Neo Chronicles: Black Void
Episode 20: Homesick
Table of Contents
It's cold. It's cold, an' it's dark. Where am I underground? Yeah, I'm underground. I see—whoa this is weird. What're they all doin'? Noah? Kai? Chris? Lynn? They're all standin' back to back. I stand up in the huddle with 'em. It's so cold.
Where are we? Some cave? No, this ain't no cave. We're on the moon, an' there're all sorts of aliens surroundin' us. Musta ticked off the wrong people—again. Ha, one a these days we'll learn. Yo, these aliens—these black things wit' big glowin' yellow eyes all lookin' like some strange animals I ain't neva seen before—lunge at us. We brace ourselves for the fight that's about to happen.
Then I sneeze.
All of a sudden, I'm not in the cave—I mean—I'm not on the moon. I'm not on the moon, but I'm lying in some white powdery stuff. I see the moon gleaming overhead. It's really cold. This is snow. What am I doin' outside? There's nothin' to this landscape. It's jus' the flat, windy, open, snowy plains. I try to go back to where I was before. Mentally, I mean. I was asleep. Oh! That was a dream, no wonder my friends were there.
Man, I really miss those guys. See, I've known Chris the longest. It was our parents that sorta introduced us. My mom's always had this home daycare type thing. She did her thing to let it get known. That was when dad was still around. Somehow someway, Chris's mom caught wind of it through the airwaves an' word of mouth or whatever, an' he was one of the first people to show up to it. He was around my age—him 4 an' me 5—so of course we became friends. First time we was in school together, but after we started up kindergarten, we went our separate ways sorta. He an' his mom did live in the same neighborhood close by, so there was no use in actually separating. We stayed tight. I went over his house, he came over mine. Our families got close, too. Wasn't until high school we ended up goin' to the same school again. Man, that dude stays crazy.
Lynn grew up around us, too. When she was a kid, she was also comin' to the daycare. Didn't really care for her that much, but Jade always looked up to her. I guess since she was a girl, she figured they could relate, an' an' be cool like sisters or somethin', but Lynn was never really into hanging out with people that much. She rolled with me an' Chris whenever we were together, though, so that was cool, but eventually that fell off until high school, too. It's whatever, though.
As for Kai—ha, he hates it when I call him that, but when your middle name's Hezekiah, Kai's the first thing that comes to mind, an' it's so cool. When I told Noah about it, he thought it was cool, too. Met those two in middle school, an' we stayed close.
I was never one for gettin' out much, but when I did it was always with one of them. Shame I won't ever see 'em again.
Dang, it's cold with the wind pickin' up an' all.
And why's my jaw hurt so much? I sit up right an' rub my hands together. This adaptive wear I got on is doin' it's best to heat me up, but it's all tattered up for some reason. What's up with that? You'd think I just got through runnin' through some thorns or fire or—I don't know, but somethin's definitely off. Why am I—oh shoot!
I look back up at the moon in the sky an' it all comes rushin' back to me. I was there! And then—yup, yup. There was a mad man goin' crazy. Somethin' about a drug deal gone wrong, an' then—then he punched me an' now I'm—did that negro punch me off the moon? No way! No wonder it looks like I fell out the sky. I did! He punched me so hard, I went from all the way up there to all the way down here on this snowball of a planet.
Who does that? How am I—what's this pulsing thing on my back? I reach back an' grab the—it's my sword? This big ol', two handed, double edged, sharp pointy thing. It's glowing a cool, sky blue. Wait, not just it, but me too? The only time it does that is whenever I shoot off those crazy blast bursts at things. Why's it doin' it now?
I feel it vibrate—no—pulsate, like a heartbeat an' it shocks me when it does. Like an electric jolt goin' through my body. Just what exactly is this thing made of? What's it doing?
Think back. Ri'lar said this thing's supposed to mess with auras in some kinda way. I'm still not quite sure what an aura is or what it does, but I do know it has something to do with me swingin' it. What was that he said? C'mon. Auras are what I use for my ST. My strength comes from it. And with this sword, I can put that energy into blastin' stuff. Energy. Does it drain energy? Store energy? I think it saved me from burning to a crisp when I crashed down. Does that mean it's full of energy now? That'd be cool. So what's—oh man, I have got to figure out how this thing works! Wait, no.
No.
Right now, I need to figure out how to get back on that moon an' stop that—what was he called—Golemae from—well truth be told, I jus' wanna pay him back for knockin' me out like he did. I deserve that, right? I tried not to get involved with him, but he decided to get involved with me, so now I gotta fight him.
I jus' gotta find some way to fly—
“Yooo!!!” I hear from afar.
