A Wider Sky Ch. 12

"So why do they eat it? If its so destructive." I snided.

"Because it's part of the Earth. We eat things part of the Earth this weekend and we don't have to destroy each other and the Earth to do it. Although," Lance tipped back on his heels. "Sugar is illegal. Gaelen is going to get us all in trouble..."

I rolled my eyes, "Still sounds kind a backwards. Sugar is highly addictive. It works on the brain's neurotransmitters like cocaine." I remember this because my mom, pre-Eclipse, was into eating super healthy and organic. She strived at staying away from harmful GMOs during her pregnancy with me. She always tried to give me the best even before I was born. And she did what she could in the colony to take care of me, but everything was packaged and/or already rotting. We ate around the rot of vegetables and fruits.

I glanced again at Gaelen, he was so effortlessly handsome and carefree around his friends. I met them briefly at Sebol's party and quickly learned to stay away. Taxa Lenin, the tall muscular guy with coppery-blond, now sported a mohawk streaked with purple. He was feral looking, intimidating couldn't even sum him up. He had so many facial piercings, he had exuded a predator sexuality. When I observed him and Gaelen hanging out, I mistakenly thought he was less scary. Until he started idling flipping with his switchblade. A cover can say many words and Taxa's ferocity would not be off mark from one's first impressions.

Unlike his surname namesake, Bane Bonapart was not short. He towered over Gaelen in height and Gaelen was tall. But unlike Gaelen's strapping physic, Bane was lanky with shoulder length shaggy cinnamon hair and an elven like face. With Gaelen, he seemed so much more open and free but outside of this trio, Bane was guarded and observed with calculation. These were the men, Gaelen wanted me to be friends with. His Seconds were warriors and chilling.

"So you are going to be Gaelen's date for the festivities?" Lance said almost like he was insulted. He had a right to be. He had asked me first before Gaelen pulled me into the woods that afternoon. "You know people are spreading gossip about the two of you already. They are wondering if you are going to be our queen."

Queen! Wait, I was just trying to do what I could to prevent any speculation about me being a human. But Queen was too much. I couldn't handle that on top of just trying to get through my day-to-day in this world. Then I saw Sebol, Malark, and Haazic X join the trio of guys. You couldn't miss the alarm bells going off in Bane's head, lanky body immediately stiffened like a board. I was sure whatever he was about to say to the guys when they girls approached would remain unspoken until the girls left. Haazic X was another rich beautiful general's daughter. She had long shiny dark locks that contrasted against her warm mahogany skin.

"Haazic's brother is rumored to be a rebel." Lance was a real resource today for all things alien. I made a mental note to make more earnest attempts to hang out with him. "I don't know, what do you think? I don't believe the rumors. It doesn't seem plausible that a general would let someone under his own roof get away with so much destruction. You know about the disturbances in the Siberian Colonies. Someone told me it was Haazic's brother that led it. Do you think anarchy is something we as a society need or should kill? Kiowa, hello... Earth to Kiowa!"

I snapped out of my death glare-stare. Sebol had touched the inside of Gaelen's arm and now he had his arm draped over her shoulder as he talked to the guys. They looked like the perfect couple. I couldnt help but wonder if his soul had opened up during those brief moments away from me and revealed Sebol's name.

"Sorry, what? Society?"

"Don't worry," Lance playfully tugged on my arm. "Sebol wants Gaelen, but I've known him for a long time. He doesn't just start hanging out with any girl. Sure, he fucks them, but the way he is with you is something... new. If his soul hasn't opened yet, it will soon."

"Is it that obvious?"

"It's what we all worry about, Kiowa. You are no different than Sebol. Although, I am sure Sebol is enjoying just having fun until her soul reveals the name. Everyone says she wants to at least say she was with our future king for a hot sexual romp."

Romp, ice flowed in my veins. Did Gaelen say he wanted to have a romp with me. I couldn't focus because all I could only focus on Gaelen leaning into Sebol looking down at her. Her flirtatious eyelashes batting so prettily at him. How could he not fall for her. Everything he said to me over the last 12 hours were not a complete blur. All I had left was a searing branded image of Gaelen and Sebol flirting with each other. He was temporary, I knew it. He was having fun with me for this short time and now his soul had opened up.

