Ravens of Eternity

245 Remembering Dendrus

Eva and Miko both listened intently as the gaunt old man spoke on their terminal. Eva in particular was a little bit awestruck by him. Not just in what he was recounting, but his age.

He was, by galactic standards, 130 years old. If he was back from her time, back on her Earth, he would have been something like 410 years old. And although there were rare occasions when people lived past 100 in her time, she could still barely believe it.

And what was worse was that he barely looked a day over 80. His age utterly screwed with her sense of time. She imagined that people his age would be shriveled up and hunched over. Barely able to move and walk by themselves, crippled by the effects of time.

But she had never seen a single such person in the new universe, and this old man was literally the oldest person she had met thus far. Yet he was surprisingly strong for his age. He moved around with relative ease and grace, with only a minute amount of doddering.

She was certain it was nothing like if he was half his age, but it was all still utterly amazing.

“It was hell, I tell you,” he said. “It was this deep black, like bottom of your soul kinda black. Like it didn’t have a bottom itself, and just kept on going. ‘Cept, it was right there... so close you could touch it...”

He gesticulated wildly in the air as he spoke, though what he said and how he moved didn’t quite match. It seemed like he was telling two different stories at the same time. They were all disconcerted by them, but somehow it made sense at the same time.

As though the contradictions shaped the reality of the story.

“I saw friends, fellow MedTechs, they got touched by it,” he continued, “just a tiny bit. But it was enough for them to get... disappeared. It swallowed them up, and turned them into whatever it was itself. Just like the rest of the damned planet.”

.....

“Uncle Finneus,” interrupted Kayt, “tell them the crazy part.”

“The whole thing is made of crazy parts.”

“No, I mean, the part that freaks me out most.”

Old man Finneus leaned back as he searched his memories. He told a whole lot of stories about Dendrus, about their retreat. About all of the people he tried to keep alive.

Few listened, of course. But sometimes the kids, especially Kayt, did.

She sat across from him, in between Eva and Miko. All three of them sat like those kids from long ago, and listened with rapt attention. One thing that was completely different though, was that they all wore serious looks.

“Ah, that. Well, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said. “The admirals sure didn’t. Threw me right outta the Navy since I wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“I believe you,” Eva said immediately. “We all do.”

Kayt didn’t find Eva’s statement fully accurate. She never actually believed her uncle’s stories, but she certainly identified with him. As a servicemember herself who had seen a little combat, and had friends who were affected by traumatic stress, knew a little of what he was going through.

She honestly believed that he was simply too traumatized by his experiences in the war, and his stories were the manifestation of his PTSD. To her, he was internalizing the horrors of death and destruction, and representing it as some kind of unfathomable evil. It was only natural to do.

Still, she nodded at Eva’s statement regardless. It was true enough for her.

Finneus grimaced as he sighed at his terminal, or at least at their faces on the other side of it. He looked each of them in the eyes, and tried to appraise their honesty.

They all passed, with flying colors.

“Alright, fine,” he said. “As we were heading out – as that thing consumed the damned planet – I thought I saw it on our high-powered sensors. It was only for a split second, but I was sure of it. As sure as I am now that you three exist...

“Once the planet was completely covered, them corpses moved. And not just the dead people, but the mecha, the tanks, the drones, everything. Anything that could move, moved again. Just a blip. Just for a moment.”

The old man shivered as the old memory coursed through him. As the horror of it spread across his body, and made his hairs stand on end. He remembered how he felt this overwhelming feeling to run, even as they blasted further away from the surface.

“I was under the impression that Godeater could not be scanned,” said Miko. “How did you see it move?”

Finneus gawked at Miko, not at the question, but at the mention of Godeater.

“I thought it was a trick or a glitch or a fluke of the sensors, right?” he continued. “I mean, like you said, couldn’t be scanned. But it didn’t mean we couldn’t scan the space around it. We looked at its edges, where things ended and where it began. We had to, to make sure we didn’t end up inside it. It was during one of those scans that I saw it... do its thing.”

“It moved?” said Freya. “Like undead corpses rose from the ground? Shambled around?”

Uncle Finneus shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Godeater moved. It used the corpses to do it. I can feel it.”

“One more question,” said Miko. “Have your dreams been affected?”

Uncle Finneus’ eyes went wide, and he nodded slowly.

“Can’t hardly sleep anymore,” he replied. “Whenever I close my eyes, it’s like, it’s right there. I feel like I’m gonna drown in its shadows, like it’s all around me and pulling me in. I can almost hear it calling out and whatnot, just egging me on.”

“What’s it tell you? What does it want you to do?” Eva asked. She leaned forward, her curiosity about Godeater held no end. Ever since she came across it during her one dream, it had stayed in the back of her mind.

“To go back to Dendrus, of course,” he said with a shaky voice. “To go...”

