Blue-eyed Miracle - 13. The Cold Embrace of Death

It suddenly is as if time had stopped.

The crowd of Phinaran soldiers seem to have frozen in levitation as their bodies glow. Alaunus, the Watcher, is on his knees and his body has been frozen phasing out of our reality, making him appear transparent to my eyes. Debris and shrapnel remain static floating around us, just as they were when Chris made everything explode.

And in the midst of all this chaos, Chris suspended as a vengeful and unmerciful God, his body ablaze in blue energy.

I am a soldier and I have been for many years.

As a soldier, I have seen death eye to eye. I have killed many in battle and I've had to live with it. If you haven't been a soldier you won't understand the horror of being responsible for so many deaths. Each one of those people I've killed haunt me every single night. Sometimes I can't even sleep as the memories come back to me. Men, women, even children. The fact that it happened during war does not make it morally correct. Murder is murder, and I am responsible for uncountable deaths. The guilt never goes away.

“Nooooooooooooooo!” I shout trying to bring Chris out of this trance.

My voice sounds distorted and it's when I realize time has not really stopped, but it's only flowing so slowly it is almost impossible to perceive any movement at all.

I cannot let Chris do this, I cannot let him carry the guilt of having murdered so many soldiers. The fact that it's the enemy doesn't make it less wrong. I have been there when the guilt strikes and I have cried many a night as it happens. I cannot let Chris be responsible for this.

“Nooooooooooooooo!” I shout again.

In slow motion, Chris turns his face in my direction. As he does so, I see his bright eyes focusing directly on me as he blinks so slowly I can see the heavy curtain of platinum blonde eyelashes flutter at the same slow rate. He blinks once, twice, three times as his head comes to a halt and is finally facing me completely, blue searing energy glowing through his eyes from within.

His eyes tell me of his rage, of his suffering, of his love for me as the things around continue to float held by his own power. I barely recognize him without his lovely hair and engulfed in his own energy.

'Robbie,' his voice echoes inside my mind.

For the first time since we met, he lets me completely in. It's as if his eyes drag mine towards his soul and I can dive inside him.

On the surface all I can see is primal instincts, fear, anger, madness. As I go deep down inside him, I can see the rational being, the Chris I once met in my dreams. He has now been pushed to the deepest levels of his soul to give space to this angry creature which desires nothing but to make his wrong doers pay for what they've done. This creature who seems to be nothing but rage.

Down there, where his true self has become dormant, there are his memories. What I perceive are not really images, but emotions. I can feel the heartwarming sensation of being protected inside his mother's womb before his birth. Then the cold shock of birth as he is born leaving the safe sanctuary where he's been for nine months. The warmth of her mother's embrace as a baby. The feeling of protection from his parents as he grows. His love for his mother and father, the one he's known as a father and whom he loves with all his heart.

And at a deeper level, deep down the abyss of his true being, there's this untouched part which is safe from everything else. Down there in this vast meadow of emotion, I perceive the warm and fulfilling sensation of his love for me, a deep and transparent love that transcends time and space. I can also feel the burning fire of his newborn passion and lust for me. The overwhelming feeling of having waited for us to be together since his early years, even before he was born.

Sitting in the meadow of his thoughts is Chris, the Chris I know, my blue eyed miracle. He looks up and grins as I approach him. Without words he communicates me his desire for revenge. From his mind to mine there's this silent message that speaks of vengeance and hatred. Hatred for these beings, the Watchers, who have tried to keep him away from me even when he knew we belonged together probably centuries before each of us existed, these creatures that in his eyes have hurt us beyond belief.

'They must pay,' he tells me, 'the will pay for what they have done!'

'No,' I whisper without words, 'let them go. It's not worth it.'

He looks at me, his long blonde mane cascading over his lovely face. His deep blue eyes stare back at me. It is disturbing to see his wonderful smile while his message is one of inflicting pain upon his enemies.

'What?' he asks, 'What is not worth it?'

I realize the powerful being who's punishing Alaunus and the Phinaran is just the most primal part of him, and my sweet boy is buried beneath layers of madness, rage and hatred.

He takes my hand in his and then there's only happiness. Before my eyes there's a recollection of our happiest moments together, even if they didn't really happen.

