After Fate Fell

57 • ELLA

1 year, 3 months, and 19 days after it all
•ELLA•

I look up and see a sky full of stars. How can that be?

I stand up and take a look at my surroundings. Other than the stars above me, there is nothing.

I don't know what to do now. I thought I knew what I was doing. Somehow Legacy was in my head again like she used to be, telling me what I had to do.

Maybe I'm dead. Maybe this is how death feels. When you die, you're just released into a world of a million suns, set free into them, into the universe.

But yet somehow I don't think I'm dead. I know it seems dark down here, it seems confusing, but this is where I'm supposed to be. This is how I'm supposed to destroy this thing.

I look up at the stars again, and I find the one that I have always been told to be Lorien's star. I reach up as if to touch it, though it's millions of miles away.

The sky lights up, exploding in a white firework of light, engulfing everything around me. I fall to my knees, shielding my eyes. I can't see anything. I can't do anything. And at this moment I think I truly must be dead.

Blinding white light swallows me whole, I try to open my eyes, realizing they were already open. I stare into the blinding light, hoping that there is more than this, that somehow, I can shut it off and be at the bottom of the well again. I close and open my eyes multiple times, but even with my eyes closed, the brightness still overcomes the dark escape I was hoping for. Am I dead? This fear takes over me, eating away at me from the inside out. It's not that I'm scared of death, it's the notion that death could be this, bound to a room which is only white, no corners, no walls, no roof, and no escape. I don't want to spend all of eternity here. I want to be alive again. I want to destroy this thing.

My eyes have been closed, and maybe the light is just getting to me, but I think the light may have faded a bit. I open my eyes to find that the white light is still there, but it's less blinding. And I can feel gravity again, I remember falling to my knees here, and I can feel the weight of my knees on the floor beneath me. Even though I can't tell the difference between floor and not, I can at least feel it. I shakily bring myself to my feet, turning in a circle around, making sure there aren't any doors or windows where I can escape. Nothing.

I walk along the floor, closing my eyes because I know that if I opened them, I would fall. With my eyes closed, I can fool my body into walking like I'm above ground again, not in a room full of blinding light at the bottom of a well.

I guide myself along, holding my hands out in front of me, hoping to hit a wall, or to catch me if I fall. It seems hopeless, but I need to do something, I can't just sit here, hoping that everything's okay above ground, that the others will be fine without me. I need to know that this entity is dead, and if it isn't, I need to destroy it. I can accept it if I'm dead, but I at least need to know that I am in fact dead.

My hand bumps into something. I stop walking. I feel it's cool surface against my fingertips. I will myself to open my eyes, slowly, squinting into the darkness. The darkness. I sigh in relief. The light is gone. But as I lean against this thing, waiting for my eyes to adjust, I realize that they aren't adjusting, that I've just traded the blinding light for the blinding darkness. And so I am again left with only my other senses. At least now I don't have to close my eyes.

I reach out again and feel the surface of whatever I've been touching, running my fingers up and down its rough surface. It's some type of stone, huge by what I can tell, I haven't been able to reach the top or find it's edges. I move around it, trying to find it's edge, and I realize my feet feel heavy. I'm walking on sand again. This stone, though I can't see it, I can only hope that I know what it is. Lorialite. This is the Lorialite stone that Six or Marina had heard about out here along the desert's edge.

But how could this entity have so much power if within it lie a Lorialite stone? And within that Lorialite stone, and within the Earth beneath all of us, lies Legacy, the entity of Lorien herself. How could such evil take root in a place of such hope and strength? I don't understand it.

I just hope that Legacy still lies here, along with the great Lorialite stone and the darkness and me.

"Legacy?" I call out.

I wait.

Nothing.

"Legacy? It's Ella. I'm here to free you. I'm here to take you home."

Still, her voice does not come into my ears, does not fill my mind.

I see a little light, a tiny glow, and at first I don't know where it's coming from. I reach up to cover my eyes, fearful that the blinding white light is returning, but then I see the blue tint, and I see that it is coming from the Lorialite stone beside me.

It's a tiny glow, and it's weak, but at least now I can see a little, and at least I know Legacy isn't gone, she's still here, as weak as she may be, she's still here.

"-la. I'm here. I'm dying Ella." It's Legacy.

"I came down here because I want to end this all, I want to take you home, back to Lorien with us, back to our home," I say out into the darkness.

"I knew you'd come back," this time the voice is deeper, and I flinch. I know that voice all too well. Setrákus Ra.

"What do you want from me?" I ask, standing firm, my voice echoing into the darkness. He's not here. He's dead. This is only a memory of him, only the entity trying to weaken me. I won't fall.

"Oh Ella, you know what I want. You've always known. I want you. I want you to rebuild what I started, to follow in your grandfather's footsteps. But I guess it's too late for that. You've shown your loyalty to that dusty, dead planet you somehow can call your home. That planet I, along with the others, destroyed, along with everyone living on it. You know why I had to do that, don't you? At least you know that?"

"Oh but grandfather," I start, forcing myself to call him that. "You are one of us too. Your anger at Pittacus and Lorien caused your betrayal, not mine. I have betrayed no one. And I would hope that somewhere within the depths of your twisted mind, you could see that the dusty, dead planet you innundated used to be your home. And even though you may despise it now, it's where I belong, where Lorien herself belongs. Once I get out of here, that's where I'm going."

He laughs, deep and guttural, a disgusting sound coming from his throat, even though he isn't even real, the evil laugh I remember sounds all too real. "Only if that were true," he says. He laughs again. "I never called that wretched rock my home, I never belonged there!" he sneers. "No, I was meant for much more than that. Meant for much more than lies, than so-called perfection. I saw right through it all. I am the perfection they could have only hoped for on Lorien. They knew that, you know that. That's why you and your gang of refugees could have never won, not really."

"But you're forgetting something," I say, looking up, to where his voice is coming from, though no one lies there. "We did win." I pull the chunk of Lorialite stone from behind my back, charging with Dreynen. "Goodbye grandfather." I hurl it into the darkness, and dive behind the huge Lorialite stone.

The world explodes.