Isaac

Part One

By Kyence

 

Disclaimer: Zarkon and Lotor and Drules are property of World Events Productions.

 

‘’ denote character thoughts

 

 

 

The elderly Drule man sat with complete ease.  He looked intently at the messenger.

“This is all that is required of me?”

The messenger smiled, her eyes glowing with an eerie violet glow.  She was in perfect health, brimming with youthful vitality and strength.  She was a living testimonial.  “The augmentation will be payment for your future services.  Consider this sealing the contract.”

He shrugged nonchalantly.  “May I at least have a couple of days…for closure?”

The second messenger shook his head.  “Hesitance is a sign of weakness.”

The third guest suggested, “Two days is not much in the grand scheme of things.”

The head messenger explained, “Yes, but the typical contract is made within one day of the proposition.  Asking for more time to deliberate mars your credibility.”

The man shook his hand as he sneered.  “I have already decided to do this, no question.  I just need to finish some things.”

The second messenger grumbled, “If you desire an extension, a further condition is required.”

“I will do it.”

The third guest stated plainly, “The method is no longer up to you.”

The first messenger nodded.  “You will accomplish it this way, and only this way.”  She detailed what the man needed to do.

“Is that it?”  he sounded disappointed.

The messenger continued.  “Sever below the wound, and have the proof ready when we return in two days.”

The man complied, “It has been a while since I have done things this messy, but nevertheless, it will be done.  Yours is an opportunity not to be missed.”

 

            He was silent for hours after the messenger left.  His mouth uttered no words of protest or agreement.  He barely breathed, and even scarcely moved. He was motionless.  He was alone.  And could tell no one, save his own damned soul.  Whether or not his soul wanted to know what he had learned tonight was of no consequence; you can’t avoid fate.

            King Zarkon slowly paced through his private study.  His eyes were downcast.  Every subsequent minute was a tortuous moment. One misspoken word could cost him his life. His planet.  His galaxy.  His Universe.  Everything.

            He sat down at his desk.  He stared through it, his thoughts raging across the shores of his reeling mind like an angry maelstrom.  ‘What can my eyes tell my mind that is more important than I have heard?’ he thought.  His hands lay flat against the smooth metal top of the desk.  The cool sensation traveled through his fingers, severing his deep brooding for a moment. He glanced down at his hands, regarding deep cerulean digits; strong, powerful fingers.  He moved his right palm across the desk, as though trying to rub the austere chill of the metal into his own frame.  Cold, the color of death.

            He cracked a smile.  ‘Cold isn’t a color.  It’s a feeling, an emotion.’  As quickly as he had gently chided himself on his odd use of imagery, he once again sobered as he corrected himself.  ‘Death is cold.  Cold is death.’

            He looked once again at the desk, this time actually seeing it.  ‘Death is no life.  This cold, metal desk, he thought, has no life.  It is dead.’

            In the distance, he heard a young boy crying.  Zarkon’s ears, designed for impeccable sound audibility, twitched at the wails.  He lifted himself up from the desk, and moved toward the sound of life.  He walked through the corridors, past slaves and guards, noting how they all backed away from him.  He barely gave them a second glance; they were not important right now.  The crying child was important, called him forward, begging for solace. 

‘I must comfort him!’

            He reached the room of the Crown Prince.  The doors slid open slowly, and he walked inside, making no sound. The child within did not hear his father enter.  He still trembled, his face buried in his pillow.  He cried into it now, muffling the screams and wailing that had lured Zarkon there.

            Zarkon approached the bed.

            “Lotor.”  His voice was as gentle a whisper as he could muster.

            No answer, just whimpering.

            “Lotor...are you all right?”

            Again nothing.

            Zarkon was getting angry now.  ‘I came here to comfort my only son, and here he is, rejecting me, just like everyone else always has.  At least, I care enough to answer his tears!  I’ve a good mind to just walk right out that door!’  He glared at the quivering mass underneath the blankets of incredible warmth and quality.  They were plush and rich in color, nothing like the drab articles he was forced to use in his distant childhood.

