Papers fluttering in the wind caught Ivanna’s attention, and she noticed a child’s toy lying near a small newspaper kiosk. The mother of the toy’s owner must have hurried him away before he could grab it, she thought, wondering what would have caused this desperate situation as she rode past.
Ivanna forgot the poor child’s toy in the face of what she saw lying around her when she got to the road junction near the newspaper kiosk. While crossing the junction, she could not explain the traveling bags left on the sidewalk leading to the residential part of town, nor could she ignore the abandoned car parked beside the road, its front doors wide open. She stared at the red high-heeled shoes placed on a sidewalk bench beside some newspapers obviously belonging to the same person.
Then she saw the bodies as she rode into the residential district.
“My God,” she said, covering her mouth with her right hand as she stopped the bike. The dead people lying around her had facial expressions of terror-stricken surprise and inevitable doom plastered on their immobile faces, their limbs positioned in awkward angles and directions.
They were scattered about just as she had witnessed in her dreams.
“Hey. Over here.”
Ivanna spotted the slender woman kneeling beside a dead girl and rode up to her. Blonde hair, sparkling eyes and a straight nose were the features she quickly picked out from the individual smiling at her near a corpse.
“It all looks surreal, right?” the woman began.
“What happened here?” Ivanna asked, noting the reading instrument hanging from the blonde woman’s neck.
“I am still not sure, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the pollution,” she replied.
“Pollution?” Ivanna held her breath.
“Yes, the disaster at the nuclear plant?”
“Oh, no,” the girl on the bicycle said, realizing the reason for the evacuation. “Is it bad?”
“Yes, dear,” her new acquaintance replied. “Many have already died in Pripyat, and we shouldn’t be here, for sure.”
“The evacuation?”
The woman nodded.
“Did you miss it?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “Came back from work in the morning, so I have been sleeping all through the day, and it feels very strange, because I was at the plant yesterday and they were talking of this test they needed to run on reactor 4.”
“Test?” Ivanna asked.
“They wanted to see if the cooling pump system could still function using power generated from the reactor under low power should the auxiliary electricity supply fail,” the woman explained. “They must have disabled the automatic shutdown system at some point if the reactor must run at low power during this test,” she told herself.
“Do you work there?” Ivanna asked,
“No, I have an office here in Chornobyl, but my work takes me to the plant from time to time. By the way, I’m Oxana.” The blonde woman stretched out her right hand. “And you are?”
“Ivanna Viktoriya,” Ivanna said. “I’m an artist.”
“Oh, good,” her new friend said. “I am a nuclear scientist working for the government at the ministry here in Chornobyl. Just got up to hear the news on the BBC, and when I came out from my flat, I saw the bodies.”
“You see no connection with the pollution?”
“No, dear.” Oxana looked at the instrument hanging from her neck. “Radiation levels are not fatal,” she said. “Whatever caused this is not from the plant.”
“Why do you say so?” Ivanna asked. “What do you think caused this? Someone?”
“Something, I think.”
“Something? What is it, then?”
“You heard the loud noise?” Oxana rather asked.
“Yes.” Ivanna said, remembering her original mission. “I wanted to go and see what caused it.”
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go and investigate,” Oxana said. “Your bike is not built for two people, though.”
“We can take a car,” Ivanna said. “I saw one on my way here, near the junction.”
“But of course, you’re right,” the other woman said. “There are so many left on the road ahead. We can choose any one we want.”
A cold chill went up Ivanna’s spine when she heard this. “Who did this?” she wondered aloud, alighting from her bicycle. “What caused these people to abandon their cars and…and belongings as they fled?”
“There is only one way to find out,” Oxana said, looking around. “The authorities will soon be here, so we must hurry.”
They started off towards the vehicle near the junction, Ivanna pushing her bike along. The instrument hanging from Oxana’s neck made her curious. “What’s that around your neck?” she finally asked.
“A dosimeter,” Oxana replied.
“What does it do?” Ivanna propped her bike on the bench hosting the red shoes. She approached the lonely car with her new companion.
“I use it to check for radiation levels,” Oxana said, getting into the vehicle’s driving seat. The car’s owner had left its key in the ignition keyhole. “Right now, the level is not fatal.”
“And what is the fatal level?”
“Four to five Sieverts.” The car started without any problem, its engine sounding as good as new. Oxana revved it up a bit and slammed her door.
Ivanna entered the car and closed the door. It had a sparsely furnished interior. “What level of radiation are you getting now on your instrument?” she asked.
“302 millisieverts.” Oxana changed gear and drove onto the road, heading into the residential area.
“Is that bad?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t kill,” the blonde scientist said, avoiding the bodies lying on the street as she drove. She slowed down whenever she had to tread carefully.
“I-I must tell you this,” Ivanna began.
“Tell me what?” Oxana asked her, eyes on the road.
“Can’t remember yesterday, or the day before yesterday,” the artist revealed. “I can’t remember how I got here.”
“But you said you’re an artist?”
“Yes, I know I’m an artist.” Ivanna felt uncomfortable. “I just don’t know how I became one.”
