Hakim and I sat down together. The leaves nearby looked withered and discolored. I touched one and it crumpled. “Hakim,” I said quietly. “What’s happening?”
He released a sigh and looked straight at me. “Nightworld is collapsing,” he said. Collapsing?
“How is that possible?”
He gazed up at the stars, still bright behind the netting. “Because our Supreme Deity is dying.” You’ll soon be replacing him. I shuddered and stood up.
My hands were jittery. “T-then Nightworld will be destroyed and everyone saved. Meaning I don’t have to break a glass or sever anything.” How could my dad have asked this of me? To kill him? Was he insane?! “They will find a suitable host,” Hakim said. “If they haven’t already.” I took a step back from him, wondering just how much he knew. Wow my options sucked. If I didn’t ax my father, his coworkers would prime me as their new vessel. Do you know why you are a Guardian?” His question zapped me away from my thoughts for a moment. I slowly shook my head. “It is a role gifted by God, revealed to us by the yellow flower markings.” He got up to face me. “Our God has faith in you, so have faith in yourself.”
The skin tattoos. So that’s why Aza had the same ones. Still, demi-gods or not, this was a big mess to charge us with Dad. “Hakim,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me about Nez?” Crumbling rocks filled our silence as he looked off into the distance.
“I know very little,” Hakim said gently. “That man’s attachment to this world is beyond our understanding.”
Before we could say more, a deafening buzz assaulted our ears as the Squits advanced towards our tree. The netting was secured, and the Squits lashed against it in protest. My radiant sun-glow was also a potent deterrent. Jasper tried cutting the net while straddling the back of one of the beasts. But in the process his knife broke. Nez started laughing beside him, both eyes exposed, hair down, and Fluta visible on his chest. Just like after I unmasked him. I thought back to his memories; from here on out, who would he choose to be?
I leaned on Jeba. “Is that net made of steel?”
She stood with arms crossed while watching the comical Squit display. “Close,” she said. “Spider silk.” Strange that I hadn’t noticed before, but Carri-Sect spiders were ambling across the netting. One spider even netted the eyes of a nearby Squit, seeming to blind it.
A KuKave Waker sidled up beside me, removing her goggles. Upon double-take, I recognized her. It was Bru, but with claws and a hunched back. No way. We hugged one another. “Finally found you,” she said, taking in my shift in appearance. “But it wasn’t easy.” We both looked up at the screeching Squits behind our barricade. “Listen, something’s happening on the Other Side,” Bru said. “All of the patients are being put to sleep in the same room. And at the same time.” What? I tilted my head at her. “It was really shady to me, so I snuck out and fell asleep by myself.” She shuddered, hugging herself with her claws. “This is too much for me. All of it. I… have to hide.” Bru turned from me. “I’m going inside the tree. While you all fight out here, know that I’m cheering you on.” After a pause, she put her goggles back on. Though I couldn’t hear it, I knew Bru said my name. “I believe in you.” And she shuffled away amidst the havoc.
Maybe if I were my father, I would’ve come up with the right words for Bru. And maybe I could have stopped her if I tried. But, at the same time I knew that there was safety in hiding. There was a 0% of losing. There was also a 0% chance of gaining. Being in Reality or Unreality made no difference— in life, we’re given circumstances we aren’t prepared to face.
The clouds above thundered and it began to downpour. Fat droplets accumulated on the net, glistening like small beads. Nez held out his hand, magnetically attracting the water falling from the sky. Jeba and Quanita pressed their palms to the home tree, which then shot forth a mangy branch. It knocked Nez backwards on his bug, halting him for only a moment. The water he collected circled the small branch and carried itself past the netting, and into the Skyplume tree. Bensimhon’s voice hissed against the rain.
“A heroic resistance,” she said. “But I already have you.” A liquid arm emerged from the tree and wrapped itself around my waist. I was lifted into the air. Dad, if I was a demi-god, and you’re the Supreme Deity, why weren’t we winning? What was I missing? Though I tried, I just couldn’t conjure up my light.
