Dream Planet. Book 1. Star Maze

Chapter 11. Atla's Story (part 1)

Krama. Nineteen Kramean years ago.

Woken up by the weak glow of the projector, young Atla felt an incomparable sorrow in her bottomless soul, too overwhelming even for her. The priestess caught herself thinking that she doesn't want to wake up anymore and doesn't want to serve her world. Horrified at herself, she jumped out of the warm, airy cocoon where she'd cozily spent the night, and raced in the direction of the temple with a genuine desire to ask the Kramean god forgiveness for her insolence. She ran so fast that her material shell could barely keep up with her spirit. Reaching the gates, she came to a sharp halt, feeling a concentration of power behind them. Putting her hand against the door, which was hot with emotion, she jumped back. An argument was taking place inside. She felt her father's energy. She also recognized Tatida and a few other elders.  Their fiery thoughts were so focused on themselves that Atla remained unnoticed by all.

"A black shadow is creeping over our whole race," whispered one of the elders.

"I'm feeling a coldness!" another interrupted him.

"We still have time!" Tatida objected.

"Don't you think you're relying on her a little too much?" the shaman barked in her direction reproachfully.

"Not any more than she's worth!" Tatida replied sharply, "The girl is unbelievably strong. Her mother deliberately sacrificed herself to give her life, thereby strengthening her higher abilities. She's destined to incessant spiritual growth. Only the gods know what she's capable of!"

Atla was pushed away from the door as if by an electric charge. This was news to her. Everything inside her contracted and froze. No, it wasn't Tatida's words about her great power that defeated her - she'd heard them many times before. The reason behind her mother's death was the culprit. She had missed her terribly all these years. Atla swayed to the side, put her hands on her chest and felt how frantically her heart was pounding. Looking at her feet, she saw with alarm that she'd sunk into the ground, melting the metal beneath her. Breaking free of its grasp, she rushed towards the street.

‘Why do I have to live according to someone else's orders? Why was I destined to be a slave since before I was born?’

A crazed passion for freedom, which the girl had never experienced before, filled her whole entire being.

 ‘From now on, I'll be the only one to decide what to do and how to do it. My life is mine alone, and it'll be the way I want it to be!’

Coming to a sharp halt, Atla thought about her next move. She needed but a second to plan her escape. She'd left the planet before, and wasn't scared of open space. The girl knew that a merchant shuttle leaves Krama twice a day.

Atla was familiar with the city's systems, and if she didn't know something, then she'd permeate the head of the right person without hesitation and find all the necessary information inside their consciousness.

Nearing the station where the shuttle departed, she entered the captain's train of thought and found out that the vessel leaves in ten minutes, immediately after receiving confirmation from the loader. It carried Kramean healing sarcophagi to sell.

The last object was being loaded - an elongated hollow cylinder with sharpened edges.  

Waiting for the right moment, Atla stealthily snuck up close and jumped inside, closing the lid behind her with a barely audible click. Knowing that any minute now her absence in the temple will be noticed and a search will begin, Atla began to cover her tracks, creating alternate versions of the escape in her mind and throwing them out into the toxic red Kramean atmosphere.

 The sarcophagus was loaded onto the ship. Atla felt vibrations and clenched her fists. The shuttle immediately took off the ground and rushed into the darkness of open space.  

Poking around the ship's navigational system, she discovered that the load was being taken to Sirius, one of the hundreds of trade stations scattered throughout the Seven Worlds.

 The girl felt no fear, rather a mad sense of curiosity. Atla's ego was impossibly inflated, therefore she was more likely to assume that fear was more appropriate for those unfortunate enough to cross her path. She was protected by the immense power of knowledge, her body shielded by an invisible barrier.

 Atla didn't regret her escape, didn't think of those she left behind. She tried to erase all memory of Tatida from her mind, but it turned out to be impossible, and she felt intuitively how disappointed the old Kramean must be.

