Chapter 17: Nightmare

ALICIA

One evening, we sat outside Rena's place and talked. Autumntwig, Marina, Aellisa, and Arboria were there, having finished their duties for the day, and we were just hanging out watching the stars. "Hey," I said, "Will I ever see my parents again? I mean, I left everything to be here, but aren't they worried about me?" Arboria shook her head, "I thought you knew. You were adopted." I nodded, "Right, Rena saved me from a killer nurse, and gave them to this family to raise." She shook her head, then Rena clarified, "No this wasn't a regular adoption. They were part of our organization. When you left for my house, their job was over. They never had any real connection to you, any more than 'Willow' or 'Ash' over there." She pointed to Autumntwig and Arboria. Autumntwig shook her head, "Oh I dunno, I'm not convinced that they don't have some lingering feelings. I played your brother all this time, and even though most of it was an outright illusion, I still feel like a brother to you." I looked at Autumntwig's short feminine figure, soft cinnamon hair, and goofy clothing. It was difficult to believe that looking at her now, but she seemed serious about that, so I shrugged. She continued, "I will probably raise these kids that I adopted until they are adults, and maybe after. It's difficult to know whether they have no feelings for you, even if they do pack up and leave when you're gone." Aellisa snorted at this idea. Gnomes among their own families kept in touch with their children for hundreds of years. Elves, on the other hand, considered their children independent when they were still teenagers.

"What about you two?" I asked, pointing to Arboria and Marina. Marina explained, "Well, merfolk have a sort of mix. Our parents spawn us from eggs, so we never know our actual mother and father. But I used to swim with a school of my kind, so it was a sort of informal family." Arboria said, "In my case, child raising is more about providing a good initial environment. My parents planted my tree in the best soil, watered it, and gave it plenty of fertilizer. There wasn't any social contact to speak of, and I was born when the plant began to fruit. After that, it was pretty much up to me to survive. Once I became independent from a specific tree, I was considered grown."

"What's with all this talk of family anyway? One day, your adopted parents will die," she sulked, "Your actual parents are already dead, long ago from a demon attack. We're here for you, isn't that enough?!?" At this point, I was strongly tempted to scream at her, or at least argue, but one look at her sad face, and all I blurted out was that, "It's not like I ever saw your parents anyway." She sat there sullen, and refused to answer.

RENA

The others don't know about how most immortal beings come about. They were, after all, second or third generation. My parents were human, and when I became immortal, it was years before I met them in Winter, before the witch cursed the town. I got to watch my mother and father die in front of my eyes, and spent years never able to see them again. The others can all visit their parents whenever they want, but I can't. She's gone. He's gone. And Jesus brought back the dead, but he won't bring them back. They're all in the Afterlife, and I won't be able to see them until I die. I'm hard to kill, and I don't die of old age, so that might be never.

Immortals are made or born, but the first ones all became immortals. It started with human experimentation. Working with genetic manipulation, humans tried to make each other into something resembling monsters. This was what the Great Flood was all about. Not the one that was told about in the Bible, the one that went further back than the Epic of Gilgamesh. Back then, there was a danger of the entirety of humankind becoming corrupted. God had a plan for humanity, and it was important to destroy these formulas, and to discontinue research. And so flood came and washed most of this crap to the bottom of the sea. But some of us were already around, and made it to safety. Most myths overblow this story, acting like God was kind of monster that flooded the whole world except for Noah's. But there are ark stories around the world. In actuality, only a small number of people died, and they were all scientists too busy to stop tampering with human life.

And so, we who were made were not destroyed, but our creators were. Most of us were just children, but we sailed to new lands on boats or simply moved inland to forests, like Aellisa or Arboria. Autumntwig's people moved underground, settling in tunnels near mountains and trees.

With Marina's ancestors, they simply took to the sea, as it was impossible to flood those who breathed water. Their original home was the base of such operations, and you've probably heard of it. Atlantis. The laboratories were destroyed by a freak electrical accident, but most of the city survived beneath the waves. Although, the story they tell themselves is that they used to be psionics, and their headaches smashed up the place. I'm honestly not sure which is true. But the point is, this research was considered taboo, and for a long while, all of us thought of ourselves as damned. Many of us were living among humans, but learned to disguise ourselves in various ways, because humans tended to see things from a perspective that such things were against religion. I studied religions, I meditated, and I tried to understand my powers, powers that my parents didn't have. But nothing made sense, until he came.

