II.
We spent the rest of the day with F.P., talking to him, calming him down, acclimating him to our conditions, and ended up in a hurry the next day once we got back on the road. We knew that there was a town built around this end of the bridge, and wanted to buy from their shops before they closed at sundown. There was enough time that we'd be able to make it, but it'd be a rush.
The others kept talking as we started up again, but I mostly dropped out of the conversation. We decided pretty quickly that F.P. would stay in the vehicle for any combat, since he was even less prepared for that than we were and reaffirmed that he would, yes, be using the spare sleeping bag, so no, Matt couldn't keep putting his sleeping bag in another sleeping bag like he'd been doing. I was always pretty bad at meeting new people, and now that the situation was mostly defused and the practical concerns were sorted, I didn't see much of a reason to stay in the middle of things, turning my attention again to the windows and watching the passing scenery.
Things changed gradually but noticably. After not much time we left the wooded area, its plain dirt path, and its ramshackle homes, and entered back into a more pastoral area, the fog dissipating and only coming down in patches. The path became more of a defined road once again, with fields and farms sitting beside it. As we got closer to the town the farms became nicer, with bigger fields and better houses, until again the farms thinned out in favor of simple homes, which themselves got fancier as we went. In a loose ring circling the town was a zone where the richest men of the area lived - in certain periods of history the rich would live in the town itself, but right now they thought they'd rather live in nicer conditions, since towns were crowded and dirty and the plains or forests surrounding them had fresh air and water and, most importantly, kept them away from the common people. Many of these homes' foundations had been built hundreds or even thousands of years ago, and their current designs reflected this, with sleek and fancy architecture combining the tried-and-true with the cutting-edge, of course while most others were stuck with the same old same old. I imagined as we passed how they would look burning to the ground. Past that small ring the houses got lower-quality and more tightly packed together, with some scattered farms which had less space to work with but made up for it with their close proximity to the needy, hungry town. We could tell we were getting close when the patches of fog turned into rolling waves, and when the sky filled up with the customary smokecloud you got when you had a whole town's worth of fireplaces going off at once. They let up a bit in later Spring and Summer, but we were still in March, and the cloud still hung overhead far past the city bounds, acting as a giant, ominous welcome sign. At a certain point we finally passed over the official boundary line, a thin but deep trench dug in the ground with a retractable bridge, and as we passed over that bridge Sefgh turned around to the rest of us in the cabin and spoke, grinning cheerfully-
"We're finally here!"
"Took us long enough!" Matt said, returning a grin of his own.
"It's been so long since I was here..." F.P. said, "and it looks... a lot different to how I remember it, actually!"
"How do you remember it?" Sefgh asked.
"Well, you know how everything seems when you're a kid," he responded, looking around through the windows, "Everything's a lot bigger, and uh... nicer?"
I looked around with him. The Town of the Dead Sea Bridge was, indeed, not so amazingly nice. The buildings were solid and colorful, certainly not shabby and not nearly as grim as the ones in The Town of the Church of Holy Light, but just as certainly not as nice as those rich homes out in the countryside. Lots of people were out and about, the buildings were decorated with signs and sometimes ribbons and flowers, the kinds usually reserved for special festivities but (according to F.P.) kept up all the time here to impress anyone passing through. Passing a bit further into the shopping district at the center of town there were food, drinks, and general knick knacks for sale everywhere you looked, the air thick with the smells of a fresh meal waiting just for you! On the flipside of course, it was just as grimy as towns tended to be. This town with its large size and need to impress had a working sewage system, but between the horses, the bins of rotting food, and the general imperfections that came with packing so many people down into one space, it was a dizzying spiral of clashing sensations. People begged in the streets by wealthy homes, cheerful conversations were cut into by screaming arguments, and the smell of horseshit mixed with the smell of baked bread. It was like home to F.P. and very disorienting for the rest of us, though M-Bot didn't have a sense of smell and didn't seem to care so much about whatever we were being so dramatic over. After getting our bearings, we quickly split up to gather supplies at the various shops - it was getting late after all, and we wanted to be out of here before the sun set, the city gates closed, and we had to find some place to stay. (F.P. went to visit his parents and let them know he was leaving. He said it went well.)
WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR A STORY?
I walked over to a large bookstore with a list the others had given to me. Now that we had one more person we wanted to stock up more on essential supplies, of course, but Sef had also decided that the books they'd brought weren't enough for such a long outing as ours, and Matt agreed. Incidentally, he still hadn't finished the first one he was reading. I was happy to get some more reading material, and also happy to take one of the less important jobs here.
After gathering whatever requested books were available, I also picked out a couple choices of my own, one of which being a book covering the important events of the third millenium and turn of the fourth millenium, which had largely gone over my head as someone without a formal education or the drive to give myself an informal education. It looked dense, but it wasn't a textbook. As I brought the books to checkout, the shopkeeper, an old man, looked at my choice and smiled.
