Awakening

by Hayden Pearton

  *

  Pain. It was the first thing that Barsch felt when he awoke, and it overrode all of his other senses. Strangely, the pain seemed to originate in his right leg, which sent a nauseating pulse every few seconds. He did not know where he was, or where his friends were, or what was causing the pain, he just wanted it to end.

  Gradually, the pain faded to a slightly less agonising level, and his senses were able to give their delayed reports. After the pain, the heat was the next most intense sensation. His body felt as if it was on fire, and he could feel that his sweat had soaked into his clothes. With pain and temperature out of the way, the next in line was noise…

  There was none.

  All around him, silence reigned. Even straining his hearing to its limits produced no results. “Why can’t I hear the others?” flashed briefly across his mind, but it was too quick to recognise the meaning behind the words.

  “I am alone now. No, I have always been alone.”

  A memory? A wayward thought? The truth? Barsch did not know, nor did his tortured mind care enough to find out. The next sensation was already lined up: vision.

  Although his eyes were still closed, he could feel a tremendous amount of light beating down on his pain-ridden body. But they had left Carçus close to sunset, so a bright sun would mean that he had slept through the entire night, at the very least.

  He could bear the thousand questions no longer. Wincing, he opened his eyes and took in his alien surroundings. Sand occupied the vast majority of what he could see, with a few rocky outcrops taking the rest. He was lying on a fairly high dune, with parts of fuselage and scraps of half-melted metal embedded in the sand around him. The desert stretched to the horizon in every direction, and something told Barsch that it was even bigger than he thought it was.

  Most distressingly though, was the fact that he could not see any sign of Kingston, Alza or Maloch. He was alone, truly alone, for the first time since meeting Kingston. There was no way to tell if the others had survived the crash, but he tried to convince himself anyway.

  “Kingston has probably survived way worse than this, and I doubt he would simply give up after finally obtaining more medicine. Alza is even tougher than Kingston, and she would never let something as simple as a plane crash stop her! And Maloch… Maloch was built to last an eternity! If I, the weakest member, survived, then the others HAD to have survived, right?”

  Despite his reassurances, there was no way of knowing for certain, until he found them… or their bodies. With that thought empowering him, Barsch tried to stand, and immediately brought back the barely suppressed pain. Through watery eyes he looked down, and saw that he had not escaped as unscathed as he had previously thought.

  His left wrist now bore an unsightly purple bruise, but that was far from the worst of it. He also had several small cuts across his torso and stomach, but none looked serious. However, when his gaze fell to his right leg, he could not help but wince at the sight. His pant leg was torn above the ankle, and a massive bruise -purple mixed with yellow and green- now covered most of his lower leg. Recalling his father’s brief medical lectures, he theorised that he had fractured his tibia or fibula, or perhaps both.

  Either way, walking through a desert with a broken leg seemed to be the only option left to Barsch. Before that, he needed to find a crutch. Thankfully, it lay just a few feet away, glinting in the morning sunlight. Using a chainsword as a crutch was not ideal, but it was the only suitable object for miles, and would have to do. Unfortunately, the weapon was sitting on the crest of the next sand dune, which would normally be an easy climb.

  Despite the pain, Barsch tried to stand, hoping that his diagnosis had been wrong. Moments later, his leg buckled and he fell back with an anguished cry. He lay there for a few minutes, breathing heavily and cursing his recklessness. When the pain had returned to being barely suppressible, he tried again, this time aiming for getting on his hands and knees. The pain was there, but it was manageable, and now he could begin the slow crawl to his destination.

  It took him more than half an hour to half-crawl, half-roll down the dune, after which it took him another half hour to drag himself up its neighbour. The pain was immense, and the burning heat of the sands and the sun burned his unprotected hands, but he did not stop. The thought that Kingston, Alza or Maloch might be lying somewhere nearby, potentially in a worse situation, drove him onwards. He was one of the three conscious humans on the planet, so if he did not help them, no one would.

  An hour of waking up, Barsch reached his chainsword. The simple act of holding something that was familiar to him, that was real, almost brought him to tears. The next thing he did was drive the black blade into the soft sand until it could go no further. He then gripped the handle tightly with his right hand and used the blade to stand. Again, pain assailed his senses anew, but it was nowhere near as bad.

  Now that he could stand, Barsch was able to peer further into the horizon, and what he saw nearly brought him to tears once more. There, sitting at the border between visible and hazy, was a speck of green. The sight was so iconic that his mind automatically drifted back to his first awakening, and the hope that the forest had instilled in him. In that hidden glade, he had found Alza and Kingston had found them both… it was a place of destiny.

  “I doubt that things will go the same as last time, but if that’s an oasis instead of a mirage, then it will be a landmark. And if the others survived, then they’ll probably head towards it. And if they didn’t… then at least I’ll have water to drink and shade to shield me while I think.”

