Chaos: The Tribunal Emergence, page 1
Chaos
Emergence
Sabreena Rodgers
First Edition published by Kindle Direct Publishing 2024
Copyright © 2024 by Sabreena Rodgers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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First Edition
Advisor: Stephany Rodgers
Advisor: Devon Izzio
Kennedy,
As you prepare to venture into the vast expanses of life’s journeys, I want you to carry with you the unwavering belief in your own greatness. Never allow fear to shackle your ambitions, for you are a remarkable and extraordinary young woman, deserving of every success the world has to offer. Always remember, whatever your focus, is what will manifest. I love you.
To all my supporters, thank you for keeping me going!
one
Aria
It started as a story, passed on from person to person. A recollection of events, happenings, instructions. Then mankind found a way to poison that, leaving out the parts that did not suit their need at the time. Changing small details to favor an agenda. With the new knowledge of writing, stories were put down to preserve them. Mankind found a way to poison this as well, at times through interpretation, ommitance, or simply through summarization. It was found that if a piece of knowledge was too powerful, simply leave it out of the writings, and over time it would become forgotten. Today mankind can explode entire nations leaving nothing but devastation behind, but that is not the real power. The real power lies in the recording. The incident is only as powerful as the recording.
***
Aria
My bed is amazing, the one thing in this whole house that I did not go cheap on. I struggle with sleep most nights, so a good bed, good pillows, and good sheets - were my top priority when I moved in. I started here with barely anything. I thought it would be fun to sell almost everything I owned and start completely over. Like the ultimate spring cleaning, or New Year’s resolution - new house new things - I told myself. I really love my bed, so why am I still desperately reaching into the depths of the darkness to find a sliver of sleep? I have turned, repositioned, stretched out for the cold spots, went pee, and repeated the process over a hundred times, and still - total failure. I worked hard today, hard enough to leave me mentally and physically exhausted. Sleep should be knocking on my mental door, I shouldn’t be searching for it, but here I am. It’s stressful to check my phone for the time and see that the hours tick by leaving the window of rest smaller and smaller. When I do manage to get any sleep it’s bombarded with wild and confusing dreams that feel so real they usually leave me wondering when I wake if I slept at all.
It’s already 1 a.m. - I have to drag myself into the shower by 5 a.m. if I stand a chance to make it to my hall by 6. It’s time to focus, I will not survive all day on my feet tomorrow if I do not find sleep! I lay as still as I possibly can, imagining each one of my limbs becoming limp, almost to where I cannot feel them as being part of my body. I let my ears tune in to the wind sounds rustling past the windows, as if it were a violin grazing the strings of sleep, creating an organic lullaby. I focus only on this, letting it consume every fiber of my being until finally, sleep finds me.
***
“Only here will you find your answers”. The words feel like they are inside me and surrounding me all at one time. I can smell damp ground but it is too dark to see anything. I can feel energy all around me like a faint buzzing feeling waiting to be held onto and unleashed all at the same time.
“Only here will you find the answers”. The words come again, each time clearer than the last, it's a woman’s voice, I think. I am not sure if I am awake or asleep. I can almost see a glimmer of light in the distance, like where the sunset meets complete darkness.
“Only here will you find your answers, but first you must find your questions” they ring out again. I reach out brushing my fingers across the ground, I feel leaves and moss, dampness, earth. Im outside? The faint glimmer in the distance starts to change from a dark honey color to a burnt orange. A flash of green lights up all of my surroundings and in an instant - darkness.
***
I sit up, sweat pouring from every pore on my body. The only thing I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears only interrupted by the rapid breathing coming from my chest. I am clearly in my bed, inside my room - it was just a dream. I reach for my phone dreading to see the time since I’m pretty sure I only achieved about 10 minutes of actual sleep… 4:59… OK, so I managed to get almost 4 hours of sleep. It will have to do. I drag myself out from under my covers placing my feet on the floor to get my bearings. The second I stand I can feel every bit of yesterday’s work day still living in the souls of my feet. Today is going to be a long day.
I picked this house because it is only 6 minutes from my job. The job I’ve only been at for three days. It's a small house, but it’s perfect for me, plus it has a yard. I would trade all the fancy apartments in town to have at least a small patch of grass for myself. Growing up with miles of woods to my disposal makes city living a culture shock for me, but when Grace Memorial offered me the day shift lead position over the surgical recovery floor I couldn’t pass it up. Although I live in town now, with its constant wave of commuter traffic and corporate coffee shops on every corner, I am only twenty-three miles from the national forest with abundant woods to explore on my off days.
