Rebirth (Cross Book 1)

by Hildred Billings

“Yeah, it’s right…” Danielle held up what she had in her hand. The men in her bedroom stood silent.

  “Is that... is that a vibrator?” Troy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you have a vibrator in your hand?”

  Danielle revealed the ring in the battery compartment. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “That’s messed up,” Troy said.

  “What do you want me to do? We can’t take the ring to Marlow, otherwise Earth will throw a shit fit, so we’ve gotta hide it somehow so we stay safe. I’m thinking ahead!”

  Troy shook his head. “I hope you wash that shit.”

  “Get out!” Danielle tossed her sex toy and the Third Piece of Earth’s soul on the bed. “Out!”

  The four of them continued arguing in the living room. As one side demanded further explanation about guns and quick escapes, Devon slipped back into Danielle’s bedroom and grabbed the Third Piece, without its unconventional container. He lingered in the door frame of the bedroom, holding up the ring so the stones reflected some faint light coming from the kitchen. His tattoo did not burn around the ring like it did when near the Relics. “Did your tattoo react to this?” he asked Danielle.

  “Huh? Yeah... got really hot. Why?”

  “Because mine’s not.”

  “Let me see it.” Danielle snatched the costume ring out of his hand. “Yeah, it’s the same thing I got earlier. Don’t know, maybe your tattoo is losing its edge.”

  Troy likewise inspected the ring. “I don’t get it. How does that thing destroy Earth?”

  “Supposedly, it’s what the bad guy would use to destroy the Relics of Earth’s soul.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Another contemplative second passed, the ring rolling around in Danielle’s palm. “It is crazy, though, isn’t it?” She held up the ring between her fingers. “Just a stupid, ugly ring.”

  She slipped the ring on her finger, a perfect size for Danielle’s otherwise small hand. At first, all she did was stare at how tacky the blue and white stones clashed with her pale skin.

  As she prepared to take the ring off again, her head was struck with a mild ache. Her wrist also hurt – a lot, like a razorblade cut through her skin.

  “Ow!” She tried to pull the ring off her finger, but her body succumbed to the swathes of pain and fatigue enveloping her from head to toe. The men swarmed around her as she collapsed onto her knees, but only Devon was brave enough to touch her as she convulsed against whatever power the Third Piece used against her.

  “Danielle!” He grabbed her before she could hit her head against the floor.

  But she could not respond. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she fell limp on the floor. The ring remained on her finger, innocuous.

  They thought she was unconscious until her eyes shot open. Instead of hazel, though, Devon was met with murky oak green swirling both counter and clockwise.

  Before anyone could say anything again, Danielle cried out, her hand going to her head as tears streamed from her eyes. The sound coming from her throat hit a nerve in the three men kneeling beside her, and although they were all different in experience and opinion, the immediate feeling conjuring inside their hearts was the same.

  Death. Pain. Loneliness. Loss. Only Devon recognized that noise, and he demanded assistance in carrying Danielle’s seizing body to Marlow’s office before she began to regress.

  FORTY-ONE

  She was still under duress when they arrived at Marlow’s office. Every few steps, Danielle shook hard enough that Devon almost lost his grip, but Troy and Clyde were quick to offer support before she plummeted to the hard floor.

  “Marlow!” Devon called. “Help us!”

  He dropped Danielle onto the couch. Before anyone else could get help, however, she flung her arms into the air and choked on her own bubbling saliva. Troy wiped her mouth with a handkerchief and Clyde stayed out of the way. Devon undid his belt and wrapped Danielle's wrists together.

  “What are you doing?” Troy hovered close by, ready to intervene.

  “If she's regressing, she could endanger herself.” There wasn’t enough time to explain more than that. “Help me tie her down!”

  The moment Troy decided to help, Danielle released a piercing wail loud enough to send her hardened friends away with their hands clamped over their ears. Those notes could've shattered glass.

