Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Capricious Infection ❯ Act 7: Awaken ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

XxXxXxXx
Capricious Infection
Act 7: Awaken
By: Melissa Norvell
XxXxXxXx


Lannad slowly walked through the demolished, horror-riddled landscape of what used to be a place filled with so many beloved memories. Happy, sad, and angry times of youth, the school was a place where she fell in love, made friends, got into arguments and engaged in all of the seemingly mundane things she had once taken for granted. It was like the old phrase had articulated: you never miss something until it is gone. She felt the bite of those words now more than ever. Everyone else was so immersed in training, and she felt guilty for not following suit as she had planned, but a part of her was not finished mourning her fallen classmates.

A small hand placed bunches of wildflowers she had picked on each desk that had not been destroyed and over each corpse that was discovered. She paused at one of three desks that still stood in what used to be her history class. Blue eyes saddened upon realizing who used to take their normal seat there.

‘Ayumi…’ Her thoughts reeled in vivid recollection of earlier on that day. The blood curdling scream of her friend was heard and at that moment, Lannad turned with a horrified expression as a long, curved blade ripped her lean body in half, easily slicing through muscle and membrane as it severed her completely. Out of fright, Lannad darted under the teacher’s desk, which was splattered in the blood of her deceased friend.

From her hole, she watched as a boy’s severed head fell short of her hiding spot. The blue-haired teen covered her mouth to retain her gasp as dead, brown eyes stared back her in haunting expression. A girl who had been running from the mysterious figure was stabbed in the chest, the blade protruded from between her breasts, coated with warm, red liquid. The history teacher scrambled to make it to the door, but his form was easily cut down the middle, leaving his innards to litter the flood in macabre glory.

The classroom was in chaos as students and faculty alike tried to flee from this mysterious killer only to meet their demise. No one made it out alive, no one but her.

She concentrated on the white flowers that sat innocently on the desk, her mind reeling for answers as she probed the innermost depths of her brain. ‘What did this killer look like? Come on, Lannad. Surely you know. Was he human, or alien?’ Walking away from the desk, the girl continued to think. ‘I can’t remember. I know he wore sneakers and he was tall. When he walked, he had casual steps.’

“Huh?” The girl stopped suddenly upon noticing something odd beneath the corner of her heeled shoe. She pivoted her foot to the side to reveal unusually large, black feathers. Bending down, Lannad picked them up and examined them closely, feeling the light texture in her elegant hands. ‘This is too big to be a bird feather. Does that mean that the killer is a demon? Could he be the Grand High Messiah? Oz said that he has descended, and is going to end the world. According to the prophecies, that would be correct. Sixteen years from my birth the Messiah would come to end this world. He would appear on the calmest of days and the land would fall to ruin. People would die and the sky would turn into a blazing orange. Everything would be destroyed, even down to the smallest insect. The land would become barren and the world would fall into a total apocalypse.’

She looked thoughtful for a moment, “I’ve got to wonder though; Oz says that his race was nearly killed off by the Messiah. If what has been prophesized is true, then why were members of his race still left alive? What about that demon Dante claims to see? This is all so confusing. I have so many questions, but not enough time to answer them. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” her bloodied form slumped down in dejection. All of this pondering was giving her a headache and only making things more depressing and futile. At this point in time, there was just no answering the many quandaries of her mind.

Footsteps and faint talking brought her form upright as she spied Mae and Ringo, talking around the desks. They looked as if they were engaged in conversation. “Mae, Ringo!” She called out, making her presence known.

Ringo looked up from his conversation. Inquisitive slate blue eyes caste their glance to her. “Hey Lannad, what are you doing here?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t think that you’d be here after what happened. You were directly involved in the murders. You must be traumatized,” Mae was a little surprised herself and cast a worried glance to her friend. Why would she think of coming back to the scene of the crime? Maybe she was trying to remember something? Or perhaps she wanted to mourn Ayumi and her fellow peer’s deaths. Whatever the reason was, their meeting was unexpected.

“I’m not sure how I feel,” Lannad admitted as she walked up to the duo. “Everything doesn’t feel real. Aliens, weapons, the apocalypse…I mean, it’s not like I had envisioned.”

Mae placed her hands on her hips and arched an eyebrow. “So, nothing happened that’s been true to your prophecy?”

“Some things have, but some have not. What Tarvos said was right. This is going against my religion. As an ‘apocalyptic priestess’, I’m supposed to acknowledge the end in a fatalistic way and embrace it, not fight against it.” If it were truly up to her, that’s the path she would have chosen. Ever since Oz had showed up, Lannad was unsure of how to conduct herself, especially since she had been assigned with a magical scepter and sent out to stop the very core of what her religion was about.

