by Quil Carter
“They’ve stopped the flames,” Kerres said hastily, his grip not weakening on my arm. “They just did a few days ago. SNN says Silas drew in the radiation surrounding Olympus and with the help of the fire trucks the flames were extinguished. The twelfth floor and up is destroyed but it’s out now.”
The twelfth floor and up? My home was destroyed, the home I shared with my master, with Luca, and Biff. All of our things, all of my belongings…
I couldn’t hold back the sadness overwhelming me. I put a hand over my mouth, knowing that if I spoke I wouldn’t be able to keep the tears at bay. I had to get back to Elish. I had to let him know I was okay. Oh fuck. Oh fuck if ten floors were gone… did he think I was in there?
“It’s okay, baby,” Kerres choked. I felt him sit down beside me on the bed and pull me to his side.
And then he said what I had dreaded could be the truth.
“Silas announced your death on SNN during the meeting. You – baby, do you understand what this means? You’re free,” Kerres said through a tight and breaking voice. His head leaned against mine. “You’re finally free of them.”
The pain was overwhelming. Each word that fell from Kerres’s mouth felt like its own thousand pound weight, and they were being stacked one on top of each other on my back, making me physically bow over. My entire world had been destroyed in the course of fifteen minutes and now I was standing amongst the ashes all alone, with only the ghost of my past beside me. In my mind I fell to my knees under the back-breaking emotions, and looked to the grey scorched sky for my opal ribbons and my crystal cold light; but there was no master to pick me up and help me stand, and the ghost was too weak, and I was too broken.
No… I wasn’t broken anymore. I was fixed. I was repaired.
I stared at the stained light blue carpet and looked to Gage. The man with the two-toned hair and eyes was also downcast, and I took that opportunity to draw up his aura.
Unlike my experiences drawing up the aura of born immortals this one didn’t make me recoil in fear, or charge at me like I had opened the door to where the murderer was hiding. But that being said, whereas the born immortal’s auras held that black hole that consumed all light and colours and fed on them, this one’s aura was faded and monotone, with a texture to it that reminded me of crumbling concrete, worn from wind and rain until it was rough underneath my touch. There were hints of colour in it, blue and green, but they were only faint memories. Like there was a film covering it.
Yes, there was something covering it… that was what was making it look so faded. I realized as I stared at this aura that there was something wrong with it…
Suddenly I touched upon something that made me jump, something I didn’t understand. It was a corner of his subconscious that seemed teeming with life. It was like I had been walking through a monotone mansion and I’d just opened a sound proof door to a packed-full party. One with music blaring and dozens of people inside.
I recoiled away, confused.
What the hell was that? Maybe – maybe it was just his mental abilities making his aura that way? I’d never felt this from Silas but, then again, his had been a void, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything.
“Why don’t you get Jade some food?” Gage’s voice brought me back to my reality. I squinted my eyes and rubbed them, still confused over what I had seen. “Do you have something liquidy for him?”
Kerres nodded and rubbed my back before getting up. “I have some ramen and vitamin supplements. Once you feel better, J, we can talk about our plans.” He turned around, the lines on his grey face vivid in the indoor lighting. Never more did I see how tired he was, and never more did I feel such a sense of guilt. This would not end well for him, but what could I do? I had to get back to my master. If he had me, his home, and his sengil destroyed… I had no idea how he would be but I knew it wouldn’t be good.
But how would Elish be? My chimera was a figure of frozen dignity, a flawless demigod that, on the outside, held no emotions but a practised art of cruelty and indifference. He was a statue carved from the ice flows of the Arctic and there he stood on a pedestal on high that he had earned.
At least that is who he was to everyone else… but me.
To me, he was my husband. To me, he was the man who I now remember reading to me every night, who played Pokémon with the handheld game in front of me so I could watch; who bathed me, dressed me, and to my humiliation now, even cleaned me. Elish had stepped out of his position of my lord and master, and had become my caretaker – all because of his love for me.