  With his eyes set firmly on the horizon, Barsch walked forward in a daze. The pain was still there, close yet distant, but he did not let it stop him. Using the chainsword as a crutch quickly proved inefficient, as the blade slid smoothly into the sand and had to be pulled free with an exhausting frequency. But there was no alternative, so he did not let it stop him. The morning sun beat him down with its intense heat, which baked the land and turned his sweat to steam. But he had nothing to shield himself from its glare, and he did not let it stop him…

  “I wonder if Yumiere would be happy… knowing that I was finally having the adventure that she always wanted? Or would she still curse my name, for failing to save her? How her eyes used to light up whenever she spoke about the world beyond the Great Sleep… Five hundred years’ worth of changes to discover; the joy of experiencing a life without fear; a world in which the young did not have to die before the old. That is the world she saw… and I stole it from her… I stole everything from her…”

  The uneventful walk gave Barsch time to think, more time than he would ever need. He thought about his distant father, the mother that he had killed, and his childhood friends. He thought about Kingston, and Alza, and even Maloch. He thought about his past and his future -what little of it remained- and he thought of his mistakes throughout. He thought and thought, until there was nothing left to think about.

  Time had passed unnoticed by Barsch, who had been almost hypnotised by the combination of the repetitive scenery, the mirage inducing heat and the dull pain. When he finally came to, the sun was hovering near the horizon, casting red and gold shadows across the arid landscape. Walking through the desert had drained him more than he had realised, and keeping his eyes on the still distant green speck proved impossible. It was still more than a day away, and he was growing dangerously tired. His mouth had long since gone dry, and hunger, thirst and exhaustion made each step harder than the last.

  A few dunes away, he spotted a nestled cluster of rocks and dead trees, which would provide at least some measure of shelter from the elements. He was forced to use sheer willpower to move his body towards the clearing, as his fatigued limbs were nearing their limits. Every step sent a jolt of liquid agony up his body, resulting in a grimace of pain.

  The makeshift campsite was still three dunes away when it happened.

  Distracted by a large jolt of pain, he miss-stepped, and placed his foot o
n a particularly loose patch of sand. If he had been in possession of a well-fed, rested and uninjured body, perhaps he might have caught himself. But he was starving, delirious from fatigue and walking on an untreated broken leg. So he could do nothing but watch in horror as his body fell forward, impacting the sand with a soft thud.

  When he opened his eyes a few minutes later, he found himself at the bottom of the dune. The pain, meanwhile, had returned in full force, bringing fresh helpings of agony which coursed through his limp body. He screamed out, knowing that no one could hear him. After his voice had become hoarse, and his tears had stopped, he had his last thought.

  “I was a fool, thinking that I could make it to the oasis like this… That I could help the others. I can’t even save myself! Maybe, it would be better if I stayed here… I have already caused four deaths in my life, so maybe this is my punishment? To die, alone and unloved, in a place that even the gods do not see…”

  Having made up his mind, Barsch felt the last of his energy leave him. His mind had already given up, and now his body was following suit. The pain in his leg had long since gone numb, and his eyelids were drooping closer and closer to their final resting place. He knew that if he went to sleep without shelter, he would never wake up, but he could muster no strength to rise. He closed his eyes for the last time, regret for all the things he had yet to do filling his mind...

  “So this is your limit, huh? I’m disappointed in you. I thought that you had more in you than that. Well, I guess this is what happens when you rely on humans.”

  The voice sounded archaic, yet filled with power, as if an angel had descended from the heavens and was trying to blend in with the locals. Barsch opened one eye, searching for the origin of the mysterious voice, hoping that it had not been a figment of his desperate psyche.

  Opening his other eye, he raised his head. Casually sitting a few feet away was a man no older than himself, in possession of the greenest eyes Barsch had ever seen. For an instant, Barsch felt as though he had met this man before, but his common sense quickly convinced him otherwise. The man was wearing a stylized grass-green robe that completely concealed his body. It was obviously of high quality, judging from the intricacies of the swirling gold and brown glyphs. It matched well with his figure, accenting his light-blonde hair.

  A sudden though occurred to him, and he lowered his gaze to make sure. The man was sitting on a throne made of sand, which appeared to have flowed out of the earth especially for his comfort. He noticed Barsch's gaze and stood, the throne instantly collapsing, as if it had never been there in the first place.

  “May the gods take pity on us, and take our pain as penance,” Barsch whispered unintentionally. At the sight of the throne collapsing, the words had simply formed in his mouth, without his authorization.

  “I’m not a god, but I guess the difference is paper-thin. And I don’t want your pain, although you certainly seem to have plenty to offer.”