“I just got filled in as to what’s going on. I’d like to know something, though. I want to know about this Messiah that everyone is talking about. I understand that he’s actually based on a real thing.” That’s what Ringo and Mae must have been doing. She must have caught him up with things, since when Oz appeared to him, he was completely out of the loop of anything. It was doubtful that he played Twisted Land; at least, she had not heard anyone talk about his involvement with it.

The girl thought for a moment before she replied to him, trying to find the right words for her upcoming explanation. “I’ll explain it the best I can. I was born as the Marked One. That’s what you’re referred to when you’re born on a day of ending.”

“How did they know that day in specific would be the end of the world?” Ringo held his hand out in question. It seemed impossible to know what day would be the end of the world, and no one truly had anything tattooed on their body to signify that their birth would mark the end.

“Long ago, my ancestor Londa Éclaire was spoken to by the Messiah himself. Chaos was wreaking havoc on the world, destroying everything around him. When he came to attack our village, he was sealed away by Londa. The Grand High Messiah told her that chaos was only temporarily sealed, but soon the human race would cause him to gain even stronger powers than before. After this happened, the world would end for sure. After all, chaos exists everywhere and it plays an integral role in the balance of life. The day that would mark his awakening would be today.” Lannad explained the prophecies of her people in great detail. She didn’t want to miss anything important, especially not at such a crucial point.

“Then, that means Chaos already woke up,” Mae stated as a look of shock crossed her face. Could they be dealing with more than one person? If the Grand High Messiah was here, then that meant…

“Death and Chaos go hand-in-hand to create destruction. Without each other, the end cannot happen. Obliteration is mandatory,” her words were grim, but the truth was more than a slight sting. It was like a ferocious bite that took off the hand that fed it. This is why their situation was so important to Oz. Maybe he thought that if they stopped the Messiah then Chaos would calm down.

“Does this mean that we have to fight Chaos and Death? If that’s true, then we have to fight two people.” They couldn’t even wield their weapons; much less fight the grim reaper and chaos itself. What was Oz thinking even assigning them such big jobs without no prior experience or military knowledge? There were far more suitable people on earth to pick.

“The Grand High Messiah must be on a mission to revive Chaos and wake him from his sleep.” It made sense when she thought about it. The Shrine of the Eclaire family was not too far away from the school.

“Then shouldn’t we go and find the place he’s supposed to be?” If they found Chaos, then they could do something to keep him from being waked up. At least, she was winging the situation as to what exactly they’d do but it was a work in progress.

“Don’t you know where Chaos is?” Ringo looked to Lannad. If anyone knew, she did.

“No, I’m not sure where it is, but I’m sure I could find out. Londa had kept it a cherished secret, but she’s only passed it down to one person at a time.” Unfortunately, that person was not her.

“How long ago was Chaos sealed away?” He asked.

“Since Feudal times.”

“Have you been practicing with your weapon?” Mae asked. It seemed like a subject change, but it really wasn’t.

“I haven’t yet. I’ve been too busy trying to figure out who the Grand High Messiah is." That was part of the reason that she came to this place. Lannad was hoping to jar her memories to think if she’d gotten a good glimpse of him. So far, nothing was coming to her mind. The girl wouldn’t tell if it was trauma or she really never did get a good glimpse of him.

Mae crossed her arms over her chest and placed a hand on the side of her face, looking to the skies in thought. “I thought he looked like the guy in the game, but maybe not.”

Black feathers were held in front of the girl’s face, forcing her thoughtful gaze upon them, “I found this.”

Ringo plucked one from her hand and examined it, “that’s bizarre. What has feathers this big?”

“I have a feeling it’s whatever killed everyone in school. I’m just not sure what it is exactly.” Were they even really looking for a person, per se, or something from a game? What if what killed everyone in school was not anything that resembled a human, but a creature or beast?

The male handed the feather back to her and stuck his hands in the pockets of his navy, pin-striped pants as he cast a gaze to the sky and peered through a hole that was knocked in the roof. “This is a lot to absorb. Like science fiction…or a dream. I know if I am dreaming, I hope that I wake up really soon.”



XxXxXxXx



The brilliant fiery orange of the sky reflected off of the eerily calm waters of a small pond. Rezzi moved her walking stick around as she walked across the dam with Tarvos. The gentle wind caused her long, straight hair to move slightly. Turning her deteriorating vision to the male beside of her, she sighed.

“Everything is happening, just as the game dictated.”

Tarvos smiled his trademark capricious smile. “What will you do, blind prophet?”

