The Mirrorverse
Chapter 82

Ellie

“Hey guys, we need to get you somewhere safe, don’t shoot,” it was the strangest sensation. The voice came more from inside Ellie’s head than outside.

“Did you hear that too?” she asked Viskra, wondering if her incarceration had caused a rapid degradation of her mental state.

“Oh yeah, that was weird,” Viskra agreed.

“I am a spectral, you hear me differently than each other. Let me come out, put the gun down,” the strange floaty voice said. Viskra and Ellie exchanged glances before Viskra put the gun down in front of him, leaving the handle in his direction. As he’d put it, they were screwed, they had nothing to lose.

A translucent floaty thing appeared and came towards them. Ellie remembered Steve saying they were evil, which made them good in her estimation.

“I have come to take you to safety. I must fetch myself a traveller to portal you to the ship where your friends and family will be. Do you promise not to shoot a traveller?” the voice asked.

“Promise,” they both said together. They laughed at the unison, Ellie had already filled Viskra in on the Ka’s.

Then they were alone again.

“What do you reckon?” Viskra asked, putting his arm around Ellie.

“Nothing to lose except starvation and heat stroke,” she said, nodding cheerfully.

“Agreed,” he looked down at her, and then their lips met. The kiss was the most sensuous kiss Ellie had ever experienced, with shivers running up and down her limbs. Unfortunately it was cut short by their salvation.

A tall woman was walking towards them, the spectral by her side. The woman was taller than Viskra, Ellie thought so anyway, it was hard to judge when he was sat down next to her.

“Hi, I’m Xhisara and I’m a friend of Syrhahn’s, your father, and also of Maya, your friend,” the woman greeted warmly.

“Maya, she’s dead,” Ellie frowned at the woman.

“Oh no, she’s very alive,” the woman laughed.

Ellie’s heart leapt as the prospect of seeing Maya again, as did Viskra’s at the chance of seeing his father. They stood up, looking down at the gun.

“That is not coming with us,” Xhisara said sternly, like a mother figure. “Chuck it over.”

Figuring they must be good if they wanted the weapon destroying helped with the anxiety of trusting strangers again. Viskra bent down and discarded it into the sea, after first smashing it on the rocky ground.

Holding on to each other for dear life, they walked towards Xhisara, who touched Viskra’s arm. Then they were then no longer on the hot rock, but instead in a warehouse like building that was full of people.

And there she was, Maya. She looked ill, so pale standing there staring at the broken man on the floor. She turned and saw Ellie, her face lighting up like Ellie had never seen before. They threw themselves into each other’s arms, hugging like the world would end if they separated.

Ellie was free and Maya was alive. The impossible had occurred. If Ellie had had a free hand she would have pinched herself.

Eventually they parted and Ellie looked around the room. It took her a moment to realise that the now corpse on the floor was Steve, and its neighbouring corpse was Brian. She did a double take at her two captors lying dead in front of her.

Viskra’s hand slid into hers.

“Told you dad would get the bastards!” Viskra grinned shyly at her. She squeezed his hand.

“You killed him!” Ellie looked up to see Les challenging Joe angrily. she couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want them dead.

“You’re not a murderer, Les. I’ve seen your internal struggle, you don’t need this on your conscience,” Joe appealed to him. “You are a good man. I am not.”

“I think you wanted to put your old mate out of pain,” Syrhahn spoke to Joe.

“Does it matter?” asked Viskra. “They’re gone, we’re back, life can go on now. That’s a lot more than we had five minutes ago.”

“Hear hear,” concurred Ellie, Ka agreed also.

“Where’s the other Ka?” she wondered, looking around.

“Funny you should mention that,” Maya looked perturbed.

Suddenly he became two. Viskra and Ellie jumped back in shock as the second man stepped out of the first man’s body.

“Hey,” they both said, grinning.

“See what you mean,” Viskra nodded. “Mental.”

“Where’s Rob?” wondered Ellie, as Syrhahn grabbed Viskra into a bear hug again.

The room went totally silent, and Les kicked Steve’s dead body, tears streaming down his face.

“Oh no,” breathed Ellie, feeling like she had swallowed a brick. “Dear Rob.”

“You found them,” Maya broke the silence. She threw herself at Xhisara who had just appeared, wrapping her arms around her. Her face only came to the massive woman’s upper abdomen, and tears streamed down her face as Xhisara, their saviour, comforted her.

Maya was crying as if the world was going to end, and it very nearly had.