The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (53 page)

With the transporter sealed shut, the engines began to rev up. If war were to be their destination, it would not be long before they would be stepping back onto the bloody soil of planet Red.

As the airship touched down, the mouth of its hull opened to the ravages of Red’s plains. Overlooking the surface of the devastated planet, its sky black with smoke, its land shimmering under the layers of coagulated liquid, the smell of death heavy in the air, John and Sofia were pressed with the crowds to exit the
transporter.

One phase of the battle before them was coming to an end. The last few hundred soldiers remaining on the death fields struggled to make their final kills before the next drove of awaiting forces were called in to the fight.

Stepping down the ship’s ramp, followed by the howling and cursing hordes of Labor ready for the war, Sofia and John appeared as merely two of the millions of faces that lined their side of the battlefield. Transporters as far as the eye could see, had landed in a single file line, emptying their contents of warriors and war machines out from their bellies. Formations of soldiers, wearing various dresses of civilian and military apparel, were already set in battle array before them. Consisting of tens of thousands of individuals per unit, they stretched along the red desert’s rolling hills, awaiting their calling to enter into the fray. Surrounding them, wheeled transporters carrying mounted weaponry, prepared for their calling, as well.

The Valley of Death was far to John’s right, its polluted hills still receiving the dead that were falling upon it. Too small to contain the war-to-end-all-wars, the overflow from its veins had spread into the hilly desert in which he and Sofia were now standing.

To his left, he could see what had become of the ruins. Structures no higher than those found on Labor were all that remained, the smoke of its torment rising to the heavens in continual funnels of blackened clouds.

Directly across from their camp, the
enemy
of the people of this side of the wasteland was set in their formations. Equal in size, waiting their turn to enter the killing fields, the offspring of the murderous pit of the Valley, the opposing forces were a mirrored image of one another.

But John knew the game now: every man and women on the planet was merely following orders. Nobody was acting with a certainty that they were shooting in self-defense. How could anyone know that those that they were trying to kill actually wanted to do him or her harm prior to the command to do so? Banks and his new government were starting over. They were wiping out every last remnant of humanity that they could not directly control with ease and simplicity.

As the final deathblow was given to the opposing side, the few individuals that remained were limping, kneeling and crawling through the battlefield, ignored by the agents in charge. The command was given, echoing through the choking air, for the awaiting formations of soldiers and vehicles to make the charge.

Both sides initiated with the cries of hatred. Like an avalanche of human madness, millions of men and women rushed upon each other, savagely firing their weapons before them, dropping the survivors of the previous engagement, or else swallowing them up in their rolling waves of destruction. With the front lines of both sides fallen, the masses behind trampled their corpses into the ground, burying them deep within the blood soaked soil.

As John and Sofia, and the other peoples of the recently arrived airships, reached the end of the ramps, they were handed their weapons, a rifle and a sword. By threat of a slow, painful death, they were coerced into joining their assigned units, if they were not so inclined already to do so.

The bullets of the battle below were buzzing around freely, ricocheting off the airships, burying into the sand with puffs of dust, slamming into the awaiting men and women, killing some, wounding others.

John kept Sofia’s head low as they were led into an organized structure of soldiers. Stepping over the corpses and pieces of the dead, they took their positions among the rank and file. Several wheeled transporters, scattered throughout the airship landing zones, pulled up alongside them. John saw an opportunity waiting. Blending in with the masses, he pulled Sofia to the rear of their unit.

“We’re going to try to make a break for one of those vehicles,” he said, looking around for a clear opening, hoping the agents in charge would be too busy to notice.

Sofia’s eyes were awash with redness, swollen and glossy. Seemingly unable to give a verbal exchange, she just stared and nodded her head in the affirmative.

“If we can make it,” John continued. “I’ll try to get us through the warzone. We might be able to find a place to hide in the mountainous region beyond the Red Sea.”

A soldier to his side fell to his knees in the sand, holding his bleeding gut, screaming in pain. John tried to ignore him, but with the bullets flying by and the screams of agony from those being wounded by the stray projectiles increasing beyond comfort, he pulled Sofia closer to him, providing his body as her shield.

His girl was no soldier. She was fearful, even now refusing to hold her rifle, covering her ears instead. She had thrown her sword down moments earlier when the agents were out of sight. She was refusing to partake in being a murderer.

The battle below had reached its peak as the two sides had absorbed each other into one organic whole of annihilation. The smoke of the destroyed vehicles, like black pillars holding the sky in place, arose from the sands. As the explosions rocked the hills, John knew that within a few minutes time their turn would come to make the charge of death.

Blocked from the view of any of the commanding agents by the offroad vehicle idling next to them, John directed Sofia to crouch down with him beside the passenger door. Reaching for the door handle, he slid a knife from his pocket, unfolding its blade. Just as he was about to make his move, a knock, like a fist pounding on a wooden table, resounded from behind him. From over his shoulder John could see Sofia lying down, her arms spread out and the back of her head pressed into the red sand. Her skin was pale, as it had been on the Island, but there no rise and fall to her chest this time. She just lay there, peaceful and still.

“Sofia, are you alright?” he asked, leaving off with his plan and crawling over to her.

