Prisoners of Prophecy

Chapter 37

Xantara - Thursday, July 25th, 2019; 8:26pm

     I had drifted through the day as if I were nothing but a ghost. To tell the truth, I felt like I was one. Like the night to come had already taken my life. I couldn't concentrate on school, much less the stares and sly comments the students threw at me, for they surely had to be. I did not notice it, only knew in some deep part of me that they were there. Time became some sort of incomprehensible construct - it seemed to move to fast but somehow also so slow that it didn't seem to exist at all.
     The only thing that attempted to chip at the numb state of my mind was the thought of this morning. When the memory would shine through, however faint, I held onto it as long as I could, as if it were a life preserver and I was drowning.
     Waking up next to Melany had been like some sort of sudden realization which I could not explain. It had been something so wonderfully foreign and blissfully familiar. Her body radiated a strange but soothing coolness; where her arm touched mine, her skin felt like ice. I had studied her face in those brief moments of silence before her alarm woke her up, trying to recall how our lives had once been, when we were both young and oblivious to the future that had already been planned for us. The peace and the calm of sleep relaxed her features, and it was such a beautiful sight that I felt my heart swell with a warm emotion so strong that it was almost scary in its loveliness.
     I tried to keep that image in my mind, but it was so difficult. I could not focus on much but the single thought that has repeated itself incessantly for countless hours - Tonight is the night. Tonight is the night. Tonight is the night. Beneath that relentless sentence, I tried to imagine what this night could bring me, but it was impossible. It was only those four words, and the briefest flashes of Melany's slack, sleeping face.
     Until the time had come when I had to confront what had been plaguing my mind. Then it was only me, the night, and the house.
     That awful house.
Here it stood before me now, like an ancient obelisk full of some unknown and endless power. It looked almost like a living thing, scowling down upon me as if it had waited for me for centuries and was disappointed with how long it had taken me to finally show up. Its rotting wood planks and shattered windows did not fool me. Beneath that derelict facade, I could see its true colors. As Melany had said the night before, the house was not really the portal into the Gods weakened world - Or worlds, I wondered as I thought of that place that I had visited in my dreams - it was what the house was built upon. It just so happened that the house added on a labyrinth that we could discover, a labyrinth the dead and immortal both could find us in.
The house towered over me, like it had grown ten stories. In this moment, all my fear of it was uninterrupted, impossible to disregard as something as unimportant as just a house. My throat had shrunk to the size of a pinhole, and each breath came out sounding like a weak whistle. My heart raced, and the sound of it was as loud as fireworks echoing in my skull. I wanted to run, but I was frozen to the spot, cowering within the large shadow casted by the old building. Who lived here before? A shrill, frightened voice I hardly recognized bounced around in my puzzled mind. Did they know what haunted this place? Is that why they left, seemingly without even caring to take much of their belongings? That thought only horrified me more, and made my desire to leave that much greater.
But I knew that I couldn't. This wasn't something I could just escape. Me and the people that I had met here had, no doubt, the most powerful beings in the world depending on us. And despite how fantastical the concept sounded, there was no denying that this was truly what our lives had become. Maybe we could have run from the Gods who still needed our help, if they weren't strong enough yet to come after us. We still wouldn't be free, even then. For another God, one who had went his own way an unbelievably long time ago, was now after us. Presumably trying to stop us.
It was hard to believe, but ShadowWood was the safest place we could be. This house was.
With that thought, I forced my stiff legs to bring me forward. I crept up the porch steps like a hand woild reach from between them at any moment and grab my ankle, pulling me into some dark, musty smelling space beneath the house...
     I shook my head to dispel that awful thought and opened the front door. It creaked on its rusted hinges, and the noise doubled, then tripled as it echoed down the dim hallway and then back to me. The temperature in the house seemed to be at least ten degrees lower than it had been outside. The quiet of the house made the sound of my pounding heart sound much too loud. I shut the door back behind me, afraid that if someone noticed it open, they may come looking for who the intruder may be. But I also didn't want to be shut in here so terribly alone.
