The Lost Sentinel

13 Being himself...

Tan

I walk inside, expecting to find something that will give me an idea of what the other reincarnates were like. There had been two other reincarnates before me, but there was no sign that they ever existed.

That thought causes fear to slam into me, making me feel like death is really imminent.

I step fully into the room closing the door behind me. There wasn’t much to the room.

There was a bed to my left, with a bedside table, and a lamp. To my left there is a bookshelf stuffed full of books to my other side.  

I walk and sit on the bed, suddenly feeling exhausted. I haven’t slept for a long while. With the way things were going, moving from space to earth I don’t even know what day it is.

But I am guessing I have been on the ship for about a full day, and I have slept since the aliens attacked me and Mak….and Laz abandoned us.

That sleaze ball. We were never important to him accept for what we could swipe from homes.

I sigh, because it doesn’t matter now.

Things have changed.

I pull out the coin in my pocket and place it on the bedside table. I pull off my shoes off, ready to lie down on the bed, but something catches my eyes on the bookshelf.

It is a leather bound book that had Master Gin’s name emblazoned on the spine.

I jump to my feet, and walk to the bookshelf, because I have been dying for some information about thee Master Gin…the great man who was supposed to save the world but died, and now I am stuck as him.

I pull it out from the bookshelf and open it to the first page.

I stand there staring the message written there for his reincarnate.

Wow, he must have known that it will go down like this. I can’t imagine how it would feel knowing that death was inevitable.

I guess he felt the way I feel right now, like the end was near, and nothing is going to change no matter what I do.

I read the message he left:

I figure if you’re reading this I failed. The task ahead is a great one, I myself didn’t know the sheer immensity of it, or I would have trained more like me. But I have been told there is no one like me. I am one of a kind. Great power moves within you. You just have to harness it. But it comes at a great prize too, because there is nothing heavy like having the survival of the world on your shoulders.

It was heavy for me too.

All I expect from you, is to try…fight and save your home, because I won’t give up either. I am reborn for this purpose, to save the world.

And that is your purpose too. You might feel like you are not equipped to do this, but you are, what you don’t have is time to get stronger. But I have faith in us, that we will make it.

Just believe in yourself. That’s the only way. The power is within you. You just have to fight to unlock it.

Master Gin.

I stare at the words wishing that he had said more. I open the diary to the next page. And there wasn’t much there…just rambling about him losing time.

Time…that seemed to be his biggest concern. I know the other reincarnates didn’t have enough of it too in order to cultivate their power. They died before their black strips could grow up the arm, like master Gin’s. His was up to the shoulder. I stare at mine, and its barely above the wrist.

Oh damn…

The searching of artefacts to absorb power, and the training must have taken their toll. And if tonight was anything to go by…

I shake my head, because I know Hanika and I can’t go on like this. We’re not going to make it, if there is just the two of us out there searching for the artefact. The aliens are vicious and their mission is to kill me…remove me from the equation so that they can take over earth without any resistance.

How do they keep finding us anyway? I ask myself trying to think.

I open the diary to another page…and he’s describing some of the aliens he met during his fights.

Yes…I say taking the diary with me as I go back to the bed.

I sit down and read through it.

Damn…they seem to be getting stronger. The one I met today wasn’t even the strongest. According to master Gin, that shell alien is a level 1. But I barely made it through the fight. Somehow I managed to win that fight, but I don’t think I will be able to survive another fight like that. Even Hanika barely made a dent of its shell, but she wasn’t at her full power, since she fought what sounded like an army outside the tower.

I walk back to the bookshelf searching for anything that might give me more information about the aliens.

But there was nothing. Only books on meditation and martial arts. Maybe Rhine has a database on them.

There is no way they can be sentinels and not have some database on their enemies. I even I had some form of dossier on my enemies and competitions, and my marks…especially my marks.

There is nothing like walking into a house, that you haven’t even investigated. No. Information is key in any profession.