And so, at the age of twelve, Atla found herself all alone out in open space. The first moments of her new life, lying in the healing sarcophagus, she reveled in her freedom. She liked that there was no one there to limit her, no one to dictate conditions or tell her how to live. Her heart pounded loud and strong, not with fear or anxiety, but rather with frantic excitement and a newfound sense of freedom. It seemed she could hear how the thread connecting her to her planet ripped, the roots that pulled her into the depths of Krama unearthed, and Tatida called out with pain and exasperation.    

The handcuffs were gone. Atla squeezed her eyes shut and started whispering a prayer to herself. She didn't ask the gods for mercy or protection. On the contrary, she begged them to leave her alone, to turn away from her, to stop watching, to let her go and trust her. Atla craved to be tested and feel pain, she wanted to fight. A childish wish to go beyond the universe, beyond time and space grew to fill up the closed sarcophagus and accidentally threw off its lid with a strong energetic charge.  

Atla jumped, wary that someone might hear. Holding her breath and listening, she felt tiny sneaky vibrations coming from the head of the pilot. Catching onto his thoughts, the girl quickly recognized deception. She wasn't surprised that her trip had started with a lie. The pilot wasn't going to Sirius as per instructions. He stopped several light minutes away from the station, anxiously waiting for someone.

A slight feeling of solidarity with the unfamiliar Kramean pilot, a liar just like her, slipped through her turbulent consciousness. His plan was laid out bare for her to see, and she read his thoughts like a book. The man had already spent several years profiting from the task he was entrusted with. There was no sense in taking the load to Sirius, saturated with a variety of cosmic r****e, considering that the product could be sold for twice the price to the dying Oeelian race, which was barred from entering the station. It was teeming with Guineans, their sworn enemies. The healing sarcophagi were in great demand among the space vagabonds – they were willing to pay their last speck of diamond dust for them.    

 Living on run-down mini-shuttles, the once great and mysterious race came to resemble mold living off its own waste, gobbling up its own hands. Terrible hunger reigned on the ships. People sacrificed their limbs only to feed their kids. A neighbour's death was no cause for grief, but instead brought with it a tiny hope of nourishment. The Oeelians became exiles within the Seven Worlds. The more opulent planets tried not to think of them, and the poorer ones remembered the unfortunates only rarely, with the sole purpose of consoling themselves: "Yes, it's bad, but definitely not worse than the Oeelians, who are rotting alive."  

Destiny carried the girl towards the nightmare at the speed of light, but Atla hasn't yet entirely understood what she would be up against. The greedy Kramean pilot was meeting the ship carrying the handful of wretches in the Abandoned Waters, the dead zone left untouched due to the stench that hung over it. A thick cloud of caustic hydrogen sulphide, cast out from the depths of the Oeelians' destroyed planet, filled the space, tracing out the phantom borders of their territory. The cloud was practically immobile, rotating only within itself in a weak current.

The Kramean ship slowed down. Icy remains of former cities floated by, corroded by radioactive dust, almost as if eaten by moths. Fragments of towers, bridges and overpasses crawled by, propelled by the weak currents of gas, slowly decaying and turning to dust.  

Atla felt the smell of death. She was familiar with the Oeelians' story, but it was one thing to know and sympathize from a distance and quite another entirely to be immersed into the misery headfirst. This was the first and perhaps the most serious test of character for the young priestess. She had to close off her wide open soul to keep the misery from coming in. The euphoria she felt from the frivolous and playful escape quickly dissipated, and her whole body trembled, permeated with cold. She heard the screams of millions of souls that left their bodies at the moment of the grand explosion. Atla instinctively tried to close her ears, but the cramped sarcophagus didn't leave enough room for her hands to reach them. Barely holding herself back from screaming, Atla cursed her great gift of sensing the supernatural.    

Most of the souls didn't get a chance to understand what had happened to them, and driven mad with pain, continued to frantically search for their vanquished bodies. Sensing Atla's openness, they threw themselves at her like vultures, trying to get inside. Millions of bites washed over her body. Each one tried to break through her hard exterior and crawl inside her heart, filling it with their essence.

