Original Souls (A World Apart #1) (11 page)

"I can'
t
— I'm scared," he whispered.

"Corinth, you have to find the courage inside of you to do this. This is a serious situation. If we don't get out here befor
e—
" I didn't want to think about it that way, so I just shut my mouth. The
y’
ll collapse soonon Corint
h’
s weight, if he does
n’
t move. He was hanging on a hope and a prayer. Still, I looked at the boards and knew that they were too damaged to keep up while he was fidgeting about. He was too scared to stand still.

He gripped and clung to every ounce of wall he could get his fingers on, while his mother seemed to take a disturbing leave of absence from reality. She continued growing. Her head bounced back and forth without focus slightly below us, and that's where his sight was aimed. But I needed Cory to focus on this, on our own dilemma before the inevitable occurred.

The fall was gut wrenching and unannounced! He jerked while watching his mother, and the twisted up floorboards around him dropped straight through. I helplessly watched him tumble down into the living room below, just evading a collision with a growing Julia. His head hit the downstairs floor hard. The only thing there to break his fall was the debris from the first collapse. It was no soft landing. My only hope is that he wasn't impaled by anything sharp. He laid there unconscious as a seething Julia ferociously snapped to attention. She looked to his seemingly lifeless body, and then to me with a thunderous shout.

"This is your fault!!!" Her face was bloated to the point that she could barely see, or I suspect that she can't see, because I can't see her eyes at all. They're both lost in the confusing mess tha
t’
s become her face and body. Sh
e’
d already outgrown the living room, and soon the upstairs bedroom if something didn't give. All of her limbs extended far beyond the reach of any ordinary human being. She couldn't be stopped now, unless I did something drastic. Something I had no intention of doing, but was able to pull off. She passed into the upstairs area, now looking down at me. Her head was ready to crash through the rooftop when I made my decision.

I pulled out the llave I took from the cheetah girl back at the factory and hoped for the best. I wish I had used it to save Cory before the collapse, but it was too sudden. I have no idea how stable this thing is. I hope it can hold the surge of my power going through it. I took a good look over the detail of it and almost threw it across the room. The thing looks-cheap. No spells were written on it to protect it from being easily knocked out of rotation, so
I’
ll have to play this safe. Even if I can get this thing to work with Julia so close, it could still break on me.

I put the key into rotation. It started up shaky. The thing looked exhausted an overused. Cheap too, if I had
n’
t mentioned that already. I suppose this llave wasn't even the cheetah girls. It must have been some sort of hand me down. It had scratches that looked to be way too many years in the making for that girl's apparent age. It kept spinning at my chest, but had a hard time picking up pace. I needed this thing to at least be rotating fast enough to get out a couple of powerful spells. If it could do that then all could be saved.

I looked out and Juli
a’
s new form wasn't very pleasing to behold. Sh
e’
s high above me, head bobbing for imaginary apples, and she looks pissed that she hasn't found any. I grimly stared up at her while she descended into madness.

"Julia, you're losing it, like most of the Great Eight. This is documented. Not just myths. That's why there's a law against this. I
t’
s too dangerous for a normal person to take on. You've got to break free or else this whole place is going to blow," I temperately cautioned her, but it only made things worse.

"You think
I’
m normal," she screamed down at me. "I am the creator of a World apart from the Puente del Cielo. The others, they pretend that the walls that once separated the Worlds have been broken down, but I know better. I've created a place of grandeur and freedom of expression. This paradise will never be claimed by the likes of a Draconian. You are a disease here, Criston. You and your sour people are a disease that must be eradicated. I am the bringer of punishment, here to seek vengeance against all those who Draconia and its leaders have wronged
!
” A sanctimonious chant that wasn't as demented as one might think. Draconia does suck, but i
t’
s not a diseas
e
… per se.

All of her worse qualities and feelings were being drawn out by the feasting power inside of her. I knew she hated living in Draconian, heck I did too. Especially after all tha
t’
s happened. Still, this power is too much for one person to bear alone. I should have been here for her. If we had split the burden things would have turned out differently. Her mind is being eaten away by the all consuming power she manifested. The weight of a world is literally on her shoulders. Unfortunately for her, I'm here to make it just a little bit worse.

The-cheetah girl's used llave had gained enough traction on its rotation by now. I hope i
t’
s ready to do what must be done. I hope that my power doesn't overwhelm this thing. I still need it for one last trick after my first spell, if this plan is poised to go as I planned it.

I was standing on the eroding landing in the hallway, when Julia flicked one of her massive hands my way. I wasn't expecting it. She seemed disoriented at different times, but I guess she got her wits back. The force sent me backward, knocking against the wall. Another weak hit from a tired Julia. Just like the attack that sparked out of her llave downstairs, this hit failed to put me out of commission. The llave of the cheetah girl lost some traction, its rotation perturbed, but it held. I laid flat on my back with my head propped up against the wall behind me. I stared clear into the bathroom as my sight began refocusing. I turned back to Julia. Her arms waved wildly, like a banshee that just found out her husband's been cheating. I figured her angry tirade is all the more reason to get out while this raggedy key is still spinning.

