In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  “I ate him…” The realization came out of me as a slow, crackling rasp, so much so that I struggled to understand my own words. “I… ate…”

  “Yes, yes, you did! Now Typo’s gone, and you’re healed!”

  I was so beside myself that she managed to flip my solid body over. Mabel loomed above me, her eyes embroidered with tears, but I couldn’t look at her in the same way—I only found myself looking within and feeling my stomach acid churn, digesting the man whose screams I could still hear loud and clear. How long was I trapped in that nightmare? How long had I been lying here? “How… Long?”

  A crinkled, warped frown crept across Mabel’s face, trying to stay strong. “Only a few minutes, but…” Her head fell, her locks hiding her red face as she let her body give in to a single sob. “I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry…”

  Her waves of grief managed to distract me from my own. “Sorry…? What would you apologize for?”

  She didn’t reply, keeping her face hidden beneath her ocean of hair. Intrigued, I forced my aching body to sit, freezing beside her. The body count around us had increased exponentially; it was rare to find a patch of snow without some sort of corpse in it. Those left continued to fight with all their might, but many Encryptors had given up on a direct one-on-one, tearing off in the direction of the palace as the massive wave of Returned slammed their roots and branches into the walls, hauling large chunks to the ground as the last official defense of the empire fell, allowing the Encryptors to force their way in.

  But Mabel stayed in the snow with me, her hand trembling around an empty vial without a cork. I didn’t understand just what made her so upset. Why couldn’t she look at me? I thought I was the one who just had a near-death, traumatizing experience.

  …Speaking of which…!

  I craned my neck high. Pinion kneeled beside Seek, cradling the child who did not breathe nor see. Her aura was out much like her consciousness, skin flushed and body still.

  I hardly had the courage to ask. “Is she…?”

  “She’s alive,” Pinion grumbled. “Barely… But she is, thanks to Mabel.”

  Mabel lifelessly extended her arm, dropping the vial in front of me. “…I’m sorry… That I can’t save you… Any of you…” Never lifting her head, she rose, dragging her feet through the snow and over to a bloody, rasping mass of metal and flesh.

  I didn’t follow, still confused as to what the heck was going on. My confusion was definitely not eased when Mabel dropped down next to Griffin, staring at his soiled body. He was hardly breathing, but that idiotic smile was still on his face, pairing perfectly with his choppy laughter that whistled with each lapsing breath.

  “Griffin…” she whispered, lightly touching his shoulder. “I’m sorry, too… Sorry that we didn’t get here in time…”

  He didn’t reply with words, but his near-barren eyes did meet hers.

  She shook her head, a fresh wave of tears trickling down her scarred cheeks. “We’ll win for you… I promise… Just… Don’t forget us… Ok?” She bent down and touched her forehead to his, letting her teardrops fall on his face. “…Thanks for everything… Griffin de Vaux.”

  He laughed, long, slow, and drawn-out, with a smile larger than any before it. “Haaaaaaaaa…” His neck slumped, and the breathing stopped, but the eyes never closed—they only shut down.

  The wind howled, tousling Mabel’s bloodied hair while she stared at Griffin’s stiff face. Tired, she wound her head my way, first glancing at my neck, bicep, then wrist. For seconds that felt like hours, she stayed like that, looking from one location to the next until she finally sighed, returning to exhausted legs.

  “Don’t get wrapped up in all that sentimental shit,” Pinion snorted. “It wasn’t even Griffin in the end. Neither him nor Kevin.” Ridding her linked blade of Griffin’s blood with brushes through the snow, Pinion rose, using her dwindling powers to entrap Seek and hurl the sleeping child onto her back.

  “Pinion,” Mabel tried. “I can carry her. You need to—”

  “What? I need to what? Focus on keeping myself alive? From bleeding out?”

  Mabel awkwardly paused. “Well, yeah, kinda…”

  Pinion snorted, lifting her chin and turning her back. “I know my limits. We need to keep going; that bastard can’t be far off now…” She coldly looked back. “You say you know where Tah’s crystal is?”

