Dimension of Abnormality Part III: The Prisoner

By Rebecka Jones, Staff Writer

Negasi Armani. Her father’s name rang through Nova’s mind, transporting her back to Caligo. She remembered the warmth of her home, the memories she made with her father before everything was taken from her; she recalled the nights they would cook their favorite stew together, their intense rounds of Chess that ended with Nova flipping the board over, and them chasing each other in that field. That field…where everything ended.

She hadn’t heard her father’s name come out of someone’s mouth since her exile. Hearing his name on the lips of this Caligean soldier cracked something inside of her—this weak wall around her heart she’d been trying to build all these years to keep her emotions from ruining her ability to fight.

But, there she was, her body weakened and her hand falling away from the soldier’s throat, making his shoulders shake as he gasped for air.

Her lips began to tremble as she parted them, and she feared she was unable to speak. All she could force out was, “How do you know that name?”

The soldier loomed before her now, looking down at her with those silver eyes. Nova believed she caught a hint of concern, but it vanished in seconds when he spoke. “Your father, Negasi Armani, is critically ill. He does not have any more time left.”

Suddenly it was as if the world was crumbling down around them. Everything was shaking, and Nova couldn’t tell if it was her body or if an earthquake had started. She quickly discovered the former was incorrect because the soldier was looking around with wide eyes, grabbing onto a pipe jutting out of the wall. The bodyguards that were backing her up had rounded the corner, trying to stabilize themselves against the wall as they approached.

Nova zoned them out, her eyes focused on the soldier before her. She found herself unable to move – it was as if she was magnetically bound to the metal floor, for she felt electricity crackling in her veins. Her fingertips burned, itching for that power. Her eyes were bright like lasers, lighting the dimmed hallway in purple hues.

The space tore between her and the soldier, opening up to a black abyss. The portal spun rapidly, consuming its surroundings and forming a wormhole into an endless nothingness.

Nova gasped. She hadn’t thought up a place to travel to, and she hadn’t felt the power release from her. She urged the portal to close, but it went rogue, stretching out and completely blocking her from the soldier with its infinite darkness.

She heard the guards behind her shouting, but she couldn’t make out their words. All she could do was stare into the void as it slowly began to swallow her up. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.

In the darkness, she caught a flash of ocean-blue eyes. She heard a deep, familiar voice. “Nova?” it asked in Caligean. When she didn’t respond, it asked again, more urgently, “Nova?”

Father! she wanted to scream, but her lips were sealed. She thrashed, trying to unleash herself from whatever kept her from moving and speaking, but to no avail. A silhouette in the distance caught her eye, coated in purple light. She could make out those graying, brown curls. Those freckles peppered on his cheeks. She wanted to scream and cry her lungs out so he could hear her, but it was hopeless.

“My little star,” her father’s voice boomed, filled with warmth. “You’re almost there.”

Then his silhouette is gone. The darkness surrounding her vanished and closed in on itself, taking her back to the dim hallway with the trembling soldier and the frozen guards behind her. Everything had stopped shaking. The electricity inside her disappeared, leaving her weakened and collapsing to the ground.

“Miss Nova!” cried one of the guards, rushing to her side as the other aimed his arrow towards the soldier.

Nova stared at the ground, bewildered and troubled. She couldn’t understand what her father had said or why he had said it. She looked up past the guards and into the soldier’s silver eyes, finding them to be already on her. He had let go of the pole and was rigid before her, his eyes wide with horror. She was filled with unease as she realized she was the one who gave him that look in his eyes, then that feeling turned into terror as she wondered how that portal even formed in the first place.

There was so much she experienced in the past twenty minutes that she couldn’t understand, but  what the soldier had said before the portal opened slowly came back to her. He was sent there to look for her. He would have the answers. And she had a mission to complete.

“You,” she began hoarsely, “are coming with me.”

---

The Chieftess circled the soldier like a vulture, her long robe sweeping alongside her. She was all authority and beauty, taking up the entire room with her royal presence, while the soldier was dirty and wounded, looking meek and small in the Chieftess’ chamber. His uniform was torn on the arms, and his black locks and tanned face were covered in dry, orange mud. Nova noticed that one of his legs was sagging, and she recalled how she first discovered him on the ground. Perhaps he was wounded from the crash.

