Author's Notes: Enjoy and thanks so much for all the lovely reviews! Keep them coming because they really motivate me to update faster. Anyways, think of this chapter as furthering the plot a little…
Chapter 2: The Reawakening
None of them had really expected her to remember anything when she awoke. And thus the slow and arduous process of recovering lost memories would occur once again.
So that day as six strangers clad in warm garments to ward off any sudden spring chills made their way to the secluded Okinawa tomb, all secretly possessed feelings of pain mingled in their anticipation.
Thirty years was a very long time, nearly half the lifespan of a normal human being in fact. No less the girl would be frightened and utterly bewildered at first in their strange presence. She would need to be reintroduced to society and it was up to them as her guardians to patiently teach Saya the etiquettes and rules of life. To place her in a local high school, to ensure a peaceful home life and most of all to tell many lies initially…
The tomb pulsated with a warm light as they rapidly ascended the many steps and paused to catch harried breaths. Like a giant cocoon housing some magnificent butterfly, a radiance of smothered energy was expelled into the quickening air.
Kai was the first one to enter the tomb.
The temperature was very warm inside since a soft golden glow surrounded the white sarcophagus. Bright beams bounced off the otherwise darkened walls and illuminated each individual stone.
Something was stirring inside, anxious for freedom.
Very faintly, he could also hear the soft mechanical whirr of the video cameras and heat sensors cleverly hidden in the walls of the tomb in order to monitor Saya's movements and safety. It had been Joel's ideas and though Kai had initially been averse to the idea, he had finally agreed after a persuasive argument put forth by Julia. Nevertheless, the equipment remained for the last ten years to him as an intrusion upon Saya's privacy, as an incongruity to its surroundings.
"I was in the lab this morning and spikes on the thermographs begun to go haywire. At first, I couldn't quite believe what I saw and asked Lewis to come over and confirm." There was a dazed look on David's lined face as he spoke, so entirely uncharacteristic of the still so self-possessed and immaculate man.
There was a touch of hushed awe from the others. It was as if the solitude of the tomb had robbed them of the ability to speak let alone act.
Finally, it was Joel who stepped forward. Joel who had been ushered in from a very important meeting and who now wore his red silk tie slightly askew. Of the group and in the past thirty years, he had done much in earning redemption for the deeds of his great granduncle and was now as much an honorable friend as head of Red Shield.
At his movement, Kai seemed to finally collect his wits about him too.
Together, the two very carefully pried open the top of the tomb. The surface felt as warm as it seemed and though there were no clouds of dust or cobwebs or priceless buried treasure normally associated with such appearances, there was just as much eagerness in all of the adventurers.
"Saya…" murmured Kai as he peered into the vastness.
A beam of dying sunlight illuminated her softly flushed cheeks and defined the richness of her long black hair: it had grown in her sleep until it now lay pooled around her shoulders like a rich exotic mantle. The light traced her delicately closed eyelids and kissed her pale pink lips, finally coming to rest on the white cloth of the shirt Saya wore.
It was extraordinary and though no one said so, all felt the same thing.
She had not changed at all and though the world around had altered and grayed, Saya was still Saya. There on her lovely tranquil face was the manifestation of a girl taking a light nap and certainly not the creature who had lain in a coma-like state for thirty long years.
They did not remember how long it was before her eyelids finally fluttered open for in the small room, the passage of time itself seemed to have stopped for them as well.
The same soft brown eyes.
Eyes capable of heart wrenching tenderness as well as murderous rage.
They watched her silently, afraid even of drawing breathe. Would she have forgotten everything? Would she? Would she?
"Saya…" said Kai again as if uttering her name would be like a sort of magical incantation. He of all the others stood closest to her.
And ever so slowly, Saya turned wondering eyes towards the elderly man and smiled.
By night he relived the moments of his former life in dreams and by day he spent futilely struggling against his binds.
Centuries and centuries, it seemed, he had been lost there in the darkness. A great cold vastness at the bottom of the sea and if he had been mortal, would have driven him to insanity long ago. But perhaps that wasn't far from the truth. Perhaps he was really insane after all.
Did a madman realize his madness? And if he did, could one call him mad any longer?
Whenever he closed his eyes, a single thought remained a constant torment. A bright image burnt into the back of his mind and which provided hope, desperate delusions, and terrible rage all at once. It was an image of a goddess with flowing dark locks, alabaster skin, and rosebud lips. In his dreams, his thoughts, she remained ever constant: long silk dress draped gracefully over her slender build, fresh roses in her hair, and the familiar wistful expression on her countenance.
Yet there was nothing static about her moods. She could be as cool and distant as a marble statue one instant and bring him to his knees with her passionate adoration the next. Cruel, mercurial, spoiled, and possessing an innate regality as this goddess did, he could naught but bow to her every whims. Such as his desperate love for this creature.
For his queen.
For his wife.
But fate had been cruel in its judgment as it was apt to be when confronted with such bliss and jealously, it had severed them apart. It had appeared first in the form of natural or unnatural disasters, swept their peaceful kingdom away like brittle parchment scattered to the zephyr and despite all their powers and intelligence, none could foresee such events. Luckily for most, the struggle was brief and the fall though tragic was mercifully brief.
