That was all he needed to switch his focus back to Petra and continue berating her, while I fumbled through my pockets and fished out the Visentis pin. I’d held on to it ever since we’d put Kalon in his interdimensional bubble, looking forward to the day when I might give it back to him. Nightmare looked at the pin for a while, then reached out and wrapped his fingers around it.
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
“Where’s Esme? I can smell her, but I can’t see her,” Petra said, ignoring Time’s repeated demands to stop this madness.
“I’m here. I’m just in no mood to see your nasty face,” I called out.
She laughed. “Watching yourself fail in real time is quite upsetting, isn’t it?”
I moved closer to Time, leaving Nightmare to his devices. His whole being darkened, as if a light had gone out inside. That had to be the way into Kalon’s mind. Nightmare was, in a sense, shutting himself down in order to get into my beloved’s subconscious. I could see Petra now, but the sight of her made me queasy.
“No, watching you kill your own son in real time is what’s upsetting me,” I said bluntly. It triggered the response I’d hoped for.
“It’s your fault.” She pointed an angry finger at me.
“Keep telling yourself that,” I retorted. “You had the option to do the right thing, but you’re too selfish to care about your own children. You could at least admit it, but you continue to pretend you’re a good mother. It makes me want to puke.”
“It’s too late to turn back now,” Petra muttered, giving her son a brief and sullen sideways glance. “He made his choice. He’ll have to live with it. I gave him a way out, and he refused. He preferred you. Now he’ll suffer the consequences.”
“You’re delusional,” I said.
And there was nothing I could do about it. But as Dream knelt before her brother and touched his shoulder, she gave me a faint nod, followed by a whisper. “He’s in.”
There was nothing I could do about Petra’s shortcomings as a mother. But I could still do something to save Kalon. Thankfully, Nightmare had pulled through. Of course, the whole endeavor would likely traumatize Kalon in one way or another. I could only imagine what it would feel like to have my dreams invaded by a foreign force, regardless of its intentions.
In order to wake Kalon up from such a deep sleep, Nightmare would have to give him a serious jolt. I could only hope that it would lead to his salvation. That it wouldn’t merely prolong the inevitable. I shuddered at the thought. As much as I wanted to remain hopeful and determined, I had to admit things were dire enough to make me doubt our capabilities.
The universe was pushing us to troubling new limits. How long before we finally gave out?
Kalon
I was in a dark place.
An awful place—all black stone and dark skies and barren lands. It stretched on forever, gnawing at my very soul, because I knew there was nothing better waiting beyond the fractured horizon. I was alone here, alone with my thoughts and all the things I’d worked so hard to keep below the surface. My worst fears had come true. I was isolated and deserted and completely alone.
There was no one I could turn to. No direction to run for something brighter. This was a future I had often imagined, even as a child. This was Visio, millions of years after my own demise. The Aeternae had lost control. They’d consumed all the blood in the world, the supply no longer able to sustain the demand. The Unending had found a way to punish our species even more. Her Black Fever had spread. It had infected the Naloreans and the Rimians, too.
Looking up into the faded sky, I could see the two planets faintly glimmering—dots on a blank and gray canvas. The Black Fever had made it all the way there, mercilessly wiping out both worlds. For too long, we had tormented the Unending. For too long, we had taken our lives—our existence—for granted, assuming we were superior. Better than everybody else. Better even than the Reaper who’d made us.
This was our future, grim and empty and hungry. The Aeternae’s food source was long gone. They’d drunk the animals dry, as well. Gradually, we could no longer survive the waves of Black Fever. Weakened by the lack of blood, we started drinking from one another. But even that didn’t last long.
Here I was, walking across the hardened land, looking at the shell of what had once been a wonderful and vibrant and promising world. There was nothing left other than a handful of Aeternae. I was watching the end unfold, and I doubted I could do anything to stop it. The hopelessness had taken hold of my heart. I was merely a spectator, and I couldn’t explain my presence here.
