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54 AA (After Aeon)
The darkness within the cave was all-encompassing and yet the limping woman trudged onwards. Sightless, the only thing that kept her path straight was an acute sense of the space around her, letting her map out the walls of the near-endless tunnel and walk through despite the lack of light.
On and on she went, one step after another, leaving behind what was left of what she knew for an uncertainty born out of myths and prayers. The tunnel was quiet except for the steps of her boots on the uneven rock floor. It had been like that for a while now, the screeching whines and bone-deep thumps in the distance fading as she went on and on, until it was just her and the tunnel.
Even that ended as light began to grow in her sight. The brightness urged her on, letting her push herself more.
Alas, the extra effort was her undoing as she stumbled in her steps and fell with a cry, unable to catch herself.
She stayed there, breathing harshly, for several moments. Then, with a tightening of her fist, several ribbons of light, all in a variety of pastel colors, manifested from her skin, rising out of her joints like a swarm of snakes and twisting all over her limbs.
With a jerk, she rose from the ground. Awkwardly at first, but she eventually got on her feet. Her steps were mechanical and exacting, her legs moving at precise intervals to keep her moving. Once, she stumbled again, but she caught herself with a hand to the wall and the ribbons around her legs flaring up in light, and she kept going.
Like a puppet on stiff strings, she walked towards the light. The brightness was stinging to her eyes, having been used to the darkness of the cave she had been walking for ages, but a few blinks later and she was fine.
She stepped outside the cramped and dark tunnel and knew fundamentally that she had stepped outside of what could be perceived as the mortal realm.
It was easy to see, too, as she had been traveling deeper into Earth and yet what she saw now was a view of the world from space, within its upper atmosphere.
It was also easy to see the hundreds—no, thousands of ships surrounding the world, eye-searing beams of destruction flashing between them and the scorched ground below.
A serene view of the end of the world.
The woman spotted a figure in the distance, standing all by their lonesome on a platform of energy, one which had a bridge of light between it and the cave behind her.
Seeing no other option, she trudged onwards, puppeting herself towards the figure. Carefully, this time, because she couldn’t see a bottom in this space except back down towards Earth.
Far too long and yet far too shortly afterwards, she silently stepped up beside the figure. This close, she saw that they were clearly a woman. Tall and imposing, she was clothed in luxurious silks of golds and silver. Her hair was ivory in color and was braided tightly up to her mid-back. For the face… she couldn’t make out any other feature other than golden eyes, their shape changing every moment at a dizzying pace.
“Well, you have found me,” the divine woman spoke up, not even looking at her, “I am afraid you are too late, not much of the world remains.”
That much was true. She didn’t know when they started it, but she knew that by the time they were glassing the area around her, Earth was pretty much finished.
“There’s still a way, right?” she asked, begged.
The goddess, because she was nothing but one, turned to her. Her golden eyes showed a great deep pain.
“This world was never worth saving,” she intoned, her voice flat, “And yet, you still want to try?”
“I do,” the broken woman replied, clenching her only fist as she felt for the lights nestled within her, “If not for me, then… for them.”
The goddess turned away, not answering and yet, gave off the feeling that she approved.
“Remember this, then,” she commanded, “You only have one shot.”
Theresa smiled, “That’s all I need.”
===
39 AA (After Aeon)
In the fading light of the sunset, Calvin Enion hummed a cheery song to himself as he walked home wearing the formal uniform of his school, the East-Northeast Academy of the Enhanced.
Today was his graduation on the middle school bracket of the academy and soon he would be starting high school in a few months time. It was a cause for celebration, but he was alone in his return home. There would be a private celebration at home later tonight, when his parents and siblings would come home from work, but that wouldn’t sooth the sting of them not being there today.
Perhaps if he were more even-keeled, he would’ve taken up the offer of his friends for a trip out in the city, but he begged off, the desire to be alone almost overwhelming.
He stopped as he walked in front of an appliance store, various television sets (many with ‘smart’ functions) played the hottest news of today.
‘Defense Platforms Activated in Response to Terrorist Attacks?’
Calvin had seen snippets of the news in question in the last few days, either from his friends showing articles of an Enhanced terrorist razing important facilities across the globe, or from hushed and worried whispers of his parents and siblings as they tried to prepare for the off-chance that this terrorist would hit their city.
