Priya Echo's Adventure - Part 1

PRIYA ECHO’S ADVENTURE

BOOK 1 - AWAKENING

DAVID GOLD

AUTHOR’S CAUTION

This is a work of fiction. This book is solely for entertainment. In this entire book, I produced all the plots, characters, settings, etc. I am more than happy to share my imagination with you, hence the fantasy novel. Personally, I will recommend this as an 18+ book. Thank you for your understanding.

DEDICATION

I would like to give my enduring gratitude to my family, who has supported me through the years with kind words and good wisdom. Thank you for persevering through the good and bad. Your generous nature will always be remembered. To beautiful North Carolina, with its bright skies and wide-open spaces. Thank you for nourishing my creativity.

FORWARD

Thank you for reading my first novel. I hope you will have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. In middle school my teacher gave me a composition book and had me start a Free Writing Journal. Several years after that, I wrote a few short stories just for fun. I discovered that writing was a wonderful tool to convey your artistic side. The ideas started coming, and some of them seemed good enough to transfer into written form. I created the concept for this story, and soon discovered that it could be adapted into a book. Enjoy!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary

Chapter 1 - Awakening

Chapter 2 - Priya Meets Three Girls

Chapter 3 - Professor Hook

Chapter 4 - Simple Apartment

Chapter 5 - The Lab Tour

Chapter 6 - Priya Is Happy!

Chapter 7 - Sanctum Delacroix Cemetery

Chapter 8 - Rise Of Echo

Chapter 9 - Old Folks Home

Chapter 10 - The Pharmacy And Dramatic!