The Elish outside of Olympus, the one that everyone else saw, may appear as fine, but the one I knew inside those closed doors… I couldn’t imagine what he was going through.
Kerres was moving around in the kitchen, and I continued to sit on the bed with Gage in a chair beside me. The man with the frock of white hair that covered the front left-hand side of his face, stared at his shoes. New shoes designed for a chimera, they must be Drake’s.
I looked to the kitchen and dropped my voice. “How was he?” I asked, my voice pleading. “How was Elish?”
To my surprise, when Gage raised his head to look at me, his expression was puzzled. He reached a hand to my head, and when I felt a burning heat from his fingers, I jerked it away.
“I… completely cured you,” Gage said under his breath, his thick eyebrows drawing close together. “You still feel affection towards that blond man?”
I gave him my own puzzled look before the pieces started to click together. Gage had been with Kerres, and it was foolhardy to think that Kerres hadn’t told him his belief that Elish had brainwashed me.
“Kerres is… he’s really sick,” I said to him. Even with his strange aura, there was something that pulled me towards trusting him. I didn’t see him as having any allegiance to Kerres, it looked like he had just been in the right place at the right time. “He’s my ex-boyfriend and he’s… never gotten over me. Elish did, sort of, kidnap me but chimeras can take anyone they want as cicaros. We’ve been through a lot, but I love him and–” I looked down to show him my wedding ring, but my chest turned cold when I saw it was gone. “–and we’re married. I’m not brainwashed; Kerres is the one who’s sick, not me.”
“He is sick and I cannot help him like I helped you…” Gage said gravely, and looked towards the kitchen. “He’s weak too, but… they’re saying they have use for him.” The man looked back down to his sneakers. “They’re telling me they have use for everyone I’ve come in contact with.”
They’re telling him? Did he have voices in his head? Or maybe his time in the concrete had made him develop split personalities like Sanguine. I didn’t want to offend him, so I just took it as a unique way that he spoke.
“Were you… one of the concrete prisoners?” I asked. “Are you a chimera?”
“I don’t know what I am,” Gage replied simply. “I only remember wandering around the dead world until I saw Skyfall in the distance. I remember other things I wish not to share, but in the end I was put in concrete and it was there I stayed.” Gage then touched the back of his neck. “Being in concrete did help us, however.” Then his brow furrowed. “Our memories are still divided. I… we’re not used to this. We’re still getting used to this.”
I stared at him. Yeah, maybe the weird corner in Gage’s mind, where I saw all that activity… maybe he had split his personalities. Poor fucking guy.
Our attention was diverted when we heard the tinkling of silverware, Kerres would be returning soon. “I need to talk to you in private, without Kerres,” I said to him quickly. “I… I can’t stay here with him. I need to go back to my master. He’ll help you too, I promise; he’ll do anything you want for healing me.” Then Kerres appeared, and the conversation was forced to be dropped.
After I had eaten the chicken-flavoured ramen, and had swallowed down more than my share of vitamin supplements, I sat on the couch so I could try and watch SNN, the Skyfall News Network. I was desperate for informat
ion about the fire in Olympus, and even more desperate to see Elish. I kept telling myself I would see him soon; I just had to wait for Kerres to fall asleep and I would be out of this house and running to his arms.
“Why don’t we watch some Friends? Just like we used to,” Kerres said when I turned on the television. He took the remote out of my hand before I could even get the second number pressed, and turned it to TTG The Teaguae Channel where Friends was on often, almost every chimera had their own custom channel. I did too now. “It’s eight and there are always ones on in the evening.”
“Ker…” I said, and shot a glance to Gage. Gage was sitting right beside me. I would’ve thought that since he didn’t know me he’d sit on the easy chair beside the couch, but he was kind of like a love-starved dog in that sense.
