Indigo: Abraham, Emotion Vol. 4: Covenant, Chapter Sixteen: "Covenant, part 1 Daybreak and Shadows"

 

Volume Four: Covenant

 

We created God so that He could create us,

We reject God so that we can create ourselves.

 

Chapter Sixteen: Covenant, part 1 Daybreak and Shadows

 

            Alex and Ellen’s exit left Shana feeling very alone.  Cornelius stood to the side, near the cliff’s edge, and watched her while Deidra just stared ahead blankly, her face returned to the same mask of indifference that she arrived with.  Shana sat down beside the dome and waited, reflecting on her journey into the Emotion, her meeting with Samantha, and reunion Alex, who had changed so much since their arrival.  Their time there seemed to drain Shana, but it invigorated Alex, who grew stronger and stronger, coming out of her shell and becoming the woman Shana always knew she could be.  It made Shana happy to see her friend shine so bright, but it also made her feel a bit sad, afraid that Alex had somehow outgrown her.

            Since coming to the Emotion and finding her Voice, Shana could feel Alex.  Wherever Alex went, Shana could follow her.  That changed when the dome slid shut.  At first, Shana could feel a phantom of her lingering presence, muted but there.  Then, she couldn’t feel even a hint of her.  Alex was gone.

            It was then that she regretted letting Ellen go.  Though Alex was stronger now, Shana still felt the need to be there with her.  It was Shana’s belief that even the strongest people need support.  Shana looked at Deidra and wondered if she felt the same way about Abel.  Then, she stood.  “Hey, Deidra, I have a question for you.  That guy, Abel, wasn’t it?”

            “Yes, it was.”  Deidra spoke without turning.

            “Okay, why are you helping him?”

            “I thought we had discussed this already.  I have no reason.”

            Shana crossed her arms.  “Yeah, that’s what you said, but that’s not good enough.  There’s got to be a reason, whether you want to admit it or not.  You must be here for a reason.”

            Deidra glanced at Shana and then turned away.  She walked to the edge of the cliff and stared down into the bottom of the canyon.  Her dress trailed after her, shifting the dust in her wake.  “Such information is useless,” she said, and she stood, statue-like, staring into the distance.  “Why are you so desperate to know?”

            “I’m not,” Shana said.  “I guess if you told me, then at least I’d have a reason, you know, a motive?  At least then it wouldn’t be a bunch of people hurting each other just to make it hurt.”

 

: Covenant :

 

            Alex blinked and the pain was gone.  The shouts that once filled the room gave way to silence.  Meanwhile, the cold hands gripping her face disappeared into the still, musty air of the cathedral.  She could no longer smell blood, nor could she feel it running down her face.  She opened her eyes and found herself alone in a room, surrounded by nothing but pillars and pews, curled into a dark corner.

            She drew a deep breath and stood.  Only moments ago, she was faced with her greatest fears.  All of her hard work and all of the trouble she had imposed on others, made meaningless in the face of her own failures.  It felt to her so real and, even upon waking from these strange fantasies, she wonders how much of it was false.

            The pain was not gone but lessened, replaced by a stagnating sense of complacency that suffused the cathedral’s exterior equally.  She stared across the cathedral to the doors, which stood stalwart and blank.  Above, she could feel Abraham, and she could feel someone else with her.  Alex made for the stairs.

            At the top, she found Isaac staring across the platform at Crest.  Ellen was beside them, kneeling at a large, smooth gemstone, oval in shape and fixed into the floor.  Alex looked between Isaac and Crest before rushing to Ellen’s side.  “Ellen!”

            Ellen strained, her fingers pressed tightly to the gemstone, which she found warm to the touch and very, very solidly dug into the stonework of the building.  She saw Alex, and her hand’s slipped and fell onto her rear.  Alex was there before she could respond. Ellen could only looked up at her.  “Alex?”

            Alex kneeled beside Ellen.  “Ellen, what’s going on up here?”

            Ellen stared a moment longer before looking down at the gemstone.  “Abraham is trapped inside of here, and I can’t find a way to get her out.  I’m trying to pull it out, but this thing feels like it is built into the floor.”

            “So, we need to get it out of here first before we can even try to open up the gemstone and take her home, am I right?”

            Ellen paused. “Well, yeah, basically.”

            “Right.”  Liquid steel encased Alex’s right hand as she stood, solidifying into a blade.  “Stand back.”

            “Um, Alex, what are you doing?”

            “Getting her out of there.”

            Ellen pulled herself up and pressed her back flat to the wall.  Watching with wide-eyed anxiety, she said, “Please be careful!”

            “We’ve gotten this far, Ellen, I won’t screw things up here.”  Alex positioned herself above the gem, her legs wide, her feet planted firm.  She lifted her Voice above her head, supporting it with her free hand.  “Right, then.”  Closing her eyes, she called out to her soul, which whispered to her in return.  An echo rang through her, starting first as feelings and then forming words at the back of her throat.  She drew a deep breath and spoke.  The words became power as she articulated them.