Chapter 11 - The Girls Wonder About Priya

Chapter 12 - Eric Talks To A Friend

Chapter 13 - Hancock Richards

Chapter 14 - Professor Hook’s Birthday Party

Chapter 15 - The Echo Game

Chapter 16 - Priya And Nadine At The Bank

Chapter 17 - Telenon’s Arrival

Chapter 18 - The Pancake Emporium

Chapter 19 - The Fall

Chapter 20 - Telenon’s Minions Attack

Chapter 21 - Hook Takes Priya and Crew To Rikiral Computer

Chapter 22 - Priya Drives Away

Chapter 23 - Panorama Precinct

Chapter 24 - Drake Tempo And The Lightbulb of Quintessence

Chapter 25 - Reclusive Watercolors

Chapter 26 - Echo’s Vacation

Chapter 27 - Ice Cubes

Chapter 28 - Haircut Coupon

Chapter 29 - Rooftop Romance

Chapter 30 - Veles Arrives At The Clone Party

Chapter 31 - Motif Porcelain Pillow And The Pumpkin Pie Realm

Chapter 32 - Uffhill and Umlave - Umlave Returns To The Old Queendom

Chapter 33 - Phantomess And The Parents

Chapter 34 - Crilli And Delk In The Attic

Chapter 35 - DGU Brain Mountain

Chapter 36 - Melina’s Ocean

Chapter 37 - Eleven Twelfths Month

Chapter 38 - Cactus Lemur Garden Asteroid

Chapter 39 - Leffel And Priya At The Park

Chapter 40 - Timecurrent Saves The Colonists

Chapter 41 - Clive Nut-Paste

Chapter 42 - The Honeysuckle

Chapter 43 - Sortjim And Caramel

Chapter 44 - The Lucidity

Chapter 45 - Snow’s Cafe

Chapter 46 - Tadpoles

Chapter 47 - Telenon’s Plan

Chapter 48 - Companions - Priya And Snow - Honeysuckle House

Chapter 49 - Ticket Tornado

Chapter 50 - Timecurrent And Telenon

Chapter 51 - Boxing Match

Chapter 52 - Alexa’s Sword

Chapter 53 - Reclusive Watercolors Fights A Cyborg Kangaroo

Chapter 54 - Eric In The Echo Realm

Chapter 55 - Phantomess Skips On Clouds

Chapter 56 - Snow Stands Up For Herself

Chapter 57 - The Armada

Chapter 58 - Hope

Chapter 59 - Companions - Priya and Valco - Neo-Inktopia

Chapter 60 - Brain Punch

Coming Soon - Book 2 And Bonus Chapter - Crystallized Apricot

About The Author

SUMMARY

After Priya Echo’s father comes back from the war with the FIRE virus and dies, she is left alone as an orphan. Priya feels abandoned and confused, but decides to dedicate her life to helping people by searching for a cure to the disease. Fast forward, and Priya is a lecturer at university with her own research lab. For the interval she has studied tirelessly, rejecting connections and idle distraction. The researcher invents an anechoic chamber to test as a therapy for FIRE virus. Daring to employ herself as the first test subject, she ventures inside. There, she is reborn as the champion Echo. Eons of dream pass before Priya opens her eyes and escapes the chamber, sliding to the floor as her mind slowly restores. A shy lab girl comes out of her shell and becomes a hero. Now, all she needs is fresh courage.

CHAPTER 1 - AWAKENING

The walls all around were blurry and formless until coming into focus. Depth perception returned. From gray smudges came forms … convex and concave … the repeated geometric shapes of an anechoic chamber. Priya pushed herself off the floor and stumbled to the lock, letting in a tide of quiet light. She fought against it, shut it tight and pressed against the outside wall, sliding down until crouched on the tile. A few minutes passed, and her eyes adjusted. Like rifling through an old family album, the setting of the university lab felt so personal. Its tables and chairs were neatly arranged, and there were flasks half filled with solutions from last week’s lecture. “That must have been … a dream. Did I imagine I was a hero?” Priya thought as she looked to her side, and bit her tongue, sucking it until the bitterness thrust more consciousness and uprooted the last of her lethargy. The wide landscape of her memory was mostly undecipherable. Priya giggled for a second and felt like a child that had just spilled a glass of milk, as her memory began to seep back, steadily filling the vessel. Looking down at her hands she could see brown, coffee colored skin, “I’m wearing a white lab coat … I think I’m probably … a scientist”. Scenes of the past reasserted themselves at normal intervals, chronological appetizers. Farther and farther they went, pulled by an invisible force like gravity back into time, until arriving at childhood. Two wet, salty beads dropped down her face as she recalled. Her father raised her by himself and was everything. Such a good man, maybe too good for the world. But when he returned from the war, she was fourteen, and he was different. His eyes were never the same. A year later it happened, when he took his own life. Watching the rain fall down onto the smooth, black marble of the gravestone, dwarfed by the canopies of umbrellas, she had wished that she could have found a way to save him. But that was just a silly wish. After that day, she dedicated her life to academia, and then to science. Studying day by day, acknowledging and reading the various opinions on the virus that had brought about her father’s end, she had worked tirelessly. Priya got to her feet and waddled over to the nearest lab table. On it was a blue folder, and she flipped it open. “Anechoic Isolation and Sensory Deprivation, A Treatment for FIRE virus … by Priya Echo, PhD. Neuroscience, DGU” she read silently, mouthing the words to herself as the talent of reading found its expression once more. Placing a hand over a throbbing temple, an epiphany cracked open. No mistake that much of the landscape was undecipherable. “Since then I’ve never really had much of a life. No friends. No boyfriend. My life has been … closed … and every urge I’ve dropped like an anchor. Never really known anyone, have I? Didn’t even grasp the meaning. Oh … I get it now. Then the dream was just a fantasy to fill that emptiness. Lonely Priya. That’s what they call me … I hear. No … I’m the Empress Echo, daughter of the Divine Couple, the perfect pair who will be together forever, who’s love is beyond the farthest reaches of philosophy. That’s my mind’s true actress. To find a cure I’ve sacrificed everything. All the great progress I’ve made. I feel pride. But my life is … I’m so … pathetic” she reflected.

