The Acolytes of Crane "Updated Edition" (39 page)

Self-doubt
pulverized me, and worse than Travis’ first blow that smashed me, left me
utterly desolate.

‘Liam.
I knew something was up. Tell me about him,’ I pleaded. I did not want to hear
any more, I could not—in fact—take any more bad news. But I had to be
strong—for Mariah. And for Dan.

Dan
walked in our conversation, dejected. ‘I’ll tell you, Ted. Mariah needs to grieve.’

While
tears streamed down all our cheeks, Dan recalled Liam’s braveness. As soon as
it was over, Mariah stood up. She grabbed a panel on the wall that shielded a
storage space, ripped it right off its hinges, and threw it to the floor.

‘Really,
how selfish can you be? How dare you? This conversation is over! Come back when
you are ready to apologize,’ she fiercely whispered to me, trembling all over.

She
pushed me out of her way, and stomped away to a private room to be alone. As
the automatic door slammed, I felt the air forced from the motion of it.

Dan
sighed. All the emotion had drained from his face. ‘I’ll go too,’ he said, and
walked away.

Now
I was truly alone. Dan was right. When Jason died, people let me mourn in
peace. I realized that I was such an insensitive twit the entire time I had
been aboard the Uriel. I was so caught up in a whirlwind to save Sephera that I
didn’t even think twice about losing my grandparents. All of a sudden, Sephera
no longer seemed worth it—for now.

There
was no time to sit and feel sorry for myself, not even a moment to heal
mentally. But I knew I had to channel my anger into doing something good, like
I did when I reported my parents to the police. Maybe that was why Travis was
so entranced by evil: he knew nothing else but hate. Instead of confronting his
hate, he became it.

They
used him to find something that my grandpa discovered about the Dietons. And
the secret was still safe with Zane. And with me.

I
was just a teenager, out in space. I did not know what to do. At once, I was
both the most useless warrior ever, and still the most important link to saving
Sephera. I stared straight ahead, not thinking, not feeling. Liam. Lincoln.
Marv. Laverne. Jason. My thoughts drifted in and out into nothingness.

Something
alerted me out of my fog.

‘Theodore,’
a sensual voice from behind me called out from a speaker on the dashboard. I
turned to look. With one glance at the lovely visage, my useless, sterile
thoughts dissipated. My hardened warrior exterior shed off in less than a split
second. I was now the happy boy that Theodore Daniel Crane had once been.

‘Tez!’
I exclaimed, my heart fluttering.

‘Oh,
Theodore, You have really shaken things up around here. Please tell me you are
okay, tell me the boy I met in the halls of the Uriel is still fighting for the
right reasons,’ she said.

‘That
is just it. I realize more than ever today, what I am fighting to save. I am
not fighting for Zane. I am not fighting for me, and I am sure as hell not
fighting against the enemy just for the sake of fighting. I hope you can
believe me. This battle is for Sephera and life. With Travis defeated and a
Driad too—we are shaping up to be an awesome team.’

‘Theo,
please don’t get swept away by your recent victories. The deaths of Travis and
Kurod are really just a fraction of the war. Odion wrenches his grip on our
multiverse, he just wastefully discarded them upon your blade,’ she said. She
was absolutely right.

‘Tez?’
I asked.

‘Yes,
Theo?’

‘Don’t
give up on me.’

‘I
won’t.’

‘What
about your Dad?’ I shouted through the intercom, although the loud volume
wasn’t necessary.

Tez
sounded apprehensive. ‘He was in the battle on the planet. Is he still alive?’

‘Wow!’
I nearly freaked out. So Trazuline was after me too—or was he? ‘Yes! All the
Urilian ships survived. They chased the Dacturons away.’

I
could hear a long sigh of relief from the other end. ‘Ted, that means a lot to
me. I know he’s one-hundred-percent behind you…’

Fear
gripped my heart. ‘Tez! I forgot!’

There
was silence at the other end. ‘Oh no! How stupid of me…!’

