Sometimes in the continuing voyage of existence, circumstances decree that there must be life-changing events, things that completely destroy you or renew your strength, which entirely morph your perspective of the world, as if you've been looking through a stained glass window and now you're glimpsing through the shattered remains real, untinted life.
I guess my visit with Leila was like that for me. For the rest of the day I just felt lost, like everything I'd known to be true had been washed away. It was as if I couldn't even remember my old life at all, before Sophie and my powers and adventures, before everything that had happened since the Weraynian scare. Did the girl who'd been an aloof know-it-all in class, who'd been dependant on Leila for friendship and cared about her more than anything in the world, even exist anymore? Being on Halapatov emphasized my sense of disconnect with the past, because nothing here reminded me of my childhood at all, there was no familiarity; and with Sophie by my side, how could I not feel the effects of change?
I have to say, throughout this period of inner turmoil, I was not a very good friend to Sophie, but to me she was incredible. She did all she could to keep my spirits up. Even just on the first day following my fight with Leila we did so much, and I knew it was to distract me and it worked, to some extent.
We walked through the city, and Sophie led me to the massive spaceport, where ships were constantly flowing in and out. We viewed the streams of embarking and departing people of all races, and admired the spaceships, and just ran through it trying to see it all. It was far bigger than any spaceport I'd seen in my life, being in a capital city on Halapatov, and I was left in awe of some of the ships and people and spaces that were found there. We saw trade ships, and public transport, and private ships and government ships and enough goings on to make my analytical and information-hungry brain happy for a fortnight, and yet it was hard to really be happy, with the white noise from my swirling emotions as a backdrop for everything I saw. I still managed to enjoy myself, though a part of me wished I could've seen this stuff before visiting Leila, so I could allow myself to be happy about it. That night, instead of retiring back to where we were staying like we normally would, where I would have undoubtedly been alone with my thoughts and ended up distraught, Sophie ushered me onto a transport ship and we travelled across town and out across the suburbs, late into the night, until we reached a relatively grassy plain, scattered with trees. Disembarking from our transport, she led me across the grass in the moonlight, and, though I was exhausted physically and emotionally distraught, my eyes alighted to the heavens and the stunning expanse of stars danced before my eyes. As if by default my body relaxed, and a small smile adorned my face as I followed Sophie, gripping tight to her hand.
I was an incredibly logical person, one who cared about practical things like learning, and building relationships with people. I tended to ignore things that I did not see as helpful to me. I saw no point in them. Yet the stars seemed to be an exception, a guilty pleasure almost, in the gaze of which I was filled with joy at the twinkling lights so far away. On this plain on Halapatov the stars shone bright, which was surprising considering our proximity to the city. So despite everything that was weighing me down, the fear, stress and sadness that mingled in my heart and filled it fit to bursting, I gladly sat with Sophie and stargazed, letting it all slip into the back of my mind, just for this one night.
We'd done this numerous times before, yet Sophie did not complain as I pointed out constellations and described their relevance in astronomy, and babbled on about all that I knew. And she sat contentedly with me in silence for the long while I spent just taking it all in. To me, this night was perfect.
Even as that thought entered my head, guilt crept in. Sophie had organized all this for me. Had we even done anything on this trip for her sake? I could tell that she had been enjoying herself but still I felt bad. I knew that my distress over Leila was perfectly justified, yet it was not fair on Sophie to have to carry me in this way. She was amazing. I had never met anyone like her before, so selfless and bright and caring. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, I felt a rush of gratitude for her.
I wrapped my arms around her in a hug and smiled, though she couldn't see my face. Slightly bewildered, her arms responded to hug me back, and I said, "Thank you for everything. You're the best Sophie. You really are."
"Abi..." I knew Sophie wasn't good with expressing her feelings, not even to me, and I held back a chuckle at her awkwardness in trying to find words. "Anything for you. You're my best friend. I'm so glad we came. The stars are beautiful tonight."
