Part 1: Precipice

Writing Journal

Sep 18, 2024

Good morning.

I am happy to tell you that I finished this story just in time to publish it today. This is one of the longest short stories I have done and I plan to continue the story with another section in a few weeks. However, this story does stand on its own and can be read as a single short story. I hope I can keep this pace up as I’ve written more in the past week than I have in the last three months combined and it has added a huge amount of satisfaction to my life. Although writing is difficult, at least I don’t feel as if I am avoiding what I’m meant to be doing.

I hope you enjoy the story!

This image was created using AI.

Precipice

Dying, for most of human history, wasn’t a choice and that made it easy, at least in Leven Burrow’s perspective. Everyone got something, when was the only question. He vaguely remembered holding onto his mother’s hand as she asked for the fifth time who he was. On the prism, there hadn’t been an unplanned death in two hundred years until now.

A body lay before him; Erica was her name. Her white hair cut so short she was almost bald, sweat glistening on her forehead. He steadied her head, trying not to watch as her eyes rolled about in their sockets. She wasn’t thrashing anymore, in fact, he was certain that her exoskeleton had been trying to self-destruct before he’d thrown it off the edge.

Leven had never seen a Novan, a modern human, without some kind of external shell. Without it, she looked frightfully thin, and he wondered if her legs would even support her. He felt like a priest, knelt there in his dark robes, bare feet and shoulder-length hair.

She was still dying, and it bothered him that he cared. He’d been so close to stepping off this time, teetering at the edge, starting longingly into the endless darkness, the distant specs of stars and the light grey haze of the prism’s artificial atmosphere. It beckoned to him. To him, the Prism was a cruel rendition of the afterlife, devoid of everything he’d ever cared for. Even the Novans were so wrapped up in their virtual overlays that Leven, disconnected from any technology, was invisible.

Yet something was happening. Novans didn’t just die, nor did they crashland on the metal ledges that protruded from the prism’s angular structure. The best his simple, human brain could make out was that they were being attacked. And losing.

In the past hour, he’d already seen eight Novans die, the artificial atmosphere rippling as they passed through, decompression taking their lives in minutes. He could only guess how many he’d missed. Erica, the woman lying before him, wasn’t so lucky; perhaps it would be hours before her body shut down, it could be days. He would have helped her on her way if he didn’t owe his life to her.

Leven was officially over one thousand years old, yet he’d lived more than seven hundred of them frozen solid until humans had discovered how to revive him. Then, three hundred years prior, he’d awoken on this very spaceship, the Prism. That’s where he’d first met Erica, the historian in charge of integrating Leven and the eighty or so others. Life back then had been exciting, even if the Novans, as they called themselves, were very different. Then, they’d been introduced to the cornerstone of modern civilisation, the virtual overlays. Essentially, through implanted brainchips, the Novans lived in a world that was enhanced through augmentation and could be edited and adapted to the discretion of the Prisms’s inhabitants. Yet, what they hadn’t told the humans was the price, that of their memories. Erica, among others, had saved almost a third of the humans before the effects became too drastic. Even so, two centuries later, Leven was among the few humans that remained, memories only intact by living in the empty halls, completely apart from the technology that turned the steel walls into the stuff of dreams.

To save Erica, he would likely forsake his remaining memories from Earth, and so he played them in his head as he reached up and connected the brain chip to power.

His vision went fuzzy for a few moments as his whole body tingled. It wasn’t his body, just the chip stimulating his brain. When his vision returned, he was almost blinded by the sun.

The steel ledge beneath his feet was now covered in grass that tickled his ankles. Blue sky replaced the starfield all around him, and when he glanced over the edge, he thought he could see distant pines laded with snow.

Erica lay still for now in a bed of wildflowers; the blood splotches on her undersuit were the only sign that she wasn’t simply sleeping.

Leven hated that he enjoyed its beauty, hated that when he reached for memories of Earth, they were gone. He’d fought off the 100-year brain for so long, living in solitude in those empty tunnels, all to lose it in his last moments. All he’d wanted was to die the same man he’d been born, as a human. Now, he would die a Novan.

Leven knew the halls of the prism far better than any of the Novans did. He explained it with the basic principle that the brain expands or contracts depending on what it needs to do. The Novans might be able to live fully connected to the virtual overlays, but he could traverse the angular tunnels faster than they could. Yet those angular hallways were not made of sheet steel anymore. He was in a mine, the stones sharp beneath his feet and the walls pressing in on either side. There was more than one overlay, but he’d never got further than this, the one designed for him and his fellow humans.

