The Justiceers - Part Six: Chapter Fifteen
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Three: The Will to Choose
Part Four: Prefinished Business
Part Six: Death Rides a Horse
6.15
Miriam Halafax — former Captain of The Artemis, recent vestige of departed evil, immolated child of grace — had left much to be desired in terms of subtlety through her longest journey. She’d gone hard here in Yemi to close it out, and it led her straight to failure. Or rather, that’s how things seemed to her right now.
In truth, her part had been played most completely, ripples from her actions cast into the universe would have far greater effect than she’d realize. Even those doings which seemed needlessly challenging of others, or wrought purely from the traumas of her lifetime so coded within the body. They’d all been in line with her soul’s purpose of divine remaking. She’d changed herself through every one, learning, growing, and finding ways to navigate more difficult contrasts of emotional reality than most would ever hope to.
Then she’d gone mad, turned evil, and become the devil itself.
Miriam was best at forgiving, because she’d lots of practice on herself. Yet, this great undoing wasn’t a burden of shame she could bear the weight of going forward, nor something she’d forgive herself for. With everything having gone so poorly, the memory would wear her down in the end. This body which carried her back from the future, torn in two by the darkest ways it’d turned, was ground to the bone. The heart inside would be prone to give at any moment from the hurt it held so long. She would choose to fearlessly move beyond, finding redemption waiting for her there. That would be enough.
There’d been such projection on her part. Unwitnessing the depths of evil inside, those pathways of existing which had made her all of who she was, birthed by the attachment she retained throughout her greatest traversal of time. So much unseen pain had been loaded into those hidden layers of her energy. She’d made terrible decisions with them.
Yet there was also a sight of most divine nature playing in this woman’s inner vision, which went back through her life, towards that future she’d left behind and further. It could see evil in everything most clearly now. The ways it twisted and curled, ensnaring people within its ways, remaking them by darkness into all they were not. Even the best of people had it in them; her favorite people.
This was going to be her time to die, and she knew it. At very last she would let go of her pain and struggle, finding release from the impossible wanting of her heart, and peace would be hers to own for eternity. No matter the depths she’d fallen to in this lifetime, the horrors created in her darkest moments, the net change she’d make in the world was for the positive. It was for Omirion.
Malta’s gravity was fierce. Even inside her containment within the very last Noruki fighter craft — her own final Fury — she was feeling herself pulled most powerfully downward. She’d not have a place to land her ship, as there were no human constructions left upon Malta after the destruction wrought here by the forces of evil.
Water would be a highest priority, the procurement and dispersal of it a most needed thing to coordinate, absorbing the energy of many survivors to obtain needed quantities going forward. Without the emplacements of water-harvesting tankers and trawlers which had previously owned such space about the planet, people were already living off the reserves in their ships.
None of this mattered to Miriam. She knew they were in good hands.
There was an immense release to the sensation which would come from letting go so completely. She’d not have to worry about any of this anymore, and that relief was a most palpable thing. Living in this universe, and all the time she’d been trapped moving backwards towards purposes which would never be fulfilled for herself, was not something she was going to miss.
At least, she didn’t think so yet.
No matter, this was her time, she wasn’t mistaken there, it had been written this way and a part of her felt the rightness to it, despite how poorly she felt to go without that chance to heal the way she’d want.
There was absolutely no part of her which knew what would happen — what she was about to become — the meaning her sacrifice would gift this system. She just knew there was no way for her to go on. This had been enough; too much.
Tossing aside those last graspings of false-hope she might receive some message from those she still cared for so deeply in her heart, understanding they’d be on with their lives and long past thinking of her themselves, Miriam opened the cargo hatch in the rear of her cockpit. Without a thought or breath to worry she’d let go of her final control; the grasp on life itself.
Miriam Halafax had dropped straight through the hatch, arms folded over her chest, looking down past her booted feet as they quickly approached the mammoth swells of Malta’s sea immediately growing so near.
She’d plunged inside, instantaneously freezing within the core of her body, having most severe reactions to the toxic contents of its chemistry, refusing to let her final moments be of fright regardless of the physical horror.
Miriam allowed herself to find the light in her heart, and through it her memories which would always be most cherished, going farther back than she’d ever believe.
She saw her childhood, that life she’d pretended to be a boy. It was sweet to see now. He’d been a kind and damaged little trooper. Dealing with the world he was born into wouldn’t have been easy for anyone. The way his family had doubled down on societies expectations had only made things worse.
Still, the resilience of Miriam’s spirit would never be snuffed out, and she would learn to fly and thrive, to live and love, becoming a person she’d always wished to know herself. There were so many memories which flew past, all of joy, but there were some which called her to linger. Precious times spent with those she’d loved in her life, Arthur in particular, and the way she’d felt in their arms.
Each and every breath she’d taken in those spaces, in the arms of peace, would forever be the moments which made Miriam Halafax’s life worth it.
