PRL Serials

“You know” Kevin says casually, flirty almost, like he wants to make someone smile, “I’ve experienced this before.”

“What do you mean?” Uneb asks. She has a sultry voice and she enunciates English words like they are not her native tongue and she wants to be sure she is understood. She sits at a table across from Kevin who wears a hoodie and jeans, which contrast sharply with the Unrb’s naked body that doesn’t have all the details of femininity like body hair and nipples, just the bulbs of her breast and lithe limbs. 

“I mean, you’re not the first beautiful woman to rummage around in my mind, nor are you the first monster to try to bend me to your will. 

Uneb laughs and leans closer to Kevin. “We are only just meeting, you can’t know my intentions.”

“The other beautiful woman still lives comfortably in my head, she will always live here, and she taught me to see things like you for what you are.”

“You already know what I am,” Uneb says in a reasonable voice. “You and all the ants that I swat around inside your existence know what I am. I am not here for illusion or obfuscation. I only want the truth, your truth, that you cannot hide from me. I see you, Kevin Blackmon, and all this fighting has made you weary. I am glad to meet you like this, it is an important opportunity for you to hear what needs to be said. Kevin, you don’t have to fight anymore, and you don’t need anyone’s permission to rest, not mine, not the others who I am cutting down as we speak.”

“What do you think you see in me?”

Uneb arches her brow and purses her full, violet lips in contemplation for a moment.

“I see you weary, Kevin. You’re dragged around this universe and expected to be the savior of beings who can never know you or understand you. You are alone, Kevin, your amazing ability has left you stranded and yearning for something different. I can offer you that. I can give you everlasting life, I can give you the entirety of this existence. I can give you more than you can imagine.”

Kevin is weary, tired of being summoned only to destroy things, even if those things would destroy innocents. He feels that all he has ever been slowed to be is the man with the preternatural ability, not a real person with complex feelings and emotions. 

“I can give you the Hyperion,” Uneb continues with a hopeful look on her face that she had happened upon the source of his sadness and longing. “You have not been whole since she left you, your life has been underground and solitary since then. She can be yours along with this existence and you can finally know the happiness that eludes you. Just come to me, Kevin,” she says and extends a hand. 

The two sit at a table surrounded by wild growth, though Kevin doesn’t recognize anything. He knows that this means he is not in his own mental construction, Alia taught him that it was impossible not to recognize something in your own mental construction.

“Why do you think you know me?” Kevin asks with a smirk.

“Meat is not as complicated as it purports to be,” Uneb chuckles. 

“And you aren’t as smart as you think you are,” Kevin says, leaning in just like Uneb. “I do love Alia, she is the best friend I have ever known, but we were never good for one another. She isn’t the romantic love of my life, that title belongs to either the female or male from Rhasdwiis who I spent time with on separate deployments to the IP, or to Desperation Jackson, but I don’t want to be put on the spot here.”

Uneb sits up straight and leans back, a look of skepticism and confusion on her face.

“You didn’t think I was easily predicted, did you? Alia and I are family and she taught me to protect myself against others like you,” Kevin says with a smile. “How do you know Alia?”

Uneb is seething with anger. She frowns and her lips are pursed.

“You don’t have to die with her and this existence,” Unbed says like a low growl. She is angry now. “The Hyperion will die for her insult to Une, but you can save her.”

Kevin just laughs. “You really don’t get it, do you? I know you, Uneb, I know Une because Alia used you to send a message. She is savvy with minds, I don’t know anyone better. See, when Alia located Une, she left a mental command for the inhabitants of our universe in the event that you showed up. It took a while to decipher, I had to let you linger, but I know you now. And not only that, you are trapped.”

Uneb is fuming mad now, but she tries to maintain her composure. “So Alia is here in this existence?”

Kevin nods sheepishly.

“And so are you. She has you just where she wants you…”

“No!” Uneb says forcefully and it ends the mental construction. 

