The Partisan Chronicles [Dystopia | Supernatural | Mystery]

Zacharias & Sebastian

Where to begin is as simple as beginning at the beginning.
I was born Zacharias Adler in a city occupying the land now known as Verena, on the border of present-time Delphia. My mother—

Our mother.

—our mother was a seamstress, and our father was a schoolteacher. A vibrant and popular upper-middle class couple excited to be expecting their first. I seemed an ordinary child, born ordinarily, bearing the fairer complexion of my mother and the amber eyes of my father. But they soon identified an anomaly in my design, ever more apparent when came the time for me to walk. I was born with one leg significantly shorter than the other. A detriment to my dexterity and unsightly, to boot. Needless to say, I was not a popular boy.

And I was born Sebastian Adler, three years after Zacharias to the same parents. Unlike my brother, they discovered the anomaly in my design early. My eyes, a shocking shade of grey. Small, white fluffs atop my newborn head with eyebrows to match. I'd inherited neither the olive complexion of our father, nor the sunkissed glow of our mother. My skin white as the snow from the tops of the tallest mountains. Our parents had always wanted a big family, but after me, they agreed two was enough.

You must understand, our parents were deeply proud of their sons.

I sincerely beg to differ.

What else could they have done? The people believed Sebastian to be cursed, that my parents were cursed furthermore, and this very curse was the reason my left leg had failed to grow at the same rate as the other. It was completely absurd, but such were the times. In many ways more advanced than today's society, but in many ways—

What else could they have done? Why, they could have found other, more creative ways to keep us safe than shamefully locking us away. And the torment they put you through, my brother, with those pathetic pins and rods? A painful and pointless experiment.

True, the metal contraption our parents saw screwed into my flesh and bone did next to nothing to lengthen my leg, but at least they had tried to do something. Our parents weren't perfect, but they did all they could to ensure cruelty and pain free lives for their sons.

By inflicting cruelty and pain. Are you all hearing this?

You've made your point, Sebastian.

Have I? But we'll move on nonetheless. Cursed, and our parents were outcast. Our mother no longer a seamstress, our father no longer a schoolteacher. No longer vibrant or popular, my friends. We were forced out of our family home and into the publicly funded tenements. Eventually, our mother found a job as a night-cleaner for a sympathetic family friend, working in an archive.
Squirreled away as we were.

Our father became our live-in educator. Strict, but—

Our father was a nightmare.

Our father wanted the best for us. Our lives were difficult enough as it was. But if we had something special to offer, if we were nurtured to have great, forward-thinking minds, and great, creative talent, then people might overlook the flaws in our design. I excelled in sciences and maths, and Sebastian in arts and language.

We were two halves of the same coin, and Zacharias and I spent every waking hour in each other's company. In the meanwhile, our parents had been surreptitiously saving for what they were sure would be the solution. Zacharias was ever tapping, swearing he saw notes in numbers. And I was ever humming, pulling melody from thin air and harmonizing along with every day sounds. We had started developing Symphonic without yet understanding.

Our parents found a music teacher willing to give us lessons. Each night under the cover of darkness, we traveled to his studio—the man who would teach us everything we knew, and whom we would soon surpass in skill. When I was thirteen and Sebastian was ten, he introduced us to a wealthy benefactor. With our new patronage, our mother focused exclusively on creating a wardrobe that would set us apart from any other traveling acts at the time.
Bold, colourful suits, a cane for myself, and masks to conceal Sebastian's eyes.

By the time I was fourteen, the Vonsinfonie Brothers and our entourage had circled the world thrice. Exhilarating, and exhausting, and there was nothing more we would have preferred to be doing together. But the legends seem to forget we were famous first as as children—over-worked, exploited, and stolen from.

Assaulted.

Assaulted.

But now we digress. Our early years on the road granted unparalleled fame and wealth, and the latter years even more so. No longer only music, but our company toured with thespians, dancers, illusionists, and circus acts all accompanied by our curated sound. Avis was Sebastian's age and the youngest daughter of our wealthy benefactor. By the time I was twenty-one, she was touring with us full-time as a caricature artist. She was infuriating, talented, and beautiful, but she was in love with Sebastian.

Zacharias is sorely mistaken. It was no secret I orient towards men, especially from her. Avis enjoyed my company because I was safe. Many were vying for her attention, but she had eyes only for my brother. He'd become a more intimidating presence, more guarded. In a sense, growing closer to me felt like growing closer to him.

