CLOUD NINE

Chapter 48

JURIAN

"Jurian could feel himself screaming as his feet hit solid ground. He felt like someone had punched a hole through his gut. He had felt Alizeh using all of her power to transport him back. The force had literally slapped him through the time-space. He clutched his body and collapsed to the floor, tears running freely. He was gasping and sobbing.

"Jurian, what happened?" he heard many voices whispering urgently at the same time.

"Your clothes are burnt, your skin is raw."

"We lost connection with you."

"Cyanide isn't responding too."

A cacophony of concerned voices sounded around him. But he couldn't get up. The emptiness and the guilt felt like a boulder pressing him to the ground. Someone was making him sit up, supporting his back.

"Where's Alizeh?" Jace's voice was clear at his ear.

The mention of her brought in a fresh wave of nerve-wracking sobs as Jurian hugged him.

"Man up, Jurian and tell us what happened," someone commented from the crowd.

"Shut the hell up, will you?" Jace shouted at the voice, "If he wants to cry, he'll cry. Men don't need to be unfeeling to be a man. We all have our weaknesses.

"Jurian, where is Alizeh," Jace shook him, hard.

"I..." Jurian's throat choked up again.

"You're going into shock. Stay awake, stay focused. What happened?" Jace shook him harder.

"She sacrificed herself," Jurian wailed between sobs, "She used her life force to teleport me out of the burning basement."

Some gasps were heard.

"No. it can't be true," Nina sank to the floor, her head in her hands.

"Do you want to go and see? Maybe the fire engines had put out the fire? Maybe she was saved by them at the last moment. You don't know yet," Jace offered.

"Yes," Jurian shot up on his feet, "Yes, yes, yes!" he repeated slowly, as if trying to convince himself that it was the truth.

"I'm driving. Follow me," Jace whipped out his car keys and the two of them dashed into their Cloud Vehicle. Ignoring the traffic, they sped through the streets. Both were silent, pondering the inevitability of the situation. If Jace thought it was impossible for Alizeh to have survived, he didn't mention it out loud.

The car slowed as they fell into the high street. The vehicles were crawling at a snail's pace.

"Dammit," Jurian hit the dashboard. A dimple formed in the metal.

"Don't damage the car, superboy," Jace gave a humourless smile. Jurian didn't even fully appreciate the reference to their time at the research lab. His mind was preoccupied with possibilities. If Alizeh was really dead, what would he do?

The car sped up for a while but again they had to go slow.

"What the fuck!" Jurian fidgeted with the car door and flung it open mid-drive.

The drivers behind honked in frustration. He rolled out without any warning and slammed the door. Taking to the footpath he started running fast. It was an effort to keep humanly speed as all he wanted was to use his superhuman powers.

In ten minutes flat, he found smoke billowing out of a building some distance away. The firemen had cordoned off the area with neon tape. People were hanging on the borders of the tape, looking at the collapsed building, murmuring among themselves. It took Jurian massive amounts of effort to not cross over the line and run to the building. He didn't want to draw more attention than was necessary.

"What happened here?" he asked to a tall, burly fellow, who was wearing the red uniform of fire tenders.

"There was an explosion. Almost all of the president's guards were in the building. We had news that the president was hiding here with his personal assistant."

Jurian bit his lips from commenting at the last part.

"The president is dead and so are his guards. He however sent some messages before he died," another man from the crowd supplied.

"And the newly elected present promises to honour his last words. What a calamity," an old lady sniffed.

"Any survivors?" Jurian ignored them.

"No. we found bodies of nine men and one woman, unrecognizable due to them being charred completely. Now we've sent for a DNA test to see..." the words of the volunteer were lost on him as Jurian didn't wait to hear more.

"One woman..." the words kept ringing in his ears.

He wandered off into the road, walking along the footpath, without a destination in mind. His thoughts turned in a tornado of fear and the miasma of despair hung heavy in the air around him. He couldn't dare go back to the base. He had failed them all. All those familiar faces that were waiting for Alizeh to return, smiling and victorious. They would look time and again for Agent Cyanide to come and burst through the door, and start instructing everybody in her characteristic bossy tone.

Alizeh's smile, her gorgeous chocolate eyes, her soft lips like carnation petals and how he felt when they kissed. She had cried as she said goodbye. She had meant the goodbye and how she'd love him even in the life after death.

Lost in his own thoughts, Jurian hadn't noticed when he had reached the shimmering grey wall that signified the edge of the cloud. He looked around. He was well and truly alone with not a soul in sight. His hands absentmindedly roamed to his pocket. They touched a cold metallic thing. Jurian drew out his gun and looked at it longingly. It still had one bullet left. It was enough.

That one bullet was enough to end this suffering and take him to where she was now. She seemed to smile even in death. In a trance, Jurian lifted the gun to his head.

His phone vibrated aggressively just then. His oneiric thoughts evaporated as he threw the gun away from himself. Then he scrambled to reach the phone.

An unknown number was flashing on his screen.