Jalen stepped into the trailer, with Ella right behind him. No words were exchanged as they prepared roasted potatoes and tomato sauce. He prepped the potatoes while she garnished the sauce. After all, cooking wasn’t his forte. It was only after they had finished their meal that Jalen broke the ice.
“Where is mom buried?”
Ella paused the washing of the dishes. “The memorial garden in Southside Haven.”
More silence ensued until Jalen asked. “How was her funeral?”
“It was a dark period in my life. That’s all I recall. The rest is a bit hazy. Jalen, you plan on seeing her resting place?”
“Yeah, in the future.”
“Well, uh… you know Marco paid for the funeral, right?”
“Macro?” Jalen nearly jumped in his seat.
“Yeah, turns out his family is very well off. Have you called him since you came back?”
His mouth suddenly tasted bitter. “I don’t have a phone, remember?”
“You could use mine?”
“No, I’ll pass.”
She looked like she had something more to say, but dropped the topic, returning her attention to finishing the dishes. He stared out the tiny window overlooking the spot where the fight took place. The nagging feeling from yesterday and today that led him to finding Prillon was absent. But he knew that wasn’t a guarantee they weren’t being watched. She handed him a can of beer and opened one for herself before downing a huge gulp of the drink.
“Oh, fuck, I needed that.” She smiled. “The day has been so shitty, it can’t possibly get worse.”
“Don’t jinx yourself.” Jalen joined her, drinking his beer.
Ella’s phone rang, then rang a second time, and a third time. Yet, she showed no signs of picking it up.
“You plan on answering that?” Jalen asked.
“Nope. What reason would I give for no-showing at work? That I was nearly killed by a goddamn demon? I’ll deal with Sandy’s bitchin’ later.” She dropped her beer and flattened her hands on the table. “I’ve made my decision. About the powers you said I should think about.”
“Yeah? So what is it?”
“I want to be able to talk to magpies and maybe crows and ravens. I’ve always been fascinated by their intelligence, social behavior, and cognitive abilities. It would mean the world if I could understand them.”
Jalen stared at her, his eyebrows arched high. “Are you for real? To facilitate your rise to godhood, I asked you what powers you want. And you choose to communicate with birds. Of all things.”
Ella fiddled with her thumbs. “Well, that is what I truly want, If I am to do something this life changing.”
Jalen sighed. “Fine, but I might tweak things a bit for your safety. You’ll need something a tad more potent if you ever catch yourself in a dangerous situation.”
“That is fine. Will the process be painful?”
“Not physically. Emotionally, that will be up to you. Are you ready?”
He stood up, his gaze falling on some neatly folded shirts nestled in an open drawer that belonged to a man. It was a struggle to quench his rising anger just from seeing the belongings of her boyfriend. After this ordeal, he had a lot to do to assimilate back into society, like getting a change of clothes, for instance.
“Where are we going?” Ella asked after grabbing a jacket. She elected to change out of her work clothes into a simple blouse and pants.
“To the abandoned steel factory across the street,” he said. “We’ll need some space and privacy.”
The factory’s imposing exterior stood as a testament to its former grandeur, with towering smokestacks reaching towards the sky, like flags of a bygone era. Broken windows, graffiti-covered walls, and rust-infested metal marred the once thriving factory. They crossed the surrounding pavement, riddled with cracks that weeds sprouted from, reclaiming the land inch by inch. Despite these shortcomings, the place proved to be a hotspot for drug dealers and drug abusers. The siblings expertly navigated through a sea of strewn, drugged bodies to gain access to the factory’s interior.
“Uh, the smell.” Ella visibly balked. “I knew there were people here, but…not like this. It stinks like a skunk took a dump in an old shoe that’s been marinating in the August heat for weeks.”
She had to pinch her nose and regulate her breathing before they moved on. The outer areas of the factory’s interior were plagued with feces, urine puddles, and armies of cockroaches and flies.
“Maybe it was a bad idea coming here,” he remarked.
They found themselves in a myriad of rusted corridors infested with dust, more cockroaches, and more drugged people. Some of these people stared blankly into the unknown, while others, twisted into uncomfortable positions, lay passed out. The last corridor opened into what used to be the main production floor, now a vast expanse of empty space, broken only by the skeletal remains of industrial equipment. The drugged people were much less present here.
At the end of the room sat a flight of rusted metal stairs, which they climbed to reveal a modest office space consisting of five rooms. Most of the rooms were littered with dust covered books and papers, tumbled filing cabinets, and broken furniture. It was the last room with a functioning lock that Jalen chose.
“It makes me wonder,” he said, “why they don’t clean this place and repurpose it for living?”
“That’s because of the cops, Jalen. They occasionally patrol these parts and arrest a bunch of them. It’s why they stick to the outer parts of the factory so that they can flee the cops. It doesn’t really work though, because they usually aren’t in a state of mind conducive for running…or doing much, actually.”
Jalen cleared the center of the room of any trash. “Sit here E. Let’s begin.”
Ella nodded, moving with sudden heavy and unsteady legs over to the assigned place.
“It will be fine. Trust me,” he said.
“I do, Jalen. I do.” She said, sitting down on the bare dusty concrete. “I just keep wondering how I will fuck this up, you know?”
“Ell—”
“You know how much mom’s debt still is? $390,000. Almost 400 fucking grand. It’s like I have done nothing these past few years, even though I’ve busted my ass every single day. If I hadn’t fucking co-signed to make payments that last year before mom died, her debt would have died with her.”
