Chapter Eleven: Echoes and Consequences (I1B0C11)

 Chapter Eleven: Echoes and Consequences

 

“It’s like an uproar of anguish. It’s overwhelming. Have I fallen into the tempest? Did I become a part of it? I always hoped death would be more fulfilling than this,” Hatasuko whispered, but he could not hear his voice over the endless cries and shouts.

“You are not dead, Hatasuko. You were nearly killed by the Interfectus, but you escaped at the last moment,” said an unfamiliar voice from within the storm of screams.

Hatasuko felt the presence of someone else inside the abyss of his mind. No light punctuated the darkness, so he could not see the face of the newcomer.

             “Forgive me, but I don’t think I remember your voice. Have we met?” Hatasuko asked.

“We have not. I am Kurt, and I put myself back together while you were healing. But I am not important. What is important is that this world still needs you alive. You must wake up before anyone else is lost,” said the man in the tempest.

“But what am I supposed to do? The last thing I remember is hitting the ground outside the forest city. I remember the whole sky was blocked by smoke. The Interfectus killed Lazaro. I haven’t even tried to wake up since then. I’m starting to believe that I couldn’t even if I tried. I’ve been locked in here between the tempest and my memories; I can’t even decide which one scares me more,” Hatasuko confessed.

“I know. I’ve been standing here beside you, right at the edge of the tempest. I saw what happened to your mother. I saw what happened to Lazaro. That can’t be an easy thing for anyone to handle.”

“It isn’t easy, Kurt. I still have all these mixed feelings about Lazaro, and I never got the chance to sort them out. I feel like he died way before anyone was ready, but I guess that’s the thing about death. I know that’s a selfish thought. Besides, the monsters don’t care about sentiment. They take anyone, regardless of how crucial their victims are. I just wish I could have found a way to reconcile how much I hate him with how much I need him,” Hatasuko explained.

Since he stood at the crossroads of the tempest and his memories, Hatasuko heard the lost screams and his own agonized shouts. He felt his anger from the day he fought Lazaro, but he also remembered the day when Lazaro explained how he become who he was.

Kurt said, “I know that closure means a lot to people, in fact I’m haunted by the reality that so many people crave it. To tell you the truth, I don’t think that’s one of humanity’s better traits. The one good thing about Lazaro’s death is that you don’t need to decide if you hate him; it won’t change anything that matters. I know it isn’t my place to say this since I’m dead and you’re alive, but I really think you should be more solution-oriented.”

“But what am I supposed to do now? The volunteers are dead. Lazaro is dead. Everyone had hope, and now it’s gone. Even mine is slipping away! I still sense the aftertaste of destiny, but it’s fading away from me. Maybe it was all an illusion from the start. Maybe I shrouded my eyes with false hope to ignore the humbling truth that I never had a chance,” Hatasuko admitted to the man in the tempest.

“I’m not in a position to make you feel better; the truth is that there’s probably no one in the world who’s better off because they knew me. All I can do is offer a solution.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true, but I suppose you probably don’t want to talk about your problems any more than you want to hear about mine. So let’s just get on with it; how am I supposed to change anything after all that’s been lost?” Hatasuko asked.

“Back before the Interfectus killed me, I lived as a seafaring merchant in Bones City. It took some time to collect all my memories in here, but I’ve rebuilt my memory of the Isles of Aether. The first three isles are near the shore of Bones City, but I would often venture to the farther archipelago. There are many scarce resources in those islands—resources that other merchants have not discovered,” Kurt explained.

            “But what resource could possibly help me now?”

“It’s not the resources that matter. Those are just spices, exotic berries, and other trivial things. One day when I was at sea, I discovered that the fourth Isle of Aether, which rests apart from the others, harbors a dangerous secret. It looks different than the other islands because there are no plants at all. It looks like a giant gray rock floating in the sea, so few sailors ever approach. But it is no mere rock. There is a cave on the fourth Isle of Aether. That cave is the home of Caelicola. You do know who that is, don’t you?”

Hatasuko recalled back to when Madeline still lurked inside the tempest. She had said that she was once the servant of Caelicola—the man who possessed the powers of God. She said that he had the power of creation, destruction, omniscience, and omnipresence. But for some reason, he refused to stand against the Interfecti. Hatasuko remembered that she had severed her ties with him because of this dissonance.

