The Fall of Zephyr Read online

  Onyx looks around at their surroundings, desperately searching for a place to sleep as the sky is fully dark now, and it would be hard to get sleep knowing that Seth could easily find them out in the open. He turns completely around, surveying the area around the diner, the nearby shops, and the park. When his gaze lands on the park, Onyx hesitates, and walks slightly closer to examine a dark figure lying on one of the park benches. The figure appears asleep, with the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest. Onyx takes one look at his face though, and gasps. Luna calmly follows, and then recoils as Onyx quickly spins on his heel and runs back to her, yanking her along by her arm.

  “We have to go. Now.”

  “What? Why? What happened? Why are you upset?”

  Onyx wordlessly pulls her along down the darkened suburban street in the night, past a few more blocks, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees a nearby woodshed in someone’s yard that has been left open.

  “In here, quickly!”

  Luna does as she is told, and Onyx follows her, promptly closing the door and locking the deadbolt in place.

  Onyx is clearly upset, his bright blue eyes wide in a panic as he leans against the nearest wall of the woodshed. Luna walks over to him, her bright eyes also showing concern.

  “Onyx… what’s going on?”

  He steadies his breathing long enough to answer her, but the words do not come easily.

  “Seth… he was right there on the park bench. I… let my guard down, we were lucky he was sleeping.”

  Luna slowly shakes her head. “No, you had no way to know that, there’s nothing you could have done.”

  Onyx hangs his head in his hands. “Well, I’m responsible for your safety, and I just wasn’t thinking. I am so sorry, Luna. This is… harder than I ever imagined. And now you’re sleeping in a shed, and I just… assimilating isn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped.”

  Luna wraps her delicate arms around Onyx’s heaving torso, as he is still stuck in a wild panic.

  “If he finds you, you’ll be destroyed, Luna. I cannot, I will not, let that happen. But I’m quickly realizing, that he will find us no matter what I do. Because he is close, and will find us one way or another.”

  Luna nods, her lower lip trembling as her eyes begin to water. “I really do not want to be found.”

  Onyx nods. “As long as you don’t want to be found, you’ll stay alive. That’s the difference - those who are captured give up hope. Hope is your best weapon right now, Luna.”

  She forces herself to smile, and buries herself into Onyx’s shoulder. He pulls her small, frail body closer to his, until they are tightly pressed together, leaning against the far wall of the shed. Their heartbeats synchronize as one, and Onyx fights tears in his own eyes. They hold each other close, and then slowly slide down the wall so they are both sitting on the hard, wooden floor of the shed.

  “Onyx, if he was sleeping, why didn’t you just… take care of him then?”

  He shudders at the thought of what Luna is implying. “Well, that is a very good question. I…” His words falter as he shifts his weight from kneeling on his knees to sitting flat on the floor, legs outstretched in front of him. A quick exhale precedes the words that he’d rather not say.

  “I’ve never… been trained for killing. I don’t completely know how, and even if I did, I don’t think I really could. It’s not… part of my job description.”

  “Well, neither is… any of this.” Luna waves her hand around her face, implying both her own assimilation, and hiding in a wood shed overnight. Onyx frowns, and chews on the skin inside his mouth a bit.

  “That is true, and I’m starting to realize that… I might have to, in order to protect you. We can’t… run forever.”

  Luna slowly nods. “I want to just… live. That’s not… too much to ask, right? I just… want to live without fear.”

  Onyx pulls her closer to him, and they both sit in silence for a moment before he answers.

  “I don’t know, Luna. I really wish I knew.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Jade settles in for another shift in the Sorting Room - armed with her clipboard, and her wits about her, she is ready to manage the organization of human souls into their intended bodies. Upon a quick glance around her vicinity, everything seems fine, so she opts to go find Evander to check on the research progress. Leaving the Sorting Room for a quick minute, she makes her way to Evander’s main office. She hits the button next to the door, which notifies him, and he unlocks the door for her.

  “Oh Jade, I wasn’t expecting you. Aren’t you in the middle of a shift?”

  Jade smiles at him slightly, and nods her head. “Yes, technically I am, but everything looked fine so I wanted to check on these… more important matters.”

  Evander moves over to his tablet where he’s been keeping all his notes. “I found… some answers. It’s… still a massive risk, but I think I know what we have to do now.”

  Jade joins him at the far end of his desk and leans over his shoulder.

  “Well, here’s what I’ve found, anyway.”

  She reads the articles Evander had pilfered from the secret digital files previously protected behind firewalls - but Evander, being the tech genius that he is, broke right through them. Her eyes widen as the realization hits, and she excitedly squeezes his shoulder.

  “So… that’s it then? Just have to get him off the chair, and find a replacement?”

  Evander nods. “But bear in mind, that will all be easier said than done. Zephyr is still a powerful being, and he has safeguards set up to prevent a revolution from occurring.”

  Jade sighs. “I know, but… this is hope, right?” She switches gears for a moment. “Wait, what do you mean by… ‘safeguards’?”

  “Well, that’s a broad term, and in theory, it could mean virtually anything. But one example of this would be that if he is to fail completely, we would all be…”

  “Sucked down into the Underworld with him.”

