Scorched

by Michael Soll

  He moved the edge of the knife from beneath the nails to his tip, shaving small slivers off as he spoke.

  “How do I see anew that with which has already been seen? But you do. You do, Spec. Because you’re a child. You were born alone and only grew when my son saved you. We gave you eyes and ears and showed you what life should be and you lived, by God you lived! And now look at you. Time has passed and yet, every day is still your first. And here I am, glued to my chair with a glass in my hand, like the day before and the day before and before that. Living my last day on repeat. Have you heard that ignorance is bliss?”

  “I heard it before, spoken by a gleeful child who repeated the words but had no sense of its meaning.”

  “Well, it’s true. No child is born unhappy. Oh, they cry. They cry a lot, but they don’t know sadness. They just know need and want, and for a child, they are one in the same. But the child is ignorant. Because the child has no fear because it knows no fear. It does not understand the concept of death. It does not understand the concept of losing something it needs. No, that’s taught. That’s taught by the people who control whether that child gets what it needs or doesn’t. Fear is infused by civilization. So to live every day as your first is to live without the fear that is learned thereafter.”

  “Then, by what you’re saying, I don’t live every day as my first. Because I’m filled with fear.”

  He slammed the knife down on the table so swiftly that he erased any memory of it ever being in his hand. He laughed, heartily, as if he just heard the funniest joke ever told.

  “No no no no no no no no! Spec, what are you afraid of?

  “You.”

  I watched him as closely as a person could watch another and he watched me back, sizing up my answer. I could see the thoughts race through his mind.

  “Good. You should be. I could kill you while you slept and nothing significant would come of it. You would be gone, I would still be mayor, and Newbury would continue to thrive.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re wrong.”

  He laughed again. “Prove it.”

  “Do the ignorant know they’re ignorant?”

  “How could they?”

  “So, how could you? You seem full of bliss. What does that say about you?”

  “You confuse laughter with happiness. A childish mistake. But understandable.”

  “What makes you think you’re smarter or wiser than I am?”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “You’ve been around more than twice the amount of my life, but you assume you’ve lived more than twice the amount. You were given knowledge I didn’t have access to for most of my being, so you assume you’re more knowledgeable. But what have you lived? A truly isolated existence. You see a moment from one angle. You see only in two dimensions. You cannot see that the line is actually a circle. You’ve never been forced to step around a situation and view it from another perspective. You stand glued to your spot as the world turns in front of you and assume what you see is the only. But it’s not. You are one man in one place in one moment of time. You rule this space, but one quake can fill the hole. One solar flare can destroy everything that is you.”

  “You’re getting better at speaking,” he said dismissively. “Like a child mimicking its father.” He stared at me for awhile and I could feel my being fill with dread. “I enjoy our conversations, Spec.” He grabbed the knife from the table. “And you’re right. I do live alone, but I make it so. It is my choice to willingly bind my hands. And one day, maybe sooner than you think, you will too. It’s an inevitable decision made by all free men. It is better to live in a world you can see clearly than live in one with no boundaries. It is better to really understand one thing than have a vague recollection of the multitude that is the universe.”

  We sat, staring at each other, listening only to the humming of the refrigerator reverberating through the kitchen and buzzing into the living room. In one hand was his glass, half empty, but how many times had it been filled? In his other hand was the dagger.

  The humming continued and at the moment, that’s all that mattered. That humming. Those vibrations. That energy flowing from the river to the mill to the turbine to the house to the refrigerator to our ears in the living room. How much time it took for that energy to be transferred, I did not know.

  And then, after moments of listening to only the buzzing, I asked, “Do you think life can exist on the surface?”

  “Is that where you think you’re heading? To see God with your own eyes?”

  His hand tightened around the knife and the humming pulsated within. Buzzing and buzzing, reminding us we were still alive despite our own silence.

  Humming and humming until, the noise quickly muted.

  Our heads turned toward the kitchen, simultaneously as if we shared one mind. And a moment lingered where we both were filled with fear. Him for his own life, and mine for Kaolin’s. Two people, different in almost every way, filled with the same fear.

  And then, the house’s lights shut off and the city went dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Murder:

  The alarms blared throughout the darkness. I could feel the Mayor jolt to his feet and grab an item on a nearby desk.

  The flashlight illuminated the room, and I got a glimpse of his eyes, filled with fear and excitement. He had posted a dozen soldiers at the water mill, but apparently a dozen was not enough. The Nanashi were attacking and for many of us, tonight would be our last.

  For me, there was no more waiting. I needed to find Kaolin and get to the elevator. Whether Newbury was destroyed or survived was of no concern to me.

  The Mayor grabbed his sword and rushed out of the house, leaving me alone in total darkness. I knew where the extra flashlights were and although they