  “What's going on out here?” The library door swung open. Marlow stumbled out, cane whacking against the floor. “Who by the bleeding Void is screaming?”

  “It's Danielle.” Devon held her down. “I think she's regressing!”

  Marlow increased his speed at this revelation. He shoved Clyde and Troy aside and asked, “How did this happen? What triggered it?”

  “I don't know… we found the Third Piece and...”

  “You found the Third Piece?”

  “Yeah!”

  “And then what?”

  “She put it on.” Devon held up Danielle's right hand.

  Although the men fell quiet, Danielle continued to shudder on the couch and emit low, convulsing growls. Devon sat beside her. Nothing seemed right at all.

  “I may not know much about this crap,” Troy spoke up, “but I want to know what's happening. She's already been through so much other shit, what the fuck is going on now?”

  Marlow remained silent, watching. Clyde took the opportunity to explain things to his bewildered companion. “She's doing that thing where she gets her memories back, right? That thing you did.” He nodded toward Devon.

  “I don't know.” Devon kept shaking his head. Charlie hopped up onto the end of the couch and nuzzled against Danielle's unresponsive leg.

  “This is wrong.” Marlow picked up Danielle's hand, hot to his touch. “Very wrong.”

  “What is?”

  The old man tucked his cane beneath his arm and pried Danielle's fingers apart. He gingerly touched the ring, expecting ramifications, but instead found it chilled and burdened by nothing more than Danielle's swelling finger beneath it. “Help me with this.”

  Devon took Danielle's hand into his fist – her body was hotter than the upcoming summer. A whimper fell past her lips as Devon used his other hand to tug on the ring, its progress across her skin almost nonexistent.

  Not until Devon got the idea to ram his tattoo against the ring did Danielle's skin cool and let the ring slide off with minor effort. A large red welt formed on her finger while Devon handed the Third Piece over to Marlow.

  “What's happening to her?” Devon gazed down at her tear-strewn face. “This isn't the same as what happened to me, is it?”

  “I can't say for sure,” Marlow said, “but I think the ring attempted a forced regression that she wasn't ready for. Leave her here where we can watch her.”

  A forced regression. Devon may not have known much about Danielle's lives, but he knew she had enough sadness to never warrant such an assault on the current form of her soul. Even Marlow said Danielle hid something from herself... and as much as Devon thought he knew what it was, he could never tell her. When she woke up later, he couldn’t tell her he'd seen that wretched ring before, on another world, in another life, but on the same hand.

  ***

  At first, there was only a sickening sense of dread jolting up Danielle's spine. Before the final red flag could spike into her brain and coerce her to take the ring off her finger, she fought an inner battle forcing her conscience inward, and redirecting all five of her senses to another plane of existence.

  She lost the ability to breathe. Pressure formed around her throat, and she succumbed like a helpless child to the charade of suffocation. Danielle was knocked unconscious in her own subconscious.

  But that kind of deep and spiritual sleep allowed some of the imminent pain to disperse, and she rested – it was brief, however. Soon, a trickle of memories pushed their way past the pleading, tearful voice of Sulim. The hiding mercenary was exposed before Danielle merged with her ag
ain.

  I stand on a balcony overlooking the infested jungles of this planet I’ve begrudgingly called home for years.

  No, no… Danielle didn’t want this. She didn’t want to be this woman. Someone she didn’t know.

  It’s dusk, but the humidity pulses against my skin. Somehow, it’s comforting. I stand out here all the time, both taking in the calm scenery of the jungle canopy and performing my guard duties, because I’m that damned diligent.

  Am I really a guard, though? I’m not wearing any of my armo, though I’m on duty. Only the dark cloth of my under attire. Someone could kill me right now. I’m home, but I’m wary. People here kill each other all the time.

  I’m vulnerable. We’re exposed.

  Danielle wanted out of this body that wasn’t hears, even if it looked like hers.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Chills ripped through Danielle. Sulim, however, continued to lean against the balcony railing as if she were no longer wary.

