Shortz

Finding Jia

For months, I have been running; running without rest. Yet, Jared always finds me. Always.

I don't know how he does it. For anywhere I go, he arrives a short while later.

Sometimes he arrives within a few minutes and sometimes after a couple of days. But he never fails to show up.

I wonder how?

The last time we had stood facing each other, moments before I had rebelled, he had warned me, "You are making a mistake. Don't do this, Jia." He had pleaded, and I had turned away, unrelenting.

"You can't hide from me. You know you can't." He had stated matter-of-factly.

Chuckling, I had clutched the vortex manipulator: my invention; my way out of the patriarchal society I was born into, and run to my pod.

Strapping myself in, I had let my imagination run wild; his fuming face, his blazing eyes contrasting his fair skin; his outstretched palms, as he tries to struggle free of the silver bonds that I had placed around him, I had imagined it all; it had boosted my confidence, and filled me with a sense of accomplishment.

Born from the same womb, but different as night and day, we were always on loggerheads with each other.

Love, like life-giving nectar, flowed through our veins, washing away blemishes left by differences of opinions, status and, varying attitudes.

Hurt left by unjust patriarchial favoritism, however, remained. Straining, what was once beautiful and perfect.

Presently, my pod almost crash lands on X1245, pulling me out of my musings; I look at the navigation system and then at myself. Both of us are in one piece, all thanks to the Vortex manipulator I had stolen from under Jared's nose, so to speak.

I hear muffled voices, followed by the sound of metal scraping metal, and fear grips me.

Wasn't this planet supposed to be abandoned!?

Something wasn't right.

FLEE, NOW!, I hear an urgent voice in my head; racking my brain, I try to recall everything mother had taught me about this galaxy, and a second later, it comes to me: vortex jump.

With haste, I punch in the code of my next destination, but just before I am about to hit the mains, the panel catches fire, and the pod door is ripped open.

I watch as two red, slimy Valbin limbs reach for me. Panicking, I scream and lean back; my back hits the wall of the now scorching pod, and I wince.

I am going to die, aren't I?

"You will regret it, Jia." Jared's last words, echo in my mind, filling me with regret.

As soon as I had left home, left Jared, I had questioned my decision and had concluded that I had probably not thought things through. But to return, would be equal to accepting defeat; accepting that I was wrong. And I couldn't let that happen. Not when I knew what accepting defeat meant.

I'd rather die than accept that I was wrong, I had thought at that time.

Oh! you stupid Boragian!

The slimy coarse arms snaking around my waist, and the stench of rotting flesh (probably its last meal) disgusts and nauseates me. I try to hold myself together, but my tear ducts betray me.

Was my ego worth dying for?, I ask myself, as I am dragged out of my pod and thrown onto the soft ground.

I open my eyes, just a smidgen. And red cracked ground, instead of pale blue as I had expected, greets me. A second later, the smell of sulfur overpowers my senses, and realization dawns on me.