For several years afterwards, he knew nothing but chaos and the stinking putrid odor of death. Such was the terrible contrast between what had once been utopia and such was the fall of innocence into the black pits of sin and greedy corruption.
He remembered clawing as furiously as some feral beast and clinging desperately to life. During this period, it was only she who sustained him and gave him the will to survive while all others fell. He lived for her alone.
This was the extent of their suffering. Alone, terribly afraid, and abandoned on a strange land with creatures who bore such remarkable resemblance to themselves, every moment of every day was fraught with guilt and desperation. Why had they been allowed to live when so many others were less fortunate? Had they somehow still a purpose yet to fulfill or was fortune simply being cruel once more?
They fought for acceptance and when that itself remained unachievable, fought for naked survival. The knowledge of everlasting alienation simply because of what they were was terrible to bear when it came. A sink into shameful depravity followed, a feeling of tragic apathy, and in the process lives drained of its sustenance were lost.
An internal struggle inevitably took part and for the first and last time, they argued.
He still clung futilely to a future with her, would have given up his soul had he one left for his goddess.
But she was wretchedly unhappy and weary of spirit. Like a wilting flower, rosy cheeks turned hollow, bright eyes cast themselves to the dusty ground, and a voice once joyful with bright songs bespoke the dry rattle of dead leaves. She was fading away and there could be no salvation in his love.
Helplessly, he could only stand by and watch until one warm autumn night after they had taken a stroll under the vast constellations, she slipped away quietly into the shadows and vanished from his life forever. The warm imprint of her lips against his, the silent tears she cried, and the wild laughter bursting from her lips that night had all been signs gone unnoticed by him.
That is until he awoke the morning after with his hands utterly empty and instinctive panic rising in his throat.
The next few months could only be accurately described as a waking nightmare. Nearly every hour spent walking and searching with no rest….no relief…
At first, he had tried seeking help from the others but either some did not know or merely refused to cooperate.
"Move along, buddy!" jeered the dark shadows without the faintest hint of sympathy. And then as he stumbled away, he could physically feel their searing looks and curious whispers behind his back.
Alone, alone, he was all alone now…with no friends, no family, not even his beloved.
Desperation turned to rage and like a cornered creature, his anger was directed to those whom he had formerly tried so hard to gain acceptance from. A brief struggle took place in his soul and quickly crumbled away to reveal the darker innate nature hidden in all creatures and only brought forth upon the direst of situations.
Revenge. He craved the thing, wanted to wreak the same amount of suffering as human society had caused him. He wanted those who had laughed, had jeered, pointed, those same wretched creatures to writhe in the same physical pain as he had experienced emotionally.
From that period on, he swore to cast aside all traces of feeling which he shared with these creatures.
If monster they believed him to be then monster he would become in shape and form...
Initially, he supposed it only to be of his imagination. That single beam of light slicing through the darkness and rotating around and around. It cast shadows on the murky rocks, caused blind sea creatures to scatter, and made his pupils dilate in pain.
A dream.
Or death.
Perhaps he had finally died and gone to another world. He would have been grateful for that. Not that a whit of him still believed in a heaven or whatever the humans had called it. Nevertheless, a very long time ago when he had been inside a church once, he had heard the black-robed priest speak of the dying seeing a warm halo of light before the end.
Perhaps this was it. Perhaps after centuries of physical suffering and weariness, some aspect of mercy would at last be offered to him.
But this could not be so.
Through the hazy blue waters where his broken body laid waiting, shafts of yellowness grew and merged into one bright beacon. A monstrous prehistoric beast possessing of great steel eyes which both mesmerized and impressed him with its vastness.
He could only gaze up in wonder.
The hatch on one side underwater ship opened, a bizarre alien pod emerged, and through the blueness, he could make out the dark shape of a man possessing of a shock of curly golden hair contained inside. Where did this being come from and how had he managed to survive the intolerable pressure in such depths?
It floated like a great bubble through the waters, an object which hung between time and space. Closer and closer, surely it was taking its own sweet time.
His dark eyes followed its every movement. Closer…closer…this was no trick of the imagination anymore. He breathed still, felt the intake of air fill and expand his lungs. Scarcely would he trust his senses anymore but innately he felt the ship to be of reality.
It was coming for him, come to take him away from this literal hell hole.
And oh! Only then would he make them pay…pay dearly for every second he had spent down here.
A steel network composed the outer shell yet left room for a semi-transparent glass window to wrap round the top half. In shape, it resembled a perfect egg, polished and without the incongruities of exposed corners. Beautifully it hung in space as if a living creature silently contemplating the pitiful creature held captive there. Unmoving and without any trace of fear left, he gazed intently right back.
"My lord," echoed a distant voice."
"Who are you?" croaked he and the world heard again his voice after nearly three centuries.
"You may call me Nathan or simply servant if you prefer. Welcome back, my lord! The world lies at your feet." A sweep of a motion signifying a low dramatic bow.
A soft growl rose involuntarily in the depths of his throat.