posted 01-21-2001 06:34 PM            

Tender is the night
Lying by your side
Tender is the touch
Of someone that you love too much
Tender is the day
The demons go away
Lord I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind

[...]

Tender is the ghost
The ghost I love the most
Hiding from the sun
Waiting for the night to come
Tender is my heart
I'm screwing up my life
Oh Lord I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind

[...]

Tender is the night
Lying by your side
Tender is the touch
Of someone that you love too much
Tender is my heart
I'm screwing up my life
Oh Lord I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind*

¤

posted 01-21-2001 09:56 PM            

Zo’or was alone, completly alone. It was dark around him, very dark, but no, not completly. A violent lightning, as in luminosity than in sound, illuminated the night sky and the place where he was. He was not startled, but remarked it only seconds later. He should have be startled, logically.

He knew this place, good, so good, too good. Yes, much too good. He knew perfectly where he was. In a simulation, and not every simulation. The simulation of the Ka’arpa’aj’s garden that he had, himself, reprogrammed. But this, he did not realize it at this time. If he had done so, he would be awoken since a long time. But, a force, this mysterious force that lived in him, as well as in each Taelons, stronger than reason, stronger than all thoughts, was controlling him. It stopped all his thoughts, all his actions, all his feelings. He could not think, he could not act, he could not feel, he could not be.

He knew not. He was not Zo’or. He was lost. Lost, alone, in a place wild and desert. His empty eye, but sustained by a fury that could pass for life, stared at the landscape. Blocks of rock scattered everywhere, dead ruins, glowing forms of energy projectile… That was what he saw. That he had seen, often. And not in simulation.

Why was he here?

And then he heard them. Their voice forced him to turn for face them. There was a cliff, that he knew was a chasm without bottom, with dark and tenebrous depths: the insanity in which he always risked to fall. They were all on the other side, but not him.

He distinguished only vague silhouettes, that he knew were person he cared, or had once cared, for. Da’an, who tried, like all the others vainly, to help him; his childhood friends, the ones with who he had played… They were the only ones that were concerned by him, the only ones that wanted to see him coming back.

But he did not want to jump. He could not jump! He was terrified. He feared that, once again, they reject him, that, once he was on the other side, they push him in the chasm instead of helping him to come with them. He did not trust them. He would jump alone, by himself, without help, as he had ever did, since the very first days of his life.

But he could not continue alone, not now, he could not deny it. He needed someone, for love him, for help him, for heal his mind. And for allow him to live. He needed to find a mate. He could not continue alone. Not only in mind, but in body too. It was a need, a purely biological need. The last legacy of their, in the past, life of conquerors and warriors. Not talking about spirituality. But only of body.

It was a physical, corporal… and vital need. While evolving toward the pure spirituality, they had abandonned their bodies, transforming them in frails shells. But their reproduction rituals were still the same. They of such a violence that it was almost unbearable.

He had no choice, he must jump, join them, they would help him. He placed, slowly, as if he was not truly sure still, one foot forward. Inevitably going in the chasm in front of him. He would end by fall over, he must stop. He was scared again.

He stopped to hypnotically fix the dark depth. He searched for them on the other side, where they should be waiting for him. But there was no one. They were gone. There was no one for help him to get on their side. For help him to not fall again.

It was too late, he had no choices left. He was too far for take a step back. He was going to abandon the fight and let himself fall, when he felt strong fingers catch his wrist and bring him back.

He raised the eyes. Green eyes, so green, that they seemed to form an aura of jade around him. It was a Human.

A Human? Who came for help, him? Why would he accept his help, him, who had been rejected by all what was alive in this universe?

He observed more attentively the being in front of him. He knew him, this… man. But who was he? This face, those features masked by this light, seemed familiar, so familiar. He recognized this energy, this power that emanated from him. He had seen it… long ago. But he remembered.

If only he could know who was he?

“That you know my identity is of none importance…” This voice… This voice… A little softer, with a slight accent, perhaps maturity or wisdom. Only a species in all the known universe could possess that: the Kimeras. This word it self, was close to the word chimera in the english language.

Chimera. This word, alone, could describe all his existence. What it had been, what it was now, and what it would always be, certainly…

The Stranger… Yes, he would call him like that. But he would break his secret, Zo’or promised himself softly, convincingly. The Strager stepped closer to him, closer than he already was.

He could sense the desire that this man – he was one of the male gender, it was like something certain in his mind, something that could not been change – this man projected for him. And it mirrored exactly what he felt now. His mind too was attracted by the Stranger, he realized! He was a mysterious one, and he hid a secret, and what it cost him to hide this secret…

The Stranger would save him. He knew it, it was certain, an evidence in his mind. The Stranger would not stop at the mediocre differences that were the causes of his rejection by his own people. The desire was too intense, suddenly.

The Stranger felt it too. His hands touched Zo’or’s body, lightly, like the soft blew of a warm wind. He knew that the Stranger had the same desire, the same biological imperative to reproduce, than him. His hands were burning him, like fire, but more he suffered, more he sagged against his mate. It was not really pain, more like pure ecstasy, so much that every little cell of his body, pushed at their extreme limit, protested violently against this sudden assault of pleasure. He lost all conscience of who he was, of who the Stranger was. Of who was who. Their bodies and mind melted, they were indissociably bonded together.

He saw – and he had not the time, nor the thought, even the most unconscious one, to be surprised by it – that his hands and the Starger’s were glowing so intensly that he needed to close his eyes.

The ones of the other side, approached, curious. They would reject him for that, again! But he did not care, he could not care less, they could not know how much! He had found the one he needed.

The Stranger hugged him close, and at the same time, forced him to come closer to the chasm. Zo’or was scared and hugged his mate tightly. “We will jump together, do not be scared,” said the Stranger, touching gently his cheek. He had an unbelievable trust in him. He knew that he could just help him.

They hugged tightly each other, and jumped in the deep abyss.

He wanted not to open his eyes. He sensed and heard the air – the air? – around him. They were falling. But he understood that he prefered a lot to fall with him that to go on the other side and to stay alon forever. He closed his eyes and waited to touch the bottom of the depht.