Suddenly, I feel like he stabs me in the heart with his hollow, hateful eyes. My hand is itching to draw my gun out and use it on him, but I decide to trust my instincts once again and just take a step back.
“You humans think you know everything. All you talk about is how your feelings change you, how you fall in love with someone and then when you abandon them for the next, best thing, you don’t feel guilty or anything. I’m tired of your bullshit, Eladia. You were the one that asked me to get to this form, so deal with it.”
Okay, that’s it. I’m done with being reasonable.
“I asked you to be your fun, adventurous self, Jay, not this horrible thing you’ve become. I love you and every different color of you. I’m just asking for you to step down and recover before the big fight. Why can’t you understand that?”
He shakes his head and presses his lips tightly. Then he turns his head and walks away. I can’t even cry anymore. My hands rest on gun’s grip. He’s not the same person I met a year ago. However, I’m not the same person as I was a year ago either.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Jay
Walking down the big streets of Mosa is a torture. My feet hurt, my back hurts, everything on my body seems to plot against me so that the other son of the bitch can regain control of this body.
He has to understand though that this isn’t just his body. It’s our body. We share it. He has to understand that. But no one understands, especially that whore, Eladia. She loves both of us, huh? She loves the one that makes her feel better about herself, and now, I’m not doing a good enough job.
The other Jasih doesn’t talk that much anymore. He spends his time sighing, twisting my guts inside, making me want to puke every other step. Why is he such a prick himself? Can’t he just give up and let go of this body? I would have done the same thing if I could.
The walking gets faster and more intense, meaning we’re probably getting closer. I want to stop and explore this marvelous city, the one I used to hate so much before. Right now, destroyed and empty, it’s just a memory of its glorious past. It’s like us; me and Jasih. And it’s fine. The city’s dark side fits me better after all.
Eladia doesn’t even turn to look at me anymore. Neither Zan nor Silver. Pyro is the only one that keeps checking on me every now and then, and that’s because I’m the cube-bearer. I’m the reason everything came down to this moment. Am I supposed to hate myself for this? I didn’t choose this fate after all.
Still, I keep walking, keep following them, keep hoping that everything will turn out fine.
Jasih...you can’t use the cube to destroy the humans.
Here he is then. Now, of all the times, he’s trying to talk me down. I thought he had given up on me, but it seems he can’t let me do what I want. He’s probably searching for the right words to change my mind.
The interesting thing is that he doesn’t call me Jay anymore. He had to stay in there all this time to understand that I don’t like being called with that name. I’m Jasih, an Esuh of the Two Faces damned it. I’m not another deadbeat that just happened to be at the wrong place the wrong time.
My thoughts are my answer to him. Jasih feels calm, structured right now. He doesn’t say anything else until we take a turn to our left. That’s when I see everyone standing still before a two-storey, big building. It’s the only thing standing in a long radius of devastated buildings.
It’s like the last standing fortress of the world, and we’re heading straight to it. Just the five of us, just some people with some training. We’re a sorry bunch, and they decide to point fingers to me. I’m the one dragging them down, right? Well, shit. I’ll show them.
“Okay, so, we have to be extra careful. These people are mercenaries that are trained to kill. Zan and Silver, stay in the back with Jasih and support him. Start for the City Hall when you see an opening but be careful. We don’t have an exact number of the enemies. Dale and I will jump ahead and open a way for you. If my estimates are correct, they have us outnumbered five-to-one. That means that you have to be extra careful.”
He keeps talking some more and then he nods purposefully. It’s the signal; the battle has started.
Dale and Pyro lunge forward, taking the heat of the first attack. They are as good as I remember them, especially this red-masked man. He moves like he can take all of them by himself, and I don’t doubt that he could if he was appropriately armed. Dale, on the other hand, wearing his green mask, spends a great deal of time fighting and throwing those marble-shaped things on the ground. When they touch it, a tiny, blue cloud appears for a second and then disappears without a sign.
The black-maskers that get close to him suddenly stop and can’t move, almost like they’re frozen. He’s probably using some kind of toxic sedative strong enough to numb their limbs. It’s a different way to fight, less aggressive and risky, but it takes him a good deal of time to prepare the battlefield to fit his purpose. Still, their mission is to open a way for me, the chosen one.
I turn and look at Eladia. I spot her eyes checking on me when she jumps over the half-wall separating us from the battlefield. She has a staff is in her hands, and she’s using it to balance her weight in mid-air. Eladia’s eyes upset me; there’s not even a speckle of love in there, not even pity. For her, I’m now reduced to just the enemy. And all that because I decided to kill the people behind every problem we have encountered all this time, the same people that hunted her for a whole year.
She doesn’t know that I’m doing this for her, to help her stop following false gods and strange theories about Nusae and their artifacts. She doesn’t know that I was going to sacrifice myself so that she could survive the extinction.
Eladia doesn’t know many things about me and still acts like she does. It’s unfair, but love is like that. Unfair and illogical, invisible and unacceptable. She doesn’t know all these things.
So, I have to prove that to her.