Gage offered me no help, he just looked at the coffee table and remained silent. I sighed and tried to take the remote. “K, I want to see what’s going on on the outside. I want to see what happened to my home… to…”
“… Elish?” Kerres whispered. And like Elish’s name was just as cold as the man himself, the temperature in the room seemed to drop. “… why? Why would you ever want to see him?”
This was one of those times where it would be best that I lied, but I wanted to take him by his collar and shake him, shake him and scream in his face that I loved Elish. That Elish was my world and that Kerres should appreciate that I was waiting until he fell asleep to run to him.
“I want to see if Luca survived,” I said. My words held a shred of honestly, because I was worried about him. He wasn’t just our sengil – Luca was my friend.
“Silas didn’t mention that he died,” Kerres replied simply, but in his tone I could see the spines start to slowly come out. “Olympus is burned to the twelfth floor and I haven’t seen Elish. That’s all you need to know.”
“Kerres… I just want to–”
“There isn’t a need to!” Kerres suddenly cried. He gripped the remote and I saw his knuckles turn white from the strength of it. “You’re free. Look.” He got up and walked to the other side of the living room, where I saw dust-covered knapsacks and duffle bags. There were a lot of them, but everywhere inside of this house were bags and boxes of things, so they hadn’t stood out.
Kerres grabbed a map, but my eyes weren’t on him, in that knapsack I saw the butt of what I knew was an assault rifle, and boxes of ammunition. I had a feeling that stash was Crimstone weaponry.
This gave me apprehension, and I was starting to become aware that perhaps I was in more danger than I previously thought. If Gage couldn’t help Kerres it meant my ex-boyfriend was still suffering from mental issues stemming from his time with the Crimstones. They had done surgery on him, I remember seeing the scar on the back of his head. I wasn’t dealing with normal Kerres, this was insane Kerres.
Kerres sat down beside me and unrolled what I realized was a map. “We’re going to be moving here as soon as you can make the journey,” he said, his voice quick like he was already running there in his mind. “This is–”
I recognized it, and the apprehension grew. “Irontowers.”
Kerres nodded. “Almost all of the Crimstones are dead. Silas apprehended and executed almost everyone after Reno and the others, it’s just me. There is a base there and in that base is enough weapons and ammo to destroy Skyfall, and supplies that will last us years. We even have the Falconer that we used when we saved you.”
Saved me…? They’d kidnapped me and I’d almost died thanks to Milos, the former leader of the Crimstones. I tore Kerres’s ear off; Milos had pulled out my teeth. They’d all beaten on me… Milos had tried to kill all of us in the end by being a suicide bomber.
“We can stay there and if they find out you’re alive… we can bring them down. Isn’t it perfect?” Kerres’s eyes started to well. “It’s going to be just like before. Just like before Elish kidnapped you.” He sniffed and put an arm around my waist to draw me to him, but all I could do was stare at that map. “Just think of what we can do to get your revenge on Elish. Olympus burning will be nothing compared to what we’ll do to him, and the rest of that abomination of a family.”
“I’m a part of that family, Kerres,” I said before I could stop myself.
Kerres gave me a sharp look. “No, you’re not,” he said back. He shook his head rapidly back and forth. He… he reminded me of my mom in that moment, or the woman who had raised me in Moros. “Jade. That’s just residue from your time with them. You’re different than them. Look.” He pointed to the map, a drawn map but it was impressively detailed. Kerres was pointing to a building that was labelled as being an old bank.
“We have our ammo and weapons in there, and the Falconer is here.” He pointed to a mechanic’s shop. “We don’t need to attack right away. We’re too weak just the three of us.” Three? I heard Gage’s heartbeat pick up, and I knew he was just as in on this as I was. “But Moros will join us. I know they will. And there are settlements not too far from the factory towns with greywasters and refugees that Silas had denied entry to Skyfall. Starving people, bitter people, we can resurrect the Crimstones, J. And we can wipe out the chimeras once and for all.” He smiled again, and I saw hope in his eyes… crazed hope. “We’re the leaders of an organization that’s almost a hundred years old. With your abilities, and my knowledge of weapons and the inner workings of the Crimstones… we can do what Milos and Meirko died trying to do… we can put a human back in power and… we can save our race.”
