by R Corona
“Follow my lead,” Jacknell whispered to us. “No,” An idea had come to him and he hoped it would light the way. “No one is without purpose,” He told the Controller. “Dez’ wishes have always been the same. You can still serve him, you can be of use to him. Dez wants to free his people from slavery, from pain and damnation. This is the chance to worship your Creator, help us get to Fexorrous. Help him.”
“What about the future, our future and the future of Existence?” As depicted by the old man, the fate of Existence was unbearable for her. Who but the Creator could know about such fate? It was a simple conclusion: Dez had warned the Council of his own wrongdoing and in an effort to protect Existence, ordered his own capture. Controller Hed faced a real dilemma and any path taken would disappoint her Creator. Was a vison from the future Creator powerful enough to veto the decisions of the past and present Creator, even if he had no notion of who he was? These soldiers had been made to follow the commands of the Creator, they were not created to question. This was the reason why the command of a future Creator would be ignored even if he announced our doom, his doom and the doom of Existence.
One way or another, Dez was going to arrive in the land of Fexorrous because he was the Council’s ruler and his will was more than a simple command. Even if it was a confused will, blinded by hate and the need for revenge, it would be respected because it was the ultimate will. It reigned and walked the way of power, yet it was thirsty and there would never be enough to quench its thirst.
The Controller escorted us to the holding room where Dez had been detained. During the walk she continued to express her confusion and she almost begged for an opinion, but Jacknell would not dare to speak again, no one would. The empty room was brightened by tall windows letting in unrealistic views of nature. Dez faced the main window, lost in time. The guards and the Controller left and we were left alone with him. Jacknell closed the door. When Dez heard the creaking of the door he turned in surprise. “We have to go!” Dez exclaimed. “Whatever they said is not important, our journey must continue.”
Netania moved close to him and spoke in a firm manner, demanding his attention. The tone of her words was sharper than a silver dagger. “They said you would destroy Existence, should we ignore that?"
He fell to his chair again and while staring into space said, “So it must be true. I am one of them, one of the Creators.”
“Dez,” Jacknell moved to his side, “what is going on? Is there a chance these people are lying?”
“There’s always a chance Jacknell, but they aren't. They all bear my mark. I created a race who has turned against me.”
“Against you?” Netania growled. “Dez, they have profound evidence suggesting that your quest will destroy the principles of Existence, this includes those of Fexorrous as well. We will destroy everything!” She expressed her rage towards him once again and I understood why she felt this way. Because of him we had all lost a bit of ourselves and to follow his quest meant we would be known as terrorists of time. There was an aftertaste to her feeling of anger; something more that had the power to spark the wrath that could be visible beneath her eyes.
Dez responded peacefully, placing one of her hands in-between his. “A creator only creates and if it is disaster what results from my creations, there is someone whose purpose is to stop me. The person isn’t you my dear, and it isn’t one of them either. My actions cannot destroy Existence. Because I hold time and space closely, I can see now why I was chosen as one of the Creators. For a very long time now, I have been able to experience all aspects of time at once, because dear, time is non-existent.”
She listened to his words intently and while they seemed to contradict each other, to her, Dez’ words meant freedom. She gave into their meanings, bending to his will, unable to resist, succumbing to his wishes as I had done when his voice called my name in the Plains—later I would learn it hadn’t been his voice at all—. Dez’ magnetism had no limits, we were all inferior to him. We stood no chance and allowed everyone else to dictate a path to follow.
“I'm scared.” Netania revealed.
“I know, but I am here now and won’t leave you again my child. Together we’ll triumph. The plan has fallen on me, onto my being. My consciousness is one with nature, everything will be as it should. It is beautiful Netania—you believe me, right?”
She lowered her head. Jacknell stared at her, waiting for her to answer Dez’s question. I could feel the strength of his eyes on her, trying to make her strong, wishing she wouldn’t fall into Dez’ trap again. Then she finally answered, “Yes, father. I do.” Before, in the past, I had been broken. Now, at this moment, the world’s weight had fallen on the scattered pieces of my being. Gilcome scanned my face for a sign, I looked at his. He hadn't known either but Jacknell had and couldn’t dare to face me. The looks intensified as Netania realized her slip and panicked. “June, I was going to tell you.” Of course she was, because she had always been honest with me. “I wanted to tell you, I promise I wanted nothing more.” As her words approached me I discovered no angry or sad feelings within me, but I wouldn’t let her know. “Look at me, June. I'm sorry.”
“Dez is your father?” Gilcome asked her out loud, wanting to hear a confirmation. “But you’re also June’s aunt?” His confusion indulged me. “That means—Oh.” He paused, trying to grasp the concept. “Wasn’t June’s grandfather dead?”
Unable to keep the thought away, I answered his question, “No, just asleep.” I opened the door, wanting to escape.