“Kurt, do you mean the man who can control anything in this world? Is that the Caelicola you speak of?” Hatasuko asked.

“That is correct. I spoke to him a few times back when I was alive. He told me that he understands why everyone who knows him hates him; he agrees that he’s just sitting idly by as the Interfecti bring our world to ruin. But he said there was a reason for his abstinence—a reason he couldn’t tell me. Surely he’ll still abstain, but perhaps he will give you something that can save this world. If he can do anything, then this is a road I know you must travel. That is the only help I can offer,” Kurt explained.

Hatasuko considered the possibility of meeting this man face-to-face. Now that he knew that Caelicola, the most powerful man in the world, was hiding in silence on the fourth Isle of Aether, he finally had a lead. The metaphorical dead-end in his head finally opened.

“At the site of my defeat, in that forest city that’s surely gone now, I truly let myself believe that hope is gone. I thought my first victory was just a fluke. Even the power of an Astrodeus can’t overcome an Interfectus. This incredible body, my legendary power, my gift and my curse—none of it can save this world from darkness. But if I can access power even greater than this, then we may see the day when misery ends. Thank you for this information, Kurt,” Hatasuko said.

“You’re welcome. I know pessimism and emptiness feel natural after failure, but you don’t have time to fester in defeat. That said, I’m not accusing you of acting childish; it’s because I want to help you. I’m guilty of the same thing. I could have pulled myself together in the tempest years ago, but my subconscious wouldn’t let me; I was too afraid of confronting my failure. Because I was afraid and weak, I missed the chance to tell you this long ago. I can’t help but wonder how many lives would have been saved,” Kurt confessed.

“Don’t beat yourself up. If I knew about Caelicola earlier, it wouldn’t have changed anything. The Interfectus beat me badly, but I’m still the only one who ever drove one away. That means I have credibility; he might actually hear me out! Before then, I had only known defeat. Besides, there’s no point in trying to rewrite the past with a hypothetical. That said, can you tell me about your failure? There might be a way I can help. At the very least, I’ve helped others like you.”

Hatasuko realized that his hold on the tempest was fading. The screams sounded like they were underwater, suggesting that he would soon wake for the first time since he fell unconscious. But before he left, the tempest grew quieter as Kurt began speaking.

Kurt said, “I was a merchant from Bones City, but I went across the land and sea to gather my merchandise. My business made life comfortable for my wife and her sick parents, but I missed important moments since I was always away. One day, one of my messengers came and told me of rare spices for sale in the city of Occasa. I immediately set out. I never got the chance to tell her, and as fate would have it, an Interfectus attacked Occasa. I was killed, and all my associates died in that attack. No one ever told Lena where I went or that I wasn’t coming home. She has every reason to believe that I left her and ran away. It torments me, but there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

Hatasuko whispered, “Kurt—the husband who never said goodbye.”

            Hatasuko opened his eyes for what felt like the first time in ages. His chest still ached from the lingering pain of the weapon which had pierced him, but he no longer felt the hole in his body. As he slowly gained awareness of the starlit world around him, he realized that he floated in a body of water. He detected a slight current, but it flowed too gently to move him; this certainly was not a river or ocean. A rosy color stained the water. He moved to set his feet down, and before long, he felt the gentle sensation of tiny pebbles between his toes. He straightened out his back and felt several joints crack, but it soothed him more than anything. The wounds on his body had healed, and mended by the water’s touch.

“I’ve heard of the Fons Vitae and its healing waters. This fountain can heal wounds, repair organs—soothe the soul that’s trapped inside human skin. Perhaps the legend is true! Even if it’s a lie, it’s remarkably beautiful,” Hatasuko mumbled, though his voice was groggy.

Hatasuko pulled his golden hair aside and stared at the center of the rose-colored lake. A small cascade poured water from the sky into the center of the pond. The waterfall was so magnificently tall that he could not see where the water flowed from. And since the desert was flat around the lake, no river fed the waterfall from above.

             “There’s a rumor that the water trickles from the heavens. They say that tiny particles of water crash together at the very edge of space, and then it all pours down here. I love it so much; I just think it’s so pretty! I really believe that these waters saved your life,” Vaida said from the edge of the oasis.

