The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

"Thirty" (Draft 2)

Thierry and Daniel faded just after the other two. And then as the ground shook again Athen lifted Morpheus and with Julien at his other side they rushed him from the tunnels. The Lethe had dried up, its source cut off somewhere, and they ran across its muddy bed quickly.

The ground quaked again, violently. Julien fell back to the ground. Morpheus fell forward. The Djinn did some nice flips. But Athen remained standing, staring at the Angels in the sky.

"This is where you live?" Julien asked.

"It didn't used to look like this, it used to be permanent summer twilight and the regions used to roll smoothly against each other in constant shifting geography, there used to be fields of grass and poppies and a brick path," Morpheus said sadly.

"This is more like I imagine the place you would live tho," Julien said, "dark and foreboding..."

Morpheus looked at Athen, he was looking up so intently. And then Morpheus saw Ariella above, and he guessed Ariella saw them. And then he guessed Athen recognized his mother, though she had wings.

She came down to them. She looked at Athen. "You don't belong here, I'll take you to somewhere a little safer, if the storm is stopped we'll send you back to your world."

Athen said nothing.

"Eventually the storm will be stopped," Ariella said.

Athen said nothing.

"Shall I send Psyche to collect you and bring you to safety?"

Athen said nothing.

And Ariella slipped her arms under Athen's and lifted him, and he didn't complain.

"That was Athen's mother, I've seen paintings of her," Julien said. He picked himself up and then helped Morpheus up. The wind was fierce, and Julien turned his back to it so that they faced each other.

"Yeah," Morpheus said.

"She had wings," Julien said.

"Well, I'm afraid they recently made her an Angel, a pretty high ranked one for a Devi."

"She didn't take me."

"You're with me, and I'm one of the sick ones, she wouldn't leave anyone like me completely uncared for."

Julien kissed Morpheus, one slow meaningful kiss, and then he turned and slipped an arm about Morpheus' waist and helped him walk. Morpheus asked the Djinn to don their mourning clothes again, and they processed before him veils flapping in the wind, weeping.

"Listen Julien, you remember Daniel, the one John had dreams about, the one in the painting on Mandy's wall above his fireplace?"

"Yes."

"He's not a regular human. We're looking for him. And if we find him, then we're looking for Joy. Now I'm sure no one will let you ever go back knowing this, so they'll probably make you forget, maybe even I will. But if we get separated, I don't want you to worry about me. I want you to look for either of them."

"Morpheus, I can't leave you."

"You don't understand, if we don't do this, the storm will continue, more people form Earth will be drawn here, and this world will fall apart, and then people drawn here will be falling into nothing until the whole Earth is drawn in, and then the whole Solar system..."