Lunar Rising

“I’m Raven. Nice to meet you. You are?”

“Alicia.”

“Cool.”

“I’ve got classes. I should really get going.”

“What type of class? I have a class too! Transportation safety of Tylius. Do you know where the class is? It’s what I was going to ask you about. I’m quite lost.”

“Raven…we need to open up.”

“Yes…”

“Let’s start over. Hello, what is your name?”

“Raven Ire.”

“Nice to meet you, Raven. I’m Charlotte Blacksand.”

“Charlotte? But, Alicia--…”

“My name is Charlotte. I have a lot to explain to you, Raven. I’m sorry. You’ve trusted me, and I’ve never even told you my real name.”

“Charlotte…”

“Raven… I don’t know how to put this to words, but when I’m with you, I feel something. I don’t understand it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Riaddne may be broken, but you haven’t lost everything. You have me.”

“Charlotte! Stop this, Charlotte! Stop! Please… I…”

“Good-bye, Raven.”

Everything is silent and still. Pitch black, a solid, dark ink that washes over everything. It feels like I’m floating. My mind feels fuzzy.

I can hear Raven’s voice. Charlotte! Charlotte! But perhaps it was only an echo. The voice fades and dies out.

What happened? Where am I?

As I struggle to blink my eyes open, a sudden urge of fatigue sweeps over me. I cannot fight it.

My vision swims back into the darkness.

Reaching for consciousness, I try to move my hand, or my leg. I can’t feel anything. I make another attempt at opening my eyes.

When I open them, the first thing I can detect is the light. Faint, soft light, grayish, and hanging in the air within clouds. How confusing… Once my thinking has sharpened somewhat, I begin to feel something.

Pain.

Lots and lots of pain.

Coming from my entire body, it seems. Even the back of my head feels as though a Tylius worker is driving a drill into my skull.

There’s so much that I can’t even cry out. Hopeless, I sink again into unconsciousness.

When I wake up again, my face feels sticky. My eyes are barely open. My breath comes out in faint, jagged gasps.

The pain I felt earlier is still there, but not as overwhelming. I can’t move any of my limbs. As I move my facial muscles a little, trying to frown or smile, the stickiness stays. It takes me a long time to figure out that my wet, tear-stained cheeks are smeared with blood and dust.

As I feel the direction of gravity, I realize that I’m lying on my side. I’m confused. Where am I? What happened? Why am I lying on my side, in the middle of dust?

Dust. That was the floating clouds of light that I had seen earlier. White dust lingering in the air, reflecting the pale, weak light shimmering all around me.

Reflecting light…

The lunar rising.

Everything rushes back to me in a single instant, like a wave of sound crashing into a metal wall. My mind is yelling to me. Raven’s invention! You sacrificed yourself in the jet in order to get the bombs out of the way!

My blood is pounding in my ears. Panicking, I struggle to lift my head and look towards my feet.

If I had the strength, I would’ve screamed at what I saw. More panic hits me. But my leg is intact, and except for the deep cut left by a spear of titanium, and except for the crusty blood that rings the rest of my wounds, I’m okay. My head still rings, and the pain does something terrible at my side, but nothing that will kill me.

Surveying my surroundings, I’m inside a blown-up jet, laying down inside a damaged cockpit. The air is cold. The shimmering light around me comes from the walls. I’m in an underground construction tunnel, where the sides of the tunnel are lined with a thick layer of rubber. Specks of light from inside the rubber make the tunnel have a dim glow. I stare up at the ceiling far away. No signs of any damage, so that means that the jet didn’t plow straight down.

I remember how I had flown the jet diagonally into the ground. Therefore…

I look behind me, past the debris and ruins of the jet. Lodged firmly into the side of the tunnel is the shuttle. It looks like my mission was a success. The shuttle isn’t open at all. The bombs are safe inside, and the government’s plan has been foiled. They may have had back-up plans for anything gone wrong, but I doubt they would’ve foreseen this.

The tunnel behind all of this is completely caved in. White rock and dust block the rest of the tunnel. I can’t see anything beyond it. When the jet plummeted into the tunnel, it must’ve been severely impacted by the top lining, and the hit would’ve slowed it down so that the force wasn’t enough to crash through the second layer of rubber coating. That’s why I’m not further under the ground.

I bet they all think I’m dead.

Ahead of the jet’s crash site, there is a large, bulky object that reaches all the way to the ceiling. It’s a drill. This tunnel feels distinctly familiar.

I wonder if Ellison and Suzanne brought Raven to the Capitol safely.

Feeling rather curious to see if my hunch is correct, I use my barely-scratched arms to pull myself up to the rim of the cockpit. Gritting my teeth while bringing my legs over the side, I fall out of the jet and land heavily on the ground.

“Urgh…” No landing gear, thankfully, or else the distance of my fall would’ve been much longer.

For a while, I stay on the ground, feeling dizzy and fragile. When I regain my sense of direction, I stand up, using the wall for support. I limp further into the cave so that I’m standing next to the huge drill. There’s the hole that I’d fallen into. Next to it is a neatly dug dirt staircase that goes down.

So, this what the government goons used to get down.

Gently feeling for the staircase, I descend into the chilly, paved underground foyer. As I turn the corner out of the white dirt stairs, I make my way to where I’d memorized the lab to be. A few seismic scramblers poke out from the walls, undamaged by the government.

