When I was on my way to herbivore island minding my own…
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The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)
Chapter 50: Psychosis
Part 5/5
“*Cough*. Now you know how I felt,” Mr. Ma mumbled, “When I killed that boy.”
Loki lifted Mr. Ma up with his arms, and Mr. Ma’s head dangled loosely, leaning against Loki’s forearms. Loki’s face felt warm in the freezing tundra.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Loki wept.
“I know you didn’t.”
Loki began to sob, and he began to sniffle as Mr. Ma’s hand went numb. Mr. Ma blinked his eyes a few times, and he seemed to be staring at the stars.
“It’s on me,” Mr. Ma admitted. He gently put a hand on Loki’s hand, “Don’t let this hurt you.”
Mr. Ma blinked his eyes a few more times.
“Promise me you won’t die. You’ll escape and be free,” Mr. Ma whispered, “Don’t let your morals stop you, but don’t let heartlessness rule you either. There must be a balance, Loki. There must be another way.”
Mr. Ma’s eyes began to wilt, and his implant’s glow began to fade.
“I will always see you as my son, Loki. And I will always be by your side.”
Mr. Ma smiled faintly.
“Olivia?”
“I see you.”
…
Loki’s head hung low.
Off in the distance, he could hear the faint howl of wolves.
“I promise, Mr. Ma.”
Loki’s left eye began to glow blue, and so did his implant. For a moment, Loki could almost sense Mr. Ma’s presence. As if he were standing by his side. Watching, and waiting. A surge of power flowed through him as he wept.
Loki looked up at the stars. They had no right to be so beautiful on a cruel night like this. But there they were. Absolute, and still.
It certainly was a view over heaven.
The Riddles of the phoenixes series
Through the eyes of the Dark phoenixes
Chapter five: Escape.
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose at the key drenched in spit. “Uh…no. You hold on to that.” She sneered. Just then the lights out bell rang. “Okay everyone! It’s bedtime!” A soldier called as if they were children. “We’ll do it at midnight. Are only hope is when the guards are sleepy. We’ll sneak out, jump out the window, then we’ll have to swim to shore.” Eric said. Elizabeth and Jack nodded. They each went to their own cots and laid down in them. Jack was determined to get some sleep before their escape. If only he knew how much he would need it.
Eric woke him up silently at midnight. Jack saw that Elizabeth was already awake and waiting. They crept to the door. Eric took the key gingerly and turned it in the keyhole slowly, careful not to make a lot of noise. The cell door creaked open. They walked out. Most the soldiers were sleeping or half asleep. “So much for the most high security prison.” Jack thought. The window was at the end of the hall. They were making good progress and hadn’t been detected when suddenly Jack tripped over one of the sleeping guard’s legs. The soldier sat up straight and let out a yelp. Instantly all the guards awoke. “Run!” Eric shouted. “Get them!” A soldier yelled. The three escapes ran even faster for the window. “We’re not going to make it!” Jack exclaimed to his friends. Elizabeth and Eric were a little bit behind Jack. Elizabeth and Eric exchanged looks. They looked deep into each other’s eyes, as if agreeing on something then nodded at each other. “‘We’ is a collective term. You go Jack! We’ll distract them!” Eric shouted. He and Elizabeth whirled on their heels and faced the guards. Jack turned and stared at his friends, bewildered. “No! I can’t go without y’all!” Jack said. “Go Jack! Don’t waste you’re life on people who don’t deserve it.” Elizabeth cried, her eyes flashing with desperation. The guards were almost upon them. Jack decided to go. He ran shoulder first into the window. It shattered on impact. Jack felt no pain though. He hit the water with a loud splash.
Thank you for reading!
-SunnyFox57
The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)
Chapter 50: Psychosis
Part 3/5
Loki shut his eyes as tight as he could, searching through all the memories between him and Mr. Ma, searching for anything he could use to his advantage. He needed Mr. Ma to snap out of it.
And then a memory rushed by his eyes in a split second.
~
Loki grumbled as he was leaning against a wall. Once again he had been called to the principal’s office by Mr. Mo for some silly reason.
He hadn’t been keeping his grades up.
Mr. Mo’s door flung open, and Mr. Mo was standing there, his hands gently placed at his sides.
“We need to have a serious discussion about your grades, Loki.”
Loki walked into Mr. Mo’s office, and he shut the door behind him. Loki looked around the room. The wooden walls looked beyond repair, and the lightbulb above them looked half dim. Mr. Mo’s computer also looked ancient. There was a vase of hibiscus flowers on the desk, but they seemed to be dying.
“So…”
“Loki, I’m going to be frank with you, you have NOT been keeping up with your studies,” Mr. Mo said while pointing at the computer screen. Loki leaned forward. He saw his current grades, all highlighted in red. He was failing many of his classes.
