Dawnfall: The Golden Hour

The Comet Hopper shudders violently, and a million warning lights light up on the console. I grip the controls and wipe the sweat off my brow.

"The stabilisers are shot! Valk, I need the thing. Now!" I bark. The hulking Cambion is searching frantically in my toolbox, throwing almost all of the tools aside in frustration.

"R'ugh! You can't just say the thing! Which thing?!" Valk growls. His eyes flicker like the embers of a fire gasping for life.

"Th-th-the thing! Th-th-the bloody Quantum Driver!" I retort.

A ringing sound emanates from the console. At the press of a button, Cyrus appears on the monitor, his shaggy blonde hair frazzled, almost as if he has been electrocuted.

"Cyrus! I need you here. Now!" I yell. Behind him, a massive fire is spewing from the engines. Cyrus is attempting to put it out, but with little luck. He pushes both of his hands through his hair in frustration, then sends one hand expertly through it, restoring it to its former glory.

"I shall be with you momentarily, Astra! WOA-"

The monitor cuts to black. Calah and Uhehi run into the cockpit from the hallway. Calah immediately jumps into action and sits in her seat while Uhehi runs to help Valk find the tools.

"See, this is what I meant when I said 'don't mess with the skarning Ravens'; they don't mess around!" Calah says as she glances down at the display. A concerned look quickly grows on her face.

"Wait. Astra? I don't know if I'm reading this right, and I really hope I'm wrong, but I think I'm picking up Chrono energy." Her face turns to immediate panic. Any emotion on her face is rare as it is; seeing panic immediately fills me with dread.

"What?! Chrono energy?! I thought that stuff was outlawed! How in the Hells did the Ravens of all people get their hands on skarning Chrono?" I place my left hand on my temple, still clinging to the controls with the other. "Ughh, right, what's it saying, a week? Two? Forwards or Backwards?"

"Errr, I don't think this was the Ravens… we've gone backwards... by nearly Fifteen-Hundred years..." My crew's silence is drowned out by the alarm bells that echo throughout the cockpit. An image of sheer horror and disbelief on all of their faces.

Cyrus runs in, his jacket still smouldering. He pats at his shoulder in an attempt to put it out. "I'm sorry? How long?!" He pushes his glasses firmly back into position.

"Cyrus! Great! You're the one with the higher education; any chance you can figure out how to get us back to our time? Please?" I cling to his arm, staring directly into his eyes.

"In all honesty, I don't even know if this ship is going to last another five minutes, let alone fifteen hundred years! Calah's right. This can't be the Ravens… My prediction? We must have hit a rift in space-time." A small explosion bursts from the left-side thruster, making the ship jolt wildly. Cyrus lets out a yelp and stumbles over.

I lean over to the monitor once more and press a different button. This time an image of my sister, Tamara, appears. She is hooked up to a bunch of medical equipment, and her heart rate monitor is frantic. She has a large bandage around her head from our previous fight with the Ravens.

"You'd know what to do, Tam…" It's entirely my fault she was even there. And it was my fault that the fight broke out with them, too.

"Valk! Uhehi! Where's the bloody thing!" Uhehi runs over, holding the Quantum Driver, a look of concern on her Kitsune face.

"Captain? Do you need me to take the wheel? I think you should probably go check on Tamara."

"I-" I glance over at her for a moment. Her face is soft with compassion, something I've only seen a handful of times over the years. Her hand rests delicately on my shoulder. I nod silently and move out of the chair.

I take a step back for a moment and look around. The crew I've traversed the galaxy with for the last few years are all frantically running around trying to set things right. Calah, a once bloodthirsty killer driven by vengeance, is now like a sister to me. Cyrus, someone I grew up with. Once a shy, lonely kid and now? A close friend and confidant; I wouldn't be alive today if not for him. Uhehi, a former field medic for a corrupt militia and now my most trusted co-pilot, wants to help everyone she meets. And then Valk. Once a battle slave, forced to fight in the pits against his will, taken at a young age with no memory of his former family, and now he's like the brother I never had. I turn to see Valk and give him a small smile. He looks back at me, returning a similar smile of his own. He's out of breath, and one of his hands is resting firmly on his thigh when suddenly a cloud of smoke starts to envelop him.

"Uh, Captain? What is-" He looks down at his hands, horrified as they fade from existence, then back at me with sheer confusion and horror on his face as he processes what is happening, before he disappears entirely.

"What the- no. No, no, no… what's happening?!"

