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Untitled Document
Abruptly, everything stopped spinning, and I peered with
caution around at my surroundings. I seemed to be in some kind of ice cavern,
the cave's gleaming, slick walls and glistening floor sparkling. Instead of normal,
clear blue ice however, the ice was a cloudy black. Everything was silent.
This place was very different from the second
dimension. Where the second dimension held people, albeit empty ones, this place
harbored only death and loneliness. There was no air - I wasn't breathing. I
didn't seem to need to breath in this place however, and I was afraid that if
I did, I would promptly go insane from inhaling pure death. I shivered, though
not from the cold, and figured that I could not survive for long in here - this
place was made to only keep souls. Lost souls. I was in the amulet - in the
third dimension.
"Hello?" I shouted.
"Lo, lo, lo," the cavern shouted back.
With no other reply, I walked slowly around, trying to figure out how I was
going to get out of here before falling victim to insanity. Panic started to
fill me, and my breath grew harsh in my throat. I restrained my urge to whimper
in fear.
Drifting further however, I found that the innocent
looking pillars of ice that formed from the ceiling to the ground were cracked
and littered on the floor. It seemed as if beings had clawed their way viciously
out of them. Almost all were empty - I guessed that these were where the lost
souls had been trapped.
Suddenly, I heard a noise, and I ran toward
it. I didn't stop to consider if it was made by friend or foe--anything to get
me out of this place.
There was a tall, wispy entity near a pillar,
melding the cracked ice with his hands. He was translucent, and at the echoing
sound of my footsteps he stopped. He turned slowly. When I saw his face, I nearly
screamed in pure terror.
He had no face, just a smooth layer of white.
He had no eyes, mouth, or nose. He drifted slowly out of the third dimension
after he saw me, leaving me with only the pillar he had been trying to fix.
Or was he trying to fix it? Peering closer,
I saw that there was someone in it, and my heart jumped in excitement. It was
a Kougra, and it seemed to be my brother, until I took in his rich, silver fur
and blood red eyes.
I did scream then, my cry of horror swallowed
up by the tunnels of black ice. My mind reeled with panic, for this was the
Kougra I had seen in my dreams, the Kougra running after me, always chasing…
With a start I realized I was running, tripping
feet over tail in my haste to get away from the monster. Whimpered sobs did
escape me then, for I was terrified for my very soul. I expected the Kougra
to calmly break out of his prison and jog after me, playing the game he always
played with me…
But he did not. He remained in his prison of
solid black ice, frozen in time and mind. I hesitated then, taking this information
in. He was going to leap out and attack… playing his dreaded game of predator
and prey.
But this time, I was not going to play.
No, I would not be a slave to my emotions and
fears. I was not going to be the prey that he had hunted down for weeks past.
Approaching the pillar, I seemed barely in control of my legs. My mind reeled
in terror.
Then, anger filled me. Hot anger replaced the
empty fear, and I used that to fuel my steps. I will not play his game, this
game that he has forced upon me. When I looked closer at him, another thought
came to me. Could this be my brother, Amita? Could the silver be this cold and
evil dimension playing tricks on my mind? I would not leave Amita to a lifetime
of entrapment in this place--I was not even sure I could leave an enemy here.
Tears streaming down my cheeks and freezing
when they hit the black ice below, I clawed the scars and jagged lines that
the lost soul had left, knowing full well that these few moments could be my
last as I freed my enemy.
After about an hour of grueling work, the Kougra
finally slipped from the torn side of the prison, landing, frozen, on the ground.
Hesitating only a second, I nudged the silver
monster. No, I would not play its game.
It came awake, its shuttered eyes opening to
reveal a soul behind the blood red color. "Essala?" he murmured tentatively,
and at his familiar voice I yelped with delight. It was Amita's voice, gravely
and pain filled though it was!
"Amita," I said back tensely, "We need to get
out of here. I think we're in the third dimension, or the amulet. I caught a
lost soul trying to meld you into the prison it came out of."
"Oh," he said, sounded a bit disoriented, but
he quickly recovered. "I remember freeing you from the lost souls… what happened
in the second dimension?"
"The lost souls got you when you tried to save
me. They burst out, and now I imagine they are wrecking havoc on the second
dimension - maybe even the first."
"Great," he moaned, and then stood. I instinctively
backed up a step, before I reminded myself that it was Amita and not my enemy.
"Follow me," he mumbled, concentrating. I lunged
forward and clung onto his fur as he faded in outline, and he dragged me with
him, back to the second dimension.
* * *
The transfer back was so dizzying that I fell to my knees upon contact with
the ground. The second dimension was still lifeless and dark, and I now saw
that ghostly apparitions wandered lifelessly. Rasifath and Hyacinth were unconscious
on the ground.
I turned to Amita, but he had shut his eyes
in concentration, the amulet glowing an eerie white, but a different white than
the masses of lost souls escaping had caused before. The whiteness grew and
formed, almost seeming as if I could reach out and touch it, though I did not.
It seemed almost to be an entity itself, and I realized that with the amulet's
final magic, Amita was destroying the third dimension, turning it into something
else entirely.
The apparitions looked up from their mindless
wandering, their blank faces turned toward the growing white blob. They each
took unwilling steps forward, and again, and were finally sucked into this new
dimension Amita was creating. It grew and rose, and Amita shook with the effort
of controlling it.