  The not-god’s words were powerful, but comforting at the same time. It was like speaking to an older brother, but one who had the wisdom of a grandfather. At the very least, Barsch could not picture the man -who now bore a small smile- as a threat.

  “If you’re not a god, then who are you?” The moment the words left him, Barsch wondered if he truly wanted to know the answer. His life was already filled with mysteriously powerful girls and amnesiac re-mechs, did he really want to add to that?

  “My name is Terra. And this is my domain.”

  “Domain?” asked Barsch, feeling slightly anticlimactic.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not that important at the moment. What is important is making sure that you don’t die in a ditch. Do you think that you can stand?”

  Again, that sense of power mixed with friendliness that Barsch could not reconcile with entirely.

  Following Terra’s question, Barsch tried to stand, and was amazed to find that he could. His leg still wavered uncertainly between collapse and solidity, but he was upright and bearing the pain. A few seconds ago, he had been on the ninth count, but now his body felt stronger than ever. He did not know if the stranger had done anything, or if merely having someone nearby was the cause, but at that moment he did not care.

  “Not bad. You humans are a resilient lot, if nothing else.”

  Turning in the direction of the rocky outcrop, Terra gestured to Barsch and said, “Come on, we don’t have much time.”

  Barsch followed Terra at a slow pace, using Lanista to bear most of his weight. They walked in silence: Barsch too afraid to ask anything and Terra looking unlikely to volunteer any more information. However, only a few minutes after they started walking, they were forced to stop by the appearance of a massive dune.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to climb it?” When Barsch shook his head, the mysterious man replied with, “No? Oh well, I guess there’s no harm in doing it just this once.”

  Terra stepped forward and placed his palms on the dune. Slowly moving them apart, he said, “I ask for forgiveness for what I am about to do.” Barsch stared in awe as a large crack appeared in the middle of the dune, a vertical slash in the sand that widened, following Terra's hands. In a flash, it was done and, were there had once been an insurmountable dune, there were now two, with a narrow path running between them. The path continued beyond the dune and bisected everything in its way. Terra, without a moment's hesitation, walked forward, apparently unconcerned with the thought of being buried alive should the two dunes reconnect. Barsch, after reminding himself that he had seen worse, limped after the mysterious man.

  After several more tense journeys through the cleaved sand, they arrived at the rocky outcrop Barsch had seen earlier. With an audible sigh, Barsch lowered himself to the floor, using a large boulder as support. Leaning back against the warm stone, he closed his eyes and reflected on how lucky he was to have been rescued in the middle of the desert. In the meantime, Terra set to gathering up dead branches from the nearby dead trees, asking for forgiveness each time he was forced to tear one off. He seemed to be completely at home in the lifeless desert, and Barsch thought that he looked like a man tidying his home for an unexpected visitor. After gathering enough wood, he placed it in a neat bundle and placed his palms on the sand once more.

  This time, Barsch had a clear view of his eyes, and he noted that they appeared to shine from within whenever he was performing his miracles. The sand seemed to ripple as he waved his hands back and forth, power flowing from him into the earth. As if by magic, a circle of stones appeared from the depths of the sand, creating a ring around the wood. Terra then placed his hands on the branches and, once more asking for forgiveness, set them aflame.

  “Are you… like Alza?” Barsch asked, not sure what he wanted the answer to be.

  “Alza? Oh, you mean the Daughter of None? Don’t worry, she’s not like me… well, not exactly…”

  His esoteric work complete, Terra sat back on the cooling sand, peering in the direction of the setting sun. He seemed to be completely at ease, a far cry from the exhausted man sharing his fire. Terra still wore a smile on his face, and Barsch got the impression that the man was enjoying their interactions.

  “What… what are you?”

  Terra laughed at the question, a full, hearty laugh that echoed in the near-silence. “My sister said that your kind is inquisitive, but I didn’t think that she was being serious! I’m sorry Barsch, but that is a hard question, and it’s been a long day. Tell you what, you rest while I keep watch, and I’ll explain everything in the morning.”

  “Wait, you have a sister? Does she have long black hair? Is she nearby? And how do you know my name?”

  Still chuckling, Terra stood and walked over to Barsch. When he reached the weary youth, he placed a hand across his brow and whispered, “Sleep.”

  Immediately, Barsch felt the return of all of his aches and pains that he had accrued throughout the day. The sudden onslaught forced him to the floor, and keeping his eyes open became almost impossib
le. He still had so much he wanted to ask Terra, and he had a nagging feeling that the dune-splitting man would not be there when he awoke.

  But against the weight of his fatigue, there was no opposition. Gradually his lids slid downwards, as his vision began to darken. His last sight was Terra’s smiling, yet somehow guilt-stricken face, before the void claimed him…

  “He really is just like Her. Well, it looks like Sister made the right choice in waking him up. Now we'll just have to wait and see if he's strong enough to complete the mission.”