Infernum

Standing on a large rock in the middle of a grassy field Alex watched in amazement as a giant blue planet crested the horizon in the background.

“I can’t believe this is real, Hope. It feels like I’m dreaming or something,” he said in a trance-like state. Hope walked up to the rock where he stood and climbed up with him, staring at the blue planet.

“I had forgotten how beautiful the Aquatis rising is,” she said as she gazed upon the blue giant in the sky. “I know it all seems unreal to you now, Alex, but trust me when I say it will all be very real when we start our ascent up the mountain tomorrow.”

Alex looked over to Hope, mesmerized by the blue light reflecting off her skin.

“What do you mean, Hope? What ascent?” he asked.

“This place has been used for millennia for training new guardsmen, Alex. By the time we reach the peak you and your spirit will be completely in tune with each other,” Hope informed Alex.

“Spirit huh… You miss him, don’t you?” Alex asked, referring to Gabriel.

“I honor his memory,” Hope said. “Climbing this mountain is the only way your ánimam will sync with your body and become fully incorporated with you, Alex. But make no mistake; the climb is treacherous and even though I will be at your side, the danger will be very real,” she explained, changing the subject quickly.

Hope stepped off the rock and told Alex to go collect some firewood saying it was going to be a cold night and they needed to prepare for the next day. Later that night, Alex and Hope sat around a campfire and talked about the differences between their two worlds some more.

“So you say you didn’t love your amalgamate?” Alex asked.

“It’s different on my world, Alex; Gabriel and I were chosen for each other at the time of our creation and have been together ever since, amalgamate means combined. We grew up together like you and your siblings did but without biological parents,” Hope replied.

“Wait a minute, Hope… You mean you were an orphan?” Alex inferred.

“Sort of… Children on Caelo are created in a laboratory using only the best genes then implanted into a surrogate host. We are birthed in pairs and only when there is a need to repopulate an area. As a result, we do not raise children on Caelo the same way as on Earth. On Caelo, after a child is born it and its amalgamate are sent to a receiving house to be raised. It is considered to be a great honor to raise children, Alex, only a few houses have done it in the last hundred years,” Hope tried to explain.

“I guess I just don’t get it. Family is so important to people back home. I could never even consider any other way of life… And what about sex, is that arranged too?” Alex asked with a hint of disgust.

Hope looked at him.

“What is sex?” she asked in response. Alex was stricken with a sense of disbelief upon hearing her question.

“You know … sex, fornication, breeding, mating, the horizontal mambo. Are any of these things ringing a bell?” Alex asked as he delved into Hope’s world a little more.

“You mean … like an animal?” Hope asked, grimacing. “That’s disgusting, Alex. I would never… I could never. We do not reproduce like animals, Alex, that’s absolutely disgusting,” she said, sticking her tongue out slightly. “I told you our children are born in a very controlled way and only when someone else dies. Since we don’t age on Caelo that does not happen very often, and, besides, if we had sex like animals we would overpopulate our planet in just a few years as your people have done,” she added with a disgusted look on her face.

“So let me get this straight, on your planet there is no sex, no drinks, no music or dancing, but you have unlimited technology and you live forever,” Alex pondered. “Did I get all that right?” he asked.

“Yep … pretty much,” Hope answered.

“Wow, your planet sucks,” Alex said with a chuckle. “When this is all over, you must let me take you out somewhere and show you a good time… Deal?”

Hope looked over to Alex with a little grin. “Deal,” she replied.

***

The next morning came all too quickly for Alex who had not slept much during the five or so hours of darkness on this moon. At first light, Hope was already up and making breakfast.

“I hope you don’t mind Gub-Gub fruit, it doesn’t taste like much of anything, but it will give you a nice energy boost all day,” she said to Alex as she roasted two large purple orbs over the fire.

“Oh, not at all; I don’t mind trying new things, and I could definitely use a boost today. What was up with last night? I swear it was only dark for a few hours,” Alex replied

“Smaller moon, it spins faster,” Hope said with a blatant amount of sarcasm.

“That makes sense… I guess,” Alex replied with an equal amount of sarcasm as he yawned, stretching his arms over his head.

