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Genesis[04.08.00] » by Mess It was unfortunate that she could see again. For the lights - the lights were blinding. Scattered and staring. Ultimately confusing in their own way, although after everything that had happened she was not easily flustered. The woman - if one could still call her a woman - hadn't realized how much she relied on the darkness. One cannot wrap one's self in the light, or childishly pretend to be cocooned in some imaginary fortress of blankets. For when illumination pierces sanctuary it cuts like a laser, a surgical strike against the complacency of comfort. Eyelids open, it becomes harder to tell one's self that all is dream or that dream is all. There had to be a reason that she could see. Nothing happened without a reason in this place. Not hope, or even madness. Before she was taken away she had heard that there were devices for that - drugs, maybe. They were fond of the drugs, whatever they were doing. Until that horrific moment when the light had seared her eyes once more she might have sworn that this was not a torture chamber but her mother's womb. The chemicals were subtle and quick and those who would administer them reaching even greater levels of complexity. They were, after all, skilled enough to let her imagine what they were doing. Men like that must want things that way. Not that she knew them - lamb, they had named her - but mulling over her thoughts in the period between descent and eternity had produced a peculiar understanding. Could they picture that, throw it up on silicon more mystical to the senses than any ether effect? Most likely. They could do anything, if they could do this to her. Sometimes she hoped that they would let her go mad. This was one of those times. For her eyes could see, and what they saw was the tattered rag of a body reflected in titanium mockery. A bulkhead - was that it? Or a funhouse mirror. And the twisted, gaunt shapes beyond the fluid were so distinct that as they danced before her vision she could just reach out and touch them... If she could move. Which she could not. Indeed, she would rather be mad than see the patched up corpse which sunk beneath her field of vision. It was good that her eyeballs could move. It felt nice. Like a breath of air might enter her lungs right then and there - a dram of hope to steel her nerves. Why would they do that? It was cruel, and it was needless. For her eyelids stood at stiff attention, forced into the same paralysis as her psyche. They should... they should let her go mad. Or was this the reason that they teased her senses? She'd know that whatever was to be done there would be no choice, but why, why, why were they letting her see this... They? No. Him. There was only one. She knew that now, and treasured it - savored turning such a rare new concept about in her mind. There was one. One to hold at the firing line on the day of judgment. A judge that saw to her every flaw and and every fate, illuminated in the clinical glow of that merciless, merciless light. Surely he was the one they feared in the holding pens, their Lord to drag them away in the night. Lord Krelian. That was it. Krelian. She could feel the texture of that too. Once the supposed woman had had her own name as well. That didn't matter, though. That was stagnant and forgotten in the sterile waste surrounding her. Krelian. He was beautiful, she decided. She knew that he shouldn't be.. but he was. Wasn't he the one that took the pain away? Wasn't he the one that had given her her eyes in some cruel act of mercy? Wasn't he the one that they said was not even human? It shouldn't be so hard to hate him... it shouldn't be so easy to think that he was trying to help her... but he was. He was, he was, he was, he was going to let her go mad and then she would see mother and father and... Help her? She was mad. The needle pricked. It has always pricked. It would always prick - drawing away her life more slowly and painfully than the common torture of time itself. But she didn't.. she couldn't...feel it as much, when she concentrated on him. On what he was doing, or thinking perhaps. Was that a furrow on his banded brow? Was she a failure? Did he want to kill her oh how she wanted him to kill her then she would be free, free, free, and flying far away to mother and father... He stopped and looked. Yes, he should look at her. See every backlit crevice which she could not possibly hide with far greater clarity than might be granted her own misshapen eyes.. Yes, yes, yes... judge her, kill her, save her for she was mad and he had succeeded and didn't he see that he had succeeded and now, now he would take her away, take all of it away... The plexiglass shielded blur moved back. Where was he going? Why was he leaving? He was, he was supposed to... Nothing here happened without a reason. Nothing. They had told her that in the holding cells, in the fever dreams. After a while they had become her and she them and all of it a memory. But they had said so, and she had believed. Yet he wasn't there. He wasn't. He hadn't done anything... And there was no reason for her to gaze upon a chamber of uniform nightmares. And there was no reason for her to be caught in this unnatural chrysalis. For when the light was gone, she saw that the room was lined with creatures just like her. Their deformities would be of little function in a world beyond glass. They had been wrong in the holding pens - they had been wrong.... and she could do nothing but hope that the forgotten reams of tissue around her would not meet with the same terrible fate. It was a terrible thing to be forgotten. If only he really would surrender her to it. Insanity, death... it did not matter. Such demons were one and the same in their damnation of the soul to oblivion. Krelian, Krelian.. he was not there to surrender her, and she had to find a way to close her eyes... For there were no miracles here. And there was nothing else to be done. *** He didn't want to be seeing this. A hulking mass of flame - some mythical avenging angel in the guise of the fires of hell. He didn't want to be seeing this... She didn't deserve it. Dear God, she didn't deserve it. There was a woman in there, that territory conquered by death and fire. Someone with a soul so beautiful that it hurt the eyes for more than the plague of flame that engulfed it. Such a woman should not have been in a place like that. Yet really, when it came down to it, she might also have been the only one of their number who could