He had no idea if this was what a mine should look like, that part of his memory had already been rewritten. The way to the sanctuary was well signposted, with white lettering carved into the tunnel walls at intersections. He wished he could go back to the steel world that he knew. The invisibility he knew.

Now, he peered around each corner, but the tunnels were empty, devoid of Novan life. The attackers were Novans, too, so far as he could tell, perhaps from another spaceship. He felt the first excitement in over a hundred years as he dashed across a large intersection and back into the tunnels, ignoring the pain on his feet as he stepped on a sharp stone. Attackers meant that they weren’t alone travelling to the distant stars, someone else had caught up.

Leven arrived at the sanctuary without a hitch. He shuddered as the archway came into view and warm evening light filtered through. It was exactly what it sounded like. A zoo for humans to whom Erica was the zookeeper.

The sanctuary was perhaps the only place in the entire prism that wasn’t touched by the virtual overlays, and yet, Leven preferred the stone halls to the smell of baking bread… He paused. Bread that had meant something to him before. He grasped at the memory, but it was gone.

He stepped through the archway. Leven knew every hallway in the prism, but he had not crossed the threshold of this place in fifty years or so. Grass tickled his knees as he took slow steps forward, the cobbled path completely swallowed by the growth of weeds. He vaguely recalled exploring an abandoned building before he’d gone in for the deep freeze, but someone could have just told him that for all he could remember.

Evening light from the giant screens above glinted off the sagging walls of wooden huts. The millhouse’s large windows were broken, the shutters hanging limply, and the waterwheel no longer turned, though crystal clear water still splashed down into the pond.

The prism had been built to last thousands of years with simple steel walls, but the sanctuary had not. He suspected that they’d expected to eventually integrate with the Novans. The wheel had once worked, turning a mill within the building, but, as he’d explained to the Novans many times, he wasn’t from medieval times, they’d had spaceships when he’d been alive, small ones, admittedly, but all the same.

They’d just shrugged and told him that they’d chosen a period of five hundred years or so, not quite realising that had perhaps been the quickest development that humans had ever seen. For these humans, who were up to four hundred years old, that didn’t seem like much. Still, for people so intelligent, they were frightfully ignorant.

Nothing moved as he walked between the buildings, wrinkling his nose at the smell of damp decay. Even the town square with its marble water fountain was overgrown, the white stone green from years of algae growth. He wondered, for the first time, if he was the last human alive. “And I’m a poor example,” he whispered, looking around.

To his relief, as the light dimmed and the streetlights flared to life, he caught sight of movement between two of the buildings.

Leven lept into motion, dashing after it. Down a narrow alley he ran, which smelled quite horrible, and along the back of the buildings. He caught a flash of white hair as his quarry dashed inside.

He reached the door just as it slammed shut, but he was ready and kicked it open before they could lock it.

“No!” A voice cried out, and the figure cowered back, hands covering their face.

“Amy?”

The woman in question dropped her hands, revealing a dark face framed by short white hair. She looked the same as she had the last time he’d seen her, several years ago, prowling the halls around the sanctuary. He’d almost returned then if only to speak to a fellow human. She hadn’t aged and still looked about fifty, but the way she crouched, her bony knuckles now clenched into small fists, made him think of an old woman.

“You’ll bring them,” she hissed, shifting back on her heels, “You brought them here!” Her voice was shrill and shook as she pointed a finger at him.

Leven snorted, “I won’t stay long, I’m looking for Erica.”

No flare of recognition touched her eyes as she pointed again, “They took him like that!” she slammed her fist into the floorboard, and it disintegrated. She drew her fist back, knuckles bleeding.

Leven sighed and crouched down, “Who took him? And who is he?”

A tear leaked from her eye as she looked down, “It is a lonely place this, you know that. We had only each other.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, and he meant it.

“It was that!” Amy’s eyes widened, and she pointed at him again.

“No, not me—”

There was a faint crunch behind him, and Leven spun just in time to see a hulking exoskeleton smash through the balcony railing. He and Amy screamed in unison, scrambling away.

Amy took to the stairs, and Leven scrambled into the hallway, dodging missing floorboards. He kicked open the house’s front door just as he heard screaming behind him. It cut off suddenly.