“He is Caligean, correct?” The Chieftess asked in Aprican while turning to Nova, black eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“Yes,” Nova replied in the same tongue. “The soldiers on Caligo wear that same symbol.” She gestured toward the symbol embroidered on the chest of the soldier’s uniform, a crescent moon with a sword going through it.

“Interesting,” exclaimed the Chieftess, a smirk spreading across her furry face. “And you said he was sent to find you? To tell you that your father is on his deathbed?”

The reminder of her father’s illness sent chills down Nova’s spine. “Correct.” She made no mention of the portal or her father’s words, and she had ordered for the two guards who had been with her to not say a word either.

“We are to kill him, are we not, Chieftess?” Adira spoke from beside Nova. She had arrived in the Chieftess’ chambers as soon as she caught word that a human was present on Apricus, and she had been pacing before Nova brought the soldier.

“I would like to question him first,” the Chieftess replied, staring at the soldier. Though he was wounded and surrounded by deadly Alaptera guards, he remained still, showing no signs of fear. Nova took in his upright posture and the way he gazed at the noble creature with an unreadable expression. Was he hiding his fear? Nova thought. The Chieftess turned to her then, her growing smile making her stomach drop. “Honor me by translating.”

Nova bowed her head and nodded, fighting to keep her body from trembling under the creature’s gaze. The Chieftess asked him a series of questions, and Nova obeyed in translating. 

What is your name? 

Amias Cruz. 

What is your business here? 

The Caligean Council is close with Nova’s father, and he wanted to see his daughter because he might not have enough time left. 

Why should we trust you? 

I am simply a messenger. I deliver the message and complete my mission.

His responses did nothing to calm Nova, and she still held her suspicions. She wanted to interrogate him herself, to figure out what happened on the ship—why she saw and heard her father, and what his words meant.

Nova could tell Adira had questions burning on her tongue by the way she was shifting her weight back and forth between her feet and how her ears twitched uncontrollably, but the Chieftess seemed satisfied with those three questions. She ordered the guards to detain the soldier until she made her final decision.

After the guards had left with him, the Chieftess thanked Nova for following orders and dismissed her. Nova was not so easily satisfied like the Chieftess, however.

---

Nova had her hand outstretched in the field, eyes closed. The power was already at her fingertips as she imagined the dungeons below the Great Tree. Dark tunnels. Stone walls infested with moss. Dim lights from the flickering torches on the walls. The sound of water droplets in the distance.

It was not a pretty sight to imagine, but it worked. She opened her eyes and saw a portal open before her, the dark cells and stone arches of the dungeons within its cycling purple glow. She couldn’t hold back the smile on her face at her success. She had known she could do it after almost opening up two portals—one to Caligo and one to Lunella—and, most recently, opening up a portal to a black abyss where her father was.

If only I could do that again, she thought. Her heart sank. She still didn’t know how she had done it. Hopefully this soldier—Amias Cruz—would give her answers. He had better; her father’s life was on the line… if the soldier was telling the truth.

She pushed those thoughts aside and entered the portal. Her surroundings twisted and distorted then cleared when she stepped foot into the dungeons.

The fresh air from outside became humid and suffocating. Instead of the natural light from Apricus’ three moons, the light in here was dim and came from the wavering flames of the torches that lined the walls. Their flickering light only illuminated the hallway, leaving the cells in darkness, her mind and the vague light playing tricks on her as she looked through the prison bars into the unknown.

The hair on Nova’s neck prickled, and her heart pounded swiftly against her chest. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be down here because the Chieftess wanted to interrogate the soldier personally—and Adira would probably breathe down her neck for this—but she had to find answers. She had already made two guards swear silence about what happened on the ship, so she didn’t want to convince more guards to let her through. Plus, she had her own way in.

