From: Nova C.M. June 8, 1999 Disclaimer: All things within the Quest universe belong only to HB and no matter how much I wish or beg or plead or rub a lamp, no money will fall out of the skies in compensation for my hard work. Do not sue me. Why? Because all you’ll get is last year’s middle school cafeteria menu. Believe me. You’d be better off *reading* a picture of stick figures. Categories: V, F, A, JQ/JB HR, JQ/Other HR Rating: PG-13 (Warning: strong language here!) Author’s note- School’s almost over! It’s the week of finals. *SOS*!!! But that’s okay. The thick fog of writer’s block has almost cleared my mind! WOOHOO! Yaa- Er, ahem. Thank you very much to those who responded to "Sacrifice". You really encouraged me to post up the sequel, since I am such a shy, nervous, fearful, uh, writer. Being satisfied with “Sacrifice”, I decided to immediately write another vignette in that timeline I have created. You can read “Betrayal” as an individual story, but it would be better understood and better felt if you read “Sacrifice” first. A prequel to “Sacrifice” is in the works, and another character’s POV fic within this time period is being conjured up behind the scenes. It will take some more time because a HS freshman doesn’t exactly have all the free time in the world. (Don’t we all wish?) As for “Ikaw”, that part of my brain is so messed up, I’m still trying to figure out where it all went wrong. It’s coming... really, it is... Anyway, enjoy! Betrayal by Nova That bastard. That troll-faced, brown-nosed, proud, self-centered, haughty, selfish bastard. To hell with him. I was never one to swear at people, but then again, who would’ve thought that I’d end up this way? Instead of charting the vast ocean of phenomenal adventures out there, I, the explorer with an unquenchable thirst for action, have sailed up a narrow, unending river, teeming with piranhas in the form of business tycoons, and a mind-numbingly slow current conspicuously disguised as progress. So I have allowed myself the right to swear at people. Insult them. Whether it be in my mind or out loud, I unleash my anger in its purest form. I readily say what comes to mind, and I am no longer ashamed to admit that my heart has been stained with hatred. Black with anger. Unworthy of any heavenly being’s presence. This is how I know that He has deserted me in my time of need. That He has allowed me to suffer all that I have, and that He has done nothing to ease that sharp stabs that repeatedly overwhelm my heart. Always whenever I see her. A glimpse of her furious red hair, her gleaming emerald eyes, the creamy complexion of her perfectly symmetrical visage. I shall resume my insults of the person whom I had been insulting at the very beginning. Dumb sh*t. Stupid, wisecrack, dead-brained a$$hole. Cheap, tyrannical, inconsiderate jerk. Just because he’s the friggin’ sultan of Bangalore, doesn’t mean he has the privilege of taking a person’s soul, *my* soul, play with it, crush it flat, bleed it dry, then return it to him, *me*, lifeless. And yet he has done that to me. He played God. He pretended to be Fate. He took my soul and twisted it so atrociously that even its owner was unable to recognize it as once belonging to him. I have yet to admit aloud that I had, indeed, made a rash, irresponsible, unforgivable, and exceedingly thoughtless error in the space of two heartbeats. I had foolishly made incorrect assumptions and blindly leaped to reckless conclusions, which, unfortunately, held not a single grain of truth to them. A chance meeting with a distant friend from long ago. Irena. In Prague. An impossible infatuation wished into existence by the impracticalities of a young heart. Jonathan Quest. In Prague. A rushed engagement lacking in feeling that led to a great disaster. Jonny and Irena. The gates of the Quest Compound, in Rockport, Maine. It wasn’t a Phantom of the Opera type of disaster beyond imagination. It was a swift, silent, merciless angel of death, clad in robes of emotional pain, armed with a sword of separation, and a shield of anger. I had been a fool, a young fool, but a fool, nonetheless. Where had my senses gone that night I returned home with Irena? Had my wits decided to abandon me at the time when I despaired for them most? Irena, I could tell, was as eager as I was of our unanticipated relationship. She was more far gone than I ever could be, and she was so excited that she asked to marry me. Was I not a fool? A hopeless, dimwitted idiot that could not tolerate saying no to a pretty face containing an intelligent, caring