PHANTASIA

by R. Atlas

  “Ahh and look at that, he’s calling his friends,” Linx chuckled. “It looks like this is the end for the lot of you. Good riddance.” Red noted that Linx sounded awfully a lot like his owner, and wondered briefly if familiars were the ones that ended up being like their owners - or if it was the other way around. Probably the other way around he mused. A third pair of beady eyes approached in between the two that were watching them, and as the four of them quietly turned around to walk away from them, two more pairs swam around from behind them.

  “Would you mind explaining the dying part again?” Butz asked tactfully.

  “Shhh…don’t make any noise or sudden movements,” Magnus replied.

  “Ahh yes, let’s pretend we aren’t here.”

  “Butz, shut up!” S whispered back loudly as the many pairs of eyes continued to hover around them. They waited there, in perfect stillness, for the longest five minutes that Red had ever experienced. One of the eyes that had come from behind them soon broke out into a movement, circling around them and coming closer. Red felt his mana seeping into his hands as he prepared to draw for a cast, but hesitated from summoning any fire in case it provoked the creatures. In a slow and heavy pace, the one that kept circling them began to rise from the water, letting its long snake-like body tower above the four of them as it demonstrated its full height. The critter was an immense orange worm with a thick body and an oversized mouth that constituted for most of its head, one lined from end to end with saber-like teeth that resembled skewers. It carried a large colorful shrub in its mouth, which it cautiously let down across the four of them. Red kept glancing behind himself to check for sudden movements in any of the other creatures, but they remained submerged in the water, watching the four of them with their beady eyes. After several moments of an idle stand-off, the creature that had dropped the shrub in front of them picked it up and swallowed it in one gulp, then drew another shrub from nearby and placed it in front of them again. Following another long pause, where it continued to stare them down, it let out a deafening roar that reverberated across the swamp.

  “I think it’s calling more of its kind,” Magnus whispered worriedly.

  “They won’t hurt you,” a voice came from above them. For a split second Red thought it might have been Raven, but it was a small boy, no more than thirteen years of age, whose pearl white clothing let him blend in with the trees. He had high cheek bones, a magnetic smile, and a youthful frame. He sat at the neck of one of the spiral branches, balanced perfectly on the thin strip of bark like he had practiced the position a thousand times over. The only thing that made him noticeable against the pale white tree was his hair — a mop of messy dark strands. He carried a sling around his shoulders, and a gem encrusted cutlass against his waist.

  “Are you sure? Because they look like things that were created to hurt other things,” Butz said wearily. The worm-like creature stretched its mouth out hungrily and exhaled a cloud of steam. Its teeth were so long that each of them occupied their own vertical row.

  “I’m positive,” the boy laughed. He jumped from the tree onto the head of the worm and planted himself right above its mouth. He was quick on his feet and the distance he had leapt from the branch to the worm suggested he was much more able-bodied than he looked. Red was sure that the boy had just jumped further than any of them could.

  “Are you mad?” S screamed. “Get down from there!” The boy nearly slipped inside the worm’s mouth, but planted his feet on its lip and grabbed onto its teeth for support. The worm suddenly stood perfectly still, as if it too was worried that the boy would fall off.

  “They’re peaceful critters; they’re called Gnashars. This one gave you a shrub to eat. It roared because it was worried you were dumb and didn’t know how to eat. It was showing you how.”

  Gnashars. Red had done a profile of the creatures before, but he had not seen images of them past their stage 2 forms. The ones in front of them, he guessed, were at least stage 4. Next to him, Magnus nodded vigorously as if he had just heard something interesting in class. “You can understand them?” Red asked the boy.

  “Sort of… I can sometimes feel what they’re thinking. It’s like an intuition of sorts. Can’t say it’s too difficult though, pretty obvious to read what they’re doing. You just have to learn to listen without your ears.”

  “What’s your name?” Magnus asked. “Are you from around here?”

  “My name’s Wren. And yup, I’m from Rockmire. It’s a settlement a bit far down from here, right at the heart of our swamp. Are you guys lost? You don’t look like you’re from around here.”