  Evander nods. “Yes, that’s one. It is supposed to prevent an uprising, given the understanding that if he goes down, we all go down with him. But upon further analysis, I’ve found that it actually supports the argument of an uprising, as we all know too well now.”

  Jade looks down at her feet and then back to the screen of Evander’s tablet. “Well, looks like we’re on the right track then.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Did you get a chance to soundproof my pod yet, by any chance?”

  Evander holds his face in his hands. “I knew I was forgetting something! I know the meeting is soon, but I had been too wrapped up in my research, that I guess I forgot. I’ll go do it now. Sorry about that!”

  Evander gets up to go to Jade’s pod, and grabs his tool belt and various bug-detecting gadgets. He is about to close down his computer and turn off the light in his office, when Jade gently grabs his arm.

  “Evander?”

  He stops to meet her gaze.

  “I just wanted to say, with everything that is going on, that I think you… are amazing. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t do this without you.”

  Jade carefully wraps her arms around Evander’s torso, and he freezes up, not used to this sort of reaction from her (or anyone, for that matter). After a moment of her awkward embrace, he gently pulls away and nods at her. They both exit his office, and part ways until the next meeting of the “Disturbers”, as the revolutionaries have begun to call themselves. Jade heads back to the Sorting Room, and Evander goes straight to her pod to complete the soundproofing necessary for their meeting.

  ✷✷✷

  The dark-haired child awakens from his slumber on the park bench. His back is noticeably stiff, and there’s a crick in his neck from lying down on the hard, wooden surface for so long. Seth manages to sit up, and stretch, wincing slightly at the unfamiliar popping in his joints. After a few deep breaths, he remembers the orders from Zephyr - that he needs to find Luna as soon as possible. Tapping on his embedded communi
cator, he tries to track Luna, but to no avail.

  That is so strange, I wonder why it isn’t working? Seth shakes his head in frustration.

  He stands up, trying to plot his next mode of attack, but a sharp, quick shooting pain in his wrist causes him to quickly sit down again. As quickly as it begins, it ends, but almost immediately turns into a palpable, Earth-shattering form of nausea. His insides begin to churn, and he soon feels something slowly and agonizingly making its way back up his throat. Pushing, gagging, gasping for air, he finally manages to spit out a spindly, black mass of wires as the nausea subsides. On an impulse, he immediately looks at his inner left wrist… and his device is indeed gone.

  Well, not totally gone - it’s technically right here, but now it is utterly useless. The bloody, black mass of wires sits in the palm of his hand now, suddenly feeling strangely foreign. He throws it angrily into the nearby reservoir, and then turns, walking toward the nearest restaurant. The loss of the device is significant, but so is the discomforted feeling of hunger in his stomach. In response to the giant, orange sign advertising “food”, he enters the retro diner, hoping to satiate his hunger as soon as possible so he can find Luna and carry out what Zephyr had intended.

  ✷✷✷

  “Harold, look! He’s here!”

  “Who’s here?”

  “That peculiar blue-jumpsuit fellow. He’s sitting right over there.”

  Harold nearly chokes on the bite of pancakes he stuffed in his mouth. “What? What is he doing here? What does he want?”

  “How would I know?”

  “I’m going to go talk to him.”

  “Harold, be careful! What are you going to say?”

  “I’ll ask him what business he has here! I get a bad feeling about him being around town. Something about him is very off-putting.”

  “I agree but don’t upset him! The last thing we need is for him to attack you or something…”

  “He’s not going to attack anyone, Sylvia.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “I’m gonna go talk to him. Sit tight.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The nearly dead silence of the Grand Hall is deafening. Zephyr sits nonchalantly on his throne, but his entire body is heaving as the current of life forces flow through him. The very energy that used to fuel him is now sucking the life from him. He knows he doesn’t have much time left, but somehow, he continues functioning.

  The orderlies in the Grand Hall have stopped coming to his every beck and call, and he is beginning to see that his presence was becoming less and less important. The thought makes the flaming tongues of hair stand up taller on his ghastly forehead, a white slope into the abysmal recesses of his deep, dark eyes.

  He straightens his back against the throne, and his long, wiry fingers tightly grip the edges of the armrests. What once felt regal and all-powerful is finally beginning to feel ordinary and weak. The changes happening are all too shocking and much too fast.

  This cannot be the end. Not yet. Seth has to help me. Once he gets rid of Luna, he’ll be able to join me, and I can feed off of his life-force for all eternity. But it has to happen soon.

  Zephyr groans under both the metaphorical weight of his own lofty expectations, as well as the pressure of the entire Upperworld and by extension, the future of humanity.

  Every minute Luna lives, I get even closer to ultimate demise. But they will soon learn what happens when they defy me - all of the sorters will see that we are tied together, for better or worse.

  ✷✷✷

  Luna awakens in the woodshed, in Onyx’s strong arms. He is still asleep, his head leaning back against the wall of the structure. His slightly pink lips twitch slightly in the later stages of sleep, and Luna feels the corners of her own mouth turn up in a smile as she gazes upon the face of her one-and-only. Their relationship is unusual, sure. But their connection is so strong, that even the mind-washing strategies of the Upperworld could not erase what was already embedded in the essence of their souls.