My eyes dart around as one by one, my crew, my family, vanish.

"Shit. Shit shit shit shi-" BOOM! The console explodes, launching me flying backwards into the corridor.

Dragging myself off the floor, my ears still ringing from the explosion, I stumble into the medical bay. The heartbeat monitor is pulsing wildly. Tamara lies unconscious on the bed. I take her hand in my own and whisper to her.

"Hold on, Tamara. I've got you, okay? I've got-" The ship lurches violently. Metal tears. then-

CRASH!

Pain floods my body, bringing me back into consciousness. Every fibre of my being is in absolute torment, and there's a void in my skull. I can barely see… Blood pools around me. I try to pull myself up, but it's no use. I look up and see that The Comet Hopper's cockpit is embedded in the ceiling of the cavern I now find myself in. Fire is raging inside, the window fully smashed. The ship groans and creaks, still settling into its new, more permanent home.

I gaze down at my body. My clothes are torn to shreds. Almost the entire right side of my body has been burned. I once again try to prop myself up, and then I see it. My right leg has been chopped clean off at the thigh, partially cauterised from the fire of the ship. I grit my teeth as an even more intense pain shoots through my body, and I collapse onto the floor.

The pain grows ever stronger. My teeth nearly shatter from the pressure. I grab a large piece of metal to use as a crutch.

I need to find Tamara.

That is, if she didn't disappear like the others.

Smoke fills the air from the ship; I can barely see or breathe. The pain is nearly consuming me. I don't know how much time I have left. My one functional eye is struggling to stay open as I drag myself across the cavern floor.

With a stroke of luck, I find a medical bag amongst the wreckage. I grab some painkillers and adrenaline and bandage up my wounds. I tightly bandage around where my eye used to be to prevent further bleeding. As I begin to stabilise myself, I finally take in my surroundings. I seem to have crashed into an ancient temple. And at the end of this chasm, an enormous broken statue of a woman. Her torso is severed from her legs, vibrant green plasma on both sides.

Whoops.

That's when I see her. Tamara's body, lying limp in a small pit nearby.

"No no no... Tamara!" I throw myself down to her. A giant clump of soft moss cushions my fall. I check her pulse. Weak, but still there. I check her over for any new injuries from the crash, but apart from a couple of scratches, it seems the moss cushioned her fall too. I move her curly auburn hair from her face and try to make her more comfortable.

"Tamara... Please stay with me." I plead. I don't understand what is happening. Where have my crew gone? Why am I still here? Where are we?

"Astra?" Tamara's eyes flicker open.

"Tam!" I hold her tightly, and she groans in pain. "Tam, I thought I lost you!" Tears are streaming from my eye. As I let her go, I once again collapse backwards onto the moss. I can feel my consciousness fading.

"Astra? You look like shit; what happened?"

"Oh... so much, but it's okay because you're okay! Can you stand?"

"Um... we'll see."

She pulls herself up, clearly exhausted but definitely faring better than I am.

"By Lumenalces! What happened to your leg?! Are you missing an eye?! Where's Uhehi? She can help, right? She always has a cure for everything! And Cyrus! He can help you out with a new leg, I mean, he's a pro with cyber-prosthetics, so-" I break into tears again.

"Astra? What is it?"

"They're gone, Tam. It's... just us."

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?" She lets out a small but panicked chuckle. I writhe on the floor as the pain starts to creep back. I can't bear to face her.

"I don't know... The ship was crashing, and they just... disappeared. All of them. Gone. In a puff of smoke."

I glance up at her, tears rolling down her cheeks as she joins me on the floor. She takes my hand.

"So... what do we do now?"

"I... I don't know." I pull my blaster from my hip, and I hand it to Tamara. "The um... the plasma that this fires should help to fully cauterise my leg stump; hopefully it'll keep me from dying in the next minute. I need you to fire a round onto this scrap of metal and drag it over my stump while it's still hot." Tamara winces at the thought. But she does exactly what I told her, and the pain once again overcomes me.

The only thing keeping me going is seeing that Tamara is okay. I try to reach my hand out to her, but no luck. My body won't cooperate with me right now. My eye feels heavier and heavier; it's taking all of my willpower not to give in right now. My flesh is burning; a smell so foul I want to vomit. What feels like an eternity passes before she puts down the metal. I muster a smile as a thank you. She hangs her head, exhausted. And within an instant, Tamara dissipates into smoke.