As he placed his hand under her head, he noticed the small puncture wound in her temple. Trickling the red fluid of life into her ear and onto the soil beneath her, the dust receiving her blood began to take on a deep burgundy hue. John could only stare in disbelief.

“No, this can’t be happening,” he whispered.

His hands were trembling as he began taking her body gently into his arms. Brushing her hair from her face, tears trickled down his cheeks.

“It’s alright, Sofia,” he said. “I’m going to get us out of here. I promise. Just give me a little more time, girl. Just a little more time.”

As his fingers continued to stream through the strands of her hair, the yellow-whiteness of Sofia’s locks began to conform to the ruby red of the sand beneath them.

“Don’t go, Sofia. Not here. Not now,” he cried.

The roar of the battle sounds was thrown upon him with the likes of an audience cheering for her death. Brought back to the planet of war, to die in such a lonely world forsaken by any hint of beauty, Sophia’s lifeless shell was all that remained of everything John had the purpose of living for.

“Let me take you home, girl,” he wept. “Let’s go home, now. I just want to go home.”

Her eyes were still open, staring into nothingness. The sky blue beauty of her youth was draining out of her with the streams of her blood, turning them into the ashen gray color of an overcast morning. The warmth of her skin was fleeing, taking with it the blush-pinkness of her once rosy cheeks.

With his hand supporting her head, he took one last look into the blackness of her pupils. She had no tears left. Her pain was gone. All he could see was a reflection of his own face. It was youthful and innocent.

A passing courier on the sidewalk of Labor bumped into him, and John suddenly came to his senses, as if he had been asleep. From the edge of the sidewalk he could see the falling shoe of Mr. Sanders, tumbling to the rooftop below.

“Let’s go see what that was, John.” Sofia said with a twinkle in her eye.

It was a feeling of relief to see her so alive, to be by her side as he was sitting beside her upon the rooftop of Labor Apartment 1A, watching the rising of the Savior. Pointing her finger at the star that streaked through the morning sky, she had a smile that was nearly as bright. As the light of the rising Savior fell upon him, it spoke to him, telling him to take Sofia, to leave the world of Labor
behind.

“Let’s leave this place,” John said to her.

Holding her hand out to him, he grasped it firmly, lifting Sofia up the edge of the steep hill from which they could overlook the valley of trees and rolling hills. The adventure of their lifetime awaited them.

The setting Savior was closing the show of the day with a drapery of pinkish clouds set into an orange mood.

“John,” she said. “I’ll follow you wherever you go. Always.”

Her eyes were so sincere, so watery blue. They were like the ripples of the cold lake that were a bitter relief, as they kept away the pursuing creatures, howling within the fog-coated lands surrounding them. Sofia’s lips were trembling, but she fought to keep up with his demands as they waded across the shallow pool, for she loved him so.

“If we find the answers you’re looking for, will we return to our home in the woods?” she asked.

“Of course we will,” John said, as he thought of the compass sinking to the bottom of the lake. “I promise.”

The sloshing of the water diminished behind him. Sofia was standing a ways off, her complexion downcast.

“Where are you going, girl?” John asked.

She looked at him in silence as the doors of the Security transporter closed her in, leaving him alone on the dusty streets of Basket Town.

Through the darkened, back window she continued to stare. Her eyes were so gray, like storm clouds covering the softness of the heavens as they rumbled over the Red Sea.

Sofia was so tranquil in his arms, her head dripping with the crimson waters.

“What did you want to tell me?” he asked.

“This is the day you will find all the answers that you have been seeking, my love,” she whispered, as the sheets of death drew over
her.

Sofia was lifelessly staring at the Savior as John looked upon his reflection in the blackness of her pupils. Why, he wondered in sorrow, had it taken so much toil for him to realize how much she sacrificed for their relationship, how much she truly meant to him? But he never gave as much in return, although his love for her was equally as strong.

Leaning his forehead into Sofia’s, John’s tears rolled onto her cold cheeks, dripping into the deep red sea that warmly pooled in the sand beneath them. Closing his eyes he held her tightly. He could not let her
go.

“Sofia, my love. I’m so sorry. I’m so terribly sorry.”

The battle below was waning fast. The preparatory call for his unit’s turn to join in the fray was wailing in his ears. Caressing Sofia’s face, John realized that he had lost all awareness of the here and now.

“She’s gone, boy,” came a familiar voice, monotone and cruel, from the shadow that fell upon him. “And here we are, together again.”

John lifted up his swollen eyes to the man he hated more than any other human, living or dead. The Monster stood before him, as wicked as the devil himself.

He had aged quite well. His gray hair was still thick upon his head, and his brow was now creased and wrinkled, a permanence of his evil demeanor. The rifle on his shoulder, the air of courage, the lack of respect for the hot lead randomly tearing through the breeze around him, all of it reeked of that haughty disposition John hated so much about the man.

“You’re not going to bring her back,” the Monster mumbled, spitting in the sand. “Get up.”

Closing his eyes, John could feel the burning redness of his face and the taste of Sofia’s salty, tear-diluted blood drying upon his lips.

“Those men out there killed her, John,” he said, pointing at the massive formations on the other side of the warzone. “Our people have been fighting them for ages. And today we’re going to end it all. Get up. Avenge Sofia’s death.”