Chapter 28: The Path to Recovery?

“Ugh...” Rex said as he put his hand to his forehead. “What happened? Why am I lying on the ground?”

“Relax,” Baise said as he fiddled with his mace. “You were suffering from radiation poisoning. I healed both you and that other woman ... oh, what is her name again?”

“Estrella ... ah ... hmmm,” he corrected the oversized tortoise as he sat back up and tried to knock the dirt off him.

“Ah, oh, yes.”

“Do you feel alright?” Renenutet asked him as she leaned down next to him. Her snake coils moved a little bit as she checked him out.

“Yeah ... actually I feel pretty good. What did you do?”

“You were fighting radiation poisoning. Amazing for some of you humans to make it this far. I have seen some lose their hair or their lives by now. It was slowly killing the both of you. It will be natural for you to feel a little bit better for a while. The only catch is, of course, the radiation is everywhere. I can keep healing you, but...”

“We don’t have time to keep doing that,” Renenutet said as her tongue flicked in the air. “We have a misssssion to keep.”

Rex slowly stood up as he looked around him. He recollected himself as he looked at the highway. He saw Theo talking to Estrella as he saw Renenutet right herself up to tower over him once again.

“How long was I out?” Rex asked the snake goddess.

“Long enough. We are awaiting word on a cryssstal that might be near usss.”

“That explains why I see so many different ... creatures around us. I see a parrot looking man near that dragon ... ummm Ryujin, right?”

“Yesss.”

“And this turtle ... damn you guys are tall. What is your name?”

“Baise the Tortoise at your service,” the tortoise replied to him.

“Well, Baise ... thank you for helping me. Thank you for helping her out too. I guess we will be living a little bit longer in a world that is dead.”

Baise seemed happy as he tossed his mace in one hand and then on the other. “Not a problem, I enjoy healing people if my name isn’t...” Baise tried to show off as he shrugged his hand. As he tossed his mace to his other hand, he tried to shrug, but he didn’t correctly grip the mace in his hand. The mace went flying to his right, and it flew quite far. With the sound of shattering glass, the mace went straight into the truck window. The glass shattered immediately on impact, littering the pavement and interior of the truck with Baise’s mace and broken glass.

“My truck!” Rex yelled. “You broke the window!”

Estrella and Theo looked at the scene from them. Ryujin and Vucub-Caquix even took a glance but quickly resumed talking to each other. Estrella put her hand to her head.

“Oh ... oh ... umm ... yeah, I am so sorry about that,” Baise said as he put his hand to his head.

“He doesss thisss all the time, him and hisss mother,” Renenutet hissed. “How do you keep breaking ssshit?”

“Nope, nope,” Baise tried to stop as he raised a scaly finger to her. “No, my mother always taught me that we take responsibility for our actions. Rex wait a moment. Yes...” he said as he held his hand out. A small puff of smoke appeared on his hand. After the smoke cleared, there was a small leather pouch that appeared in the tortoise’s hand. He handed the leather pouch to Rex. “There you go, problem solved.”

Rex checked inside the pouch, and there was a pile of gold coins inside it. He shook his head. “This would be nice, but there aren’t many repair shops in apocalyptic settings!”

“Oh ... right,” Baise said.

Rex sighed, “Don’t worry about the damn window. You healed us up. I consider that payment in full, at least.”

“That isss how you found that other ssshard while back? That maccce had to go flying right towardsss it, didn’t it?” Renenutet hissed at him again.

Baize shrugged his hands. “Who knew?”

Not far from them, Estrella and Theo looked at each other again. Estrella shook his head. “Don’t worry about the truck; he gets attached to vehicles easily.”

“No, I am not worried about it either.”

“So, that was the story about you?” Estrella remarked. “Too bad I didn’t get a chance to see you when you were younger. I think you and my sister would have gotten along pretty well.”

“You think so?” Theo asked.

“Yes ... although it would be obvious that it would take time to adjust with ... well you being what you are.”

“Yeah, that is obvious,” Theo said as she looked away.