Maybe I had died. The faint memory of Esme drew a smile on my lips. Would I ever see her again? Had she also perished? Maybe I was a ghost, doomed to walk this world until there was nothing left. Until the sun died out and Visio was reduced to a crunchy marble fallen off its orbit.
Fear speared me as I looked ahead. A few figures emerged from the thick, oily mist. My mother was one of them, but she was old and wrinkled, barely able to stand. The lack of blood had aged her beyond repair. Even now, she refused to give in. The Unending had been standing by my side, but I hadn’t even noticed her until she spoke.
“They did this to themselves.”
I glanced to my left and found Valaine eyeing my mother intently. She was the Unending. “I’m sorry, Val…”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
“Maybe I could’ve done something. More… I don’t know.”
“You cannot blame yourself for your mother’s faults,” Valaine replied.
“Make it stop,” Petra cried out. The other Aeternae looked worse. They were almost skeletal, their skin stretching over bones and atrophied muscles, their eyes sunken in their heads, their hair falling out. It broke me to see them like this, but it wasn’t a surprise. I’d seen it coming. Even though I’d lived as an Aeternae, I’d seen this version of the future in my head more than once—especially after I’d learned about the Unending.
Knowing we’d built our glorious world on the back of a suffering Reaper made me feel ashamed to be an Aeternae.
“Make it stop, please!” Petra insisted, looking at Valaine. “You can stop this.”
“No. Only you can stop this by setting me free,” Valaine replied.
“You’ve won. Can’t you see? Only a few of us remain,” my mother wailed. “Only a few of us. You’ve won!”
“What have I won, if I am still in chains while you’re still alive?” Valaine asked. I couldn’t blame her for any of this. As a species, we deserved much worse for what we’d put her through.
My mother was crying, but it was a furious sob, not a defeated one. “You wiped us all out. Look! Look at what’s left!” She motioned around her. I wanted to speak, but my mouth was gone. Quite literally gone. I couldn’t even feel my lips anymore. Fear surged through me, yet I couldn’t give in to it. Numbness seeped into my limbs, and I found myself watching without participating once again.
“Petra. You did this to yourselves. Esme and the others—they warned you, and you killed them. They tried to save you all, and you repaid them with blood and death,” Valaine said. My heart shattered into a million pieces as the faded image of Esme lingered in the back of my mind. I was seeing her in a different light now. This little snippet of her radiant smile was all I had left.
My mother had destroyed everything. She’d killed Esme.
“All you had to do was set me free,” Valaine continued.
The world morphed around us. The sky lost its last star as charcoal clouds covered it like a heavy blanket. I hadn’t seen the sun through the reddish haze in a while now. I hadn’t seen a tree grow or even a green leaf in eons. Whatever we’d done to ourselves, we’d done to our world, as well.
“Setting you free would’ve ended us. Do I look stupid?!” my mother snarled, baring her fangs as she took a few steps forward. I didn’t know what she was trying to accomplish with this move, but she wasn’t intimidating anyone. If anything, it only made her seem mor
e pitiful.
“You look old and shriveled,” Valaine said. “Your people are all gone. Your sons, too. Your youth and joy of living. Tell me, Petra. What is it that still keeps you standing? You destroyed everything. What reason do you have to take another breath?”
My mother thought about it for what seemed like forever. She didn’t have a ready answer. All she had were more tears, streaking down her wrinkled, sunken cheeks as she dropped to her knees and surrendered to her own failure.
“You can kill me as many times as you wish,” Valaine said. “I will always come back. That’s the one thing none of you truly understood. There is only so much Spirit’s seals can do to me.”
Where was Spirit, I wondered. In this possible future, GASP had lost, which had to mean the Spirit Bender had come back. Where was he?
As if I’d summoned him, he snickered his way into the picture. I had never seen him before, but I recognized him immediately. Why did he look like Danika Nasani of all people? She wore a black leather tunic and carried a scythe in her hand, but I knew she was the Spirit Bender. How could this be?
“This doesn’t make sense,” I heard myself mumble, my voice returning.
Valaine shot me a cold grin. “You’re not making sense.”
