Northern Exposure: The Divided

by Luken Du Pont

  Chapter 15

  ”With her last breath she mumbled on about three reapers, something about her killing three reapers.”We couldn’t understand how one woman so thin, so fragile and alone could take on three reapers and survive. We thought she was delusional from the scepticism of her wounds, but she was adamant on making us believe her.”

  ”We tried making out what she was saying, but it was near impossible to understand her delirious jargon.”” After explaining about her run in with the reapers she tried delivering another message.””Constantly repeating the same sentence over and over, at the time I thought it was just symptoms from the fever as her mind played tricks on her, but she was relentless on getting her message across, the dying women repeatedly said,

  ”New breed; new breed...A-pex.”

  ”At the time we took no notice of what she was saying and tried harder to convince her to get rest, but our attempts on keeping her alive where soon rendered futile, as she slipped away.”” We franticly tried our best attempts of bring her back, but it was hopeless, she was gone.”That Cairo is when it began and the whole perspective of this New World changed.

  “I will never forget the distinct picture of that faint smile on her face, as she lay on the mattress, at peace in death.”” But the woman was not done dumbfounding us just yet, yes she may have been dead but her body had not completed its metamorphosing, before she was completely at rest.”

  “The women’s body started reacting, her core began glowing a fiery red colour as a chemical reaction occurred deep within her gut, her eyes started bleeding a toxic yellowish substance, the liquid soon poured from her mouth and pores until it had completely cocooned her.””The yellow substance burnt at her body until all that was left was a sheet of dead flaky skin, similar to that of a serpent shedding its out-lived old coat, I watched in disgust as skin peeled from her body exposing her raw flesh.”” Immediately another layer of fresh skin covered her, this time however it was harder and thicker, with a scale like texture.”” This women was a remarkable creature, whatever she was, and this exuberant ability she possessed not only explained how she had survived top side by herself for so long, it shed light on what exactly we were dealing with up there. A world where Reapers were not the only things we had to fear.”

  Smith’s story sounded nothing other than farfetched, but in this place made total sense, after all I was a living breathing example of the implausible existence we now shared. If I could turn into the beast, and the reapers ran rampant top side, who was I to questions the reality of this strange women? But explaining about his run in with a creature as outlandish as he described did not help me come to the understanding of what I had become.

  As Smith continued explaining I remembered the others throwing hints around in the past, little comments which I though irrelevant at the time. My so called family new about the changes which occurred in this woman, so keeping the secret from me must have meant they knew it would happen to me as well. I trusted these people with my life, yet they did not even have the mordacity to talk about the situation, they just kept the secrets from me knowing one day the inevitable would happen and they would have to do to me as they now did. It made a bit of sense as to why I survived in the comatose state for so long with such primitive methods of sustaining my cabbaged body; honestly a normal person would have died within a month or two down here. They must have picked up hints as to why I was still alive, they must have thought I was just like the women, a monster.

  Smith approached me with his infamous machete, as he pulled it from its leather pouch I regretted ever finding the butcherous blade. He grabbed my leg then hacked away at the wire cables which bound me. He had freed me, I got up but this time opted not to run, Smith had once again intrigued me with his story, to the point I was willing to trust him for the time being.

  “You are making her sound like a fictional character from one of my comic books Smith, you telling me this is not caused by Reapers, then what?””Come on there has to be an explanation for all this, a scientific explanation?”

  ”Let me finish boy,” Smith demanded, “About another year went by after the passing of the mysterious woman and it was all we spoke about.”” I kept her corps in the passageway for about a week trying to figure out what she was, until the corps became rancid and Sky demanded we get rid of it. “”I wanted to figure out what we were dealing with, what abnormities she possessed, but our bunk mates were uneasy with her presence so we did the humane thing and gave her a proper burial top side.”” Since meeting this women, she was all that filled my mind, day and night I tried figuring out what she was, at times I thought perhaps it was caused by a reaper bite, other times I believed it to be exposure from the environment, not knowing how close but yet how far my guesses where.”