Estrella took a deep breath. “It feels so good to feel healthy again. We were losing hope till you guys came along. The story you were telling me. I was curious as to...”

Before Estrella was able to finish her sentence, Ryujin and Vucub-Caquix came walking up to the group. Theo’s tail twitched. She focused her gaze on the two as they came walking up to Rex, Renenutet, and Baise. Vucub gestured to the two to go to the gathering circle.

“Come on, let’s go,” Theo beckoned to her. “Sounds like we got the word of what is going to happen next.”

It was afternoon as the sun was getting closer and closer to reaching dawn. The minotaur and the woman walked up to the group as they reached the circle of mythics and Rex. Ryujin was waiting for the two to join them before he was going to speak.

“Alright, listen up, I just spoke to the other mythics,” the dragon explained to everyone. “As you know, one of our other teams is scouring the globe to find an Einstein Crystal. Upon searching all the blast zones, it is being indicated that we are getting close to finding two. One is believed to be in Bikini Atoll, and the other is here in San Diego. We are part of three teams checking this region. Flying over the areas and trying to pick them up is only proving to be partially effective as we can pick it up intermittently. It is getting us closer to finding it, though. Vucab here has picked up what he believes is one of the crystals in the center of downtown San Diego by the ocean that connects to the inlet that leads to the Pacific Ocean. My team, including myself, Renenutet, and Theo, will go on ground and scout the blast area. I have informed Vucab and Baise to go to Los Angeles to go and keep searching those areas and assist Apotamkin and Ikuchi in their searches on the coastline.”

“Are we the only one searching the blast zone of that area ... again?” Theo asked.

“We will keep searching those zones if we must. The council agrees that we need to check that area again. They have a good feeling that it’s there waiting for us to find it, and I am entitled to agree. We were picking something up, and it vanished a few days ago. We need to keep it up. Going by ground is our best bet now. Renenutet ... Theo your magic is our best compass to them as we go searching those areas, but I don’t need to remind you.”

“Of courssse,” Renenutet replied. “When do we go?”

“We can go right now...” The dragon turned to look directly at the two humans. “You may stay here. There is no need to come with us and get radiated.”

“I imagine you mythics are immune to the radiation ... hmmm,” Rex paused. He looked at Estrella. “This crystal ... you find it and that cowgirl,”

“Theo,” she corrected him.

“Theo...” He continued. “If you find this crystal, we can make Earth a better place ... a place we can actually live, right?”

The minotaur nodded.

“I wish to join your searches.”

“If you come with usss, you will be hit with high levelsss of radiatttion,” Renenutet advised.

“Yep,” Baise added. “I can’t keep being here healing you two. I wish I could, but there are too many humans and ... well, you know,” the tortoise shrugged. “Once you go to those areas, within about two days, you can die from the exposure.”

“I know ... Estrella and I survived because we were far from the blast zones as it was. I won’t speak for Estrella, but I like being healthy ... and there was a population over a month ago that was healthy. I can feel what it is like ... what I felt like a month ago that I am missing. I want that world to back what it was supposed to be. I want Earth to be healthy again.”

“I agree, too,” Estrella added as well. “I feel great now ... even if we are let go here and now how much longer before we start getting sick again? What if you aren’t there to help us? We can’t rely on you guys to help us, so let us help you and make this world a better place.”

“You truly want to come with us?” Theo asked her.

“Yes, fuck this place. Fuck the damn rats, and I am not talking about the ratas that raped Rex, I am talking about the humans that are around here killing each other. I don’t want to live that life. I want my sister to be alive. I will sacrifice myself; watch my hair fall off of need be so she can breathe life again. If need be, if you guys get a step closer to finding one of these ... things, then it’s a good death. I believe Theo is the one that will save the people of Earth. Let me be a part of this ... story of what can be better.”

Ryujin put his scaly hand to his chin. The whisker tendrils were pushed about as he thought about it. “The choice is yours to put your lives on the line. I do agree, though, that it would be a more respectable demise than to die out here slowly. Do keep in mind that we are not responsible for you two. Our priorities are our priorities. They outweigh your lives.”

Renenutet even nodded her head in agreement.

