CHAPTER 56

7246

DEVON

We travel our way through the cold cave. Light is scarce through the tunnel—our only source of light are the stones that Andrew casts aflame as we pass. The trip is mostly a silent one, as we all think of our own situations. Eventually, the path begins to ramp upwards and the climb begins to get more difficult. It keeps climbing for another fifteen minutes or so until it breaks out into a large circular section of the cave where the ceiling raises high above our viewpoint. Stalactites hang down—clinging to the ceiling, dripping like stone drops.

Out at the opposite side of the clearing is the gaping mouth of the exit, half closed in anticipation. I have to swing a leg over one at a time to squeeze through the crevice created by the roof and floor. Andrew and Noah follow behind me, Noah catches up to the front as we reach the cylindrical tunnel that begins to funnel into a cone-shaped exit in the ceiling. "I've never seen anything like this..." I say.

"Yes, it is quite unlike any kind of mountain that existed on earth. Pathways like this are typically caused by Breetons who tunnel through them searching for mines," Andrew says.

"Breeton can do that...?" I ask.

"Yes, it's quite a sight to see. They typically come to these kinds of mountains to train and expand their muscles. Of course, they have their own network that keeps track of who tunneled in which mountains. Too much of it could cause seismic events if left unchecked," Noah explains.

"Well, let's navigate our way through this, then. It should lead us near the top, right?" I say.

Noah nods, "Right. The Breeton that tunneled his or her way through this mess had to have started somewhere. I don't see them starting tunneling upward."

"You two will have to take care with your anti-gravity. This tunnel isn't going to be neat, we could do without the scrapes and cuts from one of you trying to rocket through here. I can fix you up, but we all know the best case scenario."

I nod, looking to Noah. We both look up as Andrew begins to float up, slowly climbing up. "I haven't done this...in a long time. Let's see if I can follow my own advice," he says, and he leaves our sight through the tunnel upward. It looks like there is only room for one person to go up at a time. Sure, it's Breeton sized, but it looks like if the both of us went up at once we'd be pressed against the edges of the wall.

"You go next, I'll take up the rear," Noah says.

"Is that just because of the innuendo?"

He smiles wryly.

I shake my head and sigh as I press my finger down to my palm, hopping up and floating up through the tunnel now that Andrew has had enough time to make some headway through. It's pitch black, so I keep my hands above my head so I can feel around to make sure I'm not slamming my head against any slabs of rock.

"You know, this reminds me of when I used to go spelunking," Noah says from below, his voice echoes through the tunnel."

"You went spelunking?" I ask.

"Yeah, back in college. It's actually where I met Bonnie."

"Oh," I say, looking back up above me.

"You don't have to shrug her off like she never existed," he says. "She was the sweetest thing, changing her entire life around for me, and I know it probably doesn't come as a sort of surprise, but I knew that she wasn't a whole believer of Next Level."

"Is this really the time for this conversation?" I ask.

"Talking through it might help. Might also dredge up bad memories, I understand."

I look down, the light from one of Andrew's rocks from the bottom glimmers faintly as we keep floating upward, shifting to the side to align with the natural turning of the path. "How'd that start...you becoming the leader of a cult, that is?"

"College is a very transformative time. I went for a year and then dropped out, enlisted in the army and served for a year there. Left and went back to school to study music. Things opened up and I tried to do so many things at once, but it all hardly seemed to matter when my father died when I was just coming back to school. It hit me hard—harder than I thought it would have. Things looked like they weren't ever going to clear up until a few friends dragged me out for some spelunking. Something about nature opening up life's closed doors."

"That's where you met Bonnie?"

"She was a friend of a friend, we'd met before but really met on that trip. She was going to school to be a nurse, but we both connected over the spirits of the universe."

"Spirits?"

"We believed that something was out there for us in the world, I read a little in school and got hooked. Of course, we argued endlessly about differing theologies. I always took more to alternative life while she loved to discuss events in afterlife. We hung out after that initial date and moved to California to start a bookstore; figured we could connect with more people if we touched those who liked to read as much as we did."

"Hey guys, the path turns horizontal up here, be wary, I'll make a light for you!" Andrew yells down.