I jumped out of my skin when a muscular arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders pulling me to a hard chest.

"Hey you, why are you looking so serious. It's the last day of class." Gaelen chippered while resting his chin on the top of my head. "Let's go, they are loading up transport and I don't know about you, but I don't want to be stuck on near Windsor.

I felt like my thoughts were running so wild I was missing seconds of time. I tucked my head to my chest and followed him to the transport. The hovercraft had seats, similar to a school bus pre-Eclipse. Gaelen ushered me to the inside of a seat while others filed into the middle of the bus to its round standing area.

"Hey, what's wrong, look at me," Gaelen's finger lifted my chin to his inspection. "I saw you glaring at me while I was talking to my friends and now your being so offish, why?"

"Sebol," I only had to say her name.

His emerald eyes glinted,"She is nothing Kiowa. I care about you."

"What if your soul reveals her name?"

"What if it does? So what. Does it mean I care for you is less - No."

I squeezed my face like a lemon to clear my emotions. "How different is this - me and you- from her wanting to sleep with guys... you, before her soul opens."

"It is and you know why. Sleeping with people doesn't require love. This is about me caring for you."

I didn't know what to say to that. So, I just stayed quiet while Gaelen pulled his tablet out. We worked on the discussion questions Professor Windsor wanted completed before the weekend started. We escaped into our little Gaelen-Kiowa world of study and tender kiss while the rest partied.

We arrived in a strange part of The Realm, it was a large rusty orange desert at the edge of the city - a real desert with sand. The desert went on past the horizon. Our transport hovered across the sands blasting it like strange orange-brown rain at the windows.

I loved looking out the window at the blue skies with out a single cloud. It was so wide, so freeing just to see the sky. In the colony, it was always grey. The view of sky was limited in the colony to people. You couldn't see the vast sky through the grainy windows of the factory or the small cinder block holes of our classrooms. Our apartments, even mine, brought in little sunlight. We were always cramped and living in delporable conditions. But I miss that tiny apartment I shared with my mom. We tried to make the best, even planted a small window garden on our single apartment window. Even our plants didn't get to view a wider sky.

The Earth was beautiful still and it was vast. Perhaps we, humans, had indeed taken it all for granted. Pre-Eclipse, we never stopped for our constant doing to take an opportunity to look in wonder at the world. But now, it was like the Earth was begging me to allow humans to have another chance to be its stewards. This time, we wouldn't let greed over take us. We would treat each other as humans, not as pawns for our personal gain up a metaphorical ladder of nothing. Because in the end, we all die and what would our legacy be? The Earth's crying because we destroyed it. We left people in poverty and need because we decided they were born into the wrong genetic pool. The Y'vori were our punishment and the scales had turned.

As the wind whipped up the sands, I imaged if footsteps of man, even alien that had crossed it. Each footstep makes a blemish in its pristine slopes. The desert wind would whip and shift the sand, wiping away man's travels and history. I could be that person crossing the desert. My opportunity to go to this college, to learn so much about the aliens and even human history. Yet all I had to do was be a wind to wipe away the wrongs done to humans. If I learned how to be a leader, if I learned how to have courage.

I had already made my decision, I didnt know how I was going to achive it but I knew two things. I was going to do what I could to bring change; and I was going to do it where we all could live in harmony together with the earth. Humans and Aliens.

The sea of sand seemed endless and it was majestic, not daunting as it lapped at the blue horizon. The sun rose high in the sky. A beautiful yellow orb smiling at the universe and the galaxies that housed many more beings than I could imagine.

The hovercraft shot up into the air, rising high above the sandy landscape towards a large orange and grey mountain, with flat plateaus. The strata didn't seem quite natural. The earth pushed up as if birthed through stress by a violent unnatural force.

The craft landed. Everyone stretched and piled out of the vehicle with energized chatter.

"Alright pupils, follow me." Professor Windsor instructed and quickly everyone made a orderly line without prompting.

Professor Windsor led us through a large crevice in the mountain leading to an inner valley that gave way to a new world, a wild world. So much green that went on for miles and miles. Tall trees covered the ground below us like a blanket. We started to climb down the mountain to the valley below. Gaelen was always at my side, holding my hand to ensure I had safe footing.

