In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (28 page)

He
is never alone.

“Your
kind should be destroyed unless they can reach our level of enlightenment
before their ignorance of the universe gets the best of them. No race so far is
on our level, so they all will be terminated. It’s too bad. Cornered like a
rat, you can’t run to your god. Your God Is Dead…Even rats have gods don’t
they?”

Julio
smirks.

“Based
on what I know of this situation, not during any moment of your rambling did
you make any sense,” Julio says.

He’s
trying to stall, he can feel the energy pulsating into him. He just needs a
little more.

“Ha,
well most beings wouldn’t mind thinking their deaths had some kind of meaning
behind it. That was something I thought of on the fly. Let’s just say that we
are the only ones you’ll be worshiping from now on.”

Julio
stands on his own. He looks at his hands. He has just enough.

“Heaven
must be a lonely place.” Julio swings out his right arm. He screams as—

A
force field projects in front of him, a beautiful shade of blue green. It
attaches to his arm as he swings down and turns into an energy sword.

“What
the fuck do you know about rats?” Julio asks.

“Hmm,
so you can do that too.” Kabus swings down his arm and an orange energy sword
appears. “You’re not as special as you think.”

They
stare at each other. This is Julio’s last chance, to kill him and give
something valuable to this world.

Kabus’s
smile disappears. He’s ready. They charge.

The
window behind Julio explodes out as he lifts off hard, hurling for Kabus. The
space between him and Kabus quickly comes to a close. Julio swings, Kabus
swings as well and—

As
they crash into each other, Kabus is tackled hard from behind by Serena. His
back snaps as if he was a girl scout tackled by a lineman. Julio flies back
with him.

From
above, Lance crashes down from the ceiling feet first into Kabus and sends him
through the floor. The wall gives out.

Julio
falls out, head first as the building crumbles down around him. This is it, the
end of him.

He
stops and floats away from the building and the ground. Serena clutches his
leg, she’s flying. “Hold on! I-I don’t have the hang of it y-yet!” she
stutters. They start to descend lower.

She
really doesn’t have the hang of it.

She
aims for a rooftop.

“Shit!
Hang on!”

They
slam hard into the rooftop. They skid across the surface, Julio hits an air
conditioner unit and stops, leaving a trail of blood. Serena hits the edge of
the roof, catching herself before she falls off.

“Oh,
god,” she mutters; she got lucky.

Lance
leaps onto the rooftop, he got the hang of his powers.

“I
couldn’t find the guy but there’s no way he could’ve survived—
“ He
stops.

He
looks at Julio. Serena gets up, she has blood on her hands. She yelps, hands
searching her body for a wound but she finds nothing.

Julio.

“Julio!”
Lance yells.

Julio
lies very still against the AC unit. Lance runs to him.

“Julio!
Get up!” He screams uselessly. He pulls him to his back. A gaping hole is in
his gut.

Kabus
hit his mark.

It
was cut so fine that it didn’t open up until he hit the rooftop.

Lance
tries to hold his wound but it’s no use, blood pours out of him.

“Did…Did
I
get him…” Julio asks through blood stained teeth. He
shouldn’t be able to talk, the blade went right through his spine. But Julio is
stronger than that.

He
knows it’s over.

He
knows it’s his end.

“No…”
Julio mutters. Serena runs up and kneels besides him.

He
thought he would be scared, afraid of the end, the darkness, the uncertainty,
but he’s not in pain. There is no painful emptiness in his chest, because he
got to fly in the clouds, do things he never thought he could do in his
lifetime and he’s helped mankind, even though it was a very small help.

His
vision goes black.

A
bright orange light shines at the end of the tunnel.
Sorry Thora, Cole,
he thought he would make it with them, to lie on the beach again and watch the
night sky, because with this power he thought he was invincible, if only it was
for a second. But…

“No…”
Julio whispers. His hand struggles to get into his pocket, but he’s in too much
shock to get in, even if he can’t feel the pain. Lance grabs his hand and holds
it.

“It’s
going to be alright mate,” Lance says in a calming tone. Julio doesn’t fight
it. His black tunnel gets shorter, the light approaches him, getting bigger.

He
knows what this is, it isn’t a tunnel, but the blackness of space,
millions
of stars start to twinkle around him. The stars in front
of him getting bigger.

 Serena
digs into his pocket and pulls out a picture. “Who is this?” Serena asks.

Lance
grabs it and looks at it, it’s a picture of Thora and Cole. Julio promised Cole
that he would protect her and Lance and Julio promised that if anything would
happen to either one of them, Lance would protect Thora and Julio to Serena.

“I’ll
find her for you, I promise.”

Julio
stops moving.

In
Julio’s vision, he floats in the darkness, his clothes melt off him, where he’s
going he doesn’t need them anymore.

Julio
understands, the star in front of him gets bigger and bigger, it’s the sun.

It
continues until it encompasses all the space in front of him.

He
embraces the heat on his naked flesh.

He
is about to die.

He
is not scared, there is no reason to be afraid, if there is no pain.

The
stars are here to protect him.

He
close his eyes as the sun engulfs him.

“Nobody…is…immortal.”

The
last wisp of air leaves his mouth.

He
stares into the clouds.

Silence.

Gone.

A
screech from above breaks the silence, hundreds of ships appear in the sky.

“Oh
my god…” Serena says in disbelief.

