Where the Forest Ends: A Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novel

by Turner, Ben

  "Seed," said Vivian.

  Frank Masters nodded. "The people swallowed by the ground were ripped apart. Once Seed had enough bones, it would create a snake to defend itself."

  "What about the Andersons?"

  Her father shook his head. "They were only kept alive long enough so you could see them. They're gone now."

  "Why are there so many snakes?" said Vivian. "There was only two before."

  Her father didn't reply for a long time. Vivian looked out at the circling basilisk's. There was a pattern to how they moved, Vivian realized.

  "I'm sorry," said her father. "I really am."

  Vivian turned to him. "What?"

  "They didn't make it," said her father. "Ellen and the others at Trella. A ship arrived on the treetops, but no one was there to greet it. When the ship sends soldiers below the trees, they'll find nothing. As soon as every citizen of Trella stepped onto the ground, Seed swallowed them. Their screams were deafening. Those snakes you see out there, that's the people you were trying to save. I'm sorry."

  Vivian turned and looked out the opening of the cavern, at the snakes who continued to pass by, their paths unceasing and unchanging. They could keep going forever, and Vivian couldn't.

  Everything she had fought for was gone. She thought of Ellen. It had been her fault that Ellen had lead the people of Trella to their deaths. She'd killed them all.

  "When I killed Ambrosia," said Vivian, "did I cause this?"

  "I don't know," said her father. "Seed doesn't tell me everything."

  Vivian frowned, a thought occurring to her. "You told me once that you were part of Seed. What did you mean by that?"

  Her father tilted his head to one side. "What do you mean? I was swallowed up by Seed and it absorbed my being."

  "Why didn't that happen to anyone else?"

  Her father shrugged. "How would I know?"

  Vivian locked him in her gaze. "Prove you're my father."

  "What do you mean? I'm your father. I was there for you when we came here. I took a risk and paid the price. I've managed to come and talk to you from beyond the grave. What's so strange about that?"

  "Where is the rest of the dead?"

  Her father frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "If everyone who was swallowed by the ground had their soul absorbed, why haven't I seen anyone else? Why am I not seeing endless ranks of the dead?"

  Her father shrugged. "It's a personal connection. I'm sure Dave told you that other people had seen and spoken to loved ones."

  "Yes," she said, "but never the same people as someone else."

  She swallowed. Her father looked at her lovingly, as a father should.

  But he wasn't really there.

  He never had been.

  "You're not my father," she said slowly, "You're Seed. You took this form to fool me into trusting you. "

  Then, just as a look of surprise registered on her father's face, she sprinted from the cave as fast as she could, taking advantage of the brief lapse in snake coverage from their movement patterns.

  She sprinted as fast as she could, breathing heavily. She just needed to get to the light of the northern pole.

  She glanced back at the cavern, but it was empty. Her father was gone. She turned back just as the first snake lunged at her, opening up its mouth to bite down on her.

  And then Vivian did something which she'd been planning since she first entered the cavern, something Seed wasn't expecting.

  She jumped into the snake’s mouth, through its teeth and into the passageway of its body. The jaws snapped down behind her just as the planet shook.

  She ducked between two of the rounded ribs which connected to the snake’s spine and then continued running.

  It took the snakes a few seconds to regroup and attack her again. This time she ran through their backs, taking shelter from one snake inside another. The jaws snapped down on the bones she was inside. Then she ran out the other side.

  She continued this dance with the snakes as she ran. The light got closer and closer.

  "Don't do this," said her father from where he was leaning against a tree.

  She rushed past him without a word.

  She ducked through the jaws of another snake and then looked up to see her father standing in front of her, his arms spread.

  "Don't go another step, Vivian. I am your father and I am telling you to stop!"

  She took a deep breath and ran directly at him. She ran right through him, without so much of a shimmer to indicate he'd ever been there.

  She could feel the warmth of the suns beating down on the planet. She ripped off her goggles and looked back at the snakes. They had gathered into a line and were coming straight for her.

  She lunged into the light and ran towards the black panel at the northern pole of the planet. She looked back. The snakes were coming into the light and directly towards her.

  She saw the heat emanating off the black panel.

  Her father was standing on top of it.

  As she approached, he shouted out to her, his voice calm and in control, "Think about you're doing, Vivian. This is the planet you call home. This is the planet where everyone you know lives. Don't throw it all away."

  She stopped a few feet away from him. "You're not my father," she said. "I don't know if a single thing you've told me is true. This is over."

  "It's already over," said her father, shrugging and speaking casually. "Why does it matter?"

  Vivian looked back over her shoulder at the basilisk's that were rapidly gaining on her.

  "This isn't over," she said. "Not even close."

  She took a few more steps and pulled the knife from her waistband. It still dripped with Ambrosia's blood. She took three long steps and jumped through the air, the knife raised high above her head. She felt the heat coming from the black panel.

  The planet shook in a final attempt to stop her, the panel moving five feet in either direction as it shook.

  Her arms and body came down on top of the hot panel. The knife plunged into it, shattering the glass.

