Okay, I told you I wanted to do a rewrite. This is my rewrite.

Essentially it’s almost the same thing. If you don’t want to read it again, that’s okay, but at least read the end because the end isn’t the same.

I’m sorry to those who liked my other (seven) chapters I deleted. Yes, I got rid of half of my novel, only because it didn’t make any sense. Nocte was too evil, too fast.

Please understand.

- - -

I’d also like to take the chance to remind everyone that Nov. 9th, 2009 is the last day to vote in the La Campanella Awards (link in my profile).

You don’t have to vote for me, but definitely try to check out the other nominees. All their stuff is really awesome… makes me feel rather inferior, actually.

Anyway, thank you for sticking with me. I’m not exactly writing out a chapter per week like… three years ago… Wow, THREE YEARS? Man, time passes fast.

Cheers!

Chapter Seven

She bolted upright, her joints cracking from sleeping on the floor for too long and her skin garnering Goosebumps when the covers fell. She felt light-headed and dehydrated. Several thoughts ran through her head – Earth – the subway – Burghard – but the most pressing matter was that she was breathing. She was breathing in an environment she wasn’t made for.

She lifted her hand to her face, touching the plastic mask over her mouth and nose. She looked down to see that it was connected to a machine, feeding oxygen into her system – oxygen Earth couldn’t provide for her.

Gingerly picking up her glasses placed ever-so-patiently beside the machine, Nocte righted her eyesight and immediately registered her position. She was alone, sitting on a futon, on a hardwood floor, in the middle of a room, in a basement (it was always a basement) with a television at one corner and a window – barred to keep her in. But then again, nothing could keep Nocte in if she wanted to escape. The problem would be dragging the machine with her because, without it, she would probably fall into a dead faint again. Plus, the machine needed an outlet to keep it running.

Frowning, she closed her eyes and breathed in the unnatural cool air. It was September and, basement or not, it couldn’t be that cold, could it? Blinking, she could hear a machine rumble nearby and remembered the rumbling of the subway trains. She knew she had fainted, and she knew that that man – Burghard! – had been nearby.

He had taken her in then. That much was (unfortunately) obvious.

But what did they want from her?

More importantly, how long had she been asleep?

Perhaps it was time to return to Erisire.

She rummaged through her pockets, glad that her kidnappers hadn’t (she shuddered) stripped her of her clothes or changed her, and came up with… lint? Going through her other pocket, she got the same result.

“They have my Keys and cellphone,” she surmised aloud, a little lost.

It made sense, of course. A mysterious girl found in the subway, able to hide in the in the darkness, run as fast as the wind and faint at the slightest of “fresh” air… Nocte appeared rather suspicious, but she was also rather suspicious of her “captives.” How had they known where she’d arrive on Earth? Or when? Why was the woman in the subway to begin with?

What did they want with her?

She had to get her Keys back. The cellphone was not as important.

The hairs on her arm stood and she quickly clutched an icicle, sharp as a knife, beneath the covers. Regardless of her aching body – regardless of her being on a foreign planet – Nocte was always alert of her surroundings. After trudging through the demanding, numbing Winter of Xon, harsh in all His winds and cries, Nocte had learned that one disoriented moment, one moment scrambling for twigs in hopes of a fire, could bring upon a werewolf alpha ready to gut her and a crown princess without batting an eyelash.

She watched, her muscles tense, as the door opened, letting more of the cold basement air into the room. In all honesty, she expected Burghard or, worst case scenario, a large, brutish thug. She did not expect, however, the woman – Marie – pausing at the threshold when she saw her awake and conscious, a blue pot full of white mayflowers in her hands.

Nocte blinked rapidly.

“Not much of a guard,” she thought suspiciously.

“Oh!” Marie sounded, pleasantly surprised. “Good afternoon. I’ll just go and get the tape then.”

Nocte eyed the woman carefully as she put down the flowers and went out into the hallway again. A pause and Nocte began to think of all the places they could have put her Keys: under the bed, in a safe, somewhere in the refrigerator? She rubbed the icicle carefully and knew that if she took Marie as hostage then Burghard would comply.

If she remembered right, Burghard cared a lot for Marie.

Nocte tested the weight of the icicle and heaved a sigh.

