Enjoy!
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A different part of her memory was accessed now, a fuzzier
kind existing because of her relative living experience next to it. After a
thousand years of death and rebirth, the soul inside Danielle's body was used
to purging the no longer relevant memories remaining between Sulim, the “true
life”, and whatever current form she was in:
now, Danielle. But even the Process couldn't remove everything, and like
once-thought deleted files on a hard-drive, old information returned in a blunt
manner.
She still
couldn't breathe.
She tried
to breathe. Between trying to remember who she was and what was going on, all
Danielle could think of was getting air to her lungs. Danielle – no, no she
wasn't Danielle...Danielle didn't even exist yet. Who was she? Did it even
matter? Whoever she was...that woman was dead now. Same soul, different body. Different
life.
Rilah. Her
name was Rilah. She could remember no more, not even the name of the star she
lived on and tried to protect from destruction.
Rilah was
dying. She lay, wounded in her side, on a slab of concrete pelted by rain. Her
clothes were drenched in rain and blood. She couldn't breathe because her
entire body gasped for blood.
All she
knew was her partner, the body harboring Sonall's soul and whose name seemed
lost to the universe, was already dead. The Points were gathered and set ablaze
by the detonator – by an old man who cared not for the sanctity of living
beings and the stars they inhabited in the sky. The last forage of the moon,
the planet, the piece of rock they lived on was gone. Only a sliver of time
remained before nothing existed anymore. Before Rilah's body ceased to exist.
So why was
she trying to breathe? Why couldn't she just die? She felt betrayed by her
battered body. What was the point in living when nothingness came to claim her
and every other soul she failed to protect? It hurt so much. Every second passing
was another second with less blood and more tears on her face. And she was
dying alone.
“Rilah!” A
voice. A woman cloaked in a black robe ran to Rilah's body and knelt beside
her, hands in hers and fingers tracing Rilah's tussled blond hair. “No, no
Sulim...”
Rilah knew
that name only because Marlow told her what it was. Rilah, like Danielle, had
never regressed and thus could not respond so readily to that name, even in
death. She coughed for air and felt a body press itself around her. Her ears
were assaulted by sobs and the calling of a name Rilah did not associate with.
“I'm so
sorry,” the voice apologized in her ear, and the body pressed Rilah's face next
to its chest. “I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you like you always protected
me.”
Rilah slipped
away even further from life. The ground beneath them both rumbled in its own
destruction. The woman looked around and pulled a handheld firearm from its
holster on her side. She knew there were two bullets in it.
“Next time,
Sulim.”
A gun shot,
and Rilah was dead, her misery ended by the barrel of a stranger's gun. The
earth cracked and fell away to the stars, its own soul destroyed and its body a
mere shell fit for annihilation. Nothing to hang around for. The woman held the
barrel of the gun to her head, Rilah's body still in her arms.
Another
shot and they died together, the woman's body on top of Rilah. As the planet
gave up hope and blinked from cosmic existence, the souls of all who remained
on its world rose and ambled their way towards the Void from beyond. Sulim was
there, her essence aware of the departing souls around her. She still could not
join them.
With Sonall
dead again long before her and already in search of Dunsman's next target,
Sulim was alone in the universe. She would see him again, in many years, on
another planet needing saving. Her soul departed as a butterfly through the
stars like a meteor fit for wishing upon.
Another one
followed close behind.
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