heart. It is true that Irena is beautiful, more beautiful than when I had first met her, several years ago. It is true that she had also grown to be a very intelligent, very sophisticated young woman who knew how to abuse her social status to her own advantage. She had learned how to rub elbows with the rich and snobby, how to exploit her friends’ wealth, but she did not use this knowledge. At least, not that I’m aware of. That is what I believe the upper classes of today are learning, and this is how Irena acts. Look down upon the misfortunate. No, tilt your head up and make sure that there is absolutely no eye contact. If eye contact is inevitable, then make sure you convey your feelings completely; they are not worthy to kiss the carpet on which you wipe your feet. Everything belongs to you. Do not worry about the middle class’s feelings, whether you hurt or not. Your own feelings are worth a thousand times theirs. For all the arrogance that I am allowed, why do I continually damn the sultan of Bangalore, my brother, my friend, my close advisor? Because he let me ruin my own life. He watched me make the most horrible decision that would forever change the order of the universe, and sat back, wearing that annoying, wise-guy look, laughing perhaps, letting it all happen. He did not attempt to stop me, did not try to warn me, and did not even tell me that he had had a premonition until it was too late. Why do I really *hate* him? Because in my heart, I know that he is not responsible. And the man that I really swear at each day, that I condemn to the very core of eternal, sinful flames is none other than myself. For I have no one to blame but myself, and no one to take the fall for my misguided actions but myself. I chose to marry Irena. I chose to bind myself to a woman with whom I had a fling with, when the one person who really owns me, owns me heart and soul, had always been standing there, right beside me, my precarious position in life always level with hers. She was always catching me before I fell, always bringing me back to the land of the living, refusing to let death claim me, time and time again. She had been there all along, and there had never been any need to look any further than an arm’s length or a whispered name. Jessie. Jessica Bannon. Looking death in the eye and laughing. What a fool I’ve been. I rejected happiness as it was given to me. Happiness was, *is*, my best friend, a fiery spirit, whose strong will and determination never wavered until now. Now, I can see her strength crumbling, and I can see that she can no longer carry her burden- the fact that she and I can never be together. It is a strange thing that our problems are exactly the same thing. Perhaps Fate is playing some sort of infernal trick on us. To make matters worse, there is the fact that she still blames me for Race’s death. I feel like I’m back in algebra II. The teacher’s shrill voice rings sharply in my ears. Wake up. You’d learn half this material if you were awake more than five minutes every day. Stop drooling on your desk. Just because you’re rich doesn’t give you the right to sleep in class. What’s the answer to the problem, Mr. Quest? I’m not very sure. I don’t have my handy-dandy graphing calculator with me right now to solve this particular problem. What should I say? Hatred squared multiplied by blame over guilt is equal to an infinity of torture? That’s the equation. Then Race’s reprimands creep slowly back into my mind. What have I been teaching you all these years, Jonny? You know this stuff. You should be getting A’s instead of C’s. These remarks were always followed by Dad’s trademark “unacceptable” comment. Then the tears start to fall. I know I could have saved Race, somehow. I should have taken the bullet for him, as he would have done for me, but it is all hopeless. His death practically ripped the family apart, since I had killed my own hero, Hadji felt even more useless than ever, Dad lost a best friend, and worst of all, Jessie no longer had a reason for staying with us. Trying to stop Estella from taking away Jessie had been like trying to stop the tide, but with Dad’s inventions, stopping the tide is now possible. Changing the past to avoid disaster, however, is not. I can’t change Race’s death, even though I could have changed it while it was still happening. I know Jessie hates me for not trying to save her father. If I were lucky, that hatred would have subsided by now, merely showing itself in accusing looks. I think she doesn’t really care about me any more. In the few, invaluable minutes