Descension

CHAPTER 31

Cadmium orange sunlight bathes Ben's face. He swims through a golden void, alone, the sun halfway below the horizon. The very same breeze that sweeps through the fields surrounding Omnicore blows against Ben's back, urging him towards the Oleander Ternary.

Ben... the wind whispers.

"I hear you," Ben speaks aloud.

Listen... see... it urges further. Closed eyes let us guide.

Ben stops walking. The wind, unobstructed by grasses or buildings, blows so hard against him that it pushes him off-balance. He stumbles and shuffles his feet, then plants himself firmly in the cracked dust.

Close...

Your...

Eyes.

The voices murmur along the wind, enveloping Ben, enveloping his senses. The white noise permeates into his soul, and asks to release the strain of his physical self. He doesn't turn away from the voices this time. He doesn't run. This time, he releases control.

As his eyes close, the cacophony of voices go silent.

He thinks, Have I done something wrong?

Silence, still.

"Ben?"

At the sound of the familiar voice, Ben snaps his eyes open, only to find darkness. He turns around. There, standing before him, is a blurry, near-translucent apparition of Alexander. Tears well in Ben's eyes, though he can't bring himself to move. To fling himself into his arms, to embrace him, the emotion would be too overwhelming.

"Alex..." Ben whispers back.

Alex smiles at the acknowledgement. From behind him steps out another engineer, Ezra. Then another, Colin. Four more, Cass, Malik, Daphne, and Dejen. They continue to fan out from behind Alex, stepping forward to form a line. Countless faces, stretching so far that they become a blur in Ben's vision. His lip curls and he clutches the fabric over his chest, tears falling from his eyes, rapid and uncontrollable.

"Ben," the voice returns as a chorus, though this time, it's not scattered.

The voices ring out as one word, and he recognizes them now as the ghosts of Omnicore. Through his tears, he watches as their lips move to call out to him, and raise their hands to reach out.

Ben focuses his gaze on Alex's eyes, then steps forward. Ben reaches his hand out to touch Alex's, preparing himself for the vision to dissolve--but it doesn't. Their fingertips touch. Ben's breath hitches as he stares at the contact, his heart racing, the sound thunderous as it echoes within the void. Alex weaves his fingers between Ben's, then curls them into a clasp. Ben's breathing becomes ragged as he clasps back and presses their palms together, watching their hands twine. He lifts his gaze back up to Alex's eyes and stares into his swirling blue irises, white flecks within them, glittering like a churning, icy sea. He had been here before many times. He shivers at the touch of Alex's free hand tracing the nape of Ben's neck, then gently pulls him closer as he leans down. Their lips touch softly, a careful, tender embrace that embodies the distant yearning of a love unseen, and forgotten to time and space. They linger there for a long moment, Ben content in staying forever. Then, just as he had found comfort once more, Ben crumbles to his knees as the ghost dissipates. His head snaps up to search for Alex, only to find that the line of engineers had gone too. Before him now is a squatted shadow, its edges sharply defined as a lanky human figure. Its pinpoint eyes like violet string lights pierce Ben's very soul. Ben slowly, shakily, looks down at his empty palms, haunted.

"I know you still don't understand," a voice dripping with poison resonates at a frequency that makes Ben shudder.

"I know you," Ben speaks more to himself than as a reply to the figure.

"And you will grow to know me more before you can put the pieces of this tragedy together."

"Your name?"

"That will come last," the voice snaps, not out of aggression, but rather in annoyance at the pestering questioning in the face of its omnipotence. "You must listen to me when I appear to you, and trust that I will answer all your questions in due, correct timing."

Ben sneers. "Look where that got me with The Ordership."

The figure leans forward, bound by no gravity, "What is a council of men to a god?" It continues forward, feet in the same place as its face grows closer and closer until it is but an atom away from Ben's. "What are men... to MORTIS?"

Ben gasps awake, standing in a completely new area. MORTIS, MORTIS, MORTIS... echoes in his head. Now, it's night. He looks around, forcing himself to focus on details within a big, fuzzy picture: Japanese characters line every sign, banner, and hologram in sight. Red lamps swing in the breeze. Light rain dews upon Ben's nose and dampens his hair. Cobblestone and concrete encase thin alleys. Mizu.

Ben shelters himself under an awning, gazing across the street to perhaps find a familiar place. Nothing. He turns around. The doors before him are painted red, and through a window he finds racks of clothing ransacked and toppled over. Ben recognizes the shop as Iriya's. He raises his hand up to the door to knock, then thinks better of it.

I'm sure Iriya didn't trash his own business. If there's Ordership soldiers in there, I don't want to be the face they see when they open the door, Ben thinks as he steps away, creeping along the side of the wall. The street is desolate; not the warm environment full of music and laughter he had been introduced to. The silence makes Ben shudder. Where did everyone go? Not a single light is on, and there isn't a sound besides the patter of rain.

Ben... the voice whispers again, follow...

It beckons him from down the alley, and so he follows. Around the corner, into a square, through a myriad of labyrinths and wynds, and to the ruins of Cryoclub. The voice whispers for him to march onward and beyond the rubble, Ben continuing to follow in silent remorse. The voice leads him down another set of alleys, and into a mossy courtyard devoid of light. Ben slowly creaks open a wooden gate, nearly slipping on soaked moss as he begins to climb the stairs that lay beyond. He ducks under red paper lanterns, extinguished, and follows the murmurs of wind up a steep hill, a torii gate waiting at the top. He bathes his hands in the rain, shakes them off, then approaches from the left side. Circling around to the statue, he gazes up at her face, and the crack bisecting it.

Suddenly, a sharp glare absorbs the air in sound, Ben clasping his hands over his ears to block it. The pain of the frequency absorbs into his chest and head, a scream of pain resounding from Ben's throat as he careens down to his knees. The siren fizzles out, and Ben slowly unscrews his eyes to find a flurry of ash and flame below him, lighting up the streets of Mizu, into Genesis, and beyond.

Surely this can't be real; just another vision. He stands up to find the torii gate and statue crumbled and scorched, a path of bloodied bodies, both citizens and Ordership, cascading down the hill in all directions. His chest begins to heave at the sight, heart thundering rapidly behind his ribcage. He closes his eyes and covers them with his hands, begging for the sound of screams and heat of blaze to dissipate, for the voice to guide him once more. He calls out for the voice again within his mind. Silence. Again, screaming inside of his skull.

He drops his hands to his sides and clenches his hands into fists, screaming out into the atmosphere, "Wake me up!"

There's no response.

"Wake... me... up!"