He paused and closed his eyes for a second. Sometimes, death was easier when it was unexpected. Then, he was sprinting down the street, passing the empty fountain. He had to find Erica and fast.

When he left the sanctuary, he was glad, passing a disguised wall, the paint peeling off. Yet, as soon as he stepped through the archway, he was back in the tunnels. He felt his way along the wall. There was a door here somewhere, hidden from view. He ignored what his brain was telling him, the sharp rocks against his fingers; he pushed harder and… Click. In the simulation, the rocks shifted, revealing a polished marble facade and a door that would have fit right in back on earth, probably on a… He trailed off; he didn’t know where he’d seen a door like that before. Maybe he hadn’t. He tried the handle and then knocked, glancing back towards the sanctuary and the eery silence. He had a pursuer; he would have to be quick.

The door swung open on its own accord, and he stepped through, pulling it shut behind him without looking inside. Dark wooden panelling lined the large room, and the floor was decorated with chequered tiles of black and white, the antique look spoiled only by the giant lockers holding exo-suits.

The woman he was looking for was sitting on the bed, still in her undersuit. She was just as she had been in real life, save her eyes were red as if she’d been crying, her hands clutching a slip of paper. His stomach sank when he recognised it.

“No need to stare.”

He wondered how long it had been since he’d heard her voice, fifteen, twenty years. She was no older, but her eyes were slightly wider, and she held herself differently, there was none of the bright enthusiasm that she’d had at the beginning, although that had left much earlier, within the first decade. He still found her beautiful, oddly. Beautiful for a Novan, at least.

Slowly, she folded up the paper and slipped it onto the bedside table, mahogany, he guessed. Mahogony… Perhaps that was the type of wood or perhaps the colour. Both maybe?

“Is this your goodbye?” she said, voice soft.

“No.” The firmness of his voice surprised him, inside, he was in turmoil. “I am here to rescue you, like the knight in shining armour that I am.” What was a knight?

She even smiled at that but shook her head, “Leven, you shouldn’t be here. I see now how wrong we were to subject you and the others to this without considering the ramifications.”

“Seventy deaths is enough to convince you? I’m impressed. Now a man is pursuing me, and he’s already killed two humans, I don’t fancy being stuck here either.”

She stood an odd movement. She didn’t push off the bed; simply straightened her legs and floated over to face him, her feet skimming the floor. “So the hermit comes out of his cave for a grand finale? Is this what it’s all about, you come in here to save me and die in the process. Well, I’m sorry, but you can’t, just this time, you will be trapped as well.”

Something heavy slammed against the door, and Leven closed his eyes.

“Leven, you’re the last one. The last one who’s not crazy that hasn’t lost all their memories, please, I can’t die knowing that my life’s work was for nothing.”

“I am one thousand years old, when you reach my age, you may understand,” he grabbed the paper from her hands and stuffed it into his pocket.

She sniffed, “You may be one thousand years old, but you were in ice for around seven hundred years, that makes you younger than me.”

“I’m not here on some heroic mission,” he said quietly, “I owe you a debt, I mean to repay it.”

She opened her mouth.

Leven was faster, “Heartless, I know. But those memories? They’re gone. And I don’t want to lose more than is—”

The door splintered, the overlay doing an impressive job as a black exo-leg stepped onto the tiles.

For a moment, they were frozen in place, and he didn’t know if she was about to run, fight or punch him. Instead, she reached out and grabbed his arm. To his surprise, he felt it despite her not being there.

Something hit him in the head, and his vision faded slowly, the floor closing the distance with his face.

“Leven.” That was Erica’s voice. “Come with me…”

When he opened his eyes, the man was gone, along with the room’s entire furnishings. Even the panelled walls were reduced to cold steel. Yet it wasn’t what it should look like, buffed and smooth, instead, red, blue, green and yellow lines glowed, running along the walls and across the ceilings. Now and then, the lines met in some sort of junction box.

Erica crouched beside one, her hands inside the wall as she fiddled with something.

“Where are we? Am I real?”

“Maintenence. Don’t touch any of the screens; you don’t know what you could be affecting.” She drew her hands back from the wall and slapped the small door closed. “That should keep him busy for a while.”

“The attacker, you stopped him following us?”