“Kerres…” I said. I put my hand on his and slowly took the map away from him. “We’re not going to do that, baby. I’ve fought enough battles.” Reaver and Killian’s faces appeared in my mind, and more questions followed their images. I had to get home. I had to know what had happened while I was gone. Was Big Shot still alive? Deekoi? Did Elish find out how to kill Silas? My life wasn’t here with Kerres, and I felt like I was wasting precious time. I couldn’t stay here idle when the world had gone on without me. I’d left this planet for the plains of nothingness at the wrong time. “I just want peace now.”
“We can until you’re strong enough,” Kerres said, and he took the map back from me. He got up and put it back into the duffle bag. “Once you’ve had time to get your head back.”
I took the remote and turned it to the Skyfall News Network. I ignored Kerres, even though I had seen him pause while he was putting the map away. I didn’t want to hear his shit, and I wasn’t interested in it. As much of an asshole as it made me seem… I didn’t love him enough to humour his delusions. I had to get back to Elish and find out what was going on and how my friends and family were. I couldn’t let Elish continue to think I was dead, and every second I was here was a second that I was without him.
I appreciated Kerres saving me, and if he’d asked for anything as thanks I would’ve made Elish give it to him, but I didn’t owe him my life for what he’d done. I’m sure it makes me into a bad person, but it was what it was.
Kerres’s hand reached towards me to grab the remote but I pulled it away. “I’m watching SNN,” I said with an edge to my voice. Then my attention turned when the SNN chime sounded and the digital logo flashed around the screen.
Kerres froze, but whatever expression was on his face I didn’t see or care to see. I watched the television intently, and when I saw the remains of Olympus I couldn’t hold back the gasp.
My home… my home was… it was just incinerated. Olympus was half the height it used to be, and the new top floor was nothing but the compacted remains of the apartments that used to sit above it, with smoke that stained what was below like black paint dripping down the handle of a paintbrush. The new top floor wasn’t burned, but it would never be habitable again, there were layers and layers of black and grey, with pieces of framing twisting out at all angles like the legs of a squashed insect.
And the floors below had in no way been saved from the fire. Almost all of the windows had been blown out, and what ones that had been spared were forever b
linded by the black smoke that stained everything. The remaining floors now stood in complete darkness, their empty frames staring out into the rest of Skyland. They had no faces but to me they looked empty and sad, for they were now doomed to gaze upon the repaired structures around them. Whereas in the greywastes everything was dead, Olympus, once the second most impressive skyscraper in the world, now had to stand amongst the living. This was my home and yet it was like I was staring at the skyscrapers of the greywastes. I couldn’t help in that moment but think that we had brought the greywastes home with us, in more ways than Elish and I could’ve ever imagined.
I sniffed and shook my head as the camera zoomed out. I witnessed a piece of concrete fall from the top floor and land onto the ground below. I was dismayed to see that around the remains of Olympus were heaping piles of melted debris, blackened glass and concrete, the grass that had been so lush and green now destroyed from not only the falling material, but the tire tracks of what I had guessed were the fire trucks. Even the stairs had a huge gouge taken out of them, with the culprit, a slab of concrete with the siding still attached, laying several feet away; the dust of the steps it had destroyed still showing on its surface.
“Recovery operations resumed today, the upper floors now finally accessible to rescue crews,” the voice over said. “Ten bodies have been recovered but, as King Silas has confirmed, the remains of anyone in the upper floors would have been incinerated in the heat, including that of Prince Jade Shadow Dekker, husband to Prince Elish Dekker.” I glanced as white text appeared on screen. Chimera Jade Dekker Dead at 18.