Then outta nowhere, Carlos appears standing next to me. Teleporting must be a cool ST to have. Go anywhere you want any time you want. He kneels down to inspect me. Checks to see—I guess he's checking to see if anything's broken. He looks me in the eye, knocks on my head. It's then an' there that I know he's definitely not a doctor.
“Hombre, how in the hell are you still alive?” he asks.
Can't help but laugh there. “I really, really don't know. Come to think of it, I don't know a lotta things. Like why am I still out here? Why are you still out here? Why aren't we back on Earth? What was that Golemae's problem? What's Ran's problem? Nothin' makes any sense. I jus' wanna go home. No, I take that back. I wanna go back up there, knock that dude's head into next week, then go home.”
“Not so sure that's a good idea, ese. From what I heard, that Golemae—an' those are some messed up aliens to begin with—is goin' on a rampage killin' everyone in sight. If I didn't hear about him punchin' someone who looked like you off the world, yo culo woulda got left.”
“You an' Ran really woulda done that?”
“Nah man, jus' playin'. That translator on your wrist's got a tracker in it, so we woulda picked you up on our way out. Now let's get back to the ship an' go.”
“No! I'm tired a' that! It'll be just like what happened with Juun-Met! Take me back up there. I'mma stop him.”
“Last time you tried that, you ended up here.”
“Last time, he took me by surprise! That was a sucker punch, ain't no way I'll let that happen again. Let's go!”
“Whatever, chico.”
It happens almost in an instant. We're standin' in the street. The planet's the thing in the night sky this time, an' the holey moon rocks is the thing we standin' on. This town has seen better days, I can tell you that. Dude tow up the place, an' I think he's even bigger than before. Like 10 feet, can spot him from a mile away. Big, bulky, full of rage. He's an animal. There's dead bodies littered along the road. I hear Carlos try to tell me somethin', but I'm already gone. Too caught up in the madness to hear it.
I'm runnin' straight for it. Already got my sword out to the side, grippin' it with both hands. I try tellin' myself that I'm doin' this for them—for all the people that got killed for just bein' in a bad place. But that don't sound right. Then I try tellin' myself that I'm doin' it for Juun. Somethin' like a righteous, redemption typa thing to make up for what I didn't do for him an' his people. I try to paint myself as the hero—the guy who's out here fighting for justice. Justice or vengeance? Those two can get confusing at times.
But then I realize as I jump up to strike the Golemae at the side of its neck—as I see him reeling from the sword's blow, losing then quickly regaining his balance and then turning to look at who or what jus' struck him—I'm doin' this for me.
I'm no hero. I'm no vigilante. This ain't about nothin' but me lookin' for a fight. Staak everything else. I don't care how strong this dude is. Can he take a hit? Yeah? Good enough for me. Let's go.
I don't even give him an opportunity to see what's goin' on. I go in. With both hands, I swing my sword from the side. Without even thinking about it, a burst of energy shoots forth from the slashing motion. The force is concussive, so it definitely pushes the dude back an' off his feet. He lands face up, lookin' dumbfounded. I don't stop there.
The dude is on the ground, don't know a thing that's happenin' right now. I run up to him as fast as I can an' field goal kick him in his sides. The screechin', gratin', whimperin', proud sound he makes when my foot digs in almost gives me pause.
Almost.
I kick him again for good measure this time following all the way through. He goes tumbling an' fumblin' across the rocky ground, crashing into the various debris from cars and walls and buildings. Yeah, I got super strength, too, but like what had happened before, the moon's low gravity adds to the distance.
And using it to my advantage, I make some pretty big leaps across the surface to get from where I am to where the Golemae ends up bein', an' when I see him lying in a big ol' crater, barely twitchin', I jump one last time, holdin' my sword up high above my head, an' come down like a rocket, everything aimed right at 'im. I know it won't kill him. With everything he's been doin' this far—singlehandedly tearin' down this whole city with his bear hands, tryin' to punch this moon in two—I know he's got power. I know he's got the strength to tear things down, so he's gotta have the strength to endure. That's how my ST works. So I don't hold back.
I throw out everything. I come down hard. I don't even notice the impact happen when it does. Everything is covered in that blue light that the sword emits. I sorta let it envelop me. Everything else just fades out. After it all dims down, that's when I take a step back an' register what jus' happened.
First thing that comes to mind is how exhausted I am. Like pantin' hard, tryna catch my breath, the whole nine. Second thing is—DANG—look at this big hole I made. This moon's not that big to begin with, but it looks like a bomb went of an exploded away a quarter of the way inward. Was this all me? Here I was talkin' about him bein' reckless enough to split this place in half. Was I about to do the same thing? Speakin' a him, that brings me to the last thing that sinks in.
Man-bat here ain't movin'. Jus' like that I'm reminded of how Juun-Met looked like when he died, an' this dude looks exactly the same.
The exact dang same.