            All sorrow be at bay.  All hope come to light!

            The air shifted around her.  When she swung her arm there was a crack and a flash.  The ground fractured and gave in a cloud of dust.  The gem fell through the floor and landed at the first floor’s center.  Alex’s footing remained stable as she stared through the newly formed hole she had made.  She shifted her weight and knocked a free hanging stone down onto the gemstone’s unblemished, liquid-like surface.  “See,” she said, “she’s fine.”

            Ellen, pale and shaking, released her held breath.  Alex offered her a hand and pulled Ellen to her.  Together, they hopped into the hole.  Alex landed lightly, bringing Ellen with her in a bridal carry.  At the floor, she set Ellen back down onto her legs and then turned to the gemstone.  “Come on, we need to get her out of here.”

            “Okay.”  Ellen followed Alex’s lead, taking up position across from her on the gemstone and seizing it clumsily where it was most narrow.  The gemstone itself was oblong and uneven.  Its surface was slick and resisted their grip.  They had to hug it and lift with their backs to get any leverage.  Hunched over it together, they scrambled toward the door.

 

: Covenant :

 

            Shana watched the dome’s dull gray exterior with growing unease and contemplated her connection with Alex.  Now without her, Shana wondered if she could always feel Alex’s presence around her, even before she found her Voice.  Being without her here in the Emotion seemed strange to her, almost wrong, like a world without color.

            Deidra joined Shana, standing at her side and staring, apathetically, and held herself in the same defensive posture.  She kept her arms wrapped around her torso, like she was comforting herself, like she was protecting herself from the world.  Shana realized that Deidra closed off her body like she closed off her heart. 

Deidra glanced at Shana.  “Do you have any children, girl?”

            Shana stared ahead, shifting her weight away from Deidra as she answered.  “No, I don’t.”

            “Of course not.  You’re far too young for children.”

            “I was about to say that.”  Shana sat in the dirt.  Deidra joined her.  They continued speaking while watching the dome, neither one chancing a glance at each other.  “Uh, what about you?  Do you have any kids?”

            Deidra looked at the ground.  For a brief moment warmth flashed across her features.  There was almost a smile, but it was restrained.  “I had a child, and he was the light of my life.  When he was born, when I saw his little face, there is nothing like it.”

            Shana looked at Deidra, watched emotions pass over her face like seasons.  A small, uncertain smile blossomed briefly before wilting into a frown.  That frown then turned to a bitter, hollow stare, and then to nothing, swallowed completely by the void the older woman had built around her heart.  Alex would do the same thing, Shana remembered.

            “Long ago, the man named Abel, the man whose plans you are attempting to thwart, went on a journey with me.  We endeavored to—Well, we wanted to end the world.  We were young, and we were blessed, and we were led by anger.  A man confused us, showed us a dark path, and another man, someone dear to us, fought against us.  He stopped us, but he did so at a cost.”  She paused, tears now in her eyes.  She wiped them away before continuing.  “So many broken things were left behind, broken friendships, broken people.  Broken hearts.  The boy who stopped us, the hero of this tale, he lost his sister in the struggle.

            “In the end, I survived, but it all left me feeling empty inside.  My anger, my resentment, had brought nothing but pain and suffering to the world.  It was my juvenile wish for a better world that had started it all, that had made me so angry, and when it was done, I realized that such things are just fiction.  For a time, I lost all hope.  Then, I gave birth.  He was a beautiful baby boy.  He was,” she smiled faintly, “He was so many things.  He looked just like me, but he had his father’s eyes.”

            Deidra paused and gathered herself.  Her features hardened as she spoke again.  “That was a lie, though, all of it a hopeless illusion.  His father was no hero.  Consumed by his past, he let it rule him.  He raised my son to be a fighter, a ‘hero’ in his own image.  Looking toward the past, he never once looked toward the future, for though he saved the world, he was as broken as the rest of us.

            “Day by day, I watched my son have his life taken away from him.  I put everything into him, my hopes, my dreams, my love, but it did nothing for him.  He was his father’s child, idealistic, brash, foolish, and I couldn’t stand to see him become the man who had stood in opposition to me for so long ago.  Abel returned from what I had thought to be an early and violent grave. He offered me escape, and unable to watch as I had, I took it.  I left my son alone to suffer at the hands of a man more broken even than myself.  I left him to repeat the cycle.

            “And that is life, an endless, hopeless loop set on repeat.  Nothing but youth, hope, disappointment, dissolution, and when we’re too tired to carry on, death.”

