Reverie Visage

Chapter 8: The Other Side of the Stars

Darkness. The darkness that obstructed Kiran's sight was comparable only to that of an absent sun, and the impact of his heart sinking to his stomach was enough to bring him to his knees. The words he had just heard wrought more despair than anything he had previously concieved... his home was long gone.

"Thirty years...?" he choked out. "Earth has been closed off... for thirty years...?"

Mandel moved to Kiran's side, placing his hand on the man's arm in an attempt of comfort. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry we didn't tell you sooner," he said. "we... didn't want to overwhelm you... "

He glanced past the bridge of Kiran's nose to peek at the expression upon his face, but every time Mandel did, Kiran would shift his head away just a little more.

"Your planet, Earth, was consumed by the grid all that time ago, causing it to become what it is now... shrouded by the shadows of its own clouds..."
Kiran broke away from Mandel's touch and shifted his eyes to the floor. "It doesn't make any sense... If Earth was closed off thirty years ago... then how did I get here?! It hasn't even been two weeks since I left my home, so how is possible that I crossed over?"

Mandel pitifully shook his head. "I really don't know... Today when I saw you walk out of Quetzal, even I had to question everything I knew. This is a first for everyone."

In the distance, the collective noticed the sun lowering even further past the mountains, the grid shining a bright green haze on the darkened stratosphere. It was so close that a faint glow seeped their way into the shadows of the city like a body of water tainted by a flourescent poison.

"How long?" Kiran inquired. "How long before the grid takes Nihilaeon?"
"... Less than seven days," replied Quim, gravely.

The more he heard, the harder it became to hide the racing anxiety and fear inside. He tried hiding his shaking hands in the slightly torn pockets of his pants, but was immediately stopped, forgetting that he was restrained by Theda's handcuffs.

Through his stream of thoughts, the one thing concerning him above all else was his people, the cultists whom he devoted himself to safeguarding with all he had. In the forefront of his mind, he pictured his disciples at a loss for direction, able to do nothing but imagine the disheartening confusion caused by his sudden, enexplained disappearance.

The general reached into a drawer on his desk and pulled from it a small, black, metal computer chip about the size of his finger, and walked over to Kiran. He placed the chip into a rectangular port on the side of the left cuff and twisted it like a key, causing the mechanism to shut down. The string of light binding the handcuffs together dissipated, retracting back into the device, making them fall to the floor with a heavy thud.

"Mr. Allinder," Sigvald began. "you are aware of what this means for you, aren't you?"
Kiran gritted his teeth, failing to retain his calmness any longer. "That there's no way back, right? Yeah, I figured as much a while ago, thank you."
"No, Mr. Allinder... not entirely..."

The man of stature directed his view out the window to the sky. There, a large fleet of at least twenty aircrafts was carrying a gargantuan load, suspending it in the air by beams of energy similar to the one from Kiran's handcuffs. The object they held was none other than Quetzal, the black mech that had crashed in the mountains.  It was being delivered with its arms and head suspended by the glowing rope, lifted to its sides in a near-crucified position. Its size was so incomparable that the ships nearly touched the clouds in their effort to keep it off the ground, and even then they were moving at a snail's pace.

"That machine... I believe it is the key to saving our world... and yours," the general assured. "Kiran. Somehow you were able to come to this planet in spite of the barrier, and land here mostly unscathed. If you were able to cross over once, I believe that we could do it again."