Jesus was a bit less like some model of perfection that I tried to teach about, and more like Joy Boy from One Piece. He was indeed just a regular human, by all the looks of it. But during a time when there was no faith at all, when science was the only means by which things were built, he showed humanity, elves, and other creatures how to awaken spiritual powers and the divine art. He taught that the poor, the widowed, the demon-possessed, and the sick were all worthy of grace. That there is no distinction between free and slave, different skin colors, female or male. What wasn't recopied by me when I went to Israel was his treatment of merfolk, and the various races of hybrids. He saw us as human, and did what he could to teach people that we weren't dumb beasts, nor was our creation against the will of God (though it was halted before all humans became hybrids). This was their Messiah, so I thought they had to listen to him.

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Instead they accused him of witchcraft, and told their followers that he was not their chosen one. But unlike in Roman-occupied Israel, they ultimately came around. They saw how God rose our kind from the dead and into eternal life. That's right, the people who rose from the dead in Matthew had been our people. And unlike in Israel, Jesus rising from the dead and telling them to stop was enough. This Jesus suffered for the purpose of redemption, and his rebirth was something even his adversaries could not ignore. He live not to condemn, but to save all the world, and indeed he did bring worldwide peace. There was also the fact that the equivalent of the Jews at that time had not spent centuries listening to their enemies (effectively corrupting their beliefs), and had not made prophecies to the effect that God would use the Messiah to violently drive away their enemies.

But this is what I got when I tried to recopy the texts in Israel. Inevitably, the scribes had altered it. In my time, no such thing happened because all of it had personally been witnessed. The world did indeed universally accept teachings of justice and truth, and those people who were violent found they couldn't enter cities and towns anymore. Jesus came to redeem them too, showing them a better way then to hate and destroy. But every changed when the Fire Nat... I mean, when all the demons attacked. Hybrids like me were forced into hiding. I had the bitter experience of watching my own parents die of age, then watching all the other humans die. What was the big deal?

ALICIA

She was pouting. I didn't know what was bothering her, but I wanted to cheer her up. Lacking any good ideas, I started petting her ears and her many tails. She did seem to calm down, but then she kissed me and held me close. "Dammit," she mutter wistfully, "All this is Belial's fault. Why? Why has he done this to humans? Didn't they have enough to deal with?!?" I supposed she was worried about Winter again, but it seemed deeper than that. I tried to reassure her, knowing it might not do any good, "Don't worry about me. I'm not that hung up on my parent's getting old. My real parents died and that's okay." She started crying again. Damn it. I was at a loss, but then Aellisa offered a surprisingly sensitive suggestion, "I suppose you might feel better in the morning, Renata."

RENA

That was a nice thought. But unfortunately, that night I had a nightmare.

THE DREAM

Alicia was standing in Belial's Castle, facing off against Belial. She was bravely telling Belial that she had been trained by Rena, and was ready to stand against the demon. Instead, Belial showed her how her friend was a huge fraud. How she had been manipulating her all along. Alicia began to doubt, but the scene skipped some information as dreams do, moving forward in time. Alicia was once again resolute, but in the middle of battle something strange happened, and Alicia after, all that struggle, was no more. Rena screamed.

RENA

I woke up screaming. Fortunately, this time I wasn't sleeping near enough to Alicia for her to notice. That day, I decided while I would train Alicia (she should be prepared, because I will likely not be able to protect her forever), I wanted to keep her safe. I'd convince her not to go to her death, like all those people who willingly risked their lives opposing that demon, all of those people failed. All of those people who were killed, all because they faced him. I understood what I must do. I must do whatever I could to distract her, calling any of it training, no matter how absurd. Years later, the girl named Ambrosia would use my very tactic to protect her own loved one. She had probably read about the First Oracle. In any case, I wouldn't let him take my dearest. Belial had a lot to answer for.

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