Intimidating? Hardly. But the inevitable romance ignited, and we were married when I was twenty-six in a wildly public ceremony. By then, Avis had newly entered into a partnership with two others. A promising concept for a series of children's stories that would incorporate art, literature, and innovation. For Avis, that meant retiring from the troupe and moving nearer to Leberecht. We bought a mansion in Amsteg.

Time passed. We had opened the music school by then, and it was business as usual on tour: home for a few months and gone for several more. This went on for five, six years until tragedy struck the troupe. Thespians, dancers, illusionists, and circus acts. The sickness ran its course for months, withering and wasting three-quarters of our crew, our parents included. Some who'd been afflicted survived but remained at death's door.
I concealed a cough for weeks.

I still haven't forgiven you for that, or myself for not having noticed.

You should forgive us both, Zacharias. What difference would it have made?

…We buried our friends and family and returned home to grieve. Sebastian was living with me and Avis at the time. A matter of convenience more than anything. Though unlike my idiot brother who concealed his truth, my wife couldn't conceal hers: she was happy we were home. She did everything to convince me to stay.

And why wouldn't she be happy, on some level? I may be the idiot brother, but I was keen enough to see what Zacharias could not. Avis was in mourning as well. Her heart was breaking for those she'd grown up alongside. But she was, too, happy we were home. My brother had promised her a family, and so far—

Avis understood our schedule when she married me, Sebastian. There simply wasn't enough time, not for everything. Her business wasn't yet prospering, and our name funded the lifestyle she demanded. She couldn't have it all. There simply wasn't enough time!

Never enough time, he said. Meanwhile, my friends, I was slowly running out. Avis was the first to notice the signs of the sickness. She convinced me to tell my brother who then ushered me here, there, and everywhere, seeing doctors and alternative practitioners left and right. Everything to a timetable with him. Never a moment to breathe, and I was struggling to breathe as it was. I was given months to live, nothing they could do.

After hearing the news, it seemed Avis became not only desperate but delusional in finding a remedy. And when all failed, she recalled to us an old fable: legends of an elixir that would cure all that ails. There was no evidence any such elixir had ever been produced. But Avis has a colourful imagination, and she believed if we followed the clues, we could save Sebastian's life.

And so, we planned our final world tour. Just the two of us—following one whimsical clue after another as we entertained the masses. We were searching for six storybook creatures, my friends: aquatic forms said to influence the mind, miniature critters said to move more quickly than the human eye, forests—strong and steadfast, yet as alive as you and I.

Prophetic fire-birds. Wandering spirits. Shapeshifters. We found them all, didn't we Sebastian? But the details of our quest are extensive, and perhaps one day we will share them with you. What matters here, today, is we had found what we were looking for: the elixir to cure all ails. Two luminescent doses.

It was the final leg of our journey, and we were stranded somewhere in present-day Endica. We sat beneath a tree, my fingers failing to grasp the bottle long enough to bring it to my own lips. Zacharias fed the elixir to me, the way he would feed me breakfast when I was an infant. I drank it all, and nothing happened. Nothing until I took one last breath.
There was no coming back.
The world went still when I was taken from it.

That wasn't supposed to happen! I was but half of a whole without my brother. Sebastian was dead and what had I done but stolen his time? Pushed his body to the limits for a make-believe miracle that had robbed him of his final moments? What was I thinking?

You're wrong. It was the best time of my life, Zacharias. On that quest with you. Our tour—us alone, following our hearts, and doing what we loved. I would have died anyway.

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I know, but—no, never mind. I carried my brother's body through the snow for hours, though my mobility was suffering due to chronic pain in my leg and hip. If I wanted to survive, I had no choice but to leave Sebastian behind and continue home. I said a private goodbye to my brother and buried him in the snow before traveling another excruciating day. But what if—? Had it simply been too late for Sebastian? Perhaps if I—I raised the elixir to my lips. And if it should kill me? Oh well. Nothing until I took one last breath.
There was no coming back.
The world had gone still already when you were taken from it.

...I awoke to complete darkness and cold, trapped, but why wasn't I suffocating? And why did I feel so…? I plowed through the barrier with my bare hands, soon finding myself on the surface, still somewhere in the middle of a blizzard in a desolate snow-scape. But where was Zacharias? And why was I—? He must have thought I was dead. But I was alive, and more than ever, my friends! It was dark but I could see everything. My brother must have gone home, but why would he leave me behind? Then again, it wouldn't have been the first time.