  They all looked at each other hopefully, and Red imagined they were all thinking the same thing — that Rockmire might have been Raven’s home. “Yes, we’re looking for someone actually,” Red replied, feeling somewhat awkward after realizing that he was talking to a figment of someone’s imagination. “A girl… our age, she should be dressed in something like this,” Red said, gesturing to his green and grey combat suit. The Crest emblem shone brightly, and it seemed to have caught Wren’s eyes.

  “Can’t say I’ve seen anyone like that recently. I can take you to Rockmire if you’d like, you can ask around there. It’s a small slum compared to some of the other settlements around here. If you find no luck there, I can point you to Nyle, it’s the closest city to Rockmire.” The four of them looked at each other and shrugged. Considering this was their best option thus far, they could not see the harm in exploring Rockmire. But don’t forget, the clock is ticking, Red reminded himself.

  “We can take Slink,” Wren said, pointing to the worm. “Your cat can come too.” Linx growled softly after the remark, detesting the label ‘your cat.’

  “You can ride that thing?” Magnus asked, bewildered.

  “And you even named it…” Butz mumbled.

  “Sure I did. This one’s Slink, the two that you first saw that are still submerged are Wriggle and Vesper. The one right there, I just met a few days ago, he’s new to this area. I call him Kraal. There’s another one around here I named Tiny, he’s enormous, must be the largest one in all of Takis if you ask me, but he’s…umm… less friendly. Most people can’t ride Gnashars, they’re difficult to steer because of how quick they move. They say your reflexes need to be as fast as the wings of a harpie. Mine are faster,” Wren grinned. Red smiled and walked carefully towards the giant worm, as the other three followed behind him. Wren reminded him of a younger version of himself and he felt surprisingly comfortable around him. Linx didn’t hesitate, casually climbing on to the back of the Gnashar and settling comfortably near the top of its head. The worm lay itself down on the shallow water, somehow knowing what they had all intended, and waited for them to climb the scales on its sides. It had several long tentacles along its backside, all of which were perfect to grip onto for support.

  “They don’t mind it… when people just ride them like that? They don’t seem domesticated much,” Magnus asked. The unusual friendliness of the Gnashars caught his curiosity.

  “Not at all - I think they rather like feeling useful and important. Doesn’t everybody?” Wren replied heartily.

  When Slink began to move, Red noticed that Wren was using a cluster of the tentacles closer to the Gnashar’s head to send signals to the worm. As they picked up in speed, he understood what the boy had meant by quick reflexes. The world had turned into a blur of colors as they rushed across the swamp, and steering required a constant changing of directions to avoid hitting trees or other brush while maintaining the same route. More than once, they had made several consecutive turns so quickly that Red had completely lost track of their original direction. He ducked his head low to avoid the creatures that constantly leaped out of the waters, some of whom came dangerously close to the worm’s body. He had a good feeling that they were trying to catch one of the humans off guard.

  In the middle of their journey, a creature whose head was nearly twice the size of Slink’s jumped out of the water and towards the G
nashar. Wren reacted with a force cast that sent the weight of the creature back into the water. Red was stunned, both by how quickly Wren had reacted, and by the amount of energy he must have expelled to complete the cast. The creature had to have weighed more than a ton. He exchanged a glance with Magnus immediately after, who seemed equally awed by how powerful Wren was, especially for his age.

  When Slink had finally slowed down, Red figured it was safe to look up. Nauseous from their earlier pace, he wondered if it was possible to throw up in a dream. They were in a clearing now, where the water was much deeper than where they had first discovered the swamps. They followed a path that led into a forest of trees and glaciers that looked far more ancient than the space around it.