She shook her head, “I locked him out of the room. Hopefully, that means your body will be okay; I don’t want you trapped here, too. That device he carries can do that.”

He sighed and leaned against the wall, “So we’re safe? For the moment.”

She grabbed his arm and drifted over to the door and into the hallway, “He can still follow, but if we’re fast enough… It’s only a matter of time. I must continue what I was doing.”

“What you were doing when you crashed into the ledge?”

She paused and turned to look at him, arm tightening on his. “No. I was looking for you and was almost successful until he found me.”

He pressed on, “Before that, then.”

She let go and kept on down the hallway, “I don’t know if I can even call myself a historian anymore, no, for the past two decades, I’ve been working here, fixing glitches and trying my best to stop intruders from entering the overlays.

Despite being nothing but a simulation in his mind, he was out of breath trying to keep up with her floating form, “Twenty years? The attacks are recent, a week at most.”

She shook her head, not bothering to turn around, “No, they’ve been going on for the past two years, there are not many of us left now, just those that keep maintenance running and those in the bridge, the fighters… Well, I think you can guess by now.”

Leven shook his head, which was beginning to hurt. All of this was too much for his poor little brain to handle. Years? He tried to remember when he’d seen the first death, it felt like yesterday. But time in the halls was an endless stretch; sleep came when he felt like it. He couldn’t remember anything different.

“The 100-year brain,” Erica said, stopping suddenly and ducking down to a screen set into the wall at knee height where many wires intersected from those coming up from the floor.

“I don’t remember,” he said flatly. In truth, he did, but he knew that if he summoned the memory just out of reach, it would appear and then disappear. He had to leave them where they were lest they be quickly replaced.

She was still for a moment, then straightened, this time with a slightly kinder look for him. “The brain has its limits, 100 years or so before it starts rewriting over past experiences. I— we can record our memories, but they become something else, like looking back on our ancestors. So we embrace it, and you will have to as well.”

She was moving again, and he sighed heavily before following. That was it; he’d postponed the decay of his memories all for them to be lost in these last moments. Soon, it wouldn’t matter, though he’d have liked to die the man he’d been born.

She began to talk as she worked, explaining what she was doing to break the silence that had come over him.

“The ship doesn’t keep moving on its own,” she said, fiddling with something inside the wall, “At least, not when it is being attacked. We have something important here, and it’s up to us to protect it.”

He could only guess that this was an actual panel in the ship, just one that was normally invisible. For the first time, he recognised the utility of having virtual overlays. The grass and butterflies were stupid, but this! The people from his generation would have appreciated this.

“You said there were fewer of you left, how many?” He’d assumed for so many years that there were tens of thousands of Novans on the ship, yet in all his time in the halls, he’d rarely bumped into anyone.

She shrugged, straightening again, “It’s hard to tell, fifty, perhaps. The bridge is sealed up for now.”

“You’re repairing things?”

“I’m disabling manual access to the ship’s systems.”

Erica’s lips peeled back in a scream just as Leven was thrown out of the way, slamming against the wall. It hurt a lot.

When he turned, Erica was trying to fight off a man in a slim, almost metallic-looking suit as he grasped her and fumbled with some sort of device on his wrist. It was the same one that had been on the man who’d been following him. She’d said it could trap him here. Erica’s screams pierced his ears as he touched the device to her cheek. If only he could steal it off him.

Leven was already moving and landed on the other man, who appeared to be much more real than he was, so he was unable to affect him physically.

“He’s in the real dimension too!” Erica bit out just before she collapsed to the floor, and the man swung around.

“A human.” The man’s voice was deathly calm as he slammed Leven so hard against the wall that he saw stars. He wondered if that was part of the overlay or not. “We don’t let ours walk free,” he said and grasped Leven by the front of his shirt, “They do tricks for us, for treats. Just like they did with seals centuries past.”

“You’re an animal,” Leven hissed despite himself, “You don’t have the right to that face.”

For a moment, the man was silent, the pressure increasing ever so slightly so that he had to gasp for air. Then he laughed, a booming one, before slamming the back of his hand and the contraption into Leven’s face.

The pain was intense but only lasted a second, and then he was—

A bright light was shining straight at his eyes, and no matter how much he squeezed them, it didn’t go away. It was as if he were sitting in front of headlights. Headlights, what were they? When he finally opened his eyes, the light was gone, endless darkness spread out before him, with only the pinprick lights from stars breaking it up. And it was all around!

