The Lost Chronicles Of Pangea: Apocalypse

A Leap Of Faith

Faith, it’s a major component of any human life, you could say it’s another name for belief, but its not that simple. David however felt Faith steps from belief, if you believe in someone, then that means you have faith in them, that means you trusted them. David was sure he trusted Lilith, which was why he felt it was time she knew the truth about him.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s the truth.”

“I’m sorry it’s a little hard to wrap my head around the fact that you actually lived two lives. But you have no idea who you really are, and that’s why you’ve been having headaches.”

“yes that’s right.”

“Whoa!”

In many of the stories David has come across of people going to another world or a soul inhabiting another body, the main character never tells anyone his secret. He bears that burden, for a little while, then eventually he becomes a part of his new world and completely forgets his old one, never to be remembered again.

David knew his situation was a little different, but he was tired of facing this problem alone. He could not figure it out himself, so he needed to trust someone else to help him. Struggling between two identities was not easy, in fact in his case, it was painful. He felt vulnerable facing this alone, and so he needed a rock to rely on.

“So in this place you remember or come from, this earth. They don’t have anything like mages or psionics?”

“Yeah, everyone is normal over there, except of course there are some strange things that can’t exactly be explained.”

“Wow it must be really peaceful, what I would give to live in a world like that.” Lilith somberly commented as her gave seemed to develop a far off look. David could imagine she was probably thinking about her life and what conflict had cost her.

“Its not as peaceful as you think it is Lilith, even when there’s peace, humans would always find a reason to cause conflict. And it could be for any reasons. It could be religion, land, women, power, and even love. In that regard Pangea is not different from earth. Anywhere there’s a ham being, then there’s conflict, it’s a part of us. It’s in our nature to not be satisfied with peace and quiet, to wreak havoc with every breath we took; we’re destroyers.”

And then their conversation lapsed into a comfortable silence. But David still needed to ask a question, only he didn’t know how to phrase it.

“So you believe me. I mean what I just told you sounds crazy even to me, but you believed me, just like that.”

Lilith looked at him as if he had grown a second head, before a look of realization came over her face and she answered him.

“There’s a secret part of history that only the highest echelon of society are privy to. Your father might be well known in the city of iron and a few other city states, but he is not high up enough on the social ladder to know about this. It’s the reason why I believed you, and believe me I am skeptical and worried, but also freaked out because you have no idea how valuable your knowledge about earth is. Or that in one way or the other, you’ve had a life there.”

She lapsed into a silence, David realized quickly that she was contemplating whether or not to let him in on something. Probably some classified secret, but she didn’t take too long to contemplate, before she started speaking again.

“Just before the city states came into existence, and before magic and Mana users became something that was seen as dangerous and not accepted, there was a woman. You could say she’s the mother of modern Pangea. She was an exceptional psionite, and a sorceress of extreme power. She had abilities that could change the lay of the land with a snap of her fingers, and magic that could even bring the death back to life.

She was known as Kobayashi Hinata. And most importantly, she’s from earth.”

If David could open his eyes any wider, they would probably fall off. He was sitting on the Co-pilot seat of the cruiser with Lilith sitting on the pilot seat. The realization that someone other than him had arrived here from earth made the sea of clouds in front of him twist and spin like some optical illusion, making his head heavy.

“Wait……how…..when did…….”

“Calm down David. She’s either dead by now or should have returned back, after all she has been missing for almost if not more than a thousand years. No one has seen her, but her legend and history is top secret among the upper echelons of society. I only managed to learn it about it because I was quite close to my teacher, the former Father of the city of angels.

He told me her ideas, and experience from earth was what set the foundation for the technological giant Pangea now was. She also established a secret society that still exist in the shadows of Pangea till this day. No one really knew how to get invited into it, or who was a member. She named it the Sacred Order of Otaku.”

“Wait, wait, wait wait, what did she call it again.”

“The sacred order of otaku?”

“The sacred……..Pfttt hahahaha, the sacred order of…….oh my God, ha-ha ha-ha, oh my ribs, you’ve got to be kidding me. Sacred order of Otaku my ass, more like the sacred order geeks and anime nerds.”