  “Looking at the jungle.”

  “Obviously.” A woman with a dark tan approaches me. She’s wearing nothing but an ivory silk robe. Her presence soothes me. I wait for her to touch me, but she keeps her distance. “Missed you at dinner. For once it wasn't gamey.”

  “I wasn't hungry.”

  She frowns. If there’s anything I hate, it’s seeing her frown. “You should keep your diet steady before you head out again, you know? You need your strength.”

  “Please don't lecture me.”

  “What's gotten into you?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. What are you doing out here like this, anyway? You're standing like a prime target. If you die, then I've done a disservice to my job, haven't I?”

  “Is that what you're doing out here? Working? Sulim, you know those that don’t belong can’t get past the inner perimeter.” Her voice lowers. “Which means you look more suspicious than me up here.”

  Holy Void, she’s right. I’m authorized to be out here, but should I be? What if one of the other guards sees me here like this? They’ll start talking. We can’t afford that. “I should go inside and get something to eat. I leave tomorrow and should keep my diet steady...”

  I look upon the cheeky face of the woman I’m paid to protect. She pushes herself off the railing and ties her robe tighter around her waist. “I brought you some. Eat it before it gets cold.”

  “Delicious.”

  “Take this,” she says without missing a beat after my breaths. I cock my head to the side when I see the blue ring sitting in her palm.

  “I can't take that.”

  “It's your turn, isn't it? You're leaving tomorrow. “

  “I...”

  She takes my hand off the railing and shoves the ring between my fingers. “I never know how long you'll be gone. How else will you remember me?”

  “I'll only be gone a week.”

  “What if you forget me during that week?”

  She always knows how to make me smile. “I haven't forgotten you in seven years. I won't forget you in a week.”

  Our tender moment is ruined by the rustling tree beyond the perimeter. I spin around, my hand poised over my gun. A pair of birds erupt from the foliage.

  Someone slaps my ass. I don’t have to turn around to find out who.

  A coy look is all I see as she slips back into the cool and shadowy abode leading to her chambers. With her head still turned over her shoulder, she sheds the ivory robe and lets it pool around her feet. My eyes go straight to the scars marring her otherwise beautiful back.

  I think it’s beautiful, scars and all.

  “Come get your dinner before it’s cold.”

  “Only if you’re feeding it to me.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  The world dissipated into a forgetful fog, forcing Danielle to fall inside herself and beg in silence for it to end. She was used to reliving those sorts of moments as of late, but to feel them, to breathe them, and to live them while she was “conscious” was more suffocating than asphyxiation. Any peace she may have gained from the quiet memory was rejected the moment Danielle stopped crying long enough to breathe.

  Because she couldn't breathe.

  A different part of her memory was accessed now. After a thousand years of death and rebirth, the soul inside Danielle's body was used to purging the no longer relevant memories remaining between Sulim and whatever current form she inhabited. But even the Process couldn't remove everything, and like once-thought deleted files on a hard-drive, old information returned in a blunt manner.

  She still couldn't breathe.

  She tried to breathe. Between trying to remember who she was and what was going on, all Danielle could think of was getting air to her lungs. Danielle – no, no Danielle didn't exist yet. Who was she? Did it even matter? Same soul, different body. Different life.

  Rilah. Her name was Rilah. She could remember no more, not even the name of the star she lived on and tried to protect from destruction.

  Rilah was dying. She lay, wounded in her side, on a slab of concrete pelted by rain. Her clothes were drenched in blood. She couldn't breathe because her entire body gasped for blood.

  All she knew was her partner, the body harboring Sonall's soul and whose name seemed lost to the universe, was already dead. The Relics were gathered and set ablaze by an old man who cared not for the sanctity of living beings and the stars they inhabited in the sky. The last foliage of the moon, the planet, the piece of rock they lived on was gone. Only a sliver of time remained before nothing existed anymore. Before Rilah's body ceased to exist.