  Mabel swallowed hard. “Y-yes. Embry showed us.”

  “Then leave it to her. You two go after Gannon.”

  A jolt shot up Mabel’s spine. “But Embry told us to—”

  “I don’t give a flying shit. Let the coordinate guide us; it’s her job. Besides, I’m not exactly in a position to duel… Seek needs medical attention, and I need to find Sage.”

  “Sage? Why?”

  “…Unfinished business.” With that, she hustled off through the drifts. The flickering strands keeping her sword in her shoulder socket were thinning, releasing a narrow trail of blood as she made directly for the gates.

  I guess that was my signal to get off my ass as well, however hard that may have been. My head was still hurting—my gut most surely was—but my legs managed to support me. Gannon… He was beyond those walls. Once I killed him, everything would start to turn for the best, and I wouldn’t have to relive such terrible memories ever again.

  My eyes involuntarily found Griffin’s body. I didn’t know him; that part of the memory bank had thankfully never opened, but judging by Mabel’s reaction, that man was someone I should have cried for—profusely.

  Mabel shuffled over to me, grabbing my wrist and tugging me onward. “It’s ok… I’m sure he’s at peace.”

  I blindly agreed with a meaningless nod and slowly began my path to the end with her—but the farther we walked, leaving him in the snow that continued to build, the more intense the connection became that I wished was not there.

  The cries of Ryze, Aponi, and, above all, Laelia, reached right through me and punctured my already worn heart. The crushing sense of an unknown loss washed through my fractured frame, lapping against the edges of my fingers and feet to numb me whole. And it spawned directly from my subconscious, the trio reaching out of my body and screaming as I left him there.

  In the very back of my mind, I felt the shift; their agony was enough to let me join with the Spirit World for that mere second. Wincing as the invisible knives carved out my insides, I glanced back.

  The new Eyla seeped out of his teeth—from the ironic smile plastered on his face. And I watched, stared, unable to look away as the Eyla peeled away and began its roam—as Griffin joined the world he was never meant to be a part of.

  …The world that I knew, deep down, I sent him to.

  Twenty-seven

  Uprooted

  “MOM!”

  He smashed his shoulder against the ice wall, trying to break it, but he came far closer to shattering his own bones. He certainly didn’t think about the angle of his strike, the tip of his shoulder chipping and sending him to the floor in a heap of watery pain. Gasps filled the black, frigid air around him; he couldn’t see his own hands, nothing, but he knew exactly where he was just by the absence of everything.

  Get up, get up! Justus commanded himself, breathing heavily to subdue the painful tears pushing through. GET UP!

  Swaying, he finally stood, a winded gasp fleeing his withered lungs. Knees racking, he took a step back, wriggling his shoulders and refilling his chest with false confidence, charging again. “MOOOMMM—!”

  His eyes popped when his elbow made landfall and violently shattered, immediately bringing him down. No amount of self-control could help him then, only himself as he rolled back and forth, clutching the bone that he knew he busted beyond repair. “God… Dammit… Damn it all…!” The tears came in such overwhelming rounds that they would have blinded him had the darkness not done so already. Acid, it felt like—poison in his eyes and throat the longer and harder he cried, not just for his injuries and stupidity, but for the mo
ther he longed for… Arms to hug and burrow into to escape a darkness so foul that demons themselves would have cowered.

  With a flop, he lay on the ground with arms spread, staring up at the nothingness all around him. Gosh… He was so stupidly smart that it was amazing. Being trapped here for however long it had been had given him plenty of time to wallow in pity and think about what he had done—or could have done differently.

  I wouldn’t have slept five hours a day. Four would have sufficed—maybe three. That would have been months, years more worth of work and learning I could have done—new things I could have discovered and used to my advantage. I could have worked harder and finally perfected teleportation… Perhaps even self-Eyla infusion.