“June, come back. We have to talk.” Netania’s voice disappeared as the door slammed behind me. The guards did not try to stop me, no one did. Soon, when there was nowhere left to run to, a place called me. It guided my energy through a set of studded doors leading outside. A wooden bench soaked in the shade coming from the tree under which it stood. Resting on it, I could enjoy the view of the small pond a few feet away. The energy of my body spread into the freshness outside, then rapidly came back to me, revitalized. The bench felt warm and accepting of my energy. Beneath it, a sea-blue flower bud was beginning to bloom. It would come to the peak of its life, then one day dry. Birds sang when I closed my eyes and made me understand that I was witnessing pure life in its true form. I was part of something, finally. In fact, I was part of everything: Existence and I were one.
After moments of blissful silence, his voice interrupted by calling my name. They had sent him to find me, “June, we’ve been searching for you.” Gilcome took a spot next to me on the bench. He wore a striking glance, the one that tried to read the confusion in my mind, “I know why you ran from them, but why did you run from me?” Gilcome had always been great at finding answers, he drew them from me easily; with just one look. So looking at him made me uncomfortable because I knew he could see and he liked knowing that I knew. “June?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to talk about Dez?”
“No. He will always be unpredictable and will have no concern for my feelings and neither will the rest of the members. I have been nothing but an instrument to them.” For a long time my thoughts towards the members and Dez were kept inside, but the time had come to let someone know because someone had to know. “I kept trying to make myself believe that I was a member too, that I was part of the House. Now, what’s the point? Dez doesn’t worry me.”
“I believe you.” He didn’t, he couldn’t because I didn’t. Gilcome had access to the thoughts behind emotions, the ones that caused them, but he also knew more. His face always held a look that tried to hide what he knew; a universal secret, maybe something about himself, or something about the general concept of life. Whatever it was, it was important, because he held it close and just when he thought I was catching up, he would stare at me in a way that would force me to look away. He knew I would always look away. “Dez is your grandfather and how you deal with it is your choice, but you must know that being his granddaughter puts you in a powerful position.”
“Powerful?
How can I be powerful around him when he outshines the universe?”
“That's my point, June. I came to realize that the Dez I had waited for, is not this Dez. It isn’t fair to blame him for not being the Dez: that Dez doesn’t exist. What follows our Dez is war, death and destruction. You saw it yourself. But it doesn’t have to be that way, June, you can make your own path, one where you light the way.”
“Why, Gilcome?”
“Why?” He repeated.
“Why are you telling me this when you know I can't?”
“Can't? Don’t ever say that, June. Others can destine you with an inability but its power becomes heroically stronger when you yourself come to believe it. See, Nature will reign on its subjects, it will allow them to grow and open into a strange world of their liking. Before the subject knows it, Nature replaces it, renews it. This sprout you’ve been staring at,” he lightly pointed to the blue, flower bud, “might never bloom, but if it does, just because it did, does not mean it will dry between the pages of a book or be ripped by the hand of an admirer. No, this flower, will last as long as I live and for the time after that. In my mind I’ll see as it fleshly dances with the wind. This flower, this one, will never dry—June, if you could only see yourself like I see you.” He had become one of them. I allowed my head to drop forwards, in disappointment. Gilcome wanted something from me, he wanted to use me. His genuine nature had been rapidly, ripped away as the desires of his ego took over.
“How do you see me, Gilcome? Like I can do anything I want? Like a source of energy, like a savior? What is it you want me to be?” My eyes watered because no one truly cared about my dreams, my wishes or my future. The abilities were outliving me, what they could do for the members, how they could save an already damned land from damnation. Abilities, which couldn’t be reached or activated and everywhere I turned there was someone in grave need of them.
“I see you as June.” Gilcome answered not understanding the distraught look on my face. “The one that likes to watch me while I clean the dishes when she thinks I’m not looking. The one who wishes for a dream of her own, a unique purpose. The June who uses her thoughts to send me messages hoping I could hear them. Look at me,” he laughed because I was too embarrassed to even try. Then, gently he raised my head. “Why don’t you look at me?”
“Stop it. I don’t do that.”
“Yeah, do what?” I could tell he was smiling and felt his eyes on me, waiting for a chance to meet mine.
“That thing with the messages, I don't even think about you! And I also don't look at you while you do the dishes.”
“You do. And I really like it.”
“Ok, you're crazy. Changing dimensions made you sick.” He had been sick for a long time. It was a disease which not even the House could cure. As I came to find out, I had been suffering from it too: a disease of the soul. Contrary to my comments, the Halls of Existence had purified us because this was our home. Sitting out there, aware of myself and my surroundings, it was hard wanting to go anywhere else. The energy of this environment did not have to accommodate to mine, or to accept it, it was simple but complex. This was my Sanctuary, it had been created for me. “I don’t want to leave. Ever.”
“What about Dez? Have you forgotten that your parents and your grandmother Cora, are prisoners in Fexorrous?”
“But you said I could do anything. If there’s power within me to change the path of my life and that of others, I can manage a way from here.”
