The Last Energy Master [Rammstein]

Chapter 02: Lost in space

I wake up to the feeling of someone shaking me. I open my eyes but a powerful white light blinds me and I close my eyes directly to protect them. My breathing accelerates and I feel panic in my guts.

-Finally awakened? A guy's voice asks. It took you a while...

I open my eyes, gently this time, and the first thing that faces me is a man who looks a little bit older than me. I look at him attentively and discover that he looks like me in some way, maybe it's his jet black hair that is similar to mine.

-Who are you ? I ask as I straighten up.

-Yessfidech at your service. He answers with a slight bow. And please, you can call me Yess.

I walk my eyes on what's surrounding me and discover that I am in a room that looks like a NASA control room. I know very well what it looks like since my Uncle Issam is working there. But it seems that this one is a little different from the other, with all these overdeveloped objects.

-Say Yessfidech, where are we? I ask, getting up but my feet give way and I fall back.

-You've triggered the protection chamber with your energy. He simply answers.

-I don't understand... I say, grinning. In any case, where are the others? Nadir and Sonia?

-They sleep in another room and will not wake up until you find another habitable place.

I look at him interrogatively without understanding and my brain begins to seek explanations, what does he mean by a habitable place? Is he serious or is it a bad joke from him?

-I reassure you, it's not a joke. He says, as if he can read in my mind. Come to see.

Yessfidech, or whatever his name is, grabs my hand and helps me get up and then leads me to the big screen. He presses several buttons and brings up a geographical map of Africa.

-Algeria is a land of ashes now. He says, pointing to a point that is off.

-What ?? But how?

-You don't remember the destructive airplanes? He asks, worried.

I rub my temples and concentrate a little. But my head is totally blank, I doubt that something had fallen on me during the bombing. And then a memory comes back to my mind, it's the bombing...

-Does that mean that no one but the other two and I are alive? I ask, fearing the answer.

-Unfortunately I don't know. He answers calmly. But I'll check.

The man pulls a chair out of nowhere and gives it to me to sit down and then pulls out another to himself. He settles in front of the big screen and begins to press other sounding buttons and zooms a little more on the country. I walk my eyes on the screen but don't say anything and let him work quietly.

-No trace of human warmth. He says with a sigh. Nothing at all.

-Impossible !! I scream, feeling my heart squeezing in my chest. Keep searching.

-It's not only Algeria that was attacked, other countries are also destroyed because of them.

I stare at the screen in front of me and try to catch any life signal, in vain. I sigh then turn my attention to the unknown guy who is by my side.

-I want to know more about the ships that attacked us. I ask, almost supplicating.

-These are the LADS, people thirsty for human blood and chaos. He starts. They spread terror in countries that are not protected.

-Tell me more. I beg him, feeling vacillating in the void.

-Do you remember the hooded people you saw in your nightmares? He asks. They are the LADS.

A desire to vomit suddenly overwhelms me when I see a scene of my nightmare, but I repress it immediately and ask for water. The young brown man displays a carafe and a glass and then pours some in the glass and hands it to me.

-I thought it was my head that played tricks on me, or hallucinations. I say, taking the glass from his hands.

-It was not nightmares but visions... Yessfidech replies. For a whole year, you saw what other countries were going through.

-What ?? But newspapers and social networks said nothing about it. I exclaim.

-The countries attacked fall directly into the hands of ERWI, the leader of the LADS.

At one point, I wonder if I'm still lying in my bed, seeing those nightmares that leave me weak every morning. I shake my head and then sigh and try to get away anything that can disrupt me.

-I just said that they are not nightmares. The servant warns me.

-Would you like to stop reading in my head, what I'm thinking is intimate. I tell him.

-It's stronger than me. He answers, shrugging. We're bound, you and I, in some way.

-Okay, but who is this ERWI ? I ask.

Yessfidech no longer speaks and instead launches a video, on another screen, which will explain who is who. I look at it for I don't know how long and understand a lot of things about this war.

To begin with, the LADS is for "Les adorateurs de Satan", people who had sold their souls to the devil and it's a French sentence that means "Satan's worshippers". They were trapped underground, in ice blocks, for more than a thousand years. But now they are back for revenge.

Then, this ERWI is the most powerful demon that history has ever known. He was trapped in a cave on a flooded island in southern Japan, but because of an earthquake, he regained his freedom.

And finally, I'm not the one I always thought I was... I'm the last energy mistress, the one that will complete the chain. It sounds cool, but I really don't know what it is. All I have understood is that my body contains an energy that can protect us from others.

-I think I detected something. My interlocutor says, getting me out of my dreams.

I wake up from my thoughts and look at the screen that he's pointing at, I see a light not very visible, on the side of the capital where my grandparents live. He clicks another button and scrolls the person's CV in front of us.

-That's Lydia. I exclaim, clinging to his arm. My cousin...

-Ok, I understand that... He says without letting me continue. Regeneration...

-What are you doing ? I ask as the point starts to disappear slowly.

-Your cousin will be on board of our ship in at least half an hour.

-A ship !? I exclaim, surprised. Where are we?

As an answer, Yessfidech rises from his chair and leaves to get in front of the large glass window, which is covered with long curtains of the night's colour. It is only now that I noticed that the source of the light in the room comes from the bizarre bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

-You propelled the apartment into the space... Is all he says, pulling on the curtains.

I remain speechless in front of the show that appears outside the windows, I stay a moment watching the show before discovering that we are really lost in space...

***To be continued...