Authors: Mikael Aizen
Going?
"You must be friends with thee guy who didn't kill me on sighht," Jay said, staring.
It was the strangest thing.
The man would moved or shift and when he did, he blended into the background.
Maybe it was his grey-white hair and the dark crystalline clothing he wore.
"You are correct."
"What doo you want?" Jay asked.
Besides my flags.
"You've a lot of spirit energy.
I will teach you to channel..."
Jay barked a laugh.
"You arenn't really talking like tha', are you?"
He couldn't help it, it was too strange.
"Next thing you'll tel me is that you're anshient chines samurai warrior."
"No, but I was lead hand-to-hand combat instructor for the PLA for eight years before The Code."
"If you teech me invvisibillity, I don't care where you're frrom."
The man guffawed loudly, like he wasn't afraid that someone would hear and he'd die...
they'd
die if he were too loud.
"My name's Xiaos Wayng."
He bowed.
"The twins are my sons, Evo and Ti.
You can tell them apart because Ti always has his mouth open."
One of the boys shut his mouth with a click, both were still in a fighting stance.
"How'ed I end up in ol' dynastay China?"
"You flew, nearly blew up, escaped to freedom right under your Gamer's nose," Xiaos said.
"And now I'm withh you."
"Yes.
And I am offering something to you."
"What." Jay said.
"Get rid of my baells?"
"If you wish, but we'd rather get rid of your bells.
And show you that not everyone in Morir..." Xiaos trailed off.
"Is fucking cwrazy?"
Jay glanced at the twins.
He'd never slipped in front of Kyle.
It didn't seem to matter that much anymore.
"Sorrry, language," Jay said.
The one with his mouth open, Ti, seemed to realize he was gaping.
He closed it.
"Come with me."
"Wherre?"
"Come with me and I'll show you a world where we break the rules," Xiaos said with a mysterious look.
"Yeah.
Nawt going to happen."
Jay brushed awkwardly past the man.
Not because he didn't want what they were offering, and not because he didn't trust them.
They had the flags and he wasn't dead.
But because it was such a shock to speak to a person who seemed "normal."
This was Morir, what was there to smile about?
He'd seen more dead and close to dead in days than he had at Grandpa's funeral.
Hell.
Jay turned.
"I don't gett it.
Where were you guy-s?
When I thoughht life was worth itt, and getting back to my son mad' me a good person?"
Xiaos gave him a remorseful eye.
"We're in the same boat."
Jay looked at the twins.
They looked like normal kids.
There was no ghoulishness in their eyes, no hair-raising wariness, no hurt or lost innocence in their bared teeth.
They were kids with imagination.
The kind of imagination that hoped for adventure, honor, and excitement.
The kind of imagination that should've been crushed out of every man and boy who took step into Morir.
What was wrong with these people?
It gave him hope.
He wondered where Kyle was.
He heard a battle cry and Evo jumped on his back, hooked arms encircled Jay's neck and heels spurred at his belly.
Pain flashed through Jay's head and face as the bar through his face was knocked around.
Jay didn't mind.
"C'mon, let's go!" Evo cried.
Ti seemed to think he was being left out of the fun, so on came him, climbing up Jay's front to squat on Jay's head.
"C'mon!" he echoed, and added.
"Wait, what's your name?
We don't know it yet and we can't be allies unless we know your name!"
Jay's thoughts went to Kyle as he reached back and grabbed the two by the scruff of their shirts.
He put them down and glared at them, restraining the struggling by their shirt necks.
"One, I'm nott your horse.
Two, my name'ss Jay and that's Mr. Jay to you.
And Three, I'm gonn' teach you somethin' now that Dadda Samurai never taught you.
Something thatt may someday save your life."
They stared at him in rapt attention.
"What Mr. Jay?" they said at the same time.
He let their shirts go and gave them a mysterious wink.
"Be like a duckk."
Then he stood up and looked at Xiaos.
"Let's go."
"Holy.
Fuckking...heaven," Jay said.
They'd gone through a series of what Jay could only consider to be secret passages through ruins within Morir.
I'm thinking like a hobbit
.
Collapsed buildings had fallen so thickly here that in some areas, mere rubble surrounded them, suffocating them into minutes of absolute darkness.
It was thanks to the twins' ghostlike "OooOOoohhh"-ing that Jay made it through.
"We've much ability in Esperanza," Xiaos said.
He bent down and took a rock from the ground.
It was a clear rock with sharp angles, like a prism.
Jay had noticed a lot of it here, his first day he'd seen it.
And in Haven's center, the strange glistening within and around stones littering Morir's broken earth.
"We found these stones plentiful in the earth of Morir.
These stones were probably unknown to the authorities when they built the city."
Xiaos continued.
"When we found certain unique properties, a good spirit energy in the rock, we mined it, giving it the name: Crystal Onyx.
This larger Crystal Onyx is what has given us survival in Morir while everyone else merely destroys."
Jay could see the traces of milky white running through the prism.
