Friday 6 December 2013

Changing Fate

Hey people 

I got this inspiration from a book called "Skyship Academy," Nick James 
I obviously changed a few things but I really enjoyed this story and enjoyed writing this. 
As always thanks for reading... 

A.D May XX    




Changing Fate
Dein felt the phone in his pocket vibrate, and a wall of panic hit him.
‘Jesse? What’s Wrong?’ he answered.
‘They’ve found me.’ Those four words made Dein’s legs feel week, those four words were the reason he had fought so hard to keep his brother at his side. He was already outdoors drenched in sweat from the desert heat, when he began to run towards the controls, which would release the Jet from underground. He knew that the others could not protect his brother, he should have never agreed to leave him. Dein’s breath caught in his throat as the thought about losing the only family he had left, and despite the desert heat he felt cold.
‘Jesse, I’m coming. I promise I’m coming,’ he almost yelled. Panic was making him falter and Dein didn’t want to show his brother how terrified he truly was. Dein started up the Na ST4, the aircraft he had been granted from the military, and prayed it would be fast enough.
“I don’t know how long I can keep the shield up,” came Jesse’s desperate voice from the phone that was placed precautions on Dein’s lap.  
“You can do it bud, just keep it up long enough for me to come and help.” They should never be apart, how many times had the two brothers been drilled that together they were stronger. One brother to create the other to destroy; Dein was born to protect his brother that was his function on this planet and it looked as though he had failed.

Jesse hadn’t wanted to call his brother. He wanted to let Dein have a few months peace without having to worry about his sibling. Yet when the red alarm had started blaring at quarter past five in the morning, Jesse knew he was out of his depth. He didn’t understand how they had found him so easily. The four of them, Hale, Eve, Trent and himself where always careful, Dein had given painfully clear instructions that if any harm came to Jesse they wouldn’t hear the end of it. The military, what was left of them, had been protecting the two of brothers from the Hydron Party for two years now, as they were Earth’s only hope. 
Earth had been on the path of destruction for centuries when it finally happened. It wasn’t a slow process like all the scientists had planned. No, the earth was hit by the Scarlet bombings. These bombs destroyed most of the worlds population in seconds, leaving chaos and death in their wake. Three decades later a planet that had once been green and full of life, was now barley livable. The planet had been submerged in desert, when the ozone layer had been destroyed. The only hope for salvation were two orphan brothers who held the power to destroy the ones that believed the human race had little to offer. With the papers splashed with death everyday, this party believed that it was necessary to destroy the planet and start again with the Hydron Party in command. They started a war that would leave the world destroyed and unable to rebuild itself. They saw themselves as the beacon of hope for humanity, as when the smoke cleared they would rebuild the world in their own vision. The new age of Adam.  

Jesse had been best friends with Hale, Eve and Trent long before he had been re-united with his brother all those years ago. They had stuck together, while the world burn around them. Jesse had been too young to have been able to protect the people he watched fall, but that did not stop the nightmares coming to haunt him at night. The five of them had taken refuge with the military underground, in a base that had been built around the same time of the Scarlet Bombings. We are the only resistance left, most of humanity has fallen, the world has been taken over by the Hydron party, and only small pockets of the resistance remain.       
Jesse, as he sprinted down the metal pavement in their unground home, could hear the Hydron soldiers trying to break through his barrier. Every thump to the shield sent shivers up and down his arms and spine. Jesse and Dein had become the slither of hope for the resistance, they were the only chance left to turn the tables around. Therefore as Jesse went to climb up the rigs, which would lead him to the chaos outside, he was caught around the waist by their Captain, and flung over his shoulder.
“Jake put me down! I need to help them, I don’t know -”
“Your brother gave me clear instructions, Jesse, protect you at all costs. And letting you run into a battle with no armor, is not likely for me to win any favors. Your friends are fine, they’re in the panic room, which is exactly where you will be joining them. I need you there -”
“Jake please, the barrier is going to break. I can’t hold on for much longer. Without me you will fall-”
“Exactly, that is precisely why you are going to stay underground where Ian and Jerard can keep an eye on you. Then you will be –”
 If Jesse was being honest with himself he would not say the next moment was one of his finest. He had always admired Jake, and with no father figure Jake had stepped up and filled the role for both him and Dein. So when he used a technique that their captain had taught him only a few days ago to get Jake on the floor in a fetal position, he did not dwell on it long. Sprinting for the rig again Jesse hauled himself to the surface. What he saw next made him catch his breath. Thousands of Hydron worriers wearing the solid black uniforms that defined them, stretched for miles around their fortress. Their guns pointing at the transparent bubble that Jesse was struggling to keep up. He stood tall, the only man surrounded by many. Suddenly an order was given to start shooting, Jesse fell to his knees, as the bubble struggled to keep its shape.
He wasn’t strong enough.
The thought made him stagger, he wouldn’t be able to protect his family. And Yet Jesse knew that he would do everything in his power to give them a few precious seconds to escape. He raised himself to his feet, and lifted his palms to the sky pouring as much power into the shield that he could muster. He felt it pour somewhere from deep within his stomach, but it wasn’t an endless flow, he only had so much reserved without his brother by his side. And as the guns kept firing the last of the power seemed to ebaway. A loud crack, made Jesse look up, a fisher spiraled from the top of the dome snaking its way to the bottom. It hurt, like his own flesh was being cut to pieces.  And then when finally the fisher hit the dusty ground, the dome shattered. Pain burst through Jesse, red hot pain filled him, twisting its way through his blood stream. He heard someone screaming, someone saying his name over and over; but darkness held her arms open for him, wanting him to fall into oblivion. Jesse was tired, tired of being constantly afraid, tired of having to fight back, fight a force that kept growing. The thought of oblivion’s comforting arms, made Jesse forget about the world around him, he easily welcomed the comforting embrace of darkness.  

