Void and Shadow Prologue

The dreams were like oil in a wet hand, slipping away the moment he grasped at them. It was infuriating every time. He was his father—a recurrent theme.

His father seemed young in the dreams. Old enough to know the cruelty of the world but young enough to think it had a chance to change. 

No, wait. That wasn’t right. His father always believed it could change. It just wouldn’t in his lifetime. 

There was blood. Enough to fill buckets by the time the dream was over. So much death. Witnessed, but also exacted. Alphonse bloodied his blade as if the steel itself thirsted for it. Wastelanders nearing Freztad, cut down before they reached the village, its people never knowing about their secret savior. 

Early Ænærians, the first among the Rhion, torn asunder by the Voidsweeper after an ageless woman handed it to him. A woman Ben knew was his mother. The love in his heart for her was more powerful than any bit of strength he’d carried as a Nephilim. Or was that love his father’s, rather than his own? 

In the dream, there was little difference. 

He was Alphonse but with a vague knowledge that he was not. Confusion shrouded Jean, like a dense fog, the details scrambling away like scurrying rats under a sudden light when he looked too closely. He could see her, physically, easy enough. She was tall and golden-skinned, with bright green eyes and blonde hair. But he could not know her, and whether that was a reflection of Alphonse’s feelings toward her, never all the way knowing her secrets despite the life they shared together, or the fact that his mother was a complete stranger to himself, he did not know. 

Perhaps a bit of both. 

Time passed by like pages flipping in the wind, with only tiny glances here and there. Alphonse and Jean married under a starlit sky. Their friends were there, too. Marcus, Jesse, Siegfried with a woman who must have been Arynn’s mother, Alejandra, and Heath. They were under an arch made of woven branches with fresh red and cream dahlias and dark green leaves and vines in the upper left-hand side. Risa stood between them and spoke while Ben’s parents mouthed responses, silent in the wind breezing through the pages of the memory. 

They were together in a room, illuminated only by the fireplace in the back. Jean leaned forward, face buried in her hands, Alphonse’s eyes intent on her, hand on her back. 

Gulls called, and the air was thick with ocean brine. They were on a ship. Jean’s belly looked ready to burst as she braced herself across the deck, skin pale without the golden sheen.

Jean hopped across boulders in a flowing river. He followed, eying each step before carefully jumping. Strapped across his chest, little arms and legs flailed with each leap, accompanied by an awe-filled coo. 

He looked down at the baby, with little tufts of dark hair peeking out through a blue wool cap. The child had only just learned to keep his neck upright and was turning from side to side, soaking in all the beauty around them.

Here, the trees were a vibrant green, and the trunks were sturdy and stood tall and proud. Shrubs carried berries, adding a palette of red and blue to the scenery. This is what the rest of the world had once offered. This place itself was an oddity. A gem amid the rubble. 

When they crossed the river, the woman turned back to him. Her eyes like gems of green themselves. They met his, then glanced down at the child. Tears welled instantly.

He put a hand on his wife’s shoulder and let out a breath. Letting go was like releasing the last air in his lungs while stuck underwater. He might as well have been. He’d already been drowning in anticipation of this day. 

“You don’t have to go,” he said. The voice was not his own. Or rather, it was not Ben’s voice. But he was not Ben, the child strapped to his chest, examining the world around them, unaware this could be the last time he’d ever see his mother. 

“You know I do, Al,” Jean said. Her voice was calm, her tone even. It told Alphonse just how upset she was. She shut off her emotions whenever they got to be too much for her now that she’d healed sufficiently in the Grand Vault. In many ways, she’d changed since that day. She was always a driven woman, but now the horizon she looked toward was beyond Alphonse’s sight. There was still love in her eyes, especially when she looked at their son. He imagined leaving them behind would have broken her before the Vault. Now, she was stronger than ever.

She had a son to protect, and all the power in the world to do it. 

And that was why she needed to leave. 

“He’s still a threat,” she said. “Dol-F’raa is out there. The Na Oiad still wants him for abandoning his post. He’ll attract attention to us, and when they come, Ben will be in danger. More so if they learn what he is.”

“He’s our son,” Alphonse said. “That is what he is. Anything else will be up to him when he’s old enough to make those choices.”

Jean shook her head. “Enochians don’t have children. We’re all created artificially, cloned and genetically engineered to perfection.”

“And yet Ben was born of your blood. Our blood.”

“Yes. They have a name for such things. Nephilim. Half-angels. Imperfect creatures who belong neither in the heavens or on Earth.”

“From the Old Days tales,” Al said, remembering. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. It would be the last, though. 

“From tales before the common era of humans in the Old Days. Not the oldest of tales, but perhaps the most fitting. There is a reason such span across time and space.”

“You told me the Nephilim weren’t real. Nor were angels or demons. So what is it the Na Oiad fears?” 

“They fear nothing. They know all. Anything beyond that doesn’t exist. They make sure to keep it that way.”

“Is that why they’ve erased so much of human history in their efforts to rebuild the world?”

“They’ve erased nothing. They’ve hidden it, kept it close to their chests. And now, I’ve taken that from them just as they have to you and your people.”

“What you did in the Vault…” Alphonse said. He hadn’t been in there. He’d stayed with Ben and his friend at the foot of the mountain, where now they planned to create a town to monitor the Vault for any sign of Enochian retaliation. 