     Darkness instantly flooded the house. For the first time that I could remember, I wish I had Kai with me, to help light the way. I knew I didn't need him, though. The impenetrable shadows sent a chill through me, sure, and there could be anything lingering within it. But I was not lost; I could have found my way to the basement with my eyes shut and my hands tied behind my back.
     I pushed open the basement door. Somewhere down there, a faint orange light flickered. I took each step slowly, terrified of what was waiting for me. Terrified of what it would do to my mind, which already seemed shaken and much too fragile to handle any more of this. The light - Such a small light, I thought uneasily. So small compared to the endless void of dark that surrounds it. - flickered once. And then it was gone. That strange thought hung on stubbornly as I blindly felt my way down the old stairs.
My feet hit the uneven stone floor at the same time the light came back. This time, though, it was no small thing like a lighted match, but a blazing fire that illuminated the entire room. It floated, without a source, three feet above the floor. I could feel no warmth from it, even though at this distance it could have easily burned me alive.
The fear that had risen up into my chest, like a scream that could not be let out, diminished slightly. What replaced it was an eerie familiarity. I had met this figure before. Though the sight of it was just as unsettling as it had been the first time, I was slightly comforted knowing that it was a friend. Or, at least, he seemed to be.
"Achiq." I spoke in a low voice, afraid the noise would disturb the thick shadows that surrounded me and the flame shimmering before me. His light had not really diminished; it was more like the darkness in the basement had claimed back its ownership of this room. As it has always been, this place was flooded by its abyss - and I forgot instantly how it had looked with all its mysteries unveiled.
Almost like it hadn't wanted to be seen at all.
"Xantara," a familiar voice uttered from the center of the strange phenomenon in front of me. It seemed to bounce off of the four walls that felt like they were suffocating me and then echo into eternity. "I'm so grateful for your loyal attendance."
"I had to be here," I whispered. I hated how powerful our voices sounded together, here in the dark. I didn't want to hear how our conversation reverberated off of these walls, as if they had waited so long for us to speak of this. It sounded too much like lonliness talking to forever. I didn't want it to feel so intricately simple. "They had to be here. So do I."
Like we were just a breeze pushing the hand of a clock, only to disappear after our purpose was served, to be forgotten forever.
"I'm sorry that this will be so hard," Achiq said, speaking so slowly that it seemed he had forgotten how to speak at all. "Out of us all, you should have remembered.
"You tried so hard."
His last sentence ended in a chorus of countless voices, all speaking at once. So many that I couldn't concentrate on a single one. And, in the silence that followed, I could feel them. All of the spirits we all must have heard over the course of our stay at this school, Cato most of all. The air was suddenly full of a million emotions.
"What are you talking about?" I asked shakily.
Achiq either refused to answer or did not have time to. In an instant, the concept of being able to converse, or even think properly, became unfathomable.
Five figures flashed into existence around the two of us in the blink of an eye. One second me and this sentient flame were alone, the next we were in the center of some massive storm. My body was immediately flooded with such a divine power I was sure would drive any religious person to fear - a maddening, insatiable fear. I was trapped in a circle of what felt like an ultimate danger, and to try and escape or stay would both result in the most horrific demise. I would be devoured by the strength possessing me until it consumed me entirely. The thought of dropping dead, right here and now, was a welcoming one. I was in the presence of things that defied time. The force of their combined auras was nauseating. I felt my legs may soon collapse under my own weight.
"Xantara," Achiq spoke to me softly in his deep voice, as if he were trying to comfort me. But nothing could put me at ease at this moment, and may not be able to ever again. "These are the Gods of the universe. Take all the time you need. They told me this surely can't kill you, but it will all come as a great shock to you."
I acknowledged Achiq's words with a weak nod, but could not respond to him. My mouth was dry; my throat felt like it was coated in dead pine needles. Nothing could have prepared me for this, for meeting Gods with the ability to strike me down with just a thought. This was the final straw. In this very moment, the remains of my old life would crumble into dust. I would have a new destiny, new responsibilities, a new religion. A new mind. I would never get past this.