 Atla cringed, feeling like a speck of cosmic dust. It got harder to breathe as she felt the weight of the whole planet on her chest. Insane fear took over her brain. She could physically feel her soul being chased out of her body, could feel her strength slowly fading as she got overtaken by the hysterical crowd. The ghosts were eating her alive. She was being pushed out, and she saw how gradually she was leaving her body. Looking at her closed eyes from above, she saw tears. Grabbing onto her own hand, Atla struggled and groaned.

"Close it!" she heard Tatida's voice in her mind.

The inner voice demanded that she cut off all her higher abilities at the root. Mere seconds remained. Time was running out, and Atla understood that one moment more and she would forever lose her physical body.  

Atla closed off all the channels which she'd spent so many years developing. She felt her strength leaving her, but this was the only thing that could save her. Gathering up her last bit of energy, she transported herself into a made-up future, imagined herself old and happy. Atla tried to adjust her reality, to change her setting, to escape this dead ocean of souls and fall into a different time and place. She stopped hearing the screams. Instead, water dripped somewhere in the distance, along with strange sounds that seemed to her like songs of exotic birds. Warmth flooded her body. She descended into silence and fell asleep as the red ghosts receded.

The mechanical grinding of the opening sarcophagus woke her from a deep slumber. Through a layer of fog she saw a skinny Oeelian face, its skin pulled taught over the skull, its eyes deep in their sockets. It took a minute for her to remember where she was and what was happening. The Kramean shuttle met the ship of half-dead Oeelians, dropped off its cargo, and having received a couple of diamond tablets in exchange, continued on its way.    

Realizing this, Atla felt abandoned, completely cut off from home. The greedy pilot, her last weak thread of connection, was now gone. She was completely alone among strangers who were eating her up with hungry, miserable eyes. The battle with the souls had weakened her considerably. There was no strength left in her body. Straining the muscles on her forehead, she tried to read the enemies' thoughts, but all her efforts were in vain. She'd given up her last bit of energy specifically to rid herself of her permeating abilities and to close off her wide open heart.

‘I'll need a fair bit of time to recuperate,’ she thought, and noticing the Oeelian bending over her, she realized apprehensively, ‘There's no guarantee I'll get that time and that I won't turn into food.’

"The pupils are reacting to light," said the Oeelian slowly in a weak, tired voice.

The girl correctly translated every word. Luckily, Atla had already mastered all the languages of the Seven Worlds when she was very small. There was a lot of argument in the temple back then about whether or not the flowery, confusing, and most importantly, dying language would be of any use to the young priestess, but Tatida insisted that the ancient extraterrestrial language will have power in the world of the dead, and her pupil needs it like the air she breathes.

Strangely enough, it was the first foreign language she had use for in the world of the living.

"She's alive," a voice came from somewhere down below.

Atla slowly turned her head towards the sound, but didn't see anyone. The interior of the room surprised her with its gloominess. It was dimly lit, a sign of fervent energy saving, and terribly cramped, lined with vertically constructed digesting coffins. It was cold, and the air was so thin that for every breath she would usually take, Atla now had to take three. But even this was not what shocked her most. Time, that intangible, ephemeral phenomenon, was different here. It passed more slowly, something that the girl noticed immediately.   

The Oeelian's movements were smooth, light and inhibited. Atla was just about to start feeling superior, but froze as she noticed the deadly light in his hands, the Oeelians' ancient weapon.

 He bent over her slowly and brought the light close to her face. Atla felt a warm sensation.

"You want to kill her!" the same voice said from below.

"I see no point in keeping her alive," the Oeelian replied monotonously, "We can extract many useful elements from her body."

Atla felt the heat on her face more strongly. The Oeelian had made his decision.

"Stop!" she yelled, startling him. He sharply withdrew his hand.

"Don't do it, you'll find me useful!" she begged.

The extraterrestrial made a face.

"It looks like she speaks our language?"

"Indeed," said the voice from downstairs in surprise.

