Moho (Part One: Rise of a Symbol) (23 page)

"I miss home sometimes," I say.

"I miss it every day," my mom admits. "But we can't go back."

"I know."

We are sitting nearby a cliff overlooking the ocean. It is much warmer than in the forest and the cemetery.

"Mom?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"There is something I've been thinking about lately. You don't want to talk about it, I know, but I think I have the right to know. And I swear I don't mean it in a negative way but — "

"Don't be shy, my dear. We can talk about anything," she encourages me.

"What I was wondering… Why did he leave?" I ask.

"He left without telling me. You know that."

"But what do you think? You must have some idea," I argue.

"Well… your father was a very unhappy man when he left. He wasn't like that when I first met him. When he was young he seemed like any other young man I had dated before him. He was very protective of me, he deeply cared about his friends and he was very charming, very quick to laugh
— whenever he wanted to be at least… In a way, we were friends before we were lovers. But as the years flew buy, it became clear to me that he had serious issues that my love couldn't fix. I tried, trust me… I think the expectations that he had built up in his mind over the years of what kind of son, friend, husband, and father he wanted to be grew from admirably ambitious to alarmingly absurd. He didn't have a sense of self that was on par with reality. I think he didn't know what kind of man he wanted to be for himself because he didn't seem to get any satisfaction out of himself, only through other people. So when his dreams stayed dreams, he became depressed."

"Why didn't you cheer him up?" I ask.

"Oh, I did. I did many things for your father, trust me, my dear. I tried to make him happy just as he had made me happy all those years before. But I was forced to learn that depression and sadness are not the same. Sadness is an emotion you can balance out with other emotions. Depression, on the other hand, is the absence of emotions. Once your emotions are gone, they are gone. All that remains is emptiness, not the feeling of emptiness, just emptiness," she explains.

"I don't understand. He probably was just very, very sad," I say.

"No, you're right, you don't understand. And if there is one thing I wish you more than anything else in the world it's that you will never experience the struggles of depression yourself."

"So do you think he…"

"I don't want to. Yes, he was very sick but I am convinced that once you've been born, once you've touched the lives of other people, you lose the right to take yourself out of their lives."

"So no one ever has that right," I repeat.

"Right. You are obligated to support the structure you've helped to build. When he promised to stay with me for the rest of my life and I adjusted myself to his promise, he lost the right to break that promise."

"And yet he did."

"We don't know that. We don't know anything," she says with a shaky voice. I take her hand.

"So you still have hope that he will return?" I ask.

"I must as long as I'm alive."

Neither of us can talk for a while and so we just stare at the ocean while we hold onto each other tightly. Suddenly I feel how the skin on the back of her hand gets thinner. I look at her hand in mine and realize with horror that her skin has turned wrinkly and spotty. I look into her watery eyes which close a second later. Her hair turns white.

"Mom! No!" I scream.

I try to hug her but she can't hug me any longer. She is dead.

“Mom!”

My heart is racing. Blood is thrusting itself through my neck and into my head. My lips are trembling with rage. Sweat is running down my body and tears are running down my hot face. My lungs are pushing hard against my ribs. Every breath of cold air irritates my hot throat.

I look straight through the opening in the ceiling and into the starry night sky above me. How long was I asleep? I get up from the Nightstone and feel my naked feet stepping onto warm gravel. While the entry hall is usually empty, someone set up a bed and arranged thousands of colorful, tiny Glowing Stones around it. And then put me on the Nightstone, I suppose. But why?

For a moment all of this throws me. Then my brain floods my body with rage once more. Someone killed my mom and everyone else I loved. I finally realize that those dreams weren’t dreams —they were memories. I storm out of the dorm towards Crystal Cave and it’s not until I reach its entrance when I realize that Central Island is empty now. All the hundreds of people that dropped unconscious yesterday, or however long I’ve slept, are gone. Except one of them who I find inside Crystal Cave. It’s Vijay and he is as awake and agile as always. Before he can say or even fully realize my presence, I connect to as much ice as possible, rip it off the ground it is covering and shoot the sharp shreds straight at Vijay. He forms a shield by freezing the water in a puddle in front of him. My ice smashes his shield before it falls to the ground without ever reaching Vijay. The expression in his face quickly changes from utter shock to playful excitement. He has been waiting for another one of our fights for a long time.

Next, he forms a wide cylinder of water that is taller than both of us and sends it my way. It hits and swallows me. He lets it spin around itself, making it impossible for me to escape. The panic squeezes all oxygen out of my lungs, my head starts aching, but he keeps spinning me around in the cold water. So I connect to the icicles hanging from the ceiling above his head and led them fall onto him. He escapes my attack but he loses control of the water and it rushes back towards the floor. I’m free.