  You lot are from an Academy aren’t you? Are you from Polyneux?” Wren asked. Red recognized the name immediately. Polyneux was a renowned Academy on Takis, famous for being the last stronghold for the planet’s resistance against the Xenosite. The holograph he and Magnus had watched of a Xenosite tearing into a bunker was made from footage taken outside of Polyneux. No outer academies existed any longer, besides the ones in Iris, and those were currently being shaped into fortresses for their respective cities. Iris had been preparing for an invasion ever since Takis was first hit. Eaut was the seventeenth and last planet in their star system, and the first to be invaded, more than a hundred years ago. Carnaega, one planet ahead of Eaut, was invaded thirty years ago. The shortening gaps between each invasion suggested that it wouldn’t be long before Iris had their defenses tested.

  “No…we’re from Crest —”

  “In Avalonia?! I’ve read all about it, it used to be one of my top choices. One of the best, I’ve heard,” Wren replied excitedly.

  “You want to go to an Academy?” Red asked, feeling like he could suddenly relate perfectly to how Wren felt when Red was his age.

  “I wanted to… before. And join the Imperial Guard of Takis - to defend my home planet. They say the Xenosite are coming here any day now. I wanted to help fight them.”

  “You look rather talented,” S replied. “You’re not having any trouble getting in, are you?”

  “Hah - I shouldn’t. I’ve been ranked first in all of Takis for the APT since I was nine,” Wren replied, referring to the combat aptitude test given to children between the ages of five and thirteen. The scores were adjusted for age, allowing for a single relative measure for everyone in the age group. It was used as a way for Academies to scout for new prospects. The four of them studied Wren much closer after he had mentioned that he placed first for several years in a row, a nearly impossible feat. Usually anyone in the top ten were so talented they were able to skip Academy all together and receive apprenticeships in whatever corps they wanted to join. Rarely anyone ever placed in the top ten consistently over the years. To be first for more than four years in a row meant Wren must’ve been a prospect of extraordinary caliber — someone that WEAPON would consider recruiting directly, Red imagined.

  “That’s amazing!” S replied. “Incredible… why do you not want to join anymore then?”

  Wren looked down wearily as though he would have preferred that S had not asked him that. “I have polystigmata,” he replied in a bland tone that could not hide his misery. S drew a sharp breath in, and Red could tell that she wished that she had not asked.

  Polystigmata was a fatal disorder, a result of over-exposure to Cron pollution at a young age. While cases were more rare in the inner planets (although increasing at an alarming rate) due to tighter environmental controls, it ran rampantly across the youth of the outer planets. The symptoms began to settle in at puberty and develop from then on. The degenerative mutation led to a slow decay of energy and vitality, eventually culminating in excessive fatigue, an overly weak immune system, and a gradual loss of all faculties including sight, smell, and hearing. In less than five years, Wren would no longer be capable of a cast. In less than ten, he would lose one of his five major senses. There was no cure and no treatment, it was an inevitable and slow-burn death. Red had wanted to say “it’s okay,” or something to console him, but knew it was pointless. They followed Wren wordlessly through the clearing, where they saw the word “Rockmire” etched into a glacier that floated near the front of it.

  Rockmire was a village of less than ten thousand, a small settlement of people that lived in homes carved into the glaciers or built among the tops of trees. Wren had explained that the trees — called white coils after their spiral branches — were stronger than they looked and each could support more than a single home. The village was self-sustaining and most people here were either hunters or gatherers, with those of higher ambitions going to work for Cron extraction plants or trying their luck at getting into an academy or a research institution. There were hundreds of villages similar to this one spread around Takis’ equator, each one referred to as a ‘slum’. The term was attributed to any settlement that was not a major city.

  There were no signs of wealth or incredible technology here; the place looked drab and run-down. Red had a feeling that the dreary vibe of the village had something to do with the kids here constantly being diagnosed with polystigmata. Far behind the village lay a mountain range that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, with peaks that disappeared into Takis’ atmosphere. Wren told them that several MegaCORP extraction plants were located there, and were often the point of debate for many of the villages in the area. His father, he told them proudly, was the leader of a radical group of rebels that were responsible for several attacks on extraction plants around Takis. They were wiped while on a mission less than a year ago. Rumor had it that the group had become so powerful, and his father such an icon, that MegaCORP had to deploy a WEAPON to deal with them. The story left Red with an uneasy feeling, especially regarding his own dream of becoming a WEAPON. “I get my strength from my father,” Wren had told them at the end of the story. “He was known across Takis. He only became a rebel after my family was told I had polystigmata.”