"Got it!" I call back. "What happened after you started your store?" I ask, looking back down to him as his face is illuminated by the fire above. I see where the path curves back into a more natural horizontal path.

"Well, we didn't do too hot sales wise. I actually got in trouble with the law for not returning a rental car. I went to prison for six damn months. There, though, was where the roots of Next Level began to sprout. I sat day in and day out imagining and receiving messages from a higher power. I had a dream where the fate of the world was vividly painted to me like it were a movie playing the unwritten history of the future."

"And you didn't realize it was bullshit."

"In some parts it wasn't," he says. "Just look where we are."

"Mmm, but I highly doubt you saw Sayar in your dream."

"That is correct. And I understand your inference. I did become obsessed with this idea of a life alternative to our own on a plane of existence higher and more spiritually fulfilling."

I reach the ledge of the angled tunnel and pull myself up as I let my gravity return to normal, the light illuminates Andrew a bit ahead of us on the path down a long stretch of tunnel.

"There's one thing that bugged me, if I may ask?"

"Go right ahead," he grunts as he pulls himself up.

"When Alex and I first joined up on the meetings, you had this rule that desecrating our bodies was blasphemous to the extreme. You were against suicide in every way possible. That changed...why was that?"

"You know, I didn't understand it much myself. Those last ten years felt like action of a body moving rather than the input and thought of a living person. I realized it more once I had woken up in this body, but I saw a vision of myself in another history—Bonnie was hit with cancer and had to have the both of her eyes removed. It was a very graphic scene...I saw her die during the surgery, but her body remained there. She was living proof...well, not any longer living proof that wholly contradicted the ideals I'd believed in for so long. That dream lasted years, yet when I woke up it was just the next day. Nothing else around me had changed, I wasn't any older from the time in the dream, and nobody else reacted to its existence—it was a dream, of course, but I never forgot it."

"That's...heavy."

"I think my stance changed after that experience, my pillars begin to shift as they had not been as solid as I had thought they originally been. To avoid a total mental collapse of recognizing that everything I believed in was a waste, I simply shifted the methods. Now, while I didn't guess Sayar, nor would I in a million years, I think that my mental survival hinged solely on me being right about some other life. This planet saved me."

This planet saved him, huh? I haven't really thought of it that way. The same thing I feel happened to me...I never would have changed unless the things happened the way they did. For all of the shit that's happened.

"Of course, I probably should have seen that coming with the prison sentence. It wasn't until after I got out that Bonnie and I decided to do serious work with our beliefs. That led to us finding Dante at one of our meetings we started holding for those looking to find their purpose. He's been with us for a long time. Sherry and Craig found their own way as the years came on, but it didn't really feel complete until I took the day off one day to search the library for some new ideas. Something was missing."

"And that's when you found me and Alex searching up how to get into space."

"Ah...yes. Forgive me for tricking you. I saw such potential in the both of you...your thirst for knowledge excited me, and I saw the subject matter you tried to read. I saw it as nothing other than a sign."

"To think, all of this could have been totally different if we knew what a miscarriage was."

"I didn't have the heart to break that news to you. Maybe if I did you wouldn't have come around."

Andrew breaks his silence, "The past happened. Remember it, but don't dwell on it," he says. "That sounds like what you two have been telling me for a while, right?"

I nod, "Yeah...it does."

The end of the tunnel peaks through another vertical shaft. Andrew leads the way—now lighting an outgrown stone on fire after every fifty feet or so. The sky has turned a deep maroon color as we break the surface onto the smaller of the two peaks of Mount Gaunt. Down below the gigantic valley lies—the Westerwinds somewhere down hidden. I search out across the distance to see the peak of Mount Gerau, if I squint I can see an orb-like facility built high up into the side of the mountain.

"So...there it is," I say.

"You think you can get us there?"

Andrew runs his hand to his forehead like a visor and looks out toward the other mountain. "I may...I wasn't expecting the base to be spherical. It's going to be a little tougher than I imagined. I have to find someplace I can send you that has enough room for you to fit." He holds out his hand, "One second, I'm going to feel around and see if I can get a read on what's inside."

"Feel around?" I ask.

"Beats me," Noah shrugs.

