The leaders of the revolution and I - together with Plumala, the newest component, but equally as important as the others with her army of columbas - climbed the stairs carved out of the rock and gathered at the top of the slope. I sat on the grass and took a deep breath of the cool night breeze, absorbing the stars above, the singing of insects in the dark, the melody miles below of the ocean waves crashing against the slope.
We sat around a spherical fire and passed drinks, laughter and stories along. Even for a few hours, the weights of war no longer existed; and there we were friends, though never forever.
"Arkadi! You should participate more often!"
"He's a very busy human, Lupan." Korrok grumbled, because even today he hated that whenever I decided to stay, I never really did. "Fighting for a battle beyond ours."
And I wasn't the type to be missed.
"At least what moves him still brings him to our path from time to time..." Deinos said, wisely. "For you to see that, of all the caves of Venerna, one still awaits your return."
I looked down at the white knuckles of my fingers around a glass. It was so much easier just being a disposable human... Why did they have to make me feel so guilty about choices I'd never been able to escape?
At that moment, Doxy appeared on the grass, joining us with cautious steps and saving me from that conversation. Whistles and howls celebrated her arrival - she had won the challenge of the revolution's leaders after all, and now she was one of us... Though I still didn't know how much I was one of them...
I made room for her beside me and Doxy sat on the circle. I sent her a look, silently asking what had changed her mind, and she just shrugged with a shy smile that glowed in front of the fire. She really wasn't the kind of person to run away from a good challenge.
"Apparently you are truly brave, sapiens." Korrok teased, raising his drink. "Fighting the beasts is easy. The hard part is to drink with them!"
Laughter and roars filled the night. And for a moment, I swore that the entire Empire in the stars above could hear us celebrate... Only to rob us of that joy later.
Deinos walked over and gave her a glass with his many arms. He offered to fill it for her with that drink from the barrel they usually made me carry upstairs, and Doxy asked me with her eyes if she should accept it. My smile was answer enough for her to tip the burning drink down her throat... And more celebrations took over the night.
"Now go back to the story, Deinos! Don't run away from it!" Lupan said. "Keep telling while you fill my glass!"
"In fact, I think it's Arkadi's turn now." Deinos ran away. Wise indeed.
"What kind of story?" Doxy asked and Plumala replied, half scared, half excited:
"They're telling terrifying stories from their pasts."
"And the others have to guess if they really happened or if they are just lies." Lupan added, eager to win again. Even without eyes he got it right more than anyone, which I used to say was because he sniffed the lies in the air... And because he was addicted to the scent of defeat from those around him.
Doxy raised a razor-sharp eyebrow and then hissed:
"So let's see if you're a really good liar, Arkadi Phaga."
Everyone cheered again, loud as if the universe were already ours so we didn't have to fear its secrets. I surrendered and took a long sip of the drink, because the tales of my past came out easier with it, until I let a story slip away from me:
"I once ended up on a... 'Desert Island'." I started my tale. "For the first few noxdiems I spent there I just circled the perimeter, looking for any reminders of civilization that would help me at least know where I was. But I didn't find anything, for many, many noxdiems... Around me, there was only sand, trees and wild animals, that wouldn't show me a path through the stars to escape..." I sighed. "No one who would hear me scream..."
"No one to hear you snore!" Lupan teased and then everyone threw glasses at him.
When silence fell again, I continued, above the crackling of the fire:
"But then, one night, when I was used to the silence and the occasional howling in the dark, I ended up hearing a different sound, coming from inside the dense woods I saw from the beach... It was a kind of music, so rhythmic, ethereal and mysterious that it could only have been created by someone... Had I not investigated the island enough? Was I really not alone?" I looked up from the fire and looked at those studying me: Lupan and Deinos were trying to figure out if the story was real or not, Plumala was cowering in fear of everything, and Korrok and Doxy were trying to figure out what I was hiding below. I turned my eyes to the fire. "Even when I slept, that song was in my head, as constant as my breathing, as persistent as my heartbeat..."
"As annoying as your snoring!" Lupan yelled and I threw my shoe in his face. I didn't even snore that much!
