I awoke the next day to the sound of a loud bell chiming. Rolling out of bed in surprise, I landed on the floor with an oomph and then my face lit up with a grin, remembering where I was.
"Sophie, wake up!" I threw a pillow at her, as she'd so graciously done to me many times before, and groggily she woke up as well. She dragged her teleport watch arm's hand through her bird's nest of hair and then threw off her tiny red blanket.
"Good morning." she flashed me a brilliant grin as she hopped out of bed.
We both readied ourselves for the day and then Sophie slung her backpack onto her back. "Ready to go?"
I nodded, picking up my duffel bag. "Of course."
We exited the door and ventured out into the world of Halapatov once more.
Waving at our fellows from last night as we passed them in the hallway, we checked out of the motel and left for a cafe in the middle of the city we'd spotted the day before.
"Ooh look at that egg!" Sophie exclaimed as her breakfast was placed before her by a smirking waitress. I glanced over to see that the yolk was red.
"It's from an intni, native to this area." I explained, munching on my fruit dough bread as I looked out the window at the media panel in the city square. Currently they were broadcasting about the festival on Mullthytude. Once a simple island village, it was now a thriving city, and a centre for trade. The festival was an absolutely gigantic feat.
"We're going to that?" I inquired of Sophie, and she removed her eyes from her red egg to look at the report I was watching and nodded.
"Of course. How could we miss such an event?"
"Good." I replied, and finished eating my breakfast, drained my glass of juice, wiped my mouth and then waited for Sophie to finish her egg.
She then stood up, and I followed her out of the cafe, having already paid for our meals.
"Before we go there," Sophie continued as we headed through the city. "We have a few other places to check out. You in?"
I rolled my eyes. "Of course!"
So we boarded a transport which Sophie said was like a 'train' and then headed at incredible speed out of the city and across the country to our next destination.
On the way, Sophie pulled out of her bag a childish card game based on planets in the solar system which we then proceeded to play. We had hardly even gotten through one round before the transport slowed down, signalling it had reached our stop.
Sophie and I moved to the side of our carriage, clutching our belongings as the doors opened and people started to leave. A huge flow of people exited before we even were close to leaving and then we politely pushed through and joined everyone in panning out on the platform.
"What a way to travel!" I stated to Sophie, who gave an amused smile. I knew she'd travelled on many vehicles like it before. She came from Earth, for staarus' sake, so of course she had! I however was used to the simple but efficient transport from my home world, where nothing was anywhere near as impressive as anything on Halapatov.
We decided to go with the flow of the crowds along the streets of our current city, before Sophie pointed out a speeder hire shop to me and we ran over to it.
An alarm chimed as we entered through the door and we were instantly greeted by twin Halapatovians.
"Good morning." they said in unison, and then gestured around them. "Would you like to hire a speeder?"
I bit back a retort about the fact that we'd entered a shop advertising speeder hire so clearly that's why we were here and nodded. Sophie fished some of the money she'd acquired out of her pocket and proffered it to the owners.
"How much would it be for a day's hire?" she asked.
"Twenty tran." the taller of the twins asked. I noted the scar on her upper lip and my brain recorded that she'd been in a nasty accident as a toddler. The other was unscarred, and the more reserved of the two, so I hypothesized that she had been there when the accident occurred, but had held back from the daring deed which had gotten her twin injured. This was all, of course, irrelevant.
Sophie handed over the coins, and then the twins led us outside, retrieving two helmets from behind the window as they did so.
Once at the front of the store, they took us straight to a simple dark coloured speeder, controlled by thruster technology and gave us the helmets.
After a quick tutorial in how to use the speeder, we thanked the owners and then hopped on.
For this first trip, Sophie planned to drive and I sat behind her. We swung our duffel bags into a storage compartment underneath, then Sophie revved the engine and we headed off.
Sophie whooped as we sped through the streets, and I marvelled at the way the wind blew through my hair. It was quite a wondrous feeling, really.
We laughed together, as we exited the town and arrived on an empty highway. I assumed we were heading to a more natural attraction that Halapatov had to offer and asked Sophie specifically what it was to which she answered, "It's a surprise!" and then I shook my head with a smile at her eminent enthusiasm.