I collect my last bits of strength and run ahead of Zan and Silver.
“Hey! Jasih! Stop! Where are you going?” I hear them say.
But I don’t stop, not for a moment. I run ahead, passing through the dead bodies of the black-maskers. There are some who were lucky enough to fight with Eladia, meaning they survived the encounter because she doesn’t dare take a man’s life, but other than that, eight to ten bodies are lying on the ground. Still, if Pyro is right, almost twenty are probably hiding inside the building. They guard this place like an actual fortress.
And that’s weird. We just learned about this place yesterday, and they knew all along? How is that possible? I didn’t know that we were heading to Mosa until...until after we returned from Zeania.
I can’t stop right now, not even to uncover who the traitor is among our sorry bunch. But still, I won’t have to. After I choose Humans over the Phadh, they will all die.
Except her; I will give my life to protect her, the same way his wife, Jasih’s wife, did to protect him.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Eladia
The battlefield is the epitome of chaos. If chaos had many levels, this would be the highest one. Soldiers come at us with renewed vigor and stamina every time we take out one of their companions. They’re many, but we’re trained to fight as one. My staff takes out the enemies in a medium-range around us, giving time to Dale to use his drugs to slow them down if possible. He’s fighting using a strange gun that shoots darts at long distance, but to reload it he needs time.
Pyro, on the other hand, clears out those that manage to get through my defense. Using his katana, he’s plunging back and forth, trying to keep us moving forward. I’m not sure how long we can keep this up, but soon, Jay and the others will come to support us. That’s the plan after all.
“Watch out. Two of them come from behind,” Pyro shouts.
With a swift, almost dancing move, I manage to take them out both by hitting their feet first and then their heads. It’s good enough for now. Pyro and Dale don’t hold back and ki
ll their targets, but I have to do this. I can’t kill them. I don’t want to become another member of this Organization I know nothing about.
Dale suddenly pushes me out of the way; I was almost hit by a laser shot. He turns and yells at me: “Eladia, keep your mind on the battlefield. You almost got hit. What would you do then?” he instructs me while reloading his dart gun.
He’s right.
I turn my eyes towards the upper floor of the City Hall only to see a dead body hanging from the window. “Thank you, Dale. I’ll be careful from now on.”
The fight is on for five minutes now, and we’ve managed to take out six or seven of them, but I’ve lost count after I fought the same guys for two whole minutes, trying to take them out without killing them. In the end, Pyro used his katana to slice their chests.
“This isn’t training. You have to make sure they stay on the ground if you don’t want me to take their heads, you hear me?” he shouted to me back then.
I find it really strange that they keep yelling at each other. I mean, aren’t they afraid that by yelling they’ll give important insight to the enemies about our moves? Isn’t that a way for them to utilize our weaknesses and get the upper hand on us?
I see another black-masked man run towards Dale out of the corner of my eye. I turn and use my staff as a support pole to round kick him in the face. I can almost feel the crack of his jaw under my boot; it is enough to make me freeze for a moment. I didn’t hesitate to use my whole strength on him, as long as that would be enough to keep him down. But, I could have killed him.
Maybe I did kill him.
I feel every hair on my body prickle at the thought that someone died by my hand. Dale somehow picks up my weakness and gives me a gentle push in the back.
“He isn’t dead. And even if he is, he came here prepared to die. Are you prepared to die, Eladia?” he whispers to me.
Am I? Wasn’t everything up to this moment just training? Did the stakes rise so high that I can’t keep on fighting like that anymore? What’s the answer damn it?
In the meantime, Dale and Pyro take out three more black-maskers, increasing the number of dead bodies to ten or maybe more. I’m not sure.
“What the fuck?” Pyro suddenly says. He’s standing still, watching at something happening behind me.
I have a bad feeling about what I’ll see as I turn my head.
Jay is running fast towards the City Hall, not giving a shit if he’s gonna die if a shooter hits him from the upper story. He just goes at it like his life depends on it.
“Oh shit. I knew we shouldn't have left him behind,” Dale says.
There’s a turning point in every woman’s life. A decision where you know you’re gonna regret later in your life, like a kiss that lingers inside you even after years have passed by or a hug that’s still warm for hours later. All these things come once in your life and stay with you until you die, regretting that you didn’t follow that path.
I was over regretting anything. I was over, lying, fighting without a reason, hiding from my true feelings. This Dark Jay might be a murderer and a lunatic, but he’s fifty percent of the man I’m in love with. And now, I want to follow him.
“Eladia! What are you doing? Stop!” I hear Dale shout at me.
I’m not sure he understands how I feel. No, I’m wrong. I’m sure he understands. We both have people in our life that we want to protect.
And I’ll chase this man to the end of this world or the next if I have to, to protect him.
He’s way ahead of me and doesn’t slow down. I think I see two black-maskers shooting at him, but he doesn’t stop. If I remember correctly, the dark matter that envelopes his skin is thick enough to deflect the laser shots or at least some hits of it. I don’t know for sure, though. I never asked him before.