The job is worth it. My small town hospital at home did not even have a surgery floor to speak of, not unless you count the colonoscopies that the local primary care doc performed there as a surgery program. Healing has always been important to me, and surgery recovery is almost instant gratification. Not all patients who come through are quick recoveries, of course, some go through grueling procedures that take weeks or even months to recover from. But, there are more quick recoveries than long ones. To watch a person who has lived in pain for years, get a hip or joint replacement, and then feel like a whole new person despite being cut into, is refreshing. Being a part of that recovery lets me be a part of their new beginning.
Walking what feels like two miles from my car to the front doors is all it took for the soles of my feet to remind me that I did not sleep enough to wear off yesterday’s fatigue. I remind myself that the job is worth it! I haven’t made friends here yet, I barely remember names even, and home is eleven hours too far away to hang out with my old friends. The job is worth it. As I head for the elevators, the front desk receptionist waves me down. I know her name is Denise, I met her at my orientation, and she’s one of those people you don’t forget. She instantly makes you feel like family like you’ve known her your whole life.
“Darling, your badge was ready in HR, but I went ahead and grabbed it for you to save you the trip!” Her smile is so contagious I cannot help by smile in return as I tell her thank you.
“Are you settling in? Moved in and all? I know you don’t know people here yet so just let me know if you need any help and I’ll bring my husband over to do the work while we supervise” she says with a giggle.
I thank her and head towards the elevators looking over my new badge. I know it’s just a badge, almost every job out there has them, but this is the first badge I have had that reads “Aria Ashton, RN, BSN”. It’s just a few more initials after my name, but I earned those initials all on my own and worked hard enough along the way to end up recruited to this job fresh out of school. It helps that I went to nursing school straight out of high school and got my LPN, which paid my way through RN school.
The floor was busy today, to the point I barely had time to run down and inhale a salad in the cafeteria. My body is currently fueled by 6 cups of coffee, one salad, and half of a protein bar. I came in this morning to eight new admits from last night, with the eight we already had, and nine people there for pre-op. Being the shift lead means a lot of running back and forth, quadruple-checking everything, and stacks of documentation. Two hours left to finish off my shift, and I am already daydreaming about my awesome bed that I hope has some awesome sleep in store for me.
As I finish up my final rounds, I receive a call from the front desk. It’s the hospital’s chaplain, asking if I could escort him to see a patient on my floor who is set up for a lung transplant. Of course, I say yes. I have a
When we enter, I am immediately taken aback by the patient’s condition. He’s a young man, probably around my age. His face is pale and drawn, his eyes seem to be searching for something. His breathing is labored and I can hear the faint hiss of an oxygen tank. The chaplain introduces me to the patient, letting me know he may have some pre-op questions for me. The patient nods, and the chaplain turns to leave us alone. I take a seat next to the bed, unsure of what to say. The patient looks at me and I can feel the weight of his gaze.
“Do you believe in magic?” he asks suddenly. I am taken aback by the question. On a normal day, I would laugh and brush it off, but I feel something familiar, a buzz, just out of reach, waiting to be grabbed hold of but also waiting to be unleashed.
two
Archer
I'm pretty sure I am asleep, but here I am, in the dark somewhere unfamiliar. This is the third time and every time feels a little more intense. It’s damp wherever I am, and I cannot see anything except for what looks like an eclipse. The first time I was here the piece of what I think is a moon was barely a sliver, but each time the sliver grows a little wider. At first, I thought death had found me since I have been tiptoeing around it most of my life. I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at a young age, and there are days I am positive my lungs are done. I should be scared in this darkness, but I am not. I feel more alive here than I have in years. Here, in the dark, in the unknown place which I think is “deep sleep,” I can breathe. I am not in pain. My body feels strong, new, and powerful.
There is a constant hum of energy around me, almost like it begs me to touch it. I have an overwhelming sensation that I am here to learn something, but I don't know what. I can feel the ground beneath me, cold and damp. Before I fell asleep, I truly felt that tonight was the night I would leave this world for good. But in this darkness I feel the humming energy filling my body, tearing out the bad making room for something new. As if it is cutting out my failing lungs and replacing them. Like magic. Not the magic we grew up watching on children’s shows, like a powerful force that is connected to the earth, wielding itself inside of me and fixing me. It’s warm, and cold, all at the same time. It’s light and dark all at the same time. I feel the power growing, and right when I start to feel like this somehow could be real, that I am not asleep, a sound cuts through the air, ripping me out of my sleep and back into the real world.
I wake up, sweating, and grasping to fill my lungs with air. The sound is so loud, it feels like it’s coming from inside of me. I realize the sound is my phone, it’s just my phone. I fumble around in the darkness of my room to find my phone to make the noise stop. When I see the number on the screen, my whole world skips a beat - it's the transplant line. I think that I force out the words “hello” but I am not really sure. The woman on the line sounds calm and collected. She verifies my information and asks me to hold.