  Electrical sparks exploded from the hole which had been made with the knife. Vivian's body burned where it had contacted the black surface, but she raised the knife and plunged it down three more times, until sparks were coming from each quadrant of the panel.

  Vivian released the knife, leaving it in the panel and looked around. Her father was gone. The shaking had stopped, and the basilisks had stopped moving and dropped onto the ground less than a dozen feet from her.

  She looked into the forest. It had stopped swaying. The trees were beginning to disintegrate and turn into ash. They were shriveling up and turning black, their remnants getting caught in the wind.

  Vivian took a deep breath and laid down on the rapidly dying grass. She looked up at the sky above her, at the two suns circling a dying planet. The air was becoming thinner and harder to breathe. The ground was beginning to disintegrate.

  She took a deep breath just as the suns were blocked by an immense ship.

  She looked up and frowned as the ship lowered itself towards her. At the back of the immense ship was a landing bay. The door was open, and Ellen was hanging out of it, ready to jump down and grab her.

  Vivian smiled at Ellen and climbed to her feet. She walked to meet the ship that had come to save them all.

  Epilogue

  It had been two weeks since Trella had ended. The immense cargo ship that had heard their distress call was still hovering over what remained of the planet.

  What had once been a planet covered in trees and wildlife had been reduced to nothing but ash and rubble, disappearing into the vacuum of space. The shape of the returned to the oddly shaped asteroid it had once been. Vivian had spent long periods of time staring out the window at the planet she had called home. After a few days, her body and everyone else’s had recovered from not having the root attached to her, although it had been a very rough few days which had pushed the medical resources of the cargo ship t
o its limits. The locals had been given cloaks and goggles so that sunlight and natural light wouldn't hurt them.

  She looked across the desk at the captain of the ship, Nathaniel Maxwell, who was flipping through his notes. The people on this ship were all like Ellen and Vivian. It was the first time she hadn't been one of the outsiders, and somehow that made her feel like an outsider.

  Although most of the citizens of Trella had survived, some had been swallowed by the earth. Most had retreated to the city, where they had met with Nathaniel and the rest of his men.

  Nathaniel cleared his throat. "The Intergalactic Council has sent me the full declassified documents on this entity you called Seed. You got most of the basics right. I'll let you read all of it, but for now, I want to tell you a few things. The first is that you were right about your father. It wasn't him."

  Vivian swallowed and nodded. "Did you look into what I asked?"

  "I did," said Nathaniel. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but there is no record of any planet named Rebanic ever existing, nor is there a woman named Lily who worked for a government entity on a project which made matter out of nothing. It was Seed creating a backstory which would appeal to you and make you trust the image of your father it was creating."

  Vivian sighed. "Then who was my mother? Surely they must have found that."

  "No," said Nathaniel. "Your father was a criminal before your birth, and there is no official record of your birth. They've sent me your father’s government records. You can look through them on your own time."

  Vivian nodded. "What else?"

  "There was the issue with your story of Dave wandering into Gavin's camp and claiming that you attacked the platoon. The records I have dictate that Seed was able to control people, but only on a muscular level. She is able to make them move and act as though they are conscious and alive, even if they aren't. It could have taken control of you at any time, but didn't want to expend the energy that it would take. "

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that Dave was unconscious when he wandered into the camp, with Seed controlling his muscles to make him appear alive. If Dave had become conscious during that time, he would have fought with Seed for control of his body. He was buried and then Seed carried him away underground, much like when you were dropped into Ambrosia’s quarters."

  "What about Ambrosia?"

  "Ambrosia is complicated," said Nathaniel, flipping through the pages. "You see, the organism known as Seed is a symbiotic organism. That means that it creates a partnership with another life force and they work together."

  "So what?"

  "It seems like Ambrosia was in a symbiotic relationship with the planet. That would also mean she was the explorer who originally brought the seed to Trella in the first place."

  Vivian stared at him. "Are you serious?"

  Nathaniel nodded. "She was as old as the planet of Trella. She protected Seed from any attacks, and in exchange Seed gave her eternal life. The people it swallowed were being harvested for their life force, which would then be pumped into Ambrosia, keeping her young. The solar panel on the northern pole was its way of gathering power. You cut it off and it didn't have any reserves because of how long it had been fighting and chasing you. It's quite amazing, in my opinion. Someone figured out a way to grow machines. That technology could be worth a fortune."

  Vivian didn't care about that. "So when I killed Ambrosia, did that set it off?"

  "As far as I can tell," he said, "yes. The earthquakes were triggered by you killing Ambrosia."

  Vivian sighed and stood.

  Nathaniel spoke about where they would be heading next but Vivian didn't listen.

  She thanked him and walked directly to Ellen. She told Ellen everything,

  Ellen listened intently, then, when Vivian had finished, leaned in and said, "none of that matters anymore. I love you."

  Vivian and Ellen climbed onto the bed in their small room and lay close to one another as they looked out the window.

  They looked at the uneven and lumpy hunk of rock that had once been their home.

  Now, it was just a hunk of rock floating in the endless empty expanse of space.

  Acknowledgments

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