Would I lose myself? Would me and my friends never be the same? I've already noticed how quickly that they had changed. We had all unconsciously distanced ourselves from each other not long after Melany had come to ShadowWood. Would it stay that way?
     "Do not worry, dear," a smooth voice said to me. It was followed by a couple of soft footsteps. "You and your friends will be okay."
     I was momentarily startled by how close this stranger was to comforting the doubts in my head. It crossed my mind that it was almost as if she had read my thoughts. But that was such a disturbing, invasive idea that I shoved it away.
     Then I glanced up at the woman who had addressed me and any thinking, rational or otherwise, ceased abruptly.
     The rest of my unimaginable group of visitors faded into a momentarily unimportant blur in my peripheral, like it was impossible to see all of them at once. I was thankful for that, for I wasn't sure how I could possibly even handle meeting them one at a time. Why me? I wondered, terrified and even a little angry. Why not the others? Why just me?
     The woman had an air of beauty and power about her that I could physically feel crashing down over me. It was hard to even stay standing under her unbroken, intense focus. She was otherworldly. She stood at least three feet taller than me. She was nude, her skin projecting a living image of the night sky I knew so well - explosions of constellations and blazing meteors that soared across her perfect figure. Her dark, dreadlocked hair almost touched the floor. Her eyes were not really eyes at all but large, glowing orbs of white light that seemed to consider, understand, and consume everything about me.
     "Hello, Xantara," she greeted me, dipping her head in a greeting that held a respect I - as a young woman who was forced to possess a savage strength I was coming to regret, even hate - didn't think I deserved. "I am Uma."
     I recognized the name immediately. She was the Goddess Cato had only met last night. So why was she here? Why were any of them who wasn't the one I was connected to, the one who had claimed me like the others had claimed my friends? "You're not..." I started slowly, unsure how to finish my sentence without sounding like a fool.
     I didn't have to. Uma, smiling slightly - it was hard to see under the ever changing, beautiful image ingrained into her skin - shook her head. "No, sweetie." She answered my unfinished question without hesitation. I had no doubt now that she was reading my mind. And it would only make sense, since she was the one who had chosen Cato, who was capable of the same thing.
     She took a step backwards. I was grateful for that. Towering over me, radiating that commanding and daunting strength that had to be divinity, had been nothing short of maddening, despite how awesome she was in all of her glory.
     That small sense of relief did not last long at all. A man filled her place.
     Fire ran through my veins the moment that he was in my sight. I was flooded with an anger that was mindless, and without reason. It felt fatal. My entire body tensed, as if in preparation for a fight. It was almost like I suddenly longed for some sort of battle with every ounce of my being, no matter how much I tried to mentally reject it. I swallowed the scream of rage and agony I felt climbing up my throat. The stranger in front of me was somehow even taller than Uma. He was studying me contemptuously with blazing orange eyes. He radiated heat like I thought Achiq would have - being the physical embodiment of a bonfire, it seemed reasonable - and it was so intense that I stumbled back a step. He was smiling handsomely. Flames erupted from his scalp, but it didn't look like he felt it at all. He was shirtless, and I noticed that glowing orange lines just beneath his skin criss-crossed his muscular body.
     I couldn't remember if Kai had spoken much of the God that he had met in this very basement, but I didn't have to know his name to know this was him.
     "I am Rapa," he said to me, his voice deep and gravelly. "I am the God of war."
     I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come to mind. What could I say, anyhow? I thought helplessly. He wasn't the one had chosen me, either. So why were they all here?
     Rapa stared at me for a few moments longer before grunting and walking away.
     Another set of footsteps headed my way, slow and muffled. The sound of their approach was so quiet that it didn't even echo off of the walls. I sighed heavily. How much more can I take? Will I leave like Kai, so sick I couldn't move for days? Will I leave at all?