“I understand,” Rex said. “I will go with you.”

“Count me in,” Estrella said. “For mi hermana.”

Theo nodded as she pulled out her massive revolver. She opened up the cylinder to check her rounds as she snapped the cylinder back in place. She put it back in her holster as she gestured to them.

“Alright then, Vucub, Baise. Go ahead and go. We will take it from here. Go and inform the other team to continue checking this area. We will teleport to the coast.”

“Right,” Vucub-Caquix replied. His focus went to the two humans. “You know, you human mortals,” he said in a skeptical tone. “I can see the bloodline this human woman has. Mayan decent ... I should have figured you would be courageous against all opposition. I can’t speak for the male, though...”

With that, the bird demon turned around and walked away from the group. Baise gave them one last look.

“Thank you for your help,” Estrella told the tortoise.

“Hey...” The tortoise shrugged with an opportunistic tone. “Maybe you will live long enough to see me again. This world is always like that.”

With that, the tortoise walked away to join up with the macaw deity. He held his hand in the open as his mace rematerialized, and he mounted it to his shoulder. His giant light-colored shell reflected the sun in their faces as the circle looked at each other.

Estrella put her hand to her face as she was in deep thought. Theo looked at her.

“What is wrong?” the minotaur asked her.

“Rex...” Estrella asked him. “I can’t speak for us, but we need to be prepared for something else as well.”

“What is it?” Rex asked.

“Memories...”

“What? Hmmm ... yeah, so?”

“We won’t remember anything that will happen to us during this month if they succeed in changing history.”

Rex shrugged again. “Why the fuck should I worry about that? This life is hell. I don’t want to remember that.”

Estrella shook her head. “I want to remember them!” she said as she pointed to Renenutet. “I want to remember their actions ... our actions ... our sacrifices to make this happen.”

“If the timeline is fixed,” Ryujin noted. “You will never see us again. We will be sworn to secrecy and to never reveal ourselves to the human public.”

“Not unless we take them as ... companions or lovers. Hell, my own parents are perfect examples of that.” Theo replied.

The dragon was in deep thought. “Then I will have nothing else to say on that. Do what you want to do as long as it doesn’t violate our rules.”

“May we have a few minutes?” Estrella asked the dragon.

“I will give you thirty minutes. We leave after that.”

“Thank you, Ryu ... Ryujin,” the woman replied to him.

“I will need thisss time too,” Renenutet said. “Rexxx, we shall talk.”

The dragon decided to give them space. He walked away to the highway as he kneeled down and closed his eyes. He began to meditate and compose himself.

Rex watched as Estrella walked away with Theo. He found himself alone with the snake goddess by the tree.

“What do you want?” Rex asked her.

“Do you like me?” she asked.

He looked at her. He hadn’t really thought about it too much, but he did find himself looking at her appearance.

“What you mean?” Rex asked,

“Are you attracted to me?”

“Oh ... well ... I...”

“I asssk thisss quessstion becaussse of that human. Ssshe isss correct ... we might find that cryssstal and you would never sssee me again. Think carefully with your decisssion.”

Rex sighed. “I guess she is right. I can tell you everything about me, and if the timeline is corrected, you can go and find me. I wasn’t much before the bombs fell. I had a home to myself. I even had a pet monitor.”

“You avoided my quessstion.”

“Yeah ... I just wish I had more time to be able to say that accurately. You are asking me all these things that may never happen in the first place. Yeah, I find you to be ... interesting,” he said half-heartedly. He sighed and looked at her body that she noted. Her snake-like eyes observed his eyes and facial features. Her tongue tasted the air near him.

“You might only have thisss chanccce...”

“Fine, fine, fine,” he said. “Yeah, I find you to be pretty for ... a member of your species. It sounds like you got a long history with you, and you know what you are doing. To be honest, I was looking for a woman to come to my life. My relationships have been piss poor. Of course, that depends on you and what is happening with your relationships.”

“Sssobek and I are taking a hundred-year ressst from each other. You can become my mate, and we can live together,” she said as her tongue flicked in the air.

