Post date: Nov 5, 2017 2:24:24 PM
Part 3: Restoration
#2
The rift began to open and Fisher felt a jolt of anxiety. Never had a rift opened up this close to a settlement.
At first it was a pencil thin line, then as it widened there was a loud booming sound.
The impact shook the world. Not only the ground but everything in the vicinity and beyond. In the distance the ocean spewed water spouts, then hurled the water and debris in all directions. The rock structure encompassing the compound rattled and chunks of rock shook loose. Timber within the compound splintered and shattered, impaling several of the archers, who were situated on a stone walkway surrounding the walls, with sharp wood shards. People began screaming. The heavyset DEH male shouted orders to maintain positions. Shouts from squadron leaders barked the orders down the line.
Fisher forced herself to remain calm through the chaos. The threat was nearing and she must be ready.
Without warning hundreds if not thousands of tiny pinpricks of lights streaked through the rift. Each one emitting bolts of energy as they zigzagged and swirled around an emerging mass that shone bright reddish orange.
Fisher hesitated.
The bright mass, similar to the one she and her sons were emitting, hoovered in midair.
Could it be? After hundreds and hundreds of years. Could it truly be?
The mass began to solidify and as it did the pinpricks of lights targeted the mass with precision strikes.
Within the mass the image of a woman appeared. Limp and lifeless as hundreds of strikes skewed her body. Then the image of a man materialized. His arms were wrapped around the woman’s body obviously trying to shield the impact of the strikes. He was bleeding profusely and the mass surrounding them both turned a brilliant red.
Fisher’s heart stopped.
“Fire!”
The command from the heavyset DEH male reverberated through the air.
Only at the lights, Fisher screamed in her head. Fire only at the lights.
Cannons boomed, firearms discharged, and arrows arched towards the targets.
Lights exploded as the weapons found their marks. The bolts of energy evaporating as the lights started to fizzle out.
Smoke from the weaponry filled the air and as the noise faded Fisher focused her attention on the pair trapped in the mass. She gathered energy from her sons and pushed forward. She had to see. Had to know for sure.
Lights continued to explode all around her and her son’s mass yet still more lights poured through the rift opening.
Instinct told Fisher that she needed to close the rift and that she didn’t have much time. Still she hesitated.
If the man was truly Lark she couldn’t risk accidentally sending him back through the rift. There was no guarantee that she would send him back to Caradorynee, if that was in fact where he’d come from, or if the man was Lark at all.
She pushed closer to the mass. Then the man turned his head and their eyes met. Fisher felt a joy she hadn’t felt in a thousand years. It was Lark. Finally he had come home.
Before Fisher could revel anymore in her sudden happiness the rift suddenly widened further and a burst of energy rocketed upward and then detonated.
Once more the ensuing boom shook the world with such force that the stone walls of the compound could not withstand the onslaught and crumbled to the ground, burying the archers, housing, and everything else beneath a massive pile of rubble.
Then from the rift came creatures of the likes she’d never seen come through a rift before. They charged forward attacking any living being. Savagely tearing the people to shreds. It happened so fast, only moments.
The settlers left standing, fired valiantly upon the foreign beasts but their weapons did no damage.
Fearful that these creatures destroying her settlement would press onward to destroy the rest of the earth, Fisher gathered every bit of strength she could from her children and expanded her mass.
Targeting the creatures and what was left of the lights she drew them into her mass and then separated herself from her sons. She then hurled herself at the rift.
Fisher had no illusions that once she entered the rift she would ever return. Life had not been kind to her once she’d lost Lark.
But she’d lived a thousand years and she’d spent every moment restoring the earth and bringing the human population back from the brink of extinction. She also helped the DEH people survive in a world that was prejudiced against them.
Looking back she knew she’d done her best and her only regret was that she wouldn’t be able to share her success with Lark. But he’d know. Their children would finally meet their father and they would tell him of her triumphs. And that would be enough.
©Human in Inhuman Worlds by Janet Merritt