FALAHA'S JOURNEY 2: Graveyard of the Gods

Episode #14

The first time I had entered a deep memory within my soma was when I broke my neck and died. Since then, I have done it countless times and in a less violent fashion, so now it became as natural as breathing for me. But that first bloody experience taught me how to easily navigate certain things while being alive. The shining flows consisting of trillions of bloodlights upon the currents of the perfect blackness were swirling before our gazes, each of them belonging to countless people. Amongst this raging chaos that was coursing through our blood we had to pick an entry point, to focus on one, maybe several people who were deeply connected with the ones who first started feeding the Baali blood to those who bore no soma.

Nayat's bloodlight was shining orderly by my side. She was following my lead through the folds of the memory space. I picked a certain bloodlight from the stream that my soma found for me and tapped into it, gently asking it to allow my contemplation of its core. It didn't resist, and bloomed into a delicate shining flower, opening its golden petals to reveal its pulsing heart. The heart belonged to Beren Togra, the first person we connected to. Our bloodlights merged with the core of the flower, and the petals closed, nestling us inside. The next moment I opened my eyes to the space and time much different from our current one. Something that was long forgotten and buried underneath countless years that have passed for the General.

Beren had lived for over twenty thousand Danna years, as my soma had calculated. He was alive at the time the Alima Eni were at their downfall battling the rebelling Baali, but the Lael were already long gone. When the General was born, he was separated from his birth parents and placed into a processing facility. Since then, his torture began.

People like him do not possess the ability to give birth to people with soma, like we do. But instead, they are born enslaved by a deep hunger for the black blood, and if not nourished, they die. There were no small children among the Surani currently stationed on my ship. Not among the starved ones in the caskets, nor among those who still clung to life. So they truly wanted to abandon this practice. The General's daughter, Alani, was over five hundred Danna years old. That was the time when the last batch of the Surani children was born, slaves to the hunger but never processed like their ancient parents were. To the Surani those were who they called the young ones. Though they were fed black blood in their childhood to survive, they were weaker and frailer than the processed Surani were, similar to our somaless people.

Once the Surani baby tasted soma and it entered their system, the genetic modification that allowed such a thing could not be reversed without killing the person, not even by a Sangu. The ones who were drained of the blood for this purpose were the Baali who were born on the Motherworlds ruled by the Alima Eni Starlords or captured from the conflicting Motherworlds. The power-hungry Baali were content with this small inconvenience only because they were allowed and encouraged to dominate the other Motherworlds, gaining power and status. By being blood-related to the Alima Eni from the maternal side of the genome, and placing highest value on such relations, the Baali were trapped in this state of subservience until someone decided they were fed up with having their relatives, though numerous, drained. Because more often than not such practice turned out fatal. That was how the rebellion began.

The Alima Eni themselves did not suffer from hunger. Their own modifications and transfigurations were quite beneficial from consumption of the black blood. But they enjoyed having slaves. And if the Baali were not enough, they created more servants for themselves. Beren was one such man.

The Lael were the only ones who had parted ways with the Alima Eni, but they paid dearly for such defiance. The Surani were less lucky to escape the space conquest of their cousins, and so they were all captured and turned into beings dependent on black blood so they had no way to resist and were forced to obey their new masters or die.

When the Alima Eni were finally destroyed, the Surani remained without the source of sustenance. Beren's spouse and Alani's mother was killed by the Baali. The surviving remnants fled their Motherworld and hid themselves in the darkest corners of space with no hope, hunted by every Baali group who wanted them gone for good as the last reminder of the Alima Eni's existence and influence. It was then they were discovered by Dorgu's forces, so, cornered and on the verge of complete erasure they begged him for help. Dorgu's Sangu, Shaamta, offered them a promising deal, a bleak ray of hope. They will play his game: one last time he will give them the nourishment they so need, but make them invisible to the Baali, and let the Surani live their final days in peace hiding anywhere they please, but he will also be the one to kill them if found again. Of course, his meddling with their black blood came with a catch for Shaamta's amusement. Since then, the hunt was on, and this time, when Shaamta appeared here on the Grave, they feared their last day has finally came.

This memory made me angry, but I expected nothing less from Shaamta. However, Beren felt no anger; he was tired. They all were tired. Yet even then, deep down in his broken heart the General harbored hope. Hope, that someone, somewhere, will truly stop this endless cycle of suffering. Now, witnessing all this in the memory space, I felt I had an obligation to stop this madness. Not as a Baalat, but as a Danna. After all, our people's history was full of such deeds. My ancestors always helped others in need. And never took payment for providing for someone. Our payment was richness of experience from communicating and sharing with the others who were like us or not like us at all.

I was an explorer, and discovery and knowledge were payment of equal value for me for what I was about to do.