  “Eventually images of the women faded until she became a distance thought which popped back into my mind once in a while as I fell asleep.”” Life went and we chalked meeting her up as a coincidence, we believed her to be a rare anomaly, a mistake made by nature, the only one of her kind.””But we were so wrong, she was not the only one up there, we found this out one day as we bumped into a rath....(Continuation Episode: Five)

  “I will never forget that day, we were under constant attack from Sky as she moaned and moaned about the lack of laundry detergent in the bunker.”” Sharif and I decided it would be as good a time as any for a quick supply run, that way we could kill two birds with one stone while getting extra food for the bunker and fetching Sky the detergent she needed.”” But supplies were not the only thing we were about to find in our little grocery store.” “We were about to meet a very interesting individual.”

  ”The man we met that day was a reminder of what we had lost when the rocks fell, he reminded me of the diversity human beings once shared in our mixed society.”” He reminded me we weren’t all just hardened killers, but once we could choose the type of person we wanted to be. Be it geek or soldier, Goth or Jock.”” This is what made society as interesting as it was and with his awkward presence I was quickly taken back to a more nonchalant time, I mean talk about a character!” Smith laughed as he reminisced on his experience of bumping into that peculiar man.

  He continued “As Sharif and I had become accustomed to doing, we drew our weapons with no hesitation, thinking we were now in the presence of a Reaper.””But when the awkward man turned to face us, we realised he was the furthest thing from a Reaper.” “He was bent over, ravishing through a pile of long expired potato chips, and I still get the shivers as I remember him stuffing his mouth with the mouldy crisps.””With his thick bottom-bottle glasses, long white coat, and button up plaid shirt, the man looked like he belonged isolated in a lab somewhere, not running around top side in the new world.”

  “We expressed our intentions by holstering our weapons and explained we were not out to hurt him, waiting for a hostile reaction circumspect of his intentions, both Sharif and I held steadfast not entirely dropping our guard.”” But soon found out the man was no more of a threat than young Zara, and honestly he was more trusting than he should have been.””In no time he was interacting with us like we were long lost friends.”

  ” We spoke for hours, until we realised the sun was setting. So we did the courteous thing and invited him to stay the night, where we promised him a warm bed and hot meal.””He was so happy to be around people once again, and was quick to accept our offer.”” As we entered the bunker he was excited to see so many people, he could not stop talking and even broke through Sky’s resilient shell with his awkward charm.”

  “As time went on and the kids got sleepy, we tucked them into bed, before we could advance onto more pressing matters.” We wanted to know where he came from, if he was still alive surly there were other survivors helping him?”” The man explained that he has been all alone since the rocks fell, living in an abandoned factory about ten miles east from here, sheltered from the Reapers by the high walls and isolation of his contemptuous abod
e.””We were confused as to why the man was so far from home, what was he doing all the way out here then.”” He explained to us he was on his way to a refuge, to a place he believed others where grouping together in the safety of a community.””But the man said he had lost his direction and believed the whole idea to be a stupid pipe dream he was following mindlessly.””He had given up on this place and his only goal now was getting back home.”

  ” Apparently the man was a Geneticist teaching at NYU, his credentials were distinguished and he was regarded as one of the leading Geneticist in the entire state””He lived for the study of genetics and uncovering the process by which genetic traits are passed on from generation to generation”” He told us even though this was his life’s work, his secret little passion was observing the development of existing cells as they were mutated through evolution.””Quite ironic how his very passion would now affect his entire life.”

  ” Now it was only a matter of time before the story of the mysterious women came up, and the explanation we received was not what we had expected.””The professor paced back and forth unable to contain his excitement, jubilant with news of the existence of more of these spectacular creatures.”” he told us he knew all about the Reapers as they were in the hundreds roaming around top side, but he was not sure if there were more of the other creatures, of these so called New breeds.”

  “With question after question the professor wanted to know every little detail about this amazing specimen, he pulled a little note pad and pen from his coat pocket and began interrogating me, he seemed so invested in the study of these creatures, so excited to know about their existence, and I soon found out why.”

  “The professor stood up and walked to the centre of the room.” Smith pointed to the exact spot the Man he was describing, stood. As Smith kept his index finger pointed at the spot, his eyes glared over and it was as if he was taken back to that exact day. He then shook his head as he re-entered reality and continued explaining.

