TBOTSG-Chapter 24

Boom. A powerful explosion knocked the others down. They were on the ground, holding their ears. Someone had managed to sound the alarm. It was clear what we needed to do. We headed to the control panel, and Alter shut down the reactor. He deactivated all systems. He opened the capsule. All this amidst the sound of footsteps approaching. We could hear them now trying to break down the door to the room where we were in. Arh’aal had recovered enough to aim his weapon at the entrance. So had Zorh’al. Sela was still dazed.

Reeza was inside the capsule. With silver hair, slightly reddish skin, perfectly still. She opened her eyes, and when she looked at me, it seemed like she saw a ghost. She rose slowly. When I took her hand, I felt her connect with the creative energy in the palace of my mind, and instantly, a deafening sound roared: a rift in spacetime opened right behind her, where she began to fall slowly at first, then faster and faster, pulling us after her.

‘We have to help them,’ I said, looking back to where I knew the room had been, but now there was nothing there but void and darkness. She nodded, then released my hand. At that moment, I felt myself reconnecting with my original body, and I made a superhuman effort to hold Alter close to me. When I opened my eyes, I was dizzy. For a second, I didn’t know where I was.

‘It was about time,’ Fox said, reaching out to help me up. We were in the middle of her living room. Nothing unusual, everything neatly in place, the tall windows of the living room were closed.

‘I have something to show you,’ she said, handing me a flyer. I was bewildered. No, it was more than that… I felt crowded in my own mind. Alter… I closed my eyes and felt him. I was relieved. When I opened my eyes and looked closer, I saw that the flyer read Second Home, and I smiled. I hadn’t even left there yet and I had already found it here. But I didn’t mind at all.

‘Look on the back… I found it in the mailbox.’

I turned it over and there, in black marker, was written We’re waiting for you, M.

‘We’re waiting for you,’ I said bemused, and Fox thought I was referring to her.

‘We’re waiting for you… M,’ I repeated to myself, looking at them from my timeless space, relieved that they were safe—her, Alter, and Fox. I closed my eyes and left all three of them behind. I felt myself gradually becoming smaller, less, less myself. I had expended too much energy bringing them home, but I was content: if they were safe, then I was safe. Now I needed to focus on what I should do next. Should I return to the Second Home? I tried to concentrate on my temple, on my beloved garden. But thinking about it reminded me that I had been betrayed right there. And that filled me with blind fury. No, I didn’t want to go back there except to exterminate them. I had offered them a chance to have a life on the Second Home; now I would exterminate them for their treachery. I felt enraged. If I didn’t make a decision quickly, I would consume myself and dissipate into nothingness, I told myself, feeling my thoughts becoming more and more tangled. Perhaps this was my end. And somehow, without being able to form concrete thoughts anymore, I let myself be guided by instinct.

We’re waiting for you, M, I said without realising why or where this thought came from. And I realised I was listening to the pulse of the universe. Somewhere, M was thinking of me. I blinked and moved towards the closest thought of his that I felt. He missed seeing me. That was the world I wanted to reach, so with my last strength, I materialised in the world where I had sent him, at the moment he fondly remembered me. When I incarnated, I found myself in the middle of a street that I recognised. I had been there before. I was sure of it. It was my original world, the place where I had just left her and Alter earlier. And where I had sent M in order to save him.

‘Home?’ I said, and then I couldn’t think anymore.

I could see everything clearly now. The past that was now intertwined with everything. I was larger than I had been before, because now I was everything that had ever existed within me. But also what was yet to come. I felt the future as keenly as I felt the past. I was Reeza again, the one whom people had worshipped. The sensation seemed strange to me. In a way, it felt as if I had been a witness to the existence of other beings, not my own. But now I felt strong. I was finally ready to step through the rift and leave behind my original world, M, Fox, and even Filip, whom I had grown attached to during my time in that material form. But now, I was ready. I was myself again. For a moment, I wondered which was my true self, but then it seemed foolish, and I realised that I had never had a taste for self-irony as a goddess. This experience had changed me. Just as I knew it would continue to change me from here on. Be brave, I told myself. And I smiled because I realised that I was experiencing the thrill of discovery for the first time in millennia. I was glad that I could still feel things even though I had changed my form. And I stepped beyond.

