Innogen

There are things that you cannot see but still exist. This should be easy to understand, we all know of oxygen but most people learn of it because of the work of others. No reasonable person today would argue its existence even though it cannot be seen by the naked eye. Because there are things that remain unseen to one person does not necessarily mean they are unseeable to all. Take, Innogen, she has seen many things that would be difficult for you to accept but just because you do not understanding them does not mean they do not exist. Like with oxygen, we might accept that it is real but for those that are less scientifically inclined, a certain leap of faith must first be taken.

It was because of the faith she had in her vision that Innogen would find herself in Dupont Park. On a morning like any other, she was in bed drifting back to sleep after having tapped the snooze button on the alarm clock, when the headache came. It started with a pain at the base of her neck. After a few moments the pain began to spread up the back of her head and around the sides like she was laying back into it. Innogen knew what was coming next and as usual there was no time to prepare before her entire head was throbbing, making her eyes water uncontrollably. Sweat began to bead up on her forehead as the agony caused her to surrender a slight whimper.

In a flash the pain was gone and she felt the sensation of complete weightlessness as her spirit drifted away from her physical form. She slowly rotated in that floating space until her sight returned revealing her body laying in the bed with a now placid look on her face, her eyes were closed and chest was rising and falling in a quick and shallow rhythm. Then in a blur everything rushed past her as though she was moving at the speed of light, shapes giving way to blurred lines.

Without warning the movement came to an abrupt halt and she looked down to find a pavilion with an ornate curved copper roof bearing a single spike affixed to a small globe at its center. She did not recognize this place but she knew to keep a memory that structure. As her movement began to retreat back to where her physical body lay she saw a sign that read Dupont Park just before another rush of motion brought her back home.

She sat up sharply in bed, her eyes popping open as her mouth took a quick gulp of air. With grace, Innogen slipped her legs out from under the covers and over the side of the bed. Her toes pointed as they searched for the floor like she was dipping them in a pool to see if the water was too cold. As she touched the floor her feet found purchase and in what was almost a dance like motion her body arched up to a standing position. She moved past the foot of the bed to the desk that sat against the opposite wall. Then opened the center drawer moving some of its contents around before closing it shut. She began grabbing the papers that littered the desktop picking one up and then piling it on top of the next. Her search continued as she grabbed her chair and pulled it out from under the desk, poking her head beneath to give a quick inspection. She stood upright again and pulled a hand through her long brown hair stopping to rest it at the top of her head as she looked around the room.

Clothing carpeted the floor to the right of her bed up to where the closet door had slid open. To the left, where a nightstand sat between a massive window that looked out into the city and her bed, were more clothes. Her eyes came to rest on a pen that sat atop the nightstand. She grabbed a scrap of paper from her desk and headed over to take up the pen. She quickly scrolled something down and headed to the corner of her room where there were two doors. She grabbed the handle to the door that shared a wall with her desk and made her way into the bathroom closing it behind her.

It was not long before Innogen emerged from the bathroom dripping wet. With a towel wrapped around torso she stepped back into her room tossing her wadded up pajamas to the floor. She went to the closet to grab a few things before sitting on the corner of her bed and proceeded to get dressed. After strapping on a pair of heels she grabbed the paper she had written on and headed out of her room. She glided down the hallway past a pair of closed doors toward the kitchen.

Innogen pulled her hair up into a loose bun as she strode into the kitchen where a messenger bag laid across the counter. She opened up one of the zippered pockets and pulled out a black laptop computer placing it on the counter. Innogen then opened the machine up pushing the power button and waited for it to boot. When prompted she typed in her decryption passcode then waited for the next prompt to appear. When the second prompt asked her for a user password she hit the space bar three times and reached her hand back into her bag. After a moment she pulled her hand free holding onto a small device with a gray pad attached. She took the device and pushed it into one of the computers USB ports. She then placed her middle finger atop the gray pad and leaned forward toward the screen.

“Open up, Jerkface.” she intoned just before the desktop finally came to life. She put the piece of paper down and typed something into a search finding several Dupont parks, none of which were near by. She then brought up a satellite view opening different browser tabs for each park that she found. Innogen moved the satellite image around park after park until she found what appeared to be the building she was looking for. She then jotted down some coordinates and took up the paper before heading out of the kitchen. Moving past her room toward the front door Innogen muttered something that was barely audible while glancing at the sheet of paper. As she reached for the front door she tossed the paper over her shoulder to litter the hallway behind her. When she opened the door the threshold revealed a grassy landscape pocked with trees and a wide stone path off to the right. She hesitated for a moment before stepping out onto the grass, looking around to make sure no one was there to witness her materialize at the entrance to the park.

