ASRAN SERIES- ACROSS THE BORDER

Chapter -36

“I know. I am not forcing her to use the old methods. We could ask for the militant’s help and send her to Asran to resolve the misunderstandings. I am certain that the King of Asran would not do something as stupid as sending a decree to eliminate a particular clan,” Cathy said.

“Militant’s help? Are you even hearing yourself? They are the ones who sent us away and now we are roaming in these deserted places all because of them. You think they will help us?” Brenda asked her mother in a mocking tone.

Cathy shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know about other militants but I have confidence in my son-in-law. He will definitely help us.”

Brenda shook her head in disappointment and murmured, “He is the one who received the decree and implemented that stupid law. You and your confidence, I could prove it wrong in a minute.”

“What are you mumbling? Now go away from here, I have a job to educate these lovely kids on our history,” Cathy kicked Brenda away from there.

She then continued to say to the kids, “Only one member from each of our planets is chosen to carry out this task. And for Asper, the chosen candidate is Sussan right now as I have told you before. No one other than Sussan can enter Asran and even if they try, they would be burned by the flames surrounding the Asran star. Also, kids listen… This is the most important part…” 

She leaned close to the kids with frightened eyes and said in a whispering tone, “The souls of the ones who entered the planet without the King’s permission will be sent to the planet named, 'Ashes'. It is the farthest planet away from every other planet and it's the last planet on our Asran system.”

“Ahhh…” The kids got scared after hearing that and they trembled.

“Not only that… The one who rules that planet is Ashes lord who is as old as this Asran system. And he is as powerful as someone who could destroy this whole universe.” Cathy told them.

“Mom, That’s enough…” Brenda stopped her as she did not want her to scare the kids anymore.

“Kids… Come on! Get up. I heard that you have not eaten properly all these days. So, I have brought many dishes that you all like from…” she was about to say home but then she couldn’t as a block formed on her throat.

So Sussan came to her rescue and said, “Hurry, kids… Are you not hungry?”

“Yes, we are!” The kids who were interested in listening to Cathy’s story immediately stood up and went near the place where the food was being served.

But Cathy did not stop the story, she mumbled, “And the witch that entered our planet was from one of the neighboring 'Ashes' planets. Those dark planets had many dark creatures. Their keeper died or rumored that he was brutally murdered by the g**g formed under the rebels. They wanted to enter Asran and take over the control of the most powerful star.”

“Mom… Stop… These kids don’t need to know about our struggles,” Brenda kneeled on the ground and held Cathy’s hands.

“Once they take over Asran, they would get the power to control all the sixty-eight planets. Do you even understand what would happen then? The darkness will spread across our planets… It had already started, isn’t it, Sussan?” Cathy asked while staring at the Asran star visible in the sky.

Sussan did not reply to her and glanced at the Asran star.

“Sussan, you do realize that it’s time for us to act, right? Or are you going to silently watch everything from the sides?” Cathy asked her.

“Cathy, I do know that they have started to spread silently among us and have taken over a few of the planets. They have the ability to disguise themselves as whoever they want to be and could even imitate them better than the original hosts. No one can identify them easily unless they decide to reveal themselves.” Sussan said in a hurried tone.

She then took a deep breath and said, “I am also afraid that my loved ones could also be someone… like them…”

Once she finished saying that Sussan felt someone hard got stuck in her throat. She had trouble breathing and her eyes unknowingly moved towards David.

“The king for Asran was chosen every thousand years from one of the sixty-seven planets except the planet Ashes. Even the lord of Ashes planet was once chosen by the Asran and the council members. Until now there was no discrimination among the selection as the Asran chooses its own ruler. But if we allow them to take over our planets then from now on we would have to bend our knees to these unknown creatures.” Cathy said in a stern voice.

“The current king whom the Asran chose is only four hundred years before and he still has so many years left before he could make an exit… But if something had happened to him then we all would be in for big trouble,” Brenda mumbled and created a heavy environment around them.

When Sussan met the king last time, she felt that he was very warm and even treated everyone from all the planets equally and respectfully. So, she was confused when everyone said that such a decree had come. And in her heart, she knew that she still refused to believe that decree.

She could not clearly see that not even one planet escaped from the mess created by those unknown creatures. Everywhere it had become chaotic and suddenly so many people had started to disappear one after another with no end to it.

When they were seriously discussing these matters, they saw the Asran star disappear suddenly from the sky. It confused them all, as there was still an hour left before the star would go down. 

As everyone was wondering what was happening around them at once a blue light spread across the sky and almost blinded their eyes. When the brightness dimmed they could see that it resembled the newly formed planet which was close to their planet Asper. 

“What is going on? Why is there a new star in our sky now?” Brenda wondered loudly.

“It’s not a star. It’s the new planet that was yet to be explored,” Sussan said while studying the sky.

Whenever a new planet is formed, it means that some other old planet is about to die or it’s already dying. But it has happened only once in several thousands of billions of years ago. 

Also, they had hardly heard or known about those details as only the Asran kings have access to all those details. And most of the planets in their system are relatively only a few million years old, even the furthest planet in the Asran system except Ashes. 

‘So why did a new planet arise now?’ Sussan wondered and rubbed her forehead. 

Just when they were thinking about how a new planet could arise in so little time, they suddenly felt the whole planet shake tremendously. Most of them almost lost their balance and fell to the ground.

The Mothers covered their kids with their body and the fathers stood in a protective stance in front of them.

"Take cover everyone. The new planet is crashing on our planet," Abruptly someone shouted and caused panic around that place.

‘But then he forgot that what use will it be even if he takes cover when a whole new planet is crushing on them?’ Brenda let out a sarcastic laugh when she realized that logic.  

“What is there to giggle about that?” Candy mockingly asked and glared at her daughter, Brenda.

“Mom, I was just thinking what would be the use of hiding if a planet is going to crash on us? We all would be dead anyway even if a slight contact is made between the planets,” Brenda said in a serious tone.

“Did anyone ask you to give an explanation to me?” Cathy asked her and huffed to show her dissatisfaction.

“Mom, why are you picking a fight with me now?” Brenda mumbled and pouted her mouth.

“As everything would be destroyed along with the new planet if we clash, I don’t think Asran would want that to happen. It takes Asran so many millions of years to create one new planet, so I am certain that it's definitely not from there.” Sussan said.

‘Unless 'Poisidion' was also involved in this matter. He was the guardian of the neighboring star that has only one planet with people and the remaining planets consist of either animals or organisms or just plain lands without any gravity.’ Sussan thought.

He was always jealous of the Asran star and its surrounding planets. He wanted to settle here but his body constitution was not suitable for any planets in this system. So however he tried, he had to admit defeat and return to his star.

"Do you thinking it is all because of Poisidion?" Robert's grandma Cathy asked Sussan.

"No, it might just be an illusion. I think this whole thing is a setup made by the unknown creatures long ago to complicate things on our planet,” Sussan said to them.

“It also seems like we all were poisoned with the witch's medicine before we left the border. Only a witch could cause such illusions to living beings," Brenda grudgingly said with an angry face.

“I am not sure about that. I don’t think militants would ever take help from witches,” Sussan shook her head and mumbled in an unsure tone.

"Trust me on this. Just to get rid of us they can fall as low as possible. This would be nothing compared to what they had planned for us. Also, it is going to get even worse the more we try to walk away from where we lived. I have once read about this poison in a book that was kept in my husband's library.” Brenda said to Sussan with bright sparkling eyes.