Everyone stared at me with a request for me to continue, and I did:
"Each night the music got closer... Louder... More real... And I felt that if I didn't find out where it came from, some morning I would wake up to find it on top of me, entering in my head like it was never more than a dream..." I swallowed. "At one night, the curiosity to find out who was creating it did not let me fall asleep, so I took my weapons and ventured into the forest." Everyone looked at me full of expectations. "I spent hours going in deep. The more I entered, the more the darkness enveloped me and the more the sound increased... Until I came across a cave of red rocks, where the sound was the loudest." I sent a look at Doxy, who was holding her breath. "Slowly I entered the cave and descended the uneven stone steps, until, in the depths, the walls seemed to start to move under my hand... And, with each step to the bottom, I heard something behind me, calling me outside as the music drew me into the darkness below..." The eyes around stared at me as if they were with me inside that cave. "I kept going down and down until I came across a crack... And through that gap between the walls a wind passed, whistling so loud that it was able to reach the beach from which I had come and form that melody that had not left me sleep well for so long..."
"The music came from a cave, then?" Doxy whispered, beside me. "And not the creation of some other intelligent being?" I nodded.
"But that crevice wasn't rock-steady..." I continued. "It opened and closed, organic, contracting and expanding, breathing... Because it wasn't a cave... It was a gigantic snake!" Claws and fingers bit into the grass. "I left quickly... And then I finally understood that no one had created that song, as I had so longed for... Because I was truly and completely alone..." Everyone stared at me for a moment, waiting for something more, but I just said: "That's it, guys. The end."
"Did you even kill that creature?!" Lupan squeaked.
"I blew it up afterwards, but that is not the focus of the story!"
"These stories don't need to have a focus, Phaga!" Korrok laughed. "They just have to make Deinos shit like that time before!" Everyone laughed like hyenas in the night, while Deinos tried to convince us that what he had released was some secretion of fear from the espineros, and not what we thought.
"That story didn't count! It wasn't even scary!" Lupan barked and Deinos protested back:
"Yes, it did! You just don't want to because you'll lose this round!"
"If the story's purpose is to scare, this one actually failed a little..." Plumala tried.
"See?! He couldn't even scare the little dove!"
And the discussion continued loud into the night.
"Being alone like that..." Doxy whispered, close enough to me that she didn't have to yell over the mess for me to hear her. "It must have been a nightmare..."
I turned to her face, framed by the glow of the stars on the horizon, and I whispered:
"And I didn't even had to close my eyes to see it."
In her eyes I realized she wasn't trying to guess whether my story was true or not, because she could already see the answer. She wanted me to know that she understood me from the inside out... That she understood the focus of the story.
I got lost in her for a moment... She had the face of something I wanted to protect, the body of something I wanted to devour and the eyes of something I should fear... She challenged me on every spectrum and I wondered why I hadn't run away still... I wondered why I had the feeling she would eat me up more than the worms on my dead body when I decided to leave, but I wanted to stay and watch, as if addicted to my own destruction. I needed to go on, for one more dose of what she had to say, one more glimpse of the honey in her eyes and the pepper soaked in them, one more touch from her when I was hurt for her to save me...
She would be my ruin.
And maybe my salvation too.
"I don't think they understand..." She whispered, as we watched the mess. "I don't think they would ever understand, even if they tried... Some nightmares only those who lived are capable of fearing..."
I opened my mouth to ask what nightmares she was battling when a question interrupted our conversation:
"After all, was that story real or not?"
"It was."
"I said it!" Lupan celebrated. "One more point for me!"
Then Deinos attacked him with claws and fangs, in a jumble of beasts.
"But what about you, sapiens? "Korrok said and everyone went silent to hear him. "I bet you must have some scary stories... Besides the ones we're in, obviously." He let out a venomous chuckle and then everyone turned to Doxy, alert and full of anticipation.