I let out an ungodly scream. I'm blubbering, weeping and in total agony. Physically and mentally, I am broken. I launch my fist into the wall beside me. And again. And again. I don't stop until I physically don't have the energy anymore. My entire body is shaking. I look up at the statue; the upper half of her body lies staring at me across the cavern.

"Please! Please... I can't- whatever is happening... whoever is doing this. I'll do anything... just let me see my sister again. Let me see my crew..." I lower my head, defeated. "Please... they're all I have left..." The statue's eyes begin to glow a vivid cyan. Fog seeps out from her severed torso, swirling around, seeping ever closer. It stops directly in front of me as if it is scanning me, a mystical curiosity, until it abruptly forces its way into my lungs.

Intense pain once again floods my body. Another ungodly scream forces its way out of my throat. My body convulses and thrashes, as if every bone in my body is being snapped one by one. I look down and see my wounds are all being wrapped in vivid cyan tendrils that slowly begin to fuse with my skin. I want this pain to end. I watch as more tendrils climb up my face towards my missing eye and fuse into my skull. Even more tendrils work their way down towards my missing leg. My mind begins to slip; I start to lose consciousness for a moment, until all of a sudden. The pain stops.

I freeze for a second. Am I still alive? I push myself off the floor. All of my wounds are healed. My burns and cuts are all replaced by this vivid cyan colour. I look down at my legs and, sure enough, whatever entered my body has regrown my leg. The whole thing is the same vivid cyan. I examine my new skin closely. The texture is ever so slightly slimy to touch. It glows very faintly. I unwrap the bandage around my head. And sure enough, my vision is restored.

I drag myself from the pit as quickly as I can, feeling healthier than ever before. A puddle of coolant has leaked down from the ship, and I see my reflection. The right side of my face is glowing the same vivid cyan; vine-like patterns stretch across my face and work their way down my neck. My new eye resembles a glass orb. The pupil is noticeably smaller and white, barely visible against the cyan iris. The white of the eye is now a bright, rich magenta.

I pull myself up. I need to get out of this cavern, and soon. Scanning the cavern once more, I can’t see a clear entrance, nor an exit. I guess it looks like I'm leaving the way I came in. The Comet Hopper's cockpit must be around thirty feet above me, so I’ll need to try and find a way up.

I try to rack my brain for any ideas, but so much has happened. I feel so overwhelmed with emotions. I break into a full-blown sob. My mind is racing. What could I have done differently? Is this all my fault for trying to steal from the Ravens? If we had never attempted that mission, we probably wouldn't have ever hit that rift. All of my crew, my family, would still be here. I fall to my knees, my hands covering my face until I see a small, flickering light in the corner of my new eye.

Digging through the scrap that has made its way onto the cavern floor, I find Cyrus' experimental Jet Boots. His words echo in my head.

"Astra, please. Whatever you do, don't use these until they are finished, okay? I'm not sure what will happen when I turn these on. Frankly, I've been too scared to test them." Well, that was yesterday; maybe he has finished them since then? I swap my tattered boots for the Jet Boots, press the button, and pray to Lumenalces. The sound of a miniature rocket builds up below me when I'm suddenly launched straight upwards.

"Whoawhoawhoa!" I scream out as I fly through the cockpit, up through the corridor and crash through the shattered glass of the rear window in the communal room. Within an instant, I find myself fifty feet in the air and still climbing.

The sun barely peeks out over the horizon; beams of Lumenalces’ golden light shine through the enormous oak trees surrounding me. In the very distance to the north, I see a small coastal town. Looking down at the ground, I see the rear end of the Hopper sticking out of the hilly terrain. A tall pillar of black smoke emanates from her engines. My poor baby…

And then, I plummet straight back down to the ground. The Jet Boots sputter and spark as I crash into the top of a tree, crashing through the branches.

I finally hit the floor. A whole new wave of pain floods through my body, and I carefully prop myself against a tree trunk, my breath ragged. I cough and splutter from all the smoke I inhaled.

"Tamara... Valk... Cyrus... guys... wherever you are. I'll find you. That, I promise." My eyes slowly flicker closed as the sun begins to rise over the horizon.

My eyes flutter open once more. Standing over me is a grizzled, middle-aged cowboy. His hat is tipped low. The early morning sun illuminates him from behind. He pushes the brim of his hat with one hand, while the other rests on the pistol on his hip.

"Well now... You sure as shit ain't from around here are ya, huh, Missy?" The lone cowboy lets out a deep sigh. "C'mon, miss. Let's get you to a healer."

My eyes flutter closed once more, and I black out.