His heart caught in his throat. Air, he needed air. When he was able to breathe normally, he relaxed, somehow, out here, standing on an invisible floor, he was able to breathe.

The bright light was there when he blinked, but he realised that he could turn away from them, that it was coming from a single point. He wondered if it was the device. It had sent him here, to this empty place.

“Am I dead?” He said, grateful for the sound of something other than his breathing. Was this what it was like to die out in space, to be forever trapped in nothingness? Alone.

He stepped forward and tripped over something soft. He reached down and felt carefully with his hands, grasped a thin arm through the soft fabric of a flight suit. Erica. She groaned softly and shifted. He grasped her gently by the shoulders and shook her, “Come on, Erica! Wake up.”

She stirred, groaning. “Why do you come now? You are blocking out the light.”

“I think we’re trapped, do you know where we are?”

“So quiet… Peaceful.”

“No!” He yanked her upwards, which was easier than he’d expected. If she were to die, he’d be all alone out here. His breaths came in quick gulps. “Will he find us here?”

There was a long silence, then, “You’re real?”

He nodded. Then, feeling a little stupid, “Yes.”

Cold fingers traced the line of his jaw to finally rest on his shoulders, “He cannot follow us here,” she said finally, “and nor would he wish to. This overlay has no visual aspect, just touch. It was used in the construction phase, whatever equipment they used here was removed when it was finished. I came here by accident some time ago.”

He realised he was still holding onto her arm but didn’t let go. In the darkness, it was good to have something to hold onto. “And we can’t get out?”

He felt her shrug, “There is no atmosphere or prism to protect us from radiation here. He only needs to hold us here for a few hours, and we’re toast.”

“Radiation is a problem in virtual overlays?”

“Technician, remember,” she said, “Go and find a scientist.”

They sat there for some time, holding onto each other in the darkness. He wanted to hold her closer, anything but the endless darkness. He wondered if, in other circumstances, it would have been romantic. He had no idea if Novans even felt emotions like humans.

“How many lives have you lived?” he said when the silence had stretched long enough. “How many times have you forgotten the past.”

“Twice. I was born on earth, like you, although I doubt you would recognise it. I was a scientist and could have told you how these overlays work, but then we set off, and that part of me was irrelevant, I became a historian just in time for you to wake. Now I’m a technician out of necessity.”

“I wanted to die the man I was born,” Leven said, “I don’t remember my half-century on earth, no more than I remember my first days on the prism. It feels pointless, like there is no throughline.”

“There is no point to it; there is only what we have now. I had friends here that I had known for every one of my life, just to die in the last year. And now we’re here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

He paused. His eyes were wet, and a tear slipped down his cheek, “We’re not so different. I held onto being human for so long. The distinction is purely psychological.”

“I helped build the zoo, and yes, we called it that too. But I wasn’t a historian then, and although we have many records from your time, it didn’t sit well with the shareholders to build a modern town. They wanted something pretty, entertaining.”

“You are not who you used to be,” he said, “And neither am I, perhaps here we can start anew.”

She laughed, and he felt her breath on his face, “I think you understand what it is to be a Novan. When you live for centuries, you cannot hold people to their past. The worst crime can get you only one hundred years.”

He laughed, thinking of his time in the halls of the prism, his self-inflicted solitude. He’d been stuck in the past.

He felt her shift closer so that he could feel the heat from her face on his, her breath tickling his chin.

“How long did I say we have?” her voice was barely more than a whisper.

“I know how to get out of here,” he said quietly, “If you want to.” He wasn’t sure that he did. He was at peace, even as his memories faded from his mind, he could have sat there, holding onto Erica for what time they had left.

She pulled back, the moment gone. The darkness was cold again. “You know how to get out of here?” She laughed suddenly, “I forgot about your debt. Consider it repaid.”

“Not the debt.”

“The ledge?”

“Leven is dead,” he said finally, “So I need something else to do. Maybe I could be a technician. I don’t much like those intruders.”

She laughed some more and pulled away, punching him lightly on the arm, though how she didn’t miss, he wasn’t sure. “Show me.”

He held onto her hand and turned back towards the light. It was coming from somewhere in the distance, further away now, but still there. With one hand on the invisible wall, he made his way towards it.

When he reached it, it was blinding, but he didn’t care. He reached down and touched whatever was producing the light. His whole body tingled.