***
Chapter 25
“Doctor, we have a trespasser,” someone announced, silencing all methodical steps and typing rhythms. I sleepily came to, strapped to a chair. Two men threw Jax to the floor and Bensimhon glowered over him with loathing. I could already tell where this was going. And yes, for sure, within minutes he was bound up in the chair beside me.
Jax was clearly plumb petrified. Jittery and pulling at his restraints. You would have thought he was about to have his skin boiled and peeled off. Wasn’t I the one about to be turned into a ragdoll? While Bensimhon prepared my IV with another lab tech, I took the opportunity to lambast Jax. “Relax,” I commanded, irritated. “If you knew you were going to wet yourself, why did you agree to this?”
He tried so hard to level his shallow breathing. “Because… I knew they could do this to you.” How in holy henna did he know? I loosened my voice, preparing it like I would for a small child.
“Did someone tell you about this?” I asked.
Jax shook his head, which was lowered to his lap. “I saw it,” he said cautiously. “I was here once before. Ten years ago.” He scrunched his eyes as if anticipating a smack. When Einstein realized I was physically restrained, he proceeded more freely. “Bruce and I got into a fight one day. It kept me from sleeping, so I snuck onto the grounds to apologize. When a few scientists were taking a different route in our passage, I followed them.” For the remainder of the story, he grew enough courage to eye the cylinders. “And I saw your Dad and Aza, like they are now.”
Jax was just a teenager. How did he handle seeing my father like that? Regressed to a specimen suspended in fluid? Jax went on, sounding as if he had cotton balls in his throat. “When I saw them, I… lost it. Bensimhon found me. She said that if I told anyone what I’d seen she would make you and Bruce suffer something worse.” I thought of Bru’s sad and smiling face. Accepting yet rueful about Jax’s absence. An understanding was beginning to clear the fog.
“She told you to never come again, didn’t she?” I surmised, a hint of changing emotion in my voice Jax nodded, shuddering with tears. I had no hand or words to comfort him. He shouldered this nightmare for years to protect me and Bru. That’s why he was so against my attempts to go near this place. Jax had known my probable fate.
“I told Detective Zatorre,” he said. “But I wanted to protect you.” Well, at least she knew. And at this point, she was our last hope. Bensimhon fixed a bag to an IV pole beside me, starting the fluid transfer. A coolness quickly swept up my arm.
“I’ll destroy Nightworld,” I said to her. “There are several ways, after all.” If she bought my bluff and spilled another way to destroy it, that would be all I needed. I’d do anything but kill Dad. Doctor Bensimhon smirked and pressed a few buttons on the IV.
“You and I both know there is only one way,” she said. “And you’ll never do it.” My body suddenly felt freezing, like I was underwater in the arctic. I shivered while resisting in my binds. It just couldn’t be true. Maybe if I thought harder about it, I could come up with something else. “Remember Lava,” Bensimhon leaned in closer. “Your father wouldn’t be the only one killed if Nightworld was gone.” My heart nearly stopped. That’s right.
Nez would die too.
***
I almost didn’t recognize Quanita at the Aril River. Her body had transformed into that of a Squit[’s]. Even her voice was deeper. “Your boyfriend needs a beating,” she said, lowering herself so I could hop on. From the air, Nightworld’s decay was worse than before. What was once brilliant in color was now shrivelling into a black abyss. When exactly did this start? Was I
too caught up in my own fantasy to notice the changes?
Back at Skyplume, the netting holes had expanded. The culprit, as Quanita alluded to, was Nez. He was blasting the tree with collected rainwater. Jasper took the opportunity to jump through in human-form, transforming into a Squit while fighting the Waker refugees on the tree. The other Squits were clawing at the net for entry. After a midair convulsion, Quanita grew another head, then also joined their forces. I leapt onto Nez’s Squit and challenged him with Kibo. The rain began falling vertically again as we wove around each other in blocks and dodges. Why did I feel like he was taking it easy on me?