Atla saw the figure of the second person towering over her head. A pair of curious blue eyes, long fiery red hair framing the face in soft waves, and deathly pale translucent skin. The new person was a woman, it was undeniable. The shape of her breasts was visible through the fabric, her figure was wider and slouching towards the bottom, and her gaze betrayed a distinctly feminine curiosity.

The original distinction between men and women was present on every planet of the Seven Worlds. Murie was perhaps the only exception, where cloning and genetic manipulation were rampant, blurring all natural traits into each other. The men in every world were in some way different from the women of their own world. At times, even living on the same planet, misunderstanding between the genders became so extreme that they saw each other as aliens, and it seemed that men from neighbouring worlds could come to an agreement with each other easier than with women of their own world. The half-dead pair of ghostly Oeelians was no exception. Atla unintentionally became a witness to a subsequent family argument - original and peculiar only to Oeelians, but developing according to the standard scheme of lack of understanding and refusal to back down. This was bizarre for Atla, but the reason behind the argument was her life.      

"There's no point in keeping her!" the man insisted, led by the momentary desire to nourish his body.

"She could help us!" the woman insisted, pulling away the hand with the deadly light away from the girl's face.

"How? She's only a child!" her partner wouldn't let up.

"She knows our language! She'll know what to do!" the woman tried to convince him.

"Let go!" he pushed her aside, "She won't understand and she won't want to!"

"I'll do whatever you tell me!" Atla intervened, looking the man dead in the eye.

Atla felt the cold from the Oeelian's icy touch as he brought his hands to her throat. She flinched. The cold scared her hot-blooded nature more than the deadly beam. He wasn't as weak as it seemed at first glance.

"Remember the first rule of our world! Direct eye contact is f*******n and is punishable by death!" he said harshly and coldly.

Atla lowered her eyes. It was hard to communicate without looking at the person in front of her, without seeing their eyes. She understood immediately that she would never belong here, but there was no choice - she had to accept the conditions to at least survive.

"It's a necessity. They steal from us," the woman said quietly from the side.

Atla nodded bashfully, knowing what she meant. She was only too aware of what could be stolen through the eyes, but how could the ghostly, backwards Oeelians be capable of that?  

"I understand," Atla whispered.

"You're just wasting your time with her!" said the man reproachfully to his wife, and Atla imagined how coldly and heartlessly he did this, without looking at her.  

Atla frustrated him with her fearlessness and lack of tact. Interrupting his wife, he addressed the girl first:

"Did someone steal your fear? Have you already come face to face with Oeelians?"

Atala shook her head, but remembering that this gesture signaled agreement for the Oeelians, rushed to correct herself.

"No, I've never met Oeelians before."

"She's wholesome, can't you feel it?" said the woman.

It was hard to decipher her worlds, and Atla decided to keep quiet and not to ask any questions.

The silence stretched on. Atla nervously swallowed the air. As if noticing this, the woman started to talk.

"We have no access to the station, our ships are at the limit, our stores have run out, and life energy is all but gone. The neighbouring worlds laugh at us. They wait for our demise with anticipation. We're a dismal, gloomy laughing stock, living its final days in need and in cold. The ships disappear one by one. A couple of days ago, our twin "plunged into the void", as we call mass suicide - the most serious sin in our religion. The crew couldn't stand the depravity and gave up. One hundred and five living souls committed suicide. Their terrible example spread panic and confusion on our ship."

"Why are you telling her all this?" her husband interrupted her, pushing her off to the side.

"She needs to absorb our misery in order to help."

"It won't work," he waved his hands and receded into a dark corner.

The woman came up close to Atla. The girl threw a nervous glance at her shoulders, and after, gaining courage, transferred her gaze to her lips, using all her willpower to avoid looking into her eyes.

"You've come to us at a very scary time. We're on the verge of a final emotional breakdown. Help us!" the woman begged.

She touched a cold trembling hand to her, and Atla cringed.

"What can I do for you?" she asked in a voice that was unusually loud for this place.