“It must be in both overlays,” Erica said, “but you can’t turn it off from here.”

“No,” he said, “But I can do this.”

He kicked the device, and the light flickered, then moved quickly. He let go of Erica and jumped after it, slamming it into the wall. The light flickered some more, but he had a hold of it now. He slammed it repeatedly into the wall, the light dimming ever so slightly.

“I’ll come back for you,” he said, slamming it into the wall one last time.

The tingling vanished, and he felt himself shift. For a moment, he had no sensation at all, and then, like a boulder being dropped upon him, his senses returned, and he screamed. Agony coursed through him as he blinked open his eyes. Cold LED lights shone back at him as he rolled over, groaning.

He couldn’t feel anything from his right leg and his left… No, he couldn’t move it, not without his vision dimming. He felt sick.

Thankfully, the intruder was gone and, to his surprise, had left almost everything intact. Even the Exo-suits still hung where he’d left them. The overlay. He reached up and felt the back of his neck for the chip, but even as he clicked it, nothing happened. This was everything, all that was real. And he was stuck in the room, unable to do anything.

Erica was still trapped somewhere in the overlays with enough radiation to kill her. He had to get to her body if the intruder had noticed them escaping his trap, he would have found his way back to her physical body.

Leven’s eyes locked onto the closest Exo-suit. It would have to work.

Some twenty minutes later, Leven was on his feet, or rather, he sagged within the confines of the cold steel and hard plastic. It was far from comfortable in his white robes, but with no other option, it would have to do. He tried again to activate the base overlay, but nothing happened.

“Good riddance.” He tapped the keypad beside the closed door of steel instead of dark wood. It flashed red at him, and nothing happened. He sighed and, clenching his teeth, kicked it. Pain shot up his leg, and he yelled as the door warped in the centre. Two more and the whole door crashed into the hallway beyond.

A dials to the left of his vision flared red, but he ignored it. Nothing moved but the water when he retraced his steps through the sanctuary. Vine-covered walls leaned to one side, the mark of the centuries taking its toll. Leven lumbered on, not looking at the house where he’d heard the scream.

Then he was out the other side and back into familiar tunnels, ones that he knew, ones that he’d slept in. Before long, he could see a sliver of the starfield as he exited the prism and stepped onto the long, narrow ledge where all of it had begun. The figure in a big black Exo suit was waiting for him, standing between him and Erica’s body.

“For a human,” the gruff voice said, “You should have died already. You shouldn’t be here at all.”

Leven swallowed hard. How did he think he could fight this man in a suit he was wearing for the first time, with two broken legs and much of his mind gone?

He stepped forward anyway. “You’ve got no choice,” he told himself and forced a grin. He’d escaped this man before; he could do it again.

For every hit, Leven landed on the man, something on his suit broke. His left arm was barely held on at the shoulder as the man’s fist slammed into him. He wondered if this was the first time his opponent had fought fist-to-fist. Presumably, he’d simply hacked into the others’ brains first, letting their Exo-suits self-destruct.

Unable to work the rockets on the back of his suit, if it even had any, he smashed in the bells of those on his opponent’s back at the first opportunity, even when it lost him the function of his right leg. Yet it was all for nothing, for the next kick came out of nowhere and took Leven in the stomach. Something cracked, and he groaned as he slammed back against the hard steel, the pieces digging into his back. He tried to move, but then the man was there, lifting him.

He realised he was flying through the air too late until he slammed against a wall and then the ground. The dial on the right of his vision flashed red and died. He tried to move, but the suit held him in place, the pieces now incredibly heavy.

His legs in agony, he tried to shift so that he could look up for the coming attack but was barely able to lift his head from the ground. He waited for it, bracing himself. It didn’t come.

“I’m sorry, Erica,” he whispered, eyes tearing up, “I broke my promise.”

He finally was able to look around to where her body lay in the distance, her captor standing over her, waiting. He stood so still that Leven wondered if the man was in the virtual world, chasing down Erica again.

“Why not just kill her?” he said out loud. No answers came of course. Maybe she was important, a bargaining chip or a way to get to the bridge of the prism From the looks of it, the way he didn’t bother to watch out for attacks, the prism was now in the hands of the attackers, all save for the bridge.