  So why was she trying to breathe? Why couldn't she just die? She was betrayed by her battered body. What was the point in living when nothingness came to claim her and every other soul she failed to protect? Every second passing was another second with less blood and more tears on her face. And she was dying alone.

  “Rilah!” A woman cloaked in a black robe ran to Rilah's body and knelt beside her, hands in hers and fingers tracing Rilah's tussled hair. “No, no Sulim...”

  Rilah only knew that name because Marlow told her what it was. Rilah, like Danielle, had never regressed and could not respond so readily to that name, even in death. Her ears were assaulted by sobs and the calling of a name Rilah did not heed.

  “I'm so sorry,” came an apology. “I couldn't protect you like you always protected me.”

  Rilah slipped further from life. The ground beneath them rumbled in its own destruction. The woman looked around and pulled a handheld firearm from its holster on her side. Two bullets entered the chambers.

  “Next time, Sulim.”

  A gun shot, and Rilah was dead, her misery ended by the barrel of a stranger's gun. The ground cracked and fell away to the stars, its own soul destroyed and its body a mere shell fit for annihilation. Nothing to hang around for. The woman held the barrel of the gun to her head, Rilah's body still in her arms.

  Another shot, and they died together. As the planet gave up hope and blinked from cosmic existence, the souls of all who remained on its world ambled their way toward the Void. Sulim was there, her essence aware of the departing souls around her. She still could not join them.

  Sulim was alone, drifting through the universe. Her soul departed as a butterfly through the stars like a meteor fit for wishing upon.

  Another one had followed close behind.

  ***

  Her sudden jerking was what roused Devon from his nap next to her. He rubbed his eyes and dropped her hand out of his.

  “Are you okay?” He sat back to give her air.

  She grabbed the edge of the bed. Where was her voice? “I feel like I just died.” There it was. Drained.

  “Did you regress?”

  She recalled a couple of flashbacks, but couldn’t say she now knew everything her previous self would have. “I don't think so. I just have a really huge headache.” As she pushed herself up, she realized her entire torso ached as well, specifically beneath her naval. “And my sto
mach hurts like...” She was awake again.

  “What is it?” Devon was perturbed by the horrified shine in Danielle's hazel eyes.

  “Oh, fuck.” She almost fell to the floor trying to get out of the bed.

  He followed her to the doorway. “Where are you going?”

  “Bathroom!”

  The others were asleep on the couch, Troy huddled in one of its corners and Clyde draped on the other with Charlie, belly up. Devon was careful to not wake them up as he approached Marlow from behind.

  “What was that all about?” Marlow asked from his desk.

  “Danielle's awake,” was all he said.

  “Good. Where is she?”

  “Went to the bathroom.”

  “Did she regress?”

  “Don't think so.”

  Before Marlow could say something again, a long string of obscenities flew down the hall in a typhoon of bad manners. Its verbal wind gauge was so high that it roused everyone on the couch, from where they witnessed the eye of the storm come marching down the hallway in her angry glory.

  “I'm going home right now,” she announced.

  “What's the emergency?” Troy yawned on the sofa.

  “Blood.”

  Marlow picked up his cane and heaved himself up from his desk chair. “Where are you bleeding from?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “My vagina.”

  Marlow stopped cold.

  “I'm going home, ‘cause now I've got shit to deal with. Goodbye.”

  “Are you crazy?” Marlow attempted to put himself between her and the exit. “You almost had a forced regression that knocked you out for hours, and could possibly regress at any time because of it... and you're leaving?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  “Look,” Danielle pointed a finger in his chest, “you've never had cramps before, have you? I'ma go home and take an ibuprofen before I leave a nasty mess in your bathroom.” She waved to the others. “Anybody who wants to go back to Earth with me better come now.”

  Marlow pulled Devon over before he could get away from the office. “Follow her, stay with her, and bring her back here the moment she seems to go off again. Oh, and take this.” He slipped the ring back into Devon's hand. “Hide it well. It's been off planet long enough as it is.”