"Go to the station and get us some food and fuel," the cold touch grew into a tight grip on her wrist. Atla felt pain.

"You're wasting your time! If you let her go, you'll never see her again. No one returns. What makes you think she's any better than our other captives? It makes more sense to just eat her," said the man dejectedly.

"We'll take a security deposit!" the woman yelled at him, her voice straining. It seemed her hair would turn from fiery-red to fiery-crimson with emotion.

"We took deposits from the others as well, but no one values their emotions, instead preferring freedom and money. How much diamond dust we've scattered to the wind! We have nothing left!"  

Atla's skin crawled with fear. She'd heard legends about the Oeelians, about the enigmatic perished worlds of thieves and merchants of human emotions, and now, finding herself in their home, gradually saw that this was not just a myth. She was one step away from losing some very important parts of her soul.

Pain, love, fear, hunger, joy, satiety, hate, anger, happiness, desperation, euphoria, pride, melancholy - which one exactly did they want to steal away from her?

Atla knew that each emotion is priceless for the harmony of her spirit; not a single one could be replaced or replenished. She needs her fear - it protects her from danger. She can't not feel pain - it's the only thing that sets her apart from the dead. Without happiness, she will become hard and will have no drive to live, without love she will extinguish, will become vulnerable without anger and rage, and without sadness and melancholy will turn into a cold chunk of ice.   

‘Such a pity that I'm still so weak! Had I been at my best, they would be powerless against me, but now I can't even hear their thoughts, those damned red souls!’ thought the girl, and gave the woman an exasperated glance, looking her straight in the eyes.

She was looking at her with bloodlust. Her pupils were already rotating, and even though Atla didn't yet know what this mysterious gesture meant, she already understood that it foreshadowed a great loss.

"What do you want to take from her?" asked the man.

"I'll take her pride!"

"Stupid woman, no one will come back for pride alone! Take more! Take joy, or happiness, or curiosity!"

"I can't, she won't manage the task without those emotions."

"I'm telling you, take more! Skim her to the bone - only then is there a chance she'll come back for it!"

"Then I'll take anger!"

"Take anger, and pride, and something else...." her husband insisted.

"I can't carry all that by myself, we'll need to call for help!"

"Then call! But I beg you, take more!"

"Such good advice you give me..." the witch smiled, "I'll take away her greed!"

"That too, but still, who would want to come back for greed, pride and anger! We're dying, so forget about compassion and steal something else! Take love and fear, then she'll comeback for sure!"

"That would be too cruel!"

"No, she's Kramean, she'll manage!"

Atla clenched her fists. She heard everything and understood.

She heard the light footsteps of other Oeelians. A crowd started to gather by her sarcophagus. Five pairs were lined up in a circle around her - five men and five women.

"One emotion per family," she thought. Realizing that there was no way out, she hungrily looked into their faces with greed that she still possessed, trying to save their portraits in her mind so that she'll know later whom to ask for what. She'd never experienced anything like this before, and wasn't sure what to expect.

"Where should we start?" asked one of them.

"Let's start with the most challenging - let's take away love, and everything after that should go smoothly."

"Who's willing to take on love?"

The ghosts livened up a little. An extra dose of love was always welcome. Exchanging a few glances, the couples went to fetch the looker. He was a sickly, ancient Oeelian in a coat made of hair from their deceased companions. Despite the hunger and destitution, he was warm and well-fed. They brought him in on a stretcher. Throwing an authoritative look around the room, he pointed towards the couple standing at the edge and nodded. His decision was uncontested. The four other couples stepped back in unison, clearing the way for the chosen ones to take the poor girl's love.     

Atla was frightened. No one has ever before looked at her so deeply and passionately. The redheaded banshee bent over her and grasped onto her very soul with her piercing gaze. Atla could physically feel the love being pulled out of her. At first she felt a slight prickling in her chest, then something that felt like release. There was no pain - more like emptiness. She didn't feel any significant changes in her mind. The banshee drilled her with her eyes, but whatever was coming out of her she couldn't see. She only felt colder and colder, and the world around her grew duller. Bright colours vanished, shades of yellow and orange disappeared, and everything around took on a cold and dismal tone. The woman finished up, flashed a satisfied smile and retreated into the shadows.