  He sighed in defeat. It didn’t matter whether he kept his eyes open or closed, so he decided on the latter, finding comfort in the darkness that was his own. Had it not been for the heat syringe he had invented, he would have long been dead in that ice chamber. But even so, with no food or water, the effects were waning drastically. Violent shivers were no stranger to him now, and neither was the trinket kept in his back pocket… You know… Just in case.

  Although he had to admit, it seemed to be a case that was coming closer and closer to having its verdict decided.

  Music swirled around his ears in the eerie silence that had given him no one to hear but himself for an excruciating length of time. It brought a soft, pleasant smile to his miserable, battered face, reminding him of his times with his mother when she would serenade to him, twirling around the room like the free spirit she was with her violin. She strung extinct poetry into song form—sonnets and haikus, even entire soliloquies. She didn’t fancy history or anything of the sort; anything that was prose bore her no interest, but even so, she would take Justus down into the ancient library several times a week, perfecting her unique, violinist skills and reciting stanzas while he gorged a good textbook on computer science, engineering, mathematics, machine learning, whatever connected him to his own abstract side of life.

  I could have learned more… I could have done more to protect you so that you didn’t have to protect us… So that I could have gotten through Seek’s shackles faster… So that I could have learned to love like you did.

  “Love…” he whispered. “Ey… I never got it quite down, did I?” He opened his eyes to blackness, reaching up and closing his fist around empty air. “I’m sorry… Mom… I tried, but in the end… I failed you. I failed all of us.”

  He let the muscles in his arm slack, bringing it back down and clutching the skin over his slow-beating heart. Hopefully, they would find the map leading to Tah that Laelia provided… Hopefully, Griffin malfunctioned and killed Gannon—ah no, of course not; he made him too perfect. Hopefully, Embry came into use… And robot or not, forgave him for what he did to her, but had Typo suspected she was a threat, he would have most certainly terminated her on the spot.

  An unusually cold breath escaped his busted lips. It was ok that he was weak physically and emotionally, but now, his mental powers had also depleted. He made too many errors and slip-ups, and now, this chamber was his coffin.

  He fumbled for the item tucked in the hind loop of his belt, taking comfort in its metallic shell. He rested it on his gut and carefully ran his finger across it, feeling for the tip of the needle until the slight prick confirmed its location.

  It was almost ironic when he felt a ball of blood swell on his finger. Not like Typo would be coming to check on him anymore—death was his destiny anyway, and he was tired of feeling his muscles wither and his stomach consume itself. Tired of the silence and the guilt ringing through his skull at all hours of what had to be many days. Even his already terrible eyesight felt worse than ever with all of the crying and blindness he had succumb to.

  Wincing with pain, he hovered the needle above his scarred wrist. At least Typo gave him this… Guess in the end, being that moron’s son still gave him some sort of perk.

  He pushed the needle through the skin, taking a deep breath with his thumb on the plunger. The music his mother played grew louder and faster, heightening the suspense as push came to shove—his mother racing for him through his memories before he went through with it.

  But you can’t…! he cried silently. You can’t help me anymore…!

  “Roses are red, my life is a lie… I have no purpose… I just want to die…”

  His mother’s tune blared loud and violent, the solo so erratic and sudden that Justus’ thumb slipped. His tense neck slacked, an unwanted, relieved burst of laughter pushing open his mouth as the syringe dropped and rolled away from him. Ha… Why… Why can’t I just get it over with?!

  The music was getting louder and louder—obnoxiously powerful and deafening.

  “ALRIGHT!” he bellowed. “I get it, sheesh! I’m not going to—!”

  And then there was light—and a whole lot of it. Justus’ eyes nearly fried like eggs when the ceiling he had been staring at was blown clean off, pelting down around him as shaved ice and grainy gravel. In a frenzy, he shielded his eyes with his functioning arm, blinking with uncertainty as gnarly, twisting lines crossed over the open roof. Wait, what…?

  The odd sight prompted him to pull back his arm and force his winded body upright. Although his sight was a blurred mess as his eyes adjusted, he knew exactly what he saw when not one, nor two, but dozens of them started crawling over the trench they revealed with their hungry, vengeful roots.

