The Life of Gaia

CHAPTER 36: Beautiful Nightmares

We were suspended thousands of miles above the ground, immersed in the almost total darkness of space around Fantastracta. The ring of light surrounding the planet was almost transparent, like a belt of phosphorescent yellow glass revolving around a geometric composition, almost an art installation. Looking at it, I wondered if it had a reason to be so or was simply born that way.

Against all expectations, even the flying sign could not look away from that miracle. It seemed to have finally succumbed to the greatness of all that a single human being had been able to create. Well, at the end of the day I had known it right away, that there was something special about that place.

°This planet remains a nightmare, for me,° he sentenced at one point, as if he had managed to read my mind. I patted him with my hand and smiled.

"Evidently there are beautiful nightmares, too."

At my quip, Aeron seemed to revive himself - ever since we had lifted to the sky to fulfill his wish, he had remained motionless without saying a word. With a choked cough that must have been laughter, a smile lit a tiny spark in his eyes.

"Yeah, some nightmares can be ... special," he said in a trembling voice.

Aeron had been speechless as we had flown over CPU City. "It's just as I had imagined it," he had commented.

Since we had taken flight and left the royal palace, he could not take his eyes off the changing landscape under his gaze. He was clinging to Zantas just as I was - he had agreed to travel that way - and the vibrations of wonder he emanated had been so strong that they had infected me as well. Or maybe I was just overjoyed to have finally found him.

On his weary, fatigued face shone a light of hope that he must have become disaccustomed to, given the way he could barely articulate a smile. If at first he must have been a kind of clone of Alexis, now time and pain had changed that face until it was unique, inimitable. In short, that of a real person.

We had traveled for hours and hours. We no longer had a map, but the route we had taken had stuck with us long enough that we could trace it backwards without much difficulty. When we had to face the rain on the way out of town, Zantas had created a kind of moving dome to protect us. I thanked him with a smile, and he nodded in return.

We had tried to get past the Gymnopedie Realm without ending up in any vision, and flying high enough had allowed us to leave that empty space behind in seconds. I had glanced down, but had not seen the yellow lady anywhere. Too bad - I would have liked to say hello to her. On the other hand, returning there had reminded me that I still had to figure out why Zantas had lied to me about what he had seen. Eventually I told myself that it would be a problem of the future me.

Facing the dead fireflies of Incubia, which had meanwhile returned in their bulbs, I remember seeing Aeron frown. He did the same in front of the marble statue of the King of Fireflies, which, as he had done for the one on the cliff, he stared vacantly, before turning his eyes elsewhere.

"Hey, is everything all right?" I asked worriedly.

"Yeah, everything's fine, I guess. I feel like these are Helix's nightmares. His obsession with fireflies, his obsession with being forgotten-it's all here."

°Then why, do you think, did they wake up to the sound of music?° the flying sign had intervened in an interrogative tone. I would have used another way to ask him, but it was a question I also wanted to ask him.

"When he resorted to the ideas of others to stay in power, he became very melancholy. Perhaps his nightmares reflected this aspect of his character."

That had seemed like a good explanation. That riddle had also been unraveled, then.