Awakening

by Hayden Pearton

  *

  He walked with renewed vigour for a few hours, somehow managing to block out most of the pain and retaining the majority of his sanity. But it could not last. Every step was heavier than the last. Every wandering thought threatened to turn on him, becoming the accusing ghosts of his past. With every step he grew closer to madness. Closer to death.

  “You abandoned us.”

  The words came out of nowhere, slamming into his fragile psyche like a wrecking ball.

  “You left us to die.”

  Again, the whispered words assaulted him, stopping him in his tracks. He quickly scanned the area, but he was alone… utterly alone.

  “You killed us!”

  He could not respond. He could not defend against his own guilty conscious. He felt phantom hands wrap around his neck, squeezing the air from his lungs. They squeezed tighter, and the darkness at the edges of his vision grew in response. He fell forward, landing badly on his broken leg, the pain giving him a moment of anguished clarity.

  They were there, surrounding him. Yumiere, Rigel and the Unknown Woman, the ghosts of his past. He had killed them. Through fear of resentment; through negligence; and through cowardice… he had killed them. Could he had done things differently? Should he have refused Yumiere, forced her to stay in boring safety? Should he have kept a better watch over Rigel? Could he have prevented him from standing by the window at that dreadful moment? And what of the woman with no name? If he had not run, if he had stayed and tried to help her?

  “I killed you…” he whispered, feeling their anger and disgust. With a start he realised that the hands around his neck were his own. Had he been trying to atone for their deaths with his own? Or perhaps he had simply given up, seeking company in death…

  “Foolish boy,” came a new voice, one with an steel edge. Lanista still lay in his hand, silent and judging.

  “If you had refused Yumiere, she would have gone anyway. That was just who she was, and if she had gone, then she would have died alone, without someone to hold her in her last moments. Rigel had gone to the window of his own volition. Remember? You tried to pull him away, but he wanted to see what was causing all that commotion. If he had listened to you, he might still live. And, as for the Unknown Woman, it was simply her time. She was dying, plain and simple, and the only reward you would have received if you had stayed would have been your own death. You did not kill them. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Your guilt was never their deaths…”

  With that, the voices, the suffocation, the pain, everything stopped. He knelt in the cooling sand, drawing deep breaths as his tears carved liquid lines down his face. Looking up, he saw them. They were watching him, the anger gone from their eyes. They had never blamed him, never cursed him for his actions.

  His guilt had never been for their deaths…

  “I’m sorry… I’m sorry that I forgot you! I’m sorry that I stopped thinking about you, that I stopped remembering you. Yumiere, you were my first love, and I will never forget that. Rigel, you filled my days with joy, and I will always remember your smile. And You, although I never learnt your name, you will always be a part of me. You will live on through me, and I will live enough for all of us. Please, forgive me for forgetting the weight of my past… forgive me for forgetting you!”

  The tears would not stop, but a part of him did not want them to. In a strange way, he had missed the sensation of the mournful tears which now streamed unreservedly down his face. Things had been so chaotic lately -every day a struggle to survive- that he had unconsciously pushed Them out of his mind. He had forgotten them so that he could live, not knowing that he could not live without them. They were a part of him, a piece of his soul that would never truly disappear. And as long as he remembered them, they lived on in his memories.

  Yumiere then spoke, in her heart-warmingly soft voice, saying, “You won't forget us again, right? We'll always be with you, to remind you of your past, and help you face your future.”

  “That’s right. I will never forget you, any of you, ever again.”

  The visions -his past- nodded to one another, before smiling a smile of purest sincerity towards Barsch. Holding hands, they faded from view, but to Barsch, they would always be there, re-appearing if he ever dared to forget them.

  As he knelt there, basking in the happy afterglow of the confidently sane, he felt a tremor run beneath him. A few seconds later, a larger quake came, sending him sprawling. The sand around him seemed to dance as the ground beneath toiled and shook. After a few heart-stopping seconds, the geological violence passed. Barsch, after making sure that no after-shocks were coming, tried to stand. This proved impossible, as his body, in the light of recent events, had decided that it had had enough.

  “Come On! I'm so close! Don't give up on me now! Please, just a little further, then we can rest all we want.”

  For a moment, it seemed as though his plea had made it through, but when he tried to stand again, he found himself completely immobile. As he lay there, body wrecked with pain, he felt the sand below him shift once more. Instead of an after-shock, a small pit opened up before him, and two arms made of rock and sand emerged.

  The strange appendages cracked their limestone knuckles and suddenly took hold of Barsch's listless head. A stony finger pressed hard against each temple and for a moment Barsch thought that the earthly monster sought to crush his skull.

  A disembodied voice suddenly spoke, saying, “Here, this is the last thing that I'll do for you today. Sheesh, Humans sure are a needy bunch.”

  Barsch blinked, and he was no longer lying face down in the warm sand. He was soaring in the sky, pulled upwards by an unseen force. He blinked once more, and found himself in a dark and claustrophobic place that reeked of pollution. As he was taking this all in, a small movement caught his attention. It was Alza, hobbling in the darkness. She was tired, that much was certain, but where she was remained a mystery to him. Barsch tried to call out to her, but his voice refused to come out.

  “It's because I'm not really here. This is just another vision created by Terra.”

  Barsch blinked once more, and he was suddenly in a different part of the desert. Huge stone columns lay toppled on their sides and rubble was everywhere. Huddling against one of the remaining upright pillars was Maloch and Kingston. Maloch was hunched over the old man, several dents in his back-plate evidence of a violent event. Barsch was too far to properly tell, but it looked like Kingston wasn't moving. Although he wanted to call out to them, he knew that attempting to do so was a waste of time.

  Barsch blinked once more, and found himself back in his starting position. The unnatural hands were gone, with no trace remaining that they had ever been. Feeling a sudden surge of energy, Barsch managed to stand.

  “I understand what you're trying to say Terra. They haven't given up, and neither can I, right?” Without waiting for an answer to his question, Barsch pressed on.

  A few minutes later, he finally made it to the top of one of the largest dune's he had climbed that day, and espied his destination directly before him. Less than a mile away lay the oasis, in all its sheltered beauty. In the middle, surrounded by lush palms and flowering bushels, lay a deep pool of water that had collected in a hole in the bedrock. It was a vision of paradise, and Barsch was determined to reach it.

  With the sun hanging low in the sky, he fought on, dragging his now-immovable leg behind him. The pain, stress and weariness accumulated over the past two days seemed to seep into his bones, weighing him down. If felt as though he was carrying a lifetimes worth of burdens on his back, as he prayed to any nearby deities to just let him make it to the inviting shade of the palms. Every step became heavier, as the sand tried to drag him down. He thought of the irony of it all: on how much he had gone through to reach the oasis, only for his body to give up with the end in sight.

  Mustering all of his remaining strength and courage he forged on. Lanista’s weight etched a thin line into the soft sand, marking h
is progress. In a desperate bid, he drank the last of the ever-cool water, hoping for a much needed boost in vitality. The cold of the shade was within reach, its peaceful shadow calling out, beckoning him closer with a soothing voice.

  However, less than twenty feet away, his body decided that it had had enough. His legs suddenly gave out, forcing him to crawl the rest of the way. His eyes closing, he reached out one long, slender arm, towards the shady salvation. His hand fell, the consciousness that had powered it was no longer there, having finally succumbed to the sweet embrace of sleep. His fingers, mere inches from the healing oasis, fell softly to the sandy pillow.

  He did not rise.