The Games for Gaiathal (Part 3 of 'A Tale of People and Apples Trilogy')

Chapter 12: The Second Game, Part 3

Rolbus and Chrea realized they could not reach their son. His scars, his wounds, his defeats, his betrayals, they all had slowly built him into a new man. His spirit now forged as strong and hard as his skill, the former built from pain and the latter built from a childhood of training Lleyton had foisted upon him.

And both Rolbus and Chrea's hearts sunk as they knew there were many more scars their baby boy would endure.

Including this most imminent one.

"You don't have to watch, Luka," Rolbus said to him, preparing him for what was to come. "But you have to see who."

As if on cue, the chamber door opened behind Luka.

Dream Solan creaked open the chamber door.

Tears started forming at Luka's eyes. "No," He said to his parents. "Not him. Anyone but him."

"You three, take the boy. He will be my prisoner. I will kill the baby," Solan both said and then lied to three of his Outlanders, who rushed and took Verrae to be raised by Solan.

When they left with Verrae, Solan hid baby Luka beyond a panel in the wall, intending for Lleyton to discover and raise him for himself. To begin his sinister plan, the plan that ultimately led Luka to where he was now. To the place that Luka led his friends to.

"I'm going to kill you," Luka said to Dream Solan, his breathing quickening and his pulse elevating. He couldn't bear to think of the next moments, the next moments which ruined his life and the future he was supposed to have with his people. With his parents.

"He can't hear or see you, son. But unfortunately, he will."

"What do you mean?" Luka asked.

"The other contestants, their Dreams, all who can see and hear them are their families. But not you. The Programmers have taken a liking to you. You will be tested harder. You have more to prove, more to confirm."

"Why?" Luka asked, exasperated.

Just as Luka asked the question and tears fell to his cheek, Solan began to plunge his dagger towards Luka's chained parents. The metal priming to deliver death like a dragon brewing silver flames at its breast.

"So you can know that you can survive him. Everything happens for a reason, my son. Do not mourn what could have been; rejoice what you have now."

Luka looked away as their lives were extinguished by Solan's hand, his dagger meeting their white robes and flesh. His mother's words sank into Luka's very soul as hers dispersed and disappeared to what Luka hoped was the heavens.

He exhaled slowly and digested them, his back turned to the dark titan. Though he hated this moment, hated Solan, hated this fork in his reality, that he was an orphan following this very moment and without a people, he tried his hardest to smell the roses amidst the darkness as his mother instructed.

Calysa. Eeva. Tristan. Adrian. All his other friends, his family who he found in it all, he would have never met them if not for the fires which forged him, and the fires which forged them. But they would have to show Solan they were not the coals in a dying heat which he poked about with impunity and thought of them as.

He closed his eyes and was genuinely grateful for all he had, while hating the evil that took what could have been, recognizing that both these emotions could exist, and had to exist if he were to defeat Solan and defend his friends.

With a determined scowl, clenched fists, slowed breathing, and purposeful steps, Luka followed Dream Solan and his bloody footprints into the great courtyard of Luka's home city, the Wolf's Den. He knew the front gate of his city of birth was his Gate, how he was to get beyond to the final path of this Second Game.