Staak man, staak.
Episode 20: Homesick
Table of Contents
It's cold. It's cold, an' it's dark. Where am I underground? Yeah, I'm underground. I see—whoa this is weird. What're they all doin'? Noah? Kai? Chris? Lynn? They're all standin' back to back. I stand up in the huddle with 'em. It's so cold.
Where are we? Some cave? No, this ain't no cave. We're on the moon, an' there're all sorts of aliens surroundin' us. Musta ticked off the wrong people—again. Ha, one a these days we'll learn. Yo, these aliens—these black things wit' big glowin' yellow eyes all lookin' like some strange animals I ain't neva seen before—lunge at us. We brace ourselves for the fight that's about to happen.
Then I sneeze.
All of a sudden, I'm not in the cave—I mean—I'm not on the moon. I'm not on the moon, but I'm lying in some white powdery stuff. I see the moon gleaming overhead. It's really cold. This is snow. What am I doin' outside? There's nothin' to this landscape. It's jus' the flat, windy, open, snowy plains. I try to go back to where I was before. Mentally, I mean. I was asleep. Oh! That was a dream, no wonder my friends were there.
Man, I really miss those guys. See, I've known Chris the longest. It was our parents that sorta introduced us. My mom's always had this home daycare type thing. She did her thing to let it get known. That was when dad was still around. Somehow someway, Chris's mom caught wind of it through the airwaves an' word of mouth or whatever, an' he was one of the first people to show up to it. He was around my age—him 4 an' me 5—so of course we became friends. First time we was in school together, but after we started up kindergarten, we went our separate ways sorta. He an' his mom did live in the same neighborhood close by, so there was no use in actually separating. We stayed tight. I went over his house, he came over mine. Our families got close, too. Wasn't until high school we ended up goin' to the same school again. Man, that dude stays crazy.
Lynn grew up around us, too. When she was a kid, she was also comin' to the daycare. Didn't really care for her that much, but Jade always looked up to her. I guess since she was a girl, she figured they could relate, an' an' be cool like sisters or somethin', but Lynn was never really into hanging out with people that much. She rolled with me an' Chris whenever we were together, though, so that was cool, but eventually that fell off until high school, too. It's whatever, though.
As for Kai—ha, he hates it when I call him that, but when your middle name's Hezekiah, Kai's the first thing that comes to mind, an' it's so cool. When I told Noah about it, he thought it was cool, too. Met those two in middle school, an' we stayed close.
I was never one for gettin' out much, but when I did it was always with one of them. Shame I won't ever see 'em again.
Dang, it's cold with the wind pickin' up an' all.
And why's my jaw hurt so much? I sit up right an' rub my hands together. This adaptive wear I got on is doin' it's best to heat me up, but it's all tattered up for some reason. What's up with that? You'd think I just got through runnin' through some thorns or fire or—I don't know, but somethin's definitely off. Why am I—oh shoot!
I look back up at the moon in the sky an' it all comes rushin' back to me. I was there! And then—yup, yup. There was a mad man goin' crazy. Somethin' about a drug deal gone wrong, an' then—then he punched me an' now I'm—did that negro punch me off the moon? No way! No wonder it looks like I fell out the sky. I did! He punched me so hard, I went from all the way up there to all the way down here on this snowball of a planet.
Who does that? How am I—what's this pulsing thing on my back? I reach back an' grab the—it's my sword? This big ol', two handed, double edged, sharp pointy thing. It's glowing a cool, sky blue. Wait, not just it, but me too? The only time it does that is whenever I shoot off those crazy blast bursts at things. Why's it doin' it now?
I feel it vibrate—no—pulsate, like a heartbeat an' it shocks me when it does. Like an electric jolt goin' through my body. Just what exactly is this thing made of? What's it doing?
Think back. Ri'lar said this thing's supposed to mess with auras in some kinda way. I'm still not quite sure what an aura is or what it does, but I do know it has something to do with me swingin' it. What was that he said? C'mon. Auras are what I use for my ST. My strength comes from it. And with this sword, I can put that energy into blastin' stuff. Energy. Does it drain energy? Store energy? I think it saved me from burning to a crisp when I crashed down. Does that mean it's full of energy now? That'd be cool. So what's—oh man, I have got to figure out how this thing works! Wait, no.
No.
Right now, I need to figure out how to get back on that moon an' stop that—what was he called—Golemae from—well truth be told, I jus' wanna pay him back for knockin' me out like he did. I deserve that, right? I tried not to get involved with him, but he decided to get involved with me, so now I gotta fight him.
I jus' gotta find some way to fly—
“Yooo!!!” I hear from afar.
