Chapter 27 Shadow in the Sky

Chapter 27 Shadow in the Sky
Luna POV

The creature filled the sky. It was not in the form of a particular shape. It was an incidence of more wounds in reality. More so the non-existence of something than its existence. When it moved, the world hurt. People screamed, they did not know why, when it breathed.

To all the evacuation shelters, Kieran ordered. Werewolves began to change and transport people to the security. But everyone could feel it. We might all have the feeling that we were not safe anywhere. Nowhere far enough away. There was not a place the creature could go.

Elena was hugging me so hard that I could not breathe naturally. This, all this, we've been working up to, she said to herself. That is what immortals have been concealing in our eyes. It is this that genuinely prevails in the world.

"What is it?" I asked.

"The Void," Thomas said. He came down by our side, and his Eternal shape was scarcely repressing his terror. We referred to it as The Void as it is the reverse of being. It feeds on reality. It feeds on time. It consumes choice and free will and all that makes the world ordered.

"Can it be stopped?" I asked.

"Yes," Thomas said. "But not by us. Not by immortals. Not by werewolves or humans. Something older than us put the seal on it. Something that had to sacrifice himself to hold The Void in bondage.

"What was it?" I demanded.

They were the first werewolf, Thomas said. "The first human. The first immortal. They were all one being. And they gave away their collective identity to establish an obstacle between us and The Void. That's why we're separate now. This is the reason humans and werewolves are not similar. That first creation is the division of what made our reality to be the way it is.

Humans and we werewolves, I said to myself, maybe we can build that wall again?

"Maybe," Thomas said. Only the union would have to be complete. Absolute. And whichever should lead that union would have to be ready to devote him/herself. Would be forced to do away with themselves to build the barrier.

I knew what that meant. I happened to know what was expected of me.

"No," Elena said. She caught my shoulders and stared right in my face. Keep off you stroke, you beggar. There has to be another way."

"Is there?" I asked.

Elena couldn't answer. She simply held me and the Void kept swallowing Pine Ridge. Architectural structures were being lost. Streets were becoming a nothingness. Individuals were dying like they had no birth.

Kieran manifested himself in his human appearance. We are putting people out, I said. "But we can't move fast enough. It's spreading too quickly."

Stop it at that point, then, we said, Sera. She was still blazing with the dynamism of lost time. "I can hold it back. But not forever, but forever enough so as to allow people to flee.

Sera put out her hands and the power overcame her. The uncooked power of contradiction itself. Eternal force against mortal will. She developed a wall with The Void and Pine Ridge. The Void screamed. A voice that broke windows and cracked bones.

Go it is, Sera said, gritting her teeth. "All of you. Get away from here. I'll hold it as long as I can."

"We're not leaving you," I said.

"You have to," Sera said. "I've already died once. I've already been erased. I'm not afraid anymore. But you are needed. The peace movement needs you. The world needs you."

Elena was crying. Thomas was making attempts at drawing me off. But I resisted. I could not leave Sera to fight this all by herself.

Then my mother appeared. She cried, as well, but her face was willful. She took me and left me with Sera behind her.

Trust her, we must trust her, my mother said. We must just hope that she knows what she is up to.

We ran. People ran. Gloriously pouring out of Pine Ridge thousands of them. The wall of power was behind us, and was in Sera. The Void was pushing and pushing and pushing at her.

For three hours Sera did not say it. Three hours as the evacuation was ongoing. Three hours and people fled to safety. Three hours and a girl who had lived five centuries ago chose the future of the world.

Then The Void broke through.

The last thing I heard was a scream of Sera and we were too far to hear it any longer. Upon turning round to see, Pine Ridge had disappeared. The bakery was gone. The forest was gone. The ground itself was gone. Everything was nothing, just a blank space.

Everyone stopped running. They all looked where Pine Ridge was. The symbol of peace. The location that human beings and werewolves had created a new future. All of it erased.

She rescued us, Kieran thought. "She gave her life to save us."

However, I was not thinking of that. I was contemplating the next thing. The Void was still expanding. Slowly now, but still growing. It was taking reality inch by inch. Unless it is halted in good time, it would engulf the whole world.