As I approach the door, which is still firmly locked, I make inferences on the black scorch marks all over the lined surface. Those people led by Aiden tried to blast the door open, but the door withstood it. Since my eyes already unlocked it earlier, they must’ve found that I didn’t lock it behind me.

They were using me for my eyes all along, just so they could gain access to the lab.

I have to say, I admire how protective the White-Eyes cult were when it came to their technology labs. Standing in front of the door, I allow the onyx to scan my eyes. My white eyes are the key to my past: my family, my history, my purpose for the government.

The door opens for me. I go inside, ignoring the protesting pain shooting up every one of my limbs. I have to make sure that they didn’t touch the inventions.

As soon as I enter, I can tell how much emptier the lab is than when Raven and I first found it. The inventions that sat on tables around the lab are gone, except for a few boring contraptions that were left unfinished by the White-Eyes. Many notes were once stapled to the walls, but the government has torn down a couple, leaving them lying in shreds on the floor. Peering over the railing circling the second, lower floor, I can see that the government had peeled off the tarp that secured the mini protostar but had otherwise left it alone.

I hurry down the stairs as fast as my body will allow me. The star shines brightly, even under the black glass around it. It’s grown a little since last time, and it sits slightly larger inside its large, spherical tank. I remember the way Raven’s eyes looked when he was facing the star. His dark eyes, with genuine starlight shining in them, were like a pair of twin galaxies.

The star… what would its fate be now?

I can’t leave it in the hands of the government, but I doubt that the RSA will be entitled to this lab by international rules.

Then, a thought strikes me. If my parents were the last people who were a part of the White-Eyes cult, then wouldn’t I be the rightful owner of this lab, the last standing engineering lab of the White-Eyes? The proof was in my identity itself.

But I lack the knowledge and skill of an engineer. I cannot keep this vault of treasure when I do not know how to make the most of it.

I stare at the star for a long time through its tinted casing. Then I hobble back the way I came, up the stairs, out the door, and I make sure to lock it using my eyes as I go out.

A thought that hadn’t crossed my mind until now: how do I get out of here?

Climbing up the dirt stairs and walking past the jet crash site, I head towards the rubble that had fallen in when the jet flew in. There’s a bit of space between too enormous white boulders, and although the space looks a little tight, it can’t be anything that my body cannot handle. The mind-numbing pain from my limbs have subsided, so I clench my jaw and bring myself up to the edge of the boulder.

I squeeze myself through the crack and emerge from the other side unscathed.

Ahead of me, a portal, inactive, rests with a lever next to it. I go up to the portal, pull the lever, take a breath, and step in.

So many people in the city of Tylius.

I’m glad that the portal worked to get me into the city. And just in time, too.

“All citizens, return to your living quarters. This is an order. The lunar rising’s ending three days ago has given our leaders enough time to decide our next course of action, and all cities are to return to their original locations.”

I can already see, as families hurry away into the elevators and the Teacup, that there are a few engineers carrying blueprints of a reinforced barrier around the city. This kind of city moving was not going to happen again. For the next lunar rising, which will not occur for probably a very long time, the cities that needed to seek shelter under the Capitol will now have adequate protection against the radiation.

I blend into the crowd somewhat after stopping at a public restroom to wash my face and arms. People are too rushed to notice my disheveled figure— my scratched arms, the large wound in the leg—so I manage to make it back to my apartment without anyone seeing me. I even avoid the government, which is overseeing the procedure and making sure that all of the citizens are hurrying to their homes.

Rummaging in my pockets, I pull out the cracked key card and swipe it across my lock. The door responds miraculously. I bustle into my familiar apartment and shut the door.

I shuffle over to the couch and sigh as my legs are given a break. After a moment to rest, I go into the kitchen for the first-aid kit on the shelf, and then I sit back on the couch to tend to my wounds. Reaching for the remote, I turn the 3D projector on and change the channel to the news.

At a glance, I can tell something’s changed.

The headlines show a teenage boy with dark hair and dark eyes, presenting a machine that converts dark energy excited by radiation in space into usable energy. His entire presentation, on a recording, is briefly shown. I gap at the figure of Raven, looking embarrassed but pleased at the praise given from the governments around the world. A government leader from Scandinavia is saying that “with some further development, this invention can help the world gain a new perspective on dark energy,” and then he names Raven a national hero, a pioneer of science.

Other countries’ leaders begin joining in, and their translated voices mingle so that I can just make out what they’re saying. Raven’s no longer just a national hero. He and Riaddne are accepted throughout twenty major nations. They’re now globally famous.

Three days, the announcement over the speakers had said in the city. It’s been three days since the lunar rising, so that means that I’ve been out for three days inside the cockpit of a damaged jet. Three days passing in and out of consciousness, and Raven has already been proclaimed an international hero.

I know that I can’t possibly justify how I feel towards this, but there’s a lump in my throat, seeing Raven and Ellison and Suzanne around me in 3D, showing off Riaddne. Among all my feelings, there’s a strong tug to see Raven again. This 3D simulation of him is not enough, and it will never be. No piece of a technology can ever replace seeing a person I love in the flesh.

I’ve stolen government documents and hacked my way onto Tylius. I ran away while taking down government people, and I assisted a boy in exploiting a top-secret government plan. If I meet Raven again, I’ll just put him and everyone else’s perfect lives in jeopardy.

I put my head in my hands. What do I do now?