The Ascent

Chapter 23

Jasmine had expected a lot of different scenarios, but what she read in the diary was far different from anything she had imagined before. Far harder to comprehend, to accept. Even though she was constantly surrounded by clues of what actually happened.

Isaac himself had guessed it all before she, who had seen far more of the bald men, even dared to try to accept it. Probably because it was so mindboggling and life-changing that all her mind wanted to do was build a wall around the information and stop it from surfacing. Ever.

Lost in her thoughts, Jasmine jumped like a cat to the ceiling when Asher gently lowered his hand to her shoulder.

Her reaction caused him to quickly withdraw and smile apologetically.

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," Asher said, unsure how else to define her reaction that seemed far worse than being surprised. "You were so lost in thought and didn't hear me calling your name several times. What's the verdict?"

He said that in a cheerful tone, trying to brighten the mood, not knowing that seeing the light in the darkness might be more impossible than they first thought. What was happening outside their cozy little cave was far scarier than any of them would ever like to know.

Seeing how she didn't react in any way to his clumsy attempt at a joke, Asher knelt before her, trying to catch her eye, to see in her eyes what she was hesitant to share.

"What's going on?" he asked far more seriously than the first time. "What does the diary say?"

Jasmine quickly checked if the children were still busy with the meaningless task of meal preparation, as everything seemed pointless to Jasmine when she knew what she knew. Once she made sure they weren't paying attention to them, she started whispering quickly, sometimes even too fast, what she had discovered.

"The girl's name was Raven. She was from Darendon," Jasmine said, buying some time, unsure how to make the big revelation. "About the same time people started disappearing from our city, something strange happened in her city."

"Darendon is not that far. How is it that different things happened in our city and hers? I expected it would have been the same," Asher said, his fingers drumming incessantly. "What kind of strange things happened there?"

Jasmine swallowed hard, unprepared to say it out loud because saying it would mean confirming that it was true, that nothing they ever believed about their existence was true. All they ever knew was a lie or, at least, incomplete information, and Jasmine wasn't sure if she had enough brain power to process all that.

"One day, large alien spaceships suddenly appeared, hanging over their heads. They never saw them arriving. They were just there. One second, she saw crystal blue skies the next moment the large unfamiliar ships clouded the skies," Jasmine said, taking a deep breath as if she had been underwater for too long. "They were unlike anything they had ever seen. So even before the strange creatures started coming out, they were sure they were not from around here."

Asher's eyes were focused on her more than ever before, making her uncomfortable.

Yet, he didn't seem to be as surprised as Jasmine felt. Even with his limited contact with the bald men, he seemed to have accepted their true nature long before Jasmine even thought of doing so.

"So, they are aliens after all," Asher said pensively, sounding more fascinated than scared. "But why didn't we hear anything about it? It should have been all over the news or something."

"I think it happened a little while after what happened in our city, according to the times and dates Raven jotted down," Jasmine said, cracking her knuckles unconsciously.

"Interesting that they would go to such lengths to hide their identities when invading our city and would so blatantly reveal it to them," Asher said, scrunching up his eyebrows, looking as if he was trying to solve a challenging math equation. "What's the point of the whole bald men charade then?"

"I don't know about that, but I can tell you what happened next," Jasmine said, wanting to release all the information she had, hoping that once she put it out there it might remove some of the tension she felt in every part of her body.

Asher just gestured for Jasmine to continue talking. She did so while part of her mind still doubted if what she had read in the diary were facts or a science fiction story the girl was writing. However, too many things made sense for it to be anything but the truth to Jasmine's utter disappointment.

"The aliens started issuing commands to the citizens. Unlike the idiots in those alien movies, they actually chose to obey. They could clearly see that the invaders' technology was far more advanced and unfamiliar. Thus, they didn't want to lose lives fighting a losing battle," Jasmine said, gesticulating wildly. "I guess they planned to follow their orders until they found a weakness they could exploit. But that might be just too many movies and books I read talking."

Asher didn't say anything, so Jasmine took it as an encouragement to continue sharing what she had learned. Secretly she hoped that Asher might have a different interpretation of it all, that he would tell her there was nothing to worry about and that the humans could deal with anything through perseverance and unity.

"The first thing they ordered them to do was to put all the young people, including Raven, in a bus to be driven away in the unknown direction," Jasmine said, traces of tears fighting to come out already visible in her eyes. "And although many people were terrified for their children, although they wanted to do something to stop that from happening, they still chose not to show even the slightest sign of resistance, hoping the reason they were separated was that the aliens wanted to spare them from whatever terrible fate awaited their parents. They were hoping that would save them."

Tears had already started spilling out of Jasmine's eyes as her vivid imagination could already see how much pain and heartbreak there was, separating parents from their children, breaking families apart. It sounded somehow worse than what took place in her city. At least whatever it was, it was quick. In contrast, Raven's city suffered from a slow and painful uncertainty.

Upon noticing her tears spilling out, racing against each other, Asher produced a paper handkerchief, giving it to Jasmine cautiously.

She gratefully accepted it, wiping away her tears, unable to stop them from coming. It was like when she rewatched movies and started crying before the sad scenes because she knew they were coming.

"What happened next?" Asher asked gently. "What happened to the adults?"

"Raven never did get the chance to learn what happened to her parents," Jasmine said shakily. "The last she saw of them, they were standing at the window looking at her being carded off onto the bus, brushing away their tears."

Asher seemed to want to hug Jasmine when her body started to shake in silent sobs. However, Jasmine moved slightly to the side, indicating that she wasn't prepared for such proximity, at least not at that moment. She needed to tell him everything. Maybe then, she could allow herself the time to fall apart.

"Then they drove away the young ones under the surveillance of strange alien machines that were riding next to the buses, reminding Raven of a combination between a giraffe and a bike," Jasmine said, remembering the odd descriptions Raven gave of them.

"A giraffe and a bike?" Asher asked, confused.

"Yeah, I am not sure what that means either," Jasmine said, trying to interpret a teenager's mind. "My best guess is that it was some two-wheeled machine with one long handlebar or something like that. Either way, what matters is that it was in charge of making sure there was no trouble or escape."

Jasmine could see that even though she had discarded that information as irrelevant, Asher was carefully filing it away in his fascinating brain.

"After some time, they started to hope that everything might be okay as no one was hurt, and the aliens didn't do anything strange," Jasmine continued at an even faster pace. "Soon they reached their destination and were told to exit the bus. That was when everything changed."