Year 2 – Shift 14 – Sara
Sara held a hand over her eyes as the sun from the skylight blazed down on Etokuso when she exited the hatch to the void. The first step out was the hardest.
The once-beautiful, tight clusters of row houses were gone. Already cleaned up.
The pain in her chest swelled when she saw the twenty-two headstones placed with great care in what would become the graveyard of Etokuso. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she approached them. She walked by each one, reading every name and rubbing her fingers over the letters so she could ingrain them in her memory.
Then she came to the smallest two, and a massive weight crushed her chest.
Brian and Brunhilda.
Two children she had watched grow from bickering and arguing with the other kids to becoming leaders for the younger generation of Etokusopudlians. They helped resolve conflicts until the conflicts started melting away. They were healers in the way she wanted everyone to be. Healers with words, not solvers of problems. They mastered nonviolent communication and spread it through the children of the city.
Sara fell to her knees and vomited nothing but bile onto the ground in front of her.
“I’m so sorry. I never wanted this. I just wanted to give everyone a place to be free.”
The tears rolled down her face as she stifled a sob.
“I just wanted to help. So no one had to feel how I felt my whole life. But instead, I got future leaders…children…killed.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Bonita Parks, one of Brian and Brunhilda’s moms, put a hand on her shoulder from behind.
“You let them live before they died.”
Sara swallowed hard and looked up at the woman with more shame than she had ever felt. Her wife and the children’s other mother, Boozie Gardener, stood beside her with Bonita’s hand held tightly in hers.
“Without you, Sara,” Boozie assured her, “they would have been eaten alive by the abuse in our home. You changed their lives and ours.”
Sara’s jaw tightened as she tried to process what Boozie was saying.
“I didn’t—”
“You did,” Bonita cut her off. “You gave us a place where we weren’t under constant pressure anymore. Worrying about feeding my babies tore me up more than you can imagine.”
“We were so mean to them, and we had no idea how to stop,” Boozie said. “Every little thing they did to grow, we saw as an annoyance.”
She took a moment to wipe her eyes.
“Not having to worry about sleeping on the streets anymore let us focus. It let us recover and lead them toward happiness. Thank you.”
Sara sobbed as the women knelt and engulfed her in an embrace. The three cried together, holding each other for a time before they let go.
By then, a crowd had gathered around them.
The Shafted cried. Chadwick cried. The Wangs crew cried.
It was like the communal healing had begun, and Sara still couldn’t fathom how she was in the middle of it, but she knew refusing Sengoku’s offer had been the right decision.
She stood and addressed everyone.
Sara pointed at the graves.
“Never again. Never again will I be blind.”
She fought the tears as she spoke each name aloud, saving the children for last.
“Brian Parks and Brunhilda Gardener. Every single one of them was a light. A light that will guide us forward.”
Sara looked over the crowd.
“Mujintō.”
“Mujintō,” the crowd murmured back with solemn power.
A portal ripped open a hundred yards to Sara’s left on the patio. The Shafted were already securing it by the time she realized Simone, Cody, and Mark were hopping out.
“Mark?”
Sara waited for Raven to follow them, but the portal closed. Her vision narrowed to a pinprick.
“Where is she?”
The Shafted cleared a path as they came together.
Mark closed the distance and stepped unusually close. His face was completely blank, but his weight was that of worlds.
“We need to talk, Gummybear.”
Sara’s heart dropped in her chest. That was something Mark only called her when even he had no way of spinning something terrible.
“Mark, stop.”
He didn’t budge.
“No, Mark. Stop.”
The information was too much to process. What could have happened to her partner?
“Let’s go for a walk.”
Mark took her hand, and she couldn’t stop the pull. Once they were out of earshot and over the hill, he stopped and looked her in the eyes.
She always demanded he never pull punches.
“Raven is going to Hazbruhharassin with her uncles. She’s being erased.”
Everything came crashing down.
“What?”
Sara shook her head.
“Erased? How?”
“I have no clue, but Cody says the Wangs crew is tracking about ten people this is happening to across Tawagoto.”
“Like…at the level of her character sheet?”
“Well, you know who her uncle is, and he is going to risk getting caught in the web again to see Stomph,” Mark said. “She’s starting to forget things.”
The crying, the despair, the sheer weight of everything spilled over into her, but it died instantly.
“She didn’t like the drawing…”
“On the contrary, my friend.” Mark shook his head. “She was going straight to Falsari.”
