The moons go by quickly. Before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to Asha. Our last goodbye.
“So you’ve made up your mind?” Asha asks me, holding my shoulder. Behind her, the giant Gate hums and beckons.
I nod. “I’ve made up my mind. This is what I must do.”
Asha grasps me and hugs me tight. I feel a twang in my heart. The last time she hugged me was when I fell through the teleporter. She was the first face I saw through my tears. She had rushed to the station immediately when she had heard what had happened. Ever since then and up until this moment, she’s been the one by my side.
I hug her back tight. “Thanks, Asha. For being there for me. I’ll never forget you.”
Last time was when we lost Gale. And this time, she was going to lose me. I feel a pang of guilt for hurting her in this way.
But Asha is strong. If she’s sad to see me go, she does not show it. She holds me back at arm’s length and looks me in the eyes. “Riah. You’ve always worked so hard to save others. This time it’s no different.” Her emerald eyes glow like an ocean. “But this time, hopefully you can do it for yourself also. I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for.” She smiles and taps me on my heart.
Asha lets go and reaches into a box beside her, pulling out a case. “I got you the devices you asked for,” she says as she hands me the case. Levi-gears. “Ten of them. I’ve checked them and they’re all in good condition.”
Asha is the best. I wave to her as I head out into the unwelcoming desert. Her last words are, “May the winds carry you home.” It used to be common farewell words, but as the world collapsed and people no longer had a place they could call home, they started saying ‘May the winds carry you to safety’ instead. Well, where I was going there was no safety, but perhaps it can be home.
I arrive at the chasm, where the ground gave way to the void of the End, having chosen to walk all the way up here. I may never get a chance to walk again after this. The rest of the journey will mostly be flying over the End.
I take one last look back at Central. The city is now but a patch in the distance, an outline of the last remnants of civilization. Off to one side, the Gate pulses a faint blue. In a few days, the glow would be gone. This was my last chance if I wanted to turn back.
I take a deep breath. I don’t know if I’ve made the right decision. The things I’m leaving behind. The risks that I will be taking. The uncertainty of what the results may be.
I pull a levi-gear out of my bag and press it to my chest. I wince.
But I’ve made up my mind. With a heavy wing-flap, I take to the sky.
It was a long and tiring journey. I flapped my wings for hours on end, with little rest in between. The route I had to take was longer than usual as I tried to include spots where the sectors hadn’t fully collapsed. After a couple days, my wings felt like they were made of lead.
It’s a good thing I brought so many levi-gears. I hit so many gravity wells that, by the third day, six of them had already died out. I don’t know when was the last time I put this much preparation into planning for a trip.
Usually I didn’t really care much about what happened to me, as long as the mission was accomplished. But now I had a reason to make it to the end. If I failed anywhere in between, it would all be for nothing. In the past, I could just throw away my life for the person I was saving. But now, I had to survive until I got to my destination before I could do that.
In the past, I’ve also always had someone with me. Whenever I had to risk my life, I could trust that someone else would go on to complete the mission. But not this time. Come to think of it, this would be the first journey I’ve taken alone. And it would also be my last.
My location tracker beeps. I’m hovering over the spot. The spot where I last saw my friend—before I was warped away. A hexagonal device is attached to an outlet on my belt. The device that tore me away from my friend has redeemed itself. I unplug it and tuck it away into my pocket.
An icon appears in my holo and I tap it. From inside the bag on my back, a computing machine begins to whir as several sensor wards flash out around me. Kei’s tracking algorithm is activated.
Over the past few moons, Kei had been working hard to figure out a way to reach my friend. I had asked him about a possibility but Kei wanted to be able to give me a certainty. “Well, as certain as anybody could be about the End,” he had said. “But hopefully certain enough to be worth something to you. Certain enough to allow you to make a decision.”
The outline of a path appears on my holo, leading into the depths of the flames. I take my last breath of fresh stale air and dive.
As I descend, the sensor wards around me begin to swirl faster. Kei had tried to explain to me how everything worked, but I’m not sure if I fully understood. “Space and time are warped as you approach the End,” he had said. “If you enter the End at a slightly different angle, or a slightly different speed, you may end up very far away from where you intend to go.
“For that reason, in addition to analyzing the condition of the End and tracking your movement, the sensors will also be tracking traces of your friend.”
“Wait, how?” I had asked confused. “I thought nothing ever comes out of the End?”
“That’s right. But just before something enters the End, time slows down. From our perspective, at least. The last images of someone, at the moment right before they fall beyond the End, are frozen in time. And ever so slowly, invisible to our eyes, these images will leak back out. The sensors will be able to detect these traces.”
Guiding wards begin to activate around my wings, and slowly I let them take control. Soon enough, my whole body is moving in sync with the wards. Flames score my skin and slice through my wings, but I keep going, biting back the pain. After all, more is yet to come.
The sensor wards are the first to break. Like tiny glass trinkets, they crinkle and then blink out of existence. After that, everything on me begins to combust and disintegrate into ash. The computing unit on my back stop its singing and the levi-gear on my chest melts away. My skin and wings are on fire and every movement is painful. In the end, all that remains are the guiding wards, pumped full with magic, which continue to carry my forward with the last of their instructions.
When I last saw Kei, as he was stepping through the Gate, he did not want to say goodbye. “This is not the end,” he said confidently. “We will meet again someday.” Given enough time, he believed that he would eventually find a way to reach out beyond the End. And even if that were to fail, “Well, everything must have an end,” he said. “Even the End. If nothing else, we will see each other again at the end of the universe.”
And the last thing I remember is my body exploding in excruciating pain.
It was the pain that woke me up. And it did not go away no matter how long I lay there.
I had crashed onto the ground. Or what I thought was ground. It coalesced like waves of daggers, pitch black and oozing light, like frozen space and solid energy. The sky above was infinitely bright, arcing with plasma and flames of light. It would have been a beauty if it were not for the pain.
I pull myself together against gravity and slowly rise from the ground. Trembling in my legs, I stand up. I look around me as far as I can see. An empty horizon, darkness and light. An ocean of solitude and pain. Mountains towering to the sky.
And Gale. A broken figure. Sprawled out on the ground a distance from me.
I stumble after him, my wings dragging along behind me.
I call out to him. But he does not answer.
I drop to my knees as I reach him. His body is torn apart. He stares up at the invisible sky. “Gale…” My voice is not my own.
It’s only as I stare into his glowing amber eyes that he realizes I am there.
His eyes narrow in doubt. Then they widen in horror. His body begins to tremble as it begins to pull itself together. He glares at me with a wrath I’ve never seen before.
In a burst of energy, he lunges at me, slamming me into a wall of blades. “Riah,” he seethes. A thousand shards of crystal pierce me from behind. “Why did you come back?!”
He’s balling his fist as he punches me further into the wall. “Why?!” he screams at me. Energy spills from my new wounds, burning with black flames. The same goes for his hands. “Only one of us should have had to suffer! Why did you have to do this??”
I knew what I was doing by coming here. By coming here, I was putting him through hell, yet another time. I knew this, because it would be how I would feel if I were in his position. I knew this, because it was how I felt when he fell down here. And yet, I came back here anyway.
Gale continues to pummel me, but I don’t try to stop him. Perhaps this is what I deserve for all the pain I’m causing. Besides, this is the reason I came here. I came here for my friend. Even if that means getting beat up by him.
Eventually his hits become weaker, pounding on my chest as I lay on the ground. His molten tears drip on my skin, stinging with every drop. “I hate you so much, dude,” he eventually says, his voice shaking. “I hate you so much for coming back.” Grief has replaced the anger in his eyes. He drops his head onto my broken chest and swallows a sob.
“I’m sorry, Gale.” I watch as my friend’s body begins to fall apart. “You gave me a chance to save myself. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t go without you. I couldn’t let you suffer alone.”
My heart grows heavy and my fists clench. I continue, “I came here even though I knew you wouldn’t want me to. It’s okay if you want to hate me.”
Gale reaches out a hand and pushes it into my face. “You idiot,” he mutters. “I wanted you to come.” His voice trembles. “And I hate myself for that.” He grips my body and squeezes me with all his strength.
Just like how he did in what seems like eons ago, I reach out to touch my friend’s hair, now glowing red with flames, and tousle it. We have each other now.
And that’s all that ever mattered.
