Chapter 379

When the Star Fell (IX)

Five days passed relatively quickly, at least considering that they were spent doing mostly nothing but chatting in circles and recovering. While there was a quick onslaught initially of people waking up, it had slowed down considerably. As of now, only eighteen of nearly eighty had actually woken up from their slumber. Though a few expressed the desire to leave, especially Senna, the twins held them back, never giving a reason past ‘there is no need’.

At the moment, Senna stood some hundred feet in the rear, watching a familiar back faintly hunched over. Emma was still trapped, her eyes closed, lips faintly trembling. She wasn’t alone—a good number of the ‘strongest’ raid members were still trapped, Daniel and even Kramer included.

She worried, though was told not to. She couldn’t help but worry. Emma was someone she looked up to perhaps more so than even Cain as the two spent far more time together—she was her mother, after all. It would be eerier still had she not felt a thing.

“Hey,” Jamal walked up to her suddenly and handed her a bottle of water with a smile. She accepted it, smiling back.

“Hey,” she replied, taking a sip forcibly. “How are you feeling?”

“… like shit, to be honest,” he sighed. “That was not a good experience,” Jamal had woken up yesterday and, like most others, was still entrenched in his experiences.

“So it goes.”

“It’s Em’, Senna. She’s gonna be just fine.”

“I know she will,” Senna said. “Still… she’s taking so long.”

“Maybe she’ll have more benefits than us that way. Who knows?”

Senna merely nodded. Deep down, she knew why Emma was taking so long. She was well aware of her demons, even if the woman in question had been hellbent on ignoring them. Only the two of them knew Cain’s greatest secret, and had heard all the stories. And though, on the surface, both had moved on, the truth was different, evidently.

It can’t have been easy, Senna knew, learning that the man you loved more than life itself never came back, originally. Whatever choices he made in this lifetime, barring the stroke of godly luck, he didn’t return. He abandoned them. And the whispers are always there, Senna knew—if it he did it once, what was to stop him from doing it again? Nothing but an empty promise.

She was certain that even Emma knew that it was quite a reach, as the man quite literally stole time for her, but the demons were such—they didn’t care. They were tiny worms that, once hatched, always remain. Like catching someone you respect in a lie—even if it was an entirely insignificant lie, the worm hatches. And the next time… the mind wonders.

“Her root is fear,” a voice that Senna found rather grating caused her to frown. Looking to the side, she saw U’nul standing and smiling. It was still difficult to just ignore the woman—she had given them quite a terrible few beatings. “Though you already knew that.”

“You musta seen a great many things, taking a peek in all our heads,” Senna scoffed.

“I saw nothing,” U’nul shook her head. “I merely see the colors of your emotions. Not your experiences. Those are uniquely yours.”

“Oh? What color am I?”

“Annoyance, arrogance, a bit of embarrassment,” U’nul teased. “You fought well. I was simply an unlucky matchup for you.”

“I don’t need pity, the least of all from you,” Senna said.

“Your mother will come back,” U’nul said. “But it might take a while. Her fear… is strong. As though she was deliberately forgetting it for many years.”

“Even encouraging it,” Senna mumbled, recalling how Emma was when Cain left for the Primal World. She had never seen her quite so reckless and unrelenting—constantly in pursuit of something, as though terrified of slowing down and being alone with her thoughts.

“Besides, she isn’t the one you ought to be worrying about,” the twins suddenly joined, one of them speaking out, causing Senna’s heart to drop even further.

“You shouldn’t be that foreboding,” the other twin slapped the first, though Senna could never tell who was who. They literally looked the same, dressed the same, spoke the same, and gestured in the exact same way. It was… beyond eerie.

“Anybody gonna tell what’s happening or do I have to throw a tantrum?”

“Throw as many as you’d like,” one of the twins said, though both shrugged. “There’s little to say. There are some invaders, Cain’s delaying them while you guys undergo your baptism.”

“…”

“You two are mean,” U’nul sighed at the sight of a young woman on the verge of tears, battling them back with all her might.

“Don’t make a scene,” one of the twins warned. “Inducing panic in everyone will not make this stay any easier.”

