Creation's Fallen Gods

I felt very uncomfortable now. As Henry released the information that I'm probably the incarnation of his former girlfriend, whom he had loved to the point of losing his sanity and no longer wanting contact with the world, I could no longer know how to act normally close to him.

But he acted the same way as always. So after the third day of discharge, some people began to appear. Two colleagues with whom he studied before "disappearing" inviting him to return to a study group... on-duty staff bringing reports on the progress of research centers after all these years... but to my great surprise , the last visits of the day were from Cásira, the ex-girlfriend and her father, the nice gentleman Mr. Iago Kairoh.

They were part of this select group of Jomons who knew of the existence of the relics and learned of the end of Henry's seclusion by the Sruar couple, who was also part of the guard of this secret and close friends.

Henry seemed as excited to see them as he was when he saw Lobrë, as if he did not know where to put his face, but he welcomed them, and spent a long time talking to Mr. Kairoh, with whom he was on good terms, despite having dispensed him more quickly than all other visitors. Cássira also seemed to get along well with Henry and showed a lot of sympathy, but she also proved to be as out of place and embarrassed as any ex-girlfriend who still had some lingering feelings.

She already appeared to be a few years older than him, but I mentally registered that they were probably the same age. She was very pretty and sensual, and she looked good on a fit dress and her long brown hair came down very smoothly, framing her face and contrasting divinely with her pink eyes.

Mr. Kairoh sat down on the sofa in the living room and spent a good amount of time persuading Henry to return to study, travel, and enjoy life. He said that it was not everyone who had the privilege of maintaining eternal youth, though many managed to delay old age.

"You know that although it did not work out between you and my Cásira, I still consider you as my family" he said sincerely worried.

"Dad!" Cásira scolded blushing.

"But it's true!" he insisted, "Anyway, let's get going, it's no use talking about things he already knows."

Henry followed the Kairoh to the door. Mr. Iago still patting him on the shoulders and Cásira right behind them still very flushed looking to her feet.

"Let's set up a meeting to introduce the girl!" he said before leave. "I'm really surprised. The young master said nothing. No one was aware of a new chosen."

"It's okay... when the time is right, I'll call everyone," Henry replied in what I imagined to be a very forced act of sympathy, "She still doesn't speak our language, and needs to be educated about certain things before she can go out."

As they left, Henry faced the closed door for a while and sat back in his chair covering his eyes with his hands, evidently tired. I noticed that it was extremely exhausting for him to pay attention to other people.

"Still can not interact freely with everyone?" I let escape that.

"Hmm…" he m.o.a.n.e.d, "even if I succeed, everyone will come here to tell me that I'm "wasting away," that I should forget the past, move on... these things... they do not understand." Henry leaned back, threw his head back and stared at the ceiling as he crossed his arms, "I know they care about me and they want my well being, but even so…"

He did not finish speaking. He stood there for a long time, as if he had stopped again. I sighed in resignation. When he entered this "trance", it took him a long time to get out. That day, I prepared some sandwiches for dinner, and when I gave up waiting for him to wake up, I went up to my own room and slept. In the following days there were no visitors. Perhaps as fast as the news that Henry had returned spread, the news that he was not really sociable had also spread.

Then he proceeded to put me on the ship and take me to a magnificent field of birch trees on a very high plateau surrounded by foggy saws. The place was beautiful and there would probably not be a single person to tens or even hundreds of miles.

"We're still in Keret?" I asked kind of confused.

"No. We are on a reserve planet on the border of the Cepheus Quadrant. It's the same quadrant of Keret, but it stays in a different star system. Access here is closed to the general public at this time of year, so I thought it was a good place."

"A good place for what?" I questioned nervously, feeling the curiosity grow.

"To practice!" Henry smiled. "You have to release the surplus energy that has been acc.u.mulating for more than nineteen of your years... That is, almost eight years in Empire's official calendar. That's plenty of time.

"Nineteen Years?" I felt my jaw drop "But... How much time did we spend in your lab anyway?"

"When we entered, I think it was the last week of the third month and now we are on the 36th day of the tenth month…" he commented casually "this is... almost... a year and eight months on your planet."

I felt my jaw drop even more. I had spent two birthdays being operated and unconscious. Of course I had imagined that it had been a long time, but not so much. After all, for me, that new reality was only a few weeks ago, considering only the time I spent conscious, so until then it had not worried me that much.

"But... what about my father?" I remembered urgently. For him it must have been bitter years waiting.

"I kept in touch with him, do not worry…" Henry explained, "he is waiting for our visit before the new year."

I mentally recorded that he should be referring to the imperial new year. I already knew that the Conglomerate was a set of artificially constructed, terraformed planets and satellites, where even the time of rotation and translation was controlled and standardized. The imperial years had exactly five hundred days of thirty hours divided equally in ten months. Each month was divided into five weeks and each hour had fifty minutes of a hundred seconds. So it was "a week and a half" before the new year.

That meant that in a few days I would be returning to Sattie. And I honestly did not know how to react to that. But I did not have time to think about it again. The practice Henry spoke of was not pleasant.

As he had promised, there was a considerable amount of pain, and there would always be, as long as I did this with my feet on the ground. The procedure consisted in releasing the acc.u.mulated energy, and this turned against me because the electrical disturbance that I caused to the environment would give me shocks. But since I was completely cut off from anything other than the air, it would lessen the shocks.

So one of the things I needed to do was learn how to fly. That part at least made me very excited, but I soon discovered that it was not so easy. The training to fly, according to Henry, had taken twenty years of imperial rule. That is, this was the shortest time for anyone who had talent and dedication.

So the tentative solution would be for me to get used to discharge myself on the firm ground until I could learn to fly. At least, the discharge process was quite simple. As Henry pointed out, I was unconsciously holding myself.

The energy of the Relic would always want to leave, and the only thing that would prevent it was the tension. I just needed to relax the body, and the energy would come out freely. But the fear of hurting also bound me a lot. It was only on the third day of practice that I got some controlled results. The energy came out timid through my fingers and I could feel my limbs vibrate. The intensity increased every second until it became visible. The energy comes out in small blue rays burning the ground and the birches around us.

The interesting part was that this released energy could be controlled and channeled, depending on the ability of my control. But the stronger the discharge, the harder it would be. It was when, out of nowhere, like a barrel that cracked because of heavy pressure, the "door" to the exit of the energy simply broke, and it began to go indiscriminately. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to regain control, but it did not much help.

I did not know how to stop.

And the surplus energy exploded so intensely that it cleared the whole plateau, leaving everything pale blue. It lasted a few seconds, and when it was over, I felt the heat of Siever by my side holding me before I fell to the ground unconscious.