She passed her eyes over all those who awaited and the silence urged her to tell a story in a whisper, as her voice came from the very stars plunged in darkness:
"I closed my eyes once and I saw something I shouldn't have..." She began softly, as if she were telling a secret. "Pores tearing from the mesh of space like hungry mouths to devour the entire universe, the sound of death and chaos screaming through the dark beyond and echoing to the edges of the Milky Way in an incomprehensible cacophony..." The crackle of fire and the murmurs of insects were the soundtrack to her words. "I realized that Earth was just a grain of sand... While an entire ocean was hidden behind the pore. And, in the depths of its abysses, swam unspeakable sea beasts, hungry in the scarcity of its barren lands and thirsting to cross to our side..." Her eyes were empty with beasts crossing the darkness within, prophecies trickling from her lips as if the universe had whispered its nightmares to her. "I saw them cross to our skies... I saw darkness engulf our worlds... And then I saw the end..." She blinked, as if waking up after a millennium to see everyone's eyes on her, confused, silent now that the game no longer seemed to matter. No one dared make any bets, until she felt she should reveal: "It's a lie." She opened a shy smile. "It was just an illusion..."
And in her face I saw that that was her desire, because she couldn't exist in a universe where that wasn't just an illusion.
Thus, Lupan broke the silence:
"One more point for me then."
And everyone started yelling at him.
• • • ֍ • • •
Doxy and I stumbled back laughing to my room carved out of the rock while I fumbled to turn on the lights. I ended up failing and giving up, so we contented ourselves with the darkness, partially illuminated by the lamp in the center of Venerna, whose fragile rays of light streamed in through the cracks in the entrance. We stumbled over the small, single bed in the center of the room and I mumbled as Doxy glared at me:
"Don't worry... I'm going to sleep on the Hasta." They did not recommend that we sleep scattered around Venerna, as an isolated individual was an easy link to break, but I could make an exception for her privacy.
"We've shared a bed before..." She purred, opening a mischievous little smile and calling me with her eyes. Her voice kept low and soft, telling secrets in the dark that made me want to be closer: "It's a cold night... But we could change that..."
I raised an eyebrow, wondering if she was really saying what I was hearing. But her predatory eyes hunting me didn't lie.
"You shouldn't say these things to me" I growled.
"Why"
I moved closer until I felt her breath on my skin and Doxy recoiled. Her eyes never left mine for an instant, sweet as honey... But you have to face stingers to reach.
I purred into her face, inches from mine, the scent of the drink between us burning in my nostrils and filling me with courage to say:
"Because I could tear your clothes right here..."
"And no one is stopping you..."
I crashed her into the rock, pressing her body between mine and the wall. I slid my fingertip across her parted lips and was intoxicated by the scent of her skin, vibrating with her heartbeat in an eagerness for my touch. She gasped softly, and I wondered if she would do that sound when I invaded her... I imagined what it would feel like to feel her heat, her movements against me, the sounds that would escape her throat when my hands were under her clothes... And just the anticipation of being with her left me gasping.
I slipped my hand down the back of her neck until I reached the cloud of her hair and pulled the head back, exposing her neck. On the pale porcelain skin the marks of Korrok's claws remained, reddened and purplish...
"I could kill him for this..." I growled.
"I prefer you to save your energy for me..."
I slid my mouth along the curve of her neck and felt her goose bumps on the tip of my tongue. I trailed my kisses dangerously to where her chest heaved, savoring every drop that spilled from her skin, sweet and sly like that honey that lived in her eyes. I looked at her face, staring at me with expectation and delight, and I salivated for deeper sources of her, like those on her lips...
"I'm dying to wake up beside you..." She purred.
And then I walked away; just enough to see her face.
"You should not create expectations about me."
"The expectation that you will... Be there?" She laughed, but I could see her eyebrow rise.
"It's more than I can guarantee." I confessed in a weak murmur and saw the pain cross her face. I let go of her, as if tearing my skin at every point that I separated from her. "This was not a good idea..."
And then I hurt her with every step I took back.
I couldn't get that close, because I didn't know if I could get away, like an abyss that, when you slip into, there's no escaping. Maybe I could let myself fall in another life, but in this one I had a goal that I didn't want to turn into suffering when I fulfill it; I didn't want her to miss me when I left; and didn't want her pain to stop me.
So I backed off even more.
"I do not understand you." Doxy muttered. "Why get closer if you'll just walk away later?"
I swallowed hard. Every time I approached, I did it because I would die if I spent another second stranded on myself, away from the bridge that she was. But before it was too late, I had to embrace my fate.
"I'm sorry, Donecea... I won't get closer again." I whispered, weak as I hated to be. "You deserve more..."
Then, as I turned to flee to the loneliness of the Hasta, I heard her last words in the distance:
"If I deserve so much, then why I have nothing?"