As soon as he heard Vaida’s voice, Hatasuko felt something fall into place. He swerved so that he stared at Vaida, though the powerful wind pulled his hair in front of his face. Between his wet strands of flapping hair, he saw her standing in the water near a large sail-rana. Though this ship looked larger than the two that they had used in the past, he cared about nothing other than seeing her again. She stared at him with a smile and a glint in her uncovered eye. He pushed himself to march through the pinkish water until he met her in the shallow water.

She said to him, “You had me so worried! At first I was angry because we left Lazaro to die, and I know that’s not fair… but I guess I just wasn’t ready to lose him. But then you took so long to wake up, and I really started to worry that I lost you too! I’m so sorry I was angry. I’m so sorry we couldn’t beat the Interfectus. I’m so sorry-”

Hatasuko wrapped his big arms around her and said, “Vaida, please try to relax. I’m still here, I promise! And it’s all because of you. I’m only alive because you saved me again, just like you always do. I’ve lost count of how many times I would have died if not for you! You’re like a guiding light or a guardian angel; you’re a beautiful star in the sky, shielding me from my own recklessness.”

            Vaida flinched when he touched her, but she quickly relaxed herself and embraced him. Her strong arms could not reach around him. She let out a little sigh as her breathing slowed back to a healthy pace. As they stood in this embrace with rose-colored water falling from their skin, Hatasuko reached his hand onto her face and held her eyepatch with his right hand.

“May I see the face of my angel?” he asked in a whispered voice.

Vaida pulled her arms away and then took a backward step. Hatasuko let go of the embrace and pulled his hand off her eyepatch, afraid he had done something wrong. But when Vaida stepped back far enough that the wind blew her hair into a frenzy again, she grabbed the band on her eyepatch and pulled it off her face. She held it in her trembling scarred hand and opened her other eye. It stared hollowly ahead as he gazed at her full face. She held a stoic expression for several seconds as he looked across her scars, but then she broke and used her hands to shield her face.

“Vaida, please don’t hide yourself. There’s no need to-”

“I’ll let you see my face, but, um, I still don’t want you to stare. I’ve done it a thousand times. The longer I look at the burns, the more grotesque I become. All these ugly little details start to appear,” she confessed.

“How do you even look at your face to begin with?” he asked.

 

“I always carry a mirror in the sail-rana. Well… no, I used to always carry one. But then I had a bad day and it made me upset,” Vaida answered, crossing her arms with a pout.

Hatasuko glanced down and saw that shallow cuts scattered her right hand and fingers. He struggled to see the cuts since they camouflaged with the dark color of her scarred skin. He sighed and pressed his face into his hand.

“Your mirror made you upset, so you… punched it and broke it?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. It made sense at the time! I didn’t have much else to do on the long trip here. It’s a desert for half the journey,” she explained.

“Why didn’t you put your hand in the water? If it can heal me getting stabbed through the chest, it can definitely heal a few cuts,” Hatasuko suggested.

Vaida scratched her head for a moment, contorted her face like she was thinking, and then jumped toward the deeper water. She crouched and stuck her hand in the rosy water of the Fons Vitae. The sensation of her healing wound caused her to close her eyes and smile. Ripples of water rolled across the pond from her little hand; every ripple shimmered from the light of the pulsing stars. Every tiny drop glistened in the starlight.

“Since the wounds heal so quickly here, they almost always leave some scar tissue behind. But I guess that doesn’t affect me, since my hand’s already so scarred,” Vaida said with a timid giggle.

“Not gonna lie, I kinda regret saying this even as I’m asking it, but… did you ever come here to heal your burns? I still don’t really know anything about how you got them.”

“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry, um, I really don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbled.

“That’s fine! I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have asked. Just forget about it. Anyway, we should really get going. This place is beautiful, but-”

Hatasuko stopped himself when he noticed Vaida stare at the lake with terror; he quickly realized his words sounded like an approaching Interfectus attack. Vaida pulled her hand out of the water and stared at the lake. Her knees trembled as she crouched in the water.

Hatasuko said with a reassuring smile, “Don’t worry! It’s not an attack or anything; it’s the opposite! I actually want to find someone I learned about in the tempest. There might be another way we can defeat the Interfecti.”

“Really? You mean there’s something else we can do?” Vaida asked.