After passing through various towns and even across a river, skimming over the flowing water, Sophie zipped us through a forest. The view was amazing the whole time, and using Sophie's scanner I managed to take a good deal of photographs. I knew my mother would want to see them when we came back.
Soon we arrived at a clearing with a walking path leading off, where we couldn't take the speeder. We dismounted, locked the vehicle, and then Sophie led me down the path. I knew she wanted to surprise me, but I knew as much about Halapatov as she did, and most likely a lot more. I knew we were headed to the Crystal Caves, a stunning natural feature composed of gleaming rock, and with a luminescent interior including a massive underground lake.
"Crystal caves?" I put my only query forward to Sophie, who pouted at my knowledge of our destination. "Are we going to hire a dinghy when we're there?"
Sophie's face lit up in a mischievous smile. "What else would you go to the Crystal Caves for, Abi?" she enthused.
I rolled my eyes, something I hadn't done in a while. "Alright then."
Because Sophie was Sophie, she decided to announce a race to the site, and, exasperated, I sprinted after her, competitive as always. The competition ended when she tripped over and we started stumbling, laughing, as we continued to run, egging each other on.
Soon we reached the entrance to the Crystal Caves, which was stunning all in itself with the light shining from within and the rock outcrop which glowed mildly, and used the automated system there to hire a boat. There was a lot of trust on Halapatov, so no actual people were here at the site to make sure we didn't do something stupid, but there was a watcher drone just in case an emergency occurred. Sophie and I walked through the entrance, wowing at the massive glowing cavern we entered, and headed to the shore of the gigantic lake that wound throughout the place. Delicately I stepped into the dinghy that awaited there, and Sophie followed suit, settling down into the boat beside me. Then, as if by magic, the dinghy set off, carving a course through the water as we stared at the wondrous crystal all around.
It was phosphorescent in the Crystal Caves, meaning the whole cavern naturally glowed, which made it easy to make out any feature of every rock in the place. I leaned over the edge of our softly swaying little dinghy and smiled at the sight of tiny fish swimming in the crystal clear water, some diving into the smooth sand on the lake floor as the boat moved overhead, others scattering, some staying, being used to the commotion by now, considering the amount of visitors this attraction had had over the years.
Sitting upright again, I joined Sophie in staring all around us at the beautiful crystal rock, gently glowing, stalactites and stalagmites alike scattered about. It was a truly wondrous place to be in, under the soft light and harsh crystal structures. It wasn't as if there weren't places like this on Flauraan, or anywhere else, but somehow, being on Halapatov, with Sophie, made seeing everything here a thousand times more enjoyable. I suppose it's because it was a place I wasn't used to, somewhere new, on a planet where the culture was abstract to my own and their history was different. I thought as we flowed across the lake, knowing that I wanted to travel often when I was older, because of all the newness it opened up, how you think about things differently, and, somehow, are able to enjoy life more and appreciate it just by being in a different place.
Life really was amazing, wasn't it?
Once we'd been through the whole place in the dinghy, it returned to the original shore, and Sophie and I exited the caves, smiling, and headed back down the path to our speeder, both still in the blissful silence that the crystal cavern had bestowed upon us.
We sped once more through foliage and then emerged on the other side of the forest we'd entered earlier, and then we passed through busy towns as well as other transports along the way. Thinking more of history than awe now in our destination, we ventured to a large-scale city called Valorie at the mouth of a valley, unmounted from the speeder, then walked leisurely through the glowing streets. Seeing as the place we were heading was of my own choice, I deigned to explain it to Sophie on our way there.
"This city is one of the oldest settlements on Halapatov; it was here long before they even invented space travel." she nodded her head, comparing this with the knowledge of Halapatovian history she had accumulated over the past few weeks.
"Yeah, you can see traces of the old architecture in the structure of the modern buildings." she commented in an attempt to sound knowledgeable. I raised an eyebrow at her and then decided not to comment.
"It's also an important place historically; the signing of the Great Halapatovian Agreement was here, and some of the materials that formed the first space craft made in Halapatov's history were mined in the area lining the valley. Naturally, this city is huge."
"Yeah." Sophie responded vaguely, eyes roaming the massive buildings and ever continuing streets as we kept on with our trek through the city.