She didn't expect a response for that, I could tell, and so we sat happily together then late into the night, before making the short trip back into the city and each collapsing into our beds, and slipping sweetly into sleep.
* * * * * * *
Sophie and I stood in darkness on the edge of a cliff, the wind whipping through our hair and cutting into our skin with ferocity.
I glanced around nervously. "Why are we here Sophie?" I asked, confused as to the situation.
I could only just make out her silhouette through the gloom, but I clearly saw her tense up. I wondered what was wrong.
"We're here to do what we were meant to do." she replied, and I flinched at the coldness of her tone.
Suddenly, the first rays of sunlight cleared the horizon and I jerked back in horror at the sight below the cliff before us.
I was staring at a Weraynian labour camp. Defenceless people were being tortured and herded by the Weraynians, forced to build ships and weapons for conquest of the galaxy. The grass gleamed with blood; corpses and scraps of metal littered the ground around the feet of the oppressed. Black mist swirled around the menacing structures of Weraynian design and suddenly from the haze I picked up a rush of voices, crying out in pain and agony. It was horrible! I screamed and clamped my hands to my ears, and then filled with compassion I started to climb down the cliff. I was stopped by a pull on the back of my shirt. I turned to see Sophie, her eyes like shards of ice.
"Sophie, we have to help them!" I yelled above the wind, which continued to rage stronger and stronger.
"No!" her voice changed, becoming harsher, and her features flickered. Horrified, I wrenched myself from her grip and backed away, only to find myself pressed against someone. I whipped around to see that I was surrounded by people, so many people who were pressing in on me, suffocating me.
I looked at Sophie to see that she had morphed into Leila, her face contorted with bitter spite.
"You never cared!" her voice rang out against the wind like the sharp scraping of metal. "Why should you help them, when you always let me down? I lived in your shadow for years but now it is you that will taste darkness." A cruel smile caressed her lips, and then the people around me all changed into ghosts, hazy, pale, drifting ghosts netting me in.
The voices continued to ring clear in my head, and, confused, disoriented, terrified, and with my turmoil reaching a crescendo, I began to scream, high and loud. The world dissolved into darkness.
I woke still screaming, clutching my covers as I sat bolt upright, covered in sweat. Sophie stirred in her bed to the left, and I felt my thumping heartbeat relax as I understood that it had been a dream. Actually, no; it had been a nightmare.
I roughly pushed away my covers and swung my legs over the side, sitting on the edge of the bed. I ran my hands down my face, still trembling. I was so confused. I didn't have nightmares. That's not how my brain operated; the part of my subconscious that governed dreams wasn't connected with the segment which generated fear, it was more causally linked with memory patterns if I dreamt at all. Therefore, there must be something external influencing me... something about this place.
I glanced out the window at the dimly lit tree from the street outside, the twinkling lamps of the night playing lightly through its silvery leaves. Maybe this was just from being on a different planet, and stress. The past couple of days hadn't exactly affected me in the greatest of ways. Surely that had to be it. I figured I might as well try to go back to sleep. I needed rest; I knew that for certain.
Yet when I lay down again and pulled the covers over myself I found myself bafflingly wide awake, and with a small sigh I sat up and rested my head on the wall. While some people may have continued to lie down and hope for sleep, I knew my body too well. My nightmare had very effectively woken me up, and now my body refused to fall asleep again. I could maybe coax it to sleep in a few hours if I was lucky. For now, I was set to sit and observe, ponder things and try not to dwell on my fears. I rarely had nights like this, but when I did they usually passed quickly. It wasn't hard for me to become lost in thought. The last time this had happened had been during the Weraynian scare, and then I had been alone and my mind flooded with images of war as I anticipated what morning would bring. I hadn't even known at the time about the Weraynian hidden on the spaceship, or his plan. All I'd known was that there were ships coming, and the potential for bloodshed.
