The Meanings of Lost

Chapter 29

Diana:

Hands press down on me, pulling me upwards. Where? What? Just a moment ago, where had I been? The ringing in my ears intensifies, as if to prove to me it does not matter. The only thing that matters is the here and the now.

I open my eyes and find Steve staring down at me. His lips are moving but I can't read them.

"Steve?" He looks worried. "No, Steve whatever you're planning, let me do it." His lips move again and his grip on my wrists loosens. I look around as his hands grasp mine, pushing something cold and metal into my Palm. A plane takes off in the distance and suddenly it all comes rushing back.

As he turns and runs but I grab him, gripping him hard in my iron grasp. "Steve you can't," I tell him, staring into his sea blue eyes. He tries to say something but I pull him closer. "You can't," I repeat. "You'll die." I slip his hand down to my stomach. "You can't die." A tear slide down my face. "You have to stay, be a father. I'll go, I'll live."

The ringing fades and his voice sounds true. "Diana, what are you saying?" His eyes gleam with hope. "Diana?" Time seems to slow around us, as if the gods are giving as all the time we need to make things right.

"Don't you remember all those years?" He shakes his head. "We weren't there. It wasn't horrible but we. Weren't. There. Steve, we have to be there. For the child, the little," I pause, Greek words flowing on the tip of my tongue. "For our little ambrosine," I say, using a Greek name meaning immortal girl.

His gloved hands brush against my cheeks, wiping the tears from my eyes. "What about Ares?"

"Ares, he," I stammer, burying my face in his chest. "It won't matter there will be more wars. This one becomes the first world war because later there is a second. Then the Korean War and a Cold War and countless civil wars. I fail Steve. I fail. I kill the body, not the power."

Zeus:

My child. My girl, she has finally learnt the truth. And still, she chooses a life with a man who will age and die while she stays young.

"My daughter," I say, though she hears me naught, "I bestow one final gift upon you: you and your family shall live a long and happy life, and when it is over, you shall have your places in Olympus where you will live in peace. Your life will not be devoid of sorrows and tragedy, as you know the future is full of it, but it will also surround you with love and happiness and joy."

Steve:

"Go," I tell her. "I'll Wait, there is little time left." She lifts her head and looks up. Right up. My gaze follows her's to where a twenty-foot tall man sits in the midst of the storm. Lightning bellows around him as the heavens tremble and a tingling sensation rivets through my body.

"Thank you, father," Diana says quietly, pulling me closer as he disappears. She kisses me before running off after the plane that seems suspended in the air. As she moves towards it time seems to catch up with us and the plane takes off. But Diana, my powerful Amazon, leaps into the air and catches it.

It flies high into the sky, past where the giant had been. Hurry, I pray to the giant. Soon it will be too late.

Boom! In a flash of orange, the plane is gone, leaving only the deadly powder.

"Diana!" The scream escapes my lips before I even see a body falling from the sky and the glimmer of her armour in the fires. My legs are out of my control as they carry me, ever fast, to where she may land. Every second, I feel my heart sinking as she draws closer and closer -

To the ground.

All that rests in front of me is a cloud of dust where she'd landed.

"No!" This wasn't the plan. She said she would make it, that she could do it. Now the world is left without a protector, and I'm to blame.