I
worded her immediate concern, agreeing that we both had been very, very
careless. ‘They can hear us… Zane can hear us.’

‘My
father!’ Tez shrieked. ‘I said his name!’

‘Tez,
Tez!’ I hollered into the speaker, ‘Maybe they’re not paying attention.’

I
heard a male voice, ‘Tezmarine Halperin, daughter of King Trazuline, you are hereby
arrested for the act of treason!’ There was a loud, blood-curdling scream at
the other end. It overwhelmed me, as if my body had suddenly been exposed to liquid
nitrogen in a chamber.

‘Tez!
Tez!’ I screamed.

Silence.

I
ran to the cockpit, yelling out. ‘We gotta get out of here! King Trazuline’s
cover has been blown.’

Nilo
broke away from the steering helm, his eyes blazing. He grabbed my collar and
nearly punched me. ‘What! He was helping us, did you blab on him?’

‘No.
Tez called me on the intercom. We leaked his secret. Then Tez was screaming or
something. Then it went dead.’

Nilo
smashed his fist into the palm of his other hand, then shoved me backwards with
such force that I nearly fell to the floor. ‘We gotta rescue him!’ he roared.

‘What’s
going on?’ asked Mariah, frantic, as she rushed into the cockpit, with Dan
close behind.

Sullen,
Nilo and I explained our predicament. Our two companions visibly sagged as we
revealed the awful truth. ‘We gotta do something!’ Dan shouted. He appeared as
if he was ready to dart off somewhere.

 ‘This
battle is not over! We have just begun! We will find Tez, and we will rescue
her!’ I boomed, silencing everyone, who looked up to me with awe.

They
all glanced at each other, then Dan smiled and said, ‘Yeah, we got Tritillia
free!’

Mariah
lovingly gazed at me, ‘And we got Ted.’

Nilo
piped up, ‘I carried out my duty to Trazuline. He would be so pleased with us.’

I
seized the moment of euphoria. ‘Remember Lincoln!’

Mariah
burst out in tears. ‘Yes.’

Dan
bellowed with pride, ‘Remember Lincoln!’ I could see it in their eyes. Even the
new chap we recruited, Nilo, rallied in my words, and we ended with a
triumphant yell. It was a tribute to Lincoln, and with our hands bound to the
center of our huddle we shouted in unison:

‘For
Lincoln!’

‘And
we’ll find Liam, too,’ Dan added.

I
felt it in my gut. Although I had just heard a second-hand account of what
happened to Liam, I believed he was still alive. ‘If Trazuline was helping us,
he would have done what he could for Liam.’

‘Yes,’
Mariah agreed. ‘Let us not give up hope.’

‘Wait,’
I said, as my body clearly showed a shift away from the group, toward an exit
door to another room.

Dan
looked at me with a roll of his eyes, and stated, ‘I know that look.’

‘I
will be right back, I have an idea. I think I know where we can find help,’ I
said.

‘What
are you doing, Theodore?’ Mariah asked, smiling.

I
said, ‘Trust me on this.’

“My
eye lids were weighed down with the advent of death, and my armor was saturated
with dark, red, and soupy blood. Ted took one last look back at me before he
led the charge up the stairs. I only saw his lips move because the sounds of
battle and explosions muzzled his voice.”

He
said, ‘Thank you.’

The
pain and regret draped over me and shrouded my senses. I thought if I just shut
my eyes once, and rested, I could embrace death. The fatal loss of blood was
crushing my spirit to hold on to life.

I
coughed into my hand, and blood painted it. I watched as Theodore ran up the
stairs with the crew.

Visions
of my life sped through my mind, flashing across the backs of my eyelids, and
my life-reel ended. I was left with a defeated Travis and pinch of life in my
pocket.

That
piercing look on Dan’s face as he realized I was just about gone. I think I was
the first loved one of his to die before his eyes. I regret that my death may
have hardened him. I hope he will always be the carefree lad I always have
known.