She held her head in her hands, struggling to stifle tears from escaping her eyes. He took a seat on a capsized cabinet. He didn’t know what to say. While he was stuck in the core of a star, his sister was taking on the world alone and losing.
“I don’t deserve this.. To be given these powers. I know it’s for my safety, but I have done nothing in almost 30 years of my life to earn this.”
“Just like you didn’t deserve help from aunt Marcy and her family, right?” He asked.
“Jal—”
“Ella, the one thing I’ve come to understand is it doesn’t matter whether or not you feel you have earned something. When an opportunity rises, you snatch it every damn time.”
She nodded, wiping her tears with her jacket sleeve.
Jalen’s eyes leaked golden light as his body expanded, growing taller and more imposing. Muscles rippled and grew beneath his skin. The clothes adorning his body vanished, replaced by black pants, leaving his upper body bare, his coal-like skin blending into the dark room. Ella, wide-eyed, backtracked until the cold metal of a filing cabinet stopped her.
“Close your eyes,” he commanded, his voice deeper and carrying a powerful tone.
She squeezed her eyes close, but her breathing became heavy, interspersed with audible gasps. He reprogrammed his cosmic beams from its default destructive state to a gentle, warm radiance carrying with it, creation and empowerment, before bathing her in its golden light.
❊ ❊ ❊
Jalen opened his eyes and was greeted by an everlasting ocean of cosmic life force surrounding him. Ella floated to his right, looking mesmerized and terrified by the myriad of erratic golden hues crashing around her. A golden sphere encased her, shielding her from the violent life force. A triumphant smile appeared on his face. It had worked exactly as planned.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“What you see around you is my life force, a cosmic energy that will sustain you when you ascend to—”
“Oh my fucking God, Jalen. Look below! It goes on forever.” Her head shot up as she tried swimming away from the bottomless depths below.
“You should perhaps think twice about bringing mortals here, Jalen.” A humanoid form made of raw life force floated near them, observing Ella. “I assume the mortal is your sister, correct?”
Jalen narrowed his eyes. “Correct. And I assume you are Yun?”
“What?” the energy being said. “You don’t recognize me?”
“Yeah, considering you created a body and adopted a voice.”
“I must say, I should have done it sooner. The sensations a material form provides are quite exquisite, wouldn’t you agree? I can only imagine what one made of flesh and blood entails.”
“Who… are you?” Ella asked, still weary of the depths below. Her tone was high-pitched and unsteady.
“You can address me as Yun, Life Force of the Cosmonar.” Yun focused her round energy eyes on him. “We need to move her somewhere safer. I know just the spot.”
Yun used her arms to tear apart the space before her, as easily as a person parting curtains to let in some light. Then she pulled the sphere shielding Ella with her mind into the portal behind her. They emerged into a space of nothingness. Not even atoms that were found almost everywhere existed here.
“Is this the void beyond creation?” he asked.
“No, but I used the void as a blueprint to design this universe.” Yun said. “Think of it like this. This universe is like an empty canvas waiting to be filled, separated, and inaccessible from any other existence.”
He gazed up at the surrounding emptiness. “Why can I still feel and hear the violent torrent of our life force? As if it is in another room.”
“That is because both universes are connected. To put it in biblical terms, our life force is heaven, while this place is the plane below.”
“Well done, Yun. I can see you’ve been very busy.”
“Thank—”
“What the fuck are you guys yapping about?” Ella asked. “Universe this, life force that. How can a space of nothingness exist? It makes no sense. Jesus, my head hurts.”
Yun turned to his sister once more while rubbing her chin. “That is perfectly understandable. Once you have ascended, all will become clear to you.”
“So you know why I came here?” He said.
“Of course. Why else would you bring your sister to one of the most dangerous places for mortal lifeforms?”
“Then I’ll begin the process.”
He spread his arms and summoned vast volumes of his life force, only to be hampered by Yun. He shot a stern gaze at the energy form of his counterpart.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
“The mortal must be tested,” Yun replied, “to determine if she is worthy to ascend. Just like I did for you eons ago.”
“It is my sister you are talking about.”
Yun, Life Force of the Cosmonar, remained firm. “All the more reason she is to be tested. If she is worthy, she will become the first god in your pantheon. It is vital she set a good example for the others.”
“Jalen, it’s okay,” Ella said. “I can take the test.”
“But—”
“It’s okay. You said I should grab every opportunity that comes my way. So let me work for this, at least. To show not just your friend but myself, that I can do it.”
The look on his sister’s face was one forged of determination. Biases aside, Yun was right. His pantheon of gods had to be powerful, proficient, and loyal, among many other things. Though he admitted, this was all for the future because he hadn’t thought that far ahead about assembling a group of gods.
“Very well,” he said. “Ella, Yun shall assume the role of arbiter in your trials. I will create the testing grounds.”
He extended his arm, as vast surges of Cosmonar life force rampaged through him and escaped through his outreached hand. The life force shot out a tremendous distance, painting the otherwise empty void with bright golden hues before transforming into many things. Rocks, plasma, gasses of all kinds, metals, and water, converging into a ball of white hot molten material. The ball cooled and rearranged into the familiar sight of a lush, green planet with massive oceans.
“Yun, I will let you fine tune the finishing details according to your needs. Good luck, E.”
Ella had to pull her jaw off the floor. “Did you just create a fucking planet, Jalen?” She turned to Yun. “Like are we not gonna acknowledge what he just did? Wow! I must be tripping.”
“It’s something I can do only in my creation,” he said, a faint smile on his face.
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