Jesse was not welcomed by the oblivion he desired, no, colors and noise surrounded him, ass he opened his eyes. He was no longer in the desert, but in a beautiful ornate living room surrounded by many finely dressed people. He knew that no building like this had survived the onslaught of time and suffering, this was no place in his world. Huge windows surrounded the room and Jesse found his feet taking him to one. He placed both hands slowly on the glass as he looked down to the city bellow. It was bustling with people and life, as they went about their daily routine, unafraid. Jesse stood there stunned, it was exactly how he had imaged the world to look before the bombings. He could not look away, he didn’t understand why everything looked so…normal? Someone laughed loudly, pulling him back to the decorative silver and gold hall that was teaming with people and music. He noticed a fire blazing in a hearth that took up most of the back wall, it crackled and popped merrily accompanying the sound of laughter, chatter and clinking of glasses. The room was filled with a warm inviting atmosphere, unlike anything Jesse had ever experienced. And yet he felt unsettled as though something was missing, but the room was filled with people he cared about. He could see Hale, dressed in a pale blue floor-length gown. He smiled to himself as he remembered an argument that they had once shared when they were younger.
‘How do girls ever run if their wearing skirts and dresses that long?’ she had asked, while looking at an ancient magazines that they had found in a pile of rubbish. ‘I don’t ever want to wear a dress,’ she had declared, before throwing the magazine to the floor. She looked beautiful now, Jesse thought, as she giggled into her glass of Champaign. Tent was wearing a black dinner jacket, and looked a lot older and healthier than the last time Jesse had seen his best friend. He stood next to a women who Jesse didn’t recognise, she had golden hair sweeping down her back. She suddenly turned to look over her shoulder at him, smiling, and Jesse realized who Trent’s companion was. Eva had grown out her short, cropped, matted hair and now looked gorgeous, in a royal purple gown that flouted around her slender figure when she moved. Everyone was older, Jesse grasped, and he turned around to study his own figure in the reflection from the glass windows. He too was wearing a back dinner jacket, but his hung from his too skinny frame. He was hunched in on himself as though a burden had never truly been lifted, but what was worse was how people avoided looking at him directly in the eye, and shifted their posture when he came near.  Jesse studied his face grimacing at how haggard he had become, with big bruised bags under his eyes and golden stubble, which was in need of a shave. His eyes looked haunted as they stared back at him, Jesse stumbled back away from his refection, horrified. What had happened? And why did he feel as though something was missing from himself, as though a limb had been removed? He studied the crowd that would not meet his eyes, and realized that he could not see his brother.
He ventured into the room looking everywhere for Dein, people parted ways when he came close, subtly, as though they had time to practice the art, and then he heard the convocation. A man with deep blue eyes and a soft spoken voice stood next to a women equally beautiful with flaming red hair brought into a regal bun, as she gossiped about the gathering.
‘We are going to Dein SkyRen’s service tomorrow. Can you believe it will be eight years since his death?-’ the man nodded looking around at the other couples in the room seeming uninterested. The women continued  ‘Do you remember that day? People try to forget, Harry, but I still see the crumbling cities when I close my eyes. We owe a lot to the SkyRen brothers, the world would not have been restored without them.’
‘Shh now Hanna, don’t let the Team here you speak of Dein,’ he said slowly.
‘I know, but don’t you think its time they move on?’ she looked around anxiously and whispered, ‘Especially Jesse SkyRen? Do you believe the legend that the brothers were linked? I heard that it was destined for Dein to give his life for his brother, there was nothing anyone could have done.’ Harry seemed not to be listening, as though he heard the words too many times before. But Jesse shuffled closer trying to catch anything this women would say. ‘Its so heroic, I knew Dein, not well of course but he was in the line -  ’ and then her eyes met Jesse’s and she recoiled.
‘Jesse, I’m sorry-,’ but he didn’t stay to listen to her rambling apology. He shoved past guest, the room didn’t feel welcoming anymore, he had to get away. It was stifling, he felt as though he would suffocate. His brother was dead. Dein was dead and it was all Jesse’s fault. His brother had always been far too protective, but Jesse never truly believed he would give his life for him. The battle was won, but he’d lost his brother, he was alone. Jesse stumbled through the gold and silver double doors and found himself in a silent corridor, lit only by the flickering light of candles hanging in intervals down the long dark passageway. He stopped, and slid down the wall until he was curled on the floor trying to contain the grief at the news of his brothers death. He tried to breath through lungs that seemed to constrict, as his sobs broke through the eerily silent corridor.

