The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (28 page)

“Yes, that’s very good,” said the Commander, with a laugh.

Like thorns in his side, the three officers words were piercing and ill compassioned. They had no care for the life of his lost love. John did not understand what exactly it was they were talking about, but he understood, in at least a rudimentary sense the term
Kill Core Training
. Whatever the indoctrination was he was about to receive, by the title alone he wanted nothing to do with it.

The beams of the Savior dripped through the holes in the cardboard ceiling, illuminating the room with dozens of His long, thin shafts of light. The air was stale and dry, soaked with the smell of death. Wiping the sweat from her brow, Sofia sat at the edge of a makeshift cot drinking water from a rusty, food storage can.

It had only been a little more than twenty-four hours since she arrived in Basket Town, but her presence had not gone by without notice this time around. On the day that she was released from the custody of the Security agents and thrown onto the filthy dirt of the city streets, the eyes of the women were there, watching her every move. As the Security transporter had driven off, leaving her alone in the presence of so many strangers, Sofia had found herself suddenly surrounded by the masses reaching out to her and rubbing their hands upon her head, her back, her arms… anywhere they could touch. They had been pleading for her
healing
power
.

Weaving a band of dried strip of stalk through her basket, the woman seated on the floor in front of her worked quietly repairing a hole in its side. Her hands were quick and delicate, moving with the gracefulness of the years of experience with her craft.

Swallowing down the last of the warm, salty water, Sofia placed the can upon her lap.

“Thank-you for the drink,” she said.

Setting her project on the floor, the woman smiled as she took the can from Sofia’s hands. Standing up, she walked it over to a cloth-covered window on the other side of the room. Pushing aside the covering, the light entered in, revealing the woman’s protruding abdomen, which seemed so out of sorts in comparison to the bony, thinness of her arms and legs, the sunken skin of her cheeks and eyes. Dropping the improvised cup outside, it fell into a pile of refuse in the trash littered alley below.

Returning back to Sofia, the woman took a seat beside her on the cot, appearing uncomfortable and nervous by Sofia’s close presence. As the stranger made an awkward attempt to look at her, Sofia passed her a friendly smile, but she was too shy to make eye contact, and she quickly turned her head away.

“Your skin is so smooth and young. Are you from the Savior?” Sofia’s odd host asked of her with a hint of embarrassment.

Sofia rubbed her hand upon her own rosy cheek, finding it quite queer that the woman seemed so enamored by the tone of her flesh, not to mention that she had made a reference to a place known as Savior.

“Um, no,” she answered. “I’m actually from Labor.”

The woman took Sofia by the hand. Opening her palm, she revealed its smooth, pink surface. The woman’s deep, black skin contrasted heavily against Sofia’s fair tone.

“You don’t look like you’ve labored much,” she commented, comparing her own discolored, calluses to Sofia’s youthful
tenderness.

“I’m sorry,” Sofia smiled. “I didn’t mean that I work hard. Labor is where my home is. That’s its name.”

“Oh, I see,” the woman said, turning her face away as if she was feeling ridiculed by her own comment.

“I do want to thank you for bringing me to your home, though. It’s very,” Sofia paused, “
unique
.”

“It is very well made, isn’t it?” The woman smiled as she looked around the ragged apartment. “It used to belong to a woman by the name of Sage many years ago that bore thirteen children here.”

“Wow. Really? That’s quite a lot of children.” Sofia said. “Where is she now?”

“She became barren,” the woman explained. “Eventually the Security found out and sent her to die on Red.”

“Is Red where the old people go? In Labor we called it Restful Haven.”

Seemingly taken aback by Sofia’s ignorance, the woman looked at her in a curious manner.

“Red is where the war is. Everyone, unless they die here first from an accident or something worse, ends up dying in the war.”

“So there’s a war being fought here, too?” Sofia asked with amazement.

“Here? No. On Red,” the woman corrected her.

Confused as to what exactly she was talking about, Sofia chose to ignore it. She was about to open her mouth to change the subject when the woman asked her, “How far along are you?”

It was another bewildering question, to which Sofia responded, “From home? Well, I never thought about it, but I guess a
million…”

“Oh, no,” she interrupted with a nervous giggle. “I meant for your baby.”

“My
baby
? I don’t have a baby,” Sofia said, reacting to the women’s seemingly absurd line of questioning.

Rather perplexed in her expression, the woman placed her hand upon Sofia’s abdomen.

“They wouldn’t have brought you back here if you weren’t with child. This is where we bear the children and work the land for the wealthy. You
must
be carrying.”

Carrying. What a strange thing to say, Sofia thought. It was the same term used by the agents on the day she was sent to Basket Town.

Walking across the room, the woman left her side, picking up another rusted can from the corner and taking a sip from it. It seemed as if she did not want to talk anymore. She sat down upon the floor giving Sofia her back. But after a moment she said, “Thank you for what you’ve done for me.”

Sofia did not understand why the woman was giving thanks to her. Standing from the cot and walking across the creaking floor, Sofia stepped beside her and placed her hand upon the woman’s
shoulder.