That had been hard. Thankfully now nothing hung in the balance, battle or otherwise. Based on predictions, the war wouldn't even be for more than five years. I had to learn to cast off worry, focus on the little things until that time came. I wondered where I would be during the war. Would I be a healer? Even if I managed to complete my studies sufficiently by then, would I be advanced enough to be sent into battle zones? Would I end up helping mum, or dad, back home with local contributions to the war effort? Would I be part of some training exercise? There were so many options. All I knew was that I wanted to be of as much help as I could, regardless of the cost. Okay, that was a scary thought but I knew I would just have to deal with it. This was far too important to not.
A couple of hours into my musings, Sophie stirred loudly in her bed.
I glanced over, curious as to whether she was waking up, and if so, why. Sophie didn't have nightmares often did she? I felt like I should know. As I found myself looking at her though, I realised that I didn't, since I usually slept so soundly. Sophie wasn't exactly the most open person ever. If she'd been sleeping badly, I wouldn't be any the wiser.
She didn't end up waking, but as I observed her, her face contorted in pain. She looked disturbed by something in her dream. Was it a dream like mine, I wondered. There was no way to know. Sophie started groaning in her sleep, and my alarm was piqued. Her movements became more frantic beneath her sheets, and her complaints more vocal.
"No-no." she murmured, tossing her head as she dreamt. "No. Don't. Stop- No-n- Aldred, no! Don't touch him. Take me, attack me- Aldred no! No! NO!"
My face felt gaunt and I sat transfixed, feeling as if I was intruding on something deeply personal. I thought I'd known Sophie well. She'd told me so many stories, but now I come to think of it, not much about the past, outside of her missions. She had said she'd never had a friend like me before, and about her family, but this was a name unfamiliar to me.
But devastatingly familiar to her, from the sounds of it.
With a final scream, her consciousness resurfaced and she sat up in bed, breathing heavily, completely unaware of the way I sat, petrified, my mouth hanging open rudely.
I wondered if that was the way I had looked when I awoke, tortured by the images my brain had presented me. What was it about Halapatov that incited such fits in us both, and on the same night too? While a major part of me wished to brush it off as coincidence, another nagging part whispered that it couldn't be; that there was something more sinister at work. The worst part was that on the whole, I had to agree. I just wasn't sure why.
After a moment, recovering herself, Sophie glanced over and her eyes widened when she saw me awake as well.
"Can't sleep?" she asked with forced gruffness, arms clutching her shoulders.
I shook my head, and then moved out of my bed and onto hers. I wrapped my arms around her.
"There's something about this place that seems to be affecting us, but it's okay. There's nothing here. Just dreams. We're okay."
Sophie hugged me back idly, her eyes someplace else. We sat in silence for a long while, both lost in thought. I wished I knew what was going on. I wished that everything could go back to the way it was just a few days ago. We'd both been so happy just exploring Halapatov, and there'd been no worrying about Leila or nightmares or anything. Now I was seeing a side of Sophie that had rarely emerged the whole time I'd known her. She was distant and scared. When she was awake, she was never this quiet. I wondered what could be in her past that had made her like this, and more importantly, I needed to know what it was about here that had influenced us both to have such upsetting dreams. It couldn't be nothing. It couldn't be. I was still unnerved from the images from my own dream; Sophie's cold expression, the Weraynian camp, the ghosts. Where had it come from? I needed to know.
A part of me understood that there was something afoot.
It was still dark when Sophie finally stood up from the bed and started pacing around. She seemed full of restless energy and I smirked softly. Typical Sophie.
"Do you want to go outside?" I asked, the thought suddenly striking me. "Get out of here and go do something?"
She stopped pacing and turned to face me, an odd expression on her face. "Right now?"
"It will be light soon. It'd just be getting an early start to the day. We have plenty to do anyway." I reasoned.
I watched with relief through the darkness as a grin alighted Sophie's face once more. "Alright. Sounds like a plan."
So we bundled up our stuff and headed out into the streets, led by the softly glowing street lamps toward the marketplace. I knew the cities on Halapatov were never completely silent, and that was true of here. There were still some people out and about and lights on in buildings. The marketplace even had some stalls that were open through the night. It wasn't much like the markets back home.