It wasn’t like she wanted to take a hostage, like she wanted to use an icicle as a dagger, not when the woman had brought such pretty flowers. But, she reasoned, it wasn’t like she had asked to be taken in by strangers. One could even say “kidnap” instead of “taken in.” They could be planning to skin her alive for all she knew!

“Here we are,” Marie announced, returning with a video cassette tape in her hands. “I know you must be confused, but this will explain everything.”

Nocte frowned as the woman moved to the television. Her flimsy white dress ghosted the floor when she knelt to put the cassette into the video cassette recorder – bad idea.

Nocte could hear her father now.

“Never turn your back on the enemy.”

She dug her fingers into the futon apprehensively.

What did they want from her?

Any moment now and Nocte could rise up flawlessly, without sound, icicle in her hands gleaming in the soft September sunlight to take Marie as hostage. She would be like a ninja and pirate fused together: stealthy, tricky, deadly and certainly one-of-a-kind.

Marie pushed a button and street noise came filtering through the speakers. Nocte paid it no heed, knowing that time was now of the essence. Marie could turn to face her and the opportunity to get the upper hand would be lost.

“Dude, I’m tellin’ ya!” sounded the T.V.

Nocte rose slowly from the ground.

“I saw the end of the world.”

She froze and felt all the air leave her lungs, clouding the plastic mask over her mouth. Magicked or not, it was not the icicle that had brought a chill oozing down her back, numbing her spine.

It had been the T.V.

“It was, like, this vision or something, I swear.”

She looked up and paused at the image on the screen. It was that pale boy from the subway tunnels, the one who had almost been able to “see” her, sitting on a pair of concrete steps. He was in the middle of a busy sidewalk with a cigarette in his right hand and a paper cup in the other, the logo Tim Hortons printed onto it. His pupils were just as dilated as Nocte remembered them to be, his skin just as pale and his hair just as greasy.

It was a recording, obvious from the shabby camera work as it jostled and bumbled and the static-like quality of the sound.

The cameraman’s voice came next, asking, “Are you sure it wasn’t your mind playing tricks on you?”

“No, it wasn't my mind playin' tricks on me.”

“But weren’t you doing drugs?”

“Okay, yes,” the blond relented, “maybe I was smokin' some of that sweet stuff - but that doesn't make it any less true! It wasn't like my other 'imaginary friends;' it was the real deal!”

Silence on the screen and then the blond frowned. “Don't give me that look!”

“What look?” the interviewer inquired innocently.

“Do you want to hear it or not?”

“Of course, of course,” the cameraman was quick to placate.

“Good.”

Nocte straightened slowly, the icicle fading away in a cool spray of water-dust, and regarded both the television and Marie curiously. The woman had been so engrossed on what was happening on the screen that she hadn’t turned to investigate her, or had even moved from the floor. The only sign she was still alive was that she was breathing.

Nocte watched as the blond on the screen took a long, calming drag from his cigarette.

“There was this giant tortoise-”

“You sure it was a tortoise?” the cameraman interrupted. “Maybe it was a turtle?”

“Of course it was a tortoise, it had stumpy feet!” The blond exclaimed, surprising Nocte with his knowledge. “Dude, stop interrupting and just listen!” The camera bumped and Nocte assumed the man was nodding. “There was this giant tortoise and on its shell were numbers. It was in, like, ice - frozen ice - and above it was a man.”

“Who?”

"Dude, I have no idea. I couldn't see his face - it was, like, he was a shadow or something.”

“A silhouette?” the cameraman offered.

“Yeah, a 'silhouette,' that's the word,” the blond approved, as if it was some great find. "Anyway, the man was creepy.

“Then, all of a sudden, my vision changed. I was looking up at the sky - it was totally blue, man - and this light - this bright, bright light - fell from the clouds!”

“You mean like a shooting star?” the cameraman asked.

"It wasn't a star, dude. I think I'd know a star when I see one,” the blond said. "So it hit me - right in the face. Like, BAM! And so I fell on the ground, and this hand pops up! I tried to run, man. Dude, seriously, I tried to run, but it held onto my feet!”

“Did you freak out?” the cameraman asked.

“Of course I was freaked out! I'm only human, man!” the blond exclaimed and then took a shaky sip from his Tim Hortons cup. “So then another hand popped out and a body crawled out from the hole. It was a darkness – I’m tellin’ ya, a deep, deep darkness - and it leapt at my face!

