The Fall of Zephyr
Angelina Singer
To my writing mentors who have taught me so much and shared your craft with me. You are an inspiration!
Cover art by Sara Freitas
Copyright © 2017 by Angelina Singer
VOLUME ONE:
THE HUNT
CHAPTER 1
The lavender-tinted atmosphere of the Upperworld parts as two beings march through the fog in a desperate haste. Their footfalls hit the ground and cascade over their surroundings, which is surprisingly disruptive in the already bustling walkway. Evander and Jade enter a habitation pod and begin to discuss their latest source of sheer terror – directly related to the only life they’ve ever known.
Since the drastic confusion involving Delphine, a young sorter who placed an orb into the wrong receptacle, and the involvement of Luna covering for her blunder, there have been concerns that the very mechanisms involving the operations of the Sorting Room are falling apart.
Luna’s story, is a complicated one, as she and her intended partner, Onyx, were both meant to live human lives on Earth. Due to circumstances beyond even the Sorting Room’s control, their souls were retracted back into the larger sorting system, and given the opportunity to work as immortal beings. The only problem, is that their very human attributes took over, and they still loved each other, even after their minds were wiped. Luna tried to fix Delphine’s horrible mistake on Earth, but ended up with a scorned child of her own... and now that very child is chasing her, ensuring her demise at the request of Zephyr - the Most High Being of the Upperworld.
“We need a new leader, Evander. We’ve got to appoint someone. And soon. The future of humanity depends on it.”
“What are you talking about? How? But Zephyr...”
“Is dying. His ability to map out life schemes and generate orbs is becoming less and less accurate. It’s a miracle that there haven’t been any more mix-ups, besides the one with Luna covering for Delphine.”
Evander holds his face in his hands. “I know, but this is... crazy. There’s nothing we can do. We need... a fail-safe, or something we can get to just to keep fear at a minimum.”
Jade nods. “That is very true. We also need a way to explain Onyx’s absence in the meantime...”
“Do you think you’ll be able to cover for him? If anyone asks, maybe say that he...”
“Has a mission on Earth - yes, that could work.”
“But what if Zephyr asks you? He’s going to find out eventually - Onyx is a Head Guide.”
Jade nods her head. “It’s true, I think there’s just a lot we have to account for. I also worry that these walls have ears.”
Evander shakes his head. “Nope, not anymore. I neutralized my habitation pod to be a dead zone. There are no cameras or sound recordings being transmitted beyond these walls. We can use this as a safe place to talk... and to plan.”
“We’re going to need to rally sorters for the cause.”
“And the cause being?”
“Two things: to take down Zephyr, and to elect a new leader. I have no idea who that could be, or how we’ll figure it out...”
Evander looks at Jade with horror and dread in his eyes. “But... will the new leader be able to lead? Will they have the ability to generate orbs? If they don’t, the human race...”
“Will go extinct.”
✷✷✷
The subtle beep of the monitors slowly and steadily invades the intimate space created by Onyx’s presence in Luna’s hospital room. She’s recovering from an unfortunate collision with an unruly truck in the middle of the night, while he is there as her protector. They are both snuggled peacefully in an otherwise cold and stiff mechanized bed, as the world keeps moving outside their window.
Ever so slightly, Luna strokes the edge of his jawline with her fingertips, a subtle touch of affection and emotion. She’s comforted by his embrace, but still trying to swallow the news that she is being hunted.
“Onyx, I am really scared.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
Onyx pauses as a thought enters his mind, and exhales out the tension building in his chest.
“Whatever we need to do, we’ll do. And we will thrive. Life here is… different. But not necessarily bad. I think… I hope… we’ll both grow to like it here.”
Luna slowly nods as he plants a chaste kiss on her forehead. As his bright blue eyes meet her deep purple ones, the pressure shifts as his lips connect with hers powerfully, nearly taking her breath away and injecting life into her all at the same time. His touch is more powerful than any drug administered by the hospital staff to keep Luna from feeling pain as her body heals. The kiss deepens as he carefully cradles her body in his own.
“Uh, excuse me. Miss… Luna?”
A petite nurse standing by the partitioned curtain of Luna’s makeshift room catches the two in the midst of their moment.
“Sorry to… interrupt. I’ve come to do some final checks on Luna, and she’ll be allowed to go home as soon as the doctor debriefs her on everything she needs to do to get better.” Then her gaze shifts to Onyx as he calmly sits on the edge of Luna’s bed.
“And who are you, sir?”
Onyx thinks for a moment about the proper wording for what he is to Luna. It was extremely unlikely that the most accurate explanation of their relationship would be understood in the context of earthly life. Although he personally despises the juvenile connotation of the term, being that he is over four-hundred years old, Onyx quickly blurts it out as to avoid arousing suspicion.
“Boyfriend… I’m her boyfriend.”
The word tastes bitter on his tongue, but it is a taste he will need to acquire, as he adapts to many more things in this world that do not feel natural to him yet. Luna’s eyes widen in response, as she senses some weight behind that word, even if she doesn’t fully understand the implications it carries.