"That's not all either. Before either of those two events happened, this settlement became important for a different reason. As it was slowly becoming a capitol-like place, people from other cities noticed and didn't want to be controlled by them, so-"
"They went to war against them." I nodded at Sophie, whose head was inclined as if she was deep in thought, eyes searching the sky. "Yeah, I read about this; it's in my report too, under history.It was a turning point in the uniting of the scattered people of Halapatov or something."
"Well, of this continent, yeah." I said. "So many people died in the valley, and the war waged for so long, that everyone was desperate for a peaceful decision. Finally, they decided on a treaty, an agreement, that would allow everyone in the land to live in harmony, or at least that was the plan. By then there had been so many lives lost though, it's horrendous."
Sophie was still in thought. I smiled. watching the way her forehead creased in conversation, and the tiny frown that appeared on her face. "So that means we're here to see-"
"The empty plains of Valorie, yah." I nodded my head to the fog that could just be seen in the distance, that covered the valley beyond the city, where the plains lay.
"Wow." Sophie said simply, quietly.
We still had a fair way to walk so we kept chatting about the city, pointing out anything interesting we saw along the way. In the back of my brain I was thinking about how strange it was that we were here to see a place with such a bloody history. I had chosen to come here because as a child the stories of the battle waged on those plains had intrigued and frightened me, and I wanted to see it for myself, to really understand the immensity of an event like that. I suppose, also, in the wake of the Weraynian scare, I was doing anything I could to prepare for war, and if that meant seeing ancient battlefields, so be it.
There was a high wall we had to pass to get to the plains, and as we passed through it I stared up at the imposing structure. In the present Halapatov was a happy, thriving place, most of its construction was bright and kind looking, but it was clear that this wall had been built during the war. The mixture of dark brick and metal, the watchtowers and the thickness of it all spoke of war, of danger, and the part of me that wasn't focused on what I was doing was plunged into thoughts of the reality of war. The images I'd seen during my breakdown in training flooded my mind, and I felt sick. War was coming, I knew; I'd always known. Yet somehow just seeing a wall erected during wartime was filling me with dread.
The Staarus system was not ready to face the Weraynians.
I was wrenched out of my thoughts as the gate swung open and we walked through the long tunnel that led to the plains outside. The battle there had been fought right up to the edge of Valorie, and thus the wall was made as thick as could be, in a desperate attempt to contain the fighting. Sophie grabbed my hand and squeezed it as we moved closer to the mist that signified the end of the tunnel, and then we passed onto the empty plains.
It was a sight I was not sure I could describe with justice. The battle, though having happened thousands of years before, had left an irrevocable mark on the land, scattering it with deeply embedded wreckage of war machines, lifeless grass smattered with patches of accelerated growth that told me decomposing bodies had lain there, the whole area dark and foggy as if the natural forces had been upended, and a silence lay over the place that seemed to penetrate your very soul. It was eerie, and I couldn't help but wonder at the kind of devastation that could have been kept in such preservation, that could have caused me to feel this way.
A lump rose in my throat, growing ever closer to spilling out of my mouth in a horrified scream, and the images I'd been repressing assaulted my mind in full force, each breath coming in shorter than the last.
Surveying the plains, dark and gashed with its history of war, I could do nothing to contain the thoughts that threatened to engulf me. I was shaking with the horror of it all, the waves of pain and blood and battle that rolled over me, memories of my knowledge of war triggered by the dead, ghastly land before me. It was almost on the level of the attack when I was seven, and I was surprised that everything around us wasn't flying around in a frenzy. Why had I decided we should come here? How had I not realized that the remains of a long laid at rest battlefield would invoke such a response in my brain?
I already knew the answer; the Personal Flaw. So blinded by my fear of the coming Weraynian war, I had felt compelled to see this place, to comprehend the reality of death and suffering. Well now I was, and it hurt like hell.
As if through a shield of water, Sophie's frantic voice came to me. When I came to my senses I found her shaking my arm, her face white. This puzzled me for a moment; Sophie was rarely scared. Then I realized I was trembling violently, collapsed to my knees and practically hyperventilating. That would be enough to worry anyone, let alone terrify them.
