The Aperios (Children of the Sun Book 4)

Mel stared at one of the empty tanks, his hand pressed against the glass. He’d meant to go find the soldiers in stasis closest to the control room to see if he could maybe get through to some and help them break free from Enor’s control, but he found himself stopping here, and just staring.

He wasn’t sure what he was actually looking at—if it was the tank itself or his own reflection in it that something in him found so fascinating—but he couldn’t look away. The sight of the tank also brought with it a sense of anxiety and a need to run away, but he was rooted to the spot at the same time.

He swallowed as a shiver ran down his spine, finally letting him put his hand away from the glass.

“Hey, you okay?”

Mel flinched, looking to his right where Rayni was, eyeing the tanks with suspicion. He just nodded in response, not sure he could force himself to say anything right now. He wasn’t even sure why he couldn’t get anything out. He was feeling something he couldn’t identify, but he knew it was overwhelming.

“They bother you, huh?”

Mel shrugged. He wasn’t sure if ‘bother’ was the right word, but he couldn’t deny it either.

“You know, with what happened to Alor, it got me thinking,” Rayni continued, sighing as she walked up to Mel. She stared off at the tank in front of them. “When a person gets turned into an Eternal, they get turned into light, energy, or whatever, right?”

Mel nodded grimly, looking down at his hands. “The bodies we use aren’t ours.”

“Yeah, except Al looks pretty damn similar to how he used to.”

Mel blinked, looking at his sister in surprise. Somehow, with everything else that had been going on, that hadn’t even occurred to him. He should have questioned it, but he hadn’t. Had Enor found a different way of creating Eternals?

But then, that couldn’t be true because back in the base they had destroyed, those crates had been full of Eternals held in jars, and those were made up of pure light.

“I think that the way this works is that Enor makes clones for his soldiers to possess.”

That was science definitely beyond Mel’s understanding, but then again, he could barely understand how a calculator worked. In fact, he still had no idea.

He looked at his reflection again, brushing his hair away from his eyes a bit. Was the person staring back at him really himself? None of this had ever really occurred to him to question, but most likely that was due to whatever Mereria and Relioth had done to his mind over the centuries he’d been alive.

But he had always felt comfortable in this body, even when faced with the idea that he’d taken possession of it after the original owner died. If he had had a problem with it, surely he would have thought about it more and had been bothered by it. But he generally didn’t think about it. And whenever Kaleth complimented his appearance, Mel never once had thought that Kaleth was unwittingly giving compliments to someone long dead.

“I have no idea how he does it because it clearly doesn’t take however long it would take for the body to age up enough,” Rayni said, putting her hand against the glass. “But I think that’s why these things make us feel weird. And why Kara and Kaleth have no problems with them.”

That would make sense. If this body had been created in one of these tanks, then maybe some kind of very early memory of it was what was making him feel uncomfortable when looking at them.

But he wasn’t sure what to think now. It wasn’t like this changed his perception of himself, except it did. And that was intensely confusing. He had always felt guilt when he remembered that the body he was using was supposedly someone else’s, but it had always felt a bit disingenuous. Like he was only feeling that way because something was telling him he should, and not because he’d actually felt guilty.

“Also Nef told me that apparently there are files about us in Aren that have photos of us with these face tattoos….”

Mel looked at Rayni again, frowning. “Face tattoos?”

“Really makes you wonder where we came from, huh?”

Mel nodded sadly. That wasn’t something he’d dared think about during his long years working as an Umbra agent, but he had thought about it once or twice. Especially since he and Rayni were siblings.

“Maybe we can try to figure that out after all this is over,” Mel suggested, which made Rayni smile at him fondly.

She drew him into a hug, which Mel gladly returned, relaxing a little. With everything that had been going on since Enor had returned, Mel had found it hard to relax at any given moment. Kaleth usually managed to calm him, but he wasn’t here right now, and that wasn’t Kaleth’s fault, but his absence was definitely noticeable.

It was ridiculous to miss him when they’d seen each other just a few hours prior, and Mel could feel his presence in his mind if he focused on it, but that was what Mel was feeling, and he couldn’t help it.

Their hug was interrupted soon after though by Kara’s voice calling them from the distance, sounding surprisingly emotional.

Mel and Rayni exchanged a worried look before running back to the control room, which was thankfully not too far from where they had been.

However, before they even entered the room, Mel saw what the problem was. Enor’s image was back, standing right where he had when Mel had to have watched Kaleth force himself to refuse to go along with Enor’s deal.

This time, Enor was talking to Kara, who looked angry, but Mel couldn’t help but notice that she was also scared. She was hiding it very well, but he could feel her fear anyway.

“Would you leave us alone for one day?” Rayni snapped at him as she ran up to Kara, drawing her sword even though there was nothing she could do to a projection. At least Mel was assuming it was a projection. It was hard to keep track of which technology was which.

“No,” Enor replied. Whenever he spoke Mel got shivers. It was so unnatural to sound so emotionless. “Actually, I would not contact you to talk about this, but as I have yet to find out where your group is hiding, I can’t speak with Kaleth Garen directly.”

Mel tensed up even more at Kaleth’s name being said like that. The fact that Enor wasn’t respecting Kaleth’s preference not to use his father’s name at all while also possessing his father made him irrationally upset, but Mel knew better than to say anything. Even though supposedly Enor couldn’t get angry, there was no reason to test him.

“What do you want?” Kara asked him, folding her arms.

Enor looked at her as if he was trying to figure something out, but he didn’t say anything concerning her addressing him that way. “Garen’s...unwillingness to do what I want him to has made me curious about his breaking point. So I want to conduct an experiment, if you will.”

Mel felt his heart skip a beat as his fits clenched automatically. He almost flinched when Rayni put her hand on his shoulder.

“I want you to go to him, and tell him that as of right now, I am starting a systematic bombing of Irithara.”

Mel gasped, staring at Enor with horror as he felt dread fill every fiber of his being. “W-what?”

“I will avoid larger cities for now, however. That will be all.”

And with that Enor disappeared, leaving behind a shocked silence.