She walked into the park giving a half hearted yawn stretching her arms out to either side. Her eyes giving the landscape a good inspection. As she strolled she spied morning joggers out to get in some exercise before the day began.

“I should have made some coffee, it’s too early for this rubbish,” she grumbled to herself. “Now, where is that pavilion? It’s got to be around here somewhere,” she said as the sun, half risen over the eastern horizon, completely lighted the park in its golden brilliance. She continued to stroll across the grassy landscape until she saw the tip of a spike affixed to a globe poking out from behind a patch of trees. Having found her destination she made her way through the trees and walked past the structure toward a tall oak.

After glancing around to make sure she was alone, Innogen dropped her disguise allowing her dark skin and blue-white eyes to glow as they did when she lived on Cobalt. The loose strands of her hair, like wispy spiderwebs, seemed to float around her head emanating a faint luminescence. Her lips were alight in an iridescences that at one moment was almost blue, the next a reflective shine, like the colors of a soap bubble shifting in the light. The rest of her, appeared like any other teenage girl you might imagine, right down to the mini skirt, sweater, and fashionable heels wrapped around her feet.

If anyone had seen it, it would have seemed like she had changed color just before disappearing, leaving the scene of Dupont Park empty beyond the occasional tree and jogger. She had slipped into the, Gateway Realm a place where the world looked foreign to uninitiated eyes, almost like a negative on an old roll of film. The landscape was unchanged but the park had lost its color, rather, the colors shifted and come back together making everything look alien. The light wasn’t right either, whatever the sun had touched was now dark and the shadows seemed to give off light. This was the space between the physical world and the EverLight, a place where all manner of creatures gain access to our reality.

Innogen walked to the oak tree and placed her palm against it and said.

“Do you mind letting me in? I have business here and could use your help.” she voiced in an almost harmonic resonance. Then after a moment a light emerged from the base of the tree where the roots stuck up from the ground revealing a small opening. The light began to grow in an inverted V shape until the opening was tall enough for her to walk into. Innogen stepped in and after a moment the opening vanished along with its light.

Some time passed in the park, the sun now hung high overhead raising the heat of the day a few degrees. Innogen sat in wait completely unseen until the shadow-light that brightened the Gateway began to dim, like the sun-shadows had grown to engulf all that was visible. Then after an instant the light returned to reveal the huge body of a full grown Gahl’Raath. A nasty beast that stood on six legs, that jutted out from the carapace armor that protected its back, angled down toward the ground like a spider’s legs. Its torso extending high upward, following the curvature of the armor it carried, revealing bright green and black scales to protect its underside. The two great tentacle arms, with a cluster of suction cups at their extremities, dragged on the ground nearly the entire length of its body. It had three relatively small tails with what looked like large bowling balls that produced a curved spike at the end of each. As it moved the tails came together making thunderous clacks in a broken rhythm. It’s nearly human looking head with bright green skin sat atop an unnaturally long neck able to retreat back into its shell should the need arise.

It was in that moment that Innogen emerged from the tree, the light behind her almost amplified making the Gahl’Raath avert its eyes to its brilliance. In a second she began to charge the beast with her arms angled toward the earth, her hands formed a C shape as though they were wrapped around something. As she neared the creature she gave a primal roar and leapt into the air her wrists flipped upward and arms thrusted out. The creature threw up its tentacle arms in an almost flailing motion, it’s head still turned away as the light from the opening began to vanish. Innogen twisted in the air to avoid the tentacles, both arms forward until her hands met the beasts neck her body lurching upward slightly before gravity took hold. She then shifted her hands and began to fall back toward the earth. As she floated downward two bright lines emerged where each hand followed the neck into the torso parting its skin like a zipper. As she landed, she leaned back pulling her hands free from the now collapsed monster to reveal two sword blades materializing under a blanket of black blood. In a single motion she lifted the weapons and thrust them back toward the earth giving a flick of the wrist at the end before spraying the blood over the ground in two uneven lines. Again, it looked as though her hands were empty except for the C shape in which she held them.

“That was too easy … it’s never that easy.” Innogen said in a half pant as her eyes looked at the beasts broken body. Her skin began to prickle into goosebumps, signaling that the fight may not have ended. Black blood continued to flow out of the creature that would soon be dead, if it wasn’t already. There was no discernible movement from the Gahl’Raath but something wasn’t right with this situation. Innogen now unsure of what might come next slid one foot back into something of a crouch pointing her hands out in a defensive stance as she scanned the carcass.