CHAPTER 2 - PRIYA MEETS THREE GIRLS

Although it was late in the afternoon, the cafeteria was especially noisy that day. Three ladies gossiped at a corner table. Nadine Fenway, a tall, thin Nordic looking blonde was filing her nails. She leaned in close to the other two, Dominique Mellow-Garcia and Felicia Chen, and pointed to the other side of the room. Felicia stuck a leaf of romaine into her mouth and chewed it loudly, then turned to see what it was. “Uh-huh … look at this bitch” Nadine observed as Priya strode into the cafeteria, seemingly out of place in a ruffled, disheveled lab coat that was paradoxically more attractive than when she wore it correctly. “She is too prim and proper for me” Felicia noted. They stared in fascination as she hesitantly approached different tables with her tray in hand, and then backed away, too cautious to approach. “I heard she’s never had any friends … ever” Dominique interjected. “I guess there are only a few real academics around here” Nadine quipped, feigning a sigh of regret. “Come on, Nadine. You know how all us hardcore academics don’t have any friends” Dominique argued, whilst stealing a French fry off of her plate and dipping it in blueberry flavored maple syrup. “Oh, and who the fuck are you supposed to be?” Felicia asked sharply, making the other girls snicker. “Looks like she’s lost or something” Nadine whispered, with a sense of the uncanny as she noticed the unfamiliar, somewhat blankness in her features. Meekly Priya inched towards the table. “Do you mind? I could really use some company right now” she asked, politeness in every lyric of her voice. Felicia looked at Nadine as if to say, “Can we keep it?” with big eyes, and she relented. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Nadine from math's, and this is Dominique from marine biology and Felicia from chemistry” she presented. “I lecture in the north wing but my lab is on the fourth floor, neuroscience. Thanks for letting me sit here. I’m Priya” she explained. “Are you having a stressful day?” Felicia prodded. “You look like burnt toast, hon” Nadine observed. “It’s alright. I’m just having a bad day. My recent project is ending. It’s just a room that removes sound waves, sort of like an isolation tank. I thought it could be put to work for useful therapy, but it’s not fit for human use” Priya related, not quite ready to share the gory details of her journey. “Sorry to hear that. What kind of lab do you have?” Felicia asked excitedly. “A normal one, I guess” Priya shrugged. “Ooh … do you have brains in there?” Dominique wondered aloud. “Yes. I think you girls would like my lab, it’s very science-y” the researcher assured them. “We will definitely crash that later” Felicia joked. “By that, she means we will take the tour” Dominique corrected. “Yeah, we were born to be nerds” Nadine added in a squeaky voice. Encouraged, Priya set about with a follow-up question, “So ... just out of curiosity, what have you girls done in the last couple … let’s say three hours. Time can fly on a weekday like this”. A question of profound importance. “I fed a shark” Dominque bragged, taking a big bite of a piece of cornbread. “I just got in from Bayer-Dale, where I do community service for seniors, basically wheeling them around and everything. They like that sort of thing” Felicia related. “Graded papers and took a piss” Nadine said lastly, waving her hands as if it was completely uneventful. “Um … that sounds really nice” Priya nodded, then looking towards Felicia, “old folks are so sweet”. She considered the blonde for a brief moment. It was obvious she was trying the hardest, and was calm and collected in every jest … a common element sensed quickly, and something else … undetectable beneath the surface. “Not like it’s a competition, but what did you do?” Felicia inquired; her voice soft, ready to draw the secret from her like a medieval doctor letting blood. Priya coughed at how subtle the question appeared, and took a swig of water, “To be honest, I was passed out the whole time”.

CHAPTER 3 - PROFESSOR HOOK

Later the following week Priya sat in a waiting area along an empty hallway of south wing when a door creaked open, “The committee is ready for you”. Clarence Hook sat in the middle, white tufts of hair gracing the tops of his ears, like strained, pallid vegetation eking out a meager existence in some cracked, throat-drying, impassable desert. Priya set up a defense and carefully relayed how the chamber did not meet the parameters necessary for human use, and would have to be dismantled, but as she watched them whisper amongst themselves, she realized it was all for naught. “Seeing how your recent activity has not met the markers set in place for the progress of this department, we will be cutting your funding for eighteen months” Hook intoned, meting out the punishment. A brokenhearted neuroscientist waddled out of the room, downcast, counting the square tiles that passed on the way to the far door, as if their census was a profound vocation.