            Shana was hugging her knees as Deidra finished her story.  Looking on the woman, her skin young, her eyes ancient, Shana had trouble seeing her as a mother.  The image didn’t fit.  Shana’s own mother wasn’t warm, but she was there.  Shana thought that a mother should do at least that much.

            She looked forward and, after thought, said, “I don’t think that’s fair.  You said all of these things where why you left, but how old was he at the time? And what did you do to help?  I mean, sure, maybe he might turn out like his father.  Maybe his dad was pushing all of these expectations on him, but were you any different by wanting him to be something else than what he was?”

            Deidra remained quiet.

            “I’m here right now,” Shana said, “And I’m not here for myself.  I’m here for Alex, and for Ellen, and for that little girl I don’t even know.  Abraham, wasn’t it?  I’m here fighting, and I find meaning in that.  Like I said, maybe it’s an illusion, but it is my choice to believe in it.  You can go on thinking that life is meaningless, but I have decided to give it meaning.  I’d rather do that than just sit around and wait for death.”

            “That is foolish.”

            They fell silent.  Shana rested her head on her knees.  “Maybe,” she said.  “Your kid, do you know what ever happened to him?”

            Deidra looked at her and nodded.  “In a sense.”

            “And? Did he turn out just like his father?”

            Deidra allowed a smile.  “I saw him only briefly,” she said, “But from what I could tell, he was so much more.”

 

: Covenant :

 

            Isaac and Crest stood staring even as Alex and Ellen made their explosive escape.  Isaac’s firm grip on his chakrams left his hands stiff.  The blades of each discus gleam in the torch light.  “Who are you?”

            Crest flashed his teeth in a snarl.  “I have no true name, though you may call me Crest for now, though you won’t have long to say it.”

            “I won’t let you hurt them.”

            “You should be more worried about yourself, boy.  Your friends will die in their own time.  You, however, you, I want to kill personally.”

            “Go ahead and try.”

            “Oh, I will!”

            The Cathedral’s crown exploded into a burst of light and a spray of shadows.  Isaac sailed from the light, with Crest following just after, a solid stream of shadows trailing in his wake.  Debris from the explosion landed in chunks around Alex and Ellen.  The two of them stumbled across the bridge as heavy blocks of black stone rocked its fountain.  The stonework of the bridge fractured under their feet as they shuffled along.  Ahead, they could see the dull grey of the dome and knew it to be their only source of safety.

            A spiraling hunk of stone came sailing toward them.  Alex saw it and dropped her end of the gem, leaving Ellen to stumble into the guard rail as they fumbled about.  Leaping, Alex conjured her Voice and, words echoing through her, split the stone in a flash of light.  A thin trail of glowing, molten stone dripped red as it parted around them and landed harmlessly on each side of them.  Alex landed and smiled back at Ellen, who clung to the railing while grasping her chest.

            “Warn me next time!”

            “Right, sorry.”  Alex let her Voice fade as she stood.  “Come on.  We need to get going while we can.”

            “God, my back is killing me.”  Ellen took the front of the gemstone.  “I wish there was a better way to do this.  Maybe if we could get it open, we could just pull her out and carry her instead of it.”

            “Maybe, but we should escape first before anyone else shows up to stop us.”  Alex pointed ahead.  “We’re almost to the end.”

            Ellen wiped the sweat from her forehead and nodded. “Then let’s hurry.”  Leaning down, she wrapped her arms around the smooth, rounded edges of the gem and waited for Alex to do the same.  With Alex seizing it, they stood together and scrambled toward the exit.  “How will we tell them that we’re back? Should we just knock on the dome when we get there? Do you think they would even hear us if we did?”

            “I’ll cut my way out if I have to.”

            Above them, the sky parted.  The grey steel of the dome peeled away to reveal the golden twilight surrounding it.  The canyon lit up in the burning haze of light.  The landscape writhed around them.  The cathedral behind Ellen faded as the sunlight hit it, the dark brickwork turning to orange-brown stone.  The bridge did the same.  No longer stone-laid, it was a dusty land bridge that led their way out.

            Alex smiled across the gemstone at Ellen.  “Then again, maybe the problem will just solve itself.”

            Turning the gem sideways, they looked ahead together and found Shana waiting, hugging Deidra, who cried softly into her shoulder.

 

: Covenant :

 

            He opened his eyes and stared with an absent expression at the dark sky above.  A thin layer of dust had collected on his body as he slept.  Standing, he shook the dust off and regarded his surroundings with haughty indifference.  He was above it all, separated, distinct, and entirely actualized.

            He had stood tall since youth, but his bearing had become titanic.  His presence made mountains sink.  His gaze bore holes through steel.  Somewhere else in the Emotion, they could feel him.  He could feel them, too, but it summoned nothing from him.  His focus was fixed on one thing.  It was all about to end.  His ambition was singular, and his convictions unshakable.

            Soon, Abel would become God.