She looked from cell to cell, finding all of them empty. She knew Apricus didn’t have many intruders. The last intruder besides the soldier was her. The dungeons were typically a forgotten space, only used for rare occasions such as this.

As she came across the last cell in the hall, she heard the sound of shuffling feet from behind the iron bars. Grabbing a torch from the wall and holding it in front of the cell, Nova could see the soldier was pushed up against the cell wall, his head sagging downward and his chest raggedly rising and falling. He looked more disheveled and worn compared to when she had first seen him on the ship. His dark hair was shiny with sweat, the tips drooping over a face crusted with mud. His cheeks were also still covered in mud, but it couldn’t hide how pale his face was. Her eyes scanned down his body until she noticed his left pant leg was stained with blood that trailed all the way to the hem, where fresh blood dripped to the dirt ground.

Nova swallowed the bile in her throat. What was she thinking? This was a human. This soldier comes from the creatures who took her from her home and exiled her while they tortured many others of her kind. She shouldn’t be trusting this man with anything. She shouldn’t even be here.

But she had to know what was going on with her father. She had to figure out how she formed that portal back on the ship and how it connected to him. Despite her hatred for humanity, she felt something was different with this one. She recalled the look in those silver eyes when she asked how he knew her father’s name. Genuine concern.

Without a second thought, she croaked out in Caligean, “I can help you if you help me.”

His eyes flashed towards hers, narrowing then widening as recognition set in. She couldn’t tell if the glint in his eyes was from fear or relief she wasn’t a guard. Or maybe it was a combination of both.

“Miss Armani,” he whispered. Her name on his lips made her shudder, so she crossed her arms to mask the way his voice affected her.

“Tell me everything you know, and I can get you medical help,” she explained. Then, as if it would really help anything, she added, “No lies.”

He blinked at her. Once. Twice. She thought he was going into cardiac arrest from all that blood loss until he finally replied, “I told you everything. I’m here to take you home to your father. Well, I was until my ship got shot down.” He paused as if he were recalling a memory. “You have the ability to open portals, don’t you? Can you get us both back to Caligo?”

Nova cringed at the reminder of her first attempt to open up a portal to her birth planet, and how her weakness took hold of her and forced her to fail. She chose not to mention that to the soldier. She needed him to answer her honestly. “Tell me what happened on the ship. Did you do something to me to make me create that portal? And how did you know my father would be in there?”

The soldier raised a brow. “I had nothing to do with that. You did it all by yourself, and, to be frank, it was impressive.”

Nova narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t buying it. “I said no lying.”

“I am being entirely honest with you, Miss Armani. I haven’t got a single clue as to what happened back there. I was searching for the exit after the ship crashed, but then I heard you and the soldiers sweeping from room to room. I didn’t want to alert you, but this awful gash on my leg decided to open up even more and cause me a world of pain, so that is why you found me on the ground. I meant no harm. I only wanted to find you. I know nothing else except the fact I am supposed to bring you home to your father. Council’s orders.”

She didn’t want to believe him. Shouldn’t believe him. But Nova couldn’t see anything except vulnerability in those tired, silver eyes. She knew he was in great pain and needed medical assistance immediately – there was no telling how much longer he would be down here before the Chieftess came back and did who knows what to him, and Nova couldn’t have him dead if she needed answers.

What is wrong with me? she asked herself as she held her hand out towards the bars. The soldier stared at her, unmoving. But she wasn’t offering her hand.

Beneath him, a portal tore open in the ground. The soldier looked down in awe, but then Nova registered fear in his face as he fell through the portal. He fell from the second portal she formed above her, and she captured him in her arms. Nova was grateful for all that training for her upper-body strength, for this soldier probably weighed several hundreds pounds of muscle.

“What just—?” He began, turning his head left to right.

“Interdimensional travel.” She explained as she began opening up another portal.

The soldier looked at her arms wrapped around his back and legs and then pressed his lips into a thin line. “This is a rather odd predicament.”

“You shouldn’t be walking with your leg in this condition.”

“What are we doing, exactly?”

“Escaping.”

Then, with the soldier in her arms, Nova stepped through the portal.

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