Standing up would put me right back in the firing lines, so without bothering to get up I yelled out to the four winds. "Teletransportar De Dos!" and instantly both Corinth and I disintegrated into a black and blue dust cloud. But before we were clear of Julia's tyranny, the llave exploded into a fine golden dust. Corinth and I are on our own now. I had no way to rectify what's gone wrong here. Luckily, the spell took. We were lifted up by the wind and carried to the gate of this new World, Corinthia.

I looked back to Julia for a moment, as her overgrown form took hold of the beautiful home she had built for our family. Her ego overwhelmed her and she overwhelmed the capacity of the beach house on the seashore. Her arms and legs came bursting through the bay windows facing the blue oceans. With one last anger-fueled-gestur
e—
she tore the house into two separate pieces. She raised her arms into the air and shouted something in rage. She had outgrown the house in mere minutes. There was nothing left that I could do as pieces of wood and metal flew all across the shoreline.

My intention was to put her to sleep with a spell calle
d‘
Nox
.
’ I learned it from my father. I
t’
s powerful and very useful to insomniacs. But it could be quite the attack if peppered with a steady hand. A strong wielder could render someone unconscious for days. It takes some time to put a powerful person to sleep though, so I hoped that the distance I put between Julia and I would give me the time necessary to ease her to slumber. I wanted to soothe her pain, ease the burden that she must now carry alone. If I could have done that, she would have the time needed to adjust to her new role as the builder of an entire World. Her mind must be racing a million miles a minute with me here to provoke her.

The only way to end her suffering now is for me to go. But ther
e’
s no question now that I have to take Corinth. Juli
a’
s shown that sh
e’
s not ready to carry this weight yet. She needs time. Time alone to learn the ins-and-outs of absolute power. But if there's anyone who can do i
t—
i
t’
s her. I'm sure she'll follow in the footsteps of Aurora, the greatest of the Great Eight.

Corinth was deposited by the spell just at my feet. I scooped him up off the ground, and then turned to walk up to the golden gate that nearly crushed me a day ago. "Insert key, please." For a second, I wondered if I needed a key to get back out, but the gate quickly put that fear to rest. It responded almost immediately after I spoke. Now, off Corinth and I are, back to reality, back to the Puente del Cielo.

From the corner of my right eye, I saw Julia's bloated body and ego dragging itself toward us, but it was far pass too late. I shed a lone tear for her. She didn't think this through. She forgot about the stories. Some say that they too are myths, but we all know what happened to them. I
t’
s been a thousand years, but tha
t’
s not long enough for eight cultures to forget the Ancestry Wars. But unlike the Great Eight, she acted for noble reasons. She did this to protect her son. She is the mother of the year, if not the century. She'll see Corinth again.

While the dazzling lights consumed us, I looked down and thought that maybe my boy was coming to. Only a few moments passed, we seemingly glided through the pillar of Corinthia, and before I knew it, he and I were on the sky bridge. The sun is shining above, and everything is as it should be. The twilight should be coming soon. We left Corinthia in the morning, so nightfall on the bridge was likely imminent.

It almost feels as if we were never in Corinthia. The feeling completely washed away. The sun's light reflected off the gold and silver railings of the bridge, and straight into my eyes, taking me out of my thoughts. It was that bright. In fact, it's so bright out here that it gave me an instant headache. Corinth was still unconscious, so I laid him down on the sidewalk, cupping his head in my hands, checking for any serious wounds. I still couldn't get a read on anything.

The su
n’
s intensity seemed to be flaring with every passing moment. I
t’
s odd that my eyes haven't adjusted yet. We'd been here a few minutes now. I don't recall in all my life in Draconia it ever taking this long for my eyes to adapt. The sun couldn't be that bright this late in the day. I could barely see Corinth's body right in front of me at this point. I thought maybe I was passing out again from all the wear and tear of the last crazy couple of days, but I felt as pink as a pistol. Still on an adrenaline high.

I started feeling around in front of me because the light seemed to be intensifying even more, instead of mellowing out. I knew this could
n’
t be an ordinary situation, so I reached farther. I felt something hard as I inched forward. Something cold and round on my hand. It felt like the steel toes o
f
—

"We didn't want it to come down to this," said a familiar voice.

Then suddenly, as if on cue, a different, much louder voice came over a booming megaphone. "Put your hands on your head now! If you fail to comply you will be shot down where you are!" the rumbling male voice made no apologies for its abruptness. So, I stood up, putting my hands on my head. The blaring lights started to come down. As they did, it revealed a new sight for the Puente del Cielo. It was filled with high-powered spotlights on the tops of rough terrain camouflage vehicles from Squadron.

These green and brown jeeps had all the stops necessary for a cop to do his job under any circumstances and then some. The steel-toed boots I felt were those of a member of my own Squadron team. At first, I suspected Evan, but I should have known better to doubt my greatest friend. But the shockwave that came over me when the lights on the jeeps went out completely was earth shattering.

“
Geary
!
” I could
n’
t stop my lips from saying it aloud. One of four team members that were said to have died back in the factory. He was apparently still alive, but Evan told me that he and the others were taken out. Perhaps he was misinformed, because here Geary is standing at an angle in front of me. He was grounded to the left side of Corinth's now flinching body. My boy could not have picked a worse time to start waking up.