“You mean you’ve forgotten your past up until yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“You have amnesia.”
“Yes.”
“Have you been sick?”
“Remember I can’t remember anything,” Ivanna reminded her companion, smiling sheepishly. She looked at the concrete living quarters lined up beyond little green gardens through her side window. The serene atmosphere contrasted sharply with the dead people lying on the street. Bags and personal items littered the road, left were they fell as their owners fled to their deaths. The female artist looked away when she started seeing smaller bodies lying beside their parents and stifled the tears rushing out of her eyes. Suddenly, she saw a sight she could only gape at. Living people standing at their doorways and trying to comprehend what she still couldn’t understand.
“Sick and aged.”
“What?”
“Those people are sick, and some are old,” Oxana repeated. “They don’t attack the sick.”
“They?”
“Yes,” Oxana said. “They don’t go after the sick, because they avoid diseased tissues, and they don’t go after old people as well, probably because their tissues have started failing, too.”
Ivanna stared at Oxana. “I-I don’t understand,” she stammered. “What are you saying? Who are ‘they’?”
“The Booklords,” the scientist replied. “I think they caused these deaths, and if it turns out to be true, then their presence in this town means that something of importance happened here today. Maybe the sound we heard earlier today?”
“You’re not making sense,” Ivanna pointed out. “I’m not sick.”
“You said you have amnesia.”
“I-I know, but I’m not sick; I’ll remember my past very soon,” Ivann
a stressed.
“How sure are you about that? Having amnesia means that you could be sick, or you…”
“I know I’m not sick, and neither are you.”
“Actually, I am,” Oxana revealed. “I’ve been getting some dose of radiation over the years in order to be safe from them.”
“Safe?” Ivanna couldn’t believe her ears. “You mean you’ve been deliberately harming yourself just to be safe?”
“Sure, just 60 millisieverts a year,” Oxana said. “After all, we are not going to live forever, right?”
“Well, maybe, but what if you get cancer or something?”
“Then, I’ll die, won’t I?” the nuclear scientist asked her companion. “I’ve lived long enough, haven’t I? And Shurabi might just take me to another time and place after this life.”
“Shurabi?” Ivanna couldn’t believe her ears. “Is that another word for madness?”
“Never mind about that, honey,” Oxana aired, approaching a line of buses parked beside the street. “Just know that this could get dangerous a lot sooner than you thought.”
“What were you saying about having amnesia?” Ivanna asked. “You wanted to say something before I interrupted you.”
Oxana became grim-faced. “I know you won’t believe me, but losing your memory could also mean that you’re not from this time and place.”
Ivanna stared incredulously at her companion. “I can see that you’re not yourself,” she said.
“You say you can’t remember what happened yesterday,” Oxana continued, ignoring the accusation. “Can you remember what happened last night?”
“Well, yes…I-I had several dreams.”
“Can you remember any of those dreams?”
“Yes,” Ivanna said, frowning. “I dreamt I was dead.”
“Strange.” Oxana kept her eyes on the road.
“You say you’ve been getting radiation doses of 60 milli what?”
“Millisieverts.”
“From where?” Ivanna asked.
“From the plant.”
“If this is so, then why would these ‘Booklords’ attack and kill people whose environment has been polluted with higher radiation levels?”
“It builds up,” was the succinct reply. “I’ve been exposing my cells for five years now. The people here just got exposed from yesterday.”
Trees lining the edge of the district park stood on one side of the road like sentries guarding priceless greenery. Ivanna searched for the old woman she had earlier seen sitting on the wooden bench in the park, but could not find a soul in the area.
“Looking for someone?” Oxana asked.
“Yes. Met her earlier today sitting over there,” Ivanna replied, pointing at the particular bench.
“She must have left.”
“You’re not stopping,” Ivanna observed.
“Can’t see anything around here,” Oxana explained. “Our best bet is to investigate the street after this park.”
Ivanna did not object. The car moved into the next street, where residential concrete blocks lined the road again. More buses waited on both sides of the street, and more corpses littered the area, especially near these buses.
“They were to be used for the evacuation,” Oxana began.
“I know,” Ivanna said. “Wonder what really happened to these people.”
“You still don’t believe me, do you?”
“Yes,” the artist replied. “You don’t sound convinced, yourself.”
“I’m still not sure about the ‘why,’ but I’m sure about the ‘how.’” Oxana stopped the car. “These people were killed by the Gray Ones, a group of Booklords looking for a particular ancient artifact.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Those two kids lying near that bus needs help,” the scientist replied, opening the car’s door.
“From your assertions, they should be sick, right?”
“Either that or they’re from another place and time, like you.”
Ivanna shook her head, but said nothing. She got out of the car and, avoiding the dead bodies on the ground, followed the blonde woman towards one of the buses parked on the left side of the road. She gladly saw that people had started coming in from the junction between the street and a major road leading to other parts of the city. Living people.
“They’ll call the authorities now,” Oxana pointed out. “We have to leave this place before then.”