“What’s happening here?” I asked. My mother wasn’t even aware of my presence. She just cried and cried, hiding her face in her hands. Black veins rose up her bony wrists, and I understood she would be gone soon, too.
“What’s happening is that you’re having a very crappy dream,” Valaine said. She gave Danika a confused look. “Seriously? This is how you pictured the Spirit Bender?”
I was speechless, trying to wrap my head around this sudden change in her demeanor. Something was off, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. My confused expression made Valaine throw her head back with laughter.
“Sheesh, Kalon. Your subconscious is a freakin’ mess!” she howled before morphing into someone else. I’d seen him before. The long black hair. The troubled and moody frown. It was the Nightmare.
My heart stopped. “How… how is this happening? All the Reapers were turned to ghouls. Even the First Tenners,” I managed.
“Let me guess, Death is still trapped under the many seals?” Nightmare asked, hands resting on his hips. I offered a meek nod in return. “Is this how you see the future? Really? Dude, it’s insanely glum.”
“What is happening?” I shouted the question, my patience withering away. My nerve endings crackled as I tried to keep my grip on reality. Was this even reality? Was this the inferno of a dead man? I’d seen my world crumble into this vapid abyss… or had I imagined it all? Had I lost my mind somehow? No, it didn’t make sense. Not that long ago, I’d been in Esme’s arms, sick with Black Fever and wanting to go down fighting, not nestled inside an interdimensional bubble.
Nightmare smiled, watching me intently. “Ah, I see life in those eyes. Are you figuring something out yet, boy?”
“Esme. I was with Esme just now.”
Glancing around, I realized we were alone. The Spirit Bender was gone. My mother. The handful of Aeternae left to suffer into oblivion. The land was empty and cold. The sky was dark. Even the air felt thin.
“Kalon, I’m going to need you to wake up,” Nightmare said.
“Wake up?”
Why was I having such a hard time processing his words?
“Yes. Wake up, you oaf! Your mother is trying to get you killed, and you’re letting her,” Nightmare replied, increasingly aggravated. “You have to open your eyes.”
“I’m not dreaming. This is real. This is what my people deserve. It’s the future we’ve made for ourselves, and I was cursed to witness it all,” I said. How sure was I of any of this? Everything up to this single most troubling moment had been a blur.
Nightmare groaned, clearly frustrated. “Okay, so we’re doing this the hard way, then.”
“What?”
“I guess Time’s sleep spell is pretty heavy. I shouldn’t have underestimated Curly Scythe,” Nightmare muttered, turning around several times, as though looking for something. Moments later, he found it. A thick and gnarled stick, blackened by death and misery.
He held it up firmly, with both hands on the slimmer end, carefully analyzing its grip and weight. I grew restless, moving backward away from him. My instincts were telling me to run, but where to? There was nowhere to hide. The mountains were gone. The oceans, too. Only flatlands and barren skies remained, matching the emptiness in my soul. I’d been like this for a while, paralyzed by my own unhappiness.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“I’m going to help you wake up,” Nightmare said. “We don’t have the time to do this following my preferred and more relaxed method. I mean, what’s the point, if I can’t even feed on this nightmare? Esme would hang me by my privates if I took so much as a whiff.”
Esme’s name lit up a flame in my mind. Her light persisted, flickering in the darkness. I would’ve liked to see her again someday. She’d told me about the afterlife, about the prospect of an existence beyond death, but I was a ghost. There were no Reapers around except for Nightmare. Maybe I could get him to reap me. Then maybe I’d see Esme in that afterlife she’d mentioned.
Maybe that was his intention to begin with, hence the stick.
“Shouldn’t you use a scythe?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Yeah, you’re not making much sense right now. Wakey wakey!”
The blow knocked the air out of my lungs. Whatever that stick was made of, it wasn’t wood. I fell on my side, every bone in my body aching. I coughed, trying to catch my breath, but Nightmare kept coming. He swung the stick downward, and I rolled off to the left to avoid the second strike.
