Chapter 10 Part 3: Black

The darkness enveloped and comforted. In here, there was no need to understand or think. Existing was fine. Jun didn’t dare to wake. He wasn’t sure he could understand what he had just seen and at present he didn’t want to. But a tickling in his ear persisted.

‘Awake, Jasper.’

He scoffed. How long had it been since anyone called him that? “Why?” the tone was venomous. Try as he might, his emotions were getting the better of him. Stupid teenage hormones. A silvery figure appeared int eh darkness with him. Her eyes of flame waited for his words. “Why should I wake? My wife wants to kill me. I’m engaged to my daughter, and ‘Mama bear’ is keeping me from my son!” He turned away from the Silver Flame, wanting the peace and simplicity of the dark.

‘Would you have preferred to cease after the accident?’

Jun closed his eyes, refraining from speking while he battered the swelling emotions as she spoke. He was unsuccessful as he turned on her.

“At least then I wouldn’t have to rot in this stupid world and find out it’s against me. It’s worse knowing we are alive and can’t be together again.”

Her flame flickered, smaller at his outburst. The silence grew and he felt he had silenced her, but her words stopped him from returning to the dark again.

‘It is… broken. This world needs you and your family.’

“What. To fight? I won’t.” He had, but only when he hadn’t known who they were. Mei had come at him, even Ellen. Why did the women in his former life want to kill him when they met? What sort of enjoyment was this god seeking from them?

‘You aren’t tasked with fighting them, or even fixing this world. Just with starting it on its path of healing.’

Jun folded his arms. He hated this.

“I’m just a hobby biologist. Not a philanthropist, a healer, or politician.” Any one of those other sorts of people would jump at this chance, but not him.

‘You were chosen for this.’

Her silver hand reached towards his right ear and he recoiled.

“And what if I don’t want this? I didn’t ask for any of this,” he snarled.

‘Ellen did. And Maisie. And Zeke.’ She held up a finger for each of them, then a fourth finger rose. ‘Even you Jasper, wanted to be with your family after the accident.’

“I didn’t want us to be enemies.” His words rang in the growing silence.

‘Are you enemies?’

Jun was stunned. His brow raised, head turning slightly to let that gaze bore into her.

“She seeks my life.” In what world did that not mean they were enemies? “And I can’t prove that I am Jasper. She believes I killed him and took his place, even took his ring, my artifact. How else could I change the way she thinks?”

He knew his wife. She was stubborn. She may not have been hostile, or cold, but eight years was a long time for things to change. And if in those eight years, somehow she came to believe he was dead even killed, he could imagine her becoming a firm enemy—much as he hated to admit it.

‘Were your family ties so frail?’ the tone wasn’t mocking, but it might as well have.

“Ha! If you wanted us to be a family, why separate us?” A thought occurred to him. “Why have my daughter be Mei? You could have put Ellen in there instead.”

‘Jasper.’

“I’m not done yet,” he growled. Her light flickered even dimmer than before. “You say I need to heal the world? That I’m chosen for this, that we all are. Be honest. You just enjoy toying with us. You could have told me who my family members were. You could have helped me escape the Jinshari long ago and prevented my engagement to my daughter.”

‘Japser!’

“Some god you are.”

‘Jasper! I’m not a god!’

Jun felt his being freeze as her words grated across his soul.

“Seriously? Out of all my complaints? That was the one you stood up against?” He felt his fingers itch, wanting to wring the being in front of him.

‘Jasper. Don’t…’

“Forget it! You wouldn’t give me a straight answer anyway.”

He turned his back and forced his conscience away from her, seeking the solitude he craved. Emotions were such a pain anyway.

The darkness enveloped and comforted him. Here he didn’t have to think or feel anymore. He felt justified in what he said, the way he had left. She had dumped him here, not promising to ever see his family. He had dealt with that for two years, then met Maisie now Mei. For six more years he had dealt with the humiliation and disgust of being engaged to her, promising Ellen he would pay for it and vowing to end it. His hopes had grown of reuniting. Clearly he had been the fool. Another year of searching and he had found them, but Ellen was his enemy and his son taken. Frankly it was worse than those so called divorces. It was a cruel irony. Ellen clearly loved him, even now, but she thought he was his own murderer and wouldn’t let him explain anything. None of this would have happened if the Silver Flame had just let him come here alone. Or if she had taken in the others.

The sound of fire drew him from his thoughts. He didn’t need to look to know she had come to him again.

‘You need to wake up.’

“This again? Leave me alone.” He was tired.

‘Your family is in danger.’

He stiffened, face barely looking back at her. She was a small ball of fire, nothing grand like the figure before. It suited her.

“Seriously?” he sat back, head rolling till he glared at her. “Why should I care?”

A simple flash in the flames caught his attention. Was she smiling?

‘…You’re just saying that.’ She was calm, unlike before. His eyes darted away, unable to meet her.

“And you can be really annoying.” She had seen through his bluster. The way his heart was pounding as she had given her warning was contrary to the way he wanted to believe. She had never been wrong with her warnings, sparse as they had been. Despite his reservations, he found himself trusting her words.

‘And I chose your family because, you ALL are needed.’

Jun lifted his eyes to stare into the larger fire.

“Then answer me this… why am I Ellen’s enemy?”

The flames shifted into a smaller version of the Silver Flame. Her fiery legs folded as she sat before him, hand resting against her cheek as the other folded in front of her.

‘Would you have sought your children if Mei had been Ellen?’ The odd question felt so far out in left field that Jun was left reeling.

“What?”

‘There are circumstances beyond my abilities that have played out. These circumstances have made Ellen a figurative puppet to the church.’

“The one in Nauthire? But that’s your religion.”

‘In name. But their teachings are far from me of from god.’ Her words huffed as her flaming hair settled around her face.

“Right…” Jun recalled his question nearly nine years ago, when he had first met her. She was a keeper of the world, never claiming to be the god of this world.

The silver flame pushed herself in the darkness, as if rising from an invisible chair.

‘As for Ellen, I cannot tell you more. You will need to hear it from her, her circumstances, what she had gone through these past eleven years.’

“Eleven?” Jun reiterated. He had only been here nine. The silver Flame smirked and he shook his head. “Wait. You do realize how hard it will be to hold a civil conversation with her.”

‘I do know, Jasper. But it is a law of this world that I cannot break.’

“Law?”

‘I cannot say more.’

Jun pinched the bridge of his nose at this. “Another law? Well that’s annoying.” He found himself sighing. He still had a mound of questions he wanted to ask, several things he needed clarified, but it seemed she wouldn't’ be able to answer them. Had it always been this way? If so, then some things were starting to make sense.

Her smile flickered before him as he hovered to the side. ‘I do try, Jasper. In any case, you need to awake. Your family needs you, as does this world. You cannot run from responsibility.’ A strange smirk graced her face. ‘Well… you could try, but it will come for you regardless.’

“How comforting.” His hand clenched as he felt the darkness start to recede against his will.