'But they did happen, Robbie,' he says without words.

It's like taking a tour through my most cherished memories. The day we met, when he broke his ankle. Our first kiss. The bath we took together in the lagoon. The first time we made love. And always, always, the image of his lovely blue eyes looking into mine.

'I'm here,' I tell him, 'I'm here with you now. Let them go.'

'Robbie?' he asks looking at me as if he didn't understand what I'm talking about, 'Are you okay, Robbie?'

'Chris,' I reply, 'You have to stop this.'

'Stop what?' he asks with a puzzled expression.

'This isn't you,' I tell him kneeling down so I can be eye to eye with him, 'This anger … this rage … You have to stop this now.'

He tilts his head to the left and beams. I smile for him and tell him how much I love him without words. I open my arms so he can come to me. He does and I hold him tight against me.

'I love you, my Robbie,' he says.

'I love you too, my blue eyed miracle,' I reply.

Then he kisses me, and as he does, I feel as if I've been kicked.

I open my eyes and find myself once again on the deck of the Phinaran ship's lab, surrounded by Phinaran soldiers and the floating debris. The same moment frozen in time.

Chris is looking directly in my direction and he blinks once more ever so slowly. As he does so, time seems to resume its natural flow.

Crack!!

The crystal dome over the lab makes a loud noise as a huge fracture appears from side to side of it. It gives me the chills as I realize that, if the dome cracks, nothing will matter anymore as we will be sucked into space where we'll die a quick and cold death.

“Let them go,” I say calmly, “I'm here.”

The glow around the soldiers' shapes starts fading away as they are, little by little, brought back to deck level by Chris' will alone.

The ship has finally stopped shaking and the debris falls all around us like a rain of metal and glass.

Alaunus, still on his knees, becomes solid again as Chris starts descending to the base where his tank was before he made it explode.

“My child,” Alaunus says.

“I am not your child,” Chris says, his voice sounding now closer to the voice I knew.

“I ….” Alaunus says, “I ….”

Chris is now back to being closer to the human I met, though he's still hairless and his body still has a faint gray quality to it. He is not glowing anymore, but his eyes are still pure bright blue energy.

Around us, everything stands still. The fallen soldiers look at each other in confusion but none of them want to risk threaten that which they cannot understand, none of them dares pick up his weapon and aim it at the creature which has now obviously become a powerful enemy.

Crack!!!

New thin fractures appear along the dome branching out from the main fracture line, drawing a fine design of spiderweb-like fissures.

Alaunus looks at Chris and there's fear in his eyes. They are looking into each other's eyes and I imagine there's some sort of communication flowing between them. It's disturbing to see the Watcher's face contorted by the terror he must be experiencing. As I look at them, I have the feeling that Alaunus has never faced anyone or anything as powerful as Chris. It's either that, or the shock of realizing how dangerous this hybrid of human and watcher is.

One by one, the Phinaran soldiers have stood from their positions, but they stand still as do I. We're all attentive to both Alaunus and his Nemesis.

“Retreat,” Alaunus finally says.

Nobody seems to be able to process the Watcher's command until he yells and his thunderous voice fills the air.

“Retreat! Now!”

All Phinaran soldiers start walking towards the gate of the lab. Everything has been virtually destroyed by Chris' rage, and the soldiers do their best at walking through the debris all over the floor.

Alaunus' eyes are still locked to Chris' and I look at both of them wishing I knew what's going on.

And then, there seems to be a winner to their silent argument, for Alaunus turns in my direction and, after giving me a contemptuous grin, vanishes from his position to re-materialize next to me.

Time stops again.

Alaunus touches my shoulder and everything around us vanishes. We are now standing in front of each other. Around us there's nothing but light.

'He's awaken,' Alaunus tells me.

'Who?' I ask.

He paces around me and he looks as peaceful as the very first time we met, his expression back to his poker face and his voice once again in his almost musical monotone.

'You have no idea what you have awakened,' he tells me, 'The power this being holds inside is so dangerous you can never hope to restrain it.'

I look at him and I know he's not lying, Chris has turned into an almighty creature whose power I cannot even try to understand.