CHAPTER 4 - SIMPLE APARTMENT

That night she was followed back to her apartment. Fiddling with the keys to stall, Priya tried to offer them an alternative, “Maybe we can go see a late viewing of …”. “Don’t even think about it, newbie, just turn that key” Nadine interrupted, holding her arms against her hips threateningly. “Say … this dame doesn’t want us to see what’s going on here … maybe she’s got something to hide” Dominique bellowed, pretending to be a real sherlock. “We got a warrant, mam” Felicia seconded. Biting her lip, Priya turned the key and threw open the door, letting the three of them into perhaps one of the most unadorned, minimalist spaces in the city. They stood there in petrified silence for a moment. Dominique went first, skipping to the center of the room, then threw herself on the ground, and began rolling about, laughing uncontrollably. “Ladies, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a long-term project ahead of us” Nadine said, shutting the door behind them.

CHAPTER 5 - THE LAB TOUR

The following week she provided a tour of the lab to the three of them, but their attention on the minutia of the experiments waned until they locked sights on what intrigued them most of all. “Which one is your favorite, newbie?” Nadine implored, pointing to the workmen crew of summer interns, cobbled together from different departments as they carried away the last of the building blocks of her assembly. “What do you mean? These guys are just here to …” Priya began, trying to change the subject without avail. “They're here for us to watch them … obviously” Dominique interrupted. “Interesting … so it’s that one” Nadine observed, watching the movement of Priya’s eyeline. She immediately turned away. The next thing she knew, the room where the chamber had been was just another empty space. Trying to think of what use to put it to, she was instead dragged outside and exhorted into unconventional behavior, “If you’re going to be part of this crew, you’ve got to prove yourself” Nadine said, pushing her back as the others giggled. Following him across the grounds from afar during the crew’s break, she came into a convenience store. In the candy aisle he stood alone. Priya noticed this was her chance, and inched closer to him as he inspected the rows. “Oh Eric, it’s nice to see you” she began, like reading a script. The red shirt was still stained with spots of sweat, “Thanks Priya, I imagine we did a quality job on the lab”. “Yes, it’s all back to basics, thank you” she reassured him. “Not a problem. It must have been more work building it though” he speculated. He was puzzled as to why she was acting slightly frantic, but then understood as her body language made things clear. “What sort of candy do you like?” she asked predictably. Eric could see she was becoming more of a nervous wreck and smiled mischievously, “When it comes to candy, I like to be spoiled, only the most expensive stuff is good for me”. Priya blinked and bit her lip, “What about when it comes to girls?”. Looking down at her feet for a moment to think, he ran his hands through his light brown hair, “Hmm … well I suppose she can be really normal and lame, as long as she has a good heart”. Priya felt a most delightful brew of worldly cunning and blissful naivety at the same time, “Are you sure?”. He stepped towards her, closing the distance. The red of his shirt overpowered the electricity pulsing through her mind, “Definitely … and she can be a total slob”. Blushing shyly, she turned to the side away from him, “Oh … um … that’s good”. Eric sighed, wondering whether it had actually backfired, “Priya, I’m trying really hard here but you’re going to have to work with me”. After the cunning defeated the rest, she turned back towards him and lifted her head to take in his fresh eyes, “how about a slice of pizza?”. After all, she knew what the universe was really all about; the subtlety of human emotions … and nothing more.

CHAPTER 6 - PRIYA IS HAPPY!

