Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (38 page)

massive space fleets. Warships powered by the dead. By the 41st century the

human empire was the most feared in the universe. The Skrav stood united
with several others among them: the Arr7, the Eek, and several exots whom I
did not recognize. No resistance or rebellion was enough. Nothing they did,
nothing anyone did was ever enough. She had an unlimited supply of users
and the human population had bred to the point that soon we had become the
most dominant species in the galaxy spanning across multiple worlds.
Infecting worlds like we were some kind of disease. We were a parasite. All
those that defied her empire perished. She won war after war using users to
plan her strategies so that she always won. She had become a living God.
Among those that tried to defy her were living worlds, beings and entities we
had no idea existed. They used powers capable of destroying star systems to
against her and even they lost. The loss of one star system meant nothing to
her. She saw everything and countered. She stayed alive and controlled
everything the same way Narville had. As time passed her body was no
longer needed. She adapted. Her mind lived on through copies as she
directed her battles from a warships several miles long called the Olethros.

The rest of her armada were war factories producing massive amounts of
drones mining material from planets and asteroids. By the 51st century the

human race had split into thousands of sub-species adapted to live on
different worlds and genetically altered for whatever scenario she saw fit. We
had become an unstoppable force.

By the 81st Century the human race had evolved into something else. Her

ships had become organic. She became more then one mind. The Olethros
were more a creature then man made shells. The Olethros had massive
spiderlike limbs that could devour entire worlds. One Olethros was a planet
destroyer while another a sun-eater, immortal as it constantly regenerated
every part of itself constantly adapting and evolving until it became as close
as it could to a perfect being. It could flow in and out of the immer eventually
even developing a taste for leviathans.

When there were no humans left only the spider like species Olethros
remained. The Skrav and the few surviving species both old and new in the
galaxy launched their final assault from the M33 galaxy. Swarms of Olethros
retaliated conquering the last of their worlds. There in the shadows was
something else. Another force that came from inside the immer. When a
group of aliens emerged from another universe they too became swallowed by
the Olethros. Eden-3 was where it all began. The Lethe had been developing
technology on this orbital hoping to cross from our universe into the next.
When they tested it they created the first gateway into the immer. At first it
seemed great. They began studying it planting markers and admiring the
creatures they discovered. Then they wanted more. It wasn’t enough. Inside
they punched another hole. Pieces of the two dimensions intersected and
rubbed together creating a spark that ignited across the entire universe.

Pieces shattered and the nexus was born.

Before long the Olethros attempted the same thing the Lethe did. Breaking
the barrier between worlds and tearing a hole in time and space. I could see it
all. I could see galaxies colliding together, the universe as it grew colder and
colder even as we ran through the immer from one to the other. All of it from
this moment to the end. I was a part of it. I could feel my mind sucked inside
the Olethros. I felt it as if it was my own body. It had descended from human
and this meant I could see through its eyes. I wasn’t just seeing through its
eyes though I was in my own body my own mind witnessing my future every
single moment all at once. Balkava had used me. In the heart of her empire
she and I. I was just as much a part of the Olethros as she. She had made me
immortal.

are living. We are all so unique from our face to our hair down to the
tiniest atom in our body. The terra of Earth, the first modified for space,
the humans that genetically engineered their bodies and passed those
traits down all the way to me. Even the cyborgs with their tainted minds
and bio- cells realigned by mathematics and quantum configurations.
Each of us see, feels, smells, and touches differently. For some things
can be unbearable they can be too much, the cold from a piece of ice
that burns one hand and barely numbs another. The way our hearts beat
at different beats yet they align when we hold onto the ones that we
love. We are such beautiful monsters. We keep going through all this
trouble to survive and for what? The warmth of someone we love. I
could feel Hera in my arms again if just for a fleeting moment. If I had
the power to stop time I would have only time nothing but a word is
infinite, immeasurable and continuous. The shards have showed me the
threads, the tethers; it has shown hundreds each and every grain of
sand, leaf on a tree, and piece of dirt. We are all made from the world
around us created from the clay.
All that is left now is to kill that one person. The right person, the person
that will solve so many problems, the one responsible for so much blood.
I’ve been tortured and used all my life as tool, no more.
“NO MORE”.
SEVER

I reach out across the darkness and wrap my hands around Balkava’s
throat. My vision returns to me. Time slows to a crawl. I ignore the pain from
my wound as I lift my head and stare at my former mentor, my former lover,
my former friend. I can see the look in her eyes as tears fall down her cheek.
For a moment I feel the urge to pull away to grab hold of her and cry. She is
not just looking at me. I can see she is looking at her own reflection in my
eyes. I can see the shock and horror, the surprise in her as my grip around her
neck tightens. I feel her struggle to tear away at my flesh with the Lethe
sword but I caught her by surprise and her hands are empty, she is
defenseless. There are many worlds, many directions we can travel eventually
the human race will die out or become something akin to the Olethros but not
today. That path doesn’t begin today. I don’t blink. I don’t look away. I never
let my eyes leave her gaze. I will be the last thing she looks at in this world.
There is no speech and I give her no other reason then my own defense. I am
a predator, an animal and she is my kill. My hand tightens more. The two of
us are locked away together in this moment in time forever; an instant that
lasts an eternity. She lets go and I watch as she takes her last breath. The cold
air turns to vapor and dissipates around her. The life leaves her eyes. I feel
her grow lighter as her soul has become severed from her body.