He doesn’t even think I’m a threat, Leven thought, wincing as he tried to move his legs. And, unfortunately, he was right. He was just a relic from a millennia before, perhaps even the oldest human alive. At least on the prism, he might be the only remaining human. All that he could do, what he did best, was hide in the shadows, or rather, hide from technology in his robes.

He paused then… “That’s it!”

He could hide. Not with this hulking mass on him, but he could do it. He glanced back at the captor, with the rocket bells caved in from the fight and grinned. Well, maybe he had a chance after all.

It took the best part of half an hour to remove the exoskeleton, carefully placing the pieces on the steel floor until finally, soaked with sweat, he sat in his robe again. It felt nice, the cold steel under his legs, despite the pain every time he used it.

Then he began the slow shuffle back onto the ledge that stuck out from the prism. Fifteen minutes later, by his estimate, he was within reach, and still, the captor hadn’t turned around. He was surely deep in maintenance, and his suit wouldn’t pick up a simple human in a robe as a threat, not to a completely protected man.

Leven grinned despite himself and grasped the leg piece of his exoskeleton, a forearm-length piece of metal shielding that covered the shin. Without pause, he leaned back and jammed the metal into the gap behind the knee.

The knee crumpled forward, and the man toppled sideways halfway through the fall, seeming to wake up. There was a grunt, and the man twisted in his exo suit as he fell, arms behind him. But the arms flailed in space as he toppled soundlessly off the edge.

There was a brief flare of the booster engines, then a flash and a bang that rocketed his eardrums. Leven peered over the side to watch the twisting form fall away, pass the ledges below and… There was a brief ripple as he passed through the artificial gravity and into the darkness of space.

He sighed just as his vision dimmed and went out, the pain in his legs flaring and then fading.

Leven blinked and found himself looking up at a familiar sight. Cold steel panels lined the ceiling, meeting the walls at odd angles. He was still here. Still alive. He shifted his legs and, to his surprise, felt nothing. No pain at all. Yet there was a pounding in his head like someone slamming metal against metal.

A shadow fell over him, and he twisted his head. A familiar face looked down at him. The shape is slightly off, the jaw longer than it should be, and the cheekbones more pronounced. A Novan, then. He squinted. Not just any Novan. Erica.

She looked different to the last time he’d seen her, lying there on the cold steel. Her face was no longer peaceful, and her scalp was now hidden by short white hair. It was odd to see such white hair on such a young face.

“You’re awake,” she said, reaching down and helping him sit up. She smiled faintly as he found a wall behind him, set his back against it, and looked around. He was in a plain steel room with two beds and a table covered in medical supplies… and that was it. And the pounding. He wondered for a moment if it was purely in his head, some remnant from his memory coming back to haunt him.

“Where are we?”

She shrugged, “Room E34,” she said, “But it doesn’t matter. You’re alive; we’re both alive.”

“I killed him,” Leven said suddenly, “The attacker, I pushed him off the ledge.”

She smiled again, this time a little wider, “Incredible, I never thought to try without a suit, with two broken legs, no less. And all for me!”

He blushed and looked down suddenly. Thankfully, he was wearing a robe, albeit not the stained one from before. He glanced back at her hair, “How long?”

“A week,” she said, “I’ve done my best to preserve your memories, but I’m just a technician, not a doctor.”

“Memories…” He closed his eyes for a second. He could remember a lot of steel halls, fighting, the sanctuary…

“What do you remember about before?” she said softly

He shook his head, trying to focus as the pounding got louder. It was not just in his head; he could feel the vibrations from his back.

“Just tell me anything you can remember.” Her voice was soft and comforting.

There had been a before, so very long ago, he’d lived a previous life, but no more.

“Do you need an apprentice?” he asked with a smile, remembering their talk in the darkness, looking out at the stars.

She nodded, “More than ever.”

“One more question,” he said frowning, “What is that banging on the wall?”

She grimaced, the smile fading, “The Prism isn’t that big of a place,” she said, “We were lucky to get a week.”

“What do you mean?”

“Leven,” she said softly, bending forwards, “They’ve found us.”

“Who!?” His heart began to race.

Something crashed behind her, and she put her face close to his so she could whisper, “They don’t know who we are, who you are, you cannot tell them.”

“Who I am?”

She nodded, “Never tell anyone who you are.”

Then she was yanked backwards, and he caught sight of a figure, no a dozen figures in the same black exo-suits, faces invisible.

The Writing Journal

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