I switched to offense and struck him in the stomach. In response, Nez grabbed my arm and swung me past the tree’s net. It was a bone-hard landing. Jeba and Hakim came to my aide as Nez approached me. A gold-laced water barrier wound itself around the net. As the Wakers began panicking, Bensimhon’s voice bubbled out of it like a gas.
“Give yourself to me,” she said, a watery stream caressing my face. “Then you two can be together.” I spun around to Nez, stoic and aloof despite the carnage. Squits had finally gained access to Skyplume and were biting every Waker in sight. “That was my agreement with your sweetheart.”
The irony of it all. I spent so much time learning how to blind others with my light. Still I never realized how blinded I was to what was happening around me. Some spy I turned out to be. In my frustration, I set Skyplume ablaze with brilliance. As much as I could physically produce, while at the same time, controlling the flames so that the Wakers were unharmed. Was this enough? Was I enough as I was?
As if in response, time stopped. My fires froze into stillness. Nez’s water barrier had consumed every Waker; and they were now statues encased within it. Squits were mid-chomp, people mid-scream, raindrops mid-fall. And there I was, in the middle of everything. The only one with the capacity to move, and still not moving.
“Why are you hesitating?” Nez asked, stepping beside me. “He already told you how to end this.” His words were sharp and accusing. Did he really want to test me right now?
“I’m not killing my father,” I shot back. “And I’m not killing you.” For my own selfish reasons, I would sacrifice the people of Nightworld. This I knew well. And I hated myself for it. Nez came closer but I backed away. At arm’s length, his eyes were fixed on me.
“Free us,” he said, then with a sweep of his arm, he gestured to the frozen Wakers in the water. “Doing nothing is the most harmful.” When I turned from him, Nez cursed loudly. “Hate me,” he begged miserably. “If I took on Godship, like she wanted from the start, you’d still have your family.”
The words hung between us like smoke. Unfiltered and ashen. It was about time. I knew that he wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t make him at fault for what happened. How long has he been carrying this much guilt? “Please free your father,” he said. “I’ll keep Nightworld like this until you do.” Now it was time for me to be honest.
“Even if I wanted to, I’m not strong enough,” I said. “I’m powerless in Reality.”
Nez shook his head at me. “You are enough. And you are powerful. Just as you are.”
***
His words echoed in my mind as I felt an urgent shake. Detective Zatorre was in front of me, speaking muffled words that looked full of panic. Behind her, bodies were running and yelling in Ganji Lab. Carts were toppled over, monitors broken. But the chaos of it all was slowed and quieted for me. As Detective Zatorre helped me stand, I noticed my bloodied arm, but didn’t care. My legs felt brittle beneath me, almost like they belonged to someone else. We were heading towards the exit together.
Wait. No. I wasn’t done yet.
Everyone says she’s weird and wants to die.
She is of sound mind to make this choice.
If she is done fighting, we all must support her.
Remember, this is her life, not yours.
You were right, Dad. I didn’t see it back then, but now things were clearer. In my sloth state, how could I break lab-grade glass? What if I did it like Dad all those years before? The freezer door looked iced over when we passed it. For a moment, I pulled away from Detective Zatorre and set the dial for the maximum temperature. A piercing alarm shrieked through the lab as I broke off the dial. Beside it was the lab sound gauge. I turned up the volume until everyone dropped to their knees and the glass cylinders began cracking. The human tank started leaking yellow fluid first, bodies building pressure behind their confinement. When their glass broke, out poured a river of bodies and wires. Communal attention was placed on them. I took a pair of wire cutters from a wall mount and ran to Dad’s tank. I hacked away at the chord extensions that webbed over the flooring. His tank, too, was crumbling fast.
Dad, what makes something real or unreal? Is it time? Place? A cosmic hierarchy? I just couldn’t tell anymore. It almost seemed like my reality has become more of a state of mind than a state of being. More subjective than objective. Could this logic hold, if it was logical at all? I wonder if these distinctions were hard for you to make too.