Finally, he cast the vortex into the sky, his
front paws thrown upward and claws extending as he flung and smeared the dimension
across the sky. The endless sky blackened and the purple clouds faded as gleaming,
white souls twinkled like stars in the blackness. The amulet, now freed of the
dimension it had kept dangerously inside of it, was empty and lifeless, a mere
memory of what it had contained.
The sky now different, the colorless people
began to show signs of life flickering in their eyes, purpose in their step.
They looked at one another as if woken from a deep and powerful spell with new
intelligence, and all of them crowded around me, Amita, Hyacinth, Rasifath,
and Shard - the latter three showing flickering signs of waking.
Amita looked down at his previously white coat.
It was still a dull grey; his eyes were no longer a deep, emerald green.
Then, a tawny new color spread over his fur,
a rich, golden silk. His eyes changed last from a grey to a brilliant sapphire
blue. They were so bright, so purely blue; they almost seemed to be glowing.
When he looked up at the sky, no thunder roared, no lightening flashed; just
simple raindrops fell from the sky. The gentle rain spread over everyone in
the group and pattered into the liquid starved ground. Where the warm raindrops
struck Amita, his fur showed dots of pure black. Two tears slipped down his
fur, and a line of black curled down, following the tears.
Groans from Hyacinth and Rasifath signaled me
and Amita that they were waking up. We walked closer to them, and as they both
stood, I watched as Hyacinth changed back to human. Amita watched Rasifath.
"What… happened?" asked Rasifath, looking at
his new land. "It's so different!"
Amita shrugged and said, "Much has changed.
What happened is not important. What is important is what you have now to work
with. I will give you another chance to rule, as long as you are not a tyrant
to your people, and as long as you do not try to harm me or my kind again."
This earned him shocked looks from all around.
He was letting Rasifath rule? He was not getting rid of him? I had not expected
this, yet it was oddly satisfying.
"No," Hyacinth said, his voice cracked and angry.
"We can't just let you leave without a fight… you destroyed the amulet! Destroyed
the power!" his power-hungry gaze stopped at the dead amulet. "NO!" he shouted,
madness in his voice, and lunged toward Amita. Amita was too surprised to anticipate
it, to shocked to dodge it…
Hyacinth suddenly collapsed and was completely
still. A bolt of white-hot energy from Rasifath had enveloped him before he
could lay a hand on Amita.
"Right," said Amita, slightly shakily. "Right.
We're going to go now," he finished inarticulately. I trotted over to him, as
Shard shrunk and resumed his form as a Bluna. The last thing I saw before light
swirled around us was Rasifath nodding.
* * *
The Pteri dived and again missed its prey of a small Koi. Amita and I lounged
by the tip of the sun-warmed rock on the cliff facing the ocean - back home.
The sunset displayed brilliant colors above the water's gently rippling waves.
The Pteri soared the thermals above the sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of the
Koi again.
I turned slowly, seeing how Amita's newly sapphire
eyes alighted when his soul followed the Pteri flying. He loved things that
could fly, and unrestrained joy burst from his eyes. A crisp spring wing blew
past my face, making my eyes water slightly.
My vision trailed down to the dead amulet that
Amita still wore. I don't know why he kept it, and it was a subject I did not
want to broach.
He saw where my eyes were lined, and slowly
raising his paw, removed the amulet. His jaws opened soundlessly in the joy
of freedom. Staring at the amulet for almost ten minutes, in which nothing seemed
to move, he shut his claws around it, and at the chink of his claws against
the stone, thrust the thing into the air with his powerful muscles. The cord
flapped in the wind as it sailed into the sea. The ocean swallowed up the empty
shell of the third dimension without a word, without even changing the rhythm
of its breathing. The amulet sunk slowly into the sea, which would hold it for
eternity. The depths of time would erase the pain and memories it caused, and
it would be forgotten - to turn into merely a legend.
I hated to break that silence, but there was
a question inside me that was itching to escape. Several days had past since
we left Rasifath the ruler of the revised second dimension, and so I had had
much time to reflect upon the subject.
"Why did you leave Rasifath in power? Why did
you not kill him? Was he not evil?" The questions blurted out of me before I
even had a chance to organize them.
He did not look surprised at my questions, but
considered his answer so long I thought he was not going to reply. "Look at
the way the Pteri is trying to catch her meal." My brow furrowed, for I did
not see where this was going. "From the Koi's point of view, she is evil. She
is trying to kill him for a purpose he does not like. However, the Pteri sees
it as completely rational. She needs nourishment for herself and her offspring
to survive."
He paused, but continued to watch the Pteri.
"So you see, there really is no good or evil. There are only different points
of view, different views of right and wrong, and people fighting for what they
believe in. They label those who do not believe in their cause 'evil'. Rasifath
was not evil, he just did not agree with my views, nor I his. However, he was
trying to do the best thing he knew to do, and that was to use the amulet for
himself and his people.
"I left him in power because his intentions
were good. He has the morale to do well with his new dimension." Amita paused,
then added softly, "And because everyone deserves a second chance."
The Pteri dived again; using it's clawed feet
to skim the water's surface, seeking the Koi.
There are only different points of view,
different views of right and wrong, and people fighting for what they believe
in.
Having failed to seek the Koi, he took to the
air again, searching for any flicker in the smooth and gentle rhythm of the
waves.
Trying to do the best thing he knew to do.
Spotting a small splash of water, the Pteri
dove, almost too fast for the eye to see, to the water.
There really is no good or evil.
The Pteri caught the flapping Koi in its claws,
and rose majestically to the sky to feed her nestling.
The End
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