“Well ... yeah, we can try. Strange for me to come tell a person that I just met the directions to my house and everything about it. Then again, I would be telling that to ... another me?”

“It would be you,” the snake goddess replied. “The choiccce is yoursss if you want me to come and find you if all thisss worksss.”

“Fine, I will tell you ... heh, I guess it doesn’t matter much, really. I guess I have a soft spot for reptiles. You seem human enough to me. Alright, I will tell you everything about me, my secrets ... things that only I know that I told no one else. I wouldn’t normally tell you those things, but these are unusual circumstances. Maybe it is a way to remember me if I drop dead the next day. You can just come find me, and maybe things will go the way we want it to be.”

“Your emotionsss betray you well ... I can sssmell your feelingsss asss you look at me.”

“That isn’t fair; I am feeling good because I feel healthy. You are taking advantage of that.”

“Sssnakesss have to predate in any way posssssible. Even you know that,” she said with a smile.

“Hmmm ... yeah, I suppose you are right. I guess it is important to tell you anyway, regardless if I have feelings or not. The human race is dying out, and memories are all that is left. You ... mythics are the only way of preserving that.”

She nodded as he said that.

“Here is my life story...”

Theo and Estrella walked away from the group as Estrella looked at Rex before putting her focus forward.

“You two care about each other greatly,” Theo noted, trying to start up the conversation.

“You know of our history already. You told me some of your childhood. Theo, we are going to an area in which we will get radiated. I might die in a couple of days to make this all happen. I have a request.”

“What is it?”

“I want to see the coastline of my birth home. I want to see Baja, California. Anywhere ... it doesn’t matter. I want to be away from it all for these thirty minutes.”

“Alright, grab my hand,” the minotaur ordered her.

“What?”

“I need you to touch my hand as I teleport us. Otherwise, I end up leaving you behind.”

Estrella went and, without hesitation, extended her hand to the minotaur’s fingers. She could feel the fur on her fingers as she gripped them tightly. Theo swallowed hard as she grabbed her hand.

Theo, with her free hand, began to concentrate on the Baja Peninsula. She knew of several areas that would be perfect to go to. A light began to emit from her hands as she closed her eyes, and she said the word “Teleport.” With that, the light flashed as they disappeared.

As quickly as they jumped, Estrella felt the shock of being in two places at once. She looked around her as she let go of Theo’s hand. They had arrived.

The landscape was practically barren but beautiful. Westward was the ocean itself as the sun was starting to go down further and further. The temperatures were hot, but it was going down. They stood about thirty feet from the shoreline as Estrella could see the ocean waves battering the sandy shore. The area was a hill covered with shrubs and cacti beyond the coastline. The coast was crystal clear, and you could see the ocean bottom for quite a distance. Only the sounds of birds and the crashing waves filled the air, and the fresh scent of the ocean breeze was calming. Estrella herself walked forward a little bit to look at the scene.

“I had almost forgotten the beauty of these areas,” Estrella said. “Ugh, that was ... intense.”

“First time is always intense for some. You will get used to it.”

“I didn’t think you had that ability, to be honest. When you told me the story of your childhood, I thought your mother was the only one that could teleport.”

“Nope, a lot of us mythics have that ability. It is natural, really.”

“Ha...” Estrella chuckled. “I have this ability ... I don’t know why, but I had this feeling that you could. I asked to go and join you guys for many reasons ... more than what I just told you guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“I sometimes get these visions of things that happen. Sometimes they don’t happen at all, but I have had to learn to trust my instincts a little bit. I don’t know if you call it magic, but...” she shook her head.

“Are you psychic?” Theo asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s just say that I have been able to see events that might have happened. My sister had this same ability, too, and we would try to put things together whenever we had these visions. With my sister gone, that ability has been practically lost. It ... I am no psychic or fortune teller, but sometimes ... sometimes I get these visions, and I have to trust them.”

“You know there is no shame in admitting that you might have magic. Humans do have the ability to tap into some things we don’t normally have.”

Estrella gave a questioning look. “I don’t understand.”