     The woman who stood before me next was just as lovely as Uma. She had this natural beauty about her. She wore a simple white dress, which accentuated her tan, unblemished skin. Her straight black hair hung down to her hips.
     If you had managed to only glance at her and not look back, surprised by her countenance, she would almost look normal. At least, normal in world-famous supermodel standards. But, if you studied her for even a moment longer, you would realized that she wasn't just gorgeous.
     She was inhuman. A large set of antlers sprouted for the sides of her head, just above her ears. Great, white feathered wings grew from her shoulders, trailing behind her on the floor. They seemed to have their own celestial glow about them. Her irises had been replaced with small replicas of Earth. Skinny streams of water like spider webs ran along her body, looking like veins above her skin.
     "I am Layqa," she cooed, grinning. "I am the Goddess of healing and creation. Thank you for coming tonight."
     "What's going on?" I asked her desperately, finally finding my voice again. "Why are all of you here?"
     Layqa's smile faded. I didn't think such strange eyes could express any sort of emotion, but I instantly recognized the sadness that flooded her gaze. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, then closed it again. She nodded her head in a brief farewell and walked away.
     I resisted the urge to turn my head and watch her leave. I felt my mind may explode if I did. Instead, I studied the jagged wall in front of me and the shadows flickering across it, created by the human - like image of fire behind me. I lingered in the second of peace, wishing it would last forever.
     The next of my visitors approached me, moving so gracefully that it looked like she was dancing. The terror that had been coursing through me since entering the basement was washed away instantly.
     My eyes devoured her like I was suffocating and she was the only source of oxygen left in existence. The way this woman was making me feel was familiar, but entirely different at the same time. Desire like an unbearable heat ran hungrily through my veins. Like the others, she had a glow about her. But this one felt different. The phrase, "Like a moth to flame." echoed in my mind suddenly. And I felt that way in this moment - like a minuscule insect drawn to the only light I've ever known; the light that would lead to the greatest joys in life. In her eyes I discovered an endless amount of colors I had never seen before, and in an instant I had decided that I must know them all.
"Hey!" the stunning stranger exclaimed happily. "Gosh, I thought I'd never see you again!" She paused, studying me wearily, her eyebrows furrowed. In her gaze I saw a strange combination of excitement and deep sadness. "It's Kallpa. Remember me?"
     She took another step towards me, smiling, extending her arms as if she were expecting an embrace. The sight was so wonderful, so easy to accept.
     And I would have without hesitation. Until a rough voice spoke from somewhere to my right. "Kallpa," the man growled. "You know better."
     Between her ethereal appearance and his warning, I was stunned to silence. I felt giddy, stomach full of butterflies. I was utterly terrified at the same time. My heart raced, my hands were clammy. Even when Kallpa had backed away from me, the shadows in the small room sliding over her faintly embarrassed face like a veil, it was still difficult to breathe.
     The butterflies then dropped dead.
     A man had stepped in front of Kallpa. He was handsome, but if you stared too long, it started to be in a frightening sort of way.
     Like a dangerous wreck, entrancingly horrible, the scattering pieces of metal sparkling in the Sun an amazing sight until you noticed the blood, the gore. The lives lost.
     His sharp features and lithe, muscular body oddly resembled a cat's. He wore a crisp, expensive-looking black suit. His dark hair was pulled up into a loose bun. His eyes, which demanded attention, were red, glowing a little from what hellish light burned inside of this man's soul. He seemed almost transparent, his form shimmering like smoke. He, like Layqa, had wings. Yet his were not the beautiful, white feathered wings the same as her's, but like the wings of some giant bat. They were tattered, scarred, and sprouting from each joint was a claw larger than the size of a finger. Sometimes I thought I could see the cloth making up his suit change, morphing into the faces of people - agonized, terrified people.
     He looked like a demon. Like he had crawled straight up from the pits of the underworld to meet me here. The power coming from him in waves physically pained me. His unfaltering gaze had me frozen in place, though all I wanted to now was to run, to not be down here with any of them any longer, no matter the consequences of my action.