“Yes. Their AI—the amalgamation of all Enochian consciousness and bearer of all history both human and Enochian—will remember nothing. It’s all there in the back of its mind, but whenever it tries to draw from them, it will find them drifting away like the beginnings of a dream just after waking. All it will know is its purpose to keep the Vault functional. Keep the seeds for future generations.”

“It seems cruel to do that to someone. To take away all they’ve ever known and leave them all alone, trapped inside, cursed to never see the world it is bound to.”

“The AI is not a person. It knows only what I have told it. It will send occasional messages to the Light Tower—useless information to maintain the charade. Despite that, the Na Oiad will soon uncover the truth. When they do, we’ll do all we can to stop them. I can’t let Dol-F’raa interrupt that. The other Enochians will keep to their posts, but a rogue Enochian is a dangerous thing.”

He didn’t like the way Jean spoke of the person inside the Vault. This ‘artificial intelligence.’ As far as he was concerned, any intelligence at all was real, whether artificial or natural. Jean was real, and so was their son. Yet they were the products of something that sounded anything but natural. 

He’d done his best to keep up with Jean all this time. He’d known from an early age that he was perhaps the sharpest mind in all of Freztad—save perhaps for his sister, who’d been able to read people as well as the books on her shelves. Yet even he had a limit to how much he could comprehend what Jean told him. Already she’d taught him love beyond all his imagination. Surely, there was only so much his mind could contain before it began to lose something in exchange for new knowledge. 

What he did understand, was that Jean’s people were controlled by tyrants who had their eyes on this world. Jean had been a part of their ranks once upon a time. Her betrayal would cost them dearly. It had put her in danger and was the reason he’d ever met her in the first place. They presumed her dead and had erased all back-ups of her consciousness on Earth and in Tsiyyon. Enochians weren’t supposed to be able to live in this world’s conditions. 

Except they viewed life differently. A life without their abilities was the same as death. The same as stranding a woman in the desert in summer with naught but the clothes on her back. Eventually, she would die. It was only a matter of how. 

But if the woman found someone to care for her and bring her to shelter, she may survive and thrive. 

That was how Jean came to know Alphonse and survive in a world she’d been taught for centuries would kill her. Her people had forgotten long ago that it was those encounters with death that made life stronger. Those able to weather the storms could pass their strength onto their descendants. The other rogue Enochians had discovered that. Yet even they’d been killed. All except Jean, Dol-F’raa, and Ere-Bose. The most dangerous beings on the planet. 

He looked down again at his son and his little hands, tiny fingers wrapping around his own. A strong grip for a strong boy. Their son would need more than strength to handle the coming storm. He would need the strength of others. He would need their love and their trust. 

And as much as it pained him, Alphonse knew he would need their hatred, too. He would need to face isolation. He would need to experience everything to know what he was fighting for. Jean had not known what it was like to lose her powers before she realized just how much she missed them. 

She hadn’t even left yet, and already he knew just how much he would miss her when she was gone. Ben would grow up, perhaps never knowing his mother. Never feeling her love. Alphonse had known all of it, and when it disappeared, it may never return. 

“I will miss you, Jean. Please be careful.” 

She reached for his cheek and smiled softly. “When it is over, you will know. The sword hilt will be sent to you. Ere-Bose never perfected it, so once I kill Dol-F’raa, the blade will break. He’ll be forced to leave his hiding place and gather more void matter. You need to bring it to him.”

His eyes drifted from hers to the weapon sheathed in the heavy sheath she’d said had been lined with lead to stop its abilities from dampening her own. The hilt of the crowned and winged snake was meant to illustrate the evolution of Enochians, who’d called themselves angels and shed their bodies like a snake its skin. The crown was to show they’d reached the pinnacle of evolution. Ere-Bose used that symbolism to show that it was the Na Oiad’s own hubris that would lead to their downfall. 

“He’ll be without his powers, won’t he? Maybe you won’t need the blade.”

“If the sword is sent to you intact, then you’ll know I didn’t need it.”

“In that case, you bring it to me yourself.” 

Jean’s brow furrowed. The tears were back, and this time, she let them run. 

She didn’t expect to come back from this. She was ready to die to kill Dol-F’raa, all to keep their son safe. If their roles had been reversed, he knew he’d do the same. 

A kiss goodbye. Jean was radiant again, eyes not a bright green but a glowing purple. Ben—rather, Alphonse—carried Ben, a small, cooing child swaddled in layers upon layers of cloth. Jean leaned forward and kissed Ben on the forehead.

She was gone, and Alphonse sat in a dark room, scratching at his growing beard, eying a half-empty bottle of wine, then at the bassinet in the opposite corner. A smile touched his lips, and he replaced the cork in the bottle and gently rubbed his thumb against Ben’s cheek. 

Rain clattered against the roof of a tent, and thunder rumbled in the distance like a snoring beast. Alphonse shivered in wet clothes while a pile of his dry set swaddled a fussing Ben. He stood over top the baby until he eventually quieted and drifted off to sleep. 

A familiar sight appeared just over the horizon. A town atop a small mountain overlooking a lake. The sun all but set to his right. Ben slept in the sling across Alphonse’s chest. They weren’t alone. A young man leaning against a tree studied Alphonse with an unreadable expression. The haze was thin enough for Ben to make out his features. Dark-skinned, blue eyes, blond hair. His piercing gaze shifted to Ben, then up at Alphonse. His lips moved, but the words were drowned out by the rushing river nearby.