Fragment by Paul G Swanson (me reader .txt) 📕

the sky and used the lightning crashing down around him to mask his presence. All Seth was able to use to escape capture was the maniacal laughter that echoed forth from Signus' mouth.
He hadn't had any weapons that night so all he could do was hide while the AI gradually took complete control of Signus' mind and body. That was the reason they had given the AI to him and not Signus. Signus was never deemed strong enough to be able resist control, Seth was; and that fueled a bitter jealousy kept in check only by a weak friendship.
The agency knew it took a certain degree of mental focus to keep it under control and either Signus' didn't know about it or have the ability to cope with the mental strain and was his punishment for the betrayal. He, in the end, single handedly finished mission and destroyed the entire agency by himself but now was haunting his thoughts and dreams like a ghost. The thunder again, the sky taunted him. He hated it for that reason. But he enjoyed the rain.

Psylix saw Seth sitting on the steps leading into the ship, he seemed at ease but every time the thunder cried he'd jump ever so slightly and looked around him as if expecting someone or something to leap out at him.
He saw them approaching and stood up as if welcoming them. He craned his neck and saw Tio on Psylix's shoulder. He disappeared inside for a moment and then reappeared with Haschel. And then as quickly as Haschel appeared he stepped back inside and did not reappear.
Psylix felt that Tio was getting a little to heavy for him to hold for much longer so he ran into the lead and then right into the ship and placed him down right there. Moumoru and Somie ran after him, assuming that he went straight up to the cockpit. They had stuff to talk about. Important stuff, like the ramblings of a crazy scientist.
Sure enough he was standing right there at the top looking all leader-like. He motioned them in and then shut the door. This was serious. He never shut that door, unless something big was happening and couldn't risk letting anyone else hear it.
"Moumoru," He began, "You heard what he had said. You heard almost all of it. And I know you heard it all Somie. So guys what do we do about this?"
"You heard him. He said that he was dead. So that's what we tell them."
"Somie, What do you think?"
"Like Moumoru just told you, we found Dr. Jason Rhimes tomb. I'm more concerned with the first thing he said. 'You've got to kill him or save him,' It sounded almost like a plea than a death threat to me." Somie's ears twitched and pointed toward the door that seal the room. "She's coming up."
"All right.we'll talk about this later." He yanked the door open just as Sarah had leaned against it to listen in and instead she fell inward.
"Oh, uh, hi." She said embarrassed because she had been caught so quickly. Getting up she recovered her tone of voice. "So.you going to tell me what you guys saw in there?"
The three glanced at each other and decided to let Psylix do the lying. "Like you said, Dr. Jason Rhimes had passed away. We found his grave as well as the others. And as for what happened to Tio.we really don't know too much ourselves. Moumoru just found him sitting in a chair screaming."
"And when I tried to calm him down, he passed out." Moumoru finished.
"And now, if you don't mind, I've had enough of this place." He told her.
"We're leaving already?"
"Once this storm passes.Yes" She could tell that there was more to it than that. Her instincts told her that they were hiding something.
"So what's the rest of the story? I can tell when something's up." He knew that she would rile them until they told her something so he just allowed her the pleasure of knowing she was right.
"We'll explain later. You may or may not already know parts of it." That was as much as he planned to tell her right now. "Just go outside and enjoy the rain. You may never be are able to feel it, or to hear it again."
She turned and stopped. A rumble low at first and then it grew in time shook the ground the ship was sitting on. Psylix felt it to, as did Moumoru and Somie. She looked at Somie and could tell a terrible sound was coming from some unknown source. He was clutching his head and cupping his ears shut.
"Psylix! Come look at this!" Seth hollered up the stairs. He waited no time and bolted down. He ran the first flight and jumped the second. Sarah followed Moumoru stayed to help Somie.
She saw Psylix standing outside staring up at something with a quiet terror in his eyes. Looking up she saw why. A great wave of energy was whipping through the sky in streaks. It was so bright. To bright to stare at. At a quick glance she thought it was an aurora borealis. Each time it whipped a shriek roared in the sky. The rain had suddenly stopped. The great ribbon of energy pulsed as if it had a heartbeat. Several times it made great unseen slashes in the ground. The shrieking was getting to her now too, she knew Somie had to be upstairs screaming. Gradually the energy ribbon grew closer to them. It would be above the ship momentarily.
It was going to hit them and she knew it. Psylix started to run and got five feet before the translucent wave engulfed him. A shockwave of light exploded from the impact. It couldn't have hit him very hard maybe only as hard as when a pin is dropped but she heard him scream even as the shriek tried to drown him out.
There was no avoiding it so she stood still. The orange wall was inches from her now. And then she felt the great wave engulf her. That terrible sound overwhelmed her senses. First it was the light, then the smell, the sounds, feeling it, and then the emotion contained within. All the sorrow, all the love, all the happiness, all the joy, and all the wonder she had ever felt seemed to reoccur and manifest with in her at the same time.
At first she thought she was being torn apart molecule by molecule. But she could feel no pain. Then the darkness came and she fell to her knees. Or rather what would have been her knees if they had been there. She was completely invisible to herself. It was at that same moment the past that she had already lived came back to her.

