Otherland (18 page)

CHAPTER 30

Aliyah heard him before she saw him. “I come from Otherland. There is no heaven, no eternal bliss that you’ve been promised your entire pathetic lives. All of those weak who continue to hold on to the lies of religion will die. Those who bow to me now will be spared. I am the Dark master. The only way you will live well and prosper is through me. Ah, my example to the world, right on time.” With a flick of his hand, he spread the huge crowd surrounding him, so that he and Aliyah were facing one another twenty feet away.

“Don’t be shy, sweetie. Your suffering now will be a mere moment in eternity, though your suffering there
will
be eternal. A destiny you could have never hoped to escape.” He pointed his arm toward her, and she instantly felt the pressure on her throat as he dragged her toward him without touching her.

“Aliyah here is good,” he said in disgust. “She wants to save all the little kiddies in the world. She believes in hope, happiness, and all she’s ever wanted in her life was love. Watch how easily I can crush all her hopes and dreams.”

“He’s wrong,” she choked. He released the pressure around her throat for a moment. “They are Dark spirits, unable to freely roam this world without a body to possess. By turning people dark, turning people bad, by making them afraid, making you bow,” she gestured toward the dozens of people on their knees, “They can come to possess your bodies, discard your souls, and do with you whatever they want. But the blood will be on your hands, on your conscience, once they’re through with you. You’ll have to remember all the horrible things you did, all the people you hurt. It will haunt you and eat you alive, until you can’t even look at yourself in the mirror anymore, until you can’t sleep, because every time you close your eyes, you’ll know what you did, what they made you do, but what you allowed them to do as well.

“The only way to resist them. The only way to be safe. Is to not give in. Don’t stop hoping, don’t stop believing, don’t stop loving, don’t stop being good. We were all given free will for a reason, so that we would never be left without choice. No matter how much they threaten, no matter what they do, no matter how afraid they make you, the ultimate choice of turning dark or staying light is yours and yours alone. Whatever you choose will be the consequences you will not only have to face throughout the duration of your human life, but in the eternal life as well.”

“Enough!” Dwayne bellowed, increasing the pressure on her throat once again, and this time lifting her off the ground. “I am the Dark master, and this is what happens to those that betray me.”

There were those in the crowd that shrieked, others gasped, and others broke down crying, as Aliyah’s body fell limp, lifeless, just like that.

“What the - ?” He dropped her, and felt the fury boil over inside him. Even in the end, she’d taken his satisfaction. He’d meant for her to have a slow, painful death where she’d have to watch herself dying, and she’d have to finally confront the realization that he’d won. That in the end,
he’d
won, not her.

Instead, she’d stolen from him the moment he’d been waiting for his entire life and his eternity, by dropping dead before he could first make her suffer.

“Ahhhhh!” he screamed. “Burn the - .” Suddenly he was slammed hard, the pressure pushing him back 50 feet, 100, 150, until his body was being crushed against the brick of the schoolhouse. All the windows shattered in the school to the sounds of screaming children.

The Light knight could only grin in fierce pride, “That’s my girl. That’s your Momma, Jasper. Something amazing. Always has been.”

The doors to the school went flying across the parking lot.

“Get the children,” Jacob said to the confused crowd of spectators. They became instantly alive with renewed purpose, and went running toward the school.

“Aliiiiyaaaaaah!” Dwayne yelled, helpless in the human body suspended in the air and unable to break free from her spirit’s hold. He looked all around, but couldn’t see her, and the body was disrupting his ability to sense her. The Light knight stayed positioned next to her body to ensure no harm would come of it. One man remained kneeled on the ground. The Light knight kneeled before him, and looked into his eyes.

“It’s okay. I know you’re afraid, but signing your soul over to evil will not protect you or keep your family safe, I promise you that.”

Dwayne continued yelling. “There’s one thing I’ve always told you, Aliyah, that you’ve always refused to listen to. You can’t … save … everyone!” In three seconds slow motion, Aliyah saw it all, as Dwayne left his possessed body, flung himself toward the man kneeling on the ground while screaming in scorching pain, entered the man’s body, grabbed the flip-blade from his pocket, and stabbed the Light knight in the chest.

“Noooo!” Aliyah cried, returning to her body. She kicked the possessed man so hard in the chin that he flew backwards, unconscious.

“I win,” she heard his whisper breeze across her ear, before his piercing scream evaporated into his imprisoned haven of darkness.

“Was not … expecting … that,” Jacob said lightly, but then he began to cough. Blood dribbled down his chin.

“Jacob, Jacob, no, Jacob. Did he pierce your heart or just a lung? If it’s a lung, we can fix that. I can save you. Gooooood!” she screamed in an agony so devastating that it broke the Light knight’s heart. She did love him still after all. That’s all he’d needed to know.

CHAPTER 31

“The prophecy - .” Jacob woke up abruptly. Lydia was standing over him. The moment he opened his eyes, she began crooning over him, kissing his face, her tears falling on him.