“Okay, so what?” Loki replied, leaning back in his seat, “What does it matter?”
“Everything matters!” Mr. Mo shouted, pounding his fists on the desk, “If you fail your classes, you’ll be held back, and you’ll be blacklisted from entering any of the colleges! How will you work on your book and publish it to the world if you can’t enter a college?”
“But does it really have to be that way, Mr. Mo?” Loki asked, “Why are our lives dictated by this?”
“There has to be another way, right?”
Mr. Mo blinked his eyes, looking away. He began to scratch his chin, then subtly nodded.
“Maybe there is another way,” Mr. Mo said, “But, take it from me.”
“Just play it safe, alright? You don’t wanna end up like me.”
“I want you to succeed. I love your stories a lot. Much better than… Nevermind.”
Loki looked at the picture frame that was facing him, and saw a younger-looking Mr. Mo standing on a wooden stage with a boy that looked a lot like him, and a nice-looking lady with a soft smile. The only difference was his brown eyes, in contrast to Loki’s green.
It must have been his family.
~
“What about your wife?! How would she feel if she saw you like this?! How would your son feel if he saw you like this…” Loki cried out to Mr. Ma. Mr. Ma clasped his hands together and began to tremble.
“My son couldn’t even look me in the eye after my wife sacrificed herself for our safety. I’m sure he hated me for that.”
The white blobs refused to go away.
And Loki was beginning to lose hope.
Mr. Ma forced another punch at Loki, and Loki tanked it in his gut. He let out a gasp as the punch vibrated all across his organs. He collapsed to the ground, and Loki began to cough blood.
“Ugh,” Loki moaned. His eyesight began to fade. Mr. Ma was carrying the pike within his hands again. Loki felt something cloud his eyes. Tears. He looked to the right to see Maddox rested against the wall. He looked peaceful.
Loki looked back. Mr. Ma was trembling again.
“I don’t want to-” Mr. Ma said again.
“I’m not going to do it,” Loki firmly said, “I give up Mr. Ma… Just finish it.”
“There’s no fixing this.”
Mr. Ma continued to tremble, his hands shaking. He raised the pike up into the air. Loki looked deep into the confines of Mr. Ma’s shackles, the white blobs that disconnected him from the reality they were in.
As Mr. Ma stared into Loki’s deep, green eyes…
Suddenly, Mr. Ma began to remember!
Listen here boys and girls, for it is story time. Once upon a time on my early game raft with my raptor, I was sailing towards my allies base. Keep in mind this was a modded unofficial server. So I turn around and see two of these chasing me! So, when they attacked us...
My raptor jumped off to fight them. Bless him. I had enough time to sail away, but the raptor never was seen again. Yet, I never got the death message..
YOSHI PLEASE BACK!!
The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)
Chapter 50: Psychosis
Part 4/5
“And that’s the end of the story,” Loki stated, putting his phone down with a smile. Mr. Mo sat at his seat, speechless. He blinked his eyes a bit, and then looked at Loki.
“Loki, that was incredible!” Mr. Mo said with wonder, “I absolutely loved that story… You’re going to make an amazing author when you grow up. You’ll be one of the greats for sure.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mo,” Loki said, putting his phone in his pocket.
“Although, I do have one question.”
“What is it?”
“Why wolves?” Mr. Mo asked curiously. He looked at Loki with a smile, “Seems like an odd choice to me. You know most stories revolve around us humans, right?”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that,” Loki said, “But I didn’t choose wolves just because.”
“I chose wolves because of their family bond. They help each other. They rely on each other, but are not fully dependent. I think it’s a bit fascinating… I respect wolves a lot. Sometimes, they remind me of the goodness of what we can become as a family.”
Mr. Mo smirked.
“Huh. Well said, Loki, well said indeed…” Mr. Mo replied, “You know I really appreciate your stories. And your companies. Really beats the loneliness.”
Mr. Mo kicked his feet up onto the table.
“And you remind me a lot of my son.”
“And what happened to your son?”
Mr. Mo frowned, then pushed his gray hair back.
“He’s away from home. But enough about me… what are you going to do for your next story?” Mr. Mo asked. Loki shrugged.
“Eh. Probably another wolf story. I might make the theme mentor to student bonds. Haven’t really done anything like that before.”
“That sounds like a great idea, Loki. Well I suppose you better get to it. There’s only so little of the time left and then… You’re away to college.”
Loki got up from his seat.
“Well I guess I’m out now,”
Loki looked back at Mr. Mo. He seemed busy reminiscing. Loki smiled at the sight, turned away, and walked out, shutting the door behind him…
And then the memory shattered.