I ripped my thoughts away from the plains of Valorie and my breath came out ragged as I knelt on the stunted grass, staring at the ground to recover myself. I really hadn't expected a reaction like that.
"Abi, what's wrong?" Sophie urged with her hand resting on my shoulder.
I tapped the side of my head, breathing haggardly, and glanced up at her. "Memories... it triggered..... memories. Things that make my powers go haywire, turn my thoughts to frenzy."
She bit down on her lip. "Why did we come here then? Surely you knew what would happen." she said, forehead creased, mirroring my thoughts from earlier.
Sitting back on my haunches, I shook my head and stared upwards at the hazy sky. "I had to see."
Really, I knew that this was such a small thing to react so violently over, but I couldn't shake my fear of the war. It was building every day, and although Halapatov was amazing, it couldn't erase my knowledge that the Weraynians would be breaking out of the force field soon.
We only spent a few moments longer there, and I earnestly conversed with Sophie in an attempt to distract myself.
Only as we headed back through the town, on our way to our next destination, did I allow myself to think of the attack I'd had on the plains, and as I did something stood out to me. The images I'd seen hadn't all been from my memory. It was as if my brain had leeched off of the memories of those who'd fallen on the battlefield. I couldn't think of any other explanation for it, but I knew it was ridiculous. I mean, there's no such thing as ghosts.
* * * * * * *
Considering that we'd hardly seen evn a third of the continent at this point, it was quite sad when we hopped on the boat that would take us to the island festival and left it, but I knew that near the end of the next week we'd be coming back. This was the continent where Leila lived, in the big city on the other side of the landmass. Besides, after the darkness that had attempted to pierce my bubble of brightness when we'd gone to the empty plains of Valorie, I wanted nothing more than to see, explore, experience all the excitement Halapatov had to offer. We'd hardly seen one section of a single continent, and that had been absolutely amazing. To go with Sophie and see the rest of Halapatov was more than I could ever have imagined happening, and despite my unease as we glided towards the distant shore of the island I knew that the rest of this trip was set to be completely incredible.
And incredible was exactly what Sophie delivered. As if she was attempting to abate all worries of war from my mind (and perhaps she was) she threw herself into the trip with a passion. Everywhere she went she made the most of it, whether pulling me into the centre of a parade during the island festival to celebrate like mad, or engaging me with a tour of a famous technological institute on the next continent over, or waving merrily at those who lived in the various towns we passed through, or standing with me on a rock platform at low tide to watch the sunrise, both of us glowing in the dim light. The next days were exciting, adventurous and helped me to clear my head and just relax into being on such a wonderful trip with Sophie. Even when we weren't doing anything particular we would talk endlessly, just happy to be together here.
I didn't want it to end, but couldn't spare myself much thought to feel sad about that. We had so much to do before even thinking about getting there. We visited the polar regions, battling our way through snowy storms and extreme adventures to collapse happily onto our beds at the end of the day. We frequented spaceports just for the fun of it, to experience a sense of authentic travel and see how everything operated. We climbed ancient castle towers in the highlands, delighting at the beauty of everything around. We saw the medical centre and government buildings and learnt plenty. We received a taste of all sorts of Halapatovian culture, whether food or traditions or religion or anything, all over the place. We looked in on community programs, smiling at the sight of children taking part in activities, and sometimes even joined in ourselves. We ventured excitedly through an astronomy lab, as I took in everything with an awestruck expression, and gleefully took an extensive turn looking at the stars through the massive telescope. We enjoyed the hike to a lush cliff settlement. We saw places and people and things that had previously only been facts inside of my brain, and now I had them stored as memories forever and ever, precious memories of being in the best of places with my best friend. Each night as I briefly checked in with my parents over the network I gushed and every now and then she chuckled at my enthusiasm. I slept each night contentedly, looking forward to the next day.
Finally, finally, the trip drew towards a close, and with a slight twinge of melancholy Sophie and I hopped off of our transport into the busy streets of a large city on the far side of the continent we'd started on. Leila's city. The next day I was to go visit her, to surprise her, and I smiled that night at the thought of reunion as I drifted off to sleep in my bed beside Sophie's. Tomorrow was to be the beginning of the end of our trip.