When we reached the market square, we saw a source of at least some of the noise in a group of Halapatovians who were doing some early morning exercise in one of the more well-lit open spaces. As part of their routines, currently at least, they were manipulating some colourful mixture with their powers and moving it in patterns in the air. The light from the lamps gleamed through the mixture and lit up the area in even more patterns. It was quite captivating, and Sophie and I stood there for a minute, enthralled by their powers.
Then they moved on to the next part of the routine, and with excited giggles we glanced at each other, and Sophie linked her arm through mine and pulled me onwards.
We walked around in the early morning, just chatting idly about the day and what we were going to do. Eventually Sophie started talking about her research and we were carried away for over an hour as we strolled as we discussed so many of the files in her digi-file, and where she'd go next. This was her life, and there was so much to discover and do for her search. It was such an easily intriguing topic that we almost didn't notice when the sun cleared the city and was shining in our faces.
That was the point where we decided that we'd go find a place to eat breakfast.
In itself, that took us ages, because it was still early morning, and the busyness of Halapatov meant that that people occupied cafes and stalls in an attempt to gain sustenance before their days begun.
Eventually we found a place that wasn't too packed, and ordered ourselves something to eat. I'd worked up quite an appetite from all the walking around and Sophie just as eagerly ate when our food arrived.
Once we'd finished, our day truly began.
We walked to the centre of the business district, and found the high council building. It was tall and elegant, regal almost, and very old. Sophie took notes and we passed by the pillars into the foyer, where there were plenty of people to talk to.
The secretary almost screamed when Sophie started to ask her questions.
"You're those two girls from Flauraan... from the scare." She said in awe, eyes wide.
Sophie grinned at me. "It's nice to be recognised."
Following the long ordeal of research and the somewhat sheepish questions from the lady, we left again and had some lunch.
After lunch was perhaps my favourite part of the day; a trip to the Streinzets Museum, commonly called the Staar Matter Museum. I'd been looking forward to it for a while. Before Leila had moved to Halapatov, we'd both talked eagerly about how the city she would be living in would be right near this museum. It was an ancient building, and had relics from ages past, since before Halapatov had discovered space travel. For two young paladanians, eager for knowledge, this was an exciting thing. This museum had some of the most famous exhibits in the Staarus system. It was a fairly small thing overall.
We paid the small fee to enter the museum, and then I led Sophie through room after room of exhibits, gushing about Halapatovian history and system-wide events and important people and the specific context of the artefacts, like tapestries and fossils and machines and items, that filled the museum. Sophie listened with an absent smile, occasionally noting down one detail or another on her digifile, diligent as ever.
We reached a room unlike the others, darkened with star maps all around the walls and ceiling. I was instantly entranced, and stared at the constellations that were so like the drawings I'd done myself. I loved the stars, I really did.
Sophie was also instantly engaged with the room, crossing to the middle where a holotable stood.
"Finally, something I know about," She grinned at me. "Holograms, databanks. This looks good."
She waved her hand over the receptor and the holograms burst forth from the surface of the table, an array of different sized spheres, and vectors and curves between them. Small labels adorned each sphere, and they arranged themselves around the largest sphere of all, in elliptical motions. They hung suspended over the table, and I found myself drawn away from the star maps by the glowing objects.
I joined Sophie's side as she surveyed the hologram.
"It's the Staarus system!" she exclaimed in glee, and I nodded as she turned to me, eyes twinkling. This is so cool! It's live, as far as I can tell. Man, I am impressed."
I laughed. "It's just a three dimensional star map, practically. You know all this already."
"Yeah, but this looks more impressive." She shrugged and to prove her point pulled out her digifile to record it.
I shook my head with a smile and then turned my attention to the table, and the spheres that represented planets around a sun, our staar.
When Sophie put away her device, I pointed to one of the larger spheres, only a few planets away from the sun.
"That's where we are right now."
She nodded. "Halapatov, nice. Home of halapatovians and a very deep history. I've learnt that much at least while I've been here." She pointed to the smaller planet in the orbit behind it. "And that's Flauraan?"