  “He dropped his coat and unbuttoned his shirt, I looked to Sharif mystified by his obscure behaviour, I mean the man was rather eccentric, but this was just strange.””“The professors face started sweating, he grit his teeth and braced himself, that’s when the obvious dawned upon me.”“ He was just like you and that woman we met, a New Breed.”

  “The transformation began.”

  “The professors ribcage shifted, it seemed to be splitting underneath his skin, some moving down as others rose.”” instantaneously two growth started developing underneath his arms in the gap between his shifted ribs.””The growths burgeoned rapidly until they had reached the length of his existing arms.””These newly developed obscurities then started separating at the ends and believe me if you will, small weird appendage like extremities started developing, after growing a bit longer they had developed into fully functional hands with finger nails and all, no different to yours or mine!”

  “The transparent set of arms glowed a pinkish red colour underneath the candle light, and I stared in wonderment as I watched each vein, artery and bone grow until the final layer of skin coated the limbs signalising the conclusion of the transformation.”

  ” After the professor retracted his second set of arms and clothed himself, he sat down as it if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.””He could see how enthralled we were at his abilities and took the time to explain as best he could how this all was possible.”

  “Now I can try and remember what he said but frankly we were left too dumbfound to understand the scientific jargon coming out his mouth.””After he had had his fill to eat and slept the night he decided to head off.””We begged him to stay with us, but he was adamant on leaving he told us where he lived and said he had to get back, apparently he had unfinished business and wanted to give this so called safe haven another try”

  Ecstatic with the news, I begged Smith if we could leave immediately, I wanted to get to the professor before I released the beast once again. If Smith was right, that meant the Professor knew how to control his transformation. Which in turn meant he could most probably teach me to do the same, more importantly maybe he knew how to suppress the agonising transformation all together. My number one priority just became finding the professor, damn I hoped he was still alive!

  01-03-2036

  Tuesday

  Diary entry: 6

  They say all wounds heal in time, but what if the scars left behind are so deeply embedded into ones psyche they play as a constant reminder to the distrust inflicted. What if pain is all you see when you look into their eyes, what if people you held so close to your heart are now as estranged as the ideas of happiness in this distrustful place? Is that what it had eventually come to, was it truly every man for themselves or could I believe they did what they did, knowing it was for my own good and accept their farfetched tales of four armed men and scaled women. I mean after all my existence sounded as implausible as the same characters I was finding hard to believe in.

  Now left in a predicament I had to choose to either trust these people who were so eager to attack without giving me a chance, or yield in their presence as I accepted their promises. Were the drastic choices really made for the preservation of both mine and the group’s safety? Or did they just panic in the presence of the unrecognised? What would happen if the beast showed up again, would they embrace the new me or choose to attack every time they felt threatened. If Smith was telling the truth the explanations of the Professor would have allowed them to know I would retake my human form, thus justifying their actions in chasing me out of the bunker in such an injurious manner.

  What about my relationship with Sharif, was it amendable? He was the one keenest on my mutilation. Had trust been completely lost between the two of us? Did he and the others really know my form would handle the strikes? The decisions I had to make left my mind boggled, I mean I had seen the three of them in action and was quite certain if they wanted me dead, their combined besiegement upon me would have done so. As I contemplated the different scenarios I knew there was only one way I would get the truth. I hated being in this predicament, I wanted my family dynamics to go back to the way it was. I wanted to fully trust them again, and there was only one way I could do so.

  I had to find this Professor; or make an attempt at least.

  But as time does, it dragged on and I found myself still trapped down in the bunker. My request to find the professor had continuously fallen upon deaf ears, as Smith hid the Professors location from me. Exclaiming that when I had mastered control over the beast he would personally take me, telling me we would need his controlled power if we chose to take such a long trek. This rattled my thoughts even more so, some nights I think he really cares for my safety others nights, I think it is all just a lie.

  Two months have gone by, and even though things feel exactly as they were before I changed, I bide my time and act like the incident never happened. We have built our life around the New me as I become a weapon, protector and all round life insurance policy for the new world. We train hard and long but no matter how many hours I spend with them I will not forget that day. I will make the journey in search of the professor and of the truth, with or without their approval.