Dad’s body cascaded out onto the floor, a withered vessel of the man I once knew. The man who raised me. I might have been imagining it, but a small smile appeared on his face. Be free, Dad. While I raised my cutters for the last chord, Dr. Bensimhon seized my arm.
“Murderer,” she hissed, prying my fingers open. Yeah right— mind game time was over. Using the blunt end of the cutters, I jabbed her in the stomach and she let go of me. With a final swing, I axed Dad’s remaining wire. Black liquid oozed out onto the floor. Beside me, Aza was going berserk behind her glass, clutching her ears and kicking her feet. Bensimhon turned to me while holding her abdomen. “It’s time to join her,” she wheezed. When Bensimhon reached out to me, I saw two of her. And then two more of Detective Zatorre as she pushed her away from me. They both wrestled to the floor, rolling around in the black ooze. Amidst the alarm and panic, my full attention was drawn to one thing: a searing flower tattoo.
Chapter 26
***
The only light around Aril River right now was a coil of gold veined water. It floated in front of my face like an invitation. Then the water wrapped around my waist and lifted me into the air. Up I went, over scattered patches of illuminated life. The frozen raindrops made glittery sounds as I moved through them. After finally landing in Skyplume, my water ferry splashed onto a branch. Nez still had the others encased in water as trapped sculptures. When he approached me, a low rumble shook the ground below us and we both nearly fell over.
“It’s breaking down faster now,” he said, grinning. “You did it.” And soon it would cost me greatly. Dad, how much time did I have left with Nez?
I placed my arms around his neck. “We did it,” I said. In the distance, I could hear rock slides on the mountains, and huge trees falling. Nez pulled me closer and touched my face. His eyes looked different than they did before. Carrying less burden, maybe.
“It’s time for you to leave,” he said, gently kissing my forehead. The world was falling apart around us, but all I could see was Nez.
“I need you to ask my dad something,” I said. “Please.” Nez wiped a tear from my cheek. Behind him, dead leaves were twirling towards the ground.
“Ask him yourself,” he said. “Teacher is still here.”
Right. The time lapse. During the Seal Ceremony, Dad had just walked into my head. But now, how could I reach him? I held Nez’s hands and closed my eyes. “Dad,” I said to the sky, “How do I save Aza and Nez?” A gust of wind fluttered through my dress and I waited. And waited. But he didn’t answer me. If I was a demi-god now, wasn’t I strongly connected to him? Maybe he was just too weak to answer.
Nez squeezed my shaking hands. “Teacher,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was never good enough.” Another quake noisily rocked the earth, but Nez didn’t let go of my hands. “Thank you for raising me. And for teaching me how to love real people.” While I cried, he lifted my fingers to his lips. Dad, I won’t do i
t. I won’t leave him like everyone else did. Please tell me how to stay.
My wrist tattoo began acting up again, hot and tight against my skin. It was impossible to ignore, but also impossible to heed. If only I could be two places at once. Kiki had probably made a similar wish. “We’ll stay together,” I said. “Until Nightworld is gone.” For some reason, my real responsibilities seemed paler compared to this. Even though they were very much related. And equally important. Dad, please buy me time on the Other Side.
With a small smile, Nez stepped away from me, eyeing my wrist. All around us, stars began falling out of the sky. “They need you now,” he said. “So go.” When Nez turned from me, I jumped on his back. Yet again, a graceful catch. I buried my face into his neck. The tears just wouldn’t let up. Some help my powers were. All this training, all this time. Saving all but one didn’t feel any better than saving no one. “Promise me something,” Nez whispered. “Shine brightly in Reality, as much as you do here.” He set me down, but I still clung to him.
Loss wasn’t something that got easier with practice. Or time. My family had taught me that well. But grieving was something I forced myself to skip long ago. Here with Nez, all of those buried emotions were gushing out. Raw and ugly. While my thoughts were spinning, Nez kissed me, deeply and sweetly. Almost like he was sharing my sorrow, and feeling without filter. Every inch of me lit up. Nightworld was once again bathed with light. How could anyone say this wasn’t real?
Wakers: Sayonara Sleep Page 19