            “Lotor!  Answer me!” he yelled as he pulled the blankets off the bed.  The ribbons of hue settled to the floor in a random pattern as they twisted ever so slowly in the air, whipping around him and the bed.  Lotor’s face was still covered.

            “Why?”  Lotor whispered.

            Zarkon’s chest tightened.  Lotor already knew.  His heart raced, and blood crashed through his ears, deafening him with the noise.  He clutched his head, and sank to his knees.

            “I didn’t...I didn’t say I would...”

            “But you didn’t say you wouldn’t...why?”

            Zarkon answered the face that was still in the pillow.  His words, what he had always felt yet never said, poured from his mouth.  “I...I just want to belong...I’m tired of being alone...I never want to suffer again...finally they acknowledge my worth…this is my chance...”

            His eyes were closed now, tears streaming down his face.  He opened his eyes. The room was full of blood, sloshing against the walls in vicious waves.  His blood, his own sticky, corrosive, black blood.   He lunged up, the blood oozing all over his arms.  He was the source of this insane sight.  He ran toward the bed.  He grabbed the child’s back, and pulled him.

            Lotor’s face was still not facing him. 

            “WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM ME?!”  Zarkon screamed, his focus on his son overriding any shock at the surreal ocean marooning them.

            “What are you afraid to see?”

            The child’s face slowly turned.  Zarkon’s expression transformed into absolute horror. 

            The face was that of a young Zarkon.  The eyes had been gouged out.

 

            Zarkon’s dreamless, sedative-induced sleep left him morose and lethargic.  He lay in bed, eyes closed, trying to dull the throbbing pain with darkness.  He slowly sat up.  The movement made him light-headed and dizzy.  He sank back down.

            ‘Uggh.  What did they give me?’

            Rather than attempt to get up again, he tried to remember why they had to sedate him in the first place.  He had never needed to be.  Sure, he had nightmares, almost nightly.  He could never recall a time in his life when he did not wake up with a recollection of one to usher in the morning.  ‘Yes, I did have a nightmare, I am sure of that much.’  He placed a hand on his head as the pain and grogginess returned.  ‘Is it normal to have headaches after getting a tranquilizer?’  Something deep in his gut was telling him that he must recall the dream. 

            ‘Lotor.  Lotor was in it.  Lotor...my son...’

            The previous evening’s events flooded his memory.

            “Not everyone gets this opportunity, I am sure you realize this...”

            He knew that.

            “You are one of the elite chosen.  While you were overlooked for relative inferiorities before, there is still much within you that merits Vajel’s interest.”        

He shuddered as he heard the word “overlooked” resounding in his mind, hating the images that flashed before his eyes.  With all the might he could muster, he promptly pushed them into the deepest depths of his mind.  ‘They are of no significance; all they do is hinder me.’  He put his hands over his eyes, as though to block out light despite his pitch-black room.

            ‘Black ooze...was that in my dream?’ he thought.  ‘I wish I knew for sure.’

            “You must understand, Zarkon, that this condition must be met...” Zarkon groaned, and turned to his side.  He wrapped the blankets about him, and huddled.  ‘What choice do I have?’

            “You understand that meeting this condition will yield you so much, more than you can possibly imagine.  Vajel knows you can see the cost is certainly worth the gain.  You exhibit superb political, economic, and linguistic qualities.  This is an opportunity most will never get.”

            “You didn’t say you wouldn’t...” Zarkon muttered.

            “Vajel is welcoming you.  You will never be alone...”

            “But, I’ll always be serving the Vajel, a puppet...” Zarkon pondered aloud.

            “The cost is certainly worth the gain...”

            He decided to waste no more time in his bed; he had twenty hours until the

deadline. 

‘I better not waste any more time.’