After breakfast (a meal comprised of recently-turned-by-fire bright red Gub-Gub fruit that Hope said it was best if he did not know where it came from) Hope led Alex to a nearby path that cut through the large rocks and seemed to wind its way up the mountain. The path eventually led to a thicket of brush that Alex had never seen before at the base of a steep incline. The brush was thick like sage and covered with large rose-like thorns; there were no leaves or foliage on the brush, just miles and miles of thick, tall grey nastiness that intertwined like vines in a vineyard. Alex looked to Hope eagerly awaiting instructions for a way around the thick patch but only found a callous stare.

“This is the first of three challenges you must face climbing the mountain, Alex. This first test will teach you to use your ánimam like hands, and I’m sorry there will be no more portholes from here,” Hope said as her ribbons emerged, lifting up one of the vines and removing it from her path.

She turned Alex around and tied his hands behind his back tightly with a piece of rope that was all too conveniently lying on the ground.

“Use your ánimam, Alex, if the brush touches you, it will hurt. So don’t let it touch you,” she said. Hope went first; golden ribbons out, she traversed the brush with ease, her ribbons pushed every piece safely away from her as she effortlessly walked forward as if there was no brush at all. Alex concentrated hard to bring out his ribbons, then he slowly inched his way forward through the brush. He concentrated hard on moving every single ribbon to push every vine out of his path.

“Ouch!” he yelled as a vine snapped past his ribbons and cut his arm deeply. He looked at the cut in his arm that was throbbing in pain as blood seeped out. To his amazement his cut stopped bleeding and within seconds began to glow with a golden light. The wound slowly closed until his arm was completely healed leaving only the blood on his arm as proof he was ever injured.

“Keep going, Alex, you’re doing great,” Hope called back as she disappeared into the brush.

An hour later, Alex was about 100 feet into the thicket with dried blood all over his body. “Hope!” he shouted loudly. “Hope, I don’t think I can do this anymore. I need some help back here. I’m stuck and literally going nowhere,” he added while standing in a small clearing of brush unsure where to go next.

“Alex, you are working way too hard at this. Don’t think about each individual task in front of you, just think about the goal. Your ánimam is very smart, Alex; it will know what to do,” Hope yelled from somewhere up ahead.

Alex looked up, past the thorny brush toward her voice in the distance. Concentrating on her voice, her lovely voice, he started to walk through the brush again toward it. As Alex began to move forward more and more golden ribbons emerged from his back. He kept concentrating on getting to Hope almost ignoring the brush around him until he was walking almost as effortlessly as Hope did through the vines.

“That’s it, Alex, you’re doing it… Your ánimam is beginning to understand you. It won’t be long now,” Hope yelled back toward Alex.

After a few hours of walking, Alex emerged from the thicket where the winding path and Hope were waiting for him. Hope walked over to him and unbound his hands before they continued. The path continued up the mountain and curved up to the side of a steep cliff where it stopped abruptly. Alex found a large boulder and took a seat to take a quick breather. As he sat there for a few minutes he asked Hope about the golden shimmer of light that healed his cuts along the way.

“It’s your ánimam, Alex … those nanites are in your body healing your wounds, the light you saw is how they talk to each other, and once you and your ánimam are in sync, eventually, they will do it much faster.”

Alex looked down at where his cuts were. “That’s cool!” he said excitedly.

Hope walked over to where he was sitting and kneeled down in front of him; Alex began to smirk a little bit, until Hope pulled out the rope again, this time binding his feet together. Then, with a second piece, she re-tied his hands.

“You ready for the next part?” she asked.

“As ready as I’ll ever be I guess,” he answered.

“Okay Alex, this time I want you to concentrate on feeling the path through your ánimam. I know that sounds weird, but you should be able to sense things far beyond your own body now. Your ánimam can tell you what it sees, feels and scans as you get in sync with it.” Alex looked at Hope.

“Why do you talk like this thing is alive?” he asked.

“Because it is, Alex… Although your ánimam is a machine of sorts, its artificial intelligence also makes it a sentient being. It is fully aware of what’s going on and it’s desperately trying to communicate with you. All you need to do is listen to it,” she said with the utmost sincerity.