have borne it. No. No, that wasn't right. The general would have died for Sophia, or even the simple chance to be her knight in shining armor. For her countenance, her character - it was the stuff of the dreams of saints. Balm to the penitent and warning to the damned. A priest might have killed for her smile. That cleric would not have been a fanatic. Or at least Krelian liked to think so. Why - why had she gone? His Holy Sophia - the only light in this interminable darkness. She didn't deserve it... she was better than that. Better than them all. God had to have a greater destiny for her, of all people. The man beside him didn't know that, and the man beside him was a fool. Well built, and undeniably talented, the painter Lacan wasn't with her. Why not? She deserved to have him with her... she who would throw herself upon the alter at the thought of him. But Lacan rejected her smiles, didn't he? Lacan was a coward, useless and moping - hiding from Sophia in self-indulgent despair. Couldn't he understand how he made her suffer? Did he think that he had the right to be so thoughtless, that God had sent her to this place to be his crutch? The artist had damned her to sacrifice in his own misguided way. God must have wanted him to live. Lacan... why had she called to him? That was simple. That was love - her unshakable source of inexhaustible energy and General Krelian's eternal enigma. That was what made her special, he supposed. Not ivory skin in creamy robes, or the glint of wisdom in skylit eyes. To teach a soldier like Krelian... she would have to understand love. The general certainly didn't. The reality of a scourge of ashes pouring down from the heavens was hard enough for him to grasp. Those bastards in Solaris.. was this beneficial for them? Had Sophia bought their power with her soul? When one was young, one wished upon the harbingers of night. Krelian might have wished that he could see her heart in the depths of an eight-pointed star. The world was frigid despite the most grandiose funeral pyre the planet might ever bear witness to. Krelian's skin was marked by the goosebumps brought on with morning dew. But maybe.. maybe she hadn't left him. Holy Sophia, chosen of God - surely she would be spared the divine wrath? Sophia had once told him that all was possible under the grace of God. The priestess had stated that faith and love would give him wings, if he let it. And love... love was what she had used to resuscitate his soul when war had condemned it. Maybe not the love he wanted, the love he would have cherished... but enough. Faith comes from within, perfect coral lips recited. And when he was with her... he felt like he understood that. He felt like he understood everything. God would save her, on a wing and a prayer. "Dear God, give her your salvation." A broken man on his knees - not an odd sight, to say the least. Moist earth scorched his senses to a greater degree than the inferno that his subconscious refused to acknowledge. Krelian knew that he was being irrational - and didn't care. Cacophony in his mind; the voice of his beloved pleading for his trust in their protector. Faith comes from within, she said. Be strong, for faith comes from within.... "God, I supplicate myself to you. For salvation. God, she deserves your salvation. It should have been one of us.... My pain shouldn't matter, but you have to save her God... please..." A sob cut down by the fury of another explosion. Apparently, damage had reached the fuel tanks. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. But Sophia is pure. Sophia believes more than any of us wretched, tainted sinners. Sophia, Sophia... she brought us to you. She understands what it is to trust you. We deserve your wrath... Not her..... God, work your miracle.. God, God where is your miracle... she deserves a miracle. This cannot be what you intended, God... There is no sense in this. " Yet it was not the phoenix burning. The phoenix shed dull tears with a death knell of a prayer. "God....God.. she said.. she said that love would save us. God.. she said you loved.. that Lacan loved... I don't understand." She was so perfect, so beautiful. Holy Sophia, the Light of Nisan... God was supposed to save her. Love was supposed to save her. But there was no resurrection to be had, and the light wa.s naught but the memory of hellfire. Yet every scrap of faith that a battered soul had ever possessed wanted her back. -- Two days later they held the funeral. General Krelian was nowhere to be found after the ceremony. It was said that he was at the site of the... incident. What is said in such circles in usually correct, and indeed the brooding commander could be found there. Love had not been enough. Faith had not been enough. It had been obvious since the first inkling of inferno. The fact had played on his denial when static-obscured screams ended, and the world cracked. Or, perhaps more accurately, his soul had. The general should have known. Sophia had said that faith would open up the path to whatever one hoped for. Sophia had been wrong. If there was a god, he would have saved her from the void. Ergo, there was no god. No god that she could have recognized would have cursed her with such an empty fate. Holy Sophia, Mother of Hope - dead for her love's empty eyes and a handful of slavers. He wished that he could think her life fulfilled and glorified at the right hand of divinity. He wished that the chill would not numb him so. It was all so simple... so wrong. There was no ultimate purpose behind her action. No arcane meaning leapt from the ashes which had become playthings of the wind. And no angel descended from the heavens to apply some sacred balm to reality. There were only the beings which had failed to protect her. Frail, conquerable creatures with their false pretenses. But he would set things right. " If god does not exist in this world, then... I shall create god with my own hands!" For madness was not an option. Insanity, death... it did not matter. He would give her death a reason - give all of them who so desperately needed to believe a reason. Maybe even grant himself some essential purpose... For there were no miracles here. And there was nothing else to be done. - Fin - Author's note: The first part takes place roughly five hundred years after the second. The woman is indeed one of Krelian's test subjects - future Etone fodder. And yes, Virginia.. there really is a parallel. If only Krelian's head wan't so hard to get into... |
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