Then outta nowhere, Carlos appears standing next to me. Teleporting must be a cool ST to have. Go anywhere you want any time you want. He kneels down to inspect me. Checks to see—I guess he's checking to see if anything's broken. He looks me in the eye, knocks on my head. It's then an' there that I know he's definitely not a doctor.
“Hombre, how in the hell are you still alive?” he asks.
Can't help but laugh there. “I really, really don't know. Come to think of it, I don't know a lotta things. Like why am I still out here? Why are you still out here? Why aren't we back on Earth? What was that Golemae's problem? What's Ran's problem? Nothin' makes any sense. I jus' wanna go home. No, I take that back. I wanna go back up there, knock that dude's head into next week, then go home.”
“Not so sure that's a good idea, ese. From what I heard, that Golemae—an' those are some messed up aliens to begin with—is goin' on a rampage killin' everyone in sight. If I didn't hear about him punchin' someone who looked like you off the world, yo culo woulda got left.”
“You an' Ran really woulda done that?”
“Nah man, jus' playin'. That translator on your wrist's got a tracker in it, so we woulda picked you up on our way out. Now let's get back to the ship an' go.”
“No! I'm tired a' that! It'll be just like what happened with Juun-Met! Take me back up there. I'mma stop him.”
“Last time you tried that, you ended up here.”
“Last time, he took me by surprise! That was a sucker punch, ain't no way I'll let that happen again. Let's go!”
“Whatever, chico.”
It happens almost in an instant. We're standin' in the street. The planet's the thing in the night sky this time, an' the holey moon rocks is the thing we standin' on. This town has seen better days, I can tell you that. Dude tow up the place, an' I think he's even bigger than before. Like 10 feet, can spot him from a mile away. Big, bulky, full of rage. He's an animal. There's dead bodies littered along the road. I hear Carlos try to tell me somethin', but I'm already gone. Too caught up in the madness to hear it.
I'm runnin' straight for it. Already got my sword out to the side, grippin' it with both hands. I try tellin' myself that I'm doin' this for them—for all the people that got killed for just bein' in a bad place. But that don't sound right. Then I try tellin' myself that I'm doin' it for Juun. Somethin' like a righteous, redemption typa thing to make up for what I didn't do for him an' his people. I try to paint myself as the hero—the guy who's out here fighting for justice. Justice or vengeance? Those two can get confusing at times.
But then I realize as I jump up to strike the Golemae at the side of its neck—as I see him reeling from the sword's blow, losing then quickly regaining his balance and then turning to look at who or what jus' struck him—I'm doin' this for me.
I'm no hero. I'm no vigilante. This ain't about nothin' but me lookin' for a fight. Staak everything else. I don't care how strong this dude is. Can he take a hit? Yeah? Good enough for me. Let's go.
I don't even give him an opportunity to see what's goin' on. I go in. With both hands, I swing my sword from the side. Without even thinking about it, a burst of energy shoots forth from the slashing motion. The force is concussive, so it definitely pushes the dude back an' off his feet. He lands face up, lookin' dumbfounded. I don't stop there.
The dude is on the ground, don't know a thing that's happenin' right now. I run up to him as fast as I can an' field goal kick him in his sides. The screechin', gratin', whimperin', proud sound he makes when my foot digs in almost gives me pause.
Almost.
I kick him again for good measure this time following all the way through. He goes tumbling an' fumblin' across the rocky ground, crashing into the various debris from cars and walls and buildings. Yeah, I got super strength, too, but like what had happened before, the moon's low gravity adds to the distance.
And using it to my advantage, I make some pretty big leaps across the surface to get from where I am to where the Golemae ends up bein', an' when I see him lying in a big ol' crater, barely twitchin', I jump one last time, holdin' my sword up high above my head, an' come down like a rocket, everything aimed right at 'im. I know it won't kill him. With everything he's been doin' this far—singlehandedly tearin' down this whole city with his bear hands, tryin' to punch this moon in two—I know he's got power. I know he's got the strength to tear things down, so he's gotta have the strength to endure. That's how my ST works. So I don't hold back.
I throw out everything. I come down hard. I don't even notice the impact happen when it does. Everything is covered in that blue light that the sword emits. I sorta let it envelop me. Everything else just fades out. After it all dims down, that's when I take a step back an' register what jus' happened.
First thing that comes to mind is how exhausted I am. Like pantin' hard, tryna catch my breath, the whole nine. Second thing is—DANG—look at this big hole I made. This moon's not that big to begin with, but it looks like a bomb went of an exploded away a quarter of the way inward. Was this all me? Here I was talkin' about him bein' reckless enough to split this place in half. Was I about to do the same thing? Speakin' a him, that brings me to the last thing that sinks in.
Man-bat here ain't movin'. Jus' like that I'm reminded of how Juun-Met looked like when he died, an' this dude looks exactly the same.
The exact dang same.
Staak man, staak.