Andrew closes his eyes, "I can focus on the waves as if they were like a grid in front of me, and imagine a sort of phantom hand that can reach out as far as my sight, if I go out far enough I can use that to find out where to send you." He's silent, only breathing, and then I see the smallest of smirks cross his face. "Ready yourselves..."

Faster than I can look to him he's gone, and the sky is now a ceiling that curves down with a thick glass sheet that almost looks like ice. When I come to I realize I'm inside of the building that we'd just been looking at, I can almost see the top of the mountain. Just another moment and Noah is there right beside me, as if he always were, and then Andrew is, completing the triangle.

"That's...crazy. It didn't even feel like anything happened," I say.

"Yeah...for you. I'm out of practice..." he breaths heavy, placing his hands on his knees.

"Well, we're here," Noah says looking around.

I turn to look at the room we've entered in. It extend deep in what looks like a gigantic library, all kinds of human-looking books flowing to the end in rows and rows, wrapping around the bend of the corner to continue on to the other end of the room. "Now, I may not be familiar with Sayarian warfare, but this...doesn't look like any room that'd be in a weapons base," I say.

"I don't understand," Noah says, walking out toward the center of the room, looking around. "This shouldn't be..."

"Expecting something different?" A voice cuts in from the opening on the west side of the room—Cross is sitting in a chair with a book strewn aside, it looks like the one Andrew had been reading back at the campsite. "You know, Andrew, I never took you for an author, but you have so many fascinating stories to tell..." He stands, "Or are you just the idea-boy while that Taylor does the actual work?"

"What the hell is this, Cross?" I ask, stepping forward.

"Oh, this is a private library I keep when I'm busy planning, but to you it is a dangerous weapons base aimed directly at the Westerwinds...or at least that's what I let leak out."

Noah's eyes go wide, "It's...a trap."

"Well, no SHIT," Alex's voice screams through, her eyes boil a blood red. "How else are we going to lure you do a dome built into the side of the mountain unless you thought it was a threat?"

I swallow hard, "...Alex." My voice is hoarse.

She looks directly at me, I try my best to keep my composure. "Do you remember yet, or do I have to wring you inside-out?"

"I remember. And it's strange how the roles have reversed, huh? Things don't have to be this way."

"Oh, are you playing this card now? Are you fucking kidding me?" She barks. Cross's more composed voice bleeds through, "Now now, I lured you here for the sole reason of killing you, and you," he nods to Andrew and Noah. "While there are feelings of disdain towards you, sonny," he regards Noah again, "you're not the main event—nothing but a sideshow. So, I'll make your death painless, deal?" He turns back to Andrew, "Now you on the other hand...we're not too different."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Andrew asks.

"If you only knew...I heard a lot about you, before you became this slog that calls itself Andrew Cress...back when you actually did shit. Alas, legends have to be dead, as they say." He raises his fists as if he were some sort of metallic boxer. He snaps a finger and a hard twang sounds out, raising small chromed electrodes from the floor, sending out a current keeping my legs tied to the ground. I cry out in pain as my body shakes.

"Now, we can't have you going off of the script," Cross begins. "One of Andrew's books would lose its pacing if we were to do that." He takes a step into the room, unaffected by the electricity coursing through the floor. He passes by Noah, looking him up and down.

"So, this is what you've become, Noah Marshall? To think you were a man I looked up to for a very...short time. Count your graces you aren't him," her eyes flash toward me.

"I-I-I never thought I'd be t-talking t-to you ag-again," he mutters out from the electricity.

She scoffs, making their way down toward Andrew, making the sound of breathing and Cross resumes his thoughts. "You knew the one who is this world's god...and you did nothing to save him. You're just as bad as any."

"F-Fuck off," Andrew spits.

"Hm, fuck off? Well, I can't say it will be winning any awards, but there as good as any for someone's last words." As soon as he says it he sends his arm straight through Andrew's chest, the metal slides in, breaking the skin as if it were tissue paper. Andrew's eyes go wide as blood starts to drip down his lips. Cross yanks downward as he rips out his heart, an old organ with visible differences to a normal human heart. He crushes it between his fingers as it sprays all over his face, dripping down the metal without any care in the world. Andrew's body falls limp beside the both of us, we can do nothing but look in horror as the oldest living human has taken his final breath.