We go back and forth like this for a long time until we can’t stand on our own feet any more. Then we crawl towards a wall of the cave to lean against it and relax. No one says anything while we are gasping for air. Then we inspect our worn-out bodies. After a while, Vijay can’t even lean against the wall any more and slides flat onto the ground. He is lying on the cold floor, all limbs stretched away from his exhausted body.

“I’ve missed you,” Vijay says between several breaths. “We made a good team in the virtual world as well, I know, but games simply don’t compare to reality.”

“I know. Pushing your body all the way towards the edge is satisfying. There is nothing like an intense physical workout,” I agree.

“No, there isn’t. But… you better keep this here behind your Wall
of Secrets,” Vijay says, still breathing heavily.

“Obviously,” I
agree.

“No, I’m just saying,” he insists and takes a few breaths before he adds, “billions of navees are looking up to you now. They’d be heartbroken if they found out what their 'Savior' was doing at night.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Me neither… but Aziz, or 'The Prophet', insists on his vision."

“What?” I ask.

“Let me show you on INOP,” he says and we close our eyes.

It’s raining and the crowd is dancing. It all looks like Cosmoday. Then Aziz drops to the ground, everything turns black for a moment and when he and everyone else open their eyes again, the glow of The Spring slowly fades until The Spring is gone. Suddenly it’s much darker and people start crying, begging The Spring to return.

Pax appears, lets the air on Center Island vibrate and uses the resulting sound for torture. But unlike in Aziz’ night terror, this time she tortures everyone on the island simultaneously. Then she forces soil down their throats and everyone is trying hard to keep it out of their bodies. After a while, she stops. People spit the dirt out of their mouths, get together in groups
, and hongi. Many are crying or screaming in despair. But Pax isn’t done yet. She lets the sea level rise until the ocean swallows everyone, including herself. The people are having trouble keeping their heads above water. And then the scene turns from horror to ecstasy when my giant face appears in the sky, the sea level recedes and then my hands appear in the sky as well and place two Springs on the horizon. The crowd breaks into ecstatic cheer as if all the torture didn’t happen.

“What was that?” I ask Vijay when I open my eyes.

“That, my friend, is why you are from now on 'The Savior' and Aziz is from now on 'The Prophet'," he responds seriously. “After Pax’s attack, when everyone woke up, Aziz shared the dream he had in his sleep, or 'The Vision' how everyone calls it, on INOP. It spread rapidly and within a day or so, pretty much every navee on Persadia had seen it.”

"Yeah, whatever. That’s obviously ridiculous. None of that actually happened,” I counter.

“I know. Ravi knows. But for most people that is a vision of the future that The Spring sent to Aziz in a moment of darkness. You have to understand. For many it's the first direct signal from The Spring in forever. Now people think The Third Dark Time will come, Pax has already started it and you will single-handedly save all of them and found a second Spring,” he explains. “By the way, Cosmo probably hates that you are suddenly more famous than him. Still, even he got something out of it. Now it looks like Cosmo knew that you were The Savior when he selected you. They think he couldn’t explain your selection to anyone because The Spring hadn’t published The Vision yet.”

“Oh, my Spring. That is so dumb that it hurts,” I say.

“Who knows.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?” I ask.

“Probably not. But it would make things easier if you would just publish your memory from Pax’s attack on MNOP. Pax published hers and everyone thinks it’s made up. She has zero credibility but you have all credibility in the world.”

“I won’t share my memory. There is stuff in there that’s between me and Pax. And people will realize that there is no such thing as The Vision when The Third Dark Time just won't come.”

“I get it. Besides, people believe what they wanna believe,” Vijay says.

“So how did you all wake up? And who put me on a bed in the middle of the entry hall?” I ask.

“Aleeya saved everyone. She wasn’t at the Islands when Pax attacked and removed everyone’s bug from CEBOS. Then Pax was put away and you were put on that bed. For days people brought you every small Glowing Stone they could find. There were people from all over Persadia who wanted to come to Cosmo’s Islands and bring you their most beautiful Glowing Stones but Cosmo told them to stay away. He told everyone his islands are for selected learners only.”

“Where is Pax now?” I ask him.

“The Chasteners put her in a cave under their dorm on the White Island,” Vijay tells me. “They don’t want her to cause any more damage until her Darkening tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!?” I repeat.

“Yes. You must be relieved.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Well, I mean what has she done, really?” he asks.

“Vijay, she has tried to erase literally every single Islander, including you,” I remind him.

“Yeah, I know, but that happened after she was doomed. Anyway, what Xerxes and his chastes are doing to her is just as cruel. If she needs to get punished then so do they. Chasteners aren't any better. Why do they care anyway? … I don’t know… To me it looks like she hasn’t really done anything. She is human. So what? How is that her fault? Thousands, maybe millions of humans have invaded Persadia over time and I kn-… err… I guess that not everyone one of them went crazy and hurt other people. And she didn’t act all crazy before the chastes took away her future. I literally hadn’t heard about her once before Springday when she suddenly started talking to Ravi. Anyway, all of this sounds very unfair to me.”