“What do you think? I’m going to follow his orders.” It was as simple as that. There wasn’t much to explain about destiny. Oz knew what he was talking about, and there really was no need to convince her. Not about things like this.

“Are you sure that you can handle your job? You are blind, after all.” Such a thing could be a great hindrance to her performance on the battle field. Sight was a primary function needed to engage in battle, he wondered how long she would even last with such a disability.

“I’m only partially blind,” Rezzi stopped. That sounded like a desperate act to cover her disability up or write it off as not being as bad as it truly was. “However, there are things that I can see that others cannot,” she turned to face the demon before her. “Like you…”

Tarvos turned to face her and tilted his head down with a wide smile, unlike his previous ones; he bore no fangs, minus the few that were so long they had no choice but to protrude slightly from the corners of his mouth. “She tilted her head up to him; the two were almost eye to eye, “you know about me more than anyone else. I have to wonder what this will mean for your friends.”

“Can I ask you a few things?” After all, now that another alien had shown up, this was a more appropriate time to actually question him on what she had kept quiet about before.

“Ask away,” now was as good of a time as any.

“Are you the same kind of alien as Oz?” She had to know. Their blurs were very similarly colored. Even if they did not recognize each other, there could have been survivors that Oz didn’t know about. Surely that was a possibility.

Tarvos crossed his arms over his chest and quirked an eyebrow. His teeth were brought to light in all of their macabre glory. “Treading into murky waters will suffocate you, my dear.”

“Then you have a purpose in all of this as well. Were you sent here by Oz?” Her voice morphed into a serious tone. If he has something to do with everything, then he definitely knew more than he was saying.

“It’s possible,” he definitely wasn’t giving any straight forward answers either.

“You know everything, don’t you?” Might as well throw that out there and make her point clear. This was all too odd, and since the blurs were similar, she could bet nearly everything that they were both Dius. If Oz knew all of the remaining Dius, then there was no doubt in her mind that they knew each other. If that was the case, then Tarvos was supposed to purposely land on this planet. He didn’t have amnesia, he was hiding something.

Dante was right.

“What purpose are you going to serve?” She at least wanted to know that much, although she doubted he would give her an honest answer.

“I’m here to make sure you realize your true powers. Until you do, I cannot leave this shit hole of a planet,” his words were cold, and they cut through her like unbreakable daggers.

Black lips frowned upon the realization. Everything suddenly made a lot of sense. Tarvos and Oz both knew about this planet’s destruction. No doubt they were sent here to act as guides against the Grand High Messiah. But, why was Tarvos continuing to hide himself from everyone? Maybe he just wanted to mess with
Dante’s mind some more, or maybe now wasn’t exactly the most opportune time. Even so, the real matter was the fact that this Dius undoubtedly knew what was going to transpire.

It was upsetting and intriguing all at the same time.



XxXxXxXx



On a nearby hillside, David and Oz stood, overlooking the small pond that Rezzi and Tarvos were at. They could not hear anything from that distance, but they watched as the two made circles around the small body of water and paused occasionally to engage in conversation.

“This might be a better place,” Oz noted. It was much better to start training here, than to do it in a more populated area. It only slowed them down, especially with people in a panic over what happened at the human’s high school facility.

David said nothing and continued to watch Rezzi and Tarvos as a gentle breeze blew through his short, black hair, causing the longer strands near the top and his long, messy bangs to wave slightly.

“Are you pissed off that I deceived you?” The Dius stuck his hands in his back pockets of his jeans and looked over his shoulder at the boy, who wore a serious expression and chiseled frown. If David wasn’t mad, then he certainly looked it.

David turned his head to the man he’d admired for so long. “So…all along you were right. Hope you’re happy that point was proven.” Yeah, he was bitter. He had every right to be. This guy was a major asshole.

“I take that as a yes.”

The boy wasn’t going to keep quiet after that snarky remark. “Oh, you tricked the hell out of me. You should like, give yourself major-ass props. I even talked to you on the phone about my brocrush on you. Do you even know how embarrassing that is?”

A bony, white hand was placed on David’s shoulder as a small sign of comfort, “I am fond of you as well.” If it was any pillow to lighten the fall, he meant those words.

A slight blush crept to his cheeks. What the hell? It just got awkward. “I don’t even know how you mean that. I mean, do aliens even have a sense of friendship?”

“Friendship?” This guy might have been a master hacker, but he didn’t understand the simplest shit. Talk about being book smart with no common sense. Hold the phone, maybe aliens called it something else. It wouldn’t hurt to describe it, anyway.

