Chương 33: Epilogue: Reflection

"How... is everyone?" Shrike asks, stomach churning in the waiting room of the hospital. Ximena waits outside, haven directed a few MBR medics ahead of time to held with any non-human anatomy. Ximena adjusts her glasses, looking over a copiously scribbled notepad.

"Marissa has a few broken ribs and heat stroke, but she'll be fine. Ferret didn't get touched. Moth caught a spear of that black energy stuff on the rebound and some mild frostbite, but she's also fine. Caribou is Caribou, so he'll show up whenever he leaves the spirit world. Damselfly and Dragonfly are also untouched. Martin is a lot tougher than he looks, but he's lost more blood than he should have, and he was still recovering from the kaiju thing.

He's not in any lethal danger, but he'll be on bedrest for at least three months. Possum got the worst of it. Whatever that thing was, it shredded a good chunk of her arm. We... are probably going to have to amputate." Shrike slowly accepts the news.

"May I see Possum?" Shrike lies on the floor, her legs having given out beneath her. Still, she pulls herself up, and continues, eyes on fire as she directs more and more energy.

"Beastie, you're clearly not-""I will ask for your opinion when I require it, doctor," she hisses.

"Keep the silence." Shrike takes a peek at the sun through the open waiting room window. 12 hours in and she can still barely open her eyes. She groans. Frustrating.

"Hey, Shrike." Possum grabs both Shrike's shoulders from behind.

"I'm supposed to be in bed, but I'm all juiced up on morphine, and it's not like walking on the leg they took the skin graft from is gonna get more screwed up. I wanted to thank you, for you know, letting me learn to play the piano eventually." Shrike hangs her head.

"I... am sorry in regards to Opie. I had heard he had sacrificed himself..."

"Huh? Oh, he did, but it's not like that. Opie exists outside this dimension, somewhere in time, and whenever he dies, he instead dies after his natural death. He just needs a quick break in our timestream so he can put his death in the wrong place." Possum retracts her hands.

"Okay, yeah, this was a bad idea. I'm gonna go back to the bed. I think my leg is about to explode." She shuffles out of the room, as Opie appears next to her.

"Speak of the angel, my other hero of the day! Someone's getting a lot of lightbulbs." None of Shrike's thought processes understand what Possum just said. Marissa rolls his eyes at her.

"You could have told me about this ahead of time, so we didn't have to jump in with Martin's quarter-baked plan."

"I did not remember prior."

"Yeah, I heard. Just let me complain, I have three broken ribs and they won't give me more morphine." Caribou leans against a wall, somewhere within the bowels of the hospital they both shouldn't be, its eyes unhidden by the mirrored glasses it typically wears.

"Caribou. You have returned quickly. Thank you," Shrike says, about to force herself through a more detailed explanation the thank you.

"You are welcome, for it all. I will be off, now. I have somewhere I was supposed to be some hours ago."

"Where are you absconding to?" Caribou briefly chuffs.

"Elk has not told me. I am hoping for it to be a reward, but in likelihood it is simply his desire to have me near after a high stress mission. You know humans..." Moth and Ferret are chatting casually outside one of the hospital rooms. They both stop, turn to Shrike, and run over to hug her immediately. Moth's hug is tight, and a bit painful.

"You okay, Shrike?"

"Yes," she responds, with what air she can get out of her lungs.

"I was going to ask you that." Moth loosens her hug, but only a little. Ferret pulls outs of the hug entirely, looking Shrike up and down.

"Have you seen Martin yet?" Shrike looks away.

"I... I am unsure if-" Moth slaps her back, pushing her in the direction of Martin's room.

"You selfish idiot! Go in there right the hell now, or I'll refract your ass!" Shrike closes the door behind her, cautiously walking to Martin's bedside. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"I know its you, Shrike. I could hear Moth calling you a dickhead." He turns his head to face her. He's worse for wear, like he was dragged behind a truck or two.

"Also, I can see you."

"Martin..."

"Can we skip the oh so sorry apology part? You were about to kill yourself to save a ton of humans. I think that warrants me getting a little banged up." Martin coughs in between laughs.

"I mean it. I'm just really happy to see you." Shrike sits at his bedside, a wooden chair already there for the exact purpose.

"I am happy as well. Truly happy." Martin grows a big, goofy smile on his face.

"Good. Keep it up, because I'm out of commission for a while, and you being sad doesn't help." Shrike is led by Ximena to the underground holding cells of the still recovering MBR site, though construction is going well. She's no longer scared of the cold tile walls or floor, looking with relief at how many of the formerly filled cells are now empty, or at least improved in accommodation.

"Shrike, you sure about this?" Ximena asks, as they near her old cell.

"I can't imagine what... no, this is your decision."

"Thank you. I will be brief, I assure you." With a short nod, Ximena steps back, letting Shrike step towards the glass wall. She looks through it, at the seemingly normal man within. She can feel the heat radiating from the room, and the bright light within perpetually turned on and shining directly on the man. He's nothing like her. Yet she knows him.

