Sub Terra: Et Reditus

Twenty-Five

Daniel

I had a tough time trying to sleep that night. I couldn't help but wonder -- was the Sapphire King related to whatever my dad was telling me about the last time I visited him in his hospital room? There was only one way to find out.

I went to see him the next afternoon, without Gus. 

"Good afternoon." I greeted him, sitting down on a chair next to his bed.

"Good to see ya again, kiddo. What's up?" he asked.

"There's something I need to talk to you about," I said, turning the chair around and resting my arms and chin on the back rest, like some kind of interrogator. "The danger. What kind of danger was going on with Mr. W?"

"Ah, that? It's bad, I'll tell you," he said in a serious, firm tone I'd never seen him speak in before. "Why do you want to speak about it all of a sudden?" he asked me.

"One of the people I came here with got into contact with someone called the Sapphire King. It's just a hunch but... I just wanted to know if it had anything to do with that."

"The Sapphire King?!" My dad said with an astonished expression. "That's it... that's why I had such a bad feeling when you guys came here."

I didn't know if it was his sudden reaction or the fact that he knew about it that caused my heart to beat furiously in my chest.

"What-- who is he?" I asked, almost matching his energy.

"Let's... relax," Dad said, taking as deep of a breath as he could without sending himself into another coughing fit. "I'll tell you,"

We both took a few moments to settle down, then he continued.

"The Sapphire King is someone who's existed for a very long time. I'd like to say 3000 to 5000 years, but regardless of the time he's been here, it's a fact that he's been on Earth for a very, very long time."

"What the hell kind of person lives that long?"

"He's not a person, not in the conventional sense, at least. I did research on him from the time I came to this village until I got sick. I know my stuff."

"Good, good," I complimented. "Tell me about him. Anything you know."

"Let's start talking, then. The Sapphire King was associated with a certain family in Japan with the last name Nakamura for many, many generations. My mom-- the woman who raised Jack and I, came from that family. Because of the Sapphire King, the family was discriminated against. Had to live in a separate part of town, couldn't attend festivals, and were observed strictly. They basically could not live normally."

"So Mr. W is somehow related to this Sapphire King?"

"That's right," he confirmed. "The way he and the Nakamura family are connected... it's strange. There's a story that has been passed down from generation to generation so that people who would be associated with him could prepare to acknowledge his existence. It goes like this: a man without a body floated down from the sky, many millennia ago, who traveled the lands, searching for something,"

"Don't tell me... is it a body?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Well, yes."

His answer surprised me even though it really shouldn't have.

"A man without a body? Coming from the sky? Some kind of ghost or something?"

"A bit like that. A soul. From a land far above the skies."

"A planet?" I thought to myself.

"After journeying through this foreign land, the man without a body found one. When the body slept, the man merged with it. Now, there were two men sharing one body. One who had the body from birth, and one who adopted it as his own."

"Two men sharing one body... there were two souls inside someone?"

"Spot on. Where was I? Ah, I remember. The man born with the body sensed something incomprehensible coming from the other man, so he used all his might to suppress him from controlling the body, and for the longest time, it worked. But one day, the man born with the body decided to get married, and he and his wife had a child. When this child was born, the man stopped sensing the other man within his body, but instead of feeling relief, he felt fear."

"Why would he feel fear? Something like that should make you feel at ease!"

"It should, you're right. The reality was, the man from the skies had merged with the body of the child!"

A chill ran down my spine as he said that.

"As they grew up, the child said that man spoke to them sometimes, telling them to give him control of the body for just a moment, but the father of the child made sure they never gave in to his words. This child would eventually have their own child, who felt an even stronger influence from the man, and within ten generations, the first attack from a body shared with the man occurred, where it nearly destroyed a village. Every 10 generations or so, the new body would destroy more and more. So, Danny, who do you think the man from the skies was?"

I felt sweat slowly form on my forehead. Something about this story was terrifying.

"The... Sapphire King?"

"The Sapphire King," he said in a sudden, serious tone. "Is an entity that has shared the body of the oldest child of each generation of the Nakamura family for a countless amount of years. It has caused nothing but harm to them. Their kind nature has stopped them from killing their own children, so there is no way that the curse of the Sapphire King could've been stopped. There was only one time a parent killed their child, and even then, the Sapphire King passed on to their cousin, who was just about to be born.  It only stopped at Jack, whose grandfather made him swear to never have children of his own. That was part of the reason I was taken in by his parents, so I could continue the family. By extension, you and I are part of the Nakamura family. You and I are the only people who know the truth."

Fueled by anxiety, I grasped his shoulders.

"If we know about this guy, then there's gotta be something we gotta do, right? We gotta something! Y-you said that you felt something bad when you came here, right? Was it the Sapphire King? How could he come here if Mr. W is dead? If he has no body-

My dad let out another violent cough, which caused me to back away from him.

"I don't know, kiddo, I don't know. But there is one thing I know for sure. We will be there to witness something, and we will find a way through it. If my health allows for it, I will be in charge of it. But if not, you will, Danny. You will find out why the Sapphire King exists."