[386] 5.10 Katabasis II

“Mom…  It’s…  It’s so good to see you again.”

She doesn’t notice me.  To her— to this shadow of her here in the dungeon, in the underworld— I don’t exist.  She goes to the recliner and sits down after another long day at work.

I sit on the couch across from her, and Chloe sits down next to me.  Mom goes over to the kitchen and pulls out a glass and some ice and pours herself a coke.  I wave at her when she comes back to the living room.  She again doesn’t say anything or even look in my direction.  Despite this, I just might be the happiest woman in the world right now, getting to see her in some semblance of her daily life, before that awful tragedy struck.

Mom sighs.  The TV turns on and the news starts to play.  It’s all fairly banal for a bit.  The anchors are mentioning local politics and various reports from so-called ‘authorities’ about acts of vandalism and a sudden uptick in arson, with no fewer than four separate instances throughout the city.  My heart starts to race as the implication sits in, and seeing Mom lying back with her eyes crossed, is all but concrete proof.

I’ve been taken back to watch Mom on the day the System arrived.  The day she died.  My body tense, only to relax a little when Chloe runs her hands against my back.  But it doesn’t stop me from wondering if there’s not some way to change that dreadful fate.  Not that I allow myself to get too hopeful.

Even if I can stop things here, there’s yet to be a way to truly revive someone from true death.  My [Death Defied] gives me a limited ability to forestall true death.  That [Rekindling Feather] that Hank gave to Chloe and me some time ago allows someone to revive at the instant before true death takes hold.  Other, similar Skills exist to cheat Death to various extents, and I have heard of at least one healing spell that can do the same, though it is not one that Chloe currently knows.

None of them currently known can bring back those who have been dead for longer than a couple of seconds.  Perhaps they exist, locked behind the third or maybe even fourth or fifth ascensions.  And of course, the System itself is not necessarily bound to whatever rules it imposes upon the rest of the universe.  Then again, the System is not benevolent; I do not expect it to be so now.

Chloe again comforts me as I watch Mom living out her final moments.  She awakens from her class-change a few minutes later with puzzled eyes.  Just as the news cuts to a video of someone showing off their new power as a [Fire Mage], I watch Mom as she heads to the kitchen.

There’s not a lot of food in the kitchen; there never was.  Even after Mom or Theo would go to the grocery store, they’d get only barely enough food to last us through the week.  By the time Saturday morning got around, there was usually just barely enough food to make breakfast before one of them had to go get food for lunch and for the rest of the week.  The night the System arrived wouldn’t have been much of an exception.  Just a few slabs of pork sausage, a partially-consumed jar of off-brand tomato sauce, and some assorted boxes of half-consumed pasta of various types.

What I’m surprised by is what Mom does as the meal cooks.  I sense the [Ether] flow starting to change around her.  The spell is nothing special, but the smell that follows is nothing short of mouthwatering.  I guess I had no way of knowing that Mom ended up choosing a [Chef] class to start out.  I knew she did most of the cooking.  I didn’t know she liked doing so to the extent where she had forewent magic and technology and super strength all to be better in the kitchen.

“Maybe she didn’t,” Chloe says.

“Didn’t what?” I ask.

“Choose her class just because it was something she really loved.  And before you ask, love, I can see the question written on your face.  We’ve been together nearly every day for the past… well, more like eighteen years than three.  We’ve played together, fought and bled together, loved together.  That, and our empathic bond, together, means that I have a pretty good idea of what you were thinking about.”

“Then–”

“Because she loved you.  She loved your father and the family that the three of you had together.  She wanted to do what she could to take care of the three of you, to the best of the knowledge that she had when she chose her first class.”  Chloe sighs.  “Mom was the same.  She didn’t choose to become an [Archivist] for personal glory.  She just wanted to keep doing what she had been doing all her working career, and to provide for her family to the best of her ability and knowledge.”

“I wonder if it’s by design that most of the combat-oriented classes are mostly younger people, our age and a little older.  Most of the people Mom’s age are either in noncombat classes, unless they’re specifically interested in law enforcement or the military.”

Chloe laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

“I think that might be the first time that you’ve ever been able to say the word ‘law enforcement’ without looking like you were about to choke the words past your lips.”

“Maybe because the System has forced them to change over these past few years, more accountable to the people.  People like us.  Maybe because I’m selfish and I don’t have to fear them the way I once did.  Maybe our time in the military changed me a little bit.”

There’s a knock on the door.  Mom doesn’t hear it, whistling along badly to some song I don’t remember as she continues to cook the sausage.  I draw my weapon in the hopes that I can do something to affect this moment.

The knock comes again.  Louder and more forceful this time.  Mom turns the heat down to a simmer, then heads toward the front door.  I follow.  [Valkyrion’s Perception] picks up a couple of presences outside, a young man and a woman, both no older than eighteen, each wearing rags, the woman with a bandana over her face like some discount E-list Western movie villain.  They’re giggling at each other, and my temper spikes.

These assholes are the ones responsible for Mom being dead?  I–  I can’t and won’t–

I sear their faces into my memory.  That cheap piece of fabric does nothing to inhibit my gaze.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know if I’ll ever run into these two cretins again; there’s as good of a chance as any that they’re already dead, but…  If by chance they’ve survived, I’ll bring them to justice.  Somehow.  I swear it to myself.

