Part 31 (1/2)

The old man chuckled at that. Subsidence! Hardly a surprise if you knew what had been hidden underneath the church. It was amazing the whole street hadn't toppled into the ground. A large sign by the gates suggested the church was going to be converted into an arts and musical centre for the local community. Well, perhaps some good might come of the place after all.

The fifty years were nearly gone. He had been waiting patiently all this time, watching his face grow tired and haggard in the mirror, watching the world change around him. Would the Xhinn return? Would the triumvirate be proved right after all?

Only time would tell.

The old man craned his neck back to glance at the steeple. It was dwarfed by the modern buildings around it. Trees in the churchyard which had been mere saplings five decades ago now obscured the view further. Was the Xhinn antenna still hidden inside the steeple? Was it still sending a signal to the waiting fleet of Xhinns.h.i.+ps, inviting them to take this planet as their own?

So many questions, but no answers.

The old man shook his head, putting such debates to one side. Why dwell on things you can't change, he told himself. He could remember when he was able to change his own form. He could remember when he had power and abilities beyond the imagination of ordinary humans. He could remember the moment when that all changed, when he was cursed to walk forever in this form, alone in a world where he didn't belong.

'Never! I could never be like you. I may be one of you, but I could never be like you! Never!'

'So be it.'

They had stripped away his true self and cast him out, a wandering nomad in the form he had adopted. Now he was trapped in this body, a cage of flesh and bone. Trapped on this world, waiting to see if the Xhinn would return.

Xavier Simmons shuffled away, pulling his coat closer around him.

'So be it.'