WAKING

Seventy-six woke to a world of red and black. A world of cold and fear and pulsing darkness. And for the first time ever, he woke alone.

He sprang from his crystal pillar. All down the resting chamber the eyes throbbed red. Red as blood. Red as pain and anger. Red. Everything else was dark. The pillar lights, the walkways, the overheads. That could only mean one thing:

A call for help, and no one to answer.

Fallen Guardian.

"KIT!" he shouted. At last light. It leaped from the floor encasing him in armor and weapons of glass and energy. Information glyphs winked in patters in his helmet's faceplate as he ran for the Gate room. A call for help had come through containing all the proper key phrases in the proper order. But it had come through almost twenty-five years ago.

"That can't be right." He checked again. Twenty-five years. Someone had delayed delivery of the call somehow. "Why...?" His feet suddenly stopped, noticing something strange before his mind did. The Girl. Celine. Her pillar was empty. For a moment he stared in uncomprehending stillness. She shouldn't be out. She couldn't be out, not if he was... A brief instant of warm hope flashed through him.

A wave of icy panic scoured it from his chest.

The other pillars. They were empty too. Seventy-five--Xian or seventy-four--Mathias. The Girl. Seventy-two.

Forcing his feet to move, he staggered down to the tunnel. Seventy-one. Seventy. They were all empty! He ran. His feet pounded the stones. His heart fluttered wildly, a desperate bird trying to escape the cage of his chest. He skidded to a halt. No. Not all the pillars were empty. After fifty-two--Kona--the guardians were present. He did a quick count. Twenty-four of the others--Celine included--they were gone, gone, gone.

This is wrong. This is all wrong!

He ran on. The control stones in the walls finally re-lit. Then the whole of the Keep blazed to life.
 
His head spun. His helmet stubbornly told him to go to the Gate. To answer the call. It was his sacred duty. He blinked the messages away searching through the glyphs and codes. There! Another call! And another. Forty message in less than ten years, then the time delay gap.

The glyphs went red in his vision. Another message, freshly delivered, this one only twenty-four years old. Then another. Another. Another. They stacked up before his eyes. Always the same. Always proper. Always from the past, unanswered for years.

"They kept calling. Long after the Guardians quit answering," Seventy-six muttered. "Why?"

Only two answers: A great danger. Or a trap.

He made his way quickly though the passages, down, down to the very lowest sections of the citadel where the weight of the great structure could almost be felt, pressing down, with smothering presence. Here all the tubes and tunnels and lights led, feeding into the slick black slab of the Gate. The glyphs in his faceplate turned green at last--content that he was finally in the right place.

He paused before the smooth stone and stood for a long time, uncertain. None of the others had returned. It seemed unlikely he would. Fear rose up dark, and sticky cold within him.

"I don't want to die."

Celine's face came suddenly into his mind. Years ago she had stood there before the gate, perhaps struggling with the same fears. Knowing that, after so many long centuries Death might await. And she had stepped through. She had been brave, dutiful. A true guardian.

"I will strive to be like her," he whispered. Then straightening, he ordered the Gate with all the command he could muster, "OPEN."

The slick black surface of the stone warmed to radiant white, filling the chamber, the air, his vision and mind with burning brightness. And in the space of a breath was beyond the keep.

Seventy-six stood on a vast and shattered red plane. The altar stone was cracked and blackened, the pillars toppled. Craters some big enough to swallow Seventy-six several times over, peppered the red ground. Their edges had softened with years of wind a rain but the clouded glass glittered in pools and shards in and around them remained, the evidence of heat great enough to melt the sand. Tumbled stones and splintered pillars jutted from the ground like the bones of dead things.

No trees. No grass. No life.

"What happened?"

The wind hissed through the sand, mocking him.

In the distance something flashed with solar brilliance. He sprang into the air and an instant later alighted upon the horizon beside a row of tall posts fashioned like spears from gray metal. Atop each faintly glowing with the remnants of reawakened power were...

He counted quickly. Twenty-two shimmering helmets. Guardian's helmets. Fury reconfigured his armor to Assault Mode.

"If she is alive, I will find her. And if she is dead..." He spun, seeking an opponent, a target, but there were none within view. He brandished his fists and weapons deployed from his armor, ready to strike. "There shall be a reckoning! Hear me! There shall be a reckoning time itself shall never forget!"

Liked this? Don't miss the first and second parts THE GIRL IN THE GLASS and PEN PALS

~SJA