Banished To Earth Book Two, A Dragon King? (40)

Chapter 68

137

      The search for Stayner suddenly felt hollow, pointless. Killing him was serving them. Ruling this planet was also serving them. He was not only their slave, but he was also their construct. Did that make them his God? Mable believed that. It didn’t save her, though. She was doomed from childhood, because of them!

    They could have dropped his mother here, far from Stayner, but that would not have served their purpose. And everything was about serving their purpose!

    Of course he had no way of knowing this pasture was safe. True, he did not sense Monsters or Hunters or the Urgis. But they were up there always looking down, assessing, weighing options, gathering data.

    Was that what he was, a device fit for nothing but gathering data, a soulless tool clenched and trapped in the hands of heartless tyrants? Was he soulless? Maybe he was. Maybe that is why he was able to turn his back on his dying Mother. Did they make him soulless? He was not sure. It was a question worth asking. But how could he answer such a question? There was only one way…

    Wiping his face dry, he put his gun away. Having no idea what to do next, he sat down on the soft grass and waited. Fluffy white clouds drifted beneath the blue. A soothing warm breeze tried to comfort him. The faint sweet fragrance of wildflowers tantalised his nostrils, as golden sunlight spread over him like a warm blanket. 

   Images of his mother’s pitiful face tore at his mind. Saving her was not possible. Dying with her, a foregone conclusion. That was how things were. They set up the circumstance. They sent his mother to Earth to die. But he left her. Did that not make him a monster too?

    Yes, he was a monster. And what was Davin? An invader, an alien, an alien with a greater purpose, a better purpose? Serving anyone or anything had to be better than serving them.

   They made him, but did that really mean he was them? Surely not, or need not be.

    Davin was still trapped inside of Chase at this time. And in that moment, the distant dark splotch, a breach appeared in Davin’s world far to the east of him and gave him hope and direction.

    Davin had no way of knowing this, having trapped himself in his own little world, a world that would eventually free him, but that time had not yet come…

  138

  Silence lay over Chase. The pasture was still, except for the gentle breeze teasing its way through the ankle-deep quilt of yellow wildflowers. The world was rewarding him. Why? The sun did not burn. There were no briers or thistles in his grassy flower bed.

      Soft warm Earth cushioned him, inviting him to lie on it. Was there anything else to do? Conquer the world, please his masters, his makers. They no more deserved Earth than he did. Could he find a way to stop Stayner? And if he succeeded, the Urgis would leave? He knew better now. Any kindness, any benevolence he might offer the Earth’s survivors would only assure their death. In fact, that was his mission: to cleanse the Earth, the very Earth comforting him now.

    Davin was not the monster from outer space. He was the saviour. And Mable killed him. And Stayner killed her. But the real monsters were the Urgis. Could Davin have stopped them? Probably not, but he would have tried. And he did.  It cost him his life. A life for a life.

   A monster for a hero. Would that undo anything? No. But maybe he could rest in peace, earn the peace, sweet, gracious Earth was giving him now.

     Lying down, expecting deadly Stayner perverted insects to swarm over his body and tear away his living flesh one minuscule bite at a time, he waited to die. Once his flesh was gone, truly gone, maybe then a soul would be revealed, and he would be released.  

    His mind, overcome with misery and desperation, had lost its ability to reason and remember honestly.

   ‘We made you’ Fev's words pound against his skull for days. There were no insects, no monsters, no death, just the sun and the moon chasing each other across the sky.

   The sun peeked through the trees yet again and found him lying face up. The blue, the warmth and the light told him it was time. Time to free his soul, if he truly had one.

   He sat up, inhaled one last breath, pulled his pistol, jammed its barrel deep into the soft skin of his neck and pulled the trigger. His head disappeared, instantly replaced by a pink cloud. The morning breeze blew it away and let his headless body fall. 

     At that same moment, Pry’s single hair strand penetrated Davin's temple and set him free in a burst of blinding white light. Of course, neither knew that Chase was dead, only that Davin had found his way home.