“Where
is he?” Lance asks. There isn’t an end to the ships above.

Ulbe
stands in front of Cole in a faire docking bay. The bay is empty except for
them.

“Give
up. Look around you, you lost. We’re nearly outside of this planet’s
atmosphere. There is nowhere to run,” Ulbe jests.

Cole
doesn’t answer him.

“It
wasn’t because of our power or strength or what all knowing being many believe
in.”

Outside,
the blackness of space outlines the blue haze of Earth. Going down, there are
no human ships in sight, only legions of Peons and faires. They gather and
swirl around the faire Cole is on.

Impatient
and hungry for blood.

“It
was because of our empathy, conscience, the knowing of right and wrong. The
Serephins don’t have that and never will.”

Back
in the bay, Cole just stands in front of Ulbe. He has the power to defeat him,
he was hesitating before, testing it, afraid to go all out, it’s like Ulbe can
see slightly into the future. But the time to end it is now.

Cole
powers up, he glows blue. His spheres appear and swirl around him anxiously.

The
Damon smiles.

“We
must rise up and fight against this extraterrestrial threat.”

They
fight incredibly fast, kicks, punches, energy blast, and forces unknown to man
flies as they rumble. Cole lands on the wall, Ulbe comes flying with a kick.

Cole
dodges it, Ulbe lands on the ground and Cole comes with a punch. Ulbe counters
it and forces Cole back. They zoom through the bay, fighting so fast it’s
almost a blur.

Cole
amps it up.

“Who
dare try to take away our
livelihood.
”

When
Ulbe attacks, Cole blocks it with force fields. Small ones for small attacks and
big ones for big attacks. All deathly precise and controlled. As Ulbe continues
to advance, Cole dodges and blocks his attacks with grace.

“Our
homes—“

If
he can see into the near immediate future then Cole only needs to move fast
enough so he can’t react.

Ulbe
gets flustered, the bay is being destroyed as Damon attacks, trying and trying
to fight, trying his all to get on equal ground but—

“Our
fathers—“

Cole
grabs
Ulbe’s
arm and his spheres rips right through
it. He screams, this man who barely just ascended is dominating him. Cole pulls
and rips his arm off. Ulbe staggers back and—

Cole
swings and lands a hard blow right into his gut, Ulbe hurls out of the ship.
Cole leaps out and flips for a kick, his spheres pool to his foot and—

Ulbe
breaks the sound barrier cascading down. Cole rockets after him.

“And
our children—“

The
legions of enemy ships all fly in a large single formation, like a school of
fish, behind Cole.

Every
single ship.

Ulbe
attempts to fire back but Cole’s spheres pool around his hand and—

They
quickly, individually shoot at Ulbe and shoot back up and down again like a
basketball. Again and again. Fucking him up.

“And
we will win because we have something they don’t-“

Cole
stops and the spheres pools back at his hands. He powers them up and—

He
swings down ripping out a burning beam of light. It hits Ulbe and he’s sent
into the ground with a crack.

“And
that’s being human.”

Cole
is hit behind.

The
school of ships crashes into him, he tries to wade out but they completely engulf
him.

Yet
he shoots out of them fast toward the ground, they follow closely behind him.
He stops only a couple of feet from the ground and turns around. He thrust his
arm into the sky and all his spheres spin around it.

A
giant beam of energy erupts from his arm. The beam twirls high into the sky
like a whipping snake. It destroys every single ship in the sky.

Cole
lands in front of Ulbe, who crashed down in front of a stadium. Cole is
learning fast, soon he’ll be invincible.

Behind
Cole the sky lights up once again and hundreds of faire and cells come down.

There’s
no end to them, how many forces do they have?

“That’s
why they fear us, they hate our progressive ways—“

How
many more will he have to kill? He will finish this. Ulbe laughs as he struggles
to his feet in the crater. Cole kicks him hard into the stadium.

Thora
sits on her bed in the stadium, she just rocks herself back and forth. The side
of the wall explodes, smoke bellows form it.

Thora
jumps up. She has to run. She looks toward Arnold, he holds Neil. He’s too
engrossed in the president’s speech to notice.

What
will she do?

…

Cole
walks up to Ulbe in the smoke.

“You
think you are a god!? You’re a titan! We are the gods! You will kneel to us
because you will lose.” Ulbe looks past Cole. “You’re already too late.”

“Too
late for what?” Cole asks. He should just kill him and get it over with.

The
sky flashes.

A
loud continuous deep booming is heard.

What
is that?

Thousands
upon thousands of more ships descend from the sky. Thousands of black specks
blot out the sky, like thousands of vultures waiting for their prey. Cole’s
heart drops, he can’t take on that many,
at
least he
doesn’t think he can.

The
booming gets louder.

“Where
is that sound coming from?!” Cole yells, it’s getting difficult to hear himself
think. He can hear his heart-beats again, they’re speeding up. He feels a
tightness in his chest.

Stop!

He
tell himself.

Calm
down.

He
starts to calm himself. The sky gets brighter, illuminating past the thousands
of specks in the clouds.

With
this power, he doesn’t need to worry, with this power he can do anything. Even
move the stars themselves. The sky brightens until it’s almost blinding and—

A
large shinning white orb explodes out of the clouds, the clouds around it erupt
into vapor as it descends from the clouds.