Looking at the clock on his overlay, Anaar was already quite aware of the request. “So you stayed here up until the very last moment knowing you had class?”
Laying his act on thick even though he knew it never actually swayed Anaar to his side, “Helping you out was more important! I couldn’t leave you all by yourself! So can you please just send me to class?!”
Stonefaced though clearly annoyed, a portal opens up behind Phavian where he is immediately pushed through by Anaar. Sprawling through the portal onto the polished floor of the building, Phavian moves to protest when he realizes he was missing something.
“Hey what about-”
Before he can finish the words, a backpack barrels through the portal, hitting him in the face and then subsequently closing. Sitting back up, rubbing his face, Phavian grumbles to himself about Anaar turning into Maggie before he stands to enter his class.
Emerging from the portal, he found himself simply standing at Yatik’s door, unable to knock. There was an uneasy churn in the pit of his stomach which refused to abate. He had been putting off this trip for too long and knew there was no way he could turn back now. He collected himself again preparing to knock, when the door flew open and Yatik was a mixture of tears and pain.
Anaar was initially taken aback by his greeting without knocking, but he remembered just how skilled she was in her ability to sense others. What he now noticed was that her pain looked much less like emotional pain, and instead like physical. Noticing her squinted eyes, and the appearance of one fighting against a mighty force, he came to realize he was the problem.
The excruciating pain and discomfort that racked every molecule of the body when someone’s power was too much, was akin to standing in the sunlight of a place with no atmosphere. With nothing to filter it, the energy inadvertently scorched everything in its path. He knew this and he was only dealing it to himself, which gave some intrinsic level of protection. For someone else it would be at best a fit of pain and misery, and at worst agonizingly lethal.
Through working with his friends, he had long since learned the arrogance of presuming others were capable of the same feats as he. Initially he thought he was being considerate by never immediately relegating someone to be lesser or incapable. The truth was, his expectations were far more hurtful than he could ever truly understand. Because of this, he thought better of telling Yatik to simply dull her senses, something even he struggled with from time to time.
In searching for a way to prevent such an inadvertent attack, he realized his mind had already provided him with a solution. Though he had never put the puzzle together before, it made perfect sense that what his Affinity Detection was picking up was a palpable form of energy. Humans give off body heat, they released scents and pheromones, they also produced sounds. There was a myriad of energy sources being constantly emitted, however they had become normalized and not thought of as energy. If he could utilize his barriers to create his own atmosphere of sorts, then he could hopefully filter his own energy output enough to prevent Yatik from being in pain.
He coated his skin with a simple barrier, focused more on keeping forces in rather than keeping them out. When he noted there was no change, he increased the strength, but it too proved to be futile. He had never studied the nature of the energy attunements generated. He simply accepted that attunements worked. He was ashamed of his negligence considering he made himself out to be a scholar of the field.
As he chided himself on his lack of knowledge, something occurred to him. His dilemma stemmed from a confrontation with an unknown form of energy. It became clear to him that he alone had access to another form of energy whose secrets he had yet to delve into. Unsure if what he planned was even possible, he began weaving Life energy into his barrier with the intention that it would prevent his own energies from escaping.
“KiLL hER! maKe hER SUFFer!”
The raspy voice sent a shiver down Anaar’s spine. He knew not what it was nor where it came from, but it seemed to speak directly to his mind. It was full of malevolence and vitriol so potent it clawed at his very soul. He shook the feeling from him, returning his focus to the task at hand.
To his immense surprise, Yatik sucked in a large volume of air and then proceeded to gasp as if she had been being strangled and was finally given leave to breathe. Quickly helping her to stand, he guided her into the house, closing the door after he brought her to a chair. When he returned, he found her still shaken, but visibly recovering. She looked up into his concerned eyes as he studied her.
“What on earth happened to you? Though you were positively radiant before, it was enough for me to bear. Now, if placed next to Meysam, he would be barely a dimly lit lantern, while you would be a high-powered spotlight!”
Anaar’s eyes bulged and his legs trembled as the gravity of her words were not lost upon him. Before, he saw the fear in her eyes when she thought about him coming into contact with his father. Now that fear had found a new target. Some part of him was relieved that it seemed he now had the power to contend with his father should it come to pass. Unfortunately, his feelings were unclear when he thought of an independent source verifying just how grand in scale is powers had become. He had not been alive two decades yet, but already he held such power.
Putting aside his own introspection, he focused his attentions upon her. “Are you alright? I didn’t mean… I don’t even really know what I did, but I think I have an idea.”
Shaking her head as she looked upon his troubled face, she stood to place her hand upon his cheek, looking into his eyes. “You did nothing wrong. Your presence was so overwhelming it was too much for me to bear.”
“I really am sorry about that. No one else has our ability, and I had learned to simply look past it for myself. For some reason I don’t notice it unless I look within myself. That is with the exception of mirrors, but still…”
She chuckles as she returns to her seat. “Ah yes, mirrors can indeed be troublesome.”
