The One with the Gravel Trail

Ruta squirmed, trying to break free of her restraints that kept her tied to a large oval-shaped device hanging from the ceiling of Holloway’s underground laboratory. The ceiling wasn’t that high up; Holloway was almost close enough to touch (assuming her arms were freed) as he worked on last minute preparations down below. Ruta could hear the rumbling and explosive noises above her getting closer and closer. The ground shook whenever a Talent or artillery shell went off near them.

Several gorilla-ninjas manned their posts as Holloway pulled down several levers across various electrical panels that stretched across his laboratory; a low hum filled the room. Then machinery banged menacingly from below them; Ruta wished she could cover her ears to get away from the sound, cover her eyes to get away from all this. She didn’t want to die, but this past week had been a spiritual torture as she watched the entire world turn against her.

She gritted her teeth. That’s what he wants me to do. To just lie down. But I know they’re coming to get me. I just need to hold on until I find a way to help them.

“Oh, you shouldn’t give a determined look of hope like that,” Holloway absent-mindedly warned, more focused on turning dials and knobs. “You’re only setting yourself up for more disappointment.”

“We’ll stop you!” Ruta called out.

Holloway grinned. “When I physically defeat you all and crush that hope, your destroyed belief will only make it easier for my device to succeed.”

A gorilla-ninja suddenly burst into the laboratory through tall doors at its entrance. “Holloway, they-”

Scissors suddenly exploded through his chest; Edith tossed the gorilla-ninja away and stepped into the room. Other ninjas aimed to fire at her, but a well-placed series of silver forks knocked their knives away; a huge fireball scattered other ninjas across the room.

Sarika emerged from behind Edith; Ruta wondered why Edith had come to rescue her, but the most important thing was that she actually came to rescue her. Fire arrived in the chamber next, sending another fireball as Holloway motioned to his remaining ninjas to engage. A melee broke out at the entrance to lab, but Sarika pushed the ninjas back, enabling the bubble tank to rumble inside the chamber, firing rockets at a ninja machine gun nest at the far side of the lab.

Bass, the peanut table, and Garcia followed behind the tank, fighting off ninjas as they charged.

“This is fantastic!” Ruta exclaimed. “You’re all friends now!”

The assembled allies all shared a nod as they collectively cracked ninja skulls together.

Then Ruta felt it. The room started spinning, her entire body felt hot and clammy, there was a pit in her stomach. She wasn’t sure why it took so long for her to realize the truth - this was her own Nightmare, used against her. And from the surprised looks of the allies, Ruta’s stolen Nightmare was now being used against them too.

The gorilla-ninjas got the upper hand, gradually driving the allies back. Holloway flipped a switch and casually walked over as he watched his ninjas attack those without Talents. He then materialized a scissor in his hands and tossed it at Edith, slashing her across the temple; he turned his hand into iron and smacked away Bass; he stole the silver color off the lab’s floor and threw a knife right at Sarika, which implanted itself in her shoulder.

“Nobody ever asks about the principal’s Talent,” he complained in amusement. “Duality Removal. I either have your powers, or I don’t. I simply changed the Isn’t into an Is, and now I have them."

He made a silver sword and slashed the wounded Sarika across the chest. Ruta cried out as Sarika was sent flying away. “Your powers betray you,” he called out as he choked slammed Bass into the ground with an iron fist, “Because they belong to me.”

Edith charged with her scissor array, but Holloway simply fired a full broadside right back at her, forcing her to retreat right into a waiting pack of gorilla-ninjas.

Then everybody felt a new presence in the room.

Connolly stepped inside, using his air manipulation to clear a path directly to Holloway. The two men stared each other down as the fighting continued all around them.

“Hello, Holloway,” Connolly greeted. His eyes narrowed. “Or should I say, Father.”

Ruta raised an eyebrow.

“When Mom died in the accident, you would do anything to bring her back,” Connolly reminded his father, who wore a muted, blank expression on his face. “You tried to turn the Isn’t of death into the Is of life. But you failed. You could convert any other Isn’t, but not death. So, instead, you tried it the other way around. For the first time, you experimenting with turning Is into Isn’t. Once you had mastery of both directions, you could break the duality and go beyond both of them.”

Connolly slapped his chest. “I was your final test subject. I was either your son, or I wasn’t. I was your son! And then, just like that, I wasn’t. Do you know what it’s like to have that feeling utterly ripped away from you? When the Department of Metaphysics assigned me here to monitor you, I thought it was a dream. We could finally reunite and I could give you what’s been a long-time coming. But you haven’t even noticed me.”

A few gorilla-ninjas shot Holloway an awkward look; Holloway wiped his face. “Mom, you say. To me, she was only my first wife. I’ve had many sons I turned into non-sons. But you were all worthy sacrifices! If I couldn’t bring my first wife back, then I would do anything to ensure nobody else had to lose something precious to them ever again.”

Holloway glanced at Sarika, who currently struggled with a particularly beefy ninja. “That’s the difference between you and I, Sarika. When you realized you couldn’t resurrect a loved one, you denied all the possibilities and instead double-downed on your isolation. But me? I worked hard to assembly a positive dream for everyone, breaking down the boundaries between humans.”

“How many lives have you destroyed in the process?” Connolly questioned. “A first wife. How many wives have you had? How many families and sons have you had? How many have you torn away to pursue this mad dream of yours?”

