THE MOTHER ETHER

While everyone slept, Ayden used his power of manipulation to control the guards so he could break Maeko out of the cell, then rejoined the others in Ocean's room.

"Well, what's so important that you had to tell us?" Barrett asked.

"From what I see, Kylen is lost and doesn't have a plan, so we must have one in case the Community finds this guy, Zev."

"They won't find him, it's locked in my loop," Ocean said coughing.

The reinforcements looked at each other but Ronda, who was the only one who had the courage to say so, confessed that they had found him and that he was being held captive inside the bunker.

"Wow, that idiot took longer than I expected, even though he's a traveler, he's not that good with all the loops," she commented, proud of her power.

"That's not all, I made him talk," Ayden confessed, making all eyes turn to him.

"And what did he say?"

"He told me about how Nix contacted him, the ritual, the problem with the third dimension and also about the cloudy sky," he looked at them,"this is not a good sign."

"But Nix has been asleep for a long time, we'll take care of that,"interrupted Evander, "she's also very far from here, probably in another dimension."

"Nix is inside Zev but for some reason she still hasn't decided to leave his body."

Everyone was shocked, no one said anything, the news for them was shocking and it seemed to bother them a bit. Ayden took out his mirrors of water where he reflected the confessions of Zev, Luna and Maeko, with whom he spoke lately.

His mirrors allowed him to reflect the true intentions of others, just like water, they could only show sincerity and the three had been honest with every word that came out of their mouths, none of them lied.

"Zev hears a voice in his head that many times controls him, Luna said he felt a presence close to him and Maeko confessed that Jolene wants to invoke mother ether, what more signs do we want? Nix is awake," Ayden said with an expression of great concern on his face.

"That's why I suggested that we kill him, maybe so Nix could leave," Barrett said, crossing his arms.

"No," Ocean said dryly, "killing him is useless, Nix could look for another traveler and it would be the same, we have to force her out and destroy her ourselves."

Maeko was silent, she dedicated herself solely to observing her older brothers, she didn't know how she could contribute something to the conversation.

"Maeko," Ayden called her, "do you know anything else about Jolene's plans?"

"Besides what you already know about wanting to replicate Evander's virogenesis and the mother ether, she has nothing else."

"Then I suggest that we follow Kylen's instructions, we have to keep an eye on him, at least until we know how to free Nix," Ronda mentioned.

The six remained silent, each one analyzing the situation, worried about the fact that at some point they would meet again with Nix, the ether mother, the entity that gave them life and their powers. Ocean was the most upset by the situation, she was sick of feeling so much hatred and resentment, she felt that this feeling was weakening her more and more, she didn't want to deal with anything, she just wanted to be calm.

It got darker and the reinforcements went to sleep, Zev was also sleeping in the uncomfortable metal chair where he was tied but he felt restless, he was having a strange dream.

The first scene was about the museum, the same painting of the most beautiful woman but something was different about it, the fleecy sky had parts stained black, reflecting the darkness. He wondered what that meant, the spots were slowly growing and covering much of the painting.

"Conscience, something is wrong with your painting," Zev said between his dreams.

"The monster is ruining it," the voice in his head replied.

"What monster?" He asked nervously.

"You have seen it, it is full of darkness and it only chooses a chosen one. From now on you have to be cautious."

"But," he paused as he watched the spots grow.

The breath of the voice of his conscience stirred, Zev could hear it, that made him nervous because he didn't know how to interpret that reaction. He approached the painting, the black seemed still fresh, and he touched it. Nothing interesting or scary happened, just ink stained his fingers.

"It seems as if the sky darkened…" he murmured.

He felt his body fall into an endless void, the only thing in front of him was his hand trying to hold on to something, then the dark sky with chaos caused by a strong explosion of fire, a tornado destroying everything in its path, water flooding the dry and brittle land, a natural disaster altogether.

"Those damned ones!" He said, "they're going to leave me traumatized."

"And what do you plan to do about it?" Asked the voice.