“So the same thing happens to you?”
“Indeed it does, however I am positive I have far less to contend with than you. How is it I do not sense you now? It is as if you are completely nonexistent, yet I can see you clearly with my eyes.”
“It worked then!” He rubs his chin, “Much better than I expected… I really need to buckle down and learn more about this…”
“Learn more about what?”
Anaar realized the time had come. He wondered if not for the incident he caused, if they would have dived into this immediately, or continue on in smalltalk until the time had come. Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself to tell the news to the one other person who would likely be as affected by it as he was.
“Yefferson is dead.”
“bY yoUR rEtChED HanD!”
Anaar shook his head as the strange voice infiltrated his mind once again. The look upon Yatik’s face was one of someone lost to a void. Her jaw was slack, her expression blank. If Anaar could not clearly still feel all the evidence of her life, he would have presumed she was dead. For a long while she sat that way, utterly still, until the stillness was broken only by the deluge of tears that began to flow from her eyes.
Unsure of what to do, Anaar sat paralyzed. He thought perhaps he should hug her, or offer some attempt to console her, but would that be accepted from the one who had ended her child’s life? He wished he could explain to her why it had happened, but nothing he could think of was sensible enough to explain the need for his death. Everything came back to him being too weak to save Yefferson.
Tears sprang from his eyes as well, the both of them occupying the space, but deeply retreated into themselves. Over ten minutes passed of them sitting in silent reflection. Yatik was the first to break the silence, her words somber, but without any indication of blame.
“He was truly too far gone to be helped it seems. You made sure he did not suffer, right?”
Anaar jumps at the sound of the words, hesitant to look into her eyes. “Not sayin
g you are wrong, but what makes you think I did it?”
“You two are the only ones to oppose one another. It was only by one of your hands that the other could perish.”
“Then you knew this would happen?!”
“I knew there was the possibility for it to happen. I could feel your conviction when you left to seek out your brother. It did not feel like anger or resentment. I honestly believed you had nothing but the best intentions for Yefferson.”
“I did but-”
His words caught in his throat as if someone had suddenly placed a stopper over his mouth. His tears began again, and his throat tightened. His lips parted again to speak, but the force still held his voice captive. Yatik could see the pain he was struggling with and allowed him the time to recover. When he had found the strength to continue, his eyes were determined yet full of sorrow.
“No words could ever express how much I wanted to have a relationship with my brother. I thought it was just the experience of growing up without one that made it so appealing. Then I thought it was the idea of having someone who could truly understand what I have gone through. Being a Demolitionist, having two attunements, having more power at an early age than children should be required to bear, someone could finally say with complete honesty they knew how it felt. I just couldn’t get him to feel the same way.”
“He had no interest in his family?”
“Not in the slightest. Not that I can blame him. He had no frame of reference for the benefits of family. There was no reason to covet it. If I’m being honest, I still harbor resentment about how my life came to be. Despite knowing the circumstances, it doesn’t exactly endear me to you, and definitely not my father. At the end of the day, I have a great mom, and have been fine without a dad. I feel this way without having the childhood he had. I don’t think I even had the right to understand his feelings.”
Yatik looks away, a single tear escaping her eye before she had the chance to catch it. Though his words were not intended to be hurtful, they felt like hot spears thrust through her all the same. It appeared Anaar had resolved to continue the conversation, so she knew she must be willing to do the same.
“I see… If your feelings on the matter we not all that dissimilar, why the conflict?”
“I bear the full responsibility for that. Yefferson thought I was dead after he attempted killing me… again. If I had just left him alone, we could have likely gone our separate ways, both of us still seeing another day. It was my selfish persistence that caused us to come to blows. He was too busy killing a bunch of people and committing grand acts of arson to care about me when I arrived.”
Yatik’s head snapped in Anaar’s direction when she heard the words. “Please tell me that was a figure of speech!”
“Nope, it is as literal as it comes. Because of whatever he was doing, I was attacked on sight. Well, not by him, but by whomever wanted him dead.”
“Why would others be trying to kill him?!”
“Something about being a crime overlord and things going wrong after an extended vacation? I couldn’t get all the details because I wanted to stop him from burning down the whole city of Houston. That didn’t garner me any brother points. Not good ones at least.”
“Is that when things… went wrong?”
“Things definitely never went right, so technically no. I stranded him in a desert though, so there was nowhere else for him to vent his frustrations.”
“If you knew it would only aggravate him, why would you send him away?”
“Did you miss the part about wanton arson? He had flames that wouldn’t extinguish no matter what you did unless he willed them to go out. Want to let that continue and try explaining that to the fire department? I have spent much of my life preventing incidents, or in the unfortunate situation cleaning them up. I didn’t want to draw more attention to our existence.”
“You sent him to a desert and left him to die?!”
“No! Of course not! I did wonder if he would die of dehydration. I’m curious if I could too. I am technically my own water fountain so maybe I would just subconsciously rehydrate myself…”
Noticing Anaar had not come back to the conversation, Yatik cleared her throat, bringing Anaar back to his senses.
