Aimless Ascension

"Thank you," Saarya uttered, barely managing.

"I should be the one to say that," I said, and pulled her into my embrace. She tried to struggle, but Saarya hardly left with any power to move.

Even though she looked so strong on the outside, she felt just as soft and tender as I held her for the first time.

"Can\'t you just stay here for a little longer?" I asked, hope kindling in my voice.

But Saarya didn\'t even hear me, she was mumbling on her own.

"I\'m sorry," she said. "I wish I could do better, but they left me broken. . . Betrayed me. . .left me in the confines and watched me rot. . . I\'m sorry for what. . ."

Saarya fell unconscious in my embrace, leaving me to wonder how much effort she had to pull to break the restriction on my collar when she had another latched onto her neck.

I looked up at her picturesque face, the thin frown she was still holding, and wiped off the sweat from her face. She looked so defenceless and pure, I could watch her like that for the entire night.

And that was probably what I did. I carried her tender body to the stone bed and left her there, sitting beside her. I watched her for almost the entire night.

I didn\'t know when my eyes closed, but when I opened my eyes again, I didn\'t find her in the bed, nor in the room. She left when I was sleeping.

I sighed as the awfully loud horn blared, pulling me out of my daydream.

***

"The mark isn\'t growing anymore, it seemed," Elea said, inspecting after the doctor fed it the daily dose of spirit energy.

"Should I stop feeding it more?" the elderly doctor asked, eager for the others to agree.

I remained completely still in the room as they discussed stuff for me. Well, the decisions maker was always Imani, who turned to the A\'caen every now and then to read the native person\'s expression.

I had never seen A\'caen bossing her around, but it seemed she really have a deep respect for the native individual, though her respect should be different from someone like Dele.

Well, for starters, I found her caressing the hard man\'s bruises just too intimately and carefully, to mistake there was nothing between them.

Not that I care all that all much. My worries for these days were elsewhere. It had been two days since Saarya decided to break the restriction on the collar, and it had been two days since I hadn\'t seen her.

I didn\'t know what to think about it. Neither I knew what it takes to break the restriction, nor what price she had to pay. Whenever I asked the same qu4esiton about breaking the restriction, all their answer had been it isn\'t possible.

Even A\'caen had the same answer. He seemed genuine enough, but I didn\'t know if I could believe him after how he deceived me. I wondered if he was deceiving everyone or simply the new guy.

Well, probably the latter. Which put me at a disadvantage and I didn\'t know what to do about it. Even if I pulled all my hair would and wrack my brain, I could come up with nothing to solve my delliema.

Besides, without power, anything I could, would have no effect one anybody.

I truly wanted to trust them, but other than Cameron, I couldn\'t trust anyone of them completely, even after all the care they had shown me.

pàпdá-ňᴏνêι.сóМ \'Saarya, are you gone?\' I wondered in my helplessness. \'Are you coming back? If so, please be quick. You told me to never hope for an angel to come to my doorstep to free me of my load, but I cannot do anything without an angel, without you.\'

Saarya\'s work on the collar did something as the stabbing pain in my mind had diminished, but not to the degree which would let me practise cycling freely. It was not even better than when she forcefully blocked the pain for me.

If it went on for more, I didn\'t know if i could even remember the meridian path she showed me last time.

I felt a nudge in my shoulder and found Elea gesturing at me to listen to what they were discussing. I nodded and found Imani giving the verdict again.

"The mark has grown, this is already a sign that it is exactly what the A\'caen mentioned," Imani\'s voice was stern and commanding. "A fate mark. Honestly, I didn\'t know much about this, but if it is really a fate mark, then the only thing that is stopping Gale, I believe it to be the collar."

"Unfortunately, everyone\'s not as lucky as Uncle Phillips, it seems," I added with a low chuckle. Nobody joined me.

"According to A\'caen, these collars only restrict the energy, not fate locks or marks, but since the fate marks need energy to act, the collar cancels out everything. If somehow. . ."

Imani\'s voice trailed off as she found she was simply wishing for something that\'s not achievable. At least not by them.

"If there is really some higher power in this universe," Uncle Phillips said, "and that power had chosen the kid for this, I believe this isn\'t the end. I believe they had a plan for everything and everyone."

Wow, I didn\'t believe him to be religious, not to mention after all he faced in this hell.

"Anyway, we\'ll continue this for a few more days, if we see no development, we\'ll stop it."

That was the end of it. I got back to straight to my quarters, keeping my mind steady, since depressing thoughts were my only companion. There was no rest of it, whenever I felt they went away after I succeeded at something, they came back shoving into misery once again.

Humming some lonely tune, I opened the door and got into my room as a familiar voice hit my ears.

"I thought you\'d not come back today," the most prettiest woman I had ever laid eyes on said, "I thought you\'re probably enjoying some lovely girl\'s company. The Elea girl was it?"