'I know what you're doing,' I tell him.

'And what am I doing?' he asks.

'You can try and play your mind games with me, Alaunus,' I say with strong conviction, 'but you won't turn me against Chris.'

He laughs and in the vacuum where we stand his laughter is a thunderous and terrifying sound.

'How little you understand, Sergeant,' he says, 'how very little indeed.'

I look at him as he walks circling me. His expression is unreadable but I somehow know he's feeling anything but peaceful.

'You have unleashed a beast of uncontrollable power,' he says.

'No, Alaunus,' I tell him, 'it was you who unleashed it. By attacking him, by attacking me, you forced his hand. You made him become what he's become. It was you.'

'Fortunately,' he says, 'he cannot block me from his time line anymore and I do know now how everything will play out.'

I listen to him, but I have the distinct impression that he's bluffing. If he did know how this will all play out, he wouldn't bother taking me to this … whatever this place is in order to talk to me.

'You're a horrible creature, Alaunus,' I tell him.

'Don't hate me, Sergeant.'

'Oh, I don't hate you,' I tell him with my heart in my hands, 'I pity you.'

'How dare you!' he says with an expression of both incredulity and contempt.

'I dare,' I tell him, 'because you are not even close to being benevolent. You are just one delusional being who claims to be far more evolved than we are. But you are not. You're a selfish creature, a creature who hides behind a facade of righteousness and understanding, but who's unable to understand even the basic principles of human emotion. You will never understand love, Alaunus. You will never understand compassion ….”

He looks at me and there's a spark of an emotion in his eyes. Envy?

'You will never understand the lengths someone in love is willing to go to protect that love,' I continue, 'and for that, Alaunus, the only thing I can feel for you is pity.'

'You fool!' he says.

Without words and looking into his eyes, I project Amyas' pain into his mind. I try and make him understand how mistaken he is when it comes to understanding emotion. I focus on all those moments of despair his fellow watcher experienced because of the principles of his own closed square-minded community.

'Your foolishness will be your undoing,' he says with hatred in his tone.

His hand touches my forehead and then my body plummets to the non-existent ground of this ethereal plane of existence to which he's brought me.

I'm back on the deck of the Phinaran ship. I turn and walk towards Chris as he crumbles to the floor unconscious.

“Chris!” I tell him as I kneel by his side, “Chris!”

The ship starts shuddering once again and an alarm goes off. I do not understand Phinaran, but I imagine the blaring sound is a call for ship adrift, since, through the top crystal dome of the lab I start making out the shapes of what I gather must be escape pods.

Crack!!

New fractures run all through the dome. I must act quickly if we are to survive. I take Chris in my arms and start walking through the messed up deck. As I walk around the tank base, I notice Hamaru is still there lying unconscious on the deck.

“Shit!”

The ship shudders more violently as more escape pods are launched into space. I run to Hamaru with Chris in my arms and I kick him softly on the leg trying to bring him about.

“Hamaru!” I yell, “Hamaru, get up!”

But he's not responding and I know I have to do something before the ship is torn to pieces and we're all sucked into the cold vacuum of space. The ship is now jerking violently and I imagine we've lost inertial dampers.

Crack!!

I know we have to get out of here and we have to do it now. I drop Chris over my shoulder and start dragging Hamaru by the collar of his shirt hoping we'll have enough time to make it to one of the Phinaran escape pods, but I know our chances are not good.

I try and go as fast as I can with both my dead weights.

Crack!!

The dome finally gives way and everything in the lab is sucked through it. I let go of Hamaru's collar and embrace Chris. This is it, we have come to the end of our existence. At least Chris and Hamaru are unconscious and they won't even notice as life fades away.

I hold tight to Chris as we are expelled from the ship.

'I love you,' I whisper inside my mind as I kiss his forehead.

All of a sudden, his eyes open wide and he looks at me understanding we're floating in dead space. But he doesn't seem afraid, everything I get from him is a deep feeling of tranquility.

'We've come to the end of the road,' I tell him telepathically.

'Don't be afraid, my love,' he replies, 'the road never ends. There's no beginning and no end.'

I only manage to bring my lips to his and we kiss. It's a deep, passionate kiss.

A farewell kiss.