2.75 I Thought You Knew

While the girls discovered each other again, Neter stole Mina away to relay his concerns regarding the terrible things he had seen, he just couldn’t tell the whole family, he wasn’t ready, he needed a sympathetic and wise ear to unload on first. He led her up the path to the astronomical lookout, in silence, searching for the words to say, what would he say? How would he tell her about these terrible things he had seen without rattling her own skeletons out of her closets?

         Mina could tell he was broken up inside by the way he telegraphed ahead of her to the lookout. She felt his anger even though he tried to hide it, his energy was barbed, full of rage, he obviously hadn't bathed or slept since he left. Had it been that bad over there?

         She rubbed his back knowingly as they sat together on the bench overlooking the village, she could feel the pain inside, words would take time.

         "I have a confession to make" he finally began. "I never believed the body splicing Conspiracy Theory. I really never believed it was possible, but that's exactly what's going on over there."

         "WHAT?" Mina sat up, shocked, it wasn't what she was expecting to hear at all.

         "Those savage beasts Zara spoke of? They're real. They're half human, half canine of some kind... They're spliced together and housed in some kind of demented zoo! They're treated like pets!"

         "Pets?" Mina echoed, struggling with his story, was he delusional? "What are you talking about?"

         Just like Zara’s account, Neter’s account came out in jumbled unbelievableness, he tried his best to explain his discoveries and showed her the claw marks in his skin. He told her about the tragedies in Fina and Culloom, about the jars of organs in the lab, about the vats in the brewery, the bottle of wine, but Mina's eyes were glazing over.

         "They're being cannibalized!" Neter went on and on, just like Zara had done. "They bottle their blood and decorate the bottles with fancy labels! My god Mina, we have to save them!"

         Mina was devastated to hear things worse than she could have imagined, he was truly concerned. Beneath his godly façade, Neter was a total wreck, she felt compelled to believe him simply by observing how badly it had affected him.

         "They have no clue" he continued, letting it all pour out, "they're just going along with it and have no fucking idea what's really going on. They're bloody FARM animals!"

         Aghast, Mina turned towards the Crystal Temple, completely lost for words as she struggled to grasp the horrors he was actually disclosing. She knew things weren't good in Atlan, but she wasn't expecting anything this bad.

         "They bottle their blood?"

         He couldn't even answer.

         Mina could feel herself coming undone too now, this was like a reality flashback. She hadn't seen Neter's temper rage like this in decades, his traumatic tales were triggering her own traumatic memories now, memories she had buried for years. Not all the dots were joining up.

         "And Vikkar says he doesn't know anything about it?"

         "Well... Vikkar's either a cunning player or he's being played, himself" he replied after having given the same question some thought. "I trust him... I questioned him... And I can also see how he could have had the wool pulled over his eyes."

         "And ears, I imagine..." Mina had always trusted that Vikkar was a good soul, that he would betray them never felt right. Her gaze lifted to the stars above, listening with a heavy heart as Neter not only verified Zara's claims, but elaborated upon them.

         "All those children having to face those horrific beasts, trapped like chickens in the hen house, fighting for their lives!"

         She felt his pain as he let it out, like she felt their pain too as he described the carnage.

         "I can't leave them there like that" he continued, his aching heart torn in two. To Neter the slaves of Atlan were his family, his Phoenix Flame, they were the children that they had left behind, trapped in the darkest dimension of hell. "Some of them seem to even like it there, all drunked up on who knows what and smoking some kind of hallucinogen! Completely abusing it!!!"

         "Atalon's letting them smoke hallucinogens?" Mina’s thoughts darted back to the book heist, instantly.

         Neter could tell she was breaking up from the horrors he spoke of, realizing it had indeed unleashed her own traumatic memories, like it had done for him. He stopped talking and put his arm around her, pulled her tight and kissed her head with tender love.

         "I don't know what we can do to help them... But we've got to do something."

         Mina slipped her arm around his waist, every nerve in his body was vibrating from the anger and pain he felt inside. They would need to harness this powerful energy if they were going to do something.

         "It's the souls enslaved in Atlan who need this energy we feel inside!"

         Neter knew what she meant. It was only those who had felt this rage who had escaped the walls of Atlan, it had always been this way.

         "I guarantee there are more lost Phoenix souls like Zara and Nel over there" he lamented. "They just don't know it."

         "Why don't you stay with me in the temple tonight?" Mina wondered now how the new arrivals might help. "Tomorrow we can have a village meeting, we can brainstorm, there must be something we can do. The skies have given us plenty of signs pointing to powerful energies at play" Mina reminded, returning her gaze to the new comet, now beautifully bright in the darkened sky. "Look! It's pointing to Ebar, just like the last one."

         "Yes..." Neter had noticed. "It's a coincidence? It could be perceived as fortunate energy for Gaia were it not for the Black Panther visiting us all."

         Zara and Nel curled up on the bed together, mesmerized by the flickering candlelight illuminating the crystal walls of the meditation room as they caught up on years gone by, telling stories of the lives they had lived since their graduation day. Zara tried to explain to Nel why Mata was now called Mira, and why she hadn't recognized her.

         "Apparently, the memory lapse we had between seeing Dr Seton and waking up in the cell was nothing. Mata forgot her whole life!"

         "I wondered what happened to her when her name was dropped from the Forecast list" Nel had dreaded the worst but didn't dare ask.

         "Forecast list?"

         "Yes. I used to make your Forecasts too" she offered. "I always thought about you when I did your chart, I wondered how you were doing, what you were doing."

         "Forecasts?" Zara sat up.

         "Conditioning Forecasts" Nel elaborated.

         Zara scrambled to recall the concept, had she even heard of them before? Was this a memory loss thing or a secret? "What Conditioning Forecasts? I don't remember any Conditioning Forecasts! What are Conditioning Forecasts?"

         "They're astrological forecasts for conditioning drills" Nel clarified, realizing now she had never even questioned the notion that Zara wouldn't know what they were, that she had never wondered what they were for, herself. "We made them for all the Goldens" she added all she knew. "Every two weeks."

         "Every two weeks?" Zara felt her pulse race as she realized that there was something else she didn't know about her world. "For the Goldens?" Each question only added another. "Why? What are astrological forecasts for?" Did Nolan know? Suddenly she felt sick as that now familiar feeling of having been lied to again was rearing it’s ugly head. "What do you know about the Goldens? What are astrological forecasts for?"

         "Nel didn't know where to begin, hindered and somewhat embarrassed by her own lack of knowledge.

         "I don't know" she confessed, truthfully. "We weren't allowed to ask... We were only taught what we needed to know... I always just thought that you knew."