"Do you know the story of the Comet? It's not one they teach nowadays, but then-" he tapped the book- "It was the most common thing in the world. Everyone knew it!"
"No, I don't," I responded, "why do you ask?"
The shopkeeper sat back in his seat, a glint in his eye, adopting a kind of storyteller's posture you only get when you've spent years recounting stories to your children and grandchildren.
"Do you mind if I regale you with that old tale?" He continued, "It's not often I get to tell a story here these days, and you look like someone who needs one. Name's A-beth, by the by."
I looked down at myself. My clothes were a bit of a mess, I was tired from a long day of travel, and I'm sure my distinct physical appearance and the looks I got for it weren't lost on him.
"I don't know, I'm in a bit of a hurry," I protested.
"I won't keep you too long," A-beth responded, grinning, "Now come, sit, and I'll tell you the story of the Comet."
-THE STORY OF THE COMET-
A long time ago, about two thousand years hence, the world nearly came to a close. This was done by the hand of a few with wretched power, and but a few survived. Gaia, originator of us all, was on the edge of death, the horizon a sea of dead stone, the oceans gone, Her soul comatose and on the verge of the void. The very air itself seemed to be dying, and the dawn of each new day was no longer a given. Only small packs of humans remained to walk this dead earth, clustering in ravaged city-states to delay death as long as could be done.
From one city-state a child, The Comet, bringer of life, was taken. A cult to death had formed, willing the end of all things and choosing a sacrifice to strike the final blow of Gaia's demise. He would be transformed from a living creature to a dead machine, flesh replaced with steel and blood with oil, and let loose on the world to kill at random, then known as The Weapon, feared by all. He would collapse the remaining city-states and leave each human isolated and alone to die out. All life would be gone, and Gaia, originator of us all, would be naught but stone in the abyss.
As he did his terrible deeds The Weapon, feared by all, began to resent his fate. His mind had been lost in the transformation, and yet he knew that something was unjust. He was empty, and emptied the world. How could this pass for an existence, he wondered? What was the point of being put here if this was his purpose? At this point, walking the dead earth, he met The Angel, an innocent being. She had faith in him when such a thing was thought impossible, and they ran away together without thinking of the future. At the moment they first touched, standing side-by-side on an obsidian slab, however, their natures clashed, and she, an innocent being, was rendered dead in an instant.
The Weapon loathed himself, and feared his own being. He attempted to end his own being, but was rejected by heaven, for he still had work to do. In a bitter fury, he walked the dead earth to the fortress of his fathers, and slew them all, so that they may never commit a sin as great as his own creation. He then fled through an ancient technology they kept, into a shadow world isolated from all, where he remained for a century. Little of note occurred here, for it was a world where naught was material. There was nothing left of him. It was only when he received a divine vision, that of a new cult to death following in the footsteps of the old, willing the end of all things and sacrificing many to strike the final blow of Gaia's demise, that he came back through the ancient technology away from the shadow world.
The Weapon, feared by all, carried out a new reign of terror on the cult, but eventually saw that it was futile, for each time he struck a worshipper down from the earth, two more worshipped that death. Death's hypnotizing vortex only grew in strength, and threatened to drag the world, kicking and screaming in a final blaze of fire, into a final nothingness, with The Weapon himself almost subsumed by its pull. He walked the dead earth one last time, falling upon the obsidian slab where he first made contact with The Angel, an innocent being, and slew her. He screamed out to the heavens, and asked that they take him again, and not bring him back into the world once more.
The heavens responded in the form of The Angel appearing before him, and she spoke thusly: "Do you remember when we met, and flowers grew at your feet? You are more than you think - you are not a weapon, for that is a life you were given against your will. You need not die, however, for instead, you need only live a new life."
These words struck deeply at The Weapon's core, and she shedded this identity, becoming at last The Comet, bringer of life. She saw that the world could not be healed with blood nor fire, and instead must be rejuvenated with water and air. She climbed high into the skies, where the very air itself seemed to be dying, shunning her electric power and drawing energy from the stars themselves, becoming a point of pure ethereal light, and plunged back down to the dead earth. Where she struck, flowers grew at her feet, and spread thusly over the whole of Gaia, reviving Her. The earth was no longer dead but alive, the air breathed once more, and the seas were restored to their rightful place. The dawn of each new day was once again sure, and life was restored. Where once there was void, all that had existed came rushing back. The people of the world rejoiced, and swore never to bring themselves to the edge of death again.
-END-
A-beth stared at me after finishing his long story, waiting for a response. The sun was close to setting.
"I don't get it. Why'd you tell me all that?" I asked, impatient by now to get back to the others.
His grin faded, and his expression turned serious. "Son, I've seen faces like yours. I know that look. It's the look of someone who doesn't want to be here anymore."
"What, in this bookstore?" I snapped.
"The world," He responded. I didn't say anything back.
"I don't know who you are, kid, but something's coming to you. You've just gotta wait." He said, smiling once again.