 

     The morning hours on Planet Dhm were always damp and murky this time of year.  The planet rotated slowly on its axis; thus, half the year was night, and half was perpetual daylight.  This did not bother Zarkon physiologically.  He remembered Borrhéan, his late first queen, and how ill and depressed she became during this hemisphere’s night months.  She was a human, requiring sunlight for general health.  The memory of Borrhéan filled him with both joy and sadness.  Of course, he had made it a point to never let her know this when she had been alive. 

            He walked down the corridor to the throne room for he had a meeting with the planet’s governors that required his presence, lest he arouse suspicions about his transient visitor.  As guards, slaves, and officials alike saluted him, he slightly nodded his head in return.  This placation of his ego mollified his morning pondering.   He enjoyed how tall he was compared to everyone else, almost two feet taller than the soldiers.  ‘Not that I’m complaining, of course.  It is the irony of it all; I was destined to rise above the weak…why am I thinking like this?’

            He stopped suddenly.

            “Guard,” he commanded.  “Have my advisor sent to my throne room to preside over the governors until I arrive.”

            The guard complied and set off to fetch the advisor.  Zarkon, deciding that the meeting was going to be a bit postponed, made a right turn to head towards his son’s quarters.  His breathing quickened as he neared the doorway.  A quick flash of his dream passed across his mind.  ‘Crying.  I’d heard muffled crying in it.’  He looked up ahead, and rubbed his hands together to stifle the shaking.  ‘WHY am I shaking?!’  It embarrassed him.  He did not want to talk to his son looking so troubled.  ‘After all, this will be the last time I will talk with him.’

            He took a long, deep breath to compose himself, and entered.

            ‘My son, my beautiful, ethereal son, looking so angelic as he sleeps.’  Zarkon quietly walked up to the bed.  Even closer, Lotor was a sight to behold.  His white hair surrounded his cherubic face.  A pale blue complexion complemented it.  Zarkon simply stared at his son.  He found himself doing that since Borrhéan had passed on.  Lotor was asleep; the deep, constant rhythm of his heart reached his ears.  Lotor was not aware of him. Zarkon knew very well that the heart races when you pretend you’re asleep, even if you control you breathing...he had done it himself.

            He shook his head as pesky mental images returned once again.  He pushed them further, deeper this time.  ‘Losing my mind after all is said and done will make everything a waste,’ he scolded himself.  They subsided, and Zarkon’s vision returned to the outside world.  He looked resumed observing his son.

            ‘He looks so...innocent, and soon that innocence would die forever.  The journey of life is one of corruption...you’re brought into this Universe a pure soul.  After being betrayed enough times, you corrode, and you learn how to sense it. And you learn how to play the game and beat the system, if you’re smart.’  Zarkon sat on the corner of the bed, his eyes still focused on Lotor’s visage.  His sight became muddled.  He blinked his eyes repeatedly, and wiped his hand across them.  He glanced at it.  It was wet.  Tears.  He had been crying.

            He snarled, a chorded, guttural sound.  ‘I repulse myself!  Whimpering here, as if I was a child again!  The past was the past...it can’t be changed!  What moronic part of myself refuses to accept that?! ‘

            ‘But, I can affect the future,’ another part of his psyche whispered sagely.

            Lotor blinked his eyes, hearing something like an animal beside his bed.  He arched his back as he sat up, and stretched his arms as he yawned.  He opened his eyes, and froze.

            His father was beside his bed, looking at him, with a nasty expression on his face.  Deep inside, Lotor cringed, but he dared not show that physically.  His father had never hit him, almost never made any sort of physical contact, but his father had often told enough times about weakness, and to never let anyone know how weak you are.  Not even your father, and fear was a weakness.

            Zarkon immediately saw the fearful look in his son’s eyes.  He wanted to hug him tightly, and tell him he was not mad at him.  He wanted to hold him in his arms, and tell him how much he really meant to him.  But he knew better than that.

            “Is something the matter?” Zarkon asked in a monotone.

            “N...No, father...”

            “Good...you must get dressed; where are your servants?  They should be here!”

