After Fate Fell

51 • JOHN

1 year, 3 months, and 18 days after it all
•JOHN•

(from the night before)

We set up in the abandoned house, everyone laying out sleeping bags or clothing to sleep on, most people on the floor, a few on the dilapidated furniture, but we're all in the same room. I think theres a strong feeling of unity, of togetherness between everyone. Or maybe everyone's just scared to be alone, fearing the light, knowing its effect on Ella and Six.

As the sky begins to darken, the sunlight fading away, people begin to settle in for the night. We can't afford to use our precious flashlight batteries up on anything right now. The sun may have faded away, but an eerie red-tinted light peeks in through the door, a weak ember of a light, because the wall of the church is shielding its direct beams from us. The entity, as Ella calls it. And I'm beginning to see why.

It has inhuman powers, rendering a person's senses and making them see the dead, speak to others, or do things she wouldn't dream of doing.

With the light of the sun gone, everyone starts to slowly fall asleep, I can hear all those near me's breaths slow and become rhythmic. Usually I can hear their thoughts fall into dreams if I let myself, but tonight I just can't seem to focus enough to do that I guess.

I don't know if everyone else is alseep, but I know the majority of them are, yet I'm still wide awake, my mind wandering, my fears running circles inside my head. Under the clothes I've been using as a blanket, I begin to sweat, either from the still-fading heat of the desert sun, or from my nerves. Maybe both. I quietly remove them from on top of myself, and roll over onto my stomach, closing my eyes and trying this new position and temperature, hoping I'll be able to fall asleep like the others.

I lie like this, my eyes closed, motionless, because I hope that in not moving, my muscles will relax and give me more of a chance of sleeping. But these things are having the opposite effect on me. With my eyes closed, I have become fearful of what may be lurking in the shadows of this house, though if I were thinking rationally, nothing should be out there for miles. My muscles instead have become rigid and sore. I didn't realize that trying so hard to do nothing causes you to overthink and this overthinking, fears creeping in, and the soreness in my muscles make my decision for me. I can't lie here any longer.

I slowly move to get up from the ground which is only partly soft because of the sand, and I stand to my feet. I look out across the living room with my still-adjusting eyes. I see no eyes open, no movement. I slowly make my way to the doorway, careful not to step on any sleeping bodies along the way.

Once I'm out, I step into the night. I can feel that the temperature has dropped a lot since I was out here in the day, I guess I had heard about this occurence in the desert, but it's real. The sky is dark, and through the sand which is blowing all around, I'm able to pick out a lot of the brighter stars, and then more and more of them become more visible as my eyes adjust to the darkness. It's breathtakingly beautiful. I scan the sky, looking for the star Henri showed me, saying it was Lorien's sun, and I find it, dimmer than I remember. Maybe it's because of the sand partly obscuring my view, or maybe it's because of something else. Maybe it's because Legacy is dying. I brush the thought off. As I look at it, somehow it seems to be slowly getting more brighter, until it's the brightest star in the sky. I smile. Maybe my eyes are fooling me, or maybe this is a sign from Lorien that we will be there soon. I can't wait to be there. I lower my eyes back to the ground and start walking again.

I don't really know what I was expecting to do or where I was expecting to go, but I just couldn't stay lying there with my mind going wild. I needed to put that energy into movement, into some purpose other than feeding the fear within me.

I walk toward the coast, it's not too far from here. This is an island, but it's not exactly a large island. Everything is within a fifteen-minute's walk, plus or minus a few minutes. The walk there takes just a few minutes, and it doesn't matter, because I don't mind the walking. Despite being a desolate island with nothing but sand and a few collapsing buildings along sand-covered roads, I like the view. My eyes have really adjusted to the darkness now.

I near the coast, my feet beginning to sink into the damp coastal sand. The waves begin to fill my ears with a rythmic lapping of water in and out, back and forth. It's peaceful and serene, and my mind is clear of the fear, clear of the wandering. I look out over the water, and it should scare me as it does most people, the ocean at night. But it doesn't, it just gives me peace of mind, it gives me a break from the craziness. It gives me the feeling I had hoped to find in sleep, but instead I found it out here.

I know my eyes have adjusted, but the surface of the water is so easily visible to me, making me look up to the sky, but the moon isn't there as I had guessed. My eyes scan until they fall upon the church, and I realize that I had completely forgotten about the light, the entity inside its walls. The light shines out over the water, giving it a shiny look in each of its ripples.

I wander along the coast, watching as the ripples become more and more clear, more and more bright as I come closer to the church. I wander from the coast, the sound of the water becoming softer as I walk further from it and closer to the church, which isn't too far from the water.

I go to the front of the church, where the entrance is. Above the door, the light shining out of it, is a huge cross, I think it represents one of the religions on Earth, especially considering that this is definitely some type of religious building, a church as it appears to be. Underneath the cross is a large inscription over the door arch, letters spelling out "HIC DOMVS DEI", and somehow out of all the things I remember learning in school and in history classes, I remember learning about how the letter "U" is sometimes represented with a "V". "HIC DOMUS DEI". I'm not sure what it means, but maybe Ella or Marina does. They seem to know some of the other Earthly languages that I have failed to retain.

I am starting to feel more tired, and I think about turning back toward the house to try to sleep, but just as the thought crosses my mind, I hear a voice coming from inside the church. It's soft, but I hear it all the same. I look through the doorway, but all I see is the blinding light within. I hear the voice again.

"John?" And it can't be. A chill goes over my whole body as I try to stop my mind from the chaos bubbling within, but it's no use. I know that voice. It's Sarah's.

"Sarah!" I yell, and I step off of the sand and onto the steps leading into the church, listening for her voice again. I walk in the doorway, looking around in the main room of the church, which is empty except for the light, which I can now see rises out of a well in the floor of the church. Its red tinge and piercing brightness differentiate itself from the well back at the Sanctuary. This well reeks of evil, of death and destruction. I tear my eyes away from it, looking around for Sarah again, listening for her voice.

"John I need you," she says, and I realize that she's not here physically, but rather her voice is emanating from the well. Her image rises out of it, like a hologram you would see in a sci-fi movie. I go closer to her, looking into her eyes, though I know that they aren't really her eyes, they're close enough. This is the first time I've seen her in over a year, and I forget why, why she isn't here with us.

"I'm in Paradise, John, and I need you here. I miss you so much," she says, and she leans in to somehow kiss me. I close my eyes and blissfully feel her lips on mine, I feel her hand on the back of my neck, pulling me closer to her. I have to be closer. I have to go to her. She says she needs me, and I hadn't realized how much I need her, how much I need to be with her.

The others can handle whatever we were going to do without me, I'm sure of it. They'll be fine. And I won't, not if I stay here any longer, separated from her, from the love that I had been missing.

"I'm coming," I tell her, as I pull back to look her in the eyes one last time before leaving, but her image is gone, replaced by nothing but the red energy emanating out of the well. I turn to go. I don't even go back to the house, I just walk out to the car, get in, hoping that the accident we were in earlier--how did that happen again?--hasn't done any damage to the car's ability to run. I start the engine, put it in gear, and drive off into the night.