The android powers down and goes back to sleep.
“What?” Dakarai whispers in disbelief. “They lied to us?”
“Only our father. Everyone followed his lead. Our teachers didn’t know any better. But what baffles me is how the scholars didn’t know either. They are supposed to always see the truth. I fail to understand how ignorance can keep them captive.” I look to Khari, and his eyes stare aimlessly into the wall ahead. I know he loves our father, especially when he is his prodigy, but I can tell he feels betrayed. We were old enough to know the truth. We deserved the truth.
“I don’t think he knew they survived, but he did have his suspicions. But apparently, he is the cause of the war.” They both breathe deeply. Khari starts to pace continually rubbing his jaw.
“You never said who you were afraid of?”
In the split moment that Sarah had reawakened, I had received a snippet of my memory in Rimorr. “I’m afraid of a lot of things, the family is getting back together, and the Prince will be the one to unite them. By bringing back the dead within the living.” A sharp pain cuts through my mind. The knowledge of Ramiyah’s whereabouts disappears. A new memory replaces it.
It isn’t entirely new. The memory is mine but twisted. My half is my father and me standing at the edge of a cliff. The waterfall gushing with pure water.
“Father I do not want to do this,” I said.
“You have to face your fears. Fear is a weakness.”
“No father please.”
“Fear is an illusion of the mind.” Father pulls me into his arms. As he holds me, arms wrapped around my small frame, I feel we move further and further away. Then he drops me like an exhale. I scream and claw at the air wanting to be on solid ground. As I splash into the waterfall scratching my head against the many rocks, water attacking my nostrils, another memory replaces it.
The second half is Ramiyah’s memory. I’m still in the water but faced down. Shaking my head from left to right, I create bubbles that I need to survive. Someone’s hands force my head deeper into the water. I’m drowning, and there’s no one to help me. I feel the darkness coming back. Peace. Then I’m yanked out of the water like an anchor. Oxygen pounds at my chest but due to the hiccups of water it’s unable to reach my lungs.
“We don’t want you to die now, just fear your life.” The boy who holds my head laughs. I get angry. Water drips from my hair and ice skates along my face. “You’re…so…pathetic.” I say between breaths.
“Sorry what was that, I couldn’t hear what you were saying through all that hiccupping?” He looks to his boys and they all laugh.
I’ll show you something to laugh about. I scream and let loose an earthquake of Blue Flame. The laughs stopped. In between my eyes blinking, I see Tamari running down the beach at the speed of a vampire. He does something with his hands, and the flame goes out. The boys suffer a nasty burn and as they run away one of them shouts, “The Princess is psychotic.” I start to black out and before I touch the water Tamari catches me.
Back in the living room, my knees buckle, and Dakarai’s arms circle my back.
I black out whispering, “I deserve much more.”
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
- Stephen Chbosky
24
Energy
{Calista}
Despite my journey into the darkness, I am still required to participate in the savage games. Earlier I asked the Prince why I couldn’t just opt out. Of course, I knew death was the only way out, but I really felt I could just slip into the shadows without being noticed. He wasn’t having it and left me with these simple words. “Think of it this way, death is an illusion. You are their mercenary. You set them free from this miserable lifestyle. If they played their cards right their heart will be as light as a feather. If not, well that part is self-explanatory.” To which I had replied, “That’s just an excuse to better define my unlawful act.”
*
The horn blows and the commentator continues with his ram
blings. The crowd cheers for me. Today I’m just not in the mood. I feel sick. I am so close to stepping into the darkness. A thin strip of light merely separates us.
My opponent makes the first move. He leads with a high kick followed by many jabs to the top half of my body. I block all except one. His fist collides with my head, and I see stars. The darkness draws closer. I retaliate with a round of fists and high kicks to his temple and his gut. He blocks most, but not all. It is time to play dirty. I am getting tired of the games. I turn my back and run away from my opponent.
Tamika’s words replay in my head. So, what, you’re going to run? You’re going to run like how they told my family to just so they could bomb them from a distance.
Uh-oh is our undefeated champion running away from a fight again? This may be her most idiotic move ever.
His feet quicken behind me. Just as I feel his hand reach out for my hair, I spin around and blow dirt into his eyes.
I take that back.
He stumbles and rubs at them viciously. I slam my feet against his knees and then his ribs. The crowd cheers over the cracking of his bones. When he recovers, he advances with unexpected quickness. What the hell are they feeding these people? He grabs my neck but catches my hair instead. He uses them as reigns to spin me in his direction as he smashes his forehead into mine. He used so much force that my knees buckle under his pressure. He sweeps my legs, and I fall to the ground. Today is definitely not my day. He straddles me and proceeds to punch me in my face. If he continues, my head will become indescribable.
Get your ass up. Ramiyah shouts in my head. You weren’t meant to die this way, you have a far higher purpose. This shall not be your end.
A higher purpose. Really? Because so far all I know is I’m supposed to step into the dark where all truth will be revealed and I’ll be enlightened. But with Ramiyah inside of me there’s no telling what I’m missing. Me stepping into the darkness couldn’t be all the Prince had planned. There is something more that my mind prevents me from seeing.
The Masterpiece (The shadow I cast Book 1) Page 11