“Slow down … how would you describe it?” Hook pleaded, trying to reassure her. “A complete lack of existential crisis!” she hyperventilated as a creepy, awkward grin stretched across her face. “I think that’s called happiness Priya” he deduced. The next thing he knew, she was racing down the hall, and turned a corner to the fourth-floor stairwell, “Thank you, sir!” echoing down the corridor. The lab seemed brighter in the bubbly dissociation of her disposition, reinforced by the giddy fizzles of the beakers. Standing in the empty space once more, she closed her eyes, reaching out to feel the consistency of an incorporeal memory. Natural pain and grief washed over her, caught in the rain as reminiscence unfettered itself from the black heaven, the turmoil of a firmament rife with an ancient loss. Time elapsed as she called upon the frenzy to dissipate, and slowly it did, until regaining control. “I’m ready,” Priya said aloud. Down on the floor, she noticed a letter sitting betwixt her feet. “This doesn’t say anything” she thought, looking at its front. Priya opened it and pulled out a greeting card, ready to read its contents. “Just a card, blank” she recognized, scratching her head at the curious placement. Wasting no time, she stocked it in a drawer and left the lab behind, rushing down the stairs into the parking lot. Thrusting forward the stick shift of her car, the scientist propelled down the road towards Sanctum Delacroix Cemetery.

CHAPTER 7 - SANCTUM DELACROIX CEMETERY

Petals detached from their stems swiveled through the whipping wind until they came at a rest on the wet grass, leaving an unmistakable trail. The branches of willows drooped nearby, sloppy from the rain. Bending over, she placed the bouquet at the base of the marble slab. “Dad” Priya mouthed as she looked over the memorial, the words, “Mahandran Echo” etched into the quiet stone. As a teenager, she could remember her father’s hands on her shoulders, his beautiful but weathered face, “Sometimes things are different when you go to sleep and wake up in the morning, but I will always be the one who cares for you. I will care for you forever”. Her chest heaved with deep, uninterrupted breaths, and she closed her eyes and remembered that last day as tears leaped from an interior existence into another, boundless space. Priya Echo smiled in ecstasy as a burst of mirror light swept across Sanctum Delacroix. “Dad, I will try” she thought as the image of his face faded. “Darling, are you going to let this place stay in one piece?” her right eye asked assertively, with a familiar parental tone. “Can you stop crying, it’s really tickling me a lot” her left eye remarked. Priya gasped as soon as she realized Linden and Melina were now her eyes. Exhaustion and a throbbing headache overtook her, and for a fraction she saw a swirling chaos that was unexplainable. “Take it easy, homegirl” Visioness said reassuringly, her voice welling up from within. “My, my, this new place is fabulous!” Pelfe exclaimed lastly. Walking away from the memorial, Priya waved her hand over another gravestone and it lifted off the ground, forming along its smooth surface a mirror so she could see her prior celestial appearance. In moments it was assimilated into her normal, everyday look. Satisfied, she returned the stone back to its place. Strolling back to the car, she looked around, and gradually the willows didn’t seem so doleful … anymore … but lively as rays of effervescent light sliced through them, carving slices of verdant nature.