I looked around, struggling to understand what was happening. Hundreds of aircraft filled the sky, deploying people and equipment; others, further away, dropped bombs. Struck vessels fell from the sky, leaving trails of smoke. Loud noises of contorted metal, impacts with the ground, and screams filled the air. As I looked closer, everywhere people were dying – aboard the downed ships, in ground battles, engulfed in flames, burned by their enemies’ weapons, all on the brink of death. But slowly, despite their engagements, they all stopped and began to look upwards. Not at me. But beyond me. I turned my head and saw what they were screaming about. Meteorites. First a few, then more and more, entering the atmosphere and igniting. The sky had streaks of purple clouds. When the first meteorite struck one of the clouds, an explosion shook the entire world. For a moment, both I and those below were stunned by the flames above us. I felt enchanted by the spectacle of fire in a strange way. It was terrible yet beautiful, unlike anything I had seen before. Then I realised people were praying. Praying to gods, any gods, but more than anything, they prayed to Reeza. A chill ran through me as I remembered what I needed to do. Why I had hurried back to where I belonged. Where my home actually was.

I looked at them, expecting them to have stopped fighting. What was the point anymore? But I realised the battles had become even fiercer. And looking from above, all the conflicts seemed to converge toward one place. Every thought… every single thought? Yes, no one was contemplating their own death; they were all thinking one thought: we must save Reeza. I looked into the distance, chills down my spine, and saw the temple where I had been a prisoner. I had wanted to kill them all when I was saved. I knew I was no longer there. I had just returned home, to the other time. And now I looked around and felt overwhelmed by so much death. I had punished them enough with my absence, with my helplessness, with my lack of involvement. I felt like I could have prevented all these deaths, but I had done nothing.

I closed my eyes and focused on what I needed to do. I went into the burning cloud and absorbed all its energy. At first slowly, then more eagerly. I had consumed a lot of energy just to come here. I needed it. Once I absorbed the entire cloud, it seemed like the world lit up. I saw how people finally stopped fighting and were all looking up. This time not at meteors or flames, but at me. Not with fear but with hope. A unified hope that made me shiver yet made me press on. I exited the atmosphere and looked at the thousands of meteors, some truly massive, still in space and not yet in the atmosphere, and sent a powerful pulse of energy to divert them to another path. I had saved the planet, I knew. The meteors already in the atmosphere were not powerful enough to cause irreversible damage.

But what about the people below? Those who were now shouting my name? What would happen to them?

I felt like I had already exhausted my powers. So I went to one of the meteors and absorbed all the energy it had accumulated during its fall, then turned it into dust. Then, slightly recharged, I sent a pulse of energy that pulverised several dozen meteors. And I did it again and again and again. Until the remaining ones started hitting the planet. The world turned into a new kind of hell. Horrified screams. Explosions. The smell of burning, of destruction. Screams.

Then complete silence. Many, very many had died, yet the Second Home had been saved. As well as many lives that would have otherwise been cut short. For a moment, I thought it was over, that now we could rebuild.

I felt something. A presence. My brothers. They had probably been saved in the hope that they could prevent the meteor shower. I could feel their hatred permeating towards me from hundreds, thousands of kilometres away. I wanted to open space to reach the nearest one, but I didn’t have enough energy. I headed towards his energy and when I got there, I saw that he had pulverised everything in an area of several kilometres and then probably left; I could feel him moving away from the planet. I sensed three other energies. I went towards the nearest one, and there Hai’yal was killing people one by one in extremely bloody ways. When I arrived, he and the surroundings were covered in blood. I noticed that there were people on the ground who were alive, crouched in a bow with their foreheads to the ground and waiting for their end in perfect stillness, seemingly determined to die by the hand of their god so he could absolve them of their sins. Hai’yal held a man by the neck. His uniform was dirty, torn, burned… it looked like he had been through a lot. I looked at his legs as he barely moved them in an attempt to find the ground and realised that he was still alive.