"It is you," she says. The man jerks uprights from his position on the floor, looking through the glass at her.

"It's you, too. When the hell did humans figure all this stuff out? I don't even know what kind of thing is holding me here, let alone how to break it. Are you here to bust me out, and finally do what we're supposed to be doing?" Shrike sits on the floor, frowning.

"I am not. I am here to see if there is anything that may make your stay more comfortable."

"My 'stay'? Are you saying I'm going to be stuck in here?"

"Yes. For an indeterminate period of time, and deprived of cold and darkness." He sighs.

"I figured as much. I feel like such an idiot. Not only did I get my ass kicked by humans of all things, but they locked me up instead of killing me. It's embarrassing, even if they were helped by that shapeshifting guy and the guardian spirit."

"Perhaps humanity has more to it than you had believed." He looks at his opposite through the glass, then back to the light on the ceiling.

"Maybe. I think they just got lucky. By the way, I'm now known as KD00-0003, so yeah. You can call me that." Shrike stands, and with a final look to the cell she spent so long in, returns to Ximena. She's arranged to return every other week. She doubts there will be any progress, but something within her believes that her opposite is her responsibility. Martin is gently helped up the two steps up into their home by Shrike. Despite everything, not a single broken bone, besides the ones that already were.

He limps onto the couch, reclining it back a ways. He looks over at the mantle while Shrike starts a fire.

"One thing's on my mind, actually. The llama jar. Did you get that memory back, too?" Shrike stands up over the now lit fire, carefully picking up the conopa, and bringing with her assits down next to Martin.

"Yes. Though, you may be jealous."

"I won't be. You're like twelve thousand years old, I assumed I wasn't the first. Come on, I promise I won't tell." Shrike wordlessly agrees, handing the jar to Martin, who takes it with bemused reverence. Shrike's eyes view distant lands, teeming with green life.

"It was long ago, of course. Somewhere mountainous, but semi-tropical. A farming people, who built large platforms into the mountains, and planted crops on grand terraced farms. I found myself there by accident, I believe. I was subconsciously trying to find my way back to the Wasatch mountains, but I misremembered which direction they laid, and simply climbed the largest mountain I found."

"I was brought into their culture as an outsider, one to be feared and shunned, and I named myself Achiq. There was a curious woman whose home I was allowed within. Anqaspuma Huancahuari Carihuasari. She possessed deeply tanned skin from life as a hard working farmer, such brilliant green eyes that they dwarfed even the hillsides in bloom, and the softest hair reminiscent of an overcast night.

She carved stone as a hobby and side venture, and when I asked foolish questions, her cheeks dimpled in amusement in such a charming way."

"We fell in love, as I understand it. I felt it with her as strongly as I do with you now, a connection fathoms deeper than any other at the time. We worked, we laughed, we sang, we ate. For nearly forty years, I had enough of a purpose in making her happy that I remained free of hibernation. I remember vowing to forever stop hibernation then, too."

"The jar you are holding is a conopa. It was filled with herbs, shells, maize, and the like, before being buried as an offering for good luck and harvest. The one you are holding was one Anqaspuma sculpted, and was buried at the door to our own home."

"The conquistadors destroyed much of the culture, just as they razed the Maya and the Aztec. Anqaspuma was nearing the end of her natural life, yet I had not felt such rage as I experienced whilst watching her be killed for not yielding the location of non-existent hidden gold... I sliced open the conquistador that did the deed, feasting on his raw organs, trying to satiate the animalistic fury and longing I was experiencing. I experienced a twinge of a connection when I did so. A foul connection.

The barest thread of my shadow, reaching out at my spirit. The hunger, the void that needed filled. For me to live without hibernation requires a purpose, and in lieu of one, there is only the hunger. The greed. The hoarding. The distance from humanity."

"I slew somewhere around twenty conquistadors, ripping them apart, trying to heal the gaping wound left behind by Anqaspuma's unceremonious murder. The killing did not help. I returned to our house half a week later, her remains exactly where I left them, and dug a hole in front of our house. I buried her there, removing the conopa I had forgotten she placed. I took it with me. If such things truly held power over fortune and harvest, I thought, then this carving had failed its destined purpose.

I hibernated once again, to hide from the wave of death that was coming." Shrike squeezes Martin's hand with a soft smile.

"I have calmed since my wild, twelve thousand years of youth. Anqaspuma's legacy lives within me. I am happy to at last know the name and face attached to the bittersweet memories of the conopa." Martin, to his own annoyance, lets a few tears drip down his face.

"That's a beautiful story, Shrike. Thank you for sharing it with me. And for letting me hold such a sacred memento."

"It remained the final symbol of our love I can show. To allow you into my past, into my very being, raw and pure. Martin, you now know every aspect of my existence, positive and negative. I will ask you again, a question I have asked before. Will you stay with me, always, until one of us 'kicks it'?" Her smile says she already knows the answer. Martin gently sets down the conopa on the coffee table, and wraps Shrike in a tighter hug than he probably should given his condition.

"Always."