I am Sev the God-killer. I let her neck go and she falls to the ground. All
around me I can see her deathsquad pointing their rifles and ready to slay me
with their swords. None of them move. Each of them could have killed me the
moment I put my hand on her. Were they afraid? Several of them take a knee
throwing their rifles to the ground and bowing. They live to serve a master,
none of them born with any aspirations of their own taught only to obey. We
are animals no better then a pack of wolves. I have shown in front of a crowd
that I am alpha. I am king of the monsters.

It takes a moment but I
finally take it all in and realize I’m still not dead. They
lower their weapons and I can see many of the faces that were once full of
fear are now smiling or have a look of content about them. My wound
stopped bleeding. To my side I can see Aira sitting in her chains smiling. Cree
is crying and Talon looks like he has seen a ghost. I get it now. Balkava
stabbed me in just the right spot. When Aira had saved my life… ‘The
connective tissue would regenerate - - reseeded with my own cells.’ The ghost
organ I had inside me had began regenerating the moment Balkava twisted
her sword. It kept me alive long enough to kill her and even now it was
regenerating continuing to keep me alive.

I stood there for several minutes on my knees before falling down and setting
myself up against the throne. I could feel several small pieces of bone pierce
my skin from where I had leaned. I cursed still holding my side and staring at
the trail of blood I was leaving behind. I needed to catch my breath. Aira was
already standing over me yelling at the guard to grab a med kit so she could
patch me up. It was Talon that grabbed the supplies she needed. Barely a
minute passed. Aira began wrapping my wound, it had already stopped
bleeding but the cut itself was still open enough to worry about infection. She
treated me like a mother would their child. She treated me as if I was the
most important person in the world. She looked just like she did when we
were children. She looked at me and smiled saying she couldn’t believe what
happened and confirmed to me what I already thought was true about the
ghost organ.

With the death of Balkava no one was afraid anymore. We were free. One of
the deathsquad approached us and bowed to his knee. All around us the
others were taking a knee as well. It was as if I had become their king. “The
Cyphers are at your command,” he said. He was obviously the one in charge.
He wore the same black attire the rest of them had on except his helmet had
two jagged ends that extended from the side like the wings of a bird or space
fighter. Killing Balkava had put me in charge. My first order was a simple
one. I asked them all to retire and lock themselves in their quarters until I
could send for them.

Only a few minutes had passed since I held Balkava’s neck in my hands. I
could still feel the warmth from her body now lifeless and cold. The moment
after Aira had sealed my wound I climbed reaching for Hera on the cross. It
was Aira and Talon that ended up doing the climbing for me. Gently they
unstrapped her lifting her body and carrying in unison to the ground and
placing her in my arms. She still had several wires connected to the back of
her neck and spine. Her eyes were wide open and her pupils were large and
black while red veins that wanted badly to burst swallowed the white in her
eyes. Her skin was paler then I remembered. It had been so long since I held
her in my arms. The last time we saw each other we were healthy, fit, the best
each other could offer before the fight with the Skrav and landing on this
world so many of our past wounds had healed. Now we were broken, our
bodies weak, our health poor, our minds and emotions scattered both our
lives had become so full of death and sadness. All of this because of Balkava;
why did she have to think power was the only way she could gain control,
forcing others to do what she wanted, she never once thought about asking,
she never once thought about working with the rest of us, she never once
thought about us being a team. Not even her Cyphers mourned her death.

“What did they do to her?” I asked the Cypher leader. “Balkava had us hook
her directly into the nexus we acquired from the Aelita. We split it using a
Skrav sword recovered and injected her with several shards. She is the eyes
and voice, the seer of worlds,” he then looked down to the ground as if he was
mourning for his part in all of it wishing he had chosen his words more
carefully. Cyphers were less than human; so much of their moral compass had
been augmented and taken from them as they were enhanced to serve
Balkava and the elders before her hidden away inside the depths of the
Erebus. They were a more a subspecies now like the caretakers but they were
still sentient enough to know right from wrong. Like so many humans that
blindly follow they followed never stopping to think about the future only
believing what they were doing was for a greater good. None of them shot at
me when I killed Balkava because in that instant that small slither of time
they each had the same epiphany and through the small bit of human will
they had left they each gave themselves the order to stand down.