            Lotor cast his head down.  ‘Why is Father always angry?  What was it about me that disgusts him so?  He always has angry words or glances for me.  I don’t understand.  Why?’ He did whatever was asked of him.  He did his studies; he mastered Drule and Dhmk etiquette.  He knew how to mingle with noble and royal children during summits and leisure.  His father gave him lots of tangible, maternal possessions, but never things like love or affection.  He saw Dhmk and Drule parents affectionate with their children.  ‘Why isn’t Father?  It had to be because I’m a half-breed, a mistake that didn’t want, like Mama.  He hates me,’ Lotor thought.  He felt the urge to cry, but kept it inside.  He never wanted to cry in front of his father and he was not going to start now.  He looked up at his father’s face.  His father looked absolutely terrified, frantic as his pupils shivered in his eyes.

            “Fa...father...?”

            Zarkon snapped back, recoiling.

            ‘I can’t...I can’t do it...not now...’

            Zarkon practically ran out of the room, abandoning any veneer of confidence.  Lotor, perplexed, released all his frustration as he silently cried out his pain into his pillow.

 

            The meeting.  He had to get the meeting over with.  He sat on his throne, with all the governors of Doom about him.  They were discussing the planet’s fiscal situation, and how the wealth was to be utilized, mentions about the slave labor force, and how to increase its efficiency.  Normally, Zarkon would have every word uttered stored in his mind in explicit detail; he knew when his subjects lied, even if he gave a pretense that suggested otherwise.  Today, however, his thoughts drifted to the choice he had to make by this evening.

            He was torn.  Split right down the middle of his psyche.  This was a chance for

virtual immortality...Immortality!  He could live forever!  Be eternally young! And have the

most powerful force in all Existence allied to him!  What he had to do, he was unsure of if

he could do it...

            “You see, Zarkon, in simple terms, there is no need for offspring to preserve genes when

Vajel will preserve yours forever.  You will be infertile after the augmentation.  You only need

to do this once…”

“Your...Your Majesty?” asked his advisor.

            The inquiry broke his trance.  The governors were whispering among

themselves.  This was uncommon for their King, and rather unsettling.  Rumors about him

waking up, screaming to the point he needed to be held down and tranquilized were

spreading like wildfire.  If he were to lose his mental competence, his ten-year-old son, six in

human terms, would be coroneted, and the melee for coups would begin.

            Zarkon glanced at his advisor, who cringed at the malicious look. 

            ‘My advisor fears me.’

            He turned and beheld his subjects, who prostrated before him.

            ‘They all fear me.’

            He stood up from his throne, and descended the stairs.  His eyes were focused on

them, and his face sported a wicked grin.  He was cruel, cunning.  Anything that

profited him he would undertake.  It didn’t matter who or what had to be vanquished, as

long as he gained from it when the dust settled.   He could do this!  He was capable of

anything!

            ‘Everyone fears me!’

            “But, YOU are afraid of ME.”

            He stopped halfway on the stairs, and shot his gaze frantically to the far corner where the

 tiny voice that challenged him sailed from.  There was his youthful apparition, with no eyes.

            ‘I am losing my mind.’

            He turned his gaze back to the governors, and continued down the stairs.

            “You know that the Confederates are your innate enemy...”

            He continued walking, not giving a second glance.

            “Did they not order YOUR death as a child?”

            ‘I’m not listening.’

            “Your genome wasn’t good enough then; now, it suddenly is?”

            ‘I won’t listen.’

            “Maybe it is because your father isn’t around anymore...”

            ‘Please stop.’

            “Maybe it’s because the abused little hybrid survived the onslaught, while his father perished?”

            ‘Stop!’

            “Who was the stronger one then? Who is the only left to translate?  That must be their reasoning...”

            ‘…’

            “But you…You have tried to live your youth through your son; will you now die through him?”

            ‘I HATE YOU!’

            “I HATE YOU!”  Zarkon roared as he threw his scepter at the apparition. He then stormed out of the throne room, past the thrall of subjects. They looked up at the advisor, who was as speechless as the rest of them.

            There had been nothing in the corner.