As we near to the bottom, what we saw on the forest floor were not pine needles nor smaller evergreens. From above, the trees looked like a gentle blanket of a lush green peace. On the forest ground, itt was macabre. Bones covered the ground everywhere, disjointed legs and arms of humans, skulls cracked lying a little ways away from their torsos.

"Mr. Saladin," Professor Windsor started. Lance moved to the front of the group of students. "Tell us the geology of this area presently."

"Cenozoic Era of Lithosphere Continental Mantel pedosphere layer. It has vegetation, probably some aquifer systems, and bedrock. The biosphere and hydrosphere cease to make significant chemical changes at the bedrock depth. It is presently in the Cenozoic or Cainozoic Era, Cenozoic meaning new life, is exposed. Maybe below this exposed layer one might find a Mesozoic or Paleozoic era layers."

"Attention pupils," Professor Windsor announced. "We are going to bring this to the Didaskozic area. What does Didasko mean, Mr. Saladin?"

"To show a better way or to teach a better lesson."

"Right. To kick off your festivities, I am going to show you the better way of ruling our planet. We are going to bring this area into the present era. I will demonstrate."

Gaelen pulled me with him from the middle of the group to join Taxa, Sebol, Haazic, and Bane front and center. I was surprised because usually Gaelen liked to stay as far away from the line of Professor Windsor's fire as possible.

Taxa pulled out a velvet satchel and poured something into his hands before passing the satchel to Bane. Without drawing Windsor's attention, the satchel passed from Bane to Sebol, then Haazic till it reach Gaelen.

"Hold your hand out," Gaelen whispered with a big smile. He held my hand in his and poured shiny rainbow marbles into my hand from the satchel.

"This is going to be great!" Sebol jumped up and down, cheering.

Professor Windsor's slim body bloat with air. An eerie quiet descended upon the entire chatty group of students. It was as if everyone held their breath while air entered Professor Windsor's. And with it, the trees began to bend and twist like pulling licorice into a painful contortion.

The energy around me made my hair stand on end at the back of my neck and my heart sped up with fear. Absolute fear! I didn't understand why I heard a strong foreboding siren like the world was going to end.

I clenched my hands to stop but I fell heat radiate from my chest into the tips of my fingers. My hands felt like they were on fire. I clenched them and pawed them together, rubbing them to stop the burn. I looked down at my hands, they had turned bright blue like light, I could see my bones like an x-ray. I looked around at my classmate, afraid if anyone saw what was happening to me. I quickly pushed them into my jean jacket pockets.

The burning grew stronger as the earth moaned with a hiss of gas pushing to the surface from the ground.

The land covered with human bones began to hum with a unnatural intensity. I watched as the bones floated in the air above the ground like marionettes and Professor Windsor's outstretched hand played the role of puppeteer. I heard what sounded like chimes that my mom, placed above our single window. It wasn't the cans and bottle she had found jangling together. It was the rattling of bones, hitting each other as they glowed blue, electric blue like my hands shoved into my pockets. I looked over my body to see if my entire body was glowing blue - relieved it wasn't.

Professor Windsor outstretched his other hand and the bones fell to the ground with a sizzling hiss. Unearthly, the bones boiled and bubbled black. The sound was unsettling as marrow broke. Like a whip strike, the bones flashed into a red flames that scorched what remained of the twisted forest. Fire licked the evergreen trees. Animals to scramble out of the forest and birds escape with caws of desperation. The red flames remained low and brought down the centuries old trees. The once tall majestic trees were now simple kindle to the fire that moved like a sea of orange and black liquid like lava.

As if he were on a macabre cooking show, Professor Windsor pressed his hands together like he was rubbing herbs into the stew. The lava substance moved with lapping waves of a small sea just a few feet away from us, yet never coming near to us.

Then it stopped forming a perfect floor like world. I could see that beyond the forest was another perfect floor that seemed to go on forever.

It was the strange, metallic bronze-like ground that I had to cross in order to enter The Realm. The same ground my feet walked across it for hours. The unearthly shell, my face was pushed against as I was intercepted by the humans of Maddie and Ben's colony. It was a ground formed by a sea of human remains. The multitude of what was left of the human population was now formed as an unnatural geological layer -Didaskozic. To show a better way, the Y'vori way, to murder.