“We have human mythics among us. Some of them are deities themselves. There was a time that there were more human deities than anything else. They had the ability to tap into magic, and they lived forever, just like any other mythic. Sometimes those human deities had their relationships with other human mortals, and new powers were passed down to kids. They might not inherit the immortality, but the abilities and magic are passed on. Those children pass on those genes to their children and so forth. Sometimes you humans are simply born with certain abilities. Being psychic is a genuine possibility. Among one ability we have been encountering among you human mortals is what we call Sight.”

“Sight?”

“It is the ability to see through our human forms or at least see the auras we generate when we take up human form. It is very rare, but we have encountered a couple of humans that have the ability to tell that we are actually using different forms. Not all of us mythics have that ability, and we can actually disappear in human crowds with us never knowing where we go. The Sight ability allows us to track other mythics disguising themselves as humans. I remember even a boy coming up to me and told me that I glowed. We do what we can to keep them away, and everyone generally laughs or doesn’t believe them. Some humans even grow out of that ability, but out of that 100,000 humans is one that, if properly trained, can be used to track other mythics.”

“I don’t recall ever seeing any people glow during my lifetime,” Estrella noted.

“It is rare, but that is one example.”

Estrella looked at the shoreline. “It is beautiful ... there are times that I want to go to the coastline and swim one last time. I know that the radiation would poison me more quickly that way, but I feel like the ocean should just take me and let it be done with it.”

“Don’t throw your life away by helping us out. Your actions are respectable in wanting to accompany us, but...”

Estrella waved her hand at her. “I won’t let my sister die. She should live. This life ... this timeline should come to an end. I hate this life, and if I live for a few days among gods and helping them ... well fuck then I will do it. Better than slowly rotting to death like we were.”

“You are adamant. I will make sure that I tell you and your sister that when I fix everything.”

“It is more than just that and why I am doing it. I get these feelings that I will be dead soon ... not just by the radiation and environment but something else. It’s like I will be wiped from existence. In the end, my sister will be alive, though, and that is all that matters. I see you today, I learn of all these stories, and I start to feel that is what must be done. A chapter of this story of us humans will turn, and we will all be alive. That is what it will be. People will be swimming in that ocean again, breathe the air, go up to the sky, and we become something else. Maybe we will be better than the gods will ever become.”

Theo smiled at her. “That is always a possibility.”

Estrella went and hugged Theo. It took her by surprise. Even her towering form, the small human woman, was almost able to wrap her arms around her. She could feel the fur of her press on her face.

“I admit I wasn’t expecting that,” Theo remarked.

“I miss her, Theo... , I miss them all. Bring my family back, and I will be eternally grateful to you. Promise me that.”

“I promise.”

“I will start telling you all my secrets so that you can recount them to the both of us in the past.”

“Tell me everything.”

“Let’s sit down by the beach here with the time we have.”

Theo nodded as they both let go of each other and sat down on the dirt. The sand was everywhere as the sun continued to go down. The temperatures continued to get cooler and cooler. There was no one around them.

“What I am telling you no one else knows. Only she and I would know. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” Theo replied.

“My sister is named Estella. She was the firstborn as we both came out. My mother was only expecting one child and had one girl’s name ready. It was going to be Estella, and then she got the surprise that I came out too. My mom told me that she panicked a little bit, but she made the decision to go ahead and call me Estrella. Estrella and Estella, people, always got it confused and often mistaken us because of it, but we enjoyed it. Everything we did we did together. We both liked the same man that was around our age, but we made the agreement as we always did. We invited him to our house, and we both lost our virginity to him that same day. We were both 15, and he was 17. Our logic was simple, he might turn me down or might turn my sister down, but there was no way he would turn down two women at the same time.”

Theo tried to hold back her chuckle as Estrella smiled. “That is true. I know a couple of mythics that think the same as you do.”

“I would tell you not to tell my parents, but that is long gone now. I lost my father at the age of 17.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. I am telling you all this, so you don’t forget. May I ask you a question, though?”

Theo grinned. “Of course.”

“The story that happened with your childhood. Did your father decide to have more kids?”