Like when, for example?

Almost every night when you'd have dinner with your scholar friends instead of me. Why was I never invited along with you? Frankly, for all the time we spent together, it was surprisingly difficult finding the time to spend with you.

You hated my scholar friends, Sebastian.

True, but I don't—I didn't hate you.

And I didn't abandon you that day, brother. I had every intention of sending for your body, and when I woke up, like you, cold and alive more than ever, I returned to find you already gone. And it was fortunate you were.

Fortunate when I returned home to Avis giving birth to a child we didn't know she was expecting? When the nurse told me she'd lost too much blood? Was it fortunate when I laid my hand against her face, sobbing, feeling—something—a flow of energy from within, a flow of energy from without. Two, one for each life she represented. I was so hungry, and something was happening—but what? Was it fortunate when I killed her?

You saved their lives, Sebastian.

No, the nurse saved Jakob's life when she cut him from your wife's womb. I destroyed their lives, Zacharias! Was it a good thing, my friends, that when my nephew opened his eyes, they were just like mine? "Freak! It's cursed!" the nurse screamed, and I snapped. I locked eyes with hers and wrapped my hands around her neck. She was so weak, judging an innocent child. Her lifeless body collapsed and I was no longer hungry. Jakob, crying on the floor.

You saved their lives, Sebastian.

Don't remind me. Because of me, Avis returned irregular. Jakob? A prisoner. Between her obsession and your compulsion, and I—I should have sooner set myself on fire than return home. I knew something wasn't right. It didn't feel right. It's all my fault.

All your fault if only it had ended there.
I returned home to my brother weeping in a heap on the floor, cradling my newborn son. My wife lay covered in blood in our bed, but before my eyes, the wound in her abdomen was healing. I was so angry with Sebastian. With myself. Whatever that elixir had done to us, it wasn't right. And now Avis, too? And what were we to do with the dead nurse? And my son! Was he now destined to live the same tortured childhood as we? How did this happen?

You all know Jakob's story by now. Years of isolation, a power he didn't understand. We barely understood our own. I sought to run from my guilt. Zacharias from his loss of control.

I did nothing of the sort. I simply wanted our lives back.

Whatever you say, Zacharias. I say we ignored what was strange by pretending everything was normal.
We went on tour again, our music now affecting the audience in extreme, visceral ways. Thousands of people reduced to tears all at once. Thousands of people bursting with joy and jubilation. Our fans became obsessive. Dangerous, if we weren't even more dangerous. Our audience became our sustenance. We left our mark on the world, and my brother…

As much as I enjoyed performing music with Sebastian, I confess: I missed the community of our troupe. I wanted—well, I don't know what I wanted, because it was a compulsion beyond my control, you understand. Each new Anima I created became a valuable member of our caravan; the audience had never seen anything like them. Incredible feats of strength, agility, illusion—we had taken our show to a whole new level.

Naturally, I disapproved of everything. I threatened to leave, not once, but dozens of times over the years. But where would I go? What would I do? Who was I without Zacharias? If I went home, I might see Jakob for a few hours before Avis and I would undoubtedly start arguing about his living conditions. I thought about stealing him away, but while on break from our tour, we returned home to find him disfigured and dying. We three argued often, but never like that…

I saved his life, Sebastian. Just as you saved hers.

I didn't know what I was doing. But you acted knowingly, and selfishly, and then you left him with Avis. A thousand years, Zacharias! You both told me he'd been slain after his attack on Amsteg. You lied to me because you knew I wouldn't approve of the experiment.

Correct. Your high moral ground would have only stood in the way while I focused my efforts where they should have been: with my wife and on finding a solution for our boy.

We all know how that went, don't we?
And without Zacharias's order and command, and without the tour to keep them in check, my brother's crew went wild. Spreading our pestilence throughout the lands. Without the need to sleep, to eat, and somehow, none of us were aging. Almost overnight it seemed, whole networks and cities were built on the underground. It wasn't long before the Anima ruled the world.
You can thank Zacharias for that.

I've already confessed my mistake, Sebastian.

Mistake? A mistake is an orange suit with your complexion.

Well, I beg to differ. Now, is this the part where you went behind my back?

I tried talking to you first. You wouldn't listen. You never do.