“Oh, Jacob. I thought you were going to go back there and not come back, and not fight for your body to live. It just missed you heart. Punctured your lung. They’ve had to do a few blood transfusions because they couldn’t stop the bleeding on the inside. They said you might live if you fight it. But you were gone, so your body wasn’t working to block the hole and stop the bleeding.

“Don’t you ever scare me again. Don’t you ever do that. You’re staying here, and you’re going to fight for your body to heal and live, and I refuse for you to go back there until your body is strong enough.” This was all said very rapidly, between tearful kisses everywhere on his face.

“You missed a spot,” he lazily smiled.

“Where?”

“My left temple.”

She kissed him there. “Anywhere else?”

“Well, I do have more than a face. I’ve got an entire body, as yet unkissed.”

She smacked his arm. “You think this is funny?”

“Actually, this is probably the best moment of my life, right here, right now, with you. If it takes me nearly dying to get your attentions and your affections, then that’s a chance I’m willing to take on a daily basis. I now understand this death-wish thing.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, “You’re heavily medicated right now. I’m not going to believe a thing you say while you’re on a morphine-high. Besides, you could have had my affections and my attentions long ago had you made different choices. We could have married and had a family and grown old together in the natural order of things, but you always had higher priorities than something as mundane as that.”

“I would have liked that very much,” he said, closing his heavy eyes. Pain shot up through his arm from her pinch, and his eyes opened wide again.

“Open your mouth.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

She poured a five-hour energy drink down his gagging throat, then covered his mouth to keep him from spitting it back out. “Are you … trying … to kill … me?” he coughed, every cough sending spasms of pain throughout his chest.

“No, I’m trying to save you. You can’t go back to sleep. You and I both know where we go when we sleep deeply, and I can’t keep going in there trying to rescue you, leaving Jasper vulnerable to being kidnapped again. Enjoy the morphine now, because it’s all you’re getting. Then you’re going to have to deal with the pain, because I can’t risk you falling asleep in a drug-induced state.”

“Well your tactics aren’t compassionate … to say the least. But I now know you love me.”

“Stop it. I’m just once again responsible for saving your life.”

“You looove me. You looove me,” he sang.

“I’ll walk out this door right now. There are people dying right now, because of me, and I’m sitting here by your side, instead of saving them, while you act like you’re dying just to get some attention.”

“Where’s Jasper?”

“Sleeping. It’s all he ever does. It concerns me. I picked up a book that said babies his age are supposed to want to eat like every two hours, yet he sleeps for six, and then just lies there and waits for me to feed him instead of crying like normal babies.”

“Do you think he remembers?” Jacob asked.

“I don’t know. I’m more concerned that he’s going back there when he’s sleeping, and he’ll wind up captured and won’t wake up. I’ve bitten every single one of my nails off, see? Right down to the skin, just staring at him and urging him to wake up to let me know he’s still here.” She showed him her nails.

“Welcome to parenthood. That’s more normal than you actually think.”

“It’s normal to fear that your baby is travelling to Otherland while he’s sleeping, risking being captured by the Lost ones, imprisoned by the Dark souls, or falling into the Nothingness?”

“Well …” Jacob laughed.

“You went back there, didn’t you?” she gave him the look, the tilted eye that said whatever answer he provided he was going to get in trouble anyway.

“I came back, didn’t I? I have to tell you about the prophecy.”

“Oh, so you didn’t come back for me. You came back to fulfill your duty in telling me about this stupid prophecy you keep trying to talk about.”

“Aliyah, it’s not like that.”

“It
is
like that, Jacob; has always been. I can never trust what you’re doing of your own free will or what you’re doing out of
duty.
Had you already told me what you’ve been instructed to tell me, would you have come back?”

“Of course,” he said, but he’d hesitated. “Aliyah,” he called at her back as she was walking out the door with the sleeping Jasper.

“You’re not the only one with a job to do, Jacob. I’m just the one doing it because I want to, and not because I’ve been told to.”

“Where are you going now?”

“I remembered a way to kill them. It’s from my childhood. I need to find the person who has it and retrieve it.”

“Then sit down, hold my hand, talk to me. You’ve never been able to just talk to me.”

“No, Jacob, I refuse to hear the prophecy. If your duty is the only thing keeping you alive right now, then I’m not giving you any other choice but to live, because I’m not hearing it until you’re fully recovered, so don’t even waste your breath.”

“Aliyah, I’m stuck in a hospital bed, attached to all these things connected to my body that won’t allow me to get up and walk out the door with you. If they learn that I’m still alive … I have no way of protecting myself, here,” he mumbled.

“What? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that. What did you just say?” she turned, raising her brow, and trying to contain a smile.

“You heard me,” he grinned.

“Did the Light knight who says his duty is to protect me just ask me to protect him?”

“Your kisses
are
very nice, and I’m just human, after all,” he grinned.

“I can’t believe you would put me in this position. Protect you or save the world.”