Alex stood up and balanced himself with his ribbons that he could now bring out effortlessly. Concentrating on reaching the top, his ribbons reached out toward the cliff, grabbing various cracks and ledges. The ánimam lifted Alex off the ground and began to move him upward like a spider on a wall.

“Remember Alex, try to feel through your ánimam!” Hope yelled up to him. Alex tried to feel through his ánimam, he imagined that the ribbons were like hands and feet but felt nothing.

“What’s the trick, Hope? I can’t seem to feel anything,” he yelled back at her.

“There is no trick, Alex, it will happen when it happens. You must be patient and open to it when it does,” Hope said as she moved next to him just slightly further up the cliff. Just then, several large rocks broke free of a ledge above them and fell toward Hope. Alex screamed at her.

“Watch out!” Then, instinctively, one of his ribbons launched upward almost too fast to see deflecting the rocks as they struck.

“That’s good, Alex, good reflexes,” Hope said as she retracted one of her ribbons from the very ledge where the rocks came from.

“That’s dirty, Hope, really dirty,” Alex said as he figured out that she had made the rocks fall on purpose.

The rest of the climb passed quickly with Hope tossing the occasional rock at Alex, just to keep him on his toes, as she put it. Once on top of the cliff, Alex could see the top of the mountain just on the other side of a narrow stone bridge that crossed a huge crevice that separated the two peaks of the mountain. He was in awe at the sight of the bridge; it was made of solid stone, one large piece of rock that could have formed naturally but it was too neat for that. Looking down the crevice, it must have been miles to the bottom separating the mountain into two separate peaks like a huge crack that split the mountain in two. Alex thought the stone formation must have been man-made because there was no way nature made a bridge this cool.

“I had no idea we traveled this far up the mountain. That was quick,” Alex said to Hope.

“Yes it was, just imagine we used to have to climb this thing in order to receive our ánimam then use it to get back down. It was only a few hundred years ago that we discovered this way was better,” Hope said, reminiscing.

As Alex looked around he saw a strange bug-like creature crawling over a rock, it looked similar to a caterpillar but it was over four feet long with red skin covered with blue stripes and had about a dozen short stubby legs.

“What is that thing?” he asked as he watched it poop out purple pellets.

“Oh, that? It’s a Gub-Gub,” Hope answered nonchalantly. Alex turned pale and suddenly did not look so good.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he said, grasping at his stomach, suddenly realizing where his breakfast came from. Hope walked up behind him and tore off a piece of his shirt that was already ripped from the thicket below.

“Okay Alex, this is your final task, you must use your ánimam to see your way across,” Hope told him as she used the torn-off piece of shirt to blindfold him, covering his eyes completely, adding to his bound hands and feet.

“Move across blindfolded? Are you sure about this, Hope?” Alex said, uneasy about the idea. As he stood there on the edge of the cliff, his hands, and feet bound, unable to see, Hope gently leaned over him and whispered in his ear.

“I’m sure, Alex… I have faith in you.” Her eyes teared up slightly, a new sensation for her, as she kissed Alex on his cheek gently. Then, without warning, she pushed Alex with all of her ribbons’ might, right off the edge of the cliff.

As Alex fell, the feeling in his stomach almost made him sick as panic filled every fiber of blind and bound body; he stretched out his ribbons in all directions as far as they would go but it was no good, there was nothing for them to grab. Alex was screaming as he plummeted downward toward his certain death, but he could not even hear himself as the wind rushing past was too loud. HE thought his life was flashing before his eyes as he could almost feel the ground getting closer. The images flashed before Alex quickly, fuzzy at first, then clearer and clearer the images took shape. They were not images of his life flashing before him but rather images of the ground getting closer. The sight of the approaching ground only made him panic more, but as he concentrated harder he could see the ground approaching clearly, even though his eyes were covered.

