[387] 5.11 Katabasis III

It feels like about half an hour passes before I’m finally in a state where I’m ready to try whatever Chloe has planned.  Truthfully, a large part of me doesn’t want to go in there.  I’m already getting my hopes up more than is healthy and if Chloe’s plan fails, I don’t know how I’d be able to pick up the pieces and be in any way functional for when we inevitably have to leave this place and return to fighting monsters and probably humans as well.  But I trust Chloe and I believe her when she says that she thinks she can do it.

We make our way back inside.  My vision is still a little blurry and my breath a little shaky.  I take a moment to calm myself while Chloe steps into the back to prepare.  While she’s setting up, I close my eyes and return to my [Ether] manipulation exercises, feeling the push and the pull as the flow goes through me.

Rather than pushing [Ether] to the edge of my fingertips as I often do, I focus on pushing it through random and generally unwieldy parts of my body.  Doing so through my elbows or shoulders is not so difficult.  Concentrating my energy into the side of my hip or the cheeks of my ass proves somewhat more tedious.  Not impossible, with concentration.  But it’s something I will have to continue to practice with in order to best make use of my Skills in the throes of battles which will grow increasingly complex and fast-paced.

“I’m ready, Sera,” Chloe says.

I take a moment to steel myself and remind myself that there’s no guarantee that this will work.  I try not to get my hopes up and keep telling myself that I’m doing this to humor Chloe.  I shake my head.  That’s not quite right.  I’m acceding to this because I trust Chloe with everything I have and am, and believe her entreaties when she says that this may be possible.

“Alright, I’ll be right there.”

Mom lies by the side of the bed, in the same place and position that had been seared in my mind the day I saw her corpse.  The only difference now is that, contrary to my expectations, she is not quite dead, nor quite alive, but in some interstitial state between the two.

“Are you ready?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I’m going to use [Divine Reimaging] in order to temporarily heal your mother’s body.  I–”  She pauses.  “I won’t be able to do so for very long.  You’ll have, at most, a few minutes to say your good-byes before I run out of [Ether].”

“What do you need me to do to help?”

“Nothing,” Chloe says.  “Look at your mother.  Her body isn’t monochrome anymore.  It’s not like before where we could do nothing to affect them.”

I take another deep breath.  Chloe pats my back.  Then she closes her eyes and begins her spell, emitting a golden glow as her magic takes effect.  Even now, I don’t understand the full extent of her spell.  It allows her to rewrite and reshape biology at a molecular level.  As far as I understand, she’s going to, in a sense, puppet my mother’s body and force it to sustain life even in the absence of a soul, or something.  I don’t know.  I don’t know if Chloe knows either.  But if it will give me a bit of time, I’m willing to try it.

The wounds on Mom’s body close up.  Her bruises evaporate, her blood seeps back into her body.  She takes a heavy and deep breath as oxygen reenters her lungs, and she continues to breathe in a manner that feels more mechanical than instinctual.  All of this is having a negative effect on Chloe; she’s already starting to sweat and show signs of pain as Mom slowly comes to. 

Mom blinks twice, looking around before her eyes fix upon me.  She eyes me up and down a couple of times.  “What’s with the wings?” she asks.  “Halloween’s not for another six months!”

My eyes are wet once more, from elation rather than rage.  Mom is slow to stand up, so I help her and pull her into a long hug, being careful that I don’t accidentally hurt her frail, System-less body.  She holds me as well, gripping me what is probably pretty tight but feels like little more than the pressure of wind against my back.

“It’s…  It’s been a while, Mom.  Lots of things have happened since the last time I saw you.”

“Lots of things?  Hasn’t it just been this morning?  And weren’t you and Chloe supposed to be meeting up after school?  I thought you two weren’t going to be home until late tonight.”

“Well, you know, once I saw the thing with the System, I figured I had to come back right away.  I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”  Not…  Not again.

Mom pulls back; I take care to let her.  Her eyes meet mine.  Despite the lack of a biological relation, we do share the same bright, teal eyes.

“And the wings?”

“They’re… uh…”  I pause for a moment.  “You know how those blue boxes showed up for you a bit ago?  Well, they did for me as well, a little bit before you got home.  And part of what happened was that I got wings.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to fly one day, but I guess I really wanted to, and so that’s how my Class ended up developing.”

“You know, your father always told me that one day, you’d end up touching the stars.”  Mom smiles.  Even though she’s four inches shorter than I am, she places her hand on my shoulder in comfort just as she did when I was much younger.  “I didn’t think he meant it quite so literally.”

She pauses for a moment.  I realize just how weak she is.  Even just standing up, the wobble in her feet and knees and the way she pauses tells me that she doesn’t have a lot of time left.  I don’t bring her attention to it, just nodding in affirmation.

“You know, you look like you’ve grown a lot since just yesterday,” Mom says.  “You look a little more mature.  Like you’ve finally grown from a girl into a woman.”

“Yeah, Mom.  I suppose I have, just a little bit.”

