The Traveler

Note: if you have not read my last bulletin, titled "Squadron IX", I'd do so, since this one has some references to the events of that bulletin.

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They say, thought the lone traveler as he stared at the scarlet sky over the ruins of Cydonia, that a trial by fire is the first of the many Trials of a new world.

It was something he knew was coming, along with the others who stood by him, the believers in the great Cause, the ones who embraced the destruction of the old world as not a sad moment, a time to mourn the lost, but instead one of rebirth and new hope, an empire returned from the ashes.

But to rebuild something, it had to be broken first, and that was what the Anomaly — as they called it, after the ones who had called it an 'anomalous creature', but they knew it was not a 'creature' but instead something more, a savior, a liberator from the chains of the old world — had to do.

There was a time when he, too, doubted the Cause. They called it a cult. An extremist sect. But never what they really were: the only ones who knew the truth. They never understood him, either. Society didn't like people who differed from the norms, really — no matter how hard the last good ones tried to fix it when they established their new land, a land now in decline. And he resented society for it.

The Anomaly would not like that, he realized. Because what is my true reason for being here? Is it truly a matter of devotion to the Cause? Or am I simply here for vengeance?

Because vengeance was marked right there in the Edicts of the New Dawn as a sin against the moral code of the Cause. And how loyal could he be if he was breaking the Edicts in his very motivation?

Sunset would be coming near, he realized, but the red tones of the sky did not change, nor did they darken; he was still not frightened. The clouds looked like flames on the horizon.

Fire was a key factor in the new dawn. The flame would cleanse all that was left of the old land, the place that was falling to pieces, and from the ashes would rise, like the phoenix, a land so much better and stronger than the old one.

But what they needed, in his mind, was an ally, a friend to take the Cause of the Anomaly to its greatest horizons, where nothing could ever stop it. And in his search, he came across a young woman, around his age — her early 20s — who had seen, with her own eyes, the Anomaly and its goals in the repair of the world.

"What's your name?" he asked her after introducing himself.

"Lia Selene."

"And what are you doing here, Ms. Selene?"

"I- well, I was with a team searching Cydonia, but- I think they were taken by something."

He knew he'd found who he needed. They continued speaking, and he grew more and more convinced by the moment that Lia Selene, former member of Squadron IX, a team sent to search the ruins of Cydonia, was the chosen one herself. The one who would ascend beside the Anomaly and rule with it as her regent, as, perhaps, it couldn't communicate with humanity, as nobody but her had seen it before.

Until one single answer shattered everything he knew.

"What was it like, seeing the being that's going to fix this world for us?"

She looked straight at him as she said it quietly, as if she were afraid of being heard. 

"No, it- you thought it'd fix the world, but it's not as friendly as you seem to think. I saw it, and all it wanted was to break the world to pieces and take all the energy as its own, to grow stronger and reach its own form of ascension. It is strong, and it wants to claim us all as its own, to consume our energies and our power. It doesn't matter whether you're a friend or a foe. I am the only one who has managed to escape its wrath. It wants to destroy us all."

He looked back at that crimson sky, then, a sharp fear filling his mind, and surrounding him, right as she finished saying it, came a strange sound, only audible to his own ears — she didn't even hear it anymore. Perhaps the Anomaly had given up on chasing her.

But, the sound continued and shifted from a static-like tone to another sound, quite familiar to him.

Like the ticking of a clock.

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Note: Sorry for not posting bulletins for a couple of days, I've been a bit busy, and I've also written this out three times and then been signed out of P&W when I click the post button, so that's why it hasn't been published yet.

Also, I should be making the Orbis Livability Index (2081) sometime soon, for those who have asked!