The Andromedan Avenger

He stood on a mountaintop. He felt Glen Greene go. Slipping free into the great tomorrow that, for now, was beyond the comprehension of Glen's addled senses. And he had felt the others, each one going in accordance with the fate he had forseen in their eyes, not through any kind of precognitive ability, but through his capacity to read the minds of men. Each of his fellow heroes had in ways they would never have been able to comprehend, chosen their fates, and were, for all of their lives, driving towards them. A few of them had changed direction somewhere along the way, but even they had been on their path for years.
Once he had fought beside them. They were all young and strong, so full of hope, and so naive. Even he understood less in those days. Though he could read minds almost from birth, as all of his people could. He did not fully understand the way that humans thought yet. How their ideas were a jumbled and often conflicted mass of words and sounds, cinematic images, and intense emotions. Maybe it was because they communicated mostly with their minds but Andromedan thoughts were much more eloquently formed, and cohesively transferred. Human thoughts were often rude and uncultured, bordering on savage. But then, to be fair, like a wild animal, human minds had never been called upon to communicate ideas through thought, never been asked to sit down with others and play nice. What, after all does a man raised in the wild know of table manners? In those days it was easier not to read the minds of humans, even though many of them shouted their thoughts at the top of their lungs, so to speak. He would hear them, but the meaning was oftentimes lost.
But now they were almost all of them as unto open books. And all of their deepest most dreadful secrets, which mostly did not seem so dreadful after all, were as plain as neon signs dangling over their heads. He had actually known many of his comrades, quite literally better than they knew themselves. But they were gone now, having entered a state that was now closer to his own. But they had moved through a space more complex than time, and he was not sure if even he could reach them now. It was a moot question, because he would not try. They were on a new journey and he did not wish, just as they were departing for new world's, to give them an anchor into their old one.
So he bowed his head, and there was silence. Andromedans are able to block out the voices of an entire planet, an entire galaxy in the case of some masters whose mental abilities could reach that far. But the voices that they always heard, where those of their family. It was a purely unconscious thing. A thing that happened of its own volition, as a subconscious manifestation of his level of comfort, and intimacy with them. It had happened with these heroes. They had become his surrogate family in every way, even that most intimate measure of the Andromedan psyche.
But all of them were gone now, except for Ray. And he had always had a strange and unexplained ability to shut the Andromedan out. His psyche was locked up tight as a drum. It was like a four walled room with no windows and no doors, and every wall was a mirror that only reflected that single heartbreaking moment when both of his parents were killed right before his eyes, playing over and over and over again. So the voices were all gone now. And The Andromedan avenger was surrounded by the vacuum of that silence. He felt, utterly alone. And he wondered, not for the first time, if it was time for him to spread his essence across the earth, and join his friends who had passed into the afterlife. Maybe it was time for him to join the great collective consciousness that the humans were just beginning to comprehend.
He sat on the mountaintop, and began to enter a state of deep relaxation that was semi analogous, to human meditation. He would need time to ponder this question. Even though Andromedans, unlike humans, were able to choose their time to enter their next phase of existence, their death, was just as permanent as the human variety, and was a decision not to be taken lightly.
He stood on a mountaintop, pondering the fleeting nature, the precious fragility of human existence. He stood and he contemplated the ending of his existence, or rather a new beginning. He was old and tired and lonely, and oblivion called, but beyond that there was another thing calling, it was great and golden and its voice was vibrant and lustrous with the gleam of destiny.
The Andromedan slowly opened his eyes. He knew now, what he must do.