“That’s right! I’ll tell you about it on the way, but let’s get going. We have a long journey ahead of us. We’re going to an island off the coast of Bones City,” he explained.

“But, Bones City… doesn’t that mean-”

“Yep. We’ll have to sail north by wind, boat east by river, drift really far south, and then sail west by wind. It’s going to be a long trek. I hope you packed a lot of fruit!”

             “Of course! You do remember who you’re traveling with, don’t you?” Vaida teased with a shy smile.

Hatasuko and Vaida walked toward the large sail-rana which lay on its side in the hard desert sand. He used his strong arms to pull the ship upright, and then he stepped into the backseat. Vaida climbed into the front seat and opened the sails. The powerful northwest wind struck the sails, inflated them, and then pulled the boat along the ground.

The new sail-rana did not pick up speed as quickly as the last two, but in just a matter of minutes, it moved almost as fast as the wind. Once the ship was up to speed, Hatasuko looked at the floor where they stored their many belongings. He saw a large sack of rocks at the back of the sail-rana with two smaller sacks nearby. There were two whips, his sword, Vaida’s swords, and countless fruit rolling around in the back. He noticed that Lazaro’s belongings were gone, but he remembered that Lazaro had died with his weapons in hand.

“Do you like the new sail-rana?” Vaida asked in between bites.

Hatasuko looked over Vaida’s shoulder and saw that she held an aterpomus in her left hand. He answered, “I like it! It’s a lot bigger, so I’ve finally got some leg room. After I got taller, I thought I would get squished to death in the old one, but this is great! How did you get one on such short notice?”

Vaida laughed quietly as she finished the last of her fruit. Once she ate all she could, she tossed it out onto the desert sand and picked up a ruberpomus. Hatasuko’s eyes lit up when he saw the fruit; a layer of saliva washed across his mouth. Vaida giggled again and then handed it to him.

“This one is actually made from the old ones! I’ve always liked to design things with interchangeable parts. That means the old sail-ranae could be disassembled and reassembled! We run the risk of the ship taking on water if there’s a lot of weight, but I designed them to be pretty watertight,” Vaida answered with enthusiasm.

            Vaida beamed as she gazed at the vehicle around her. Hatasuko watched her as she ran her fingers along the side of the sail-rana. But as he watched, her eyes swiftly switched from happy to somber.

She then added, “While I was waiting for you to wake up, I took apart the old sail-ranae and basically combined them. I had to carve some wood from a fallen tree to make the base wider, but I had a lot of time. You were out for a really long time.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that, I hope I didn’t make you worry too much,” Hatasuko said.

Vaida dropped the albapomus in her hand and grabbed the steering wheel. She had locked it so that the wind would not blow them off a straight-north path, but then she unlocked it and steered very slightly to the left. This meant that they would have to travel farther along the river, but this new direction closely matched the direction of the wind, causing them to roll faster through the desert. Once she locked the steering wheel again, Hatasuko realized that her silence was her response.

“I don’t want to face the possibility more than I have to, but we’re destined to die if we fight the Interfecti. That’s a fate we just have to accept,” Hatasuko mumbled.

“I can’t, um, I can’t agree with you. You sound too much like Lazaro when you say things like that. I understand that I will die on this quest, and I can accept that because I’m expendable. But you are not! You’re not meant to die, and you know it! Lazaro thought you were crazy when you said this was your destiny, but then you became the first Astrodeus. You did things this world’s never seen; that isn’t a coincidence! You’ve been given this power because you are the key that will unlock our salvation. You are still the only hope we have left, so you can’t die. It’s just not your destiny,” Vaida responded.

“But how do you know that? How are any of us supposed to know our destiny?”

“You already told me the answer to this. I asked you when we first met, and do you know what you told me? You said, ‘Have you ever felt something so powerful that you know it has to be true? Even if you can’t see it, even if you can’t describe it, you just know that it’s real. I’m not giving reality the choice to disagree with me.’ I don’t know if you lost sight of that, or if it just slipped your mind after our disaster, but I need you to remember who you are. Reality doesn’t have a choice against us,” Vaida said in her quiet voice.

