When Forever Ends (Part 2: The Place with No Name)

XXXVIII

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T h i r t y - E i g h t

I was back in the hall.

I floated in the blackness, motionless, trying to make sense of what I had just seen. My dad had worked as a commander testing a prototype vessel called Last Hope. Tarron had been part of that group, but was a traitor. He'd weaponized the vessel and smuggled aboard many of his followers to cause massive amounts of chaos. My dad had tried to stop him and Tarron had attacked the town I grew up in. They destroyed the town and blew up our old house, but Erin had somehow blown up one of the vehicles and escaped. My dad and I had as well. I hadn't seen my mom, unless she had been one of the people running around in the streets. I didn't think she made it.

I sighed. It was a lot to take in. And how had I been able to interfere with a memory? How had Erin sensed my presence? I didn't know. It just didn't add up. And why hadn't I been able to remember any of this before now? I decided that there must be something else I didn't know, a reasonable explanation to it all.

But was reason still valid? After all, at the launch pad Tarron had seemed to hold my friends back with an invisible wall. And he had some sort of mind control over some of his cronies. Reason wouldn't have made that possible. So what was it? Magic?

There's no such thing, I thought. Maybe I'll eventually figure this all out. But not now.

I sighed again and took another look at the hall. All I could see were the long rows of frames. Suddenly the thought of discovering other memories was a lot less appealing. I need to find a way out, I realized. There must be one, or I could be stuck here forever!

There was a flash of silver at the edge of my vision, gone before I had a chance to focus on it. I turned to look, but it didn't reappear. I studied the long hall for a moment, wondering whether I'd actually seen it or not.

I had nearly convinced myself that I was imagining things when I saw it again. A brief flicker of light against the total blackness. This time I was sure I'd seen it, for it had appeared just to the left of the spot I'd been staring at. I willed myself to go to it and saw it for a third time, right between two tall images. I reached out but it had gone again.

This game of tag was starting to annoy me. "Where are you?" My voice sounded strangely muted and fuzzy, like an old phonograph.

It lit up before me, looking like a silver flame. This time, it didn't disappear, but hovered just beyond the frames. I looked at it for a moment. It had never occurred to me that I might be able to go between the pictures.

I figured I may as well give it a shot, so I leaned forward and reached out. There was no resistance. I moved forward to go toward the flame, but I couldn't go any farther. I strained to reach it with all I had, but it was like there was a giant rubber band around my middle, tethering me to the hall, refusing to let go.

Then the silver fire came towards me and touched my hand. I flinched involuntarily. It was ice cold! But the invisible band abruptly snapped free and I fell forward against the sudden lack of resistance. I looked around for the flame that had guided me here but could see no sign of it.

Forward. The voice echoed, seeming to come from everywhere, yet at the same time it felt like a thought in my mind.

"Where?" I asked. This time, it sounded like I was underwater, as well as muted and fuzzy.

The silver flame lit up again straight ahead, crystal clear despite the distance and the darkness. I moved towards it and I got the feeling that I was flying. The blackness suddenly felt like air whipping past me. That didn't make any sense, but then again, this whole thing didn't make any sense.

As I got closer, I gradually sped up, as if some unseen force pulled me towards it. I could make out what looked like a face in the flames, looking at me with an inquisitive expression. "Who are you?" I shouted to be heard above the whistling wind that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere as I zoomed ever closer. The face gave a mischievous grin and turned away.

With a sound like water going down a drain, my vision spun and suddenly I was running through a dense jungle. The first thing I felt was the heat. It hit me like a wave, hot and dry, and reminded me of the Endless. But the scenery wasn't anywhere close. The trees grew so tall they nearly blocked out the sun. The small blue sun. The jungle was so closely packed that I could see only about a meter off the narrow dirt path that cut through the trees like a canyon. Thick vines wrapped around branches and hung down like green snakes. There was no birdsong, or any sound of any kind, apart from my own heavy breathing and my feet crunching along on the trail. There were no animals either. This was a place inhabited solely by plants, and it felt like I was trespassing on forbidden soil.

All this rushed through my mind as I hurried along the path and I eventually realized that I was running after someone, or something. But it wasn't the silver flame, as that had disappeared the moment I entered this strange realm. I knew I was chasing someone, though, and I kept seeing the evidence: a flash of black hair at every corner, a small movement as a blade of grass sprung back into place, a footprint here and there in slightly softer ground.

"Wait!" I called. "Where am I? Why are you running away?"

The only reply was a delighted laugh. Whoever it was sounded like they were having fun.

"Who are you?"

"Ryan!" The shout took me completely by surprise. I knew that voice! Ahead of me a long braid of black hair whipped around the corner.

"Maya?" I turned the corner myself and it was all gone in an instant.

The landscape before me was a vast, empty wasteland of gently rolling hills covered in ash. The sun was the same I had seen in the forest, but the heat was gone. It wasn't cold or hot, but right in the middle, and there was no breeze. The air was perfectly still. I whirled around, searching for that strange jungle, but there was none. The barren land stretched all around me. And there was no sign of Maya, or whoever it had been. But now that I thought about it, it had to have been her that I was chasing.

I looked around, wondering what it meant, when a flicker of movement caught my eye. I shaded my face from the sun and peered out at it. It was a solid grey flag just above the horizon, flapping in a non-existent wind.

I set out for the flag, figuring that I may as well take a look around there, as it was the only thing in sight. I reached the crest of the first hill and looked in that direction. I could still see only a small bit of the pole holding it. I sighed. It was going to be a long walk.

---

It was dusk by the time I stood atop the final hill. I stopped to catch my breath and take in the sight that greeted me. A humongous building sprawled over the terrain, which had been leveled here to make for a building site. But to call the structure before me "humongous" would be a massive understatement. I had no words sufficient enough to describe the colossal scale of the place. It stretched as far as I could see, looking like many builders from different points in history had all come here and constructed separate buildings of various styles and designs, before deciding to connect them all together. Some parts were sleek and streamlined, made of tinted black glass, while others were marble pillars and ornately carved stone blocks. Here and there, short, stocky towers rose up like spikes with wraparound windows. And just by the front entrance stood the flagpole, stretching high above the ground, the flag still slowly waving. But in front of all that, the closest thing to me was a crude wooden sign hammered into the ground with a stake. The letters on it were faded and heavily graffitied but somehow I knew exactly what it said: "THE AIRPORT".

The whole place had kind of an abandoned feel to it. There was no one in sight. It was dead quiet, and the ash was piled thick, blanketing everything in grey.

And there were no footprints anywhere, no sign that anyone had tried to clear it away.