My phone alarm rings. I crawl out of Aldebaran's arms and stumble out of the bed. My eyes are halfway open. I walk to the kitchen and when I reach for my phone the alarm turns off before I even touch it. I rub my eyes and look around me. Am I imagining things? "Ash!" A loud whisper says by my ear, but I do not see who the voice belongs to. "It's Twilight. Your galactic warlord husband has put everyone under a trance. There's this illusion he is using to hide the carnage." Twilight whispers.
"What carnage? How bad is it?" I look around and whisper.
"I told you to stay away from him. Did you give him back what you took?"
"No, I just told him where it is." I shrug.
"Well, so much for us using that as a bargaining chip to get him and his army off the planet. Good job Ash." I sigh.
"What else should we do?" My thumb nervously plays with my lower lip.
"What can we do? I can only try to fix the mess you made because you can't control your powers." I gasp.
"I've gotten some training on it in different dimensions..." I stomp my foot and ball my fists.
"So they taught you how to properly teleport between realms without leaving portals open?" I loosen my fists and drop my jaw.
"No... Kind of- Does my husband giving me a portal wardrobe count?" I smile.
"He didn't give you a wardrobe. He gave you a shortcut that he also has access to. It's a wormhole to other dimensions you already existed in."
"I don't regret what I have done. He helped me get stronger along with all the experience I got from this journey." Twilight chuckles.
"He didn't make you stronger he just unlocked your access to your full interdimensional power." My blinking slows momentarily as I look at the ceiling dumbfounded.
"That's still some sort of upgrade." I shrug.
"At what price Ash? You could've learned this over years as my disciple and through meditation." I furrow my brow.
"You're just jealous that I have access to all of my potential power now." I grin.
"Jealous? You're untrained wielding a lot of power. You're like a volatile missile sitting in the artillery shed. Without proper training do you know how many people you can kill accidentally? Do you care?" I roll my eyes. He is such a nag. Why do I have to worry about everyone's well-being? I'm just one person. Most people around me didn't care about me and what I was going through when my father died. I was not even granted time alone. I was bullied by my peers and adults alike during that time.
"Just because I'm powerful, doesn't mean I don't care and I'm not going back to the way things used to be. I like my powers, and I like having them equipped." I cross my arms.
"We don't have time to argue. Your galactic warlord is killing people as we speak."
"If I can't see it, how can I do anything about it?" I wave my hands in the air.
Aldebaran walks into the kitchen. He scratches the top of his head and yawns. "Who are you whispering to in here?" He says. I shrug and laugh nervously.
He walks to the kitchen window and violently whips the curtains open. "Ash, you wouldn't keep secrets from me, right?" I laugh nervously again.
"As long as you don't keep secrets from me. You know how Earth goes. You get what you give because balance must always be maintained on this neutral planet."
"Is that so?" I stare at his broad shoulders. Then clear my throat.
"Yes. My mom wanted to know if you'd accompany me to my father's grave. I know this may bring up some bitter memories from our past. If you choose to not go, I'd understand." I shrug.
"I'm going. I can't have my beautiful wife mourning without emotional support." He turns and smiles at me.
"Thanks that's very nice of you to do." I smile and a warm feeling rests on my chest.
"Soon all these bad memories will be faint ghosts of our past. We will have five beautiful children and go on in eternal bliss." He says looking at the ceiling.
"Five children? I'm going to be thirty soon. A human woman's fertility nosedives at thirty five years old. I'm too old to have one let alone five." I gasp and hold each side of my face.
"There is nothing to fear. You've done it before so you can do it again."
"I did it before in my spiritual form. My more powerful form that doesn't have limitations on it like this body where most humans can't see most of the light around us. In this body, I'm unable to see ultraviolet rays emitted from the Sun, but they still affect me. In this body I can feel pain but I can't feel the ultimate peak of pleasure because balance must be maintained on this planet. Thus, high pleasure means high pain payment. Even if I got it done by a miracle or fluke... All of that sensory data would send this body into shock and it may be fatal. It isn't made to explore all the possibilities of existence like my soul is." I walk up to him and stare at the side of his face.
"I figured as much. That's why I'm deleting this dimension." I gasp.
"What about my mother? What about the other people here?" I touch his arm.
"They'll be transferred somewhere else and you'll finish transferring to my heart." He looks at me with magenta eyes.