Thomas was using his head to do calculations. I noticed him counting on his fingers, and doing it with a silent tongue. By the time he was over he gazed at me in utter sorrow.

"We have ten days," he said. Unless something prevents The Void within the immediately following ten days, it will swallow everything. Every human. Every werewolf. Every immortal. Every living thing. The world will be erased."

There must be a way, Elena said. And yet she was not saying that it sounded to her.
"There is," I said. I was reflecting over what Thomas had said. About the barrier. About the sacrifice. I must do what the first creature did. I must bring together humans and werewolves in totality. And I must make use of that unity to establish a new barrier."

"Luna, no," Elena said. She was shaking her head. "No. There has to be another way. I won't let you do this. I will not allow you to make a sacrifice of yourself.

"You don't have a choice," I said. "And neither do I. This is what I was meant to do. This is the reason why I fled that wedding. This is the reason why I passed through all this. This is why I was born."

Ethan came running up to me. He appeared to have been fighting. His garments were dirty and his face was bleeding. But his eyes were clear. We must get everybody out first, he said. We must ensure that evacuations are done. Then we may be able to determine what comes next.

I nodded. During the next three-day, persons throughout were shut off the way of The Void. Humans to the coast. Deep forests were the interred of werewolves. Places that were in a different space were destined to be immortal. Everyone was moved to safety.

But I stayed behind. I camped at the borders of the extension of The Void and even noticed it grow. This was beautiful in the most atrocious manner. It was a witnessing of the world coming to a halt.

Ethan sat with me. He made no attempt to persuade me out of what must be done. He just held my hand.

Do you want me never to see you again?... said Ethan.

"I don't know," I said. Thomas remarks that the one who establishes the barrier is part of it. They are in the realm between living and dead. They are neither dead nor alive. They're just... there. Holding the wall."

I will come up to you somehow, Ethan said. I do not mind, as long as I need to make efforts to spend the remainder of my life. I will find you."

Elena came to me that night. In a small wooden box she was carrying something. Inside was a ring. It was old and gorgeous and smoldering.

Elena said this was my grandmother. It was she who assisted in making the first barrier, a decade thousand years ago. She explained to me that, in case of the breaking of the barrier, I would offer this to whoever would be making the new one. Well, she said, that would make them remember who they were. They would not lose themselves in the in-between.

I took the ring and put it on. It fit perfectly. I had the impression that it settled on my finger, just like it had always been there.

"I'm sorry," Elena said. I am sorry that you are expected to do this. I feel bad that I had not taught you more on how to be human. I regret I did not have the courage to warn you earlier of what was in store for us.

"Don't apologize," I said. "You saved my life. More than once. You have provided me with an opportunity to make my own choice. That's all I've ever wanted. That's all I've ever asked for."

Elena hugged me. Then she was gone.

Early in the morning I went to the rim of The Void. Everyone was watching. The thousands of humans and werewolves and immortals and freed creatures were watching to see whether Luna Matthews could do what no other person could do.

I closed my eyes. I reflected on all that I had seen. Everything I'd fought for. Everything I'd built. After that I opened my arms and walked into The Void.

There was no one for a moment. No pain. No fear. No, that was just being insensible. Just the absence of self. I was making myself up into another thing. Something bigger. Something which was nameless.

Then I felt it. Every human in the world. I experienced their aspirations and their anxieties and their ambitions. Every werewolf. Every immortal. All animals that had ever opted to become more than the lot they were. I felt all of them.

And they felt me.

The barrier was developed by the joint forces. Not stone walls, not power, not magic. A barrier made of choice. Made of free will. Created by every creature of this world as having chosen that it wanted to live. That they wanted to live. That they wanted to try.

The Void screamed. It raged against the barrier. But it couldn't break through. Since the barrier was not composed of something that could be destroyed. It consisted of all that was worth living in life.

And there in the middle of that barrier, keeping it all together, was me. Not Luna Matthews anymore. Just Luna. Just choose yourself. Only the moment when everything was different.

But I was still me. The ring helped me remember. The ring was keeping me in place of who I was. And I could feel it. I felt every one on the other side of the barrier touching me, making a sort of clinging to me, and would not have me entirely lost.

I was alone. Never alone, I was never going to be alone.