Into The Unown

They won't save you

Even before her eyes fluttered open, she wished for death.

To say that she was in pain would have been an understatement. If what Dawn felt could be described in words, it would be a novel of 600 pages with nothing but let me die written in blood over and over again.

Everything hurt. Right down to her last cell. Everything hurt. It felt as if someone had broken her down into smithereens and tried stitching her back up. Dawn wasn't foreign to the concept of pain. Back in the academy, she had forced herself through countless exercises with broken limbs and bloodied noses, but what she felt right then, was unlike anything she'd experienced before.

Her mind was awake, but her body was asleep, paralysed by an unfathomable force. Her coiled intestines told her that was by design. Someone wanted her body paralysed, her senses and willpower knocked out to the point where she wasn't able to lift a finger, but just enough intact so that she could feel every torture they inflicted on her.

As her vision cleared, Dawn slowly recognised her surroundings.

They were in the same room they found karma in, only this time, it was the two of them who were hanging from the circular machine, not Karma.

Dawn looked at her limbs, only to wish she hadn't. From where the edges of her clothes had tattered, she saw her veins painted in a purplish hue. She swallowed as the hue seeped out from her limbs, making a river of tiny little orbs and her absorbed into the machine.

She zoomed out, her eyes searching desperately. Ultimately they landed on Calem, suspended in a similar situation as her.

So far there was no sign of Karma. She heaved a sigh of relief.

"They won't save you,"

It was a reflex action, honed by hours and hours of countless training which resulted in the first moment Dawn. She snapped her neck-only to sprain it soon after.

In front of her a woman with hair the colour of a galaxy-patches of blue and black intermixed with sprinkles of white. Dawn gasped-not out of horror, but resemblance. She had seen her before, in a passing dream, just a glance, but it had been enough.

Dawn had prayed for her. And now, she was here.

"Cosmo," she gasped. "You're-I, I dreamed of you-" Dawn tried to reach out, but a sharp pang broke out in her limb which pulled her back up. "I-you're here."

Cosmo said nothing. She walked towards Dawn, hand behind her back, until she stood an inch away from her. "They won't save you,"

Her smile vanished as soon as it had come. "What? Who won't save us?"

She backed away, encircling the enclosure, "Your comrades, they won't save you."

Baffled, Dawn laughed. "What do you mean? Of course, they will come. We—we sent out a distress signal."

Cosmo towered over a table which held instruments of various shapes and sizes. Dawn wished for them to be cutlery.

She picked up a small black box, "You mean this?"

Dawn squinted her eyes. It was their transmitter. "That's our transmitter. We... Calem used it to send signal."

Cosmo stared at the box in disbelief. "On the surface it seems like the world has moved leaps and bounds ahead from when we slept. But... it still hasn't."

"What... what do you mean?"

Cosmo wrapped her hands around the transmitter until her fingers turned pale. "The thing about electronic devices is that they use signals, and signals can be interfered."

Dawn ran her calculation. If their signal was jammed, their distress call wouldn't be received and if it wasn't received then... "They would come," she murmured, "but they won't know what they'll be facing."

Cosmo nodded. "Strange predicament, isn't it? If they'll come, they will die, and if they won't come, you'll die. It's, I believe, a paradox."

When the pain reached its limits, Dawn let out an exasperated sigh. She saw no point in continuing the conversation. Cosmo's words reflected her physical movements—she was speaking in circles. Gary had warned her that the ancestors did that.

"Just tell me what to—"

"I'll tell you a story," Cosmo sat down on the floor; the deep blue of her eyes peered directly into Dawn's soul, "once upon a time there were four hero's who decided to do a little experiment. In exchange for eternity, they gave up their physical forms, for there is no magical without an exchange. They knew very well that immortality was a curse, but for the greater good, they made that sacrifice. A body for powers. But there never lived a hero without a villain. And the villain in their story followed them beyond the confines of their mortal bodies.

"For thousands of years they looked after the aftermath of their actions. They kept the villain at bay with their powers. But the sands of times affect all. The stelae which kept them together broke—separating them, until they found each other, again, years later.

"But then one of the hero found out the villain wasn't bound to the same rules as the rest of them—she was powerful, perhaps even deadlier than before and so, he asked the other heroes to give him some of their energy. Until there was none left for others.

"The powerful hero broke off the rest of them, leaving them powerless, hungry and desperate. There was another hero, a friend to him, who asked the girl hero lend him some more of his energy. She gave it to him, call it love, call it nativity, call it what you want to. She gave every last one of her powers to him, so that he could be rejuvenated again and fight off with the powerful hero and the villain.

"But the girl hero lied—she kept some of the energy for a rainy day, just enough to weather the storm."

Dawn, who still hung like a rag doll, said, "Why are you here?"

Cosmo stood up, "You're in pain," she stood an inch away from Dawn, "so, I'll be brief. This is a goodbye."

Her eyes widened, "What the fuck? You... you just got—"

"I know, I know," she sighed, "think it through after you get out of here. Which will take some time, I'm assuming."

"Why... why did you even come here? I..." and then it hit her. The countless conversations she'd had with Ash, Gary and even Calem. Each of them had wildly different encounters of meeting their ancestors, however, one thing had been constant, "...you're not in your dimension... you're free."

Cosmo caressed her face and the pain vanished. "I'm free... forever perhaps. The rest are still very much a menace. But I'm free."

"No... no you can't I—"

"I know what you want, Dawn. You want to feel special, needed. You need to be a saviour, not a side piece, or an afterthought. Let me tell you something, you will always be a hero, the only thing which will be different is the perspective the story is being told. Remember my words Dawn, they won't save you, you'll save them." Cosmo placed a kiss on her cheek. "Consider this a parting gift."

When she started to back away, Dawn's vision began to slip up. She didn't know what her parting gift was, only that Dawn wasn't in pain anymore.

"Can... we defeat the others?" She slurred her, desperately holding on.

Cosmo turned. "The circumstances surrounding me were... different."

"How?"

Her silhouette had began to sparkle—orbs of white, blue and black lights surrounded her frame, taking of parts of her with them.

"I gave up my powers for love," she said, "this is gift from Arceus, not a punishment, Dawn."

Dawn remembered. "Luke," she said, a curtain of darkness engulfed her, "Luke was dying when Gary last met him... you... you revived—"

Before she could finish, Dawn was asleep, lost in the past and in pleasant memories.