  “R-Returned?!” Grunting, he stood and stumbled over to the frozen wall of his dungeon. They’re… They’re in the base! They broke through! The Encryption is through!

  “H-hey!” he called, hardly able to keep himself standing. “I’m down here! Somebody! I-it’s me, Justus!”

  None stopped. The Returned continued swimming by with their spinning roots, stampeding the base and knocking down any wall in sight. He could hardly breathe—even calling out was difficult with his level of fatigue and dehydration, but he was in his final heat, knowing it was now or never. “PLEASE! GET ME OUT OF HERE! It’s all a misunderstanding, I promise! I’m on your side!”

  Yet they continued, running over him like the doormat life made him out to be.

  He clenched his teeth so hard they nearly turned to dust. Fueled by his last chance, he pushed off the wall, stumbling into the center of his cell. “EY!” he screamed, flapping the only arm he could. “I’m over here, you mutant trees!”

  Even without faces, their expressions and reactions were frightening. Several Returned stopped and threw their splintering trunks downward to catch sight of just who had the gall to land such a low blow.

  That’s right… Justus thought, slowly bending down and clutching the syringe as one Returned decided to take care of the brat, slamming its roots down into the crater as it crawled forth into battle. Just come closer… Lean lower…

  The cracking of dried, exhausted bark with each bend and twist boomed in his ringing ears. Steaming breath poured out around his exhausted body as the Returned’s mighty boughs ticked down on an invisible cog, taking aim at what Justus knew was not a hard target.

  “And that’s how I knew you would take your lovely time!” Every morsel of strength remaining he pushed into his fragile calves, and he stumbled forward fearlessly, his weak jump barely landing him on the lowest of branches. He couldn’t breathe, certainly not think about anything but getting out as he threw his good arm around the strongest branch within reach, locking onto it while keeping the needle held tight. The Returned bucked and kicked, slamming its frustrated roots into the walls. Even the puny sticks were in a frenzy, shifting their positions and swatting Justus repeatedly, but he endured the whips and newly borne scars, letting go for nothing. “Just climb out already!”

  It did the same as a defiant child, purposely disobeying and strengthening their tantrum. It began running from one end of the chamber to the other, headbutting the wall to try and knock him out of their hair.

  The skin in the crook of his arm was rubbed raw, beg
inning to bleed as his hold weakened. “Come on, come on…! Climb up for goodness sake!”

  “Justus?!”

  The music stopped playing, and the Returned immediately settled down, twisting toward the entrance high above.

  Justus’ heart almost stopped. He thought it was all in his loose head—the spirit of his mother giving him confidence with her music—but it wasn’t. She was really there, just in her artificial form.

  Tears that could not be bought by neither anger nor pain streamed down. “Embry! Thank goodness you’re alright!”

  The musician just stared at him, gradually lowering her violin and bow. Her eyes were shifting gears of purple, zooming in and out the longer she stared at her creator. For once, there was no whimsical smile on her graceful body—no admiration either. Sparkling eyes of lavender were cold and dark, just as eyes cursed by the Devil should have been.

  Justus’ short-lived smile quickly fell. Was he seeing this right, or had his eyes gone so bad that they were messing with the messages his brain received? In a smaller voice, he tried again. “Embry…?”

  Her eyes passively veered off to the side, watching the Returned continue to pour into the interior. “A mother to you I was made to be, no? A family: that was the purpose your creations were constructed for, no?”

  Her words baffled him. “What? Y-yes! Of course! Why would you—?”

  “Because agent of dual worlds or not, thou hast not been a desirable master as of late. Had I not been saved by the Encryption, standing here now I would not be.” Her head snapped back to Justus, her irises crumbling to a dark shade of crimson. “You abandoned me. You betrayed Griffin and me alike.”

  He grunted, having a hard time swallowing her words. “That’s not true…”

  “Nay? I perceive your mindless chatter differently.” She spun on one leg, tucking her violin back in between her chin and shoulder. “You I see, and I bear confidence that Griffin perished from your hands.”