In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (23 page)

Forming
his arms, legs, torso, and head. He’s whole again. There is a strange blue glow
to him.

When
you find the answer, what will drive you to continue forward? When the universe
threatens to consume us all?

He
stretches out his hand toward the light. He doesn’t know why but he’s drawn
toward it. Maybe it’s the answer he was looking.

But
what was the question?

He
stretches out farther, closer to touch it and-

The
light suddenly flashes and zaps off his hand. It dissipates in a blue puff. He
would yell but he doesn’t feel any pain.

The
light disappears.

All
the lights around him flicker away except one, illuminating the black hole
appearing in front of him. “
Noooo
!” he screams, he
tries to get away but he just floats there, unable to stop the black from
consuming him.

There
is nothing.

Cole
floats in nothingness, naked and alone. His skin gives off a slight blue haze.

He
feels nothing.

He
is nothing.

“I
feel nothing,” he says. His mouth doesn’t move but his voice echoes out in this
nothingness. 

The
blackest of blacks surround him, true nothing. No air, no atoms, no matter,
nothing exist. He shouldn’t exist. His eyes are closed as if he’s in an eternal
sleep. Floating like he’s drifting in the currents of an everlasting ocean.

“I
always felt bad about my problems, that there were others who had it worse than
me. That my problems weren’t anything, just something I could overcome, but I
can’t.”

If
you had the power to stop the pain. What would you do?

“The
only way to stop the pain is to end it.”

Sparkles
of light appear around him. They start to move parallel to his body. They
streak the nothingness as if he falls toward nothing.

“I’m
so tired. I just want to sleep…”

His
speech slows down to a slur. The lights pulsating with his every word.

“To
not exist.”

This
feels peaceful to him, it feels right.

“These
stars can save me. But why does it matter?”

Parts
of him slowly starts to break of into a mist and fade into the stars streaking
around him. His hands are the first to break apart. But his whole body starts
to mist out, drifting into the stars around him.

He’s
fading away.

He
doesn’t feel any pain, nor does he care. It just feels right to him.

“Nothing
matters,” he says as his final thought.

Silence
and emptiness are the only things that
encompasse
him.

His
senses are gone to the world around him.

Goodbye
world.

A
bright white hand appears from the nothingness; it rips through the lights and
grabs his arm. The stars are blown away from around him.

Blackness.

Cole’s
eyes fling open, he floats in the darkness. Is this space? He glides gingerly
in the fetal position. Not a single piece of clothing on his back.

Where
is he?

Is
he dead?

It’s
the first coherent thought he’s had in a while. He suddenly remembers what’s
happening. Earth is under attack. But his face doesn’t change and he doesn’t
move from the position.

He
doesn’t know why, but he just doesn’t want to move or do anything.

“Why
do you look so lonely when you are one with the stars?” The voice is familiar.

It’s
his. Another Cole looks in front of him.

NegaCole.

It
looks just like him, but it’s not. His voice is exactly same but there is
something different about it.

Its
affliction.

All
around him, stars and galaxies twinkle alive one by one, coming to life from
the darkness. The stars around him are close but they’re still too far away to
feel their embrace.

NegaCole
stretches out his hand toward him. Clothes materialize onto Cole. Appearing
from the darkness and wrapping around him as if he’s being attack by a horde of
clothe made birds.

This
doesn’t feel right.

“Something
is missing but…
I
…” Cole says.

What’s
missing?

“Does
that mean you are not going to answer my question?” NegaCole says.

“To
what?” Cole asks.

Cole
straightens out of the fetal position as NegaCole floats in front of him. He
gets a good look at his clothes. Blue tights, the uniform of the chosen. A
titan.

“What
will you do when you find your answer? The answer for everything.”

Cole
doesn’t know. He doesn’t really even know what the question is. It feels like
he’s just woken up from a long nap.

“What
will push you forward when, you, like most others, fulfill your purpose in this
world and find the answers for life,” NegaCole says, his voice starts to sound
deeper.

Who
is this man really?

“That
you have nothing else to live for except for that answer, driving you mad,
insane, VOILENT. Making you want to caress the sweet outskirts of the embrace
of death.”

There
is a spark in
NegaCole’s
eyes.

“What
should you do it for?” he asks.

“I
don’t know.”

“You
do know! Some would say for the human race, most would say your world but NO.”
He doesn’t yell, but he says it with such intensity.

“I
do it to protect others.”

“No,
that isn’t enough. It’s too simple, feeble—A LIE!” NegaCole says as he suddenly
flashes into Jahum and then back to NegaCole.

“Will
you do it for your right to feel and the right to leave them behind? The right
to save the world that you love so much, but takes so much to live in.”

“I
don’t know!” Cole screams. The stars and galaxies suddenly disappear again.

