Reia- A Novella (COMPLETE)

Epilogue

It was a few weeks later, after living out of the laboratory for a while, that Morai and Hazira decided to stay in Reia permanently. Morai wouldn't be able to fit in anywhere else, and with the word strings they could stay in the old city indefinitely. Hazira convinced him to put his apprehension of living off of word strings aside.

And so, one day, Hazira entered the WSEC to find that a sizable chunk of the ceiling had vanished, and the blue sky shone through.

"Where has the ceiling gone?" Hazira demanded, somewhere between laughing and shouting.

"Listen," Morai said eagerly. Hazira listened, to hear a low rumbling in the air like distant thunder. "I turned it into sound waves! The noise will die down in a bit."

"Don't we need that?" Hazira asked, concerned.

"Not particularly," Morai shrugged. "I've reshaped the room a bit so the focal acoustic point isn't affected by the half of the ceiling that's missing. In fact, having that one area gone opens up a fantastic opportunity."

But what that opportunity was, exactly, wouldn't come to fruition for years. By then, grass and even wildflowers had grown inside of the chamber, where Hazira and Morai could lie out under the stars.

The outside world was a blur. The most damaged buildings in Reia collapsed within a few years, and the bodies in the streets faded away. During their few trips outside, Morai and Hazira became extremely grateful of the fact that they had buried Marfa in the cemetery. Gleaming white bones littered the streets. Skulls grinned grotesquely from every street corner, pinning down old bags and tattered clothing that waved halfheartedly in the wind. Marfa, at least, could decompose in peace, untouched by the ravens that so often circled overhead, or the occasional groan and crash of a falling building.

Morai's spirits were high, as well, with the continued progress of his pet project. He would divulge no information to Hazira about it until it was entirely complete- about five years after Reia had fallen.

Morai's reasoning was, he believed, fairly simple: the word string had been a terrific success in the scientific sense. In the social sense, it had been a failure only because it offered too much power to too small a group. But Morai was sure that having people in the second realm, as he called it, would be a good thing. An improvement to science, to history, to art, and... everything else, he would shout. His plan was a rather complicated but very powerful word string that would affect a massive area of land- nearly the entire continent if he did it right. Without the ceiling, and a few alterations to the chamber in order to properly amplify the words, the sound waves could echo- even quietly- across the whole world.

This word string would create people... in the second realm.

"You're making people?" Hazira gaped at him after he finished explaining it.

Morai grinned. "Not without you, love."

"Morai!" Hazira laughed, though she too was grinning. "Please? Just explain. I thought creating things with word strings wasn't effective- don't the things you make just disappear?"

"Well, word string creations are permanent if you are turning something into something else. And I'm not even doing that! I'm just moving things around," he explained. Hazira looked confused. "Okay," he said, putting out his hands. "Here are the two ingredients, people" –he lifted one hand- "and something to anchor them into this realm." He lifted the other. "The second half is easy. There are all sorts of things around that could be used," he grinned.

"Where are you getting people from, then?" Hazira asked. "And answer seriously, would you?"

Morai flinched, laughing to himself. "I don't have to get the people from anywhere," he said. "People aren't physical things. Your mind isn't physical, is it?"

"Well, my mind is starting to hurt," Hazira raised her eyebrows.

"I'm not creating minds, Hazira- I'm just..." Morai searched for the right words, "Drawing them up, so to speak. They're in the second realm, you just can't... prove it."

"I don't really get it," Hazira said, frowning.

"Neither do I!" Morai grinned. "But I think this is going to be a good thing."

"If you say so," Hazira said. She paused. "These... second realm people. They're immortal, aren't they?"

"Well, I suppose their life's energy is attached to the item they're, well, attached to, and they can kill each other in the second realm, but I'd say yes otherwise," Morai shrugged. "The only reason people die is because their skin bags can't maintain themselves anymore. A little item doesn't have to maintain itself. So if the thing that anchors the person here is damaged, then perhaps they would die..." Morai traced his finger across a page, pointed at a word, and added, "I've just about finished, as well, so I'm planning to read it tomorrow. What do you think?"

Morai looked up at Hazira, who was smiling. "I think you should try it."