     But then he spoke, and his tone was full of happiness and deep relief. His expression softened. "I'm very glad you have come."
     "Why are all of you here?" I asked again.
     An epiphany had come to me then, and it sent a deep chill through me. It hit me all at once, with a force that made me feel dizzy. None of these Gods were here for me. At least, not in the same way that they were here for my friends. There were only five of them, and in some strange way, I could see my friends in them. Rapa's fiery eyes reminded me of Kai's; the overpowering desire that consumed me in Kallpa's presence was similar to Calypso's magnetism. Layqa had the same dim sadness in her gaze that I sometimes caught in Illisha's. I was sure Uma had read my mind, just like Cato was capable of. And whoever stood before me now... The shadows in the basement clung to him as they did to Melany, the woman I had met a long time ago, and reunited with only two weeks ago. But there was no sixth God. No one for me.
     Before I could consider this awful new fact, the ghostly man in front of me answered my question. "My dear," he sighed wistfully. His red eyes portrayed a terrible grief. "You are one of us."
     "What do you mean?" I gasp, suddenly feeling out of breath.
He only stared at me, his expression suddenly blank. His focus held an overbearing weight over me. The little air I could inhale through my constricted throat tasted like poison. I didn't want to understand what this ageless being in front of me was claiming. I tried to think of anything else he could be implying, but nothing would come. It seemed to me the only answer plausible, no matter how much I denied it.
    It makes no sense, a voice like mine but somehow different sounded in my mind. It was a sane voice, one I wanted to trust. It was distant, though. So distant it felt like a thousand lifetimes away. What this stranger was insinuating was so heinous it was almost funny.
     These five creators of all I thought I knew come into focus together for the first time. Immersed in their vigorous numinosity, everything I know knew was an impossible, dreamlike concept. It couldn't be real. I could not be one of them. These people... These others, were immortal, all knowing. I was but a human. How could I be one of them? How could any of us even help them? How could they be so lost they needed us to help find their way?
     "You're wrong," I whimpered. The confidence in the voice in my head was as false as the things they were laying before me.
     "I'm afraid we are not," the starry figure who had introduced herself as Uma replied. Her eyes cut like bright flashlights through the dismal room. I felt like a relic trapped in a case, on display for everyone to gawk at. I could sense a knowledge in her gaze that I would never come close to understanding.
     "I am Llanthu, God of death," the sharp-dressed demon finally introduced himself. The sound of his name, which I had heard before but couldn't recall until now, turned my blood to ice. "For a long time, I was the only one. In the beginning, it was me and this infinite darkness. I roamed it for a long time, alone. I was so terribly lonely, in fact, that me and the voice in my head became close. We spoke always. We spoke for so long that it began to separate itself from me, turning itself into something of its own. You are that separate being. You are Khuya, the Goddess of love and protection."
     That word sent warmth throughout my body. It was not a horrible warmth, but it was not necessarily good, either. It just seeped into my skin comfortably, as if it had found its way home.
"You can't tell me that this is true!" I shouted breathlessly, desperately trying to deny all of this nonsense.
"We fell in love," Llanthu continued. "We created these Gods from that love. And then we all made this universe, as well as the lives within it. I've missed -"
"Stop!" I demanded, my voice weak.
My very bones ached, and my stomach churned. I felt as if I were trying to speak while an endless sea of water closed over my head. I tried to cover my eyes with my hands, blocking my sight from the divine light flooding this crowded room. The image of Llanthu standing in front of me remained, burned into my mind.
I dropped my arms to my sides again, too weak to continue such a useless action. "It's not true. None of that happened. Not with me, anyhow. I would have remembered all of that."