“No, we can’t stay here together. You must go. I don’t want you to stay.” He was staying! Why could he stay and not me? Gilcome couldn’t have decided before now, it hadn’t even crossed his mind to stay and he didn’t know he could. Who did he think he was to keep me from staying here: the only place I felt at home? The end of our friendship was marked by every step taken away from him and the bench. He tried to retain me but I pushed him back down and kept a steady stride until the bench diminished in the distance. I stopped near the rocks by the trees, away from pond.
When darkness dimmed the sky, nightly noises breezed close to my location. It occurred to me at that moment that sleeping on a tree branch would feel safer than on the ground where nocturnal predators could drive me out. The branches were wide so it was easy to arrange my body in the middle of them but the hauling of the wind kept me awake. Apart from Gilcome and I, other creatures took ownership of the night. Their eyes sparkled like stars and their screeching calls mocked my existence. I regretted leaving the bench and the comfort of the pond; leaving him.
The starlight lazily opened my eyes. The smell of fresh blood quickly awakened me. I had risen on the ground, next to the tree. The blood dripped from my forehead to the back of my head. My clothes were covered with it. For some reason, I ran back to the bench to check if Gilcome was alright. He wasn't there. Gilcome's name came out of my mouth in a frenzy. There was no answer and no sign of him after having scanned the field. What remained of him were droplets of blood on the bench, smeared across the sea-blue flower. I had to find him, to help him. He had said the energy within me was powerful and could be molded into my will. But to leave his life in the hands of my inexperienced abilities was foolish. What Gilcome needed was someone who could find him, someone like the Controller or Dez. I couldn’t do it and wouldn’t waste time trying, especially when the sky had begun to darken. It was a strange occurrence, since the morning light had wakened me sometime earlier. The path back to the Council sparkled before my feet. They would find him, they could.
***
Jacknell stood out in the hall, as if waiting for someone. There was a look of worry on his face. When he saw me, he ran and I collapsed in his arms, knowing that help was coming. “What happened, June?”
“…I think I …fell.”
“Why is there so much blood on you?”
“I…was on a tree and then woke up on the ground and there was all this blood.” My explanation did not come across very confidently. The words that came out of my mouth were doubtful, as if I didn’t believe them, probably because there was a more important point needed to be made and it was taking a while to communicate its urgency. “We need to go back, Jacknell. Gilcome is in trouble. I couldn’t find him. He is hurt too.”
“We need a healer!” He yelled to one of the guards. “Gilcome is being cared for. He suffered an energy attack and fell from the Council's Panel.”
“Where did you say he was?”
“Inside the Council’s main room.”
The guards carried my body into a healing room, where a man began examining my body.
Jacknell tried to retell what he had gathered from my explanation of the accident, but the man did not let him finish. “June has already been healed physically—there are no wounds on you.”
“What about all this blood?” Jacknell seemed concerned in a way that bothered me. For a second he held his breath, then exhaled when the healer replied:
“It appears to be her own blood.” The man examined the back of my head, pushing against it with his hand. “Is that painful?"
I shook my head.
“Who healed you?”
“No one. I haven't seen a single person since the morning.” Including him, there were only two healers in the Halls of Existence and Netania.
Jacknell intervened. “If someone healed June, then why is there so much blood on her? Wouldn’t the blood seep back into to the body? A proper Healer would never leave the blood trace to waste.”
The man removed his eyes from my neck and replied, “That is what concerns me— someone has healed you.” He wanted me to understand the importance of his words, but at the moment, all I cared about was Gilcome’s health. “There are healing lines running across your spine. However, this healer did not have time to cut the connection correctly. It is important that you tell me who the healer was, else the healer will die from your wounds.”
“No one healed me. I woke up on the ground and there was all this blood on me. I had slept on a tree the night befor
e, so it must have been a fall.”
Hearing my answer, made Jacknell furious. “Stop it, June. There are no trees in the Halls of Existence, let alone in the Council! You couldn't have fallen from a tree. Tell us the truth.”
It was the truth. “It’s not a lie! You can ask Gilcome all about it. He was there.”
The healer excused himself and Jacknell insisted I was lying. “Gilcome hasn't left our side. He has been fighting for his life ever since you left. The energy attack was the strongest I have ever seen.”
“That is not possible, Jacknell. Gilcome spent the night on a bench.” He was with me, he had gone through the door also. “An energy attack? No, no he was with me.”
“Energized beings suffer energy attracts when their energy becomes divided and their body cannot control its own decisions. His mind became completely divided and his energy could not flow seamlessly. At the moment of the attack he was standing on the panel, speaking to Controller Hed. She immediately called the healers. Netania offered to help, since she understood the flow of his energy.” Jacknell paused wanting not to say more. “The fall broke his head and…his spine was severely injured.”
“He’s dying?” I looked away from Jacknell, not wanting to hear the answer. Gilcome had spent the day in The Sanctuary, with me, not here. He couldn’t be dying, he couldn’t be.
“June,” Jacknell walked closer to the bed where the healer had sat me by. “I’m sorry, Netania is doing everything she can—there’s something else you should know."
“What, about Gilcome?”
“No—how do I say this?” He murmured.
“Could it really be worse than this? Just say it, Jacknell.”