[b][i]Magogoe, Xanathan Proper[/i][/b]

Clotted blood flowed sand-like through Digbo’s fingers. Cradled tightly, warmly into his broad chest was his cousin’s sun-scorched and bloated trunk. She was his boyhood playmate, forbidden puppy love, and advisor on the intricacies of courtship. Now he only identified her by the ceremonial scarification that undulated vine-like down both sides of her truncated neck and sensuously draped her shoulders. Wreckage, the remnants of her familial hut, smoldered around him, accentuated by a jumble of limbs, smashed heirlooms, and broken glass.

The rumor of reprisals was mere hours old when he, informed her village was amongst the razed, ran, apron in hand, from the produce aisle where he worked, borrowed without permission his stepfather’s Land Rover and sped north toward the arched columns of smoke that besmirched the horizon. Hours later, he found them. It was an incomprehensible and senseless massacre. These people were innocent, yet Xanathan treated them like props in a slasher film: bodies that merely existed to demonstrate the brutality and absolute authority of their regime. Totally unnecessary. Everyone understood Xanathan’s technological superiority. There was never any question that the corporation’s hold on the continent was absolute. As such, all this struck Digbo as pointless. Cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Words failed to articulate in his mind. Instead, he clutched her mangled corpse to his bosom, lifted his face toward the red-tinged sunset, and groaned.

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[b][i]Marange, Nyundo[/i][/b]

[I]“Much we do lose,”[/i] Ndakala agreed, [I]“yet act we must, for if we do not our will to do so slowly perishes from a self-inflicted wound. That, too, is Gyele’s wisdom. And yet here, you—you are doing something, responsible for something, that I … I suppose matters little. We have never met, yet you see my past clearer than I. Who am I to quibble with a sorceress? It is for me to listen then choose.”[/i]

As he sat there in the soft glow of chemiluminescent cave moss, his knees hugged to his chest, he thought he saw a bemused arch of her brow. She glanced down at one of the pools, as though in deep thought. Or perhaps it was patience. A cue toward reflection. Thus, he aped her, and beheld himself in one of the pools. Half surprised that his own face that peered back at him, unexaggerated, old, and weary, he took the moment to look into his own eyes and let the emotions flow from his soul and into the water. The tumult of his mind readily calmed, he considered his life and the path that brought him to this place—to Marange. Many were his deeds, yet all felt so small with fruits difficult to see through the thick foliage of life’s minutia. Rare did he find occasion to revisit the villages and refugees whose needs he bridged to the generosity of philanthropists like Lydia Benson and advocacy groups like The Abditory, yet he imagined, on those occasions, he saw shoots bud from the germs of hope. Yet, as he sat before Ayanda, he realized that dynamic was no more and he was simply too old and weary to play a part in a war.

[I]“Your decision?”[/i] Ayanda asked. It was as though she felt him move beyond the fork in his spiritual journey.

[I]“Marange is not for me,”[/i] Ndakala slowly said and watched for a reaction from Ayanda. She merely nodded and he felt her acceptance. Yet, there was more, and after a pause he practically spat, [I]“New Xanathan City is not for me. My people are not known for longevity and I wish to spend what time I have left in peace.”[/i]

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[b][i]Saudade, Glasslands – former Tripoli[/i][/b]

The filthy churn of the tsunami crested at Nuberu’s ankles as he rushed, a third of the way to the radio control tower’s apex, back up the square flights of skeletal metal stairs, his plea to Ayanda unanswered—or answered too late. The Mediterranean encompassed his vision and its extent seemed limitless, but, even though the water no longer rose, he sensed its damage was far from over. Once it initially receded, the massive wave sloshed back and forth in the great basin with unimaginable hydrostatic pressure until its energy slowly, but steadily, ebbed away. Meanwhile, he was fated to wait. Day fell to night, morning imprisoned the darkness, and the cycle repeated. The rain that gathered in his plastic mug insufficient, thirst and delirium united as conjoined perils. Toxic saltwater seduced him, but he clung to hope. Then, finally, land; unimaginable destruction, toppled buildings, and bloated sea-life blighted the landscape; his ears yet rang from the clash of unleashed power; and, for whatever reason, the beam, albeit gone, still hung in his vision and drew him toward its landlance as assuredly as a fly is drawn to honey.

In the back of his mind, he felt he should have saved his last crystal token. Now, a man driven by an indelible desire, that the source of the radiance must be reached, he walked northwest.

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[b][i]Saudade, Glasslands – former Tunis[/i][/b]

Disoriented, Reaex disentangled itself from the collapsed concrete beams of of the Tunis-Carthage International Airport, cycled its nanofillements, and gushed an omni-directional purge of the inundated contaminants. Urchins, plankton, and a bucket of salt further assailed the ravaged structure of what was once a grand terminal. No more were there arabesques plated in faux-gold, the large square beams, and lavish escalades; only ruin littered in a preponderance of rotten biomass. Most importantly, there was no sign of Allure City or its villainous sycophants. 

[i]“Свободен съм,”[/i] Reaex declared its freedom in its chime-like voice.

[b][i]“Свободен съм!”[/i][/b]

Then, struck by the truth of its words, the fruition of its long sought after goal, and a total loss of what to do now that its goal was achieved, it erupted in a laughter that sang, like the music of cathedral bells, and danced along the winds for miles.