It was in that moment that Alex had an epiphany; he was not seeing the ground getting closer, his ánimam was. As Alex embraced the concept of seeing through the ánimam’s eyes, all of his senses began to open up to the ánimam. He could not only see the ground getting closer, but he could also see in every other direction at the same time. He could now feel the wind blowing past the ribbons and the warmth of the sun shining on them. Alex began to hear a small voice in the back of his head that sounded like a digital answering machine.

“1,200 feet… 1,100 feet,” the voice clearly warned Alex as the ground approached rapidly. The voice in his head was loud and clear now.

“Wings recommended,” the voice said. Alex spread out his ribbons again, this time thinking in his mind that they needed to transform.

“Confirmed,” the voice said. The golden ribbons drew back into Alex slightly as he concentrated on the shape he wanted the ribbons to be; then, in a bright flash of golden light, they became two large gold metallic wings. Alex spread the wings and felt the wind catch them as if they were a part of his body as he transitioned from a free fall to a glide and then into full flight. As he flapped his golden wings to gain altitude, he summoned more ribbons from his back to cut himself free of the bindings on his hands and feet.

Alex reached up with his hands to remove his blindfold and was suddenly sick as he realized just how high he was. He looked down to see that he was now a few hundred feet over the top of the mountain; as he gazed outward towards the horizon he could once again see the endless red desert that surrounded this pillar of life on an otherwise barren world.

Alex circled the peak several times on his way back down toward Hope. As he looked around his ánimam kept him updated on everything without a second thought. The ánimam told him exactly how far away everything was and updated him with tactical data he might need to make the descent. Alex now had a direct mental connection to his ánimam and he soaked in the information like a sponge. He knew the names and location of thousands of worlds and millions of species across the galaxy. He thought it was like the first time he ever got on the internet but much, much better; Alex’s ánimam was a cornucopia of knowledge and all Alex had to do was think of something and the ánimam would fill in the rest of the information. This was by far the most profound experience he had ever had and probably would have in his entire life as his eyes were now open to the vastness of the galaxy and the diverseness of life itself.

Alex landed on the peak a few yards away from Hope. As he landed, his wings reverted into their ribbon form and then drew back into him. HE looked at Hope with a look that was both confusing and pissed.

“You pushed me off a cliff! I can’t believe you pushed me off a fucking cliff!” Alex shouted as his ánimam told him the odds of surviving a fall like that

“144,987.7:1 against,” it said.

Hope ran toward him with a big smile and leaped into his arms, wrapping her arms around him. She gave him a big kiss on the lips. Alex tried to resist but soon he was kissing Hope right back with her arms locked around his body and his around her, completely lost in the moment that he hoped would last forever.

“You made it!” she said earnestly as a single tear rolled down her cheek. She let go of Alex, pushing him away, looking up at him as she wiped the tears from her face, shaking her head.

“I’m so sorry, Alex… I don’t know what got into me. I was so worried you would not make it, I thought the ánimam did not bond with you. And … and,” she rambled on.

Alex was now more confused than ever, having just been pushed off a cliff and kissed on the lips by the same woman. “You mean you thought there was a chance it wouldn’t work, and you still pushed me off a fucking cliff? That’s low, Hope … real low,” he said as he tried to calm himself down. Alex’s ánimam filled his mind with the knowledge of the thousands of people before him that bonded with their ánimams while falling from that same cliff, as well as the ones that didn’t.

“It’s okay, Hope… I get it now, and besides … the kiss was worth it,” he replied with a grin.

Hope was grinning ear to ear with a sense of relief that came from that statement, she knew Alex had bonded with his ánimam and could now access its knowledge for her.

“I’m sorry, Alex; I don’t know what came over me… I never get emotional like that, it’s not like me to do that,” she said as she composed herself.

“It’s okay, Hope, I get it… You like me,” Alex said with an earnest grin.

“Okay lover boy,” she said, trying not to blush. “Let’s get you home.” As they walked away, Alex reached over with his ribbons and slapped Hope on her ass. She snapped her head toward him.

“Hey! Quit it!” she said.

“What? You said they have a mind of their own,” Alex replied as his ribbons made their way back toward her.

“Quit it, Alex! I’m serious!” she said sternly as she opened a porthole and they both walked through.