literature

A Myth Part 2

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He leaned over the panels and pressed his hand to the glass, still smiling.  I did the same.  

He moved back and spoke, although all I saw was his mouth moving.  I did not communicated like they did, and never could.  This is why there were panels for my speech.  I opened one of these, the one closest to him. "I cannot hear you, friend.  You must press the panel as you did before."

He nodded in understanding and went to the panel from which I spoke, pressing the button.  "Hello.  I am grateful for you leading me here."

"I am grateful...for the contact."  I could not keep the sadness from coloring my voice.  It had been so long.

"I am sorry too..  We have misused you."

"You have!"  Now there was anger.  Why did he remind me of them!  I wanted nothing to do with them.  I hovered away from him and lost my form.  Energy flowed from me, shaking the ground again.  

"No!  Wait! Please!  Give us another chance!  I am sorry for what has happened!  But I believe it can be changed.  Please, please do not destroy us!"  He shouted into the panel, into my chamber, his words desperate as he pleaded for the life of his world.

I abated.  I let the trembling stop once more and turned to him.  "I believed long ago that you needed another chance.  But things have only become worse.  Why do you plead for them?"

"I know we have made mistakes.  But, I believe that under the hardness of the people, there is still the ones that you once knew. I believe the fighting can end."

"You believe?  Your words are weak."

"Please.  I have never known the world to be beautiful, but I believe that it once was.  Even though this is what I have only known, I believe there is something else.  You have seen that something else.  Do you not believe?"

His words...they stirred me.  I remembered the beginnings of the world.  I remembered their smiles, and their lives.  Everything was bright and happy.  There was conflict, but not war.  There was true conflict, that which can be solved by words, that which was not ingrained into the being of every living thing.  There had been such a world.

"I do believe."

His face brightened.  Even under the artificial browning of his skin, I saw the brightness of his hope for his world.  "Then you'll help me?  I believe that if we remind the people of what the two of us know, they will end this themselves.  You exist in their hearts in the myths and stories of out ancestors, but we can show them you are real."

I did not like the thought of this.  With just a few knowing how to use my power, the entire world was at war, but I trusted this boy.  

"Then let me teach you what I can do."

The rumbling subsided, as did the screams, but I never opened my eyes and ears to outside of my building.  I felt draws on my power, but it meant little.  The boy had a plan in mind.  I taught him and he taught me.  I observed his race, but I did not think like a mortal being, so he explained to me the gaps in my understanding of his world.  Together, we formulated a plan.  We spent time talking, him lounging in my chamber, learning, but also being a friend.  I treasured his companionship.

Of course, it could not last forever.  It was almost time for our plan.  He was sleeping in a room we had cleaned and prepared for him.  I was gradually coaxing unused circuits back to life. I almost had the entire building useable again, which was important for later parts of our plan.  I was going through one set of circuits when I heard a whisper outside of my building.  I turned my attention to the very door he had come into the first time and saw what I knew to be members of the governments of one of the warring sides.  They held weapons and brandished them at my door, shouting.  "Who hides in here!  Answer!" came through to me.

"No one hides, leave."  I said through the panel.  I had no use for them.  I wanted nothing to do with them.

The leader spoke on a radio.  "'It is true!  Our brave struggle continues!" They all ran from my doorstep.  Continues?  It had stopped?  What did this mean?  I slowly opened my eyes to the outside and saw before me two masses, one on each side of the border.

"Awaken!"  I said to the boy, throwing open the lights on full.  "They fight at my doorstep!"

"They what?"  he came out of his sleep much too slowly, but did his best.  I showed him what I saw.  There were two huge masses of people, their leaders on raised platforms, shouting at each other.  

"What are they saying?" he asked me urgently.  

I transferred the sound to augment the sight of them.  

"You have kidnapped him!"

"You lie!  You heard no voice!  That building is useless.  No one can enter and nothing resides there!"

"This is the last atrocity!   We will unleash it all this time!  There will be no holding back!"

"There will be nothing to hold back when we are through with you!"

"No..." the boy breathed. "I...am so sorry.  I did not expect this.  I am so sorry."  He looked at me with such a forlorn look that for a moment I thought that all was lost.  "We must execute our plan now.  I need to talk to them now."

"I do not think that it is wise."

I saw the determination on his face and knew that if I did not help him, he would only try on his own and get hurt.  "I must speak with them.  I must say it all, not matter the cost.  Do you understand?"

His face was determined, but also frightened.  "I understand.  Go the the platform and I will extend it."

