Horizon - M. and the Cosmopunxx

Photostory

All Kayados demonstratively removed their LOBAs and laid them on the ground. Fearless, they stood there, inviting the pain of parting, the right to tears and emotional freedom.

One minute later, all hell broke loose at Homebase. Again. Surrounded by ten guards and two medical servants, it was game over. The second Alhidesha surfaced, the medical servants charged, pulled him out of the lake, and showered him thoroughly with distilled water.

Raph woke up first and looked around groggily at his friends coming back to life. All of them. Except M. A robotic arm glided out and injected something into M.’s jugular. No response. Alhidesha and Molxtrovi stood over M.’s pod. There was no good news written on their faces. Two robotic arms, each holding a resuscitation pad, reached out and placed the pads on M.’s bare chest. Still in deep sleep, M.’s brain had now been penetrated by the adrenaline shot. Memories flooded his consciousness, a flipbook of his life.

Long ago, the Kayados had enemies. As the planet was on the brink of ecological collapse, a small separatist tribe, the Tiaavulu, refused to submit to growing Kayado Mega-Mind control. They defended their independent culture and were brandmarked as rebels. First marginalized, then completely banned from Kayado society, they were left to face the planet’s ecological collapse on their own. For a while, the Tiaavulu found refuge from climate catastrophes beneath the vast industrial facilities that once churned out Mira Nunaat’s every need. Denied access to resources, the tribe did not survive the collapse.

Vanished, all those tortured images from long ago, the silent, slow-motion procession of loss and grief: the rose spiraling down into his mother’s grave; the monotonous murmuring of funeral guests; his father glancing covertly at his Philippe Patek. Gone, the mind movie of that heavy oaken door falling loudly shut, locking Shirin away from him. And how he stood there, staring at the massive barricade until the unbearable boulders of suffering imploded and scattered on the ground. Once, these images, these nightmares, shook him to the core and he would awaken bathed in sweat, thrashing about.

At 11:58pm, the engines ignited, emitting a bright blue light and palpable deep bass frequencies. The spaceship slowly lifted from the ground. Fritz and Maria held onto each other as the earth beneath their feet began to vibrate and they were suddenly bathed in an oddly tangible bright light. At about 30 meters above the ground, there was a loud, hard PSSST and the ship shot up, vanishing within seconds. “Be well, my son!” Fritz called out. Maria, added softly, “Shine for us each night, my darling, shine!” Holding each other close, their tears flowing freely, they stood gazing into the night sky. “Maybe it’s the fear of loss that keeps people from allowing love to truly fill their hearts,” Maria spoke to the stars. “That’s a certainty. Love takes a lot of courage, it’s a constant work in progress,” Fritz replied and made the first move to walk back inside.