All they needed was guidance, Sebastian. Someone to believe in them the way we were believed in. The violence, the confusion—only growing pains. We could have shown them the way, you and I. We could have taught them, the way our father taught us until—

The way you taught Jakob?

Jakob was special. Avis and I were going to cure Jakob. And then we were going to cure us all.

When will you finally learn that you can't control everything, Zacharias? When will you admit that your denial destroyed the world?

You're wrong. The world was progressing beyond measure, more than it had in centuries. If we could have only persisted through the worst, the possibilities for the future were endless.

No, you're wrong.

And what you did in response to what I did is so much better?

Please understand: I don't regret what I did, but I deeply regret what became of it.
Remember, Jakob had shown great feats of strength as a boy without any obvious drawbacks. What if I tried to make more like him? Could this help society survive better against the Anima? I regret to admit, it had taken trial and error, but I discovered a way to empower the unborn without harming the mother.
Some came into the world with strength, some with speed, and—well, you know.

Yes, everybody knows. And now they all know that you, Sebastian Vonsinfonie, took people's lives into your own hands when you created your heroes to fight what you perceived as my villains.

I didn't force anybody to fight, Zacharias. I only provided people with a means to survive in the world they were already, unfortunately, being brought into—the twisted world you perpetuated with your boundless empathy for monsters.

With a name like the Blessed Ones? What choice did they really have, Sebastian?

What choice did any of us have? Desperate times, Zacharias. And unlike you and your Anima, I didn't give the collective a name. I thought, instead, they might like to use their own!

You're so charming when you're pretending to be noble. I see how it works.
But what did the Blessed Ones do, you ask? They propagated until they themselves became more and more like the Anima. Not immortal, and never as potent, but close. Six women in particular had become notably powerful over several generations of cross-breeding: Amalia, Delphia, Seneca, Stracha, Celestia, and Endica.
They came to me one day asking for reanimation. I refused.

Finally, a sensible decision. But it didn't matter much in the end.
Though we may never know how, the six women had learned our secret to immortality. If only they could get the elixir for themselves, they would become the ultimate Anima. With enough elixir, they could turn the others like them into the ultimate Anima, and—

By the time I learned what they were after, it was too late.
My brother's children had harvested the mystical world dry, rendering our old storybook friends extinct, all so they could… do what? We were still uncertain of their plan. But when Sebastian and I met for one of our peace talks, we finally found ourselves in alignment again. The Six had to be stopped.

And that was when we wrote our final song together: the Cursed Canticle. Our music had weight, my friends. It had teeth. It had more power than anything the world had ever seen. We planned a meeting with them, where we would surprise them with the song, but—go on, Zacharias. Tell them how you betrayed me.

I didn't betray you. I made a decision.

Tell them.

Fine. I first met with the Six without Sebastian, and without my brother's self-righteous commentary there to raise their spines, I learned what they had planned. And I preferred their plan over our plan. Theirs was surefire. In just two days, every one of their followers who'd imbibed in the elixir, would begin a worldwide ritual to bring destruction upon the world.
It all had to be reset. It was the only way.

If you'd have told me, we could have stopped them.

We didn't know for certain the Canticle would have worked, Sebastian.

We do now, Zacharias.

I wouldn't be so certain. The Six are not ordinary Anima. What they did—

What they did? They killed millions! Then came the enslavement of my children as Partisans under the newly formed foundation of Palisade. The segregation of the world. The oppressive laws. The re-write of history, as if we never existed but in fantasy! The elevation of themselves as gods. Unlike the majority of the Anima, my brother and I survived the Divide, but I was as furious with him as he was with me. Still, who were we without each other?
In time, we earned ourselves a visit from the Six.

They offered us peace and several demands if we agreed to go our separate ways. I asked for present-day Amalia, where I would be free to work with and improve upon my children as I saw fit. I asked that their Partisans not be permitted to crossbreed, lest we repeat past mistakes. This, they'd already intended.

Shameful.

...I asked the world be renamed Auditoria as a nod to me and my brother, and that music be outlawed under Sebastian's Law—that if he and I couldn't perform it together, then it shouldn't be performed at all.

And I, Sebastian, the sane one, wished to be declared officially dead, given a tasteful funeral, and my own warm-weathered corner of the world in which music would not be outlawed. I asked that my children be treated fairly, and that they continue to have freedom of choice and expression in their lives.
But as you know firsthand, my friends, the Six are liars.
You have my sincerest apologies.