He stared again helplessly at the town of Esperanza that had emerged in front of them.
A whole town built with blocks of Crystal Onyx.
Clear walls and sharp angles made the city glisten with color-split sunlight.
And people were everywhere, rather, their images were everywhere.
No matter where you stood the image could come up to the front within the huge Crystal walls of the city.
Each wall collected the image of everything and put it in front of your eyes.
And even from where he stood, Jay could see the smiles on their faces.
It was incredible, and a bit mythical.
Xiaos seemed pleased at his expression.
"What does Essperanza mean?" Jay asked.
His Spanish went only as far as "Si" and "No" and "Baño."
Morir too, now.
He looked at the Asian man who'd named a city in Spanish.
"Hope," Xiaos answered.
"It may sound odd, but Crystal Onyx symbolizes everything that we left behind.
We understood that with Crystal Onyx, we could recreate--even in Morir--the world that we had left."
Xiaos held his hand out and waved across the tiny town.
"You cannot see 'straight' in Esperanza, but instead you see everyone around you, and yourself from many perspectives.
Full transparency and full reflection," Xiaos said.
He walked to a building, built from large Crystals.
"The Onyx splits what you perceive into a hundred pieces, to see even more clearly.
While it blurs lines, it has definite and precise barriers."
Xiaos slapped the crystal with almost spiritual reverence.
It hummed a deep, barely audible tone.
Xiaos brought his head close to the Onyx and closed his eyes.
For once, Xiaos didn't seem odd.
Jay felt like he understood the peace the Onyx represented.
It really did feel like he'd walked into an ancient, spiritual world.
He saw wells, and gardens, people working together with primitive cranes to construct other Crystal Onyx homes while children played and their parents relaxed under the sun.
They'd built a paradise within Morir.
He couldn't even swear to himself, it was too incredible.
"Fuck," Jay swore to Xiaos.
"Yeah.
Fuck..." Xiaos said back.
It sounded like he'd never said the word before.
Jay would've laughed except that before the sight of Esperanza, it was impossible to feel anything but awe.
"Yeah fuck!" a voice piped.
It was Ti.
Xiaos frowned disapprovingly.
"I'd like you to meet someone, Jay."
He knelt and spoke to the twins.
"Take our friend to Issak.
Afterward, we'll take off those bells."
When Xiaos mentioned it, Jay touched the bells hanging off his face.
Strangely, right now, he didn't want to take them off.
They represented something to him, the single crushed bell for Paul's life.
Jay didn't know
what
exactly it meant to him, but he knew he didn't want to take the bells off right now.
"I'd likke to keep them," Jay said.
Xiaos paused.
"After, we'll speak."
He turned to leave.
The twins grabbed Jay by either hand and began dragging him toward Esperanza.
Jay looked behind and saw Xiaos Wayng, like James Bond, walking with big strides toward a building made from stacked stones.
Not COMPLETELY transparent, then.
Evo suddenly stood right in front of Jay, his arms crossed.
"Tell us."
"Tel you what?"
"Tell us what you meant, 'be like a duck.'
We don't get it."
Jay laughed, the first genuine laugh in a long time.
"You'll havve to think about it.
But I'l give you a clue."
Both visibly leaned forward.
"It's something wit' what you see versuss what really is."
Evo cradled his chin between the web of his thumb and finger while Ti simply gaped.
The rest of the walk was silent, both twins brooding with serious knots between their brows.
Jay remembered the first time he'd asked Kyle the same question.
Kyle had bugged him for weeks before he caved in and told his son.
Kyle had given Jay a thoughtful expression and it became a ritual between them, something they always said to each other.
They approached a Crystal Onyx building that through the prism, Jay could see what looked to be a lab.
It had jars and vials and contraptions that he didn't and never cared to know names for.
"I know the answer," Evo suddenly said.
"What issit?" Jay asked, surprised at the boy's confidence.
This time, Evo gave him the secret look.
"I'll tell you when you get out.
Oh," Evo said, "Issak likes compliments."
The twins crossed their arms and turned their backs to him.
Ti copied his brother though he obviously continued to brood over the riddle.
Jay shrugged, limping into the building, slowly with his hands trailing the side of the Onyx.
Once he was close, he became disoriented by all the split images.
He imagined it was possible to get lost in a straight hallway, here.
He wondered if the people here came to be used to the constant shifting and distorting images.
Jay stepped wrong and his leg complained as he stumbled.
The jingle of bells by his neck clung loudly, differently, sharper and more apparent in the Onyx hall.
He caught himself flat against a wall, and within the Onyx he saw one of several of his reflections.
Seven bells, one crushed.
It was strange how it hit him.
There was a calm and then just as suddenly there was a choked up vacuum.
He'd killed a man.
Accident or not, he was still responsible.
Jay assumed he'd felt nothing because he hadn't time to rest and consider what he'd done.
That because he'd been running for his life, his mind hadn't time to face what had happened.