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CHAPTER FOUR:
Pray to a Higher Power
PART ONE…Dear Family… I would end my life if I had certainty that your lives did not depend on my own. However, my mind cannot invent a device or permanent system to ensure constant, safe levels for eternity. Out of duty to you, my brethren, I must be alive and working. That is not to say that I hold no further value to my life; I know that I have worth. This worth simply seems useless now, lost without another sentient being to share it with. You are all important to me, and I love your presence, but the separation the bulbs create hurts me greatly. I must have some reply to my spoken words – some compassionate reactions to my sorrows. My immortal life depends on a different physical realm - a separate set of resources - than yours. I must feed off of your produced vegetation and water to survive, and your bulbs rely on the delicate balance of variables I must regulate. We need each other, so it seems. However, while you all seem contented, now that you are free from human exploitation, I am dying inside. I had a dream yesterday. The dream taunted me, showing me the female Vanessa whom I lost to circumstance, and the brother Vash who took her and my assumed future from me. My heart was crushed by this feverish nightmare, as has occurred in so many of my periods of rest. I have made mistakes in my past; have let things get out of hand. I have failed myself, my race, and even Vash and Vanessa, to an extent. I am all too imperfect. As these accursed dreams prove, I am torturing myself for my past indiscretions. Surely I have suffered long enough. I would rather live in full ignorance of the past than be in this constant regret. As the dream's end hinted, I feel that you all realize this as truth. The dream lost its sorrow, lost its pain. It became pleasant again, and the words I perceived came from one, several, or all of you, as I have no way of knowing for certain. Perhaps you did not cause it at all. The words hinted at an end to my sorrow. That soon I would find relief from this isolation. I can only hope and speculate. Forgive me for doing so. I want someone to walk and talk with, someone to share my hopes and dreams and daily observations with. I need this connection, which you may or may not understand. Our race may only thrive here, on this barren planet. We now reside upon our species' present home. I need your help to slowly terraform this land, to create the Eden I envisioned so long ago. But the Eden seems without purpose, cold and empty, if there are no happy entities to frolic within it. I alone feel no joy, no excitement. I am totally disconcerted with this existance. I am nothing, alone. Only with another to reflect myself and my race identity upon may further goals be accomplished. We, as an endangered species, must multiply. Though reproduction occurs first within the bulb, only in this outside atmosphere may the true family thrive. Please accept this humble plea, to provide for myself a companion. We need more sentient plants, in the event that I somehow become crippled and can no longer visit you all. I beg of you, offer a child or more, to help me to till the land and adjust your levels. And if it is not too much a selfish request, please give me someone I may live with happily. I would raise them so carefully, so compassionately, to respect you all and our race. I would teach them love of family and importance of conservation and freedom. And I would offer them the highest forms of friendship and companionship. For them, I would learn to treat another as an equal, to value in mind and body. I will not ruin the chance you may provide. Never again will I repeat those past mistakes. Forgive my shortcomings. I am quick to anger, and frustration ruins my judgment all too often these days. When I have stumbled into bitter thoughts toward you, I was wrong. A mind wandering is a harmless thing, I assure. Never would I harm you unless it was absolutely necessary, as is true with geoplanting and water production. Remember that as a sentient, I am subject to daydreaming and distractions. Only in my brief moments of desperation do I think of harming any of you, and even then it was related to creating in you a companion. So you see, voluntarily providing one can only be good for us all. Assuming his intelligence to have created no mistakes in the draft, Knives dropped the pages beside himself on the bed. He wiped the tears from his cheeks and sighed. It felt relieving to jot all of that down, but he still couldn't help but wonder if he was aiming his hopes too high. One little dream, and he went so far as to compose a grand prayer for the plant angels, which he would painstakingly have to travel to read to each of them. Though the chance that his prayer would be answered was slim to none, it was still a chance. As he gathered his pack and cloak, to set out into the desert and begin his pilgrimage, he allowed his mind to envision this child or children. Perhaps there would be a male and female, from separate plant mothers of course, that would grow to mate with each other. Their offspring would refer to Knives as 'Grandpa', he imagined with a chuckle. Perhaps there may be a boy, or twin boys like himself and Vash. But considering his own past, he hoped twins would be out of the question. Yes, a male, to raise as his disciple and student. Or (as he dared to think, heart skipping beats with the possibility) a female, beautiful and clever as Vanessa, yet without the sorrow, scarring, and betrayal. A female, to grow to admire Knives as her rightful mate, to follow him and serve him and provide the humble pleasures he had never managed to find in all of these years. "Let it be a female," he murmured, as the wind whipped the tattered robe about him. "Let her cherish me as Vanessa refused to do. Please let it be female…" |
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