Paradigm Rift

Chapter Ten - Tears for the Fallen

I felt a nudge on my shoulder and I slowly opened my eyes. "Can I have my arm back?" Iris asked. I must have fallen asleep and laid my head on her arm.

Just for a moment, I really thought she might not make it. Hope is all I had, and hope is sometimes necessary to keep moving forward because when you lose hope you lose everything. I sat up straight and cleared my eyes. I smiled, feeling relieved that the medicine worked. "I'm glad to finally see you awake."

I thought she'd be happy, yet I couldn't be farther from the truth. "What were you thinking going out there?" she asked furiously. "I gave you rules you had to follow and you've already broken all of them. Tell me why I shouldn't just leave you here?"

I was completely taken aback by her reaction. I had gone into the jungle, faced its creatures, all for her. "I didn't have to do anything, but I did. I didn't expect a thank you, nor would I ask for one, but I certainly did not think you'd be angry. Did you really expect me to just let you die?"

"I expected you to do as you were told! That was the deal. Why you did it is irrelevant." She firmly maintained her stance.

"Of course it's relevant. You were going to die." I walked around the room. I just didn't understand her reasoning.

"This is about your dad. That's the only reason you saved me. You need me."

Why did she have to bring him into this? "Now you are being ridiculous. That is a lie and you know it. The first time we met, I helped you when I knew nothing about you. Why would I change now?"

"Whether you want to or not, you will change. You might think you know what you're getting yourself into, but you have no idea. The more you travel through the rifts, the more you experience, the more you will lose yourself."

I was used to her uncompromising attitude but she was being very irrational this time. "Why are you so upset, really? There's more to this. I know it."

Behind her glaring eyes there was something hiding, something I could not decipher. She looked away, wanting to hide what she really felt. "It's not your concern." she muttered.

"Yes it is. How are we supposed to keep an eye out for each other and fight the Hunters if we are fighting among ourselves?"

"That's why you don't fight, you run!"

"That's not happening. I won't leave you to fight them on your own, not anymore. And if you are worried about me getting hurt, don't. I'll be fine."

"Everyone said that!" She grabbed her blanket firmly, and tried to hold back the tears. "And then they died, as will you."

Her eyes glistened with tears. I'd never seen her cry. She was always hiding, showing what she wanted to show and not what she really felt. She looked to be in so much pain and I knew it had to do with her nightmares. "Is this about the names Emily, John and Astella?" I asked hesitantly. You mentioned them again while you slept."

She stayed silent for a moment. They clearly meant something to her. She'd never wanted to speak about them, but, for the first time, she seemed ready to do so. "They were comrades, no, friends of mine. As I mentioned before, all rifts leave behind traces of unknown energy. What I did not mention was that the amount of energy left behind varies by each world. That is how I know where a rift will lead us to, well most of the time since I haven't been to every world."

"That's not important," I said.

"Please, hear me out. The walls between worlds being torn down in a single moment of time, that was the Great Rifting. Our people wanted to know what caused it so teams were sent out to investigate. We spent months travelling through worlds until my team finally reached what we believed to be the final rift. That world had been so devastated that the laws of physics were being defied. Gravity seemed to pull water from the ocean, forming what looked like columns of water that reached up to the sky as far as they eye could see. Large rocks floated mid-air, circling a large sphere of energy. So much energy flowed from it that all of our electronics began to malfunction. We believed that the sphere of energy was the final rift, that which would lead us to the origin of the Great Rifting."