And
Mariah—my Mariah. She held my hands as I lay dying, and she looked at me in the
eyes. Oh, these eyes. I knew. We both knew.

With
that vision of the lovely Mariah dissipating, with the battle sounds fading
away, all was blackening between blinks. What happened after was difficult to
explain, even for me. A tiny light appeared. It was the size of a tip of a pin.
The pin grew to a large circle. The light gleamed into my eyes. I felt different.
I felt weightless, as if there was no effort to raise my hands to my eyes.

Then
I heard a familiar sound: it was cool rhythm and blues coming from my radio
next to the bed. The artist’s deep voice was pounding my eardrums with his
smooth vocals, but it was so loud I smashed the snooze button to stop it.

I
jumped out of bed hurriedly, stepped onto a cluttered floor, and stretched my T-shirt
up over my head. I rubbed my chest and looked frantically in the mirror for a
wound, but nothing was there. There was just olive skin and a puny flat chest.

‘Is
this heaven? It can’t be,’ I said to myself. ‘Dad!’ I yelled from within the
frame of my bedroom door.

There
was no response, just the sound of a fan blowing air around the room. I walked
up to the fan and hummed into its blades. I always enjoyed doing that; it made
my voice sound fluttered and funny. I walked outside. The sun felt soothing and
the warmth made me smile.

‘Good
morning Lincoln,’ a sweet female voice said, ‘Oh my! I don’t think you have
ever hugged me that hard. Let up, or you might break a rib!’ My mother stood
before me as a tangible apparition and she seemed so full of life.

She
was carrying laundry up from the basement. She was just as beautiful as I
remembered her. The sun striped her black hair with a highlighted tone of blue.
Her eyes twinkled and glistened from the light. Her touch was extremely
reassuring.

‘Mom,
is it you! Is it really you?’ I asked.

‘Honey,
of course, are you okay. Did you have a bad dream?’

‘But
you are, you are—you died!’ I shouted.

‘Now
just relax, Lincoln. We will figure this out. Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘I
have to go. I will be back. I just have to check something!’ I said in a rush.

‘Hurry
back, I am making buttermilk pancakes for breakfast!’ she yelled, as the sound
of her voice grew quiet from my distance.

I
needed to know. I sprinted. The sneakers on my feet flopped, as if my feet were
exhausted. They slapped the ground like clown shoes.

As
I ran, oddly my shadow was behind me, I wasn’t completely sure why. If it was
morning, the sun should have cast a shadow in front of me, not behind me.

There
was a hill leading up into the cul-de-sac; it was my last jaunt before his
house. I ran up it like a marathon runner on the last leg of a race.

My
heart didn’t pound, and I raised my arms over my head to fight a cramp that
wasn’t there. I ran up the stairs and stabbed the doorbell with my finger.

I
was breathing heavy while I waited, but I wasn’t tired. Oddly, I didn’t feel
anything at all. I wasn’t sure why my breathing was heavy if I wasn’t even
exhausted, or why I was slapping my feet up the hill. I thought I should have
felt gassed and weakened by my run.

Theodore’s
grandpa came to answer my dinging. I could see him through the white segmented
window of the storm door. When I saw that he was there, I began to think that I
was really back home, and all was well.

‘Good
morning, state your name and business, boy,’ Marvin said over the ringing of a
phone behind him.

‘I
am Theodore’s friend, Lincoln—you don’t remember me?’ I asked, and he turned
from our encounter to answer the phone.

‘Just
one second, I have to answer this damn phone. Laverne, this phone isn’t going
to voicemail like it is supposed to! Hello, speak up, I cannot hear very well,’
Theodore’s grandpa yelled into the receiver of the phone, ‘Lincoln? He is at my
door right now. It is for you. I think it is one of your friends,’ he said,
turning toward me, with the phone held out for me to grab.

‘Who
is it?’ I asked.

‘He
said his name is Theodore.’

I
snatched the phone. I could not help but realize his grandpa was acting as if
he didn’t even know me, or Theodore, for that matter, and the confusion set in.