  “Would the four of you be willing to come over for breakfast? I’d like to hear everything about academy if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll never have a chance to go, I just want to know what its like.”

  Red was about to answer with a yes, but then remembered that they still had to find Raven, and that no matter how real all of this felt, it was in their heads.

  “Of course!” S shouted next to him. He exchanged a glance with her, wondering if she had forgotten that this was a dream. Magnus and Butz seemed unsure as well, but Red imagined that they all felt the same way about saying no to Wren’s wish — imaginary or not. They were the only ones that travelled the way through the village by Gnashar, everyone else floated across in platforms of ice or ships made from the white bark of snow coils. There were no roads or solid ground, everything was connected by the water of the swamp. They eventually reached a small cut-out in a glacier that Wren pointed to as his home, and stepped off from Slink and through a path of ice to Wren’s house. There was no door, the entrance was covered by a giant blanket of fur. Magnus mumbled something to himself as he walked through it, and Red was sure that he was trying to identify the creature.

  “This is my little sister, Raven,” Wren said, pointing to a fully grown Raven Maestro who looked to be twice his age. In one fell swoop, everything clicked in Red’s mind. “She’s only seven. She ranked fourth in all of Takis in the APT. She’s quite talented as well, although not nearly as much as I am,” he grinned. “I have to take care of both her and my mother, you know, with hunting for food and the likes.”

  “Raven!” S screamed when she saw her. Wren did not seem to think that it was odd that S knew his sister, nor that Raven was actually twelve years older than she was supposed to be. Red imagined it had something to do with the mechanics of how someone’s dreamscape worked.

  “This isn’t real!” Red shouted as the four of them began to explain everything to her. She seemed disenchanted by all of it, and before they finished she replied with a cal
m, “I know.”

  “Well…can’t you wake up then?” Butz pleaded. “We have to get out of the caverns!”

  “No, I already would have if I knew how. I’ve been through this nightmare already, in my own head. I feel…over it. I don’t know why I’m trapped in here, or how to get out.”

  “Get out of what?” Wren asked. Raven looked at him curiously, with an expression that Red had never seen on her face. It was her usual look of detachment mixed with the impression of a strong but hidden yearning. It was what someone looked like when they were lost in a memory.

  “Wren, would you mind making dinner for us?” Raven asked casually.

  “Mhmmm,” her brother replied.

  They sat on the floor as they ate, discussing a mix of things between life at Academy with Wren and all the details of the dreamscape they were stuck in with Raven. Raven told them that the Gnashars were creatures that both frightened and amazed her as a child. There weren’t too many critters around their village, and the worms were the largest things she had ever seen before leaving Takis. They briefly pitched the idea that the Gnashars were the point of her fears, but dismissed it as too inconsequential. Every now and then Red caught glimpses of an older woman in the room next to them, someone who looked no older than Raven currently was and strikingly similar to her.

  “Yes, that’s her,” Raven said quietly to him.

  “Your mother?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “She looks a lot like you.”

  “These were hard times for her. We had just lost my father and Wren was just rejected by the bentham.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a test of sorts given to the people of Takis. We had already known that the invasion was coming soon for months now. The imperial guard had limited resources and to determine who they could evacuate in case it was necessary, they used a test called the bentham. It would take a small sample of your blood, analyze it for things like your intelligence, longevity, and vitality, and then give you a score that measured your overall benefit to your species. If you passed a certain cut-off, they’d assign you to a ship that would take you out of Takis. No one with polystigmata ever passed. My mother was infuriated, I remember. Wren was a powerful kid, far more than anyone else on Takis, even I didn’t come close to his level of talent. She said it was unfair that he’d be left behind when he could do more in the next 5 years than ten other kids would do throughout their entire lifetimes. But there was no changing the outcome of the bentham. The imperial guard said it was the only objective way to measure who would get to leave and who would get left behind.”