~
The white blobs that covered Mr. Ma’s eyes were gone, and he stared at Loki, mortified by what he had done.
“Loki?! I didn’t mean to I-”
Mr. Ma’s implant began to shine again, and the white blobs returned again. Mr. Ma let out a cry of pain and slammed the pike down.
As if by instinct, Loki grabbed the pike once more. He yanked it out of Mr. Ma’s hands, stood up, and with all of his might sunk the pike deep into Mr. Ma’s heart. Mr. Ma let out a gasp as blood gurgled out of his mouth and onto the snow. Loki stepped forward, and then pulled the red pike back. More blood spilled onto the snow, and Mr. Ma stumbled back and collapsed to the snow.
Loki rushed to his side.
“Mr. Ma!” Loki cried. Mr. Ma began to cough violently. The white blobs finally faded away permanently. His face looked duller. The life was slipping out of his eyes, slowly but surely.
The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)
Chapter 50: Psychosis
Part 2/2
“He won’t allow it, he won’t ever allow me to be free! I’ll just be trapped until I die! I have to get stronger so I can stop him! It’s the only way I can stop him!”
Mr. Ma began to fling his fists at Loki, and Loki began to weave through each punch.
“But there’s another way, right?! It doesn’t… Have… to be this way!” Loki grabbed Mr. Ma’s fist, but with overwhelming strength Mr. Ma used his other fist and slammed it into Loki’s jaw. A stream of blood flew out of Loki’s mouth as Loki was sent flying. Loki scraped his feet against the ground, skidding himself to a halt as he struggled to steady his breath.
Loki reached for his karambits, but then stopped himself.
Standing in front of him was the only person who supported him throughout his academic journey. The one who helped him improve his stories, improve his grades, improve who he was as a person.
Could Loki really hurt him after all he’d done?
“There has to be another way,” Loki begged to himself. Loki clenched his fist, and then relaxed it.
“But why?” Loki asked, “Why THIS route? If we united everybody together, including the Knowers and the… others, we could overpower him!”
“There’s no stopping my father with numbers,” Mr. Ma cried, “I tried doing that the second time. Look where that got me. He killed my cousins for my ‘insolence’.”
“We have powers now though! We have the artifact, we have your telekinesis, we have my…” Loki realized he didn’t know his own power. Mr. Ma shook his head.
“Can’t you see now there’s no other way?”
Mr. Ma held his hand out to Loki.
“Join me and we can both escape. Together. I promise. Just us two.”
Loki held his hand out, and the white blobs covering Mr. Ma’s face began to flicker away.
But then Loki pulled it back, his eyes waning.
“But what about Maddox? I can’t let you kill him!” Loki shouted.
The white blobs came back.
Mr. Ma clenched his fist, and then sulked like some soulless corpse.
“Loki, only two are allowed to escape this place,” Mr. Ma revealed.
Loki’s eyes widened.
“What?!”
There was a frown on Mr. Ma’s face. He spoke again.
“Once two people are left standing, he shall be summoned to collect your story. It’s the only way to get to him. If we two rid the land of everyone, maybe… no, we WILL overpower and stop the cycle.”
Loki was speechless. Was that really the only way out?
To just let others die?
“No! I would never kill another person!” Loki snapped, “You’ve gone mad!”
Mr. Ma didn’t like that. The white blobs grew in size.
“Don’t be so filled with hypocrisy. I checked your bag… A grenade was missing. You’ve killed before. Don’t lie to yourself.”
So Mr. Ma was the one who was searching through Loki’s bag.
“That’s not TRUE!” Loki screamed, “If the grenade really did kill those Knowers I would have been strong enough to make the jump back at the cave!”
Mr. Ma’s face dropped, and the white blobs began to flicker. Loki noticed this, and he grew a foreign feeling inside his heart.
That feeling of hope.
The hope that he could snap Mr. Ma out of it.
“What about your employee, Dr. Aston, huh?! Are you just going to kill him too after everything he’s done for you? You’ll just throw all of that away for the sake of escaping the cycle? There HAS to be another way!”
“...I’ve been through worse.”
“Damn it,” Loki muttered, “Who else…”
Mr. Ma suddenly began sprinting at Loki, and Loki dashed to the side. Mr. Ma stumbled and tripped onto the snow. Mr. Ma carried his head off the snow and clenched his fist so hard veins began to appear.
“Just accept this new reality, Loki. I don’t want to hurt you…”
“But you are right now,” Loki thought meekly. Suddenly, an idea came to his mind!
“What about the valedictorian, Aurora?” Loki called out. Mr. Ma’s movements began to slow. “Will you just kill her too? Everything she’s worked for to obtain her future will be wasted! That lad of her’s won’t be able to rest easy knowing that some cold, jaded man killed her in cold blood!”