* * *

Psylix was panicking because he was back on Antalls. Just a moment ago he had been attacked by a veritable rainbow of colors. He quickly looked behind him half expecting to see it just waiting there for him, but it was nowhere to be seen.
He looked in the sky and saw the planets rings rotating above. Of the five ring as it spun farther and farther out in orbit moved slower that its lower altitude brothers. Next to him he saw a hydrogen tree.
Very dangerous.
He wasn't sure if this was a dream or not, so he didn't feel much like experimenting and getting blown to bits. The colors in the sky faded momentarily to a green hue and then back to blue again. He knew without a day, when this was, and he didn't want to be here.
He looked down the hilltop that he was on and saw Altirion The City Of Lights. Hopefully he could make it the and warn some people about the impeding doom of his planet. He could only hope to get there before that great cataclysmic void swallowed his home world.
He remembered where he was last time as if it was yesterday. He had just left the world and moments from leaving orbit. He remembered seeing that same effect from space. The whole planet had darkened, elongated and then slowly disappeared into an invisible dark vortex. He had seen the planet get ripped apart and the remains get sucked in.
"No. I don't want to relive this!" He said quietly to himself. He began to run to Altirion. The city of his birth. "I don't want to see this again!" He cried out in a desperate plea, begging that some god would be merciful.

Moumoru was watching through the ships window as he left his world. His tail, his absence of a tail had doomed him to this fate. He knew deep down inside that it was selfish to want to stay. His body could absorb the energy that everyone else worked so effortlessly to excrete. His body and the rest of the children aboard the vessel that had just left the one world they knew behind. He was angry and sad and terrified as was just like everyone else. It wasn't fair!
He wanted to stay but wasn't being able to, this was his sacrifice, to his race, to his world. It felt like more of a punishment than a proud sacrifice. He would have to live among the humans for the rest of his days. A paople that he had never even met yet.
His home, visible, but now barely the size of a dot was rapidly vanishing into the distance. He slammed his fist angrily against the window as he cried furiously cursing his fate and his people.

"Sarah do you understand what I've told you?" Jason Rhimes told her.
"Not entirely, no" Sarah scarcely older than his son Tio, was to be his life long guardian. "Why does it have to be me?"
"I believe that you two share a special bond. That noone else can hope to emulate."
"Special bond?"
"Yeah, I trust that you will do what you think is best." This amazed her more than the fact that she was going to be the famous Tio Rhimes guardian. Why was this adult going to place his sons future in her young minded judgments. This was as far as she was concerned, unheard of.
She was only sixteen and Tio was eleven. To think that she was to become his makeshift mother when Dr. Rhimes disappeared. "Ok."
"I believe in you, young lady." He smiled at her and told her to hold out her hand and close her eyes. She did as he asked and she felt a small oval sized object chill the palm of her hand. "You can open them now."