“I’m the one that should be thanking you,” Sofia said. “When all those women were surrounding me yesterday, I didn’t know what I was going…”

“They weren’t trying to hurt you,” the woman interrupted. “They only wanted you to heal them… and to raise their loved ones from the dead.”

A fearful churning of her stomach accompanied the terrible thoughts of Sofia’s mind that the woman sitting in front of her was insane. How to answer such a statement, she did not know. Healing the dead, she thought to herself, what in Labor does that mean?

After considering the trauma she would probably sustain if she were to jump out of the window to make an escape, she left off with the plan and asked, “Heal their dead? I’m not sure I understand. What do you mean heal their dead?”

“It’s all part of the change that’s coming. The day when
He
returns for us,” the woman said.

As the woman placed her hand upon her own abdomen, Sofia took a few steps back. It was quite obvious to her now, that the woman had left her side to be alone, to hide her tears.

“I was among the dead when you arrived here by the airship,” she confessed. “The presence of you and your mate brought me back. Many people believe that you two are part of the New Beginning.”

Straightening up the shirt collar of his new, black uniform, John was barefoot upon the cold, concrete floor of the military installation’s holding cell. Nervously limping back and forth, he knew that whatever training he was being forced into was certain to begin shortly, as the two high-ranking officials had ordered it to happen before they departed back to their home planet.

Upon his reception of the order from his superiors, the Base Commander had seemed quite pleased with their decision to place John in the Kill Core facility of the training compound. He wasted little time moving him through the process in order to get him started immediately.

Since his return to the tunnel system, retracing his steps back through the control room, John had not seen the light of the Savior for several hours. He had been escorted into the military’s training grounds where he received a new set of fatigues. Ever since that time, he had been held in the cell in which he currently found himself waiting.

The silence made the moment all the more anguishing to his soul, as he could do nothing but think. He thought about Sofia. He thought about their time in the forests outside Labor. He thought about the fact that she no longer existed. The image of her frail and petite person, fearfully looking into his eyes, pointing directly at him, as if she were accusing him of some misdeed, was seared upon his brain. It was ten fold worse than the intense burning in his legs from his continual movement, and the sharp stabbings at his side from his fractured ribs. Almost cathartic in nature, as the pain seemed justly deserved as a punishment for all the suffering he had caused, it kept him going. He needed to suffer,
too.

The longer he was held, the more he thought. The more he thought, the stronger his anger grew towards the men that were the cause of her death. He was turning his fears into hatred. It helped to keep him warm.

The door to the cell suddenly opened, causing John to put an end to his pacing. Approached by a heavily armored, military agent, John stood in his place. Without saying a word, the man shoved him to the ground and walked out, leaving him alone once again.

Standing back upon his feet, John stared at the door, expecting that the agent would return again. But after several minutes of looking upon the flat aspect of the exit, he gave up waiting and returned back to his tormented sauntering.

It was not long before the door once again opened to the same robotic agent. After performing the identical action upon John, he left the room in the same manner. The game continued for the next several hours, with the violence by which the man entered escalating with each encounter.

The final straw came when the agent entered in with a club in his hand. Raising it above his head, about to bring down a deadly blow, John rushed upon him, grabbing him by the legs, toppling him to the floor. Racking the wooden stick upon John’s back, the agent fought to regain his footing. Swinging a fist into his throat, John forced the agent to drop his club. Clenching his neck and gasping for air, the man crawled upon the floor retreating from the fight. With a heavy grasp of the chin of his helmet, John tore the man’s head backwards, ripping the head protector off, the chinstrap shearing away the man’s
skin.

As the agent rolled over crawling upon his elbows and knees, John scurried towards the wooden baton that had fallen upon the floor less than a meter away. Wrapping it within his fist, he turned back upon his enemy with a hard-set determination to kill
him.

His swing was intentional, and in the fullness of his strength he attacked. The shaft of the baton was about to make contact with the back of the agent’s head when John’s arm was stopped mid-flight as the dart of a taser gun bore into his back. A current of electricity pulsated throughout his body, freezing his muscles and dropping him to the ground.

The military personnel that entered the room stepped over their motionless victim, assisting their fellow agent to his feet and walking him out of the room. As the last soldier proceeded to make his exit, he pulled the cables from his taser letting them fall to the
floor.

Tactile sensation was beginning to return back to John’s legs and arms. As he was sealed once again inside his cell, alone and sore, he gazed upon the reflective goggles of the last agent to leave the room, making eye contact as it were. The opportunity for revenge would come again… it was only a matter of time.

Sofia could still hardly believe the words that had entered her ears just a few days prior. To think that she was carrying a child inside of her was a miracle that even her own wild imagination could never have conceived. She had not started experiencing any noticeable changes with her body as of yet, and the more she thought on the idea of being pregnant, the more she concentrated on feeling the child inside of her, although nothing seemed to come of it.

She was now gowned in the cultural, colorful dress of the women of Basket Town, and fitted with a facial scarf to help cover her fair skin while they worked the fields under the Savior’s rays. She obeyed the request of her companion, Maryanne, the black-skinned woman, staying close by her side as they gathered fruit together, knowing that Maryanne was not only looking out for her best interest, but that she was a native to the town. Her experience made her a trusted resource.