‘Hai’yal, no!’ I shouted from where I stood. Then I went to him and put my hand on his.

‘Please!’

He looked at me with a face contorted by hatred.

‘Ungrateful animals,’ he said, and released the man. He looked around disgustedly. And then he too left. Without saying another word, he took off into the air, and I wondered if I would ever see him again.

Another energy was fading away. Salvation had probably come too late for him. Then I felt one last energy became clearer and clearer. It was coming towards me.

‘Sol!’

‘Reeza!’

He hugged me, his body still half human, and I felt how different his energy was. It vibrated in a completely new way, as if he himself had been transformed into something else.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked, looking at him affectionately. I suddenly felt relieved, happy. I realised how much I had missed him.

‘I have a lot to tell you.’

He paused, as if trying to figure me out. It seemed he was looking at me with the same eyes with which I looked at him. Warm, affectionate. Curious.

‘What have you been up to? Where have you been?’

He brushed a strand of hair away from my face, and I then noticed I was in fully human form. I didn’t know when I transformed, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to take this form not for humans, but for myself. I could feel emotions. And I felt so much more… I felt the fear of the people slowly lifting their heads and staring at us. And I felt how fear transformed into something else. Into confusion, curiosity, hope, reverence. I liked the feeling. And I felt something else. I felt Sol. And he felt the same pleasure as I did. The same affection for them. For us.

‘If you want…’

‘I do,’ he said, reading my unformed thoughts. ‘But not here… Fiiuea… That’s where we need to go.’

Before we left, I breathed energy over the people below, and I saw them rise up now spryly, happy that they had escaped, embracing each other, laughing and crying for the luck and misfortune that had befallen them.

We walked together towards Fiiuea. We both knew exactly where she was. My pendant pulsed against her chest, and she knew we were coming. Everywhere we passed, people seemed to move aimlessly amidst the ruins. Everything was destroyed. Craters left by the meteors, debris, buildings engulfed in flames, the smell of burnt flesh. Then, as we approached the areas where the battles had been fought, it was even worse because there, among the fallen ships, rubble, corpses, and dying people who seemed to share a common thought. We both sent out a wave of energy to give them at least a chance until help could reach them, who knows when. I felt increasingly drained of energy and longed for a journey towards the sun. Sol squeezed my hand, as if telling me to be patient.

When we arrived, Fiiuea was indeed waiting for us, prepared. Two thrones of liquid gold had been taken from some temple near by and placed in the middle of a smoother area, a rare thing after the devastation. It struck me as fascinating that something had escaped destruction. Then I saw the people around us, and a sense of relief overwhelmed me when I saw them gathering by the thousands. When Fiiuea saw us, she waved her hand, and I saw drones being launched into the air, ready to form a screen.

We approached the thrones and knew this was why we had come, yet we both hesitated for a moment. We could have done what our brothers had done. Leave and go on with our lives somewhere in the cosmos, or perhaps on the planets of other mortals, if we felt nostalgic. But in that moment, we both understood that the Second Home was exactly that for us. Our home.

We sat on the thrones, and I noticed everyone looking up at our projection in the sky. It was an image that, we both knew well, was being broadcast across the entire planet’s surface.

Fiiuea made the first bow before us and then said:

‘Long live Reeza and Sol, the gods of hope and rebirth.’

Every mortal on the planet chanted these words in unison, and for the first time in my and Sol’s existence, I felt something incredible. A sensation we had never felt before, but it was as real as could be. Their love for us charged us, lifted us, made us greater than we were. It wasn’t us who had chosen to stay, but our children who had now rediscovered us and accepted our help.