that I see her each day at Quest Enterprises HQ, I try to show her that I don’t care that she doesn’t care. That I am happy without her. I always assume a happy face, masking my sorrows with a grin, forcing myself to think of the happier days of my youth, when she and I were together. Really together. Thinking of those times is the only way to make myself seem genuinely relaxed and content, and I think the acting classes I had taken some years ago did pay off. I’m decent enough an actor to fool my best friend into believing that my life was just fine and dandy. It’s not. It’s a wreck. Life without Jessie simply isn’t life. And Irena prohibits me from seeing Jessie, even just for a coffee break, or even to “hang out”. Somehow, Irena finds a way to fill up my schedule in such a cunning arrangement that seeing Jessie is rendered impossible. I wish that I were not against divorce. I wish that I had the ability to break vows. For a day with the most perfect, most wonderful, most beautiful, most intelligent, most kind-hearted person in the entire world, I would give up my soul, even though I knew that the person in question would disallow it. Jessie would rather die than see me hurting, and she knows it is a mutual feeling. Or maybe I finally made her hate me enough to kill me. I don’t know. I’m dense. Irena does know that not seeing one’s soulmate for prolonged periods of time can be extremely harmful to one’s soul. Why else would she do what she does so well? Almost a decade now, since the engagement that tore my life to disheartening shreds. I’m still young, still in the prime of my youth. If I could enjoy it, I really wouldn’t mind spending forever young. Time is running out fast, though. I know that if I don’t act soon, I could lose Jessie. I don’t mind the five minutes that she comes into my office to give me updates, nor am I bothered by the fact that she always has that warm, caring look in her eyes, even if it isn’t how she feels. I could believe that Jessie is happy. I could tell myself that she’s fine without me, that she’s extremely happy for me and Irena, and that she does not wish ill of my wife. I just know her too well, and besides, she didn’t take acting classes with me. She can’t hide her feelings all that well. It hurts to see a best friend hurt. I know if Hadji were injured, I would be dying inside too. It’s even worse to see one’s soulmate hurt. Especially knowing that one caused the pain. My betrayal hit Jessie mercilessly, but what I was unaware of at the time was the fact that I *was* actually hurting her. I also never knew that hurting her only meant more pain to me. God, how can You have made me so alarmingly dense? I don’t blame You, though. I know you did this for a reason, but it’s just a reason I can’t quite figure out yet. Perhaps watching an episode of “Touched By An Angel” could help. Perhaps not. It’s all a stupid bunch of bull that vulnerable, lifeless saps watch to gain inspiration. Well, Jonathan Quest is not one to give in to trash like that. It’s Irena’s favorite show. All I know and all I remember was that night when I announced my engagement. She had excused herself suddenly, congratulated me for the seventeenth time that night, and hurried off into the compound’s maze. I know she had cried her heart out then, on her balcony where she thought no one was watching. And though stone walls con’t speak, they let me listen to her sobs. And Hadji? I haven’t forgotten that wisecrack sonofa*****, no real offense meant to Neela. I only wonder why he never said a word. Why he just shut his wisdom up when we needed it the most. I have yet to ask him that. Hadji can’t take the blame, though. He didn’t betray anyone. He married someone, he’s happy, and he’s the only really content member of the Quest team at this time. Foreigner’s luck. Must be sim-sim-salabim working to his advantage. And me? I’m that thick-headed fool who walked right into a black widow’s trap. I double-crossed myself with an engagement, I am a traitor to my family’s happiness by causing a murder, I did not heed my conscience by not breaking an engagement, and I deliberately killed my own heart by slipping a ring on someone’s finger. A ring meant for another. What’s the worst of all, you ask? I betrayed my soul. The End (for now) You all know the drill... Send in comments! Please! I'll try to reply to them, but I'd only gotten a couple last time... Is anyone out there? Sigh. Send 'em to nova247@hotmail.com _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. 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