His boot rammed into my back, and I cried out from the pain. I could feel it. I could feel it all! Each hit. Every kick. My flesh hurt. My bones broke. I scrambled to get away from Nightmare, but he was relentless and kept beating the daylights out of me.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Stop it! Please!”
I sounded like my mother. Nightmare grabbed me by the throat and pulled me up into a barely standing position. For a second, I thought he was finally done. But then he swung again and hit me on the side of the head.
Good grief, it hurt. I spat blood. He laughed again, like he was having a great time. What kind of cruelty was this? What had I done to him? Horror grew in my heart, clogging my arteries and tying knots in the pit of my stomach. I was terrified, and I couldn’t get away.
“Wake up, Kalon!” Nightmare said, hitting me again. I brought my arms up to defend myself. The stick broke them both, and I sobbed in agony, the burning pain spreading through to my fingers and up to my shoulders.
I curled up in a fetal position, my cheeks wet with fresh tears. If I was dead, why I was feeling all this?
“It’s a nightmare,” he snapped. “All you have to do is acknowledge that, and you’ll wake up. Come on, pansy! Wake. The hell. Up!”
The next blow felt final. I stilled, darkness hugging me tightly, and considered his words. Was this a dream? A really bad and truly ugly dream? Had I been wandering through my subconscious this whole time?
“A dream…” I whispered, my eyes slowly peeling open.
Light pierced through, blinding me. Nightmare’s voice rang in my ear. “Yes. It’s a dream, you fool. Now wake up and stop Petra! She’s giving you her soul shard. She’s going to get you killed!”
“A dream,” I repeated, sounding more sure of myself.
The view before me was blurry—just golden glimmers and a still silhouette. Her laughter echoed all around me. “In a few hours, I’ll be done. And you’ll all be done too, just not in a positive sense.” My mother.
“Whatever you do, don’t let her break that bauble,” Nightmare said. “Pay attention, Kalon. Pay attention!”
Like a stream rushing through crevices down a steep mountain, reality emerged in my consciousness. I was awake. My body was i
n a lot of pain, but not the kind provoked by Nightmare’s stick attack. No, I was sore from the Black Fever. I’d contracted it during our tunnel escape. Time had put me in a pocket. I remembered.
Blinking slowly, I saw my mother. She sat next to me. The golden light became clear, as well—a thread connecting her heart to mine. I could feel it tugging slightly. It made me uncomfortable. Nightmare’s words hammered my brain with exceptional ruthlessness. My mother was transferring her shard of Spirit’s soul into me so that I’d be the one to die at Danika’s hands, not her.
My mother was sacrificing me so she could live forever. I had no idea how she’d gotten here, but as I lay on the floor and listened to Esme calling out to me, begging me to wake up, I realized I was the only one who could still do something.
The bauble in her left hand was filled with dark smoke. Nightmare had said not to break it. Her scythe was inches from my right hand. If I wiggled my finger closer, I might even feel the cold metal on my skin. I had to stop her. Nightmare was right. I had to. This was the point of no return for me—leaving the dream and embracing the reality with all its sides, both good and nasty. This was where I’d have to make a choice. A very final choice. This was where I would decide whether the nightmare I’d just come out of would become real someday or not. I had that power.
My life was about to change forever.
May my brothers forgive me.
Esme
To say I was on edge would’ve been an understatement. I had one foot in the sky while the other sank in hell. I could feel its flames licking at my skin, desperate to consume me, to reduce me to a pile of ashes. I stood by the open doorway, my gaze fixed on Kalon as I waited. Nightmare was inside his head, doing who knew what to get him to wake up. I imagined all sorts of scenarios, but they all ended with Kalon opening his eyes. That was all I could think about—seeing those beautiful, cold blue eyes open again.
Lumi had joined Time, Soul, and me. Dream and Nightmare were off to the side and out of Petra’s sight for obvious reasons. Nightmare was deeply embedded in Kalon’s bad dream; I could tell by the way his eyes moved beneath his eyelids. The Reaper was definitely hard at work, and the thought made my heart swell. It became hard to contain my own excitement, and Petra noticed.
A Shade of Vampire 85: A Shard of Soul Page 4