"When the sickness ravaged the camp, we all tried to help," Layqa spoke up again. I turned my gaze to her's, thankful to look away from Llanthu. I wanted to ignore what he was telling me, and the truth in his expression as he told me his story. The color of her eyes - the globes settled into her sockets - spun on their invisible axis' so fast they were constantly changing. They were full of sadness and deep regret. "We tried so hard. But we could not save them. They were too gone even for me. I could not heal them from what possessed them.
"We left when we realized that it was hopeless." She sighed. "We couldn't bear to see the end of the tribe we had loved for so long. We weren't... Somehow, we weren't even strong enough for that. They were all we had created, the only ones we knew so closely. But you weren't convinced that their fate was so horrible. You stayed, no matter what we said. You stayed and tried to save them.
"It got tough for you. The few remaining people of Hawaykaw were losing their minds to this sickness. They slowly forgot who you were to them, no matter how much time you spent tending to them. And without their belief in you, you began to forget yourself, too."
Layqa paused, and in that moment of silence, a dreadful answer came to me. I didn't want to trust in any of the things they were saying. I didn't want to carry even a sliver of that sort of power. Images of the odd dreams I've had my whole life, the dreams that got more frequent since coming to ShadowWood, flashed through my mind. All of those strangers, the fear on their faces. That conversation I had had on that porch on another world, with a woman I could not turn to see.
Uma continued Layqa's story, and that was when I recognized her voice from that dream which had not really been a dream at all. What else could be a memory?
"When the last of the tribe was lost to that horrible plague, you finally left. You found children who had no hope, no real support. Like you were drawn to them somehow. You would try to teach them about the tribe, and about us. You tried to keep the thought of us alive.
"It wasn't easy. The farther you got from us, the harder it was to track you. The farther you got from yourself, the less you remembered where you came from. You never lost your intentions to help these children, but you lost your memories. Your only goal became growing up with those kids when they needed you, and then leaving when they no longer did.
     "From what we could tell with the little time we could find you, you would be drawn back to them." As I studied Uma, trying to remember anything of my past, which had always been something of a mysterious blur for me, what looked like a shooting star appeared underneath one of her glowing eyes, like a sparking, multi-faceted diamond of a teardrop. It traveled down her cheek, her neck, and faded into the darkness coloring her collarbone. "Each child that you found felt like a whole new life to you, and they were all you knew. So, becoming lonely and lost, you would find them.
     "They could never handle the sight of you. They had grown up, not understanding that their imaginary friend could grow up with them. You would show up in front of them, barely suppressing your true form, because you had no clue what that was. Showing a mortal such power almost always causes madness... Or death."
     She must have seen my confused, hurt expression, for her voice softened and she said, "You had no way of knowing that."
     I took a few deep breaths before speaking. "So you're telling me I lived that same horrible life over and over again?" I asked. "Have I lived all of this, too?"
     "No." Uma shook her head. "This is different. This time, the child you met was Melany. We had no clue that would happen, that your lives would intertwine before the plan we had for all of you when the rest of them got older. But, as you now know, your past with her had brought you two together once again. She was just strong enough to handle your return, unlike the rest of them."
     "I know this may come as a shock to you..." Llanthu started. His words commanded my attention, and I couldn't help but find his crimson gaze. The sight of him sent shivers down my spine. His frightening appearance did not pair with the care in his stare, and it only confused me even more. "But your home is here with us. You don't need to run anymore, searching hopelessly for a life you have forgotten. You can help these kids send our tribe home, bring us back to glory. And then you can come back with us. With me. Where you belong."
I took a couple of slow steps backwards. I held my hands out, looked down at them. Were these really the hands of a God? I asked myself, studying them like they were the hands of a stranger. My breathing was coming in short, wheezing gasps. My heart slowed to a deadly pace.
My first clear thought was of Melany. She did not break, did not lose her mind when she had first seen me again after so long. She was the one I needed now, more than anything. With her, that was where I belonged.
None of them chased me when I ran from the basement, my lungs shriveled and my whole body sore. I could not even feel them - their sickening yet wonderful, overwhelming presences - when I left the house. I raced to the dorms so fast it didn't even seem my feet touched the ground at all.