In her dazed and pain ridden state, Akio couldn’t focus on any details of her surroundings beyond the basics of the structure. The tunnel was unlit, save for the cracks and crumpled stone that allowed glimmers of light to cast some sort of guidance to the path ahead, but even that, like Akio, was waning.
Akio could feel herself slip away, only to have the jar of Fluffy’s gait revive the pain and bring her back. Breathing became harder as her three hearts beat in quick succession, as if trying to keep up with the loss of blood, but unable to produce enough.
Indra’s pale hand grabbed Akio’s natural arm, pressing where the pulse would be easiest to find. A gentle yellow light glowed from her grasp, filling Akio’s body with warmth amongst the cold. “Akio, I need you to stay awake. Talk to me. What’s your favorite color?”
Color? Was there a time when Akio cared?
“I-I don’t know,” Akio breathed. It would be so easy to give in, to close her eyes.
For so long, part of her had wished for her life to end, to take away the miserable fight between her morality and reality. But now, she feared the darkness. What judgement would await her on the other side?
Indra’s hand tightened around her wrist. “What’s your name?”
Staring up at the ceiling, Akio watched the lines between the stones become indistinguishable, as if they were turning into dirt. “Akio.”
I don’t want to die.
“What are you?” Indra asked, her hold not slackening even as fluffy picked up their pace.
The world flew by in a blur, like clouds in the sky—everchanging, always forgetting, moving forward, never back.
Akio felt the shift in Fluffy’s gait as Indra sat behind her, wrapping her arm around Akio’s midriff to prevent her from falling off when the speed increased and the wind whipped around them.
“I’m a weapon.”
And weapons don’t weep. Weapons don’t fear death. They were made to kill and be killed.
“No. You’re not. That’s the identity the commanders gave you when they stole who you were. What are you, Akio?” Indra’s voice took on a sharp edge, as if by saying what she did, Akio had somehow insulted her.
Swallowing, Akio wished the pain would block out the regrets swarming in her head. If only the throbbing agony were stronger, it would stop this. Each face that exploded at the end of her gun, that bled beneath her blades, that crunched in the palm of her metal hand, came to the forefront. Taunting her. Accusing her. Judging her.
How many of them had been innocent? She had forced herself to believe a lie for so long to keep the screams from her dreams. They still came.
No one is innocent.
I am not innocent.
Indra tapped her arm, breaking through the dissonance. “Akio. Answer me. What are you?”
The emotion welled up as Akio’s empathy for those she murdered broke through the surface. Tears fell in streams down her face, dropping onto her trembling body. “Defective. Evil. No-not innocent.”
“Now is not the time to think like that. If your life is flashing before your eyes, tell it to shove itself up a barrel of waste,” Indra growled. “You’re not going to die tonight.”
I don’t want to die.
It was getting harder to keep her eyes open, as the weariness and pain called to Akio like a monster beneath the depths of her mind.
She could see wavering images of her victims leering at her in the darkness.
I killed them. I’m a monster.
Indra’s hand gently touched Akio’s face, turning her chin up to look up at her. The long black head covering made it seem as though Indra was a shadow, invisible in the darkness.“You’re a Se’li. You’re a survivor. You’re redeemable. And I owe you.”
“There’s no atonement for the things I’ve done,” Akio spat. “Nothing I do will ever bring justice to those I’ve wronged. The dead can’t be revived, the planets can’t be resurrected. And I did it all for the bastards that made me who I am.”
A short silence filled the air, unbreakable and heavy as the tunnel came to an end.
It was too dim to tell, but Akio swore she saw Lemk in the corner, orange blood dripping down his destroyed face.
Gripping tighter around Akio’s waist, Indra shook her head. “You are who you choose to be, not who they made you. I saw you help the Se’li in the market, a weapon wouldn’t do that. An unredeemable monster wouldn’t do that. Despite everything, you still have a heart, you still care. That’s who you are, underneath all of this, E’leka.”
Akio froze, confusion and surprise breaking through her blurry haze and sending me images of the dead back into the recesses of her mind. How did Indra know that name? That cursed name? Her Se’li name that was stripped from her when the elders and her parents had sentenced her to death.
“How do you know that name?” Akio growled, gritting her teeth when a metal door opened, screeching against grinding gears and messing with the equipment in her head.
Static went across her eye, accompanied by a pounding migraine. What was causing it? A device embedded in the metal?
Indra sighed, her shoulders falling slightly as she let go of Akio’s wrist and double tapped something on her holopad. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
The static halted as Fluffy proceeded to walk through the door and into an overgrown courtyard cast in the pale glow of twilight. Vines, glowing blue flowers, and spike-covered trees littered the cracked stone, fighting against the crafted workmanship that threatened their nature. Fighting to get to the light.
A large mansion built into the cliffside stood behind them, it’s unique spiral and octagon structure seeming to be supported by branches of the spiked trees. From a distance, Akio assumed it would be near invisible beneath it’s cloak of plants and the looming cliff face. It was carved of the stone of the rock wall behind it with very few windows and no visible entrance.
“I don’t remember much about my time as a Se’li besides my parents threatening to kill me, and then trying to,” Akio declared, swallowing as her eyes traced the endless lines of thorny branches that seemed to multiply in her swimming vision.
Indra sighed. “That’s understandable, we were young. The only reason I remember is because you inspired me. When the leaders came to finish us off, you stood in the way. You protected me. No one else was brave enough to fight back, but that one Se’li girl with a gimpy leg, half an arm, and a blind eye, gave her everything for us, for me. It’s something I’ll never forget. Thank you, E’leka.”
Somewhere deep in her subconscious, Akio remembered that moment, when she fought with all she had, cursed to lose, doomed to fail. But she never gave up. That was the day the commanders found her. She thought the other children died because she hadn’t been strong enough to protect them.
“The others fought back when you fell. Three out of the seven escaped. I was one of the three. I thought you died that day,” Indra declared.
“E’leka died, I became Six. I became a monster.”
Indra tapped a distinctive rhythm into her holopad and two doors swung open, though her gaze was elsewhere, her tone was sincere.“You became who you had to, in order to survive. We all did. But now, you don’t have to survive anymore, you can live.”
A small individual stood in the doorwei, though Akio couldn’t make out anything beyond the potentially furry silhouette with the blinding light behind them. It was as if the five suns shone from within the building. “What did I tell you about bringing in oth--”
“The air in our lungs rises and falls, Haim,” Indra shot cooly.
The blurry figure sighed. “And with closed hearts, they’ll be no tomorrow.” Turning around they stepped back into the building. “Fine. Bring her in. But if something happens as a consequence, the responsibility rests on you.”
The world fell into darkness as Akio was carried into the light, a world that promised of new beginnings and better tomorrows.