Mom answers the door.  They barge right in the second the door is so much as cracked.  The man has enhanced strength; the woman seems to have taken a speedster class, sacrificing [Vitality] and [Strength] for [Speed].  Both of them move so pitiably slow compared with what I am capable of.  For Mom, being outnumbered, being older, with a noncombatant class, they are easily able to force their way inside.

“What are you two–”

The woman darts right past Mom.  I try to intervene, but just as before, I’m wholly unable to do anything more than watch as the two of them joyhouse their way around the room, looking for any valuables.  Mom responds indignantly as she has every right to, but there’s nothing she can do.

For the first time in years, I feel powerless.  I’m back to being just an ordinary human, none of my levels, none of my Skills, none of anything that I’ve achieved these past three years amounting to jack and shit.  All I can do is watch the horrors that follow as Mom is dragged off to the back of our home.  I don’t follow back there; I’ve already seen it once.  I don’t…  I don’t know if I can bear to see it a second time.

My heart is racing.  My vision is blurring and I don’t even notice the blood dripping down my palm and fingers until Chloe unclenches my fist and taps me with a [Curing Light] spell.

“Do you need to go?” she asks, her voice worried and calm.

“I just…  I wanted to believe there was some reason for all this.  Not just that it was a couple of teens breaking in looking for… for drug money!”

Chloe remains calm— I don’t know how, maybe she has some Skill to regulate her emotions and remain calm in extremely stressful situations.  Considering her choice of occupation, I shouldn’t be surprised.  I refuse to cry, fighting back the tears with everything I have.  These… These callous, sadistic murderers don’t deserve the satisfaction of seeing me weep.

All I want to do is be able to do something— anything— to change what’s happening.  And yet I know I cannot.

The power to rewrite the past is as forbidden by the System as is the power to revive the truly dead.  It is permitted for one to slow time for themself, extending one’s lifespan.  Similarly, a strong being can accelerate one’s mind or body so quickly that one can act as though time is nearly stopped, at least for brief instants— Chloe can already do exactly that.  Logical extensions of those may be possible at higher levels.  Undoing causality is… beyond me, and perhaps beyond anything.

As the two shadows depart, still laughing, celebrating their act of cold murder, my rage breaks and my face is dyed in crimson.  I don’t care that these are just effigies that exist in this facsimile of the real world to allow me to relive and maybe try to make some peace with the past!  I don’t care that nothing I can do can rewrite the past.

I conjure [Infernal] flame with both hands and attempt to fry these two with onyx flame.  It does nothing.  Undeterred, I punch them each again and again as they leave the house and even as they get into their car and begin to drive away I continue my assault in the hopes that at the very least, I can get one good hit in on them.  Nothing happens.  It’s as if I don’t exist, all because I couldn’t have been there when she needed it most.

Again the dam breaks once they’re out of sight.  I’m on my knees, wailing, screaming, cursing the heavens, cursing the System for this, cursing most of all the fact that those pricks probably even gained a level from snuffing out the life of a woman who wanted nothing more than to take care of her family and live a life of peace and who is now gone forever and whom I won’t ever get to see or hear from again.  I don’t even have a single recording of her voice to listen to and remember her by.  I…  I think I can’t even remember her voice at all anymore.  Not beyond those screams that I couldn’t bear to listen to and have already blocked from my memories.

A hand again rests on my back.  It’s been on my back for some time, but I only just now notice it.  I don’t get up for some time.  I’m not yet ready to move on.  My hands are shaky.  My eyes are swollen.  Fatigue sets in.  Why do I have to be so weak?  Why do I have all this power to save the universe if I couldn’t even save the life of the woman who raised me as though I were her own daughter?  It’s not fair.  It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair, and I hate it and I curse it and I curse the System for facilitating her death and doing nothing as the life drained from her body alongside her blood in a memory that unfortunately I can’t cast out of my memories.

“I can’t do this, Chloe,” I mumble.

“You can, Sera.”

“It’s too much for me right now.  Not when so many people are counting on me.”

“You need this, Sera.  You’ll be better able to help others when you are truly and completely ready to do so.”

“I thought I was past this.  I thought I’d made my peace with it–”

“Did you?”  Chloe kneels down beside me and pulls me into an awkward hug with me still on my hands and knees.  “Or did you just try to push past it?”

“I thought I had made my peace with her death three years ago.  I never would have imagined I’d be forced to relive it, watching all the horror a second time.”

“Do you still want to see her?”

“I can’t bear to see her corpse again, Chloe.  It’s…  What they did to her.  It’s too horrible!  I wouldn’t wish that on someone I hated.  Let alone force you or me or someone else to–”

“Would you want to talk with her, for at least a bit?”

“More than anything, Chloe.  But she’s gone.  There’s no way to turn back time and bring her back.”  My head drops almost to the dirt and grass in the poorly-maintained lawn.

“I don’t think even the two of us can bring her back to true life.  But in this strange underworld, I think it’s possible to talk to her.  At least for a little while.”

“You’re not just saying that because you are trying to cheer me up, are you?”

Chloe kisses my cheek.  “Of course not.  I can’t guarantee success, but I think if we use my healing magic and somehow tap into the power of ｢The Anomaly｣ within you, then there’s a chance it’ll work.”

A chance.  A chance to talk with Mom, if only for a bit.  It’s…  Yeah, even if it’s not successful, I’d still like to try.  I nod.

“Whenever you’re ready, my love.  Take as long as you need.”