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                     The Otherworld <> Chapter 12

                       :: A TIME FOR GOODBYE ::

                    Copyright 1992 by Bryce Koike
                         All Rights Reserved
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     Any comments, criticisms, opinions, etc, are welcome.  I can
be reached on Internet as:
     bkoike@sdcc13.ucsd.edu
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"Along the roadway lies my heart
Along the gentle paths of bloodied rain
The sun may shine down upon us
But cannot take away the pain
The sound of a broken motor
Along the highway of tears
I'll remember your face now
But it's too late for us to say goodbye."
                            ("The Hallowed Cross"
                                     -- Technicolor Mindwar)
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Date:      September 17, 1992
Location:  Big Sur, California
           Otherworld
Time:      4:35pm

    A cool breeze was building from the sea, rolling across the
cliff.  As the sun slowly dipped down toward the horizon the sky
ignitied in a brilliant orange and pink.  And atop that cliff there
was a fire building.

    What they had that had belonged to him had been gathered in a
small pile.  There was no body to give to the winds for he was gone.
The small explosion was explanation enough for what had happened.
Slowly the items burned.  Standing about the fire were Commander
Bryant, Leader Looke Shamal, Tracy, and Vince.  Few words had been
said, making it a lonely, quiet funeral.  Things had been all too
short.  Vince turned his head away from the fire.  Something was
making him blink.
    "Why'd he do it, Tracy?" he asked.  "He had the chance to escape
like the rest of us."  Uncharacteristically, he sniffed, fighting
back the tears.
    Tracy shook her head.  She could not bring herself to answer.
That day she had taken out the last tape he had made.  How he knew
she would be the first one to listen to it, she did not know.
Perhaps it was the result of the many powers which had been changing
him through those last few days.
    "Tracy," he had said, "I have done terrible things.  But I think
that I have always strived toward some sort of good.  But I have
done terrible things.  The best of intentions cannot wipe that away,
Trace.  I think that I am going to die soon.  I never asked for any
of this.  I never wanted it.  Tracy, Tracy, I want to go home."

    Long after the fire had burned away, the ashes scattered to the
sea, Tracy peered out over the cliff and into the ocean.  It had
become one with the sky in the sunset, only the clouds in the air a
sign of where the water ended and where the air began.
    She pulled a single rose from her jacket pocket and pressed it
to her lips.  Then gently, she tossed it out over the cliff to be
pushed by the breeze into the rolling waves below. "It's not over,"
she whispered into the wind.  "I promise."

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              Here ends the first Otherworld Chronicles