Moments feel like hours, days even, and when she comes back on the phone, she tells me to report to Grace Memorial immediately for pre-op. This is the call I have been waiting for since I was young. I have had a hospital bag packed for years just for this. I cannot trust myself to drive, so I have had the apartment manager on alert since he offered to help. I grab my bag and make my way out the door and down the hall to his. Three knocks is all it takes for him to swing the door open, he doesn't ask questions, he's been waiting for this day just as I have. My family offered to move here to be nearby, but I was tired of being a burden to those I love, So I found people less invested.
The staff at the hospital already know why I am coming in the second I make it through the doors. Most of the staff know me since I am in and out all the time. They take me right up to the surgical floor and put me in a room. My doctor comes in, but he already knows he does not have to go over everything with me, we've been close before and covered all the information that time. Every surgery has risks, I know that, and a transplant has its added risks. As usual, they send the chaplain in to speak with me, to mentally prepare me in case this goes the wrong way.
The Chaplain walks in, he's an older gentleman with a genuine smile on his face. He sat by my bed and prayed over me. He asked me if I had any questions, but I couldn't answer, I know at this moment I am for sure awake, but the same buzz of energy fills my head, the same feeling I had in my dream. I guess since I did not respond, he said he would be back with a nurse to answer any questions I may have.
After he leaves the room, the buzz grows louder and feels stronger. It feels as if I could reach out and grab it at any moment. I can see faint hints of sunrise outside my window, but the sun has not overcome the night sky yet. Just as the buzz grows to a strength I feel might break me, a bright flash of green light skates across the sky and through my room, somehow letting me know that everything is going to be alright.
I know the chaplain and a nurse have walked into the room, but I cannot focus on them because the buzz is taking over my body, it’s intense, I don't think I can handle much more of the invisible energy, and then someone touches my hand. She touches my hand. The buzz stops but leaves me with a feeling of comfort.
“Do you believe in magic?” It comes out before I can stop it, I instantly regret saying something so childish, until I realize she is looking at me like… she felt it too.
three
Aria
I can see it in his eyes, his dull brown eyes show every ounce of pain that he is in. I can also see that he felt it too, the buzz. I look over to the chaplain who is hanging back in the doorway, who shows no signs of feeling anything “strange” in the air. I’m sure if I were one of those romantic fantasy girls I would assume that the buzz was some fate of attraction. I would let it flow stories through my mind making me believe I had found my soulmate and didn’t know it yet.
That’s not what the buzz is. It’s something different. Something ethereal, out of reach but screaming to be held on to. I felt it in the dream, just like I feel it now. But I have to push the strange feeling to the side because a patient in pain lies in a bed in front of me. We don’t speak aside from his question. My hand is on his hand, the buzz stopped, but I can feel tendrils of his pain radiating from his hand to mine. I close my eyes and I pray that every step of his transplant goes perfectly. I pray he doesn’t reject it, that his body flourishes, and that he feels the rejuvenation.
As I continue to pray, the buzz slowly makes its way back into the room, quieter, controlled. I feel it inside me, tingling inside me, making its way down my arm and into his hand. Maybe I am hallucinating… I didn’t get much sleep and today has been long. I know the side effects of no sleep. I finish my prayer and open my eyes to see him staring at me. Fear? Confusion? I’m not sure what I see in his eyes now. He asked me about magic, but I brushed it off since I was not sure how to respond. I let him know that his transplant team should be with him shortly and that I hope his surgery goes well.
The doors slide open to the front of the hospital, and I am met with a brush of cool evening air. Today was a long day, but every day is a long day. I still have enough time for errands before I attempt to get some more sleep tonight. I’m off tomorrow, but I have a day full of unpacking, so I can quit paying for that storage unit. I need cleaning supplies, cleaning my whole house with window cleaner is not practical! I also need food, today’s lunch has far worn off and I know there’s only ketchup and milk in the fridge at home.
***
I was quick at the store, I know I went in for the basics but somehow came home with bags of unnecessary items — like most women’s “grocery runs” go. I unpack my bags and sit down on the bean bag I’m using as living room furniture to eat my dinner. My feet secretly thank me for the rest. I take a look around my new home and smile, I know I have to score some furniture and such, but it feels so good to start fresh. I have a million ideas of what I want my space to look like, I just have to make time to get it there! Before I can do that though, I have to get through the stuff I put in storage. I take a mental inventory of the items I did keep, it should only take me half the day to get through it tomorrow. When I started packing to move, I told myself if I didn’t love an item, if I could easily replace it with something better, it had to go. So what I was left with was simple stuff.
