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Empty - Aadibah - 12-06-2015
It was the thunder that woke her up. Not the constant drone of the engine, the propellers, the creaking and shuttering of the flimsy steel frame that travelled at ten thousand feet in the air.
Thunder was all she had been hearing for the past year. Thunder from her enemy. Thunder from their guns, their bombs, their canons, their metal beasts that rumbled through the land on mechanical hearts. Thunder was such a familiar sound to her, yet unlike so many other things she could never get used to it. What came after the thunder though… that was true terror.
Aadibah liked being in control, and the sudden crack, hiss, pop of a .50 caliber round signaling an attack created situations full of the opposite. Soldiers, her own and the enemy’s, screaming and shouting and yelling, everyone trying to make sense of what the hell just happened. Of course you never had time to think, not in a fight. You only had to let yourself go through the motions, to repeat the actions you have been drilled to follow.
“Aadibah.” A voice shook her out of her trance. The woman hadn’t realized she’d fallen back asleep, and the hand shaking her shoulder elicited a jerk. Her head whipped forward from leaning against the back of the seat, and Aadibah could see an older man, pushing into his thirties, looking at her.
“Aadibah, we’re close to the drop zone. Everyone’s ready.” He continued, hooking a thumb down the length of the interior. The woman leaned forward, seeing several other men and women all geared up, each in a similar seat.
She rubbed her eyes, sleep making her vision foggy. She picked out eye boogers before replying to her lieutenant.
“What’s our ETA?” Her voice was low and grumbly, she had to clear her throat in order to speak intelligibly.
“Around half an hour now. There’s a problem though.”
“Of course there is.”
“They might know you’re here.”
Aadibah’s eyes shot back up, staring into her squad member’s own.
“What makes you say this?”
“There’s increased security on the border. We just managed to slip by a small scout fleet.”
“Anything on the ground?”
“AA guns, deployed just far enough apart that they just barely cover each other’s radii.”
“Kess Ikhtak!” Aadibah cursed under her breath.
The man winced, his expression turning guilty. “I am sorry, Aadibah. No one knows how this happened.”
Aadibah cringed at herself. Taavetti was a caring man, he didn’t need her scorn. He’d only signed up for this mission to fill the last slot before his son could try and get in.
“We’ll be alright. I’m pretty sure there was no way to avoid this.” She could only guess a rat had somehow gained the information necessary to predict her position at this current time. When this mission was over, Aadibah was going to be busy plugging up leaks.
The intercom crackled to life, “ETA twenty minutes.” The commander took this as her cue to pull back the sleeve on her left arm, revealing a digital dashboard. On it were virtual pressure gauges and system read outs. She initiated a diagnostics check, and the on-board computer returned with green lights all around.
Aadibah typed in a string of commands into the touchpad, and suddenly her body began emanating a low hum, and eventually the engine of a small air compressor activating drew everyone’s attention to her.
“You’ve all been debriefed on the intel we have as well as the restrictions we are putting ourselves under. We’re going in deep, friends, we’re here to get in and get out. Not to advance our line.” A formality, really. Aadibah knew these soldiers. They were competent, and they followed orders. They could stick to a plan, but they could also adapt.
Again the co-pilot’s voice filled the cabin, “Fifteen minutes, we’ll be opening the bay doors in five. We’ll be dropping you about twenty kilometers outside of the original LZ. We apologize for the inconvenience, and would like to thank you for choosing death-wish airlines.” The pilots’ laughter was clearly audible before the intercom popped off.
Aadibah and the others chuckled as she undid her straps, standing up and stretching her-
TING-BPHOOOM!
Before the blackness came, all Aadibah could feel was her friends' screams.
******
Aadibah tried to scream, to move, to do something, but her body refused to respond to her mind’s pleas. Or perhaps she was moving, she just couldn’t feel it?
What had happened? Where was she? The plane… it had been… hit… hit by something, but what?
No! No no no nonononononononono! The single word reigned supreme in Aadibah’s mind. It consumed every thought and every emotion. Her gut began to turn inside on itself, and her mouth became dry.
Quote:“My name is Omni. This is not the world you know.”
What? Who? Then Aadibah saw it, a thing in front of her. It was human, or at least its form was. It had no face, no features, just a white silhouette.
It was then, through all of the fear and pain, that Aadibah realized something.
She was dead.
She was dead, the plane had been shot down, her friends had perished, and she was dead.
She was being judged by Allah.
Quote:"This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.”
Everyone, her soldiers, her friends, the people that had been following her into death and destruction, the hundreds of souls that had fought and died for the cause she was leading, and the person they had sworn themselves too had been burnt to a crisp outside Iran, in a place she shouldn’t have even been in. She should have been on the front lines, just like every other time, not sneaking around in the dark.
Quote: “This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most."
They would think she had abandoned them. They would believe that she had been fleeing. Only a few had been aware of the actual intent the covert operation had, but she knew how the masses functioned.
First one person would say it, then two, then four, soon enough her name would no longer inspire hope but regret. Soon the foundation she had fought to secure would crumble under its own weight.
She had put too much on herself. Her advisors had told her that, to put systems in place so leadership could be divided if she fell. That wouldn’t have even mattered with this death, however. If she had been slain while valiantly defending her people, and someone else had taken up her mantle, then yes, but not like this. Everything would fall apart. Fear would take over.
Quote: “You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn."
Aadibah had failed them all. Their hope would disappear.
Quote: “That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching …"
She had failed herself.
Quote:"I’ll be watching …"
She had failed Allah.
Quote: "… and waiting.”
This was her hell now.
******
The neutrality of the whiteness did nothing to stop her mind from accelerating beyond what her body could keep up with. Aadibah, upon waking, had been unable to keep herself from dwelling on what had just occurred to her in the past ten minutes to even think about moving from her spot.
The fact that she had suddenly and inexplicable been transported to a whole other something didn’t seem to elicit a reaction. No expression of disbelief, horror, confusion, excitement. The only emotion that plastered Aadibah’s visage was…
Empty.
Aadibah could tell that she was, in some strange respect, alive. Though she only felt her heart beat, her chest expand in and out as she took in air. Her skin irritated by the new air.
Inside, though, there was only flesh and bone. Something was definitely missing from her being. It was herself, really. Aadibah, at least the one that had fought for years, was gone.
Something else sat there, back against a white fountain, body slouching forward, legs sprawled out in front, arms lazily hanging in between her thighs, hands with twitching fingers unresponsive to the cold floor. A speck of sandy brown and olive green and dark auburn amongst the void. Against the plain canvas all of her dirt and grime was clearly visible, the stress of only a few hours sleep within a week of turbulent events shown in the bags under her eyes.
Aadibah was still. So very still.