Marvin
was rambling loudly in my ear about someone calling me on his phone and
who
the hell
was I. His voice just drifted into the background, and I focused
my senses toward the speaker on the phone.

‘Hello,’
I said.

‘Lincoln,
it isn’t over bro. Are you hearing me? It isn’t over! Look up! Trust me, just
do it. You should see a sun and two moons, right?’ Theodore asked.

I
looked up and saw the sun, emerging on the horizon. Lo and behold, at opposite
angles above the solar giant, were two moons, grey and distant.

‘Yes,
what is this all about,’ I demanded, for fear of my current state.

‘Don’t
worry. We will get you out, Linc.’

‘Out
of where?’ I asked.

‘Sephera!’

The
phone call ended. Departing the house, I tore off along the road, marching down
the middle of the street to my house.

I
shouted, pretending to speak like Ted, ‘Oh by the way, you are dead, Lincoln .
. . It is okay though, because we are coming to get you.’ I scoffed to myself.
‘To think I jumped in front of that golden pitchfork for you, Ted! I was fine
with the thought of dying. It’s over, right, baby?
Oh, but look up
, he
says.
Sephera
, he says!’

Theodore’s
grandpa Marvin tailed me shortly, because he was bewildered by our interaction.
At least he wasn’t shoveled an absurd Sepheran reality.

‘Welcome
to Sephera!’ I yelled through my unfiltered state of brash insanity as I turned
back to the sight of this old man huffing as he ran behind me. Oddly, his frail
looking body was easily absorbing the pounding of his feet upon the road. 

Then
from the window of a tiny yellow bungalow, another elderly man yelled, ‘Pipe
down! You could wake the dead!’

How
ironic that a man without a clue of his own demise would yell that from a porch
in shocking baby blue golf shorts and a pastel pink polo shirt. 

I
just continued on, stomping my Dietonical feet upon the pavement, as Marvin
gave up and headed back home. I whipped my arms from front to back, angered by
the state of my body and my delivery into a realm that in my eyes was an Omnian
prison.

When
my life and blood were flowing from my body, after that gangly Dark King’s
trident impaled me, my mind was registering all the recent events that had
culminated in the termination of my fifteen-year span of life in the cosmos.

I
welcomed death; I embraced it.  The problem was that I spent fifteen years conditioning
myself with an option of either heaven or hell. It was much more complicated
than that.

I
felt serene when this proposition of death gently tugged at my favoring
eyelids. I thought,
what is wrong with an eternity of black nothingness
?
Will there be a gate? Will I have to pay a toll to gain entry into Heaven’s
utopia?

No.
I was, and forever will be known by the Multiverse Council as the first human
boy that died and went to Sephera. Was reincarnated by Zane into fifty-billion
microscopic metal Dietons, and reunited with his already-dead mom
version-two-point-oh. My God!

“I
was strangled under the asphyxiating grip of a disturbing question: why did I
kill myself for Ted? That is the end of it! Can you hear me guard? I am
finished!”

I
hear the guards’ steps outside of my cell, and reality returns to jolt me. My
assessment is that this intergalactic jail is the origin of my physical
imprisonment. However, the detainment of my metaphysical essence, registering
into Dieton form on Sephera, is the beginning and the source of my anger.

“Prisoner
eight-six-seven-six, stand against the wall, place your hands in the wall restraints,
cross your feet and bend over until your head enters the wall vise.”

I
do what they ask.

“Prisoner,
do you have any final requests?”

“Yes.
Tell Theodore I appreciate his efforts.”

“Warden.
This is guard twenty-eight, requesting termination sequence for prisoner
eight-six-seven-six. Awaiting confirmation.”

“Will
he feel it?” the younger of the two guards asks.

The
older guard returns quickly, and says, “He cannot feel. He isn’t alive.” I
process the truth in his statement, and he is right. “Prisoner. The warden
wants a verbal confirmation of your termination request. It is the Multiversal
Council’s protocol.”

“I
am ready.”