"Greed!" said the elder and pointed to the furthermost couple in the corner.

Another woman approached - it seemed they were more skilled than the men in the art of stealing emotion.

Everything repeated, the same sensations. Strangely enough, Atla felt little difference between the loss of love and the loss of greed - perhaps only the fact that this time, the colour purple slowly vanished from the world.  

"Pride!" continued the elder relentlessly.

For some reason, Atla kept waiting for the couple she first encountered to come up, but this time too it was someone else.  

Pride was taken away from her just as coldly and heartlessly. Blue disappeared from the spectrum entirely.

Then it was time for anger. This time around, all sorts of feelings boiled up inside of her; parting with anger was most painful of all. Her heart pounded wildly. Had she any pride left, she would have surely held herself back, but pride was no more, and she shamelessly let out a bloodcurdling howl, not caring that the damned Oeelians saw her pain. Saturation went along with the anger. Shades of black turned gray, dulling the contrast she was accustomed to.

"Fear!" said the elder, emphasizing the frightening word.   

Atla cringed. Her fear was still with her, and she was still scared for now. The last couple approached, the same one that initiated this terrible game. Atla caught herself thinking that she'd almost rather they just eat her, but catching herself, promised that she'd get back what is rightfully hers.   

The ghastly blue eyes swirled above her. Fear was the very emotion she'd relied on for the last half an hour. In that instant, it was fear that filled her to the brim, and losing it now would be the same as dying.

Atla fought, grasping onto her fear, and the experienced Oeelian had to put in a fair amount of effort to overcome her. When Atla lost her fear, she felt changes not only in her vision but also within herself. There was little of her old self remaining. The loss of crimson was relatively insignificant compared to all her other losses, but her spirit was broken completely - something she couldn't fail to notice.

The bloodsuckers drained her to the core, but she was no longer scared. Emptiness, a bottomless icy void filled her heart. Atla wanted to fume and rage, but she couldn't - the blood froze in her veins, and her world took on a bleak, dull grey hue. There was a weak glimmer of green, some objects reflected a pale blue and the tiniest bit of brown, and that was all. It's as if she had died.

"You'll be given a ship, a small shuttle we traded from the Kramean pilot. You'll be equipped with a list of things you need to get, and you'll be given money, but it won't be enough, so your cunning is still with you. Bring us everything that's listed, and you'll get your emotions back - but hurry, while we haven't yet sold them. You have one year at your disposal - our current resources will sustain us for only that long. And remember - dead bodies aren't capable of returning emotions!"

Tears flowed down Atla's cheeks in thin, cold streams. She felt weak, a spineless slave unable even to furl a brow. She was given a day to catch up on sleep, then was placed in a shuttle and thrown out into open space. The list was unbelievably long, and the little bag of diamond dust was practically weightless. Atla felt crushed and downtrodden. She was yearning to return home. In her heart she knew that one sob from her would push her father to wipe all remaining Oeelians from the face of existence, taking care to personally wring the neck of each person that dared steal from his daughter and restoring her emotions. And Tatida would ensure that their whole race never finds peace, even in the next world. But she didn't dare return to Krama. Although she had no pride, she still had shame and unimaginable determination to overcome her difficulties by herself.   

Looking at herself in the mirror, Atla found five grey hairs on her head, and they looked terrible against the sea of black. Atla threw the mirror to the side. It broke in half and disappeared. Once again, she burst into tears.

After a good cry, she collected herself, got up and headed towards the controls. She was a trained pilot - something the cunning Oeelians picked up on right away. It seemed her distinguished status was written all over her face. Before, this would have inspired a self-satisfied smile, but now she felt nothing. Strangely enough, she felt the loss of pride more than any other emotion.