HEIRS TO FATE
STARDATE 10.07.22
X-SECTOR
Doctor Melia brought the last of the food plates to the table. Her once blonde hair with red streaks was now light grey with white streaks. Her beige skin now displayed wrinkles, hanging low in places that used to be skin tight. Her beautiful deep blue eyes remained, but they bore the heavy weight of experience, tragedy, and time…lifelong companions whether she wanted them or not.
“Mother, please,” Ichalord said in a compassionate but worried voice. “You don’t need to wait on us. We are all adults now. You should be sitting at the table resting.” Ichalord was a handsome young man with blonde hair with orange streaks. He was fit and strong, physically in his prime.
“Ichalord is correct, Mom,” Ichabeth stated in full agreement with Ichalord. “Please sit down already.” Ichabeth was the second oldest, right behind Ichalord. She was a picture of her mother, with beige skin, deep blue eyes, and blonde hair with red streaks.
“Would the two of you please stop,” Ichabelle blurted out, clearly annoyed. “It is rare enough that each of us gets to visit Mother, and even rarer that all of us can be gathered here at the same time. Now, can’t we just enjoy our time together?” Ichabelle was a stunning sight, much different from her sister, Ichabeth, or her mother. Her skin was bone white like her father, her hair was jet black with blue streaks, and her eyes were deep green.
Ichadred, the youngest, sat silent and unmoving, as usual. He watched the interaction between his mother and his siblings like a tiger studying his prey. His skin was jet black, his hair white with crimson streaks, and his eyes were blood red.
Doctor Melia sat down at the head of the table. She let out a soft sigh. Melia took a moment to look at each of her children. Inwardly, she said a prayer of thankfullness that they were all present and in good health. She smiled softly.
After everyone had started eating, Ichalord felt compelled to bring up a subject that was rarely spoken about.
“Mother, why isn’t Father here? Where is he? Father is gone for such long periods of time that we never see him, and when we do, he just stares at us coldly…like some kind of wraith.”
Doctor Melia looked down with sadness. A moment passed before she spoke to everyone.
“I know you all miss your Father. I do as well. You have all heard this explanation many times before, but I will say it again. I wish I had more to offer you.”
“Your Father’s confrontation with the…Final Enemy…took a heavy toll on him. He barely survived. He was scarred, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. It took all of his being to defeat the Final Enemy once and for all. So what…remains…of your Father is just a Shadow of the man he used to be.”
“But why did Father bring you to this point in time to raise us?” Ichabeth asked out of curiosity. “Why here? There are countless other choices he could have made.”
Doctor Melia smiled at her eldest daughter. “I’m not completely sure, Ichabeth. I know he wanted you to be safe. I know he wanted you to prosper, to have a bright future. And I know there was something about the technology of this X-Sector, something about what was coming in the future…each of you is going to be desperately needed. That is why you are each the Captain of a powerful, state of the art Command Cruiser.”
Ichalord, Ichabeth, and Ichabelle exchanged worried glances with one another. They had heard this information before, many times since they were young, but there was still something spine tingling about it. They each felt unsettled.
“Have any of you considered that the Final Enemy may have been right?”
There were gasps at the table. Doctor Melia looked at Ichadred with concern.
“My Son, why would you say such a thing? You know that the Final Enemy was Pure Evil. Your Father sacrificed everything to defeat him. There is absolutely no way that the Final Enemy was justified in his thoughts or his actions.”
“So you say,” Ichadred retorted in a rebellious and sinister tone. “Perhaps he was just misunderstood. Maybe he was terribly wronged in the past and he simply wanted revenge. Who knows? All I am suggesting is that, for years ever since we were young, we have heard only this one biased perspective from Mother. Would it hurt if we did our own research into what really happened? If we discovered who and what the Final Enemy truly was? It we uncovered…the Truth?”
“Be careful, my Brother,” Ichalord warned Ichadred. His light orange eyes locked with Ichadred’s blood red eyes in direct confrontation. “If you play with fire, you will get burned.”
Ichadred’s blood red eyes bore into Ichalord’s soul, like a parasite taking over a host.
“FIRE CANNOT HURT YOU IF YOU ARE ALREADY BURNING.”