Then his head exploded with pain, as images flashed through his mind. Both himself and Dein were on top of a building in a place Jesse easily recognized as San Francisco, by the faded red bridge that connected one side of the city to the other. The place was covered in the desert sand that had engulfed the world long ago, and from their advantage point Jesse could see that most of the buildings had collapsed. The city was uncanny, as smog rolled below in the deserted streets creating disconcerting shapes of the faces of the dead. The wind howled like a wailing mother through the alleyways making Jesse’s hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
‘There coming’ Dein whispered, ‘Get ready.’
 Jesse tensed ready to fight, as the rhythmical drumbeat of thousands of feet hitting concrete was heard.

The images blurred and the scene shifted again. Jesse saw the team fighting an onslaught of warriors that never seemed to end. The two brothers were still on top of the building shooting into the fray below. Jesse’s arms ached and he moved sluggishly to pull another arrow from his back, his brother looked over concern written on his face, but Jesse shrugged and kept firing. That was when he realized he was not in control of his actions, he was watching the fight, but his limbs were moving beyond his control. Time seemed to speed up as more and more worriers fell. But then everything changed as he watched Hale drop to her knees, clutching her side in obvious pain. He instinctively went to go down the building to help her, but strong arms wrapped tightly around his mid drift.
“Jesse no! Stay up here with me-’
‘Dein let go! Its Hale!’
‘I know, I know, but sometimes-’
‘No!’
 Jesse made to leap down the fire exit, but Dein caught him around the ankle, and he fell to the floor. Instantly Dein pinned Jesse’s body down to the gravel holding him with his weight, tiny stones dug into Jesse’s cheek, as he struggled to lift his older brother’s weight off him. The boys struggled with one another fighting and grabbing at each others clothing and hair.
‘Dein, you do not have to look after me. Let. Go!’
‘You’re my brother, you’re my responsibility.’
‘I was fine before you found me! And I’ll be fine without you, I don’t need you Dein!’
He saw his brother visibly recoil, and open his mouth to reply. Jesse wanted to apologies feeling guilt churning in his stomach, to say of course he needed his brother, they were nothing without each other. However before he could utter a word the sound of a helicraft made them both pause. Dein, who still had Jesse pinned to the floor looked at the helicopter, begging it to be Captain Jack. But as the Hydron Sign came into view, Dein shoved his little brothers head to the floor, covering his body, as the bullets were fired.
   

 Jesse was covered in his brothers blood and tears were streaming down his dirt encrusted face, leaving rivulets of water. He sat hunched in on himself in the aircraft, trying to stay away from everyone’s pitting stares and their comforting hands. He didn’t want to be comforted, all he saw were his brothers lifeless eyes every time he closed his own. It was his fault that Dein was dead and Jesse knew it should have been him. He was the one who made the mistake to move from his position, how many times had Dein told him that if you have orders, follow them.
The battle was won the others kept telling him, but all Jesse heard was a faint ringing in his head, as he replayed the last hour again in his mind. He wanted to escape, he needed to change the past, he could not let his brother die.
He squeezed his eyes shut imaging his brothers voice, ‘Jesse, Jesse wake up, Jesse I need you to open your eyes now.’ He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to see his brother’s limp body again.
‘Jesse please open your eyes.’ His brother implored, sounding desperate. He didn’t want to upset his brother anymore, he’d disappointed him enough. Therefore Jesse slowly prized his glued eyelids open, and realised he was back in the present with Dein’s face anxiously bending over him. He lay on a moldy sofa as he finally grasped why he had seen the images of the future, he was supposed to change their roles. Some other force wanted Jesse to protect his brother and he would comply willingly, he would never see Dein’s lifeless form again.