The platform that we were to use extended from the side of my building.  I was not sure it would work as I liked, but I knew it was sturdy enough.  I kept half a mind on him as he raced through my corridors to get there.  I lit the room and began letting down the door.  So far, no one had noticed.  

He raced into the room as the door clicked into place.  The amplifiers for his voice were turned on.

"People!"  he started.  "I am here!"  my walls shook with the force of the sound from his voice, as did the ground.  The masses turned to him.  The leaders were stunned, that much I could see.   "I am not dead, nor kidnapped.  I promise you that.  Your fight is useless and the grounds baseless.  But will you stop?"  Silence met this.  This were going as planned so far, as all listened to him.  "I have a friend here, one who knows all of the secrets to our power.  That friend gives us life and light and has been here since the beginning, but we have ignored them.  You know the myths, you know the stories.  You have heard them since you were a child, as have I.  These stories are true.  They heard a voice at that door because my friend was speaking to them."  More silence followed this. People murmured quietly to those they stood with and the leaders cast glances at each other.  "My friend has been on this world for a very long time, and remembers the times in those stories, with happiness.  My friend remembers how this brave struggle, this war, started.  War.  Have you heard that word?  Do you remember it whispered?  I cannot call this war.  War has a cause.  The only cause of this war is the selfish will of the ones we chose to govern us.  We two sides are no different.  We live the same way.  Why are we at war?  Are the things the other side says about you even true?  Do you eat your children?  Do you bomb hospitals?  No!  And if what they say about you is untrue, is what you are saying about them true?  We can go back to that happy world with my friend's help."

He stopped again, letting these words sink in.  I knew the rest of the speech.  He had rehearsed it so many times before.  I watched the people.  They listened as if enraptured by his voice, just as I had been.  At first, the sides only looked to him, but gradually, they looked towards each other.  The lines between the two sides blurred.  People took what he said to heart.  I soon could not distinguish between sides.  It felt so wonderful, watching them.  They were not angry, not afraid.  It was amazing.  Watching them, I should not have failed to notice the leaders.  The had left their perches.  They moved around the crowd, around the back, silently, and met.  Hands were shaken, greetings exchanged, but there was no happiness on their faces.  After a few moments, one raised his weapon.  The glint of his weapon is what caught my attention.  It was pointed at me, no, it was pointed at him.  

"NOOOOOO!"  

I screamed through the amplifier, but too late.  The shot had been fired.  The platform burst into fire. It was severed from my side and fell to the ground, stirring the dust and putting out the flames.  

The crowd screamed.  The leaders were scrambling back to their platforms, but this would not do.  

"Them!  Them that protected you!"  I shouted through what was left of the amplifying equipment.  "They have killed him!  He who begged me for another chance for you!"  I could not help it.  The ground rumbled in my wrath.  

"Please....not yet....one more chance...." I heard just barely from the ground.  I moved my sight there and amplified his voice.  "Please, promise me, you will always give us one more chance.  I am sorry we hurt you again, but you must believe in the good still.  Promise me.  Please promise me..."

His breathing was pained and I had thought him already dead from the fall, but his body lay, charred and broken, begging me for the lives of those that had just harmed him.  "I promise.  I promise you.  I wish you could stay, my mortal friend.  I will miss you.  But I promise you."

I watched him there as he took his last breath.  His is the death I will never forget.  

A man and woman ran from the crown to him, one from each side.  The man picked up a piece of the amplifying equipment.  "This person is right!  Wherever they are!  They killed him.  They said they would protect us and they kill us.  It is time for this to be over."  the woman took it from him.  "Us too.  They lied to us.  We can't let this go on!"

I was heartened, but still deeply saddened he could not see it.  More came to stand by the boy's body and more shouted at their side to join them.  The leaders decided to fire into the crowd growing by his body, but after the first shot, they were taken down by their own people.  Slowly, they recovered from the wreckage.  I helped them.  People came and spoke with me again.  They were nervous at first, but they eventually came with little things.  They asked how I was.  They asked for my stories, and they told me theirs.  I told them what happened to their ancestors.  The world was slowly transformed into what it should have been.

As time passed, my building because a museum.  They decided that was the best way to honor the fight so it never happened again.  The museum is still there, but most have forgotten it.  It has been many generations since that boy.  I am afraid they have forgotten me once more, but at least they are happy this time.  I exist again in the myths and stories.  No one visits me, and I struggle to keep the bitterness out, but I made that boy a promise.  I will never destroy them and I will always give them one more chance.  I hope one days I will no longer be a myth.
I wrote this this morning. I tried to keep the feeling throughout.

Part 1
© 2012 - 2024 Little-Angel-Kitty
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