“Or
something else. Something more, more personal, something that leads you,
something that if someone would take it away from you, you would make them feel
your wrath,” NegaCole says.

A
small blue marble appears behind NegaCole.

Earth.

It
slowly drifts toward them. It outlines
NegaCole’s
body as it approaches.

“For
them death would be an easy way out. Only you can save her, Cole, her and the
human race.”

He
stares directly into Cole’s eyes. Piercing into his soul.

“It’s
her. She’s hurt and we lied to ourselves. Without her we are nothing. It’s not
about us anymore. Embrace her and let her know that it’s going to be okay and
give yourself a reason to live.”

Thora.

That’s
his reason to live, but it still doesn’t seem right. Why did he not see it
before? Earth is getting bigger, it approaches them quickly.

Neither
NegaCole nor Cole moves as they enter its orbit. But it continues to get closer
and they break into the atmosphere.

 “I
didn’t mean to hurt her. But nothing last forever,” Cole admits. “Even love.”

The
air around them turns red hot as they hurl into the atmosphere, speeding down
like a meteor. But their orientation is still on each other. They don’t even
glow as they descend to the Earth.

“To
you and I, time and reality is only a minor inconvenience.”

The
sky around them explodes as they break into the ozone layer. They zoom past the
clouds and plummet to the ocean below them.

Blood
red covers the ocean, something the Eliite did with their
kill all promises
of life
initiative.

“We
only cared for own problems. You are responsible for them all now,” NegaCole
says.

They
come to a suddenly halt only a couple hundred feet over the sea. 

“You’re
the only one who can save her and your unborn son…just forget…everything,”
NegaCole says. He suddenly turns into Thora.

“All
your fears, all your demons, all your regrets, all your mistakes, and all your
successes,” Thora says. She turns back into Jahum.

“They
don’t matter anymore.”

Something
about this feels really off, he doesn’t know what, but he doesn’t feel
completely there. It’s as if he’s watching his actions through a television
screen.

It’s
him, but it’s not.

But
he can feel the power surging through him, he doesn’t fear anything anymore.
His depressions and his worries are gone. He closes his eyes, he starts to
ascend into the sky.

Acceptance.

“Because
you are one with everything. And one with the stars,” Jahum says.

Cole’s
lifts his arms up as he ascends. His life flashes by him. From his childhood to
now, it all flashes by. He now knows that in the end it’s going to be okay.

Twenty
three small spheres of light appear around him, they spin around him in orbit,
in a chaotic but controlled manner. Slowly spinning faster around him.

“You
are all and nothing. These spheres are your DNA, they are a part of you. With
them you can create life and destroy it. Move the stars and destroy them. Speak
with them and become one.”

Cole
ascends higher past the clouds. Into the blueness above them. The spheres spin
so fast that they’re a blur.

“You
are an omniscient being. A god.”

Jahum
doesn’t follow him as he ascends but his voice carries on.

“But
don’t forget what you truly are.” Jahum shields his eyes as the sun peers
through the clouds.

“A
human and nobody—“

Cole’s
watch beeps.

“Nothing
will take that away from you.”

Cole
shoots up fast into the sky in a blur of light and rockets incredibly fast to
the left.

The
five other Astrons appear next to Jahum. They look old and decrepit. They skin
is old and cracked. They all look at Jahum.

He
nods.

They
start to decay and the wind blows them away.

Jahum
starts to decay.

“Cole…I’m
sorry…” His deep booming voice is gone, decaying away with his body. But it
stops, he holds his form but he is now a former shell of himself.

Cole
flies through the clouds, they twist and spin around him as he flies so fast
they don’t have time to move, trailing behind him as he rips through them.
Spheres spin around him.

Five
of the spheres position behind his feet, still spinning, when—

Cole
disappears, he shoots off so fast it’s like he went warp speed. No sound was
heard as he shot off. The spheres that were behind his feet still spin,
floating where he left them.

In
a boom, the spheres follow him.

Cole
dreams of darkness.

Infinite
nothing.

Something
he used to welcome before his suicide attempt. He’s dreamt of this every night since
his last attempt. It keeps him up at night, the fear of going back into the
darkness.

What
changed in him? It didn’t scare him before. Maybe it’s because he finally has
something to live for. Something to lose.

Cole
jolts awake.

Julio
stands over him, in matching track pants and jacket.

“Wake
up!” Julio yells.

Cole
lies half naked under his white fluffy covers. He lives in a moderately nice
apartment near San Francisco.

 This
is before he moved to Los Angeles with Thora. After Julio saved him.

“How
in the hell did you get in my house?” Cole murmurs. He pulls the covers over
his head. Julio jumps off the bed and pulls the covers off him.

“Come
on. You’ve been slacking, when was the last time you’ve worked out.”

Cole
lets out a growl. He looks at the clock on his nightstand.

6:30
AM.