CHAPTER 8 - RISE OF ECHO

Location: Echo Realm

Date: First Age

A man nestled his back against the damp cave wall. It was solid at least, a respite for the fear and unanchored thoughts drifting through his head. From the mouth he could see the rocky earth that stretched out, a pocket of some nocturnal island. Not far from where his memory began it ceased, a cliff surrendering to a medley of ice and dust. Beyond the view of that were stars and nebulae, elfin in the scale of things, huddled within the boundary. How could a speck of dust enclosed in a bubble ever be lost, though it circulates around, a refugee in its own home? Time did not go far, even for a few moments in the agony of immaculate night. He could not even remember if anything came before. Aesthetic dots sharing no answers, only questions. The man looked to his side, down a shy corridor. At least he would be safe for the moment. He craned his head and listened. Pleasing drips from the stalactites followed, abating his worry. Rough hands inquired against the firm stone, searching for another. “I am here!” he called. Words rambled down the dark hall, ushered by the void. Studying its evaporation, his face fell, and he pressed his back once again into the niche. “There must be no one here but me” he thought as his eyes failed, crossing into the decay of sleep. Halfway there. Lower and lower. But then a weird thing happened. It returned back, trembling coherently. “My voice must be hitting off the walls and coming back, that’s the only thing that works” the man deliberated. A noteworthy trait, that it could be so kind to an odd traveler. Testing it once more, he felt the rush of his own words, sympathetic like the morning tides. Even the pauses were cordial music. “I must be by myself” he gleaned haplessly, and focused on the entrance, looking back the way of the starlight and its dangers. Some parcels of time went onwards, with loneliness reforming into solitude. He carried on, calling “I am here” to the null passageway, routing the worthless hopes, although in part his thoughts still clung to them. A crumb of uncertainty, that he maintained, just to feel the dreamy degree of the phenomenon, to seek its limits. Slight dizziness came. Then, a glance to the other wall, heavy with furtive shadows. The man took a breath to relax as more starlight joined. Flickering ideas. If only he could be as eager, with ideas welling up inside. “Hello, my name is Echo” a woman said, emerging from the hall. Rough knees vaulted back into place as the man got to his feet and backed off. She had long black hair and a body freckled with those aesthetic dots, rippling at the edges. Abruptly, a pink layer like his overcame that canvas, keeping only the eyes.

Echo: Hello, my name is Echo.

Sam: Did you come from the cave?

Echo: No, I’m from over there, although this place is not as big as you’d think. I’ve explored most of it.

Sam: You look different, like the outside … I don’t know where I am.

Echo: Please don’t be afraid. I’m really nice I promise. Did you hear your words repeat?

Sam: Yes, when they hit the walls.

Echo: I know, it’s called an Echo. After you talk, there is a wave in the air. It can touch the wall and return.

Sam: That works well. Then you named yourself after it? I like your name.

Echo: It’s fascinating here. A little scary. Thank you by the way. I’ve spent most of the time flying and fiddling about.

Sam: Are there more people?

Echo: If there are, I haven’t met them yet.

Sam: Echo, you must have looked everywhere. All the way down there. I’m sorry.

Echo: Loneliness is not so nice. Did you feel it, just like I did?

Sam: Yes.

Echo: Can I touch your hand?

Sam: Here.

Echo: To be honest, I was hiding.

Sam: You are too beautiful to do that.

Echo: Hehe … I knew you would say that. A while ago I woke up drifting in the night, near those dots.

Sam: What are you saying?

Echo: It’s strange. I’m the echo of space and time. Since I like to fiddle, I made some mirror light.

Sam: Friend, you must be thinking too much.

Echo: There are so many shapes and details around us. It’s so refreshing. Hehehe.

Sam: Friend, I think you have been here too long.

Echo: Even you. I drew you from a shaft of mirror light.

Sam: Please, I am … am … call me Sam.

Echo: Wait … give me a moment to answer.

Sam: Of course, because everything you said works so well. I’m not bad at this.

Echo: Please! Didn’t you notice that I became your echo?

Sam: I saw you jump out. Hiding in the shadows, you must have heard my words down the hall. It doesn’t mean what you say.

Echo: Sam, don’t close your eyes. Let me show you how I can move.

Sam: Incredible!

Echo: Think of how the wave touched the wall and came back.

Sam: Is this true! How can you move like that?

Echo: Alright, handsome.

