Reverie Visage

Chapter 7: Wayfarer

"THEDA! DON'T SHOOT!" Quim pleaded as he staggered and ran into the crater as fast as he could go. "PUT YOUR TROOPS AT EASE!"
A frustrated glare twisted on her face. "What did you just say to me?! I better not have heard you trying to give me orders!"

In spite of his loyalty to her, he shrugged off her sharp words. In that instance, Quim's perception closed off to a tight tunnel. The only thing he could see was the man in the fallen ship, the one he had previously thought to be dead. He stumbled and tripped over the scattered rubble, fighting his way downhill through the smoke and wind until finally he had cleared a path to his goal.

Quim stood mere feet before the soot-ridden priest, unable to make himself move any further. He gazed at the man in silence, unbeknownst to the dumbfounded expression written all over his face.

"Kiran..." he mouthed. "you shouldn't be here..."

Kiran patted the dust from his pants and straightened out his now grey shirt before looking Quim in the eyes, squinting from the intense light he wasn't used to. Though for different reasons, their minds raced faster than shooting stars as the clouds around them parted to veil them in sunlight. Kiran was alive.

Finally, the Earthling spoke, breaking the trance of awe.

"God alive, what are you?" he asked, stridency and confusion wallowing in his voice.

Quim stepped back, again at a loss for words. That's right... he thought. the Kiran I met in The Codex was just a recreation of the one standing here now... Nothing in that simulation actually happened... He doesn't know who I am...

He took a deep breath, clearing his mind, and spoke, careful not to overwhelm the traveler. "I um... You are... My name is Quim Maximilien. I am a Visage from the research division of Mixcoatl..." he hesitated, second guessing the use of his own words. "though I suppose that means little to you at the moment..."
"Yeaaah... So you wanna tell me where I am? I see you've got quite the welcoming party behind you," he said, pointing to the gunners with his raised hands.
"Right... Um... They're just here for safety measures, I assure you. I believe it is my duty to inform you of your current whereabouts, as well as the state of which your..."

His words droned on and on as his mind dissociated, talking as if on autopilot. What he was saying was merely superficial, and he knew this.

He stopped himself from speaking any further. With a deep sigh, he loosened his shoulders and, for what seemed like the first time in his occupation as a Visage, spoke as he felt natural.

"How...? How in the world did you get here...?"
Kiran slowly put down his arms, wiping off his face on the way down and held his head. "It's a long story... Yeah, we'll put it that way."

He gazed emptily at the ground for a moment, trying to clear his murky memories before constructing his words. "I was alone," he began. "alone on this black, metal island. Earth- er... my planet- was covered entirely in clouds, our Sun was blotched out entirely across the globe... except for on that island. Somehow it was opening a hole in the sky, a tunnel in the clouds that gave way to that glorious... beautiful light... It was so warm and gentle... I'd never felt anything like it... I should have known that it'd be gone as soon as it'd come."

His eyes turned grim as he continued, "just as I was about to turn back and tell my people of the wonders I had discovered... the tunnel to the sky slowly closed. In a matter of seconds, the world reverted dark as I had always known it to be. And then... that's when it happened... it activated..."
"It what?" Quim asked, raising an eyebrow.
"The ground shook like the most violent of earthquakes. I was dropped to my knees before I could even think to run. I couldn't make out what was going on in the darkness, but I heard the sound of engines flaring and bits of the island shifting and rotating into a different form... It rose straight up from the ocean, and as it did, my consciousness faded... And that's when I woke up here. Burnt and covered in filth in the pilot seat of The Exalt."