“Welcome to my life,” he murmured. “You’ve done nothing but put me in that position since you were just a small child. I always chose you, Aliyah,” he looked at her intently. “Always, even if you don’t believe that.”

She returned beside him and took hold of his hand, “Tell me more.”

“I argued with the elders on hundreds of occasions when you were just a child, escaping a life we couldn’t understand, and convinced them that you meant no harm coming to Otherland.”

“And?”

“And then I travelled thousands of miles in the inbetween to find the perfect spot for you to go to, for us to meet, so that you wouldn’t go to Otherland anymore and risk imprisonment. Did you honestly believe that I had nothing else to do with my time but to be there all the random times you just showed up?”

“You were alerted all the times I came. I called for you.”

“I was already there, waiting for you.”

“More.”

“I begged you, pleaded with you, urged you to not reveal your name, for good reason, and you did it anyway, ruining everything I’d been protecting, and then you went a step further and jumped into the Nothingness. I spent many, many human years searching for you. I attended every single Ceremony trial there was just to ensure your name didn’t come up, and if it did, I’d be one of the first to know, and be the first one to volunteer to be a part of the team that hunted you, all for the purpose of ensuring they wouldn’t capture you.

“I pleaded with the High master on a multitude of occasions to show mercy, and he did, including the time I brought you to the Ceremony trial where it was agreed that if you stopped going there, you could live freely, without being hunted. Finally, I erased all your memories to free you from your pain, from what kept bringing you back there, and … from remembering me. It was the most difficult decision in my life I’ve ever had to make. I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t want you to forget me, but I thought, at that time, that it was the only thing that would keep you safe.”

Aliyah had her head bowed. She stroked his hand with her thumb, and here and there a tear fell.

“It didn’t take away my memories, though,” he continued, “So I returned to our more-and-more disintegrating spot as frequently as I could, with a futile hope that a part of you would remember and I’d see you again. 14 months in human time, eternity in Otherland, I waited. When I heard the rumors floating around that you, that Aliyah, had returned, I was the first spectator to arrive at the Ceremony trial, and when I learned that you were about to be hunted again, your capture an imminent priority, I volunteered. My orders, my duty, Aliyah, was to return you to Otherland in physical restraints that you would not be able to escape, a unanimous decision of the elders.”

“You went against
him
. . . for me?” she questioned vulnerably.

“I went against them. Remember, Aliyah, as all-knowing and all-powerful that he is, he has one limitation. If he made all the decisions, all the rulings, then there would be no free will. The elders, of their own free will, three light, three dark, make the decisions. And every spectator, human or not, has a say that must be weighed carefully and unanimously agreed or disagreed upon by both the Light and the Dark. That the Dark have now made the decision to rise up against the light and destroy the peace we’ve maintained for, well, for eternity, again, is of their own free will. He cannot force people to make different choices. He can only guide. Yet he is the center piece that everyone blames when things go wrong or things aren’t the way that they want or things go differently than what they expected. What kind of world would we have if people were just born a certain way, made to be a certain way, without choice? Would anyone ever strive for something more if they knew that their life was not of their own design, rather they were mere puppets to another’s design?”

“That would be quite terrible. A world of robots. Programmed. Controlled. I wouldn’t want to live. There’d be nothing to fight for,” Lydia conceded.

“Exactly. The reason for why I urged you so strongly to not reveal your name is because of the Prophecy. The Prophecy that says - .”

She stood abruptly, the moment lost. “Nope, I’m not hearing it. I’m not hearing you. Don’t doubt for one second that I won’t leave if you try to speak any more about that stuff. Talk about ruining the moment. Couldn’t you just let me have that goodness, that belief, that faith for a little while before you threw it in my face that the only reason why you said any and every thing of what you said was because you were trying to get me to calm down enough for you to tell me what you’re duty-bound to say?”

“My God, Aliyah, you drive me crazy,” he shouted in an unusual behavior for him. A Light knight angry – that’s not something you see every day.

“Awww, did you just take the Lord’s name in vain?” she sang.

“There’s no talking to you. There’s just … no talking to you,” he said in obvious frustration. “I fell in love with the most stubborn, the most resistant, the most difficult woman alive. Why, God, why me? Oh …Wow. That … hurts.”

“Ha ha ha,” Lydia laughed unsympathetically. “Looks like the pain meds are wearing off. Now you’re definitely not sleeping any time soon. Now that I know you’re not going to die, I gotta go.” She briskly kissed him on the lips.

“Aliyah, aren’t you forgetting about something?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Your son?!”

“Your arms aren’t broken. You can handle a bottle just fine.”

“Aliyah!”

“You’re not helpless, Jacob, you can handle yourself. Besides, he’s not after you. He’s after me.”

“Can I just get one more kiss, one lasting longer than an eighth of a second?”

She shook her head, “For a Light knight, Jacob, you’re insatiable. You should learn how to appreciate what you’ve been given. See ya.”