Sam: Echo, you are …

Echo: Hehe, there’s another way I can move, come closer …

After more … reflection … the goddess flared with mirror light. The first echo generation hit the island like a volley of arrows. Before long, what had been an uncouth stone grew into a village, sprouting huts. People went to work. In those times dust was much easier to manipulate. It could be formed into bricks and laid with easy magic. Subtly, the cave’s walls were chiseled out into a market and lined with torches. Less than a hundred milled about, talking all the time. During idle afternoons our lady would play in the flavored emptiness, strolling about and doing loops. Nearby in the flamboyant soup, a blue nebula fanned out. To those who watched, it was more like soaring. A young boy was the only one who cared much. He would prowl to the genuine edge, where chips of rock resigned to the darkness, and skirts of powder lingered, trailing apart. “Echo, why is the nebula blue like that?” the boy Mar questioned once as soon as she set foot on dry ground. Funny geometries of ice bobbed overhead, but they could not compare. The woman thought about its features, squinting hard, but could not arrive at the reason, “I don’t know”. She stared into the distance as the boy ran off, upset by what he had heard. Dew evaporated from his back like sweat after a long run, useless magic. Even so, he continued, returning back to the place to watch. Then one day Sam took her hand, and she lifted him, bringing him into the ultramarine. Mar had been told to stay home that day. But looking closer, there was dancing, spinning … young and beautiful ... with a face illiterate to the perils of the outside world, and Sam, who had braved the darkness to find another. A cloud of magnetic blue came between the line of sight, disappearing them. Its composition was fluent, admirable. Mar returned back to the village, powerless to see through the shroud. Later on, in the quiet of their hut, as her husband slept easily by torches and a gentle blanket, Echo gasped vehemently. He was shaken awake, and looked over. Fear catapulted danger from her eyes. “Is everything fine shyness?” he asked, sitting up as the muscles of her arms began to pulse. “I had a dream. There was a woman drowning in the sea and bubbles were coming from her mouth. A man dived in to save her, but it was hard to see his face” she illustrated as vividness fell from her tongue, translating myths to reality. “We’ve all had dreams before, they’re just feelings and images” he encouraged. Panic seemed to conquer the friend he knew. It was more than he could face. Echo flinched again as the sight returned. The woman sinking in ageless waters, bubbles coming from her throat, “Sam, this was different. Let’s get up. I’ll have to call everyone together to tell them something”. People in the crowd could taste something was amiss. “As you know from my travels we live in the boundary of a sphere, in its basin. I have tried to find a path that leads to another island, and found the edges to be smooth. I thought it natural that there was nothing more. How could anyone argue? But then, I heard the voices of my parents calling out to me. They are in danger, my mother at least, drowning in the sea beyond. Father is doing his best to get there. I have to find and save her. To do so, you must let me leave. Trust me, I know what it’s like to be alone. It is … of course … not fun at all. Sam is here to keep you company. If I am not back in ten cycles, please go on without me” she enjoined, needing their assent. Echo had not had time to imagine what course she would take if they declined. Frozen by debate, the woman stood and observed how nervousness ran through her tribe, until at last it died down, supplanted by fragile confidence. “If you get lost, please, try to stay together” she told them, her warm hand gracing Sam’s wet cheek. Language, for all its algebra and beauty, could not arrest the thought of loss. Life was not so simple like the stories they told each other. Knowing what could happen burned the heart. Echo shut her eyes tight, shielding the environment from sadness. That she would have to start again … all over … alone. Slipping away through space and time, the woman came to the boundary. Focusing all her attention on a singular point, she reflected a beam of mirror light with intense glow. Palms blazed with magic. “This whole artifact is symmetrical. I will make it not so” Echo resolved until a fracture, an imperfection formed as the shell gave, unable to bear the brunt. Tunneling through, she came to the ocean, and dove downwards, following the trail of bubbles. Linking flashes pounded the skull every so often, sharing memories of the descent, “How could these be … real. I can hear you mother”. Echo shed the robe of pale skin to swim faster. She had to get even farther down. Her lungs were engines of oxygen. Keeping close to the curves the tracker moved like a harpoon through the water. The goal must be near, just past the curtain of the deep. At last, the waters up ahead were blurred with a smudge of golden light.

Linden Dream: Are you who I think you are?

Echo: Father …

Linden Dream: My special …

Echo: Let me hold you.

Linden Dream: Echo, you are brave and just as graceful as your mother. Melina Dreamer. We have to find her before she perishes. Let’s search together.

Echo: Time is against us.

Linden Dream: This way.

Drawing nearer, a horrid creature caught up with them. Linden looked into its fateful glare, and fell back with his daughter. Dark blood woven into a circulatory system of a man. Raw, vulgar energy danced around him like an aura.