Kevin sits up inside of his quarters. The Queen Ravelith, Kazi Lograt, Eakran, and Desperation Jackson are there, Desperation with his arms crossed at the chest of his spacesuit glaring at Kevin. 

Kevin is on his bed, but he had been standing and everyone is relieved to see him back to himself. 

“What happened?” The Queen Ravelith asks and she sits next to him on the bed. “You just collapsed.”

“Alia sent a message though Uneb,” Kevin says, smiling at Ravelith who looks very concerned. “She was trying to control me, but Alia was there to stop it, like an echo of her soul that she buried inside of Une that was activated when Uneb arrived here. It wants to kill us all be to make Alia suffer. We are nothing to her.”

“It is strange that you are smiling so brightly,” Ravelith says and puts a hand to his cheek. “Are you alright?”

“Alia is here with us even though she is also very far away, fighting the same fight. We will win, no matter how hard it all is, even if it feels like a chore for me. I won’t lie,” he says as he looks around to everyone staring at him with concern, “I am afraid that these conflicts and universe ending events will be the rest of my life and I want to be anywhere but here. But everything we have faced was leading to this, to Une in the multiverse, and Uneb here, threatening to eat us all. This time matters and I will bring my best to bear and I am glad that you all are with me.”

Everyone is heartened by his words and Kevin stands from the bed and looks up at the screen on the wall where Desperation leans that broadcasts the battle against Uneb. She is retreating, she is no longer surrounded by the forces of opposition, she moves away from them into the dark reaches and the forces hold their position. 

“Uneb believes Alia is here and we have to maintain that illusion,” Kevin says. “And Ravelith, Lograt, you were right, the black wall is coming. It is good that Uneb retreats, but she will return with a wall of death. I don’t know what we have to oppose it, but Alia says we need arcana, magic, Violet, Green and Yellow specifically to oppose the wall. Lograt, do the Kazi practice color magic?”

“Our magic is a manifestation of the masteries,” Lograt says with utter confusion. “I have never heard of arcane colors.” 

“We need to figure it out, I don’t think we have much time. Gather representatives from every culture of the universe, in person or via video feed, we need to figure this out quick. Alia says the amount of magic necessary to oppose what is coming is enormous.”

“I will have everyone convened in the main conference room immediately,” Eakran says and leads everyone, except for Desperation, out of the room. 

When they are alone, Desperation walks angrily to stand in front of Kevin and they stand nose to nose as Desperation vents his frustrations.

“You want to fucking die, don’t you? You getting them bitch feelings again, I can see it on you.” Desperation is speaking quietly but forcefully. 

“You know I can’t help those feelings, I shouldn’t have told you about it, I knew you wouldn’t understand. I’m good, I didn’t get tempted by the ultimate death and I came out the other side better for it. You the one being dramatic as fuck, you the only bitch I see in here.”

“Oh I’m a bitch now? When me and Kal out there ripping shit apart and you in here, what, fucking calling up your BM on your fucking mind phone or whatever the fuck it is?”

“My BM?” Kevin laughs and puts his hands on Desperation’s shoulders. “You ain’t gotta be jealous of Alia, man, that shit was a long time ago and it’s not a good memory. This is saving the universe shit, it ain’t sharing a mental bond and being together. Alia is calling shots from across the multiverse, this is big time, Danny.” Kevin steps into Desperation, their bodies touch. Kevin is half a foot taller than Desperation now and he leans his head against his. “I don’t want to die, and I don’t want you to die. I just want more of us together like this, not fighting all the damn time.”

“I like fighting,” Desperation says and he wraps his arms around Kevin’s waist. “But I get it.”

“After we stop this, we going to Hawaii or somewhere.”

“I’m down with that. But how we gone stop this shit we don’t know what color magic is? You sure Alia ain’t make that shit up?”

Kevin kisses Desperation’s cheek. “I hope not, cause otherwise, I don’t know what the fuck we gone do.”