Lilith looked rather shocked, she did not understand what David found so funny. The atmosphere was really intense just a minute ago, now he was laughing at the most prestigious secret society in the whole of Pangea.

“What is it you find so funny about what I just told you.”

“Oh don’t worry, you wouldn’t understand…….wait a minute, did this Kobayashi person say anything about which year she left Earth.”

“I don’t really know, but if anybody might know, it has to be the leaders of the cities, not to mention the order of Otaku would probably have the most compiled information on Kobayashi in the entirety of Pangea. So if you need to find anything out, you would have to get their attention. But if you do so without being strong or having a really strong backing, then I’m afraid you would just be a puppet for another person.”

With everything David had seen so far he understood the advantages of strength. In a place like Pangea strength can get you a lot of things, but there was only so much a person can do on his or her own. He needed backers, people with strength equal or greater than the leaders of the cities. That way he could really have his bases covered and not have to worry about being taken advantage of.

David shifted his gaze ahead of him. They were flying through thick clouds for cover, and not just for cover, the clouds would have made it difficult for them to be discovered on radar. Flying with the cruiser was a lot faster than using the hover bike. If they had used to hover bike it would have taken them anything from two weeks to a month to get to the city of iron, but with the cruiser they would need a minimum of four days to a week to get there.

They couldn’t travel too fast either, the apocalypse was just beginning. And contrary to what most novels would say, society hasn’t completely come to a screeching halt and governments were still controlling a bit of what was going on.

David though really did not have any idea what he would do next when he got to the city of iron. But nevertheless the main thing he really wanted to do was find his family, especially the sister that was only a part of one of his two lives, he was curious about her, about their relationship and about his father.

David turned around and looked behind him, the three tortoises were asleep, and Minerva was sleeping right beside them on the floor of the cruiser. She looked so pitiful with the bloodied cuts on her body and dried tear stains on her face. Even in her sleep her beautiful visage was etched and creased in pain. David felt guilt, but he found that he was not sorry for what he did. It was either her father or him.

“You don’t have to feel guilty for killing her father you know.”

“I’m, not. I just feel guilty and responsible she has to go through this much pain. It seems unfair.”

“that’s not up to you David, it’s part of life to feel pain, especially when it’s not been more than seven hours since you killed her father. Everything that has happened is not your fault, you’ve both been victims of rather unfortunate circumstances and you will both bear the stigma of it for the rest of your life. Her with her pain, and you with your guilt and bloodthirsty attitude.”

David looked at her with a scrunched up face, but Lilith laughed at him with a mischievous tilt to her head.

“Don’t be surprised I noticed, you make it hard not to. You developed a taste for killing and fighting, its not necessarily a bad thing considering where we’re going. You’re going to need that ability to kill without hesitation, because not just your life will depend on it, but that of the people you care about.”

“You look even more beautiful when you smile.”

The comment was so sudden that even David had no idea when it came out of his mouth. Now there was an awkward silence in the cockpit of the cruiser, it was not really David’s intention, but it just sort of came out and now he wished he could just die.

“You should get those fantasies out of your head David.”

“What fantasies?”

“About us being together. I know how you feel about me David, you couldn’t be anymore obvious by the way your eyes light up every time you look at me. Liking, or Gods forbid loving me, is a mistake, you’re only going to get hurt.”

“I don’t mind getting hurt Lilith, it wouldn’t be any worse than everything I have experienced. At least I know its pain that comes from lov……….”

“There’s no future for us David. You understand, we come from two very different worlds, literally. We’ve been together so far because fate decided to take us for a ride, but after we get to the city of Iron this chapter of our story ends.”

“You don’t know that Lilith, if you give me a chance we…….”

“David stop!!, Don’t. I don’t want to talk about this anymore excuse me.”

Then she placed the cruiser in auto pilot and left the pilot seat heading for the back. David heard her shuffling around in the back, but he didn’t turn around. Because he was hurt, David was not that handsome or charismatic or smart. He was after all just a nerd with an extreme love for guns. Lilith was right, they were both on completely different leagues. He guessed what the Chinese said about a toad wanting a swans meat was true. f**k! Love sucks.