Children of the Archangels

CHAPTER 56: WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Luke heard someone crying. He tried to open his eyes, but he was plagued by darkness. He was suspended in the air, losing all his senses except hearing.

The crying was warped for several moments, then it changed to an infant giggling.

The only other time he was blind and hearing things was when Sirius teleported him beneath the smelly Yak back at SGA. Luke looked around and called out everyone's name.

But no response.

This made no sense, why was he alone experiencing this other vision that probably belonged to Sirius? Weren't they all being teleported back to SGA by Sirius? Shouldn't at least Alpha be at his side?

Or maybe Alpha was here but was hiding.

Luke heard a noise above him. It sounded like someone was trying to pick him up.

And then the big bang occurred. An explosion of light erupted before Luke. He saw hues and stars race past him as if he were in a hyper-speed tunnel. Then the colors paused and dissolved into a scene.

He saw a boy, a bit younger than him, maybe around 16 or 17. He had curly black hair that was a tad close to being nappy. He had brown skin that made him look Caribbean, maybe Puerto Rican. His eyebrows were pretty thick, and he had the smallest birthmark on the tip of his nose, as if someone dipped a needle in squid ink and poked him gently at birth.

His eyes gave Luke nightmares because they looked like eyes that belonged to another. They were dried blood red, veiny from lack of sleep, and thirsty for power.

And this guy's hands were reaching forward towards him.

Luke wanted to back away, but he was confined. He couldn't look away because he was compelled to figure out where he was. Then he saw a white arm reach forward to try and touch the boy gently. The hand belonged to the infant and experiencing it in first person meant he was inside the baby.

He was seeing a scene from Sirius's infancy.

More weirdly, the hand passed right through the boy, almost like he had the same ability as Alpha. The boy stared into Sirius's eyes, amazed at what he was seeing. It was like he was watching a rare meteor shower streak the atmosphere a slew of blue and yellow.

"Guess the only time you can manage to see the boy was while you were sleeping?" The voice came from a third party. It was abrupt and seductive like a telephone sex operator ringing in the middle of a corporate business meeting. The voice also sounded familiar to bits and pieces of the first half of Sirius's memory that Luke had experienced when battling the Yak.

Sirius rolled over in his crib to reveal the lower half of a pale woman wrapped in a towel. Her manicured toenails were painted in alternate colors of red and purple. Besides her leg and feet, Luke saw nothing.

The boy seemed genuinely surprised that she could see him. "How can you tell I'm here?" Well clearly, she isn't blind and you're not invisible, Luke thought.

"It isn't hard," she said motioning out of frame for a second until Sirius's eyes followed her legs. "Come look at yourself sweetie."

She stood behind the boy and placed her hands on his shoulders. The boy was a couple of inches shorter than her, yet his head was cut off from view from the neck down with the angle Sirius was seeing things. The woman had led the boy to a mirror.

"Some people are better at dreamscaping than others," she said. Luke was getting confused. What the heck is dreamscaping?

The boy also wanted to know more. The woman threw out the phrase "Iumenti." Apparently, the boy had fought multiple of them alone in an arena for the amusement of an audience. Luke had fought four different types of Iumenti and in each battle he had some sort of help. He couldn't imagine taking one on all by himself.

Then the woman went on to finally explain what dreamscaping was. "An art that few possess. One must have some special connection to Gonjá in order to even have a chance at possessing such an ability. But perfect it, and it's a safe way to commence battle. As far as I know, you can't die in a dreamscape. That's what makes it so powerful."

Luke was trying to link the scene together. The fact that the baby's hand passed right through the boy's almost like he was transparent would explain the notion that this boy was in fact dreamscaping. That means the boy wasn't even in the room, but a copy of himself was. But why was only Sirius not able to touch him?

The woman went on to compare dreamscaping to cloning oneself for a limited time. "It's extremely powerful."

After admiring the boy's ability, she turned her body towards the wooden crib Sirius was in. The bars were made to resemble miniature tree trunks growing upwards from the base of the crib—almost like Sirius was surrounded by a forest. "I still can't find a good name for the boy. He's a special one. Maybe he'll be able to dreamscape someday. Who knows?"

This set-off alarms in Luke's head. This lady was Sirius's mother. And if she knew that dreamscaping was linked to those who have a special connection to this Gonjá person—then she must've known that Sirius had that same potential in order to even entertain the notion of him being able to pull off a "dreamscape."

Yet, time after time, Sirius was either incapacitated or defeated in their Garden Run. Sure, Luke saw a glimpse of his power when he upheld the mini tsunami caused by the Bunyip with sheer force, but was that all it was—a glimpse? Was Sirius capable of so much more, and more importantly was Sirius aware of his greater power and somehow holding out—playing his cards close to his chest?

Or did it have something to do with his memory loss?

The boy paused for a while and the conversation between the two suspended for a minute. Then the boy finally faced the woman and blurted out a name. "Sirius." He gave no explanation for the name, but thought it was fitting.

"Sirius..." the woman repeated. "Maybe..." She pondered if the name would work.

Then something weird happened. The boy, at least what Luke could see of the boy's lower half, was flickering like a hologram going through some connection issues.

"Seems like you're about to wake up," the woman said almost like she was sad to see him go. She walked towards the flickering hologram and planted a kiss on the boy's cheek, the kind a friend's mom would give, and then he disappeared.

The light faded and slowly watercolors of darkness dripped onto the scene, enveloping Luke back in a void where only his hearing worked.

And the last thing he heard was the woman thinking aloud. "Yes, I need a name that can link you to your grandfather and your father—and this one might just work."