“Ah, I see. Very sweet. I apologize for the small space here, if I had known you were going to stay with her, I could’ve gotten you a cot.”
Onyx shakes his head and manages a small smile. “That would not have been necessary. But thank you.”
She nods politely, and then moves toward Luna to check on her vitals. With deft fingers and a polite smile, the nurse wraps a blood pressure cuff around her arm, checks the various monitors, and rapidly jots something down on a notepad.
“Okay, everything looks good here. Luna, I’ll go let the doctor know you’re all set.”
Luna smiles, and then looks at Onyx. A smile spreads across his lips as well, and he squeezes her hand as some mild reassurance.
After a few moments of waiting, a man in a white lab coat appears in Luna’s partitioned area of the hospital.
“Hello, Luna? I’m Doctor McAllister. I hear you’ve had a nasty accident, but it seems that you are ready to go home now. You’ve got a couple of broken ribs, some bruising, and a mild concussion, but otherwise, it seems that you’ll be fine. Don’t lift anything that weighs more than ten pounds, and don’t exert yourself, at least for another couple of weeks. Luckily, ribs and concussions heal themselves, given enough time to do so. But you’ve got to take it easy, okay?”
Luna nods hesitantly, not fully registering the terms the doctor as using, but too embarrassed to ask.
“And I assume you’ll be taking care of her?” The doctor smiles at Onyx, who is holding Luna’s petite, pale hand in his own.
“Yes, of course.”
The doctor nods curtly. “Okay, well you are officially discharged. I release you to the capable hands of…”
“Onyx.”
“Yes, yes of course. Be well, Luna. I wish you the best.”
As the doctor ex
its the room, another nurse comes back to remove Luna’s intravenous line and various wires. The nurse briefly glances in Onyx’s direction.
“You’ve sure got yourself a good one, Sweetie.”
Luna’s face frowns puzzlingly. “A good what?”
The nurse giggles. “Aren’t you adorable!” She pats her on the back as she walks out.
“Onyx, can we go now?”
He smiles at Luna. “Certainly. But why don’t you get dressed first? Your clothes are in the bag right there on the bedside table.” Onyx points to her bright pink jumpsuit in the pale white bag with the words ‘patient belongings’ emblazoned on the front.
“Oh okay.” She begins to disrobe, exposing her petite shoulders to the dry hospital air, but Onyx stops her.
“I’ll be right here. Tell me when you’re ready.” And Onyx steps out to give her privacy and closes the curtain.
Luna removes her thin hospital gown and notices how frail and weak her body feels. After carrying an unwanted child, even for a short while, her midsection is bruised and beaten, and sagging in places she never anticipated. It is unclear whether the pain she feels is from the accident or her short-term pregnancy. Regardless, the pain makes it hard to pull the tight jumpsuit over her weakened frame. She manages well enough, even slipping her expelled tracking device into her pocket, just for good measure. Then she joins Onyx in the hallway, and they make their way out into the world, vulnerable as ever but determined to thrive, regardless of the circumstances at hand.
CHAPTER 2
The scorned child is resurrected in the middle of a grassy field, under a bright blue sky. His bright violet eyes hold a complex story of lies and deceit, and his body was formed accidentally in Luna’s womb. The gravity is overpowering, the air cooler and thinner than he imagined. The mission he was sent with is firmly planted in his mind, while his body wavers in its new, unfamiliar environment. First he sits up, and then slowly stands. His eyes scan the perimeter of the park for Luna’s characteristic long, dark hair flowing in the breeze, but she is nowhere to be seen.
This may be harder than I had imagined.
He reaches into his pocket and gingerly grasps the small dagger, and also feels the weight of the black, magnetized rock on a chain in his pocket. One was his weapon of choice for the assassination; the other, his ticket back to the Upperworld. He continues searching the park for Luna, but being unable to find her, he decides to continue walking in a different direction. He quickly realizes that he is across the street from the very convenience store that she had visited.
Maybe if I find more landmarks, that will eventually lead me to her.
Without a better plan in mind, Seth decides to do just that and keep walking. But he remains as alert as possible, lest he miss any important clues that might lead him right to her.
✷✷✷
“Now Harold, I know it was hard to believe the first time, but I swear it happened again! A young boy in a pale blue jumpsuit has just emerged from the ground! No, not like in a zombie movie… I’m serious, stop laughing! Something very strange is going on here…”
✷✷✷
Delphine sits comfortably on the couch watching television. The burns she received from going outside still hurt quite a bit, but the balm Elizabeth put on it certainly made it feel significantly better. She smiles at Elizabeth who is stationed in the kitchen, likely steeping some water for a cup of tea. Elizabeth smiles back, but she cannot fully hide the shock she feels from what Evander told her about Delphine’s past as a demon. It shocked her to her core, and she was determined not to breathe a word of this to Delphine. At least not yet.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yeah, Delphine?”
“Is there something… I’m supposed to be doing? Or is this…” Delphine motions toward the television. “… basically it? Since you told me Evander said Miranda and Anthony are together now?”
Elizabeth smiles, even as she was still reeling from the shock of the news.