“Oh, yes. Sorry about that. Every time I go down that path, I end up losing myself. To answer your question, I tried talking to him, but it was no good. Abridged version is we fought for about two hours, and I was left standing in the end.”
“How… did it end?”
“Not exactly sure, I blacked out, so my memory is not reliable. From what I can tell, I absorbed him.”
Yatik’s eyes went wide. “Absorbed?! How is that possible? How do you know?!”
Anaar taps his head slightly in his revelation. “That’s right! You can’t see it right now, can you? Is this shield really that effective? I give off no signature for you at all?”
Shaking her head, “None. It is rather unsettling in fact. When you are so used to a sensation, to be left without it is jarring.”
“Ah, I see. Considering you are the only person I need to worry about that with I suppose it is a neat trick that at best can be used for other applications. Anyway, since you can’t see it, I now have Yefferson’s True Fire and Earth attunements, along with all his manifestations.”
Yatik covers her mouth to stifle a gasp. “It all makes sense now.”
“What does?”
“Why you two felt like one in my womb. Why the prophecy changes accordingly. You two must have been intended to be one person, but the reason why the prophecy still existed was because you always had the ability to fuse back together.”
Scratching the back of his neck absently, “Yeah… about that. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m better than Yefferson, but I have reason to believe only I would have been capable of fusing the two of us.”
“What would make you believe that?”
“You are the one who told me about these two mysterious forces we have in us. When I… killed Yefferson, the memory I have of it is fragmented in two. What is clear though is without this darkness ability you spoke of, I would have never killed Yefferson. You said darkness consumes, well that is what I did. I ate his light. I can only surmise, but if the roles had been reversed, I think he would have instead banished my darkness, leaving nothing to absorb.”
Yatik’s eyes looked to twinkle with some sort of understanding as she pondered. “Nature has a way of restoring itself. If what you say is true, perhaps they original plan was indeed for only you to exist. This confrontation only served to put the future back on track.”
“Um, not saying you are wrong, it sounds pretty reasonable to me, but you know what that portends right? All you are basically confirming is that I am still somehow going to bring about the end of the world.”
Eyes wide with the processing of the information, “Oh dear. You might be right. I have full confidence in your resolution, but now by all means you must avoid your father. You are now poised to be exactly what he wanted.”
“Yeah… about that. Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind. According to you though, I am vastly more powerful than him now. If I did meet him, couldn’t I just… you know… bump him off?”
“This is possible, but I would rather you not take the chance. Nothing said he needed prolonged exposure to you to bring about the prophecy. Fate has a strange way of getting its way. Look at our current situation. Despite all my best efforts, for better or for worse, everything ended up the same.”
“Meaning two little boys were given away, one never knowing love, and the other living a lie, all while searching for what was missing in his life. Fast forward twenty years and we get the happy news that our pain was all for nothing. No one was saved.”
Yatik’s lip trembles as the words bore into her very spirit. Anaar had pangs of regret for what he said, understanding they sounded callous and cruel. He opened his mouth to apologize but was stopped before he could speak.
“Y
ou are right. I am sorry. I am sorry for everything I have done to cause you and your brother so much pain. I am sorry I did not believe in myself enough to stand my ground and not deny my children the bond they so desperately needed. I sorry for leaving you alone in a world you did not understand, even if in your case you had the pure heart of Brighid to help you in your journey. I’m sorry for the mess I left, and having the audacity to push you to clean…”
Yatik broke down in tears, the decades of pain and regret finally causing her will to succumb to its pressure. Everything she did, she only wanted it to matter. At this juncture it was clear there was nothing but tragedy to show for her actions.
Anaar looked upon the woman not with pity, but with recognition. His own short life had also been fraught with what felt like countless poor decisions. Despite his attempts to keep his head held high and persevere, he found he brought far more pain to those around him than he did happiness. Even his need for secrecy placed burdens on others who only wanted to know who he truly was. Once they found out, it increased a hundredfold as they joined the guardianship of such precious information.
Crossing the space, he hugged the woman, her melting in his arms as she wept. “Talking to you made me realize we all make mistakes, often the result of doing the best with what little information we have at the time. In that I am no different from you, therefore I have no room to judge. My words were that of a brat who pretends their actions have not caused similar pain for others. Being in pain does not give one license to dispense it to others. We both have much to make up for, so if you are willing, why don’t we work on it together?”
Yatik’s pitiful sobs changed to whimpers of happiness. Pulling back from his embrace she cradled his face lovingly.
“Brighid truly did a marvelous job of raising you. In that, I could not be happier.”
“Yeah, mom is pretty awesome.”
Anaar returned back to his seat as the atmosphere greatly lightened. Yatik dabbed her eyes as Anaar responded to a slew of bothersome messages from Peter. Giggling at the audible exasperation of Anaar, when he had completed his work, Yatik addressed something they had skipped past earlier.
Revelations (Song of Sophangence Book 4) Page 9