It’s not until now that I realize that I've never told Vijay what happened in CEBOS
— and I decide to leave it like that.

“Maybe she did more than we know,” I say. Vijay pushes himself up and slides back to the wall, next to me.

“What else could she have done?” he asks.

“I kept having those dreams. They suddenly started, they we’re a sequence of some sorts, perfectly blending into each other. First I didn’t understand what they were showing but tonight it all finally came together. Something, someone sucked the life out of all my relatives. One by one someone took my family… aged them in an instant - until I was alone. Well, not
quite. My mother didn't die at first but tonight…” I say.

Silence. I wait for him to make a decision.

“You know, Moho, navees don’t have relatives … or a mother. They don’t age … or die," Vijay says slowly.

“I knew that. And you knew that, too,” I point out and stare at him. Vijay gasps and then his scared eyes confirm my assumption. I nod.

“Please, don’t —” he begins.

“Those were just dreams… maybe none of that has actually happened," I suggest. "However, I need to get into
Pax’s CEBOS. Tonight. Before she gets darkened. I think she has something to do with those dreams."

“That’s impossible,” he claims.

“It better be possible,”I say and stare at him again.

“There is no way she is going to let you inside her mind,” he says.

“Not if she is conscious, no. We may not know how to create a bug to put her asleep but we know how to do it the old-fashioned way, you understand?” I ask.

“I’m afraid I do.”

We walk in silence back to the surface of the Black Island, through the tunnels of Maze Island all the way to the White Islands. Luckily, all Chasteners are asleep and we sneak into the caves without anyone seeing us.

“Dido! No!” Pax yells at someone inside her cave.

“Who is Dido?” I ask Vijay.

“You don’t wanna know, trust me,” he responds.

I help Vijay to remove the large rock from the entrance of
Pax’s prison but then I let him put her to sleep by himself. When I no longer hear her, I enter the cave. The space is small and dimly lit by the cold light of a single small Glowing Stone. She is lying in semidarkness on the ground. Vijay is sitting down next to her. There is no one else inside the cave.

“That was quick,” I remark.

“It’s not like she gets any food down here. She couldn’t defend herself,” Vijay says. He doesn’t show it but I know he hates me for this. And I understand him.

I look at Pax and for a long moment I have qualms.

“Don’t let me have this committed for nothing,” he protests.

I walk over to him and Pax and lie down next to her, my head close to hers.

“Wait!” Vijay shouts.

“What? You just said
—”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just that… it’s dangerous. You have to watch out for her Emotionclones. If they touch you, they will cause serious mental damage in your brain,” he warns me.

“Oh, you don’t need to tell me. Actually, Pax told me that when we activated my CEBOS,” I say. Wow… that feels like forever ago. Maya, Pax and I set up my CEBOS. Together! That would be unimaginable now. So much has changed.

“And remember that the only way to get out as long as you are still conscious is to jump into the Memorystream,” he explains.

“I know, thanks,” I respond and close my eyes.

“Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, she has changed, you don’t know her any more. She is dangerous,” he says.

“You don’t say. I’ve met her, remember?” I say.

“No, you haven’t. Not this version of her. When you last met her, she had hope,” he says, pauses and adds, “You’ve crushed it. She has lost all hope
— and her mind. She is mad.”

“Well, let’s hope she doesn’t wake up while I’m in her mind then,” I say.

“And Moho?”

“What!?” I ask impatiently.

“Good luck…” he says slowly. Then everything goes dark.

When the black fades to white and I open my eyes, a chill runs down my spine. I’m where I wanted to be but her Memoryspiral is ruined. The usually brightly glowing ceiling is almost entirely dark, making it very hard to see. Thousands of Essencestrings hang loosely from the ceiling instead of being imbedded in the walls. 'Memoryspiral' is also misleading at this point because the Memorybubbles aren’t arranged in a spiral any more. They aren’t arranged at all. It looks like someone shook the whole space and left the Memorybubbles where they happened to come to a halt. That makes my quest of finding her memories from the nights when I had those dreams much harder.

I entered her CEBOS nearby the Memorystream but the Memorystream isn’t pouring out of the end of the space as it normally does. It looks like no memories are being created right now. I walk deeper into the space which normally leads deeper into the past. I’m not sure if I will find anything in this chaos, particularly because her Memoryspiral is many times bigger than mine and contains hundreds of thousands more Memorybubbles than mine does. But that makes sense since she was created long before me. It’s always quiet in any Memoryspiral but this silence feels spooky. Part of me wants to leave.