Hatasuko glanced up and saw that the starlight glistened on the northern horizon, reflecting on the distant river. He narrowed his eyes and saw a dark object move across it. Another sail-rana drifted eastward along the river at a fast speed. Since Vaida could not see the boat with her one working eye, he decided to tell her later; he knew she would like to know that her invention made life easier for someone else.

“You’re right, I’m not gonna give up on this! I’m not expendable, but you sure as hell aren’t either. You’re a lot stronger and smarter than you give yourself credit for, and it’s not just that! The tempest in my head has been flooded with new souls who only know forlorn hope. Their screams are the loudest. If it weren’t for you calming the abyss, then their pain would devour me. You are the only thing keeping me from self-destructing,” Hatasuko explained as he reached his fingers into her dark hair.

Since the wind gusted northwest as the sail-rana rolled north, the wind appeared to blow directly west. Because of this, Vaida’s hair flew to the left side of her head. Hatasuko brushed his left hand through it several times until he finally rested his fingertips on the side of her head. She turned her head slightly and studied his face with her left eye. He smiled when he saw her. Vaida quickly looked away, but then she turned back and showed a shy smile.

            Vaida folded in the sail and pulled down the mast as they approached the river’s edge. A warm steam lifted from the water and gently wafted into the sky; the starlight illuminated the swirling steam. Once the boat decelerated enough, Hatasuko jumped onto the hard desert ground. He grabbed the sail-rana and stopped it from rolling into the river. When it came to a stop, Vaida crawled over to the hatch and opened it up. She switched the gears so that the steering wheel would turn the rudder instead of the wheels, and then she climbed into the backseat. Hatasuko remembered that he had to sit in front for stability, so he pushed the sail-rana until it reached the riverbank. He ran around to the front, jumped into the boat, and used his weight to make the boat roll down the slope. It dropped into the river with a mighty splash, and then he steered the ship to the middle of the river. It flowed faster than usual toward the east.

“I’ll do my best to stay alive, then. Even if I couldn’t calm your tempest, I guess I would still want to live because it’s only fair. I, um, hope this doesn’t sound weird… but I would completely break if I lost you. Dealing with death is really hard for me. I thought I was safe from it when I chose to chase the demons with Lazaro, since… I didn’t have any friends. I couldn’t lose anyone if I didn’t have anyone. But even someone like Lazaro… I still miss him so much. I feel empty without him. I hate feeling like this,” she whispered, looking down and away so that he could not see her face.

“I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with his death. I never thought he would be the first to fall. But I guess in the end, he was ready to die more than any of us. I think that in his heart, he felt more pain than anyone I’ve ever known. He told me once that after he lost his family, after he lost the only thing that gave him meaning, he considered suicide but decided against it. He said he could waste his life in a better way. I wonder if all along, he was waiting for a chance to die like this. But it doesn’t matter, and I don’t care about his reasons, and I don’t care if he felt ready to die! I didn’t want him to die. It’s so hard to get used to someone just suddenly being gone,” Hatasuko responded.

Vaida muttered, “I just thought it would be easier. I don’t really want to get into it, but I lost a lot of people when the Interfectus attacked my city. There was so much pain all at once, and I guess… I think I became obsessed with my own pain. I got addicted to emptiness. All I felt was sadness. When I forgave the world and came out from that dark place, I thought I’d be battle-hardened. I thought I’d be stronger! I thought I’d be strong enough to lose friends. But Lazaro was hardly a friend, in fact he reminded me of my own worthlessness every chance he got. But I still can’t stop myself from crying! I hate how much this hurts. I should feel like a weight’s been lifted, but I miss him more than anything. I just wish I understood why.”

            “Because even though he was an awful man, he had a good heart. We respect him for doing something everyone else is too scared to do, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it. It doesn’t matter. I know that it hurts to lose somebody. I don’t think I ever recovered from losing my mother. But in a way, our sadness is evidence that we once had something wonderful in the first place! Everyone we’ve lost is someone who had a positive impact, and that doesn’t disappear when they die. The sadness we bear is like a trail of their footsteps, showing the marks of every heart they touched,” Hatasuko said as he watched the steam lift off the river.

Vaida watched the desert floor as they floated by. She set down the aterpomus which had been in her scarred right hand, and then she set her hand on the back of his big right shoulder.

With a faint twinkle in her teary eyes, she said, “Thank you, Hatasuko. I think I really needed to hear that.”