The
sun is already peeking through his shade covered window.

He
thinks and counts the days out in his head. He sighs. It’s been more than two
weeks. He has been slacking, he’s slipping back into his old routine, back to
his former self.

“Get
up! Get up! Get up!” Julio yells over and over again. Cole puts a pillow over
his head but it does nothing to mute out Julio’s constant yelling.

“Okay!
God.” Cole finally gives in.

“Let
me get dressed,” Cole says. Julio throws a pair of basketball shorts and a
t-shirt. Cole’s favorite pair of shorts. Julio dug through his closet.

“What
the—“

“You,
sir, are a very deep sleeper,” Julio laughs.

Cole
slams his head back into his pillow. Funny thing is, he didn’t used to be.

Julio’s
hoopty
of a car pulls up next to an empty field. The
field is covered in a sea of brown and burnt orange leaves. Dead,
white-streaked trees peak off the ground. Cole steps out of Julio’s car.

“What
the hell are we doing here, Julio?” Cole asks. The driver side door slams as
Julio gets out.

“You
sure do ask a lot of questions huh?” Julio said. Julio walks out into the
field, his feet crunching on the leaves.

“I
do when it looks like when you are going to take me to the middle of nowhere
and hack me into pieces with a hatchet and feed me to your family for dinner.
And before you do anything I’d like to remind you that I have a girl at home I
would like to go back to.”

Julio
laughs.

“But
seriously, I thought we were going to the gym,” Cole says.

“
It’s
body weight day.”

“But
lifting weights is better.”

“Yeah
but you got to stay nimble and on your feet.” He puts up his fist and starts to
play box Cole. Cole ducks and weaves. They start to spur, leaves crunching and
swirling around them.

Cole
loves this, this excitement. But would it be the same without Julio? After the
sparring, they start to work out. Push-ups, crunches, mountain climbers, they
do it all, at least a hundred times. Julio does it with a smile on his face.
Thirty-second rest in-between.

Cole
tries to keep up, he’s having fun trying too, but he’s still no match for
Julio.

Just
when Cole is about to pass out Julio stops.

“Alright
let’s rest for five minutes,” Julio says falling on a leaf pile.

“Good,
I’m just about done.”

“We’re
not done yet. Next is a jog.”

“I
don’t think I can do that, man.”

“Yes
you can, it’s a last push of the day.” He throws Cole a water bottle.

“Drink
up.”

Cole
runs down a forest road. Julio is a couple of feet ahead of him laughing. Cole
struggles to keep up with him. Julio carries a twenty pound bag on his back. He
still jogs with ease.

There
is a tightness in Cole’s chest.

His
legs get heavier, his breath becomes wisp.

He
starts to slow.

The
distance between Julio and himself is becoming less and less manageable.

He’s
not going to let him win.

He
pushes himself.

Past
his slowing legs, past the near unbearable pain in his chest. He pushes past
his older self. He starts to hear his own footsteps and only them.

He
breaks the wall.

His
legs start to move faster, the pressure lifts off his chest and his former self
seems like he’s much farther away. It’s hard to explain, it’s not easier but…
he can do more. He pushes harder, he starts to catch up to Julio.

Julio
looks back and laughs and speeds up.

Cole
smiles and speeds up as well. The wind seems to go through him, his feet skirt
on the dead leaves on the hardened dirt road. The pending darkness that never
left him after his nightmares seems to melt off his heart.

He’s
alive again.

And
it’s thanks to Julio. Julio is always there for him, when he’s down, when he
has personal issues and he’s there when he doesn’t have any problems at all
just to shoot the shit.

And
because of him, he’s not a bloody splat on a wall.

He’s
his best friend.

When
he’s near, Cole relaxes. He feels like he’s in love with him.

The
farthest fucking thing from a sensual love though.

More
like he loves him like a brother. He almost stumbles over his feet at his
thoughts.

Julio
stops.

Cole
comes to a stop behind him, he puts his hands on his knees and breaths in
deeply.

“I
win,” Julio says smiling. “You’ve got a long way to go before you catch up to
me.”

“Fuck
you Julio.”

Julio
heads toward a thicket of trees.

“Come
on.”

He
goes through the trees and Cole follows. They come out to the sun peering over
the mountaintops. They’re on top of a slight hill that gives a view of the
mountain range.

The
sun rises.

“Good,
we didn’t miss it. I thought we were going to with your slow ass,” Julio says.
Cole is about to punch him but Julio quickly sits against a tree and ruffles
through his bag.

“Here.”

He
hands Cole a protein shake, Cole sits next to him. Julio stares at the
mountaintops and brings out his camera and starts to take pictures. Cole just
sits beside him, sipping on his shake. He wants to say something to break the
silence but…

He
just stares into the mountains as well, he could do this every day.

Thanks
Julio.

You
are a true friend.