The Defense Platforms were marvels of engineering, especially with the advent of Aeon, the miraculous energy that became part of humanity’s new life and the cause of the Enhanced’s existence. From what Calvin knew, though, was that Defense Platforms were said to be made for extraterrestrial threats. For what purpose they were being deploy for a global threat, he didn’t know.
Shrugging, he kept walking, the drone of the newscasters fading as he left the storefront. He was arguably still too young to really have any investment in the matter, even if it did leave him worrying about his family. Whoever it was that was blazing a trail across the world was definitely someone strong and while he knew his family were hardhitters, that didn’t stop him from worrying.
A few blocks later, Calvin heard an odd sound inside a nearby alleyway.
Common sense told him to pay it no mind, but he was always a bit too curious for his own good, so he took a look.
It took him a moment to realize that there was a woman bleeding out against the alley’s wall and then another to realize that was already on his way to help her.
He caught her bloody hand as she stumbled into a fall, idly noting that it was her only hand as her other arm was barely a stump. He used her momentum to get them on the ground with him on his knees to let her rest on his legs.
“Ma’am,” he urged her as he teased out solid ribbons of light around his wrist to wrap around her wounds, “Ma’am, I need you to stay awake. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
These ribbons were the product of the Aeon in his body, a manifestation of a power unique to himself as his status as an Enhanced. Their pastel colors were cute, feminine even, and had largely been a source of mocking from certain cliques in school, but Calvin didn’t care too much of their opinions. There wasn’t much known about them right now, because use of Enhanced abilities were prohibited outside of testing facilities and licensed work, but they worked well enough as trauma bandages from what little testing he had done after recently awakening this power.
Calvin wasn’t sure it would be enough, though, since he could feel the woman before him growing colder despite his efforts.
She cracked an eye open, the other too caked in blood. Her sight was unfocused for several moments until it sharpened and pierced Calvin with the intensity behind them when she met her eye with his.
“Ah…” she said, her voice hoarse, “I didn’t think I’d make it, heh.”
“Make it to where?” he asked, bewildered at her words.
“Here, silly,” she replied with a half-grin even as she tugged away her bloodied hand from Calvin and dug it into a pocket on her ruined vest.
“Ma’am, please, don’t move—”
“This is for you,” she cut him off, pressing something against his hand.
Calvin looked at what she left on his hand and saw a crystalline coin, lines of energy coursing through it. He didn’t get much time to look at it, though, as the coin abruptly sank into his skin.
“Wha—”
Before he could say anything else, the woman tugged his uniform’s tie, dragging him down. Calvin clenched his eyes shut for the impending pain that he assumed was coming, but was surprised by a warmth pressing against his forehead, one that seemingly started to spread outwards.
Opening his eyes, he saw the woman pull back with a smile.
“Take care of her, will ya? She’s going to be confused at first, but she’ll understand,” she said cryptically before her eyes softened, “And give Callie a hug for me, please? She deserves it.”
“Who are you?” Calvin asked, confusion and wariness heavy in his tone.
She closed her eye, “Someone who knows you very well… Theresa.”
He reared back as if struck, his breath caught in his throat at the mention of that name.
“H-how?”
The woman was in no position to answer, though, as he breathing shallowed and then stopped.
In Calvin’s eyes, the mysterious bloodied woman began flaking apart, pieces of her dissolving into golden light. Soon, there was no evidence of her presence in the alley except for the growing warmth spreading throughout his body.
You’ll see…
Despite that, though, her voice carried in the wind, a ghost of a presence cradling his cheek before it disappeared fully.
He sat there on the ground, dumbstruck. His mind was awhirl with thoughts on why and how did that woman know about that name he kept to himself all these years. All the while, that warmth that she left in him grew even stronger, and then…
Like a punch to the gut, Calvin choked back a scream as he felt what seemed like multiple suns bloom inside his chest. He fell down to the ground, convulsing as the feeling of unrestrained energy course through him. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to trigger the emergency beacon on his watch as he started to black out.
And yet, as he closed his eyes, sleep did not claim him.
No, as his consciousness sunk deep into his mind, he was met with the memories of not just the oncoming calamity that would doom humanity in the future, but of Theresa Enion… her future self. And what she had done to give everyone a fighting chance.
Starting with the quantum Aeon chip containing an alien artificial intelligence that she stole… after murdering the other alien holding it hostage.
What the hell, me?