“Yes, a month later, he told my mother that he wanted to have another baby. I have a brother and a sister, but they both don’t have my abilities.”

“I want to meet them when the timeline is fixed,” Estrella told her.

“I promise you will.”

“Secrets ... yes, I am getting sidetracked. I have a mole on my right ass cheek, and my sister has one on her left. It was something we told our man ... his name was Miguel, and he was handsome ... to us. People thought he was a little arrogant, but he was a good man nonetheless. Surprising as it was, as exciting as he was with having sex with both of us, he was actually pretty nervous. He was worried if he could not satisfy one of us that he failed twice in a row. We made sure that never happened.”

“What happened to him?” Theo asked as she moved her butt a little bit and pressed her hands to the dirt to relax her posture.

“He wanted to marry us, but it was difficult to marry two women at the same time. Then ... he was killed by a gunman, that mistakened him for an enemy he wanted revenge on.”

“I ... understand.”

“Miguel de Francisco ... that wasn’t his real name, but that is what we called him. It was a name we called him and no one else.”

Theo nodded. “I guess I can tell you my secret. I lost my virginity when I was sixteen, and it was with another mythic. He was ... a fox.”

“What?” Estrella laughed. “A fox?”

“Yeah ... one of Reynard the Fox’s children that he had with a human woman long ago. Despite the size differences, he was not bad, but ... I didn’t feel the attraction towards him. I started to learn that I liked being with girls more than I ever was with boys. I met a human woman during Woodstock and well ... I told her the truth, and she accepted me for who I was. We hung out for a while, and we eventually I lost my ... I don’t even know what to call it ... female to female virginity?”

“It’s ok,” Estrella said. “What happened to her?”

“She wanted to have kids, and we couldn’t give each other a child. It’s amazing we have magic to help out with that, and for men and men and women and women couples, that process is ... still beyond our abilities. She left me for a man to marry, and I have been a lesbian ever since.”

“I am sorry. I guess even gods have their own issues.”

“Yeah...” Theo said as she used her hoof to kick the dirt. She sighed a little bit as Estrella tried to keep her composed a little bit. She rested her hand on her leg to tell her more. “As time progressed, I have been talking with one of our fertility goddesses, and there is one possible way a woman and woman can have a child with magic, but her powers are not strong enough to do it. She needs to be more powerful to accomplish it, and she is only willing to go through the process of making herself more powerful if there is a clear reason to do it.”

Estrella nodded. “Let us continue with our time left. Let’s see ... ah, I guess since we are discussing the matters of sex ... my sister and I had a harder time finding a woman. After Miguel died, we were hurt for so long. We had our reasons for falling in love with women because we were so hurt by his death that being with a woman was to us a way to honor and respect him. I know that doesn’t make sense to others, but to us, it did. We loved him and cared for him, and having another man at the time felt like we were disrespecting him. We eventually found a woman by the name of Diane Lum that we eventually did the same thing as Miguel. She didn’t have the same problems as Miguel did, but eventually, even she wanted to move on and find someone else. We went back to men after that after we felt we gave Miguel’s passing considerable time.”

“That must have been something else always doing things together like that.”

“It made things easier for the most part. We got things done much quicker.”

Estrella went and put her hand to her chest pocket as she reached around, trying to find something. She seemed to think about it as her hand stopped and came to a decision.

“Open up your hand,” Estrella commanded her.

Theo opened up her hand as Estrella pulled out a small bracelet and placed it in the minotaur’s hand.

“What is this?” Theo asked.

“It belonged to me. Both my sister and I wore bracelets we made for each other. These bracelets ... there are none other like them in existence; it should be easy to convince us when you meet us.”

Theo went and wrapped the bracelet around her arm and secured it to keep it close to her.

“With my sister dead, there is no need to have it. I trust you with it, and that is all you need.”

“I imagine we don’t have much more time, don’t we?” Estrella asked. “So much more that I want to do...”

“Like what?” the bovine grinned.

“I want this moment to last forever. Looking at this ocean and the beach area. A fight will come, and I want to remember this ... this scene that I am looking at.”