Zoe Thanatos(92)
“How?” Zoe asked as she looked around, taking in the smell of the salty ocean she had missed so much.
“Little Princess you are still clinging to the mind of your Gaian identity. You are of the original family. Our ancestors didn’t create Terra because they liked to build things; they did it because they had the power to create a new world. That power is within you and that is why you are the heir to the throne, not Zara.” Thea put her hands on Zoe’s shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze.
“There is a path all our lives take and that is the reason you have survived three near deaths. It is you who is supposed to be on the Throne, not your sister. You must take it back from her.”
Zoe took in a deep breath of the ocean air and stared out into the distance. A few dozen miles away was the home she had lived her Earthly life in, but it seemed like a different lifetime. “I don’t want to be Queen. I wouldn’t know how.”
“But you do. And when you wake up you will know it.”
Zoe opened her eyes, immediately adjusting to the bright artificial light of the Reproduction Unit. She was laying on a flat metallic surface, still dressed in the clothing Evadine picked out for her. She quietly lifted her head and took a quick glance around the room. She was alone.
Next to her was a small metal table with a tray placed neatly in the center, a series of capped syringes filled with colorful liquid in each one. The blue syringe would paralyze her muscles including her heart, rendering her unable to move and incapable of pumping blood to her body. The green syringe would stop her heart completely, and the black one would cease all brain activity. It was a veritable death cocktail, not even as humane as when humans put down domesticated animals on Earth. It seemed only fitting that in a world where surrogate births created life, chemical deaths would end them. No stone left unturned in a world intent on controlling the population of Residents.
She grabbed all three syringes and tucked them into the waistband at the back of her pants. Whoever was supposed to be injecting her with the death cocktail would undoubtedly be back soon. The room was small and clinical looking, with the table she was lying on at the center of the room. Of the four walls one was made entirely of smoked white glass, a panel lit in white light on the far right side. Zoe placed her hand on it and the glass changed from smoky white to transparent, revealing an adjoining room that looked identical to the one she stood in. A man in a white uniform was standing over a body on the table, plunging a syringe of black liquid into their arm.
When he moved to place the syringe on the smaller metal table she could see the woman’s face clearly, looking back at her with wide eyes and a small, proud smile. She was as beautiful as she had been in Zoe’s dream. Her eyes glossed with tears before going still. The corners of her mouth receded from the smile and her body fell limp into the table as the life left her. Thea Thanatos, her mother only in her dreams and memories, was dead.
As the man in white moved to the small metal table and collected all three syringes, Zoe moved quietly to the doorway and poked her head out into the hallway, looking left and right before running towards the door of the adjoining room. She slipped into the room and removed a syringe from the back waistband of her pants with her right hand as her left arm went around his chest, her hand covering his mouth. In one swift motion she uncapped the syringe and stabbed the needle into his jugular, plunging the black liquid directly into his blood stream. He could barely let out a stifled scream before his body fell dead to the ground with a thud.
Zoe looked up to the shared glass wall and saw the empty room she’d woken up in on the other side. How long Thea had been looking for her, she didn’t know. Somehow she’d known her daughter was nearby and had waited for just one last glimpse.
She didn’t want to move her head down, to take in the sight of her dead mother. But she did, and found she looked peaceful, seemingly at rest. Her eyes were still open, the image of Zoe on the other side the last thing she saw before her brain function shut down. With gentle fingers she closed her mother’s eyelids, feeling the smooth skin beneath her touch, still warm from life.
The Forgotten Gardens came to mind. Had her soul, or whatever facsimile of a soul she had, already gone there? Perhaps Thea was at rest in the beautiful space, her soul reunited with Zopyros, her sisters and mother, her ancestors, as all the Thanatos souls had gone to rest before her.
She was alone again as she had been in Gaia, an orphan with no family. All that remained of the Thanatos family was a brother and her sister. Zarek was in another world living a completely new life as she had in Gaia, and Zara was living as the Queen, as Kyra Straton, also in a completely different life.