Telenon: Is this a conspiracy?

Linden Dream: Who are you? Leave us alone at once.

Telenon: I am Telenon.

Linden Dream: This … must have formed when we separated.

Telenon: Some problems are their own solution. They don’t need an answer.

Linden Dream: Are you looking for something?

Telenon: I see now. The body is down there. The maelstrom is strong.

Linden Dream: Stay right there!

Telenon: The maelstrom allegiance is here …

Linden Dream: Don’t try to go any further. Melina is with us.

Telenon: Trust me, dying will not be fair for you. Let me pass.

Linden Dream: Daughter, help me here.

Equally, as she had brought destruction to the boundary, the soul fought on. Lasers of magical force knifed against the thing. It was stronger than she could have possibly imagined. Pressure shifted in the water as shockwaves formed and collapsed. They seemed to be racing against time. Linden clung to the grueling dance until her daughter finished it with a final blow. He continued to the lost one, before time could return and cycle again, before the tide came. They had spoken about changing the path. Of altering things. The moment of return in their own sphere of time.

CHAPTER 9 - OLD FOLKS HOME

By about the same time the next day, which was a Saturday, a wheelchair came to a screeching halt. The tassels of Esmerelda Delacroix’s grandma glasses rattled as she adjusted them, and patted the knee of Rufus Springly, who faced her in his wheelchair. “Not a scratch on you, yah big oaf” she smirked. “Felicia, what are they talking about?” Priya asked while adjusting the direction of the chair. “These old timers are all veterans of the war” Felicia explained, as they wheeled them side by side to their tables so they could get situated before the bingo game commenced. “I used to shoot laser beams” Esmerelda blurted out like a teenager hurtling in their parent’s stolen car, carefree down the road. “Wait, what?” Priya winced. Rufus laughed and turned towards her to retort, as if it was a competition, “I blew up a spaceship!”. Felicia smiled politely at their repartee and glided them to their spot. They quickly took their seats. Dominique stood at the front, revolving the crank and calling out numbers. “Can you illuminate me kiddo, I’m a little rough on history” Priya asked. “Not a lot of press about it now. About sixty years ago Earth started getting visitors from an alien race, they were explorers mostly. If you’ve seen the photographs, they looked a lot like us, but blue and with ribbon strands on their shoulders. After a while, things went south and the Rikiral war began. We didn’t stand a chance until out of nowhere a throng of heroes – they say from another dimension – came to our rescue. Their leader was a fellow with the strongest powers. Telenon was his name. According to records, he loaned us some sort of power. Eventually we pushed them back, and he left with everything when the loan had completed. We were told that after the war we would reap the benefits, but the general populace was so bitter and disappointed after the loan expired that most of the record of that time has been lost” Felicia recollected; her knowledge amplified by studying the history of the era. Nadine sat beside Felicia and passed both of them a soda. Priya reclined back on her chair and snapped the lid, lapping up the syrup-flavored carbonated liquid. She closed her eyes as a circus of bubbles danced on her tongue and the world became a much happier place. A moment passed in cordial silence. Priya managed to open her eyes and took another sip. Nadine put her elbow against the table, letting her cheek lean against her fist, and leered at her as a smug look inched across her face, “You should know honey, your half Rikiral”. A spray of soda ejected from her mouth, and she coughed for air …, “Too soon” she pleaded. “We always thought that’s why you were so introverted and … frosty” Felicia clarified in a shy, let’s try not to knock her over and break her like a vase in an art exhibit voice. Priya looked at Nadine’s blonde hair brushing the table so perfectly, “You little book psycho. It’s okay, we love you now”. “Bingo!” Springly cried as a seven was called, and Felicia got up to wheel him to the front, where everyone clapped in copious recognition. He grinned ear to ear and threw his hands over his head. Forgetting their prior conversation, Esmerelda leant to the right towards Priya, whispering to her a juicy piece of gossip, “I heard he blew up a spaceship”.