Epica!

There was no turning back. His hometown could offer him nothing anymore. There was nothing he could learn, nothing worth staying for. He had out grown his hometown. Ariel could no longer learn anything new from the place he had for so long called home. He had to find his Answer elsewhere, across the ocean blue.

"Ariel, I don't understand. How could you look for truth?" Helena asked once again as she watched as he packed a series of books into his bag. There in his office inside Ark V Helena had tried unsuccessful to get him to stay. Ariel ignored her, tried of explaining himself over and over again.

"You want truth?" Helena continued, her voice raising in hidden anger. Ariel noticed this and paused what he was doing. In an attempt to appear unflinching in his decision he pretended to look for a hidden item behind on his desk where he had labored for many sleepless nights. "I know you like chocolate and puppies. That's the truth! And also you hide the fact that you're fascinated by the color pink, and, and. . ." she stopped trying to think on the spot. Something that, which under pressure, she wasn't very good at.

"I can find those things elsewhere Helena." He said, picking up a pen and decided that was what he was looking for at the desk. "And I am not fascinated by the color pink." He said waving the pen in the air like a lecturer's baton. "I am fascinated at the obsession young girls have with it, not I!" He declared loudly.

"I'm sure." Helena responded staring intently at a mug in the disputed color. She knew that long ago she had given him the mug as a form to further tease him but Ariel had long since forgotten. Noticing Helena's stare, Ariel took the mug from her line of sight and placed it on the mantle. There he noticed a photograph of himself and Helena taken not so long ago. He remembered the day clearly.

Helena had got it in her mind that they should take photographs with a professional like all the other couples of their age. The photographer was leaving town soon, and Helena had no one to share the event with so she had invited a very reluctant Ariel to come along with her. During the shoot, Helena tired, and failed to make Ariel smile only irritating the photographer. The end result was a very contrived smile from him, and a sheepish grin on Helena's part.

"You and I, we've been friends since I was born Ariel! I looked out for you!" She said remembering all the times she would bring him food whenever his research prevented him from doing that himself. "and you for me!" she reminded him of all the times, he provided her with currency whenever she was in need or when she had been harassed by rowdy men at the bar. "You and me Ariel, we're friends, and we look out for each other. That's the only truth I know!"

Both Helena and Ariel were orphans, raised in the same orphanage in their hometown almost since birth. At an early age, however, Ariel's brilliance was clear as he was able to solve complex mathematical equations at the tender age of four. He was then moved from the orphanage to Ark V to be touted by the geniuses there. Helena was left at the orphanage and attended the local school, but whenever she could she would escape to Ark V to visit Ariel who she refused to let be as others suggested her to do. She was his escape from the scientists at Ark V who didn't seem to understand that Ariel was still a child and needed other children to play with.

"There has to be more." he responded after a long and crushing silence. Helena sat on his bed next to Ariel's nearly filled luggage. "Someone as simpleminded as yourself can never understand that."

Without another word he placed the remaining books with his luggage signifying the finality of his decision. Angry that Ariel wouldn't do as she asked, Helena stormed off in disappointment and defeat masked under rage. Back inside his office Ariel had trouble with the photograph. He decided to leave the photograph, it would only make him yearn to return. He left it on the mantle next to the pink mug, then he decided that it was indeed a fine mug and took it with him.

Goodbyes were never easy. The encounter with Helena was proof of that. When Ariel exited Ark V he was faced with the whole town who had adored him to say goodbye to. He had left them with great gift, the secret to perpetual motion with which the creation of self powered wind mills was underway. With those, Ariel had supplied the town with an unlimited power supply for the town. The townspeople were much less happy than Helena to see him go.

"If you go this town will die!" the town mayor who had led the crowd to the Ark V doors shouted in desperation. A frightened cry reverberated through the crowd. Ariel had done so much for the town, made so many lives easier. With him gone, what would they do? Who would teach them now? Surely, the other scientists in Ark V didn't care for them as Ariel did.

"Perhaps. . " Ariel began speaking and the crowd fell silent. As though he was the savior himself they listened to what he had to say. Not once had he ever led them astray. "It's time you learn to take care of yourself."

Silence. No one could say a word, as if the words he had said so coldly to them refused to process in their brains. "Use what I've taught you." Ariel said one last time before walking forward straight towards the crowd. They all parted for him, staring at the man who had so suddenly decided to abandon them. A heartless man in their eyes.

Ariel continued walking. Not faltering in a single step, or pause to look into the eyes of the people he was leaving behind. His mind was set. He was leaving to find the Answer, knowing full well that he wouldn't be welcomed back the way he had left. All he could hope for, all he could do, was press on. His head held high, and looking only forward towards a new future.

Ariel knew full well the consequences of leaving so suddenly. He had no home anymore. Home was a place where he would always be welcomed no matter how much had changed. The home he had known was gone. So he wasn't leaving his home, or rather a simple town now no different from any other.

His only regret was the way he had treated Helena shortly before his departure. He didn't give her a proper farewell, or was able to successfully explain himself to the only person in the town who mattered. So when she didn't show up at the docks to bid him farewell he wasn't surprised. Yet disappointment clung to his heart like the cold, thin hands of death.

"Looks like you're headin' somewhere." a gruff sailor came to Ariel's side who had chosen to ignore his duties and slack off with some of the passengers who were still waiting to board the ship.

"Yes I am in fact." Ariel responded, glad that he had someone to distract him from the disappointment of Helena's absence. The bridge to the boat had been lowered and people slowly filed in. "I am in search of Truth." The sailor's only response was laughter.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life." The sailor recited like a student reading a book out loud. Ariel stared at the sailor bewildered. Surely, everything he had given up couldn't be for this man. Ariel's stare only earned him further laughter on the sailor's part. "John 14:6" The sailor had recited a bible verse.

Then a thought occurred to Ariel; that specific quote had been spoken by Jesus Christ himself. He had claimed to be the only Truth, the only word of God. Yet there were so many others, Muhammad, Moses, Gautama Buddha, and Lao Tzu, among many to claim to hear the word of their God. All of them claiming to be the and only Truth.

Ariel was unable to decide who spoke the truth. He was raised on science, but taught as a Christian, so thinking logically, any choice he made would be biased.

God was nothing anyway, something only ignorant people used to understand what they couldn't explain such as the universe. Physics and other sciences had already revealed that. There was no mysteries left in the world. His word, and his teachings made void.

Even if he was real, it was his fault that Ariel was unsatisfied with the answers he had. He was his father after all. So without him, Ariel chose to begin his quest. His rejection of him would allow him to focus on the only real Truth instead of chasing false hope. So utterly alone, Ariel took his first step onto the boat.

Ariel boarded the ship without a problem. No one dared stop a man with a determined glare in his eye from getting what he desired. Once his things were settled on board Ariel came up from the galleys and onto the deck. The crew was busy with the masts, and raising the anchor. Ariel moved to the back of the ship as to not bother the busy sailors.

So without God then, Ariel thought. Or anyone else. he thought thinking of the towns people he had left behind, and of Helena.

It was sunset when the ship slowly began to drift away from the dock and when Ariel's journey had began. He allowed himself a single moment of weakness and looked back the way he came. In the distance he could see the smoke over the small hills over the port coming from the chimneys of houses from his town. He could never return to this place he had called home.

In a moment of delusion he thought he saw someone standing atop the hill leading towards his former home. A raven haired woman, dressed in white, uttering a silent goodbye. He pushed the thought aside and looked at in the direction the boat was headed; straight towards the sun sitting on the horizon. He didn't look back again.