Sarika karate-chopped the ninja, who dropped his sai at her feet as he collapsed. “You’re so focused on death,” she recalled. “That you forgot about living.”

Holloway pondered that, then shrugged. “In a few minutes, we’ll have to worry about neither.”

Wharton fired rockets at him, but Holloway let out a strong whistle, deflecting them into the walls. He then tried to steal everyone’s air, but Connolly stepped up and they struggled back and forth, their whistles sending torrents of air clashing at each other.

Sarika kicked the sai up to the ceiling. Ruta let out a yelp as the sai slashed through her bindings on one of her hands. While she moved to untie the other one, Holloway noticed her escape attempt. He knocked away Connolly, then stole a silver color from the floor to fling a silver knife directly into Ruta’s palm. It lunged right through and pinned her palm back to the ceiling.

“Just hang on, Ruta!” Sarika yelled up, dodging an attack from a ninja.

“That’s all I can really do,” Ruta mumbled, ignoring the stinging pain, trying to find a way out.

“There’s no way out!” Holloway declared. All at once, flashing lights erupted all over the walls; the electronic panels sounded like turbo jet engines as they began their final calculations; the low hum became a long one, penetrating the very soul.

Everybody in the room except for Holloway felt it. Ally and ninja alike, they fell to their knees, clutching at their chests. The pain felt very much like a heart attack, except it was more like a soul attack.

“You in this room will be the first to go beyond,” Holloway explained, enjoying his victory. “What’s beyond the duality of life and death? An endless sleep. That’s the answer. That’s the one place neither life nor death exists. The sentience of a tree. But I’m not that cruel. Our friend Ruta has the ability called Nightmare. It either causes nightmares, or it doesn’t. I call that doesn’t “dreams”. I will turn the Isn't into and Is and will use her power on all of humanity, giving it peaceful dreams in its eternal slumber.”

“You’re insane!” Ruta called out, trying to free herself of the restraints and knife.

Holloway looked up at her. “Can you really call the man who’s done such a great service to humanity insane?”

But then he blinked. They all heard the horn blare, then a school bus erupted through the roof of the chamber, narrowly missing Ruta. The bus slammed into the floor, crushing several ninjas along with a row of electrical equipment. The force even knocked Holloway to the ground. He quickly stood back up, but a woman armed with a shotgun kicked open the doors of the bus.

“Mom?” Bass said in disbelief.

“I saw you on the telly!” she cried out, then blasted Holloway with a shotgun. The gunshot caught Holloway right in the stomach, sending him sliding across the floor, smashing into an electrical panel. “I’m sorry for everything, Bass!”

Bass rubbed her eyes at the sight of icepacks jutting out of a backpack around her mother's shoulders. “It’s ok, Mom. I’m glad you came.”

Ms. Bass shot Holloway another five times, continuing to pull on the trigger even as the gun clicked empty. A gorilla-ninja moved to shoot her, but Bass punched him out of the way.

Then the two felt another soul attack; Ms. Bass dropped the shotgun.

Holloway rose steadily to his feet, the wounds already healing. “I’m either healthy, or not. I recreated the Isn't into Is.”

His hand grabbed the final lever. “Now, for the whole world to dream a peaceful dream.”

He pulled it downward, and the entire academy went silent.

...

“Have a nice nap?” Haruka asked, sitting on a patch of dirt, tiny hints of the year’s new sea of grass poking its way through the soil next to her.

Sarika rubbed her eyes. “I…”

She felt like something was missing. She slowly sat up and saw that she and his sister were on the long telephone pole trail back home, its gravel and grass stretching through the hills until they met a gray sky tinged with patches of blue at the distant horizon.

“You must’ve been having a pleasant dream,” Haruka said. “I didn’t want to wake you.” But then she looked more closely at Sarika. “Are you alright?”

Sarika realized she was crying. She rubbed away the tears. “I don’t know. I feel like I just had the longest dream…”

She averted her eyes from the horizon, instead focusing on her sister. From the way the gentle breeze blew her hair, the way she sat with full confidence on the patch of growing grass, long clouds in formations resembling huge fleets slowly moving behind her head in the sky until they merged into the gray, Sarika realized an intense fact, something that woke her up for a second time.

Her sister was alive.

But the emphasis in that feeling wasn’t on her sister. The emphasis in that was on alive.

This is what being alive looked like.

Sarika very much wanted to be alive. And she knew she could be.

Haruka tilted her head. “Something wrong?”

Sarika had to rub her eyes again, but she shook her head. With a puzzled expression on her face, Haruka went back to looking at the horizon.

Sarika joined her in looking into the distance. “I understand what you’re seeing now when you look at the horizon,” Sarika said. “I understand.”

“But the horizon is just that - the horizon,” Haruka said, a bit of gloom entering her voice. “It’s bittersweet like that. Despite how beautiful it looks, you can never reach it. And, when it comes to your life, this patch of grass is as far down the trail I can go.”

The unsaid question hung in the silent air between them - will you stay with me?

After a moment, both sisters laughed. “Life’s not about reaching the horizon,” Haruka began, already knowing (and feeling glad about) the answer.

“It’s about standing up and moving towards it,” Sarika answered.

Sarika did just that, standing up, understanding her place in this crazy place called existence for the first time.

They both knew it was time.

Haruka smiled with pride. “Goodbye, Sarika.”

A bittersweet look came over Sarika’s face as she looked at her sister one last time.

“Goodbye, Haruka.”

With that, Sarika turned and took that first step down the gravel trail.