“Goddess dammit…”
Sara felt the desperation but fought it tooth and nail. If she lost it now, Raven would be gone.
“She didn’t trust me to come back to her.”
Mark took a deep breath and let it out.
“You’re stupid.”
“What?”
“Look at you,” he said. “You defeated a fucking Iotsv with godlike intelligence, and you’re getting wishy-washy over a girl?”
The sentiment hit like a hammer, and she cocked her head.
“Are you jealous?”
“Ouch.” Mark shook his head and jerked his thumb toward the town full of people. “Do you see what you’ve built?”
“I didn’t build shit,” she replied. “They did it. I just gave them a chance.”
“Exactly,” Mark said. “When Dong and Craig and Pebble Reigns gave up on the Shafted, you opened your heart and gave them a home.”
“But their home was destroyed because of me!” Sara raised her voice.
“Funny thing about homes,” Mark said. “Kid Cutterz got destroyed, but I don’t feel any less at home than I do when I’m around you.”
Sara was about to lash out, but the words weren’t what she expected.
“R…really?”
“Sara, we’ve been side by side since kindergarten. We’ve shared a home for the last twenty years. You think I’m doing that just for a chance to fuck you? I’ve seen you naked. Pass. You’re my best friend.”
“So you do like me!”
She already knew the answer but had never heard it out loud.
Mark shrugged. “I used to. For a long time. Probably until Raven, to be honest.”
“Eww, Mark.” Sara felt gross just hearing it. “So every time we slept in the same bed or jumped in the same shower, you…”
“No.” Mark said it firmly. “I said I liked you, not that I wanted to fuck you.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He nodded. “Now, enough. Your partner is out there getting her memory erased. What are you going to do about it? Sit here and talk about old, finally resolved feelings, or kick some fucking ass?”
Sara took a moment to process everything as she scanned the rebuilding efforts. She hadn’t been out long, and they had already gotten this far.
The Shafted were truly incredible.
“Let’s go see Glandalf.”
“Agreed.” Mark started toward the hatch. “He’s still down here, right?”
“Yeah.”
Sara followed him down and into the tunnel. They walked down the new staircase to the command center and pulled the door open. Inside, Shardi, Glandalf, and the Wangs crew were all nose-down in their work.
“Glandalf,” Mark called to him. “What can you tell us about the people being unwritten?”
Glandalf’s eyebrow rose.
“We don’t have much. It’s low priority.”
“It’s number one right now,” Sara said. “There are ten people being unwritten, and I want to know how so it doesn’t spread.”
Glandalf took a moment to think, then nodded.
“Fair. Let’s look.”
He began tapping through the texts. The others followed suit.
“Let’s see,” Glandalf said. “Looks like there are eleven now. A new thread just showed up. Nope, twelve.”
“See?” Sara said. “It’s spreading.”
“I found the incoming thread,” Thiccolus called out. “It’s really confusing because it’s hard-coded.”
“What’s that mean?” Sara asked.
“It means it has been present in the world since the creation era,” Brogrom said, looking up from his texts. “The period up until Craig hopped in.”
Sara and Mark shared a puzzled look.
“Actually…” Glandalf cut in. “I followed that, and it forks. There are two sources. The other one…”
The room fell silent, and Sara swallowed the absolute terror creeping through her pores.
“What is it?”
“The island,” Glandalf said.
Sara waited for more, but nothing else came.
“The island what?”
“The island is the source,” Thiccolus gasped.
“No,” Glandalf responded calmly. “That’s a mistranslation in Wizardnese. It translates to the source of the island, not the island is the source. This is written in Conjur’eer dialect.”
The room paused in collective thought.
What was this island tied to her, and why was it draining her star?
“It’s got to be Alenikka.” Mark pushed his gaudy gas station sunglasses up his nose.
“No.” Sara held her breath. “She’s going to the source.”
The sickness spread to every face in the room. All eyes, having no other explanation, looked to Mark.
“This is creator-level shit, dude,” Glandalf said.
Mark’s face went a shade of pale she had never seen.
“I don’t know how to beat this. I don’t have any power anymore.”
The world drifted away as Sara stood in a deep daze. Everything went floaty, and her feet got heavy.
Everything she had fought and clawed her way up from was chasing the source of her deepest comfort.
She took a sharp breath as the answer snapped into her head with resounding clarity.
“I have to kill my darling.”