David sighed to himself. What a chore. “It’s kind of like having someone you watch out for. You worry about them and you have a lot in common. Sort of like Dante, he’s my best bro. We talk and hang out together.”

Oz cocked his head, “our method of friendship is a little different. We only have one close friend.”

“So, do you have one of those close friends?” What the hell did he even mean by that? David had a feeling that alien relationships were complicated. They sounded complicated and they haven’t even begun the conversation about them yet.

“No.”

“Oh, well, maybe I can be that friend.” If aliens only had one friend, then he was all over offering that position up. Alien or not, it didn’t dismiss the fact that he still really liked Oz, despite being a total dick and deceiving him, he wasn’t so bad in person. Like it or not, this was what he was excited to see.

The Dius arched an eyebrow. “You would take that position without knowing me?” That was very forward, almost boldly so. Either there was a cultural barrier or this kid was hard up for company. He was more apt to think of it as a misunderstanding more than anything.

Oz hoped that was the case, anyway.

“We’ve talked over the internet for a year. I didn’t even know it was you. That’s pretty amazing. You’ve been helping me this entire time. You even showed up here, just for me.” Despite their situation, David could say that he felt that he had some content in his heart being with Oz. Even if it was just standing on a hill and talking over things. His idol was in his reach. If he wanted to, the human boy could reach out and touch the extraterrestrial face of a friend he had never seen until now. It was hard to believe, and yet amazing at the same time.

Nothing could mimic it.

“I’ll have to get to know you better. A stratos is a life time decision. I’m not keen on commitment to something that might meet an untimely end.” It was sheer facts, even if they came off colder than usual.

“Burn.”

“You got turned down by your idol. That’s way harsh,” Tony spoke up from behind them, snickering after the inappropriate comment.

“Shut the hell up, Tony,” no one was even talking to him. He didn’t need his wise-ass comments. David turned his attention back to Oz. After all, it was far from cool to lose his composure over something this asinine. “So, how do we start this training session?”

As if that question was the magic phrase, the landscape around them warped slightly and froze, earning a small ‘huh’ from both boys as they glanced around at their surroundings. It was nearly the same as what happened at the school. This brought back bad memories, for both of them.

“Not again,” Tony whined. Nothing else bad had better happen. This was unfair in nineteen different ways.

Stepping away from David, the Dius flung his arms out to his sides, placing a permanent freeze on the background, removing all twitches from the warp. He then resumed his position and put a hand out to gesture to their new environment. “This is a time rift. You can destroy as much as you want in this space without harming the world you live in.” Not that it would matter, but perhaps it would put them at ease and they would not have to watch out for their two friends walking around the pond.

“You can make time rifts?” His idol was definitely way more than just some elite hacker and video game creator. David would bet that being a time guardian was going to be more of a challenge than he initially thought.

“I can do many things,” far more than any of them had comprehension of.

David continued to glance around at his surroundings. Oz certainly had some miraculous powers. It was nothing short of amazing. He was nearly overwhelmed by it.

“Are you some sort of psychic?” Tony asked. It was a legit question. As much as David loved this guy, his powers were daunting and he gave off the impression of an impregnable fortress. Oz intimidated the hell out of him and he didn’t even have to do much.

“Of sorts, bending time is a very fragile practice. You can cause huge cataclysms within the slightest manipulations. Even creating this rift alters the future significantly and deviates this from any one of the infinite possibilities for this paradox,” Oz continued to educate the two of them. It was more important for David to absorb this knowledge than it was for Tony to. However, it was best that Tony at least know the fundamentals of his character.

“Is that supposed to be a good thing, or a bad one?” This alien was so informative, but he lacked details. Were they altering time in a good way or a bad one?

“That is a simple opinion that varies from individual to individual. Different things cause different outcomes for different people.” In short, that question covered too broad of a spectrum to truly be answered.

“Well, we need to do all of the good things we can,” Tony just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t fucking anything up. That was his only concern.

“Whether or not you do anything ‘good’ is objective.” That was merely an opinion on its own.

“Whose side are you on? You act like you could care less either way how this turns out.” Honestly, this guy was just being a prick. How could David admire someone this full of himself? Oz acted as if he didn’t even have to save the planet or remotely give a damn about any of the people on it.

“I can’t be judgmental. I’m here to guide you, but the choices that you make are those I will have no part of, at least, not for now.” It was against the plan to give the humans too much help. Oz could not have anything become clear, not now. It was far too soon to tell them the truth or even alert them of what they were truly doing. Who’s to say if it was right or wrong? After all, right and wrong were subject to opinion. This is what he saw as right, and it would be a good learning experience for them if nothing else.

David arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re here to help us?” That did not sound helpful at all.

“I am here to make sure this world isn’t destroyed.”

“I don’t get you. I’m still weirded out that you’re actually an alien.” Everything was moving at an incredibly fast pace. There was no way to even absorb all of this without being overwhelmed.

“I couldn’t let you know that. It’s obvious as to why.”

“Yeah, David would have never believed you,” Tony was right, despite how much his friend wanted to reprimand him. If Oz had just blurted it out one day, he was pretty sure that he would have just laughed at him, or called him a crazy douche bag and not done a thing that he was doing now.

“I never believed in aliens. I just thought they were something used as nightmare fuel in horror movies. You’re not what I imagined an alien looking like either.” When someone brought up the word ‘alien’ the first thought in any human’s mind were green men, or walking forms that were slimy, or some strange thing with large, expressive eyes. Oz wasn’t slimy, and he looked very much like a human, minus a few extremities.

“Do you really come from another planet?” The question was stupid, but the mohawked boy just couldn’t believe it, no matter how many times Oz answered it in the positive.

“I do.”

“I’ve heard of alien encounters before but I thought maybe those people were just batshit crazy…Does that mean you’ve been here before?” Maybe the sightings did make sense. If that was so, then Oz could answer a barrage of inquiries about alien contact with humans. Well, given the fact that the aliens that made contact with people were a. real and b. the Dius race. Now, he questioned what other types of aliens there were in the vast space of the universe.

“Our race has visited your planet many times over a hundred year span. We’ve probed your brains and examined your race, studying them to see if they were fit enough for the task we’ve chosen for you. We knew that your world would meet its end on a marked day. You were able to avoid it due to the warnings, but now it is a new age and a new warning has been delivered. This is a warning that we did not even predict. I felt it necessary to intervene and make out existence known,” Oz brought light to all of the happenings that Earth went through with alien contact on their behalf. All other forms of contact were from other races and their reasoning for doing such acts was unknown.

“You’ve been watching us this entire time?” Tony was amazed, and creeped out by that fact. Who knows what they truly saw?

“Our planet constantly monitors yours. I do this through means of a parallel universe,” the Dius explained the methods behind his madness.

“You mean you use parallel universes to coexist with us?” Even creepier.

“It’s how I can monitor your world freely. I can exist within your time at any given point without you being aware of it. I can even trigger events and happenings. That is how you all acquired Twisted Land.” It was no mere coincidence that game came to fall into all of their lives. This was also a part of the Dius’ master plan to find those worthy of wielding his prized weapons.

“What? You sold them to us?” Tony’s face lit up in shock. He wasn’t expecting that.

“I distributed them to major corporations who passed them to gaming chains.” Eventually, the games would come to fall into their hands and become a sensation among the human race, or at least that of Japan. During the sessions of this game, the players were to be determined by their potential in the game.

“How did you do that, though? No one would have marketed this game… Not legitly anyway. It looks like a poorly made bootleg.” David replied. That was the appeal of it, by most hardcore gamers anyway. Bootlegs attract people due to affordability, but these were different. They had no instructions and the very mystery behind the storyline and possible characters were what kept people buying them. The fact that it was an underground game that got its popularity by word of mouth was astonishing.

“I have ways of getting my point across.” Those words held a mask of impish nature. What exactly did he mean by that?

The human arched an eyebrow with an ironic smile. “What did you do? Mind control them?”

“It’s like mathematics,” Oz explained, “when you have an unknown variable, you isolate that term and find its unknown. Once you do that, you can substitute it and effectively solve any equation at hand. When you determine that worth, you replace the letter with a number. It’s the same with space and time. You can replace unwilling subjects with willing ones.”

“So, you got people who would distribute the game for you?” Tony questioned. That’s what it seemed like, anyway.

“It required small alterations but I did it without getting many negative offsets,” the Dius straightened his dual-colored shades.

“Holy shit…You set us up this whole time, didn’t you?” It just now hit him, but all along he was someone destined to be chosen by the Dius to help in rebuilding his doomed paradox. He was picked by Oz himself; the game was a special test that was administered to him and him alone.

This only added to the overwhelming factors that already hung over his head. There was no doubt about it, he was meant to serve a higher purpose in life. Funny thing, because he never thought he’d be more than some disc jockey at a bar, or he’d go to school to be a neurologist like his uncle. Never in a million years did he see himself saving the world outside of the real of a fantasy game.

“It required pulling strings in all the right areas.” Then again, he didn’t ever think he’d meet some weird alien either.

A small smile crept to David’s features. “Well then, what’s your next move?”



…To Be Continued