I search for a blank page on the bookshelf thinking of starting my own dossier, before I can find anything the door slams open, bouncing against the wall from how hard it was pushed open. I turn around to find a very dishevelled Hanika standing in the doorway breathing hard as if she been running, her long hair flying everywhere.

Her eyes are red rimmed, and she looks scary as hell.  

I take a step back, backing into the bookshelf as she storms unsteadily into the room to come to a stop in front of me.

Dammit…my heart hammers in my chest as something like fear, rattles through me.

She’s really scary.

Her hand shots out, and wraps her hand around my neck, and holds it tight like a vice, slightly choking me.

“Hanika!” he says wheeling himself into the room. She ignores him, snatching my t-shirt and pulls until a ripping sound fills the room.

She bares my chest, and then focuses on it as if she’s looking at something. She raises her finger and then prods my skin right where the aliens had stabbed me with their beam. I gasp as a slight pain radiates from the point to the rest of my body.

“They tagged him,” she says as if she was in a dream. “I knew they wouldn’t find us like that. The thebes must have tagged him when they attacked him.”

“Dammit,” Rhine says wheeling up to me. He stares at me as if I have some sought of disease or something. “So they’ve been ahead of us the whole time. I wonder if they know that his soul is on Mount G. Oh f**k…they’re going to kill him. I am sure they send someone there to deal with him.”

Him?

That’s me. They’re going to kill me.

Why is he saying it as if we’re not the same person anymore?

And they’re all just standing here as if my soul is not in danger.  

“Why are we still standing here? Let’s go and help me,” I say try to push Hanika off me. But she holds on shoving me into the bookshelf.

“Why are you treating me like the enemy? I am not the enemy here,” I say shoving harder. Some power surges through me, and I manage to push her off me.

She stares at me, her nostrils flaring in anger.

“Don’t push me,” she growls at me.

“And don’t treat me like some stupid kid. I am here because of you, so if we’re going to survive this we need to work together. I get that you’ve waited for a long time for your master to be reincarnated, but I am me, and I do things differently. Now…I need to know if we can go back and save my soul.”

Rhine and Hanika stare at each other.

Silence reigns in the room as I wait for them to answer.

“No. You can’t pull a soul of Mount G. The only thing you can do is to get strong, so that you can help him become strong.”

“Stop saying him. He is me, and I am him,” I say getting annoyed. “How do I communicate with me? Is it possible to communicate with my other half?”

“Yes,” Hanika says finally looking like her normal self, which isn’t much, because she always looks like she’s mad at me. “Like you said he’s part of you. Through meditation you can communicate with him. And he you.”

“Okay,” I say thinking of spending some time in the meditation room that Hanika showed me earlier. “So how do we remove their tracking device they put on me?” I ask him.

“There’s no removing it. But I can run some interference on their network, but it will take some doing since theirs is more like a genetic technology, they modified yours in order to implant their device.”

At Rhine’s words I feel nausea bubbling in my stomach.

Fuck…did they really have to get into my genes and stuff… I feel so violated.

“Alright. I guess we will find a solution later for the genetic stuff. Right now, I want to contact a friend. He’ll be able to help us with finding the artefacts,” I say walking to the bed, and dropping the diary on it.

I stare down at the ripped t-shirt.

“And I need new clothes,” I say.

Rhine and Hanika stare at me as if I am crazy.

Well, right now I need to make everything comfortable for me. I am a thief, and I think like one. And so I am going to play this game as myself.

I can’t fit in the shoes of their master.

I need to be me.

“I’ll find you something to wear, and then we can contact your friend,” Rhine says wheeling out of the room.

“Who is that?” Hanika asks. I can hear her prejudice before she even says it. “Is he another thief?”

“Yes,” I say without any guilt. “He’s the guy who found the stuff we stole. And I am going to use his skills so that we don’t have to fight our way like tonight. We won’t be able to finish our tasks if we are doing this alone.”

“So the ship is going to filled with thieves,” she says sounding disgusted.

“If we want to survive…there is no other way,” I tell her walking out of the room, following Rhine.