"Before I knew it, the man with the tortoise - not the turtle - totally woke up!”

“They were sleeping?” the cameraman inquired.

The blond brushed him off. “Yeah, yeah, they were sleeping. Sorry I forgot to mention it earlier. Anyway, when I saw the tortoise's eyes, I knew - just knew, man - that it would be the end of the world.”

The camera shifted again, showing the interviewer’s scepticism, but he didn’t interrupt.

"And just when I thought it was all over, a girl - a little girl - opened her mouth and some sort of music came out, man. It was the best sounding thing in the world. Better than Coldplay - and nothing's better than Coldplay!”

Again the cameraman thought better than to correct him.

"Her eyes glowed,” the blond continued, completely lost in his memories, “and there was a flash of light and then darkness and then chaos.”

The blond on the screen heaved a giant breath, his nerves high strung, his eyes looking elsewhere and nowhere all at once.

Finally, after a full minute of delicate silence, the cameraman asked carefully, “And then what happened?”

The blond shrugged, ragged and sweating. His complexion sallow and the dark bags under his eyes sunk deeper. “I don't know what happened in the end, man, cause I woke up in the hospital. The nurses told me that I had a seizure and I was saying things - scary things.”

The interviewer was silent.

In fact, Nocte was silent too, cold and numb.

"But, seriously dude, it was the end of the world, I swear,” the blond said with an unnerving conviction. “I’m gonna go to church and pray for my soul, that’s how serious I am about this."

Nocte frowned, her eyebrows furrowing together.

Serious?

Was the blond a prophet or something?

The screen cut to a bold blue – “STOP” in thick at the top left corner.

“STOP” indeed.

STOP all the thinking.

STOP praying.

STOP. It was the end of the world.

Nocte carefully lowered herself onto the futon, speechless and oddly distressed. It wasn’t so much as the blond’s words, but his belief in his words, as if he had spoken the truth and nothing but the truth. And, somehow, Nocte knew it too.

Marie switched the television off and turned to face Nocte expectantly. She didn’t even notice that Nocte was now sitting on top of the comforter rather than under it like she had last seen her, but it mattered little as she waited for Nocte to speak. She met, however, only silence. Nocte had nothing to say, nothing to feel.

Marie had been right. The tape had explained everything to her.

Because in that brief second, when Marie turned off the television and gave her a gentle smile, Nocte figured everything out. There was no complicated mathematical equation running through her head or even a flash of light – it was obvious. It was as obvious as Nocte no longer being a Yin, except she couldn’t stop thinking of herself in such terms.

But there was no use in pretending to be someone she no longer was: a Yin.

In this case, it was no use in pretending to be something she wasn’t: the good guy.

“I’m the Darkness,” Nocte concluded, half-wonder, half-confusion.

It sounded loud and eerie in the hollow basement, buffered by the sputtering of the mysterious machine nearby.

Marie smiled reassuringly, glad that half her work was done.

“And now you’re going to kill me,” Nocte said, feeling rather surreal, “so the man won’t wake up.”

Marie’s eyes went round. “O-Oh no! We want him to wake up.”

Nocte jolted. “What?”

Surely this Earthling had spoken wrong? Surely this Earthling didn’t want the destruction of her planet, did she? But as she stared in Marie’s eyes, Nocte realized that Marie was serious. Her eyes did not waver, her pulse did not jump, her expression did not change; she was completely grave.

Dead. Grave.

Marie lowered her eyes to the floor, her lashes shadowing her cheeks. “The end of the world… I know it sounds bad, but… is it really that bad?”

Nocte didn’t know what to say to the Earthling. How was she supposed to reply to that?

“Yes, it is a bad thing,” she rehearsed in the mind. “I think you’re rather delirious and may need to get some help, join a group or something: I Think the End of the World Isn’t That Bad Anonymous.”

It was a ridiculous name. Too long.

“Is it so bad,” Marie continued quietly, breaking Nocte from her thoughts, “to just let it stop? To let everyone sleep? To dream forever?”

Nocte frowned.

“To know no pain? No loss? No fear or anger or jealousy?” Marie reasoned desperately. “In death, everyone is equal. No rich. No poor. No good or evil. Everyone is the same.

“Is it bad to just end and move onto Heaven?”