"Are you and your reaper squad killing people here? Are you hiding their deaths from me?" Worry briefly washes my face.
"I'm not hiding anything. Everything is in plain sight. There are countless news reports of earthquakes, people getting fatal strokes in their sleep, and so on. Look Ash, you're emotionally attached to them because of the memories of them but if the dimension ceases to exist the memories will fade with it."
"What about the piece of your heart?" He grabs my hand and places it over his chest. I close my eyes as I feel his heart beating steady and strong.
"I retrieved it and now it's always with you. Since you said this planet only works on balance, I'll take my time telling you where it's at on you." He turns around and winks down at me. My jaw drops. He's really good at this. I may have underestimated his wit and tracking abilities. I poke my chin. He releases my hand and walks past me.
"Wait! Where are you sending the souls of the people you all are killing off?"
"I'm sending them to their leader. I'm sending them to their Mother."
"You're sending them to the land of witches and warlocks which I am locked off from."
"Exactly." My jaw drops again.
"What if there are some that were not misled by Mother? What will you do to the souls that she is not the leader of?"
"I'll send them back to the worlds and galaxies their souls came from." He sighs.
"If you're deleting this dimension, why are we still here instead of in the wardrobe or your study?"
"Our souls is in my study reading this erasing chapter. Every page we finish reading is blank. I thought you'd like to enjoy these last moments of these memories." I gasp.
"Memories I won't remember. I appreciate the gesture anyway. So, it was you all along that made the mages die that worked at the herb shop before me."
"Time is an illusion and all of these events are happening at the same time, but I didn't kill any mages at the herb shop. Your Mother has put kill scripts or self detonating elixirs in their blood that go off if she's too far away from them or whenever she wants to get rid of them." He enfolds me in his arms.
This information does align with my daughter's behaviors toward her followers. I don't know why she thinks they're disposable and she doesn't respect them. I guess they'll just re-spawn as new sacrificial lambs around her. Since they're locked in that world together and energy is neither created or destroyed. I open the fridge and make us blueberry muffins with sweet glaze on top. I hear him humming in the shower. He comes out of the shower and I scurry past him. He is patting his silvery white strands with a towel. I reach for my toothbrush and feel a hand grab my wrist. I spun into his damp arms. I giggle. "What are you doing? I have to get ready." I say.
"We have enough time." He cocks a brow.
"Do we really? What if the page goes blank before we read it?" He chuckles and kisses my cheek down to my neck. I sharply inhale and look at the ceiling. He nudges my chin and I look him in the eyes. Magenta bathes its glow on my skin.
"You should get dressed." I say. He shrugs and walks off. After bathing, I quickly eat a couple muffins in the four door truck. My husband drives to the graveyard many miles away from our home. We hold each others hand during the silent drive. It feels like the closer I get the more I feel a heaviness sitting on my shoulders. My eyes get watery. Some tears drip down onto the top of my black dress. He pulls my hand close to his mouth and kisses the back of it. Then he holds my hand over his chest. "It's going to be alright. This all will pass." He says.
My husband is right. Once everybody goes back to their soul's home dimensions and plains, none of this will matter. It still hurts emotionally. I don't know if I don't want to release the memories of my dad or I'm nervous of the existence to come with Aldebaran. Either way... This must be done.
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At the graveyard, I grab an edge of the square stone slab sitting on my father's grave. "Dad!" I whisper loudly and sob a bit. Aldebaran rubs my shoulders and steps back as I mourn. "Dad, I know you said to not trust any male but I found a rarity far from the males you warned me about. He is my husband and he has helped me raise trustworthy sons. Thanks for teaching me discernment so that I could avoid all the untrustworthy men to find the best male any galaxy can offer. Thank you Dad. You really helped me." I say in my mind. My husband walks away from me to give me a moment to mourn alone. I cry and kneel before his grave.
"Ok, crybaby get up. We have people to save." A whisper says before me. I look quizzically at the grave and sob. "It's Twilight. Sorry but your Dad isn't speaking to you from the grave." He whispers.
"Can I mourn in peace? Can I have this moment without a person pestering me?" I whisper back.
"No."
Before I know it, a wind gust picks up around me. I quickly stand to my feet. It lifts me into the sky. My husband runs toward me and shifts into his male harpy form. In a blink, darkness surrounds me and I close my eyes as the wind whooshes around me.