Running straight into the ground floor, I see him heading upstairs, already being on the top of the staircase last time I see him. I’m not sure, but it seems like he’s chasing someone upstairs. He’s another member of the black-masked men squad only that his mask is...different. Not plain black like the others, but resembling the masks that Dale and Pyro wear.
I’m standing still, trying to realize what’s going on, when suddenly someone knocks me to the ground. My face is in pain, as well as the better part of my body.
“What are you doing? Do you want to die so bad?” Dale yells at me.
“Let me go. He’s going to die if I don’t protect him,” I yell back.
“Eladia, stop chasing him. He’s a madman, someone that doesn’t love you for what you really are. You have to stop endangering your life for him!”
It’s the first time I’ve seen him this crazy. In fact, he looks like he’s...afraid.
“I can’t, Dale, not when I love him so much. You know how it is to love someone and want to give your life to protect him. I’ve seen you do it so many times before. You always run ahead first, eager to die to save everyone else other than yourself. You’re the one with the death wish, Dale, not me.”
He seems surprised; he was sure he was hiding that part of himself really well, only that he probably had never spent a year living with someone else. Dale releases me from his grip, but before I get on my feet and leave, I turn and look at him.
“Please, turn back and save yourself for once, Dale. Return to the person you love and stop risking your life. You’re the best person I’ve ever met, so don’t let your ghosts drag you to hell.”
I turn my head and get ready to leave when I hear him mutter something.
“What? What did you say?” I ask him.
“I said that I couldn’t protect him when I had to. I couldn’t give him what he wanted, so that’s why I have to keep on moving, keep on doing what I have to. I have a plan, Eladia,” he suddenly says, “but you have to promise you won’t stop me if I share it with you,” he says.
Time is pressing. Jay is already on the roof for some time now, and he’s probably in dire danger. I know I’m needed elsewhere, but I can’t move an inch. I keep staring at him, trying to find what he’s hiding behind those blue eyes.
Only after I sit beside him and listen to his plan, I understand. I thought that chasing Jay was my turning point, but I think that now, running up these stairs, I really understand. Letting Dale go is that moment I should learn to live with for the rest of my life.
Now, pebbles of tears coming down my eyes, I run ahead, run and hope I did the right thing.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Jay
I manage to infiltrate the building with only bruises from the laser guns. I have forgotten how thick my skin is now that I’m in this form. After I take two steps inside, a man is looking at me.
His mask is pitch black and resembles a demon, reminding me of the masks that Dale and Pyro wear all the time. He looks a bit intimidating, but being on his battle attire, it makes him human enough for me to charge towards him. I chase him upstairs, trying to find a way to take him down in the meantime.
The building inside is empty. It strikes me as weird at first, but then again, that could also mean that I’m just really lucky. Maybe Pyro was wrong after all and most of their force was amassed in the entrance of the building. They were strong, I’m sure about that, but they couldn’t stop us from barging in.
Shame fills my chest after I realize that I did nothing to help them with their mission. Still, I keep running upstairs, keep chasing the man with the black mask.
The staircase is endless for a two-storey building. The building looked smaller on the outside. He’s always a step ahead of me, and even though I’m trying my best to keep up with him, I’m way too slow. In the end, we finally get to the roof of the City Hall, the place where the final battle is to be fought.
When I open the door leading outside, I see the man standing still on the other side of the roof. He’s looking at me from behind that nightmarish mask, but he can’t scare me. I’m here to unlock the cube and take back my life, even if that means I have to choose to destroy al
l the humans.
“Congratulations Prime Officer Jasih for making it this far. I commend you for giving it your all even though you’re in so dire a situation,” he says in a thunderous voice.
Strange, he surely sounds familiar.
‘Who are you?”
“Well, that’s irrelevant. I trust you know by now who your friends and enemies are. Eladia made it perfectly clear that we, humans, are the race fit to rule the whole galaxy. The Phadh are some glorified, old men that think they know what’s best for the Known Galaxy only to give in to their illusions of wealth and power. After all, money greases the system better than fear or hope, as it always did,” the man says.
“I’m not here to hear your ranting. If you’re not here to stop me, then move to the side and let me finish my job,” I say to him.
He grins and looks at me like he’s in my head and knows what I’m thinking. Only that he doesn’t. No one does. To them, I’m just a parasite. So beware now that this parasite will conquer the Galaxy.
It takes me a while to follow the events. He grins...like he’s not wearing a mask. His face is not covered by that black thing anymore. So, I see that behind the devilish faucet, a man with black hair is hiding. The same man I saw in the news many days ago. He’s the human that announced the Purge of Yaerus, the ambassador that broke out the news to the rest of the world.
“Oh, it seems you finally recognized me! Well, the feelings are mutual. Go on then, do whatever you have to do. I’ll be standing here.”
He takes a step behind and sits on the floor, crossing his feet, waiting. I don’t like where this is going.
Still, this night is still full of surprises.
The door opens again, only for Eladia to appear this time.
Jasih: Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Àlien Mates Book 2) Page 30