Why were her words so familiar?

She didn’t care if the magic destroyed her. She didn’t care if she could never use magic again. She would kill everyone and everything so that there would never be any pain or hurt or chaos anymore.

Nocte swallowed hard.

Those had been her words, her thoughts, her beliefs more than half a year ago.

“So you see,” Marie explained, adamant and sure. “By waking him up, we’re not killing people. We’re saving them. We’d be purifying the universe.”

She winced.

She would cleanse.

Her father would rest in peace.

And so would she.

She wanted peace.

Was that so hard?

Nocte shuddered and closed her eyes.

It made sense, of course. It had made sense to Nocte a long time ago, months ago. It would be easy, she knew, to go back to those months, to sink once again, to return to that moment in time when answers came easy to her, when everything that had mattered was only the end.

To sleep forever.

Because if it were to end, if she were to die, then Gash wouldn’t be angry anymore, Ebony wouldn’t be troubled, Occult wouldn’t be trapped and Dire wouldn’t be burdened. She would most certainly go to Hell after destroying a planet and see her father again.

In death, Nocte wouldn’t have to worry about Laurel Tree or the future. She wouldn’t have to worry about Aman growing apart or Pyralis growing away or Corliss growing off. She wouldn’t have to think about the “what ifs” or about hopes and dreams, loves and loves lost.

For in death, everything was just this sweet, dark, deep abyss.

There was nothing.

There was not even Nocte.

Marie dropped several pomegranate seeds into her hand, red and cool like jewels, and said, “Join us.”

She opened her eyes, slowly, to look at the small ruby-fruit.

But Nocte also knew that the end did not tie up so neatly, so perfectly.

Nothing was perfect.

She turned to the Marie and searched her eyes. She didn’t know what the woman had gone through to want the destruction of her planet; she didn’t know if the woman’s private trials even warranted the destruction of Earth. She knew only of her own, and Nocte could testify that whatever the woman had faced, whatever her pain or raw humiliation, it did not – could not – equal that of her own.

The woman was too sweet and too innocent, too naïve about the world with her pale eyes and pale curls, idealizing the end when Nocte knew the truth, the bitter, bitter truth. Marie didn’t know what death meant, what destruction looked like, really looked like. It wasn’t anything like the mayflowers she had brought; it was a sea of red that haunted one’s dreams every night, every waking moment, all the time, anytime, everywhere, anywhere.

“Go. Go and make a red sea for me.”

Of fading chi and chakra, the struggle for one breath to the last breath – Marie didn’t know. She was no necromancer. She had never faced a reaper, dark and skeletal, soulless and soulful.

“I’m sorry, Nocte. But you owe me, remember?”

This… Earthling didn’t know how it was to fall, really fall, and try with all her blood, sweat and being – with a friend’s relentless fist that one fated night not so long ago – to recover, to obtain, to redeem what dignity was left.

“STOP IT, NOCTE!”

She didn’t know what it was like to lose everything and try so, so hard to let it go.

“E-Everything’s going t-to be f-fine, dad. After th-this, we’ll go to the palace and… and e-eat cake! M-Měi Fèng promised c-cake. You g-gotta eat this cake, dad. I-It’s the sh-shit, I sw-swear.”

But Nocte knew.

“… tell us you are lying. You are lying, yes? You are lying? YOU ARE LYING! LYING! LYING!”

She lived it, was living it.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was visiting mom.”

So she decided to spare them both.

“You have no right to be here! Leave!”

Because she didn’t know…

She took Marie by the hand gently and rolled the seeds back into her palm, much to the blonde’s surprise.

“I am going to say this once, and only once,” Nocte stated slowly, calmly.

Marie stared at her in open hope, her eyes fixed on Nocte as if she was her hero, her knight in shining armour – the one she had been waiting for, for such a long time. But Nocte was not her hero, because Nocte had no intention of destroying anything. (She was trying to avoid her quota, for crying out loud!)

… she didn’t know what strength it took to fight the odds.

“Nocte… you have to stop this madness. You’re losing yourself. You’re falling.”

So she said to her:

“Where are my goddamned Keys?”

- - -

the point

h t t p : / / t h e p o i n t . a w a r d s p a c e . c o m /

t - h - e - p - o - i - n - t . l i v e j o u r n a l . c o m /