I began carrying Hera to the medical bay. If we could get there Aira and Cree
could synthesize the protein in my blood. My blood was the key. I could save
her. It was our only chance to bring her back to reality and away from the
visions she must have been having. We were several decks away. My
adrenaline gave me more then enough strength to carry her but it still felt like
we were running for an eternity. The holes in her skin were we had to pull the
wires were bleeding. This was my responsibility and no one else’s. Balkava
wanted to turn her into me. All I could think about was saving her. Talon,
Cree, and Aira were following close behind me. Weakened from the crash the
Erebus was still a mess, hallways were lined with broken pillars, walls
crumbled into living quarters and the internal structure of the entire ship was
twisted as pieces of wire bled from the ceiling above. We could see the sliding
doors to the medical bay when the ground collapsed beneath our feet.

Hera fell from my arms. I felt like I was
floating in space. In my mind I could
see the stars surround me in every direction, the Erebus in her prime flying
away from me as I float holding nothing more then a rifle wearing only a
small space suit my oxygen leaking from my air tank. I felt like I floated there
for hours until the two massive ion engines were nothing more then a blur
until the entire Erebus disappeared. We all hit the ground at about the same
time. I heard bones break as Aira, Cree, and Talon fell unconscious. Hera lay
in front of me her eyes still open staring into nothing. She looked like a doll. I
prayed we wouldn’t be too late. Aside from the empty blank stare she seemed
fine completely unaffected by the fall.

It was a thirty foot drop. We landed inside one of the Erebus’s smaller
hangers. The only light seemed to come from the hole we fell through and an
opening that led outside in the snow about a hundred yards away but there in
the dark I could see several eyes peering at me. Had I stared so long into the
abyss? No. From the darkness came a creature I now had the pleasure of
encountering several times it was another wild hellbeast. I could see the small
specks of dust and blue snow floating around the room. Everything seemed to
move in slow motion. I had no weapon, no rifle. It slowly crawled on its legs
towards us. I looked around and picked up a long piece of debris that was
shaped like the handle of a scythe. It was broken torn and sharp at one of it’s
edges, the edge that I pointed towards the creature as we looked at each other
moving in a circle around the room. I was protecting my friends, my family,
protecting the few I had left. I had survived so much beginning with the
drowning of Dom and the Seraphim leviathan on Errikus, training on
Erebus, the antliods, the Skrav, the Tesh- kar, the wilds of Eden-3, joined the
resistance and even slayed the two mortal Gods: Narville and Balkava.
Everything had led me to this moment I was now face to face with the beast
that haunted my childhood, the creature I had been brought up to fear.

Once upon a time on Earth brave warriors would walk willingly into the wild
to test their skill against boars, bears, lions, and wolves. I was no different
now. I could see my breath in the air, feel the sweat fall from my forehead and
freeze before it touched the ground. The tingling in my arms turned from a
small discomfort into a sharp shooting pain and then my body fell numb and I
was threw myself through the air holding the piece of rubble like a spear and
placing it inside the heart of the monster. I hung there for several seconds
before letting go and falling to the ground. The creature fell to the ground
dead. Moments later I managed to wake Aira and together we carried Hera
and Talon through several corridors checking each step for weaknesses.
Finally we made it to the medical bay and I placed Hera down on the table.
Aira searched the ground finding a syringe and taking my blood and placing
it inside the metabolic chamber that would separate my cells and the artificial
protein. Hera would be saved.

Aira used some ammonium carbonate mixed with a perfume to wake Talon.
The two of them were trained in field medicine and together they began to
treat all of our wounds. Hours passed before they gave her the protein
injection. I began counting the minutes till I could hear her voice again. I
watched her eyes from the side of her bed as they became less dilated and
slowly the red began to fade away. The protein was working. Hera would be
just like I was now. Visions would come and go but they could be controlled.

She opened her eyes and screamed. Her eyes, face, her body was tense and
terrified. She began to mumble her mouth unable to form words. She looked
like a scared child. The closer any of us came to her the more frightened she
became.

--
Through the darkness he stumbled to catch his grip, he tripped and fell... down
a rabbit hole, but when he reached the bottom it wasn't a magical world.

More darkness shutting out the light. There were no magical creatures, no kings
no queens, no mad hatter and no tea parties. The scent of smoke and cold
clutched the air, filling his lungs, choking him with fear. Blind and senses dulled
he gathered himself together and stood up. He felt his arms and legs binded to
the ground... chains that held him down. The sound of the jabberwocky hissing
filled his ears. Trembling in fear he began to cry. There was nobody around,
nobody to even watch him die. Alone with the jabberwocky he kneeled muscles
tense, the water ran down his eyes and flooded the room.

He could feel himself drowning, drowning in the jabberwocky’s cage... With so
many ways to fall, this is where he fell.
The jabberwocky’s breath grew near, he could feel the heat radiating

from the beast, and he could sense its scales, its presence as it closed in for its
kill.
In that moment he heard a voice cry out of the darkness. It was the crying of a
young girl. He thought ‘Was this Alice?’