He never finished his sentence. Instead, he receded into himself, and began to hem and haw against himself. It was as though he fought against going or staying. His whole body quivered and quaked as he muttered unintelligibly to himself.

At the same time, his gesticulations became wilder, like he was swatting away something. He ended up slapping himself a few times in the process.

Kayt looked on with utter sadness in her eyes, absolutely certain of her uncle’s trauma-induced insanity. But when she saw how serious Eva and Miko were, realized that there was a whole lot more going on.

The other two looked at Finneus with understanding looks, as though they knew he was going to say something like that.

Eva looked over to Kayt, whose brow curled up in curiosity and confusion. She realized that the girl was starting to understand that what her uncle was saying was actually true. After all, both the Hegemony and the Federation kept Godeater’s existence a secret.

The people who knew the reality of Godeater were few and far between.

She put a hand on Kayt’s shoulder, and helped center her.

“I know you probably don’t believe us,” she said. “But Godeater’s real. Dendrus really was consumed... There really is a thing out there that eats everything it touches. And you can’t tell anyone, alright? It’s... kind of a secret. The fact that we’re even talking about it now kinda violates a nondisclosure agreement we’ve signed.”

Both Kayt and her uncle’s mouths gaped open in utter disbelief.

“Finally!” cried Finneus. “Someone who actually believes me! Thank the gods!”

While he laughed and celebrated the recognition he received, Kayt looked back into her memories, and dug up every story she had heard about it. Then shivered.

She paled at the realization that all those horrors her uncle spoke about were true.

Uncle Finneus finally caught a hold of himself, then continued his story as though nothing had happened. But his skin was still pallid from his internal conflict.

“Too many folks died on Dendrus,” he said. “And also lots of folks didn’t die, you know what I mean? I can feel it, like they’re in this state between dead and not dead at the same time.”

“You think they’re still alive?” asked Eva.

But he shook his head adamantly.

“No,” he said. “Just not dead. And part of me wants to jump in and join ’em. Not ‘coz I want to, but to shut up all the...”

He immediately made gestures with his hands, as though dozens of things were hitting his head from all angles. Finneus became more and more aggressive as he pounded his head, but stopped after ten or so hits.

All three women looked at him with utter sadness in their eyes. He was clearly a broken man, well beyond saving or fixing. He had lived with the traumatic memories of Godeater for far too long, for too many decades.

It clearly dug deep into his mind, his soul.

Eva felt a little guilty for goading him into talking so much about it, but a part of her needed to know more. A little tug, a little pull from Godeater.

“Thanks for chatting with us about it, mister Finneus,” she said. “I know... I know it’s been incredibly tough for you to talk about it. That whole war was too much for everyone to handle, much less with Godeater on top of it.”

Uncle Finneus nodded solemnly, and with a grim smile.

“Connect with me if you ever need to talk about it more,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I want to. Need to.”

“We both understand completely,” said Miko. “We do not wish to hear it, but we must.”

“And we’ll definitely ping you again,” added Eva.

They all said their goodbyes to old man Finneus, and closed their comms. The three of them sat in the room for some time in silence as the conversation seeped deep into them. After a few moments, it was Kayt who eventually broke the silence.

“I can’t believe Godeater’s real,” she said. “I always thought he was just crazy...”

“Your Uncle is crazy,” said Miko. “Also, Godeater is certainly real. It is the demon that is eating away at his sanity. It is possibly eating at our sanity as well. Slowly and surely.”

Kayt looked at Eva and Miko in surprise – she wasn’t sure how they could have possibly come into contact with Godeater. She was about to ask, but decided that she didn’t want to know and instead shut her mouth tight.

“On another not so depressing note,” said Eva after a while, “I’m really glad you’re at Mecha Central One! Was a serious surprise to run into you! You know, I thought about you during our last round. We really could’ve used your advice with the whole strategy part of the fight.”

“Aww, thanks, I-”

Kayt froze in mid-sentence as she processed everything Eva just said. She was immediately taken aback when she realized something about their team.

“Wait,” she said. “Don’t you have field tacticians in your crew?”

Both Eva and Miko looked at each other, then shook their heads. As a team, they made up their tactics on the fly. Since they had won most of their skirmishes throughout their career, they never found a need.

The way their team worked together almost negated it anyway.

“Should we?” asked Eva.

“Uh, yeah!” Kayt answered. “You’re only seeing four members out there on the field, but each team is more like forty people. They’ve got analysts, researchers, tacticians, engineers, and even coaches sometimes...”

She looked at the both of them with an utterly bewildered look. As though they were insane. Or brilliant. Or lucky.

It suddenly dawned on Kayt that they were a mix of all three.

“Honestly,” she said with a sigh, “the fact you don’t have a support crew but somehow made it to the finals is actually kind of a miracle.”