“Let me leave,” Senna demanded in a low yet hurried tone.

“No,” U’nul replied instead.

“I have to help him!”

“You can’t help him. None of us can, not yet anyway,” one of the twins said. “Quinn is setting everything up outside. You only need to stabilize yourself before leaving.”

“He’s alone.”

“He’s always been alone, child. He’s used to it.”

“…”

“Maybe we should have told her this before the purification?” the other twin mused with a smile. “She might have taken longer, then.”

“We should have,” the first one nodded while Senna glared at them. “Relax. You should know that he never enters a fight he cannot at least survive. Still, he won’t hold on forever.”

“Was it really necessary? All of this?” Senna asked. “Couldn’t we have just helped him without fighting?”

“Sure. If you wanted to get in his way and die,” the twins grinned. “You’ll understand, soon enough. For now, just sit down and stay a while. Ponder.”

Shunned to the side afterward, Senna relented and sat down—though her mind hardly wandered far. She still feared what was going on outside as, if it was something minor, Cain would have likely never bothered them and would have taken care of it. If he needed their help, then it was something much bigger—and if he needed their help after they’ve been ‘purified’, whatever that meant, as she couldn’t find many if any differences between now and before, then it must be big.

It was four days further into the future that Emma woke up. In fact, she still managed to be among the first half to awaken from their slumber, with forty-five more souls to go after her. Just like everyone else, she appeared dazed and lost for a moment, he eyes glazed in the look of decrepit dumbness, before light shone from within with a sharpness of a blade.

She stood up slowly and turned around, facing the few that were paying attention to her as most others were either sleeping or resting. There was a look of strange lull on her face, the type of defeatism that was hardly ever—if ever—present on her face. She walked over to Senna who had a faint smile hanging on her face and immediately took out a bottle of wine, drinking it directly without pouring it into a cup.

“Hell of a dream?” Senna asked.

“Hell of a dream,” Emma replied, nodding, after she finished half a bottle of wine in one go.

“You alright?” Senna asked further.

“Been better. You?”

“Steady as a rock.”

“How long was I out? Felt like months, to be honest.”

“Nine days or so, I think,” Senna explained. “As you can see, still a whole lot more people to go.”

“When did you get out?”

“Uh… first day, I think?”

“Sounds about right,” Emma grinned and gently patted her head. “Feels kinda shit to be lagging so far behind my own kid, though.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re much older and had more shit to work through.”

“Much older?”

“Khm, I mean, slightly older.”

“I simply faced what I’ve been running from for a long time ago,” Emma said, sighing. “It’s not a bad thing. Stung like a bitch, and all I wanted to do since opening my eyes was vomit my guts out, but… it’s not a bad thing, still.”

“Right. The first thing you wanted to do was vomit so, naturally, you guzzled down an entire bottle of wine? You’re a psycho.”

“Can’t deny that,” Emma chuckled, finishing off the bottle. “But wine’s my friend, kiddo. When the nights were long and lonely and dark, a good—or, more often, a shitty—bottle of wine was my only friend and solace.”

“How about—oh, I don’t know—your daughter?” Senna asked.

“Oh, yes, her too. Then again, if I used Lana to curb the feelings I used wine for, I’d at least land on some not-good list. Most likely end up in jail, too.”

“Alright, alright,” Senna felt her cheeks flush as Emma grinned. “Both you and dad just have no shame.”

“We’re old, Senna. We can hardly exert enough effort to feel shame. Speaking of dad, where is he? I have some yelling at him to do since he was, apparently, the source of most of my demons.”

“…”

“So, those lights outside. That was him, huh?”

“Yup. Apparently, he’s fighting someone. Buying time and such. I asked to leave but, well, seeing as I’m here still, you can guess how that went.”

“They’re smarter than us that way, at least,” Emma said. “So, it’s best we listen. “

“… if you just scream at him, will it help?”

“Nah. Wasn’t gonna do it, anyway,” Emma sighed, pulling back the bangs that fell over her forehead. “Wouldn’t do any good. He’s done nothing to warrant those doubts, after all. But, turns out, a mind… can wander. And wander far…”