“Well, there’s nothing I would suggest you do, besides just try and assimilate to Earth as quickly as you can. After you do that, there are some things we could discuss, like education or a job. But nothing yet, my dear. They indeed are together now, as Zephyr himself had intended. And that is wonderful!”
Delphine nods calmly.
“Also, um, I was wondering… why did going outside hurt me? It doesn’t seem to affect you…”
Elizabeth holds her breath for a moment, searching desperately for a solution. Now is not the time to tell, if ever. But she has to tell her something.
“Well, everyone is different. It seems your body just reacts harshly to the sun, whereas my body does not. We’ll just have to make sure you are dressed to block the sun, if you’re going outside. That’s all.”
Delphine seems relatively satisfied with that suggestion, and gets back to watching television. Elizabeth turns back to the kitchen, where the teakettle is beginning to whistle. As she pours herself a cup of tea and offers one to Delphine, she can’t help but worry that not telling her would be a terrible mistake. But somehow, just telling the poor girl she is a demon would seem both cruel and impractical as she is trying so desperately to assimilate into a culture and planet she is just not familiar with yet.
CHAPTER 3
“Well, do you have a game plan? What’s the next step? How does one start a revolution?”
Jade looks down at her feet, and puts her head in her hands. “Well, I think first, we should just keep our heads down, and try not to arouse suspicion. But we’ll need to gather a following. If I learned anything from my brief studies of human history, it’s that the mob mentality, or ‘hive mind’, is often the most powerful. It is much easier to snap a single thread, than it is to break a rope made up of many threads woven together. That is the kind of power we need to cultivate in order to be successful.”
Evander nods slowly, but the worry is still so very apparent in his face. “Okay, and how do you suggest we do that?”
Jade sighs. “Well, if you overhear any other sorters expressing discontent, find a way to tell them of our initiative. Then let me know when you begin to gather a following, and we’ll start to conduct secret meetings. We’ll need to discuss a plan of attack, as well as who should be put in Zephyr’s place, since he will be dethroned.”
Evander shakes his head, and forces himself to make eye contact with Jade, even though his worst fear is coming true - and he and Jade are the catalysts for it. “Okay, I’ll definitely keep my eyes open for anyone who may want to join the resistance.”
“Oh, and Evander? Under no circumstances, should Zephyr find out about this. That would spell disaster.”
Evander shakes his head. “Well, I doubt it could possibly get any worse than it already is…”
Jade smiles sadly, and looks out the pod window. “Well, I guess now is the time to tell you… there are worse things than Zephyr falling apart.”
Evander turns to look directly at Jade. “What – what would that be?”
Jade chuckles to herself, as the reality is beginning to become crazy enough to warrant laughter. “Not only is Zephyr dying, but he has the power to take us all with him.”
“What? No…”
Jade nods. “Indeed. If we don’t catch him before he loses complete control of his faculties… we all will descend into the Underworld with him, and be subject to even worse torture than the humans… for all eternity.”
“And the human race?
“Gone.”
✷✷✷
Luna firmly grasps Onyx’s hand as they exit the hospital. She still has no idea about her past… because Onyx has been searching for the right time and way to tell her. It has been on his mind since the moment he woke her with a perfect kiss in the hospital room when they were first reunited.
“Onyx? What do we do now?” The sun is beating down on Luna’s pale, tired face, eclipsed only by her dark-as-midnight hair. Onyx looks around at their surroundings, racking his mind for the next
steps. He recognizes that they are standing in what is known as a “parking lot”. The designated place for humanoids to place their motorized vehicles while not in use, he recites to himself. Beyond that is the busy street, and the many vehicles moving continuously through it.
“Well, this isn’t… I never… planned for this. I know a good deal about Earth and its inhabitants, but I never considered that there was a possibility I’d have to - we’d have to, live here permanently.” Onyx grabs both of Luna’s hands in his own. “But I can assure you, I will do anything and everything in my power to keep you happy and safe. Let’s start by getting on that bus over there.”
He motions to the bus pulling up to the stop, and gently guides Luna by her outstretched hand. They both step onto the bus, but they get some odd stares. Onyx nearly forgets to deposit the correct amount of money into the depository, but the expectant glare of the bus driver swiftly reminds him.
“Mommy, why are those people dressed so funny?”
A young mother hushes the unfortunate words of her small child. “Sarah, please don’t say things like that to people, that’s not very nice.” She offers a sheepish smile toward Luna, as the woman shrugs her shoulders. “Kids - whatcha gonna do?” Onyx smiles and nods, as he slides next to Luna on the nearest bench near the front of the bus.
“Onyx, where are we going?” Luna looks at him expectantly. Their relationship is complicated, even beyond the obvious notion of them being retracted beings who were always meant for each other on Earth, but brainwashed and reset as sorters. I need to tell her, and soon. It is no doubt that she is beginning to wonder why she even feels about me the way she does. Emotions are the one thing Onyx had little to no training in - because they just aren’t a part of what it means to be a sorter.
“Onyx, I really don’t know what’s happening… do you know what we’re doing?” Luna taps his shoulder, snapping him out of his long-winded thought process.
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