A white sort of essence flows upward from his body directly into Cross' own form. He holds both of his hands up as his eyes seem to glow as they do. "You. Cannot. Stop. Us." The both of them say in unison, taking a step toward me. "The greatest thing about this is that there's nobody here looking for you. Nobody knows you're here, Devon. Nobody is here to care about you, the only one of course is him. Of all people, it's like you're trying to be the absolute worst that you could be," Alex shakes her head. "I thought that you were someone I loved."

"I..." I try to answer, but the current grows stronger, tightening my vocal chords.

"NO." She screams, stamping a foot on the ground. "Just. Shut. Up! I don't want to hear you try to excuse what a terrible piece of garbage you are! I just want to feel your bones break!"

Cross pulls back, "No...we can't do that...now. It's not nearly time."

"Fuck if it's not time! Do you see this? He fucking brought Noah Marshall of all people here!"

"Alex, restraint."

"FUCK restraint!'

Alex's arm is shaking, "Come ON! LET ME DO THIS. HE IS RIGHT HERE."

"Alex, I support you, but we have more important things to--"

"More important?!"

"I didn't mean it like-"

This was the opening that I needed, I use my strength to throw up my shields, sending the electricity pumping through my system flail off wildly. I use the surprise to slam myself into Cross. He faces me just before we connect, my strength lifting him off of the ground and through the thick glass window. I turn back and speed over toward Noah, grabbing his gun with my shield up and aiming it at the electrodes. They take a second to get the reading, but another pull of the trigger and they begin to vibrate out of existence. He's breathing heavy, leaning on me for support. I'd be lying if I said my own knees weren't extremely weak from the shock.

I look over toward Andrew, running over to his body. He's paler than he's ever been, unmoving with his eyes staring directly toward the ceiling. Even those green eyes of his have lost their luster.

"Damn it..." I slam my fist into the floor. "Damn it!"

"Come on, we need to-" An explosion rocks the room, books fly off the shelves as pages are ripped from their spines in the chaos.

Cross is hovering just outside the window, his piercing eyes staring straight at me. "Torture is overrated. Death is overrated. You've forced my hand to act early." He flies into the room and slams into you, taking you through the wall and even further through the mountain as if your back were a drill excavating through the core of the landmass. "I was going to wait until I killed enough of these ridiculous idols you all worship...but that fool Andrew was worth more than I could have ever imagined."

"Worth...?" I manage to get out.

We burst through the other end of Mount Gerau and continue through the sky, his hardened fist in my stomach as I can feel my bloodied back dripping all across the land below us. "We're just going to let Mr. Marshall find his own way down that cliff. It's not like it's going to last him much longer."

"Where's...Alex?" I grunt.

"She's sleeping," is all he says, then looks hard at me, stopping in mid air to hold me at arms length from him. He punches me with a free hand once, twice, three times in the face, grunting each time.

I refuse to pass out. I hold onto consciousness and go to raise my gravity. Maybe I can get us both sinking like stones so I can make this fight a bit more fair.

"No you don't." He says, grabbing my hand hard in his grip, closing it tightly until I begin to scream. It only takes a second to break my hand entirely. He then switches to my left hand and does similarly. I scream louder onto the world below, still watching the white droplets fall to the ground from my scarred body. "You aren't getting out of this."

"You can get out of this." A familiar voice enters my mind, and the image of a golden bird appears before me.

"You..." Cross begins...turning from me to the bird, "I didn't think I'd see you in my lifetime. You're Friedrich's successor."

The bird looks to him and then to me, his eyes begin to glow with a bright light before diving at Cross with its talons outstretched, clawing deep grooves into his forearm.

"Agk!" He cries out, the first time you've heard him do so.

The bird catches you before you fall.

"What's with you and being associated to damage with my hands...?" I ask, breathing short.

"What's with you always getting your hands in situations they shouldn't be in? That isn't important right now. Your hands are the least of your worries..."

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, feeling my mind ebbing.

"Roland's found the Queoquartzite in your time. It's time for you to make your choice."

It's the last thing I hear before my mind goes blank. I pass out from the pain in my back and from both of my hands.

It is time to make my choice. What could he mean?