The Mirrorverse

Syrhahn

It was light, so light that Syrhahn wondered if he had been wrong about life after death; perhaps the old myths were true. Nobody had believed in them for maybe a millennia or two, but he remembered learning about them at school. Religions, he thought they were called.

Syrhahn looked around and saw nothing but light. he couldn’t feel his body, but was shocked to see that he did have one.

He raised his hand, admiring its mere existence despite feeling nothing tactile at all. He touched his hands together but still felt nothing.

His shirt was covered in blood, but on closer inspection, there was no bullet hole in his chest.

Syrhahn realised, without the sinking sensation in his stomach since there was no sensation at all; that he was dead. Totally and truly dead. Maybe Angel is coming for me, maybe Viskra is already here.

As he sat up and called out Angel’s name, anti-acoustics suppressed the sound in the strangest way, similar to Spectral world.

No-one came.

“Viskra!” he called out. Nothing. What is this? How long am I going to be here? Is this forever?

“If I can’t have them I want to sleep!” shouted Syrhahn at nobody and everyone all at once. “Forever!”

If physical panic were possible it would have been rising at that point. He turned and ran as fast as he could. Nothing stopped him, nothing changed. His respiration rate didn’t budge. He then noted that he didn’t have a respiration rate. He didn’t need to breath, he was dead.

Syrhahn ran in another direction floating effortlessly through the light, never reaching the side, then never reaching the floor as he soared around the nothingness.

As much as flying was fun, it wasn’t particularly interesting without the wind in your face, or landmarks to gauge your height. Or anyone to share it with.

“Can I sleep now please?” he called out, lying on the ground. Or what he thought was the ground, it was hard to tell.

“Syrhahn,” A man was approaching him, surprisingly unlit despite the eternal glow of the white nothingness around them. He was visible, but the light wasn’t reflecting off him the way that one would have expected.

“Indeed,” he replied, arising.

“You were very badly injured. We found you on the beach, having tracked you from the military base,” he said pleasantly. Syrhahn was immediately suspicious, it meant the stranger was with William.

“Tell William to fuck himself,” he hissed at the man. “Where’s my son?” the last part he roared, the sound vanishing as quickly as it appeared, returning to the complete absence of sound that was the place he was imprisoned in.

“Whoa, we’re the opposite,” the new man held his hands up. “We’re also looking for William. We brought you here to save you, your body is being worked on as we speak. This is the hospital world where travellers come. April will join us shortly, but I just wanted to speak to you alone first.”

Syrhahn wasn’t sure what to make of it, of him. He was the same height as him so came from the same approximate timeline. He looked like a cowboy on those classic movies, with a hat and a leather waistcoat. He had a kind face, and even though Syrhahn was wary of trusting him, he needed to for the moment, since he had his body.

“So I’m not dead,” said Syrhahn heavily, realising his vocal chords were not doing the work, he had no idea where the sound was coming from.

“Nope, but it was a close one,” the cowboy man nodded. “You had a collapsed lung with massive internal bleeding, you had only minutes left if that.”

“William wants me dead. Why would he save me?” wondered Syrhahn out loud.

“He wouldn’t. We know he wants you dead, he wants all of us. We’re building an army to fight him. Which brings me to my point,” he scrutinised Syrhahn, watching his reactions carefully. “Do you trust April? She was with him, we don’t know if she is a spy.”

“I trust her with my life, which she has held in her hands on more than one occasion,” he replied without emotion, leaving no room to question his certainty.

“If you say that is true, then it is true, Gabriel,” the blue eyes searched Syrhahn’s with a look of half amusement on his face.

“How do you know my name?” Gabriel had been Syrhahn’s name during his pre-Angel life.

“We have many ways of finding out information, looking you up was easy. I can see why William wanted you out the way before getting at Xhisara,” he was still gazing at Syrhahn intently, waiting for him to flinch, to let something go. He was sizing Syrhahn up as much as Syrhahn was sizing him up.

“Do you have a name?” Syrhahn asked the invader in his white afterlife.

“Sam,” replied Sam, bowing.

“Where are we, Sam?”

“We are in a hospital of the highest technological calibre in the multiverse. Your body is being healed as we speak.”

“You’re building an army?” Syrhahn wondered what that meant. He was relieved that he was in a hospital and not dead.

“Yes. I’m afraid we don’t give too much information to outsiders, or to any one person, we’ve been infiltrated too many times,” Sam’s brow darkened and Syrhahn knew how he felt.

“A traveller army or a normal people with guns army?” Syrhahn guessed he could tell him that.

“Traveller. Normal people wouldn’t last long. Well, except you of course,” added Sam, grinning. “Moved a whole spaceship to save you, I heard.”

“They did indeed,” he nodded genially. “They did indeed. Are they okay, have you heard from them? Last thing I saw they were under fire, completely defenceless, could any of them have survived?”

“I am aware that they took a fatality, but the rest of them are okay, and well hidden.”

Had he had lungs, Syrhahn would have breathed a huge sigh of relief. He already knew that Maya was the fatality, and was just glad no-one else had died.

“What happens now?” he asked, not having any idea where to go next.

“You will both come and join us. We are spread around for safety, but united and all travellers. April will be in charge of transporting you, we’re not used to having non-travellers around.”

“Just do me one favour okay?”

“What’s that?” asked Syrhahn curiously.

“Please let me know if I make it onto your shit list so I can beg and explain?”

They both laughed, the noise anti-echoing around the infinite light.

“Did you really take out Ambassador Gritjen under full military lockdown?” Sam looked awestruck.

“That was a long time ago, I hadn’t thought of that in years,” Syrhahn shook his head, still amazed at how long ago twenty five years felt. It felt more like several hundred and twenty five.

“When do I get out of here?” Syrhahn motioned to the overwhelming nothingness. “I tried running. Flying. Sleeping. Doesn’t work.”

“You flew?”

“Yeah, look,” and with that, he ran and rose, soaring around again. Sam joined him whooping and laughing. Syrhahn was right, it was more fun with someone to share it with.

He wasn’t convinced of anything. His gut told him to trust Sam, but that didn’t mean he was going to open himself up to get stabbed through his bared heart. Syrhahn wasn’t truly convinced he was alive, if he wasn’t then being dead was most confusing.

“Syrhahn!” A familiar high pitched voice rose from below him and he swept down to throw his numb arms around April.

The kid was over the moon, there was no question that she was on their side.

“I can’t believe you’re alive,” she cried.

“How did you do it?” wondered Syrhahn. “I thought that was it. Again.”

“Sam just stuck his head through a portal, explained who he was, and came through. I had nothing to lose, you were going to be dead pretty soon.” April was doing that thing where she sounded like a grown up again. It upset Syrhahn that she had to lose her innocence so soon, watching people die and playing an active part in another’s survival. Then he remembered the world he had brought her from, and realised the girl had lost her innocence many years before.

“And bless the day I met you,” said Syrhahn kindly, putting his arm around her for a brief half hug. He had never been this tactile with anyone except Angel, not even Viskra. Somehow he was changing, thawing, becoming human somehow.

“Your body will take a while, think hours rather than minutes or days. I will leave you guys now, I’m sure you have a lot to talk about. I’ll come back for you when your body is ready,” Sam smiled and touched his palm to his head, vanishing immediately.

April skipped happily in a circle. “Hey, I wanna try that flying thing!”

“Come on then,” he laughed, feeling as if the weight of the world had taken a holiday from his shoulders, just for a while.