“But we didn’t do anything,” Ivanna said. “Why can’t we stay and help them?”
“The Gray Ones will return.”
The men and women now looking at the dead bodies were drivers and evacuees who saw the disaster from the main road and stopped their vehicles to see what had actually happened for themselves. Some drove into the street, passing the two women walking towards the line of buses packed beside the road.
“What happened here?” a young man, who had stopped nearby, asked Oxana in Ukrainian.
“We really don’t know,” Oxana replied in the same language. “We’re just as shocked as you are.”
“Let’s hope it’s not the pollution from the plant,” the man said in a shaky voice, making a cross sign across his chest and going over to another dead body.
“Why can’t they just leave as they were told?” Ivanna aired, walking quickly in order to catch up with her companion. “I mean, they should know it could be the pollution from the plant, right?”
“But we know it’s not the pollution,” Oxana said. “Believe me, if it was, I won’t delay warning them.”
The school logo on the bus they approached indicated that the car came from Kiev. A boy and a girl rested on the vehicle’s front right tire, supporting each other as best as they could. This pair stared at the two women approaching the bus. Ivanna thought she had seen the boy in one of her dreams.
“Kimberley, you’re alive,” the boy shouted, getting up with the tire’s support.
“You see, they know who you really are,” Oxana told Ivanna, beaming.
“We thought we’ve lost you,” the little girl still resting on the tire said.
“Who is Kimberley?” Ivanna asked the two children, stopping before them alongside Oxana.
“They’re talking to you,” an elated Oxana told her. “You are Kimberley, and I was right about you.”
“I am Ivanna,” Ivanna told the children, ignoring the nuclear scientist. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Both kids looked at each other and the boy stepped towards the artist and took her hand. A wave of familiarity rushed through her brain, and all the memories she’d been longing for flooded back into her head. Ivanna’s pupils disappeared as she gradually became someone else.
Oxana felt overwhelming excitement as she watched this dramatic change. “She’s this Kimberley, isn’t she?” she asked the kids standing before her.
“She’ll soon realize that,” the boy said.
“Aiden?” Ivanna, a.k.a. Kimberley, asked the boy standing before her.
Oxana turned to the artist with relief. “Your memories are back,” she said.
“What happened?” Kimberley asked Aiden, ignoring the blonde woman speaking English with a foreign accent. “How did we get here?”
“It’s a long story, Kim,” Aiden said. “Where do I even start? Oh, first, you died…”
“I died?”
“Yes, and…and we got here, and the Gray Ones attacked us.”
“I know you,” the little girl beside Aiden told Oxana, drawing everyone’s attention to the blonde woman carrying a strange instrument.
“Rachel, is she the one?” Aiden asked his companion, and she nodded.
“Who is she?” Kimberley asked Aiden, nodding towards the blonde woman standing beside her.
“You don’t remember me?” Oxana asked her with a smile. “We just came here together. How can you forget so soon?”
“Sorry, I can’t remember meeting you?” Kimberley returned.
“She was at the Mine with Father,” R
achel said. “I think she’s a Bookmaker.”
“You’re saying she’s our contact here in, where are we?” Kimberley asked Aiden.
“Chornobyl,” Oxana told her.
“Yes, she’s the one,” Rachel told Kimberley.
“Where have you seen me before?” Oxana asked the little girl, taking a forward step. She noticed a book approximately the size of a standard hardcover tucked underneath the girl’s armpit, and her curiosity grew. “Can I see that book of yours?”
“Can I hold your hand, Mariah?” the little girl proposed instead.
“Of course,” Oxana agreed, stretching out her right hand. “Mariah, was that my name in the past?”
“You said you were attacked?” Kimberley asked Aiden.
“Yes,” Aiden said, intently watching the blonde woman who gave Rachel her right hand. Her pupils had disappeared. “We were also attacked by Carl Bain.”
“So, how did you get here?” Kimberley asked him.
Oxana took her hands from Rachel, looking around her. “Yes,” she said. “How did I get here?”
“Aiden saved us,” Rachel told Kimberley. “He destroyed the Booklords when he created a strong wind by just touching the book.”
“The boom,” Kimberley remembered, turning to Oxana. “I’m beginning to remember now.”
“I have no problem with that,” Oxana said, staring at her hands before touching herself all over. “I can still remember who I am in this place, but I’m not sure it matters anymore, because I know I shouldn’t be here right now.”
“You’re Mariah, Benjamin’s assistant back at the Mine,” Rachel told her.
“Strange,” she said, smiling. “Wish I had a mirror.”
Kimberley rolled her eyes and turned to Aiden. “Where did you face the Booklords?”
“Over there,” Aiden replied, pointing at the smoldering skeleton of a burnt car sitting in front of an apartment block. “We came here after the Booklords had all vanished.”
“And Carl Bain?” Kimberley asked him, walking over to the smoking car.
“He disappeared as well,” Rachel replied. “He could have killed us, if not for Aiden. He destroyed the dome and…”
“He destroyed the dome?” Kimberley frowned.
“Like he did in Africa,” Aiden said.
The White Book Page 23