The single rhythmic tin sound of tapping echoed as it hit my sense followed by a second tapping then many filled the quiet. The marbles bounced across the layer of human remains, dozen tossed down the endless ground. Echoing like The Vatican. The tinkling of marble bounces went on forever.

I screamed, doubling over grabbing my stomach. I was hyperventilating, I was losing it. I didn't want to scream. I had to think up something quick. Make an excuse why I had screamed. But all I could think was the tinkling sound of marbles. They wouldn't stop. They rained on forever because the plain went on forever. The end of the world and humanity went on for ever. Some rolled now and it was worse. It was a void and I felt it in my core.

"Don't forget to send your discussion questions. Just because it is the Festivities don't think that I will slack off on grading your work. Alright back to the craft." I heard Professor Windsor conclude but I wasn't looking up.

My back burned with the quick hot air entering my lungs, I barely noticed a pile of marbles fell at my feet or a hand press to my back. I still clenched my marbles in my hand. It was Gaelen's marbles that dropped to the still virginal earth at my feet. The real earth that didn't cause marbles to bounce unnaturally into eternity.

"What's wrong?" Gaelen pressed his hand to my back as I leaned over, trying hard to catch my breath. Each inhale only brought the burning bile back up to my throat. I fell like I was going to throw up, I had to throw up. My head swam, I felt so sick. My teeth grind so hard they began to chatter. Don't cry I mantra'd. The Y'vroi were horrible. How could they kill so many people. How could they destroy so much beauty and then claim to bring a "better way.

My skin crawled because I felt people surrounding me, touching my skin. Aliens touching me who possessed the power to calcify our bodies and melt them into a strange hard dead substance. It was cruel. All the people who lost their families, friends never to see them again, to kiss them goodbye one last time. Gone, turn into that.

A cry shuttered out no matter how I tried to prevent it.

"I feel sick," I half-lied, in truth I felt so sick. And Gaelen's gentle hand on me burned me. It felt like slim, evil and heartless, soul-less, selfish. The more words I found and piled on him, my heart sped like a bullet. It wasn't fair he didn't understand why I am reacting this way. He was trying to comfort me. But he was capable of destroying me.

"Go ahead, we will catch up." Gaelen said, still standing by my side. I saw through the corner of my eyes, shoes shuffling away from us towards the climb up the cliff and back to the craft.

"Gaelen, can I help," the singsongy voice of Sebol made me wretch finally. It was healing and freeing as the contains of my stomach empty. The alien food within it didn't belong inside it anyways. Eating it was a slap in the face to all those who lost so much and those who didn't have much to eat today in this Didasko Era.

"Oh my little mouse," Gaelen soothed me by holding my braids back and rubbing my back. "Go ahead Sebol. I'll take care of her."

The more he touched me the more I couldn't hold onto my stomach. I wish he would stop touching me. Again I wretched. Tears formed at my eyes, no longer for the plain created by human remains but for Gaelen. The man that I had given my heart to believed this was right. I was in love with an enemy. I was in love with a man who would see that my body transform into a new ground.

Sebol reluctantly left, "Feel better Kiowa." As she walked away, I heard her slicing comment to her friends. "See, I told you she was a defect. He's only sleeping with her."

"My darling, Are you alright?" Was I alright. I was alive. But my soul wept for so many who were not. I wept for the world that was gone. I wept for those people who perished alone in this beautiful forest that was now destroyed into a plain of nothingness. "No one heard you scream, I stopped the sound coming from you."

I couldn't stop the shuddering. Honestly I didn't care to stop it either. I was human and we felt loss pain and we felt love. We cried. They all cried, the people during the Eclipse and after. I was not going to deny my humanity now. I didn't care if they realized that I was human in that moment. I didn't want to charade anymore.

"I'm worried Kiowa. Please talk to me," Gaelen was now on his knees but I turned my face away from him. I didn't want to see him, see the face of another man that I love who was not for me.

"Let's just go back." I resolved and stood up tall but did not allow my eyes to fall on Gaelen.

"Are you sure. We can wait until you feel better. Let's sit on the ledge. Do you want some water."

Even without looking at him, I knew his brows were knitted with concern. But I didn't care about making him feel better or assured. He pulled his bottle of water out of his bag and handed it to me. I shook my head. I didn't want anything in my stomach.