Chapter 8 Excerpt-Who Are You?

Marcus collapsed in utter exhaustion into the seat at the forward hull of the ship. So many needless lives were lost after the Meticulum ordered his former soldiers to ensure that Thirteen would at last be stopped from completing what he had started from the time before this dimension. He still could not wrap his mind around what could lead him to kill well over a billion human lives. Did he not feel anything at all? Was this compassion he shared with him, Janice and those few odd individuals on-board the ship just a facade to lure them into a false sense of security? To enact some sort of cruel joke to cause them all further pain. Or perhaps in his own twisted sense of irony was Thirteen protecting them since he could not save himself from what he had become after going beyond that horrific veil behind the stars?

"Who are you, Thirteen, what are you. Why are you here." he stated under intense contemplation.

Marcus stirred in discomfort at the thoughts which ravaged his mind over and over again. He and everyone else really had no choice but to be complicite in his plan as the Meticulum had already proven they would willfully destroy everything in existence to ensure their own survival. After the decimation of the reality they escaped from this became a bleak fact that could not be disputed. Yet who or what is Thirteen? How could someone, some thing like that slaughter so many of his own kind; then turn to Marcus pleading in desperation to save all collective realities from the insatiable desire of the Meticulum's endless lust for power and control. One of which he knew was absolutely evil in nature but the other cast a shadow of doubt to what he assumed to be the truest form of that evil. Marcus, however, did not know for certain where the line between Thirteen and the Meticulum were drawn in this regard. Yet Thirteen has stayed true to his word so far and never gave him empty promises which was a common currency to how the Meticulum kept it's mindless subjects under control. Thurteen at least had that going for him so far in his favor.

All he had was some small sense of faith that just maybe after all this was said and done Thirteen would at last redeem himself in some way. Marcus could not deny him that one chance after he revealed to him the truth of his own insidious actions he carried out without question prior to all these events that unfolded. Despite his own hands being drenched in blood Thirteen reached out and saved him regardless of all that he had done. He pushed these thoughts aside for the time being and focused more on the next task at hand for they would all arrive soon once the ship passed through the interdimensional gateway. Marcus was not anticipating a warm welcome either so he began to field dress his weapons in case anything went wrong which would be inevitable one way or another. In time Marcus would know who Thirteen really is and if he was wrong in giving him that chance he would be the one to put him back in his grave with no remote sense of pity or regret .