"Yup. You know about that too, hopefully. And Aandrigo is one of its moons, and is inhabited."
"Yeah, because the Aandrigians were settled there after the people of Pecayen divided. They wanted to make a better living there, away from the trouble on their home planet I suppose." she mused. "Many Aandrigians have also resettled on Halapatov, and have integrated into society in stark contrast to the Weraynians."
I smirked at some of the phrases she'd used. "You remembered that pretty exactly."
"Well they have an intriguing history." she shrugged, and I nodded in understanding. Aandrigo really did. "I felt like it was important to know."
"It is." I agreed sombrely. Sophie and I stood for a moment in quiet contemplation.
"And then, of course, Werayne." Sophie reached out for the final inhabited planet in the system. We both looked at it. From the hologram, it didn't look too significant. It had lights and water and ground and clouds just like all the other planets. It was difficult to imagine that this planet, and its people, had left such a dark stain on my system's history. It was even more difficult to imagine that, soon, they could be inflicting that kind of damage again.
Sophie zoomed in on the hologram, ignoring the translucent fact sheet that was suspended beside the planet. "Does it show the force field, do you think?"
We closely inspected it, and saw that it did. The hologram included the numerable space stations that orbited Werayne, and the faint glimmer that represented the powerful force field that surrounded the planet. At least we had that encouragement, that for now the force field was intact, and the Weraynians were held at bay. The other planets on the hologram were uninhabited, and after that we finished looking at them and moved on with our tour through the museum. As we reached the centre, I grabbed onto Sophie's hand and started to drag her.
"Come on, we've got to see it!" I urged and she laughed as we ran together towards the domed room that comprised the middle of the building. This was where Halapatov's most famous exhibit was housed.
A silvery glow greeted our faces from above as we entered. We stared upwards as we walked over to the roped-off centre and were met with an awe-inspiring sight.
Above our heads was a gleaming, softly pulsing sphere of a staar matter mixture that had been caught and suspended long ago. The halapatovians had captured this form with their powers and preserved it, and now it presided as a massive ball of stable light and gas. It was enthralling.
"Wow." Sophie breathed and I grinned.
"Yeah."
A while later we left the museum and headed down the street without any particular destination in mind. It was getting late in the afternoon, and we didn't really have any plans for the rest of the day.
Sophie pulled out her digifile to consult some notes as we walked, slowing down substantially as her concentration shifted. As we passed an alleyway I felt a shiver go down my spine, and I glanced into the darkened alley, my senses on alert for anything strange. To my surprise I saw an odd glow and, with a measured glance back at Sophie, engrossed in her device with her bottom lip jutting out, I decided to check it out.
I turned the corner, following the light and ignoring the fear that was thrilling through me at what my senses was telling me was an incredibly strange anomaly. The chills I was feeling only grew more potent, with alarm bells ringing in every part of me. This was something odd, something... almost wrong, but after everything that had been going on my curiosity was piqued. I had to know.
My confusion grew as I glanced around me for the source of the glow, and the strange feeling I had. Suddenly, a soft but sharp sound like some sort of strong breeze filled the air around me, and I watched in shock as gleaming particles began to draw together, sucked from the surroundings and coalescing in a vaguely humanoid shape before me. My eyebrows shot up and my jaw dropped.
"Sophie!" I called behind me softly, eyes still fixed ahead to the strange apparition. "Come look at this."
"Coming!" The crash of my friend coming round a corner. I fought the urge to drag my hand down my face at her clumsiness and then focussed on my quarry. Startled, I widened my eyes as I realised that it was looking at me. A silvery amber colour, translucent and yet somehow so present, I felt the strange being staring at me as if dissecting my very soul. Why was it here? What was it? All the evidence led me to one - unbelievable! - solution. I was looking at a ghost.
Then Sophie's heavy footsteps could be heard arriving in the background, and with a sense of desperate panic, the ghost vanished.
At that moment, a terrified scream sounded from behind us, piercing through the night.