“And what about Chloe?  How’s she been doing?”  Mom throws in a coy look as though to say that knows we’re romantically together.  She never did give any indication of as much, but maybe she knew all along that we’d find each other.  Well before I did, in either case.

“She’s been doing just fine.  Better than fine, really.  She’s great.”  I love her so much and part of me just wants to scream it up to heaven and back down to hell, though I don’t admit as much to Mom.  I’m not embarrassed in the slightest to admit it, but I don’t want to spend what little time I have with her fielding the many, many questions she’ll have about our relationship.

“Are you still planning to go with her to that concert next week?”

“We’re just going to play it by ear and see what ends up happening.  Chloe was showing me the news reports on her phone and I’ve definitely seen some weird stuff happening.”

“You mean like those blue boxes you were mentioning earlier?”

“Yeah.  And getting access to magic and stuff….  Or so some people are claiming online,” I quickly add.  “I haven’t really gotten a chance to test it for myself.”  I lie here to preserve the integrity of the moment.

“Magic?”  Mom chuckles.  “I’ve been around the block a few times.  I might not be as familiar with the internet and all those video sites as you are, but I know that just because there are videos going on online doesn’t mean it’s all truthful.”

“I know.  But between that and the news, we’re just going to wait a bit and try to stay safe.”  Mom doesn’t need to know that I turned into a risk-seeking battle junkie

“That sounds like a good plan, Sera.  Anyway, dinner’s almost ready, so I should probably check on the stove.  Mom yawns.  “I’m going to–”  She stumbles a bit.  I help her get her pants off and then with lying down in the bed.  Then I tuck her in just as she did whenever I would get sick.

Mom gives me a weak smile.  From behind my back, I conjure a bottle of water from my [Inventory] and help her sit up and take a drink.  Then she lies back down.

“I’m sorry, Sera.  I find myself so… tired of a sudden.  I put dinner on the stove.  If you don’t mind, you can go ahead and eat whenever you’re hungry.  Just put the leftovers in the fridge and I’ll.”  She yawns.

“Of course, Mom.”  I kneel down to give her another hug.

She closes her eyes.  “I think I’m going to sleep now.  I think the years might be catching up to me now that I’m no longer thirty.”

“It’s okay.  I can take care of things around the house while you rest.”  I give a somber smile.  “Also, I love you, Mom.  Just feel like I haven’t had enough of a chance to say so.”

“I love you too, dear.  And… I want you to know that I’ve always been very proud of you, Seraphina.  No matter what happens, I’ll always be your mother and I’ll always be there to support you.”

“Thanks, Mom.”  It’s all I can say through glistening eyes and the realization that I’ll only get another few moments with her before she has to go once more.

Mom closes her eyes.  “And, when your father gets home, tell him that he might have to take me to the urgent care in the morning if I’m not feeling better by then.”

“I will, Mom.  I hope you…  I hope you have a good nap.”

Mom closes her eyes and slips into a restful sleep.  I step out the door.  I know that this is it, but I just can’t bear to watch these conjured essences of life that Chloe is forcing into her slip away despite my fiancée’s best efforts.  This is all just a nice, restful, peaceful, eternal nap.  I cerebrally know otherwise, but I hope that I was able to maybe change the past just enough to make sure her final moments were as peaceful and loving as I could make them.

I find myself sitting on the couch with Chloe’s arms and a golden-white wing wrapped around my now wingless back.  I don’t know how long I was out of it, but now my stomach is starting to grumble just a bit.  The sun’s still shining daylight, but that might not mean a whole lot in a facsimile world that is tied to the very moment when my mother passed away.

“Are you feeling any better, Sera?” Chloe asks.

“I am.  And thank you, Chloe.  I don’t know how I can thank you for giving me an opportunity to see my mother one more time.”

“You’ve given me so much happiness, Sera.  After everything we’ve gone through, how can I not try to help when you need it?”

I turn and plant a deep one right on Chloe’s lips.  I don’t know how, even in a dungeon, her scent and the taste of her lips and her tongue are always completely immaculate.  Must be some total bullshit Skill she has.  Obviously, as the primary beneficiary, I’m sure as hell not going to complain about it in the slightest!

“I appreciate it, love,” I say.

“Are you feeling well enough to keep moving on?”

“I think so.”

I stand up and walk outside.  The cool late-afternoon wind begins to blow, and the sun’s warmth shines upon my face.  Chloe steps out onto the tiny patio next to me, and for a few seconds, we simply look up at the mostly sunny skies, watching as a couple of white cumulus clouds drift off toward what would have been the northeast had this been Earth and not just some liminal re-creation of the same.

We stay like that for a couple of minutes until sights and sounds start to fade.  Color retreats from my old family home, and from the blue skies and yellow sun soon thereafter.  The wind slows from a gust to a breeze before growing calm and then still.  The scent of grass and bugs dies on my nostrils.  Even the shape of the world itself fades away until all that is left is black.  Black, and Chloe, who remains there with me through hell and high water alike, upon whom I can always rely.

“I think I’m ready to move on,” I say.  “I believe we still have a dungeon to clear.  And a universe to save.”

Chloe laughs.  “No pressure, right?”

I kiss her.