“But it won’t be for nothing,” Mr. Ma wept, “It’ll be to stop it once and for all.”
The white blobs continued to grow on Mr. Ma’s eyes, convulsing and wriggling as if it were alive.
“There has to be a way,” Loki whispered.
The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)
Chapter 50: Psychosis
Part 1/5
Loki quickly dropped the implant and slammed the office door open. He ran up to the complex doors and kicked his foot on it a few times, breaking the lock and rushing out into the cold snowstorm. He began to look around, and when another cry for help rang through the air, he quickly made his way to the source.
It was the secondary living quarters. And there was blood everywhere. And the bodies…
Loki didn’t want to look, but he had to. Standing amongst the bloodshed was a man in fur armor. He had no fur cap, and his gray hair shuffled as the wind grew more intense. The hum of the blue Obelisk nearby shone down upon the two, and in the psychotic man’s hands was a pike, stained in red.
“Mr. Ma…” Loki said, almost coming out to a whimper. Mr. Ma had his hand raised in the air, as if he were grabbing the air itself. A blue flame flickered in his hand, and someone was pinned against the wall. Maddox. Blood seeped from his head, and one of his eyes was swollen. He didn’t even look alive.
But what shocked Loki most was that no one was holding Maddox against the wall.
Mr. Ma seemingly ignored Loki’s words, lifting his hand up and slamming it down, causing Maddox to collapse to the ground. Mr. Ma grabbed Maddox by the throat with his right hand and began to choke him.
“Just die already… stop resisting and it’ll be less painful!”
“...Never,” Maddox choked. Loki rushed forward and grabbed Mr. Ma by the shoulders, pulling him off of Maddox.
“STOP IT!” Loki demanded. Mr. Ma raised his hand and clenched the air as if he were holding a ball, and Loki was lifted into the air! Loki’s eyes widened as he saw a blue glow surrounding his body. He noticed his implant shone the same color as the glow around his body.
With a violent wave of the hand, Loki was thrown back, and Mr. Ma got up.
“Whoever did that should stop-”
Mr. Ma turned around, and his face turned white. Loki groaned as he struggled to get up from the snow-ridden ground, and Loki noticed the eerie look in Mr. Ma’s right eye.
“Loki?” Mr. Ma nearly muttered, “Loki- Loki I didn’t mean to I-”
“Save it!” Loki stammered, his breath fading. He got up from the ground and stared right into Mr. Ma’s soul, “Maddox has done nothing wrong to you! He’s a good friend and I won’t let you mercilessly take his life for no reason!”
“You were- supposed to be sleeping,” Mr. Ma whispered. The blue from his eye was disappearing and fading away, “Loki, it wasn’t me, I swear that kid- he tried to hurt me first. The obelisk rose from the ground… and he tried to hurt me and then-”
Mr. Ma paused, his implant glowing dim.
“I grew stronger.”
Loki briefly remembered the night the obelisks rose from the earth. Once they did all their implants had given them a warning, foreboding strength if they were heartless enough to murder someone.
“Loki, I… Don’t want to hurt you,” Mr. Ma admitted, “I did it to protect YOU.”
Suddenly Mr. Ma let out a cry and fell to his knees, clutching his left wrist with his right hand. White blobs made of some strange material suddenly began to cover his eyes, and his limbs became loose. Mr. Ma looked up, the white blobs flickering back and forth. He got up from the ground, and Loki began to back away.
Mr. Ma pointed at Loki with a crooked finger.
“You don’t understand, do you?!”
“What are you even talking about Mr. Ma-”
Mr. Ma began to rush forward and swung his pike’s blunt end at Loki. Loki rolled out of the way and kicked at his shin. Mr. Ma let out a grunt and stumbled. Tears were streaming down Mr. Ma’s blood-stained face.
“No matter how hard I try, I always find myself back here in this cursed place with the people I care about. First my friends, then my family. Then my wife and son… Then you.”
Mr. Ma put the pike over his head and swung at Loki again. Loki grabbed the pike midair and flung it out of Mr. Ma’s hands. Mr. Ma growled and lunged for Loki’s neck. Loki grabbed Mr. Ma’s wrists, but he was overpowered and grabbed around the throat. Mr. Ma lifted Loki up and slammed him into a nearby wall, causing the building to shake. Loki slammed his elbow into Mr. Ma’s arm and he dropped him.
Loki looked back, wiping spittle off his lips.
“Why are you trying to kill me? I thought you were trying to protect me!” Loki barked.
“I am protecting you… But you, just, won’t listen!”
Mr. Ma wiped the tears off his face, but he continued to sob violently.