  She brushes a stray piece of his pale blonde hair off of his forehead, and carefully places a small, chaste kiss on his temporarily-unconscious lips. He quickly awakens from his slumber, and responds to her kiss wholeheartedly.

  “That’s a very nice way to wake up.”

  Luna smiles at him. “And you’re a very nice person to wake up with.”

  Onyx wraps his strong arm around her tired shoulders and holds her close.

  “Onyx, what’s next? What do we do now?”

  He strokes the long tendrils of her dark-as-midnight hair as it cascades down her back.

  “Well, I can check on our new home and see if it is ready for us. And then, we’ll need to do some rapid assimilation to the society on Earth.”

  “Like what?”

  Onyx thinks for a moment. “Well, for starters, these clothes are not suitable to blend into society with. We’ll need to go to a vendor and buy clothing more becoming of people on this planet.”

  Luna frowns. “Well, I really like my clothes. They are comfortable and all I’ve ever really known.”

  “I understand that, but we’ve got to start blending in more. We’re all too easy to spot, both by Seth and any curious humanoids.”

  “Are the humanoids going to hurt us?”

  “Well, no, I doubt it, but -”

  The door of the woodshed abruptly opens to reveal a very angry looking man with a long, ruddy beard rolling a wheelbarrow.

  “Hey, who are you? Get out of my shed! What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t make me call the cops!”

  Onyx immediately stands up and drags Luna with him.

  “My apologies, sir, we just needed -”

  “I don’t give a flying fig what you needed! Just get out.” His mandate is accompanied by a sharply-pointed finger emphasizing their need to get away. Onyx quickly nods and motions for Luna to follow him.

  “That’s right, you better run!”

  The shed owner does not appear to be chasing them, but he continued to waggle his finger and yell at Onyx and Luna even though they are clearly on their way to get off his property.

  “Onyx, why was that humanoid so upset?”

  “Well, it seems I made an error and housed us in a structure that belongs to him. Granted, I didn’t have much of a choice at the time, but given the laws that govern this world, I should have been more thoughtful.”

  “So some humans have ownership of an area of the Earth?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But the Upperworld isn’t like that.”

  “That is true.”

  “Why is it different?”

  Onyx looks off into the distance, where the mid-morning sun is well into its steady ascent to its projected zenith.

  “Well, I do not know. There are many things that I don’t know about Earth, even though I have studied humanoid life for centuries. History and culture changes all the time, and it is all too easy to miss out on subtle nuances within Earth’s societal norms.”

  Luna nods slowly, even though she likely cannot absorb all the information he is conveying to her. For a being who is still relatively young, despite her recently discovered reproductive abilities, there is still much to be learned.

  “So, what now?”

  “Now, we assimilate.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Wait, so how is this going to work again?” A young sorter raises a hand, interrupting Jade from explaining their latest findings. Jade smiles politely but very obviously holds back a frustrated grimace.

  “Well, Zephyr’s source of power is the current that flows through his throne, and if we get him away from that, we can more easily overtake him.”

  The sorter nods slowly, her auburn curls bouncing nervously. “Is this… really going to work? Will we be… okay?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “What do you mean it’s up to me?” The young sorter’s face turns white with the fear of what Jade’s implication could mean.

  “It
’s up to you, and you, and you. All of us must work together to accomplish our goal.”

  Nervous murmurs fill the small common area of Jade’s pod.

  “Now don’t let this paralyze you, whatever you do. This mission is not one that can be accomplished under the pretense of fear. Fear is your worst adversary - defy fear, and you can defeat Zephyr.”

  The group begins to react to her empowering words with exclamations of concord. The murmurs turn into excited chatting, and only a few sorters are left still concerned, based on the worried looks on their faces. Jade is unflappable, however. She never lets the concerns of others distract her from what needs to be done, and right now, she must stay focused on the task at hand and avoid getting too personally involved with the worried sorters at all costs.

  “Where are Evander and the others?”

  “They are meeting at his pod - there are too many of us now to fit in one place. But that is a very good sign. We must grow in numbers to increase our chances of success. I implore you, speak with anyone you know who is interested in the cause, but use caution - if Zephyr, or any of his servants hear of our plans, he has the power to immediately enact mass destruction.”

  The crowd goes silent, trying to swallow the reality of what Jade has warned them about.

  “So you really mean, that at any moment, he could just drag all of us down to…” The sorter bites his lip, too afraid to say out loud what he is assuming to be true.

  “The Underworld? Yes, indeed. Which is why we have put safety measures into place, such as the high-quality soundproofing and neutralizing that Evander has provided, both here and in his own pod. And you must be careful what you tell the others. However, they need enough information to know where to meet us, so use your discretion to figure out how much to tell them.”

  ✷✷✷

  “And then what? What happens after Zephyr is dethroned? Who is going to run the Upperworld?” Evander pauses for a moment before answering the question of the seasoned sorter who stands slightly taller than most of the others.