Sun and Moon Depart

DIMENSION: NIGHTMARE KING

“Nightmare King!” Dominic shouted. “I have to help Shasta. She's lost everything.”

“She is too old for me to want to bother with,” was his witty remark.

Oh, great. Dominic was going to start his heroic talk. The opposite always spoke about love, compassion, and peace.

“You see the dreams too, I know you do. She wants to have a life again,” Dominic continued. “Can't we help?”

“Dominic, he doesn't care about her.” Vanessa looked into the darkness as she heard a sound. “He has nothing left to give you, leave him alone.” Waste of time.

“That's not true,” Nightmare King's voice came again. “He can grant privilege to me.”

“No he can't!” Vanessa yelled as loud as she could. “No, he can't.”

Dominic glanced toward Vanessa. “What privilege?”

“His . . . offspring,” Vanessa tried to explain. “If he has a kid in the future, and you can help his child find it's soul mate . . .then he can have a baby without losing any powers.”

“Okay, deal.”

“No!” Vanessa yelled at him. “You're an idiot, do you know that? Don't you get it yet?” She patted her heart. “You can reverse the destined and the destroyed lovers, but at a price!”

A price? Dominic neared her closer. “What's the cost, Vanessa?”

“Us. You've done it to me before.” She turned around. “Sometimes destined lovers have star-crossed parents too. If their parents are stopped, then there is no destined lover to find. You stole someone's fate before. If you take Nightmare King's, I'll . . .”

Dominic looked at her. He finally noticed there was a trickle of blood coming down her arm. He lifted her sleeve (without her permission) in worry. She pulled away but he'd already seen. There were scratches along her arm and they were deep.

“No one's been here and no one has touched you. Is this part of the curse that makes us enemies?” he asked.

Ah, he remembered better than she suspected.

“The Apocalypse Messengers do not meet. This is why.” She hid her arm again. “We are opposites. Come too close together and we slowly kill each other as one overshadows the other.”

“Because of . . .me?” Dominic gazed at her arm. “It must hurt.”

“I have been trained to ignore the pain. Pain is nothing, the universe is everything.” Vanessa tried to keep her arm out of his view.

“If I grant his wish, it could hurt you more. Maybe even worse, as long as you are here.” Dominic looked up into the blackness. “Is it possible, Vanessa? I don't see a vision of anyone.”

“Yes. Destiny doesn’t give a destroyer no way out. He will have one, Dominic. You might see the faerie, or it may be the next ones. We aren't the first travelers and we shall not be the last.”

Nothing from him.

She held her arm, seething. “You would sacrifice me for this? I do not blame you, my people would say it is the right thing, but I do not forgive you.”

“I would never sacrifice you.” Dominic looked back upwards. “Nightmare King? Can I reverse what happens to her?”

“An exchange?” Nightmare King was quiet for a minute. “That would be a new twist. Yes, you could, but you won't like what happens.”

“There is no way to save me from this, stop lying,” Apocalypse Moon insisted. “You are filled with lies. I have studied this subject extensively. The only way to survive is separation. Nightmare King, release me.”

“So confident. So supreme. You know better than I, do you?” Nightmare King announced. “The length of your life is just the amount to take a breath for me. You know nothing, just a slightly higher percentage than the fool with no memories. There is a way.”

A strange chain started to encircle us. It glowed around us and then shot into their fingers, disappearing from sight.

“There. Now, grant privilege to me, and I'll make sure she doesn't die,” Nightmare King insisted. “Guaranteed. If not, then I terminate the contract I just made with you.”

“I will promise you that, if it's within my power, but only if you keep her safe. As in Apocalypse Moon and Shasta!” Dominic insisted.

Idiot.

“Fair enough. To keep her alive, go to a star-crossed lover that she knows of. Stay with her while she performs her own duty. Afterwards, you'll be brought back, and the exchange will not kill her.”

Her duty? He was supposed to be 'helping' with her duties? Ugh! She did not need help, she never needed help. He was the one who needed help and insisted on asking a billion questions. Not her, what was he supposed to even help with? He was nothing but a hindrance!

“There,” Nightmare King said. “As for the other? Electricity is easy to corrupt in darkness.”

DIMENSION: GAME WORLD

Shasta POV

I awoke from the dream, lying by a fire that Spenca was tending to. Spenca. “Spenca?”

He left the fire and approached my side, moving the hair out of my face. Worried, he had been beyond worried about me, I could see it in his eyes.

I could see everything in his eyes. He wasn't killing, he wasn't grouchy, simply there by my side. If someone snuck up on us right now we might be dead because he was letting his guard down. He had a million questions to ask, I know he did. “Okay?”

I nodded pulling the blanket closer that he apparently gave me while I slept. “Remember.” That's all I needed to say. He gave me a few minutes to myself as he tended the fire again.

I couldn't spend several thousand words flirting, but I had to find out how he felt. Dream or not, if I had to live out here, then I shouldn't hide my feelings anymore. I'd lost everything else. How to say it though? Spenca was in elementary school when he was dropped here. Did he even understand? Oh, I shouldn't be like that. Education doesn't make a difference in relationships like that. He grew up without people, but even cavemen knew. If he had feelings, he would know.

I had to find out and I didn't get many words. I had to figure this out. He kept stoking the fire while I kept thinking.

What if he only liked me as a friend? This would make it awkward to talk and be around each other. Talking at least was not a problem. I guess I had to try. It was a risk, but all my life was about risk. If my dad didn't risk throwing me in the shelter and sacrificing himself, I would not be here. That was a much larger risk than mine.

There were no words to flirt with. Nothing I could do except ask. Ask it out straight. “Spenca, love me?” His head turned toward me. His eyes were riddled with something. I knew I wasn't that clear, but he had to figure it out.

“Man and woman love?” He finally spoke again. I nodded, understanding what he meant. “I . . . I love you.”

He loved me. He even wasted extra words just for me?

He loved me!

I moved into hug him and he met me halfway with his own.

Touch. A real loving touch I hadn't felt for so long. My planet was gone, but it had been gone for so long. I lived there until I was abducted by another dimension. They had a use for us. I wasn't put into a world fast, there was a line. They tested families, individuals, people with certain personalities. I was in a holding deck with thousands of other humans. There were hundreds of ships.

We were the perfect experiments. I remember the first time one of my captors looked at me. “Finally,” they had said, “something we can test on that doesn't matter. Great, I was feeling bad about testing our own.”

Those were his words. Other beings from a different dimension? They all felt that was okay to test on. Spenca must have been one of the last from their dimension, before they started to harvest others.

Test or get sent back to turn into an eater. That's what they had called what I thought were zombies. They ate. They ate flesh and bone. Afterwards, they ate the dirt, metal, toxins, water and plants. They each ate until the dimension was bare or became unsuitable. When they could eat no more, they moved on into another dimension and began over again.

I felt tears starting to fall as I remembered that explanation. You would either turn or be their next meal. They knew about it all. About the falling faeries. My dimension hadn't been the first they 'saved'. Even the monsters, the only thing to eat in Game World, many had their own worlds too.

My freedom began in Game World, not my captivity. Ever since I met Spenca. He was so standoffish though. He was scared to get close, but after months together, I saw more blooming. Even love couldn't be held back between us.

Two people who hardly talked, still ended up finding love. In his arms like this, I finally felt home.

Home. “I love you.” I said it outward as I kissed his cheek.

Spenca POV

She loved me. She loved me! I held her tighter, more scared than ever that I would lose her. I'd had her by my side so long, and now I knew she shared the same feelings. I wanted her beside me forever. Her declaration made it even harder, my senses feeling clouded. How could I protect her as well now? I fought, traveled, ate, slept and fought more. That was my life.

My life became more than survival around her though. I wanted to live. I had a reason again, something besides natural instinct to live. I wanted to feel the comfort of her. I wanted to hear her voice even though we couldn't speak much.

Shasta had become everything to me. If I ever lost her, I don't think I could go on. “You die, I die.”

“Dying rose.” Her voice broke. “Can't anymore, need you.”

There was no going back now as I stole my first kiss from her.

Shasta POV

Light, gentle, but I knew what it had been. Something I had been dreaming of for some time.

A kiss, from Spenca. I opened my eyes and I felt life come back to my spirit again. I may have never been an old dying woman, but my life had felt like that for so many years. Finally, something worth living for. “Spenca.”

“I had to,” he uttered. “I. I love . . . you. E-even out here, in . . . dangerous jungles. I can't not love you.”

The words were jumbled, strange pauses, but I understood them perfectly. “Even in the wilds of the jungle, I love you too.” I reached out for his hand.

He did not reject the gesture.

***

Before the morning could wake us, Spenca moved fast to wake me up. I watched as a ship approached. A real ship had landed. As it opened up, the bag man we had known was the first down the steps. “Come on, we are out of here.”

“What do you mean?” Spenca growled in a defensive position.

“Something happened to the ship. Electric went wild.” Frank took a deep breath. “I thought we were all going to die, but we pulled it to manual and now it works. There's none of those aliens on board, so we are taking control. We can't save the other ships with our little one, but we can save the players. Welcome you two, consider Game World solved.” He gestured into the ship. More people were standing around, including the two they had overheard earlier.

I looked toward Spenca. He looked at me.

We held hands and approached the ship.

Out there somewhere was Spenca's world. A new beginning on a new planet. I knew that the Sun and Moon messengers in my dreams was responsible for the ship malfunction, but I could never say it out loud. I just knew that we were finally safe and able to live the way we wanted too.

DIMENSION: NIGHTMARE KING

Dominic looked toward the blackness, almost wanting to shout. Shasta made it. After weeks of trying to break through, she made it. He wanted to punch his hand up in the air in excitement, but instead?

He noticed that Vanessa was favoring her right shoulder. Vanessa never did that, she was holding it tightly. “Did you get hurt again?”

A small growl. Typical for her. “At least it's over and I still live.”

“Yeah, a happy ending,” he said casually, still concerned. “You're injured because of me again, I know it, and I'm going to help you.”

She didn't answer.

“Are you positive about that?” Nightmare King's voice whispered around him. “You'd have to corrupt your good name. Do you really want to hurt the poor lovers? Life is hard enough, why add to it?”

Oh, no way. “No, I'm helping her, and so are you.”

“Why should I?”

What? “You promised!”

“I promised you what, words? There's a reason you sign a contract when dealing with me. I owe you nothing with beautiful words.”

“You lied to me!”

“Of course I did.”

“She was being a good ally, Nightmare King!”

“You're such an idiot.” The voice was different now. Out of the darkness came out a guy that looked similar to him. “She was being a good ally? A decent friend? She helped to get herself out of here and you know that. You've known that. Everything she does is for her duty and the good of 'her people'.”

He disappeared and reappeared behind Sun. “No, don't you see? This is exactly where she belongs forever, until you fully defeat her. She is your enemy, this is your chance to get rid of her. Her and her annoying personality that's hard to take.”

What? “That's not fair. She's taught me so much.”

“Only so you don't screw up the job,” he corrected him. “At what point did that 'thing' ever call you a friend? She never even called you by your name.”

Like Nightmare King was one to talk, he took all of his memories away. “I want to help her, or I want her to leave!”

“So do I,” Nightmare King commented. “Believe me, this whiny putrid Moon talking about 'her people' makes me nauseous. I prefer not to keep things more scary than me inside my own domain.”

“My guide will find me and then you'll be finished!” Vanessa said, coming from the darkness into the lighted area around them too. She was heavily bleeding this time. “I will never give up.”

“Calm down,” Nightmare King complained. “You still survived. Your ego and body are wounded, but they'll both heal.”

Nightmare King appeared behind her. “Your guide by the way? It wasn't so fond of you either, Moon.” He changed his appearance to hers now. “It seems you've annoyed more than just me. Even the wishmaster thought a little comeuppance was necessary.”

*

“Are you joking?” He had better be joking! The wishmaster would not just leave her there for weeks on end. She was performing all of her duties seamlessly until Nightmare King trapped her! She checked her watch. Time flow still showed only sixteen days had passed since she was trapped down there.

“Of course, he doesn't want you to die either,” Nightmare King announced in her same voice pattern. “So? I'm not supposed to kill you. I suppose I should move you from my own charge.”

There was no heart with him, period. He kept almost dancing around her like a fool in his doppelganger of her. Nightmare King finally quit right in front of her. Resuming the shape of Dominic again, he smirked at her. “In the future, be kinder. Learn to survive with your enemy, or be the one of prophecy.”

She could not survive with her enemy. “You are mistaken, I cannot survive with him. I will do my best not to meet him in the future.”

“A couple of scratches and you are ready to get away from him? Terrible. It's nothing compared to what you will do to him.” Nightmare King left their presence.

Oh. Dominic looked at her. “What did he mean by that?”

She knew what Nightmare King spoke of. A prophecy. Nothing that concerned her, it was just one more reason the messengers would never get along. It was stated that one day, a girl messenger would become friends with a boy messenger, then they would be betrayed, causing hell upon the other.

It was never stated who would betray who, or what kind of hell would be upon them. It was the main reason no one used girl or boy to denote the opposition in name, even when it did occur. Sun was boy, and Moon was technically a girl. That was where the similarities would end.

It would just be someone at some point in the future. Probably a distant future. The chances it happened to be her were infinitely small. “Nothing, Sun. You are a moron. Look what you caused to happen, I don't owe you any explanations.” He could learn it on his own. She didn't need to sow the seeds of distrust.

However, there were some elements that were already lining up. Usually, the Apocalypse Messengers never even met each other, yet here they were. They were not only meeting, but had spent a decent three weeks with each other. They had even agreed to give each other personal names.

Moon decided to look back at her watch. It was an object that, in a small way, kept her sane. Her people had given her an extra, just in case of an emergency. Having an instrument that could count your own heartbeats, and let you know your own individual time through the chaos of the cosmos? It was one of the few things that made her feel better.

She reached in her pocket, walked over to Sun, and gave the extra one to him. “Here. Since you must continue to survive here, this will be yours.”

He looked at it briefly, turning it around in his fingers. “A present for me?”

Present? She didn't do presents. She never did presents. “That watch follows time only using the math of your own heartbeats. When the world feels chaotic, staring at it seems to help.”

“Thank you,” he said genuinely as he put it on. “I'll take good care of it.”

Fine. Whatever. “Now, I must move on.”

“I think Nightmare King would still let me go with you,” he informed her.

“Go with me?” What a joke. It could not be taken seriously. “My travels are not happy times. You think you could work without the so-called 'happy endings'?”

“Not everyone gets to live happily ever after,” Dominic said surprisingly to her. Maybe he did have some smarts after all. “Some are just destined to have a love that lasts a lifetime, and some aren't. I know the goal.”

Then she realized she said that smart thing too soon. “So you say.” Simpleton. Even destined lovers weren't destined to always have a happy ever after. There was nothing written that said they would love and treasure each other forever. It was just their destiny, in that space of time, to love each other mutually. Her opposite had a lot of growing up to do.

She turned around and noticed the light again. She could feel it start to consume her. She would finally leave.

“I won't forget you, Vanessa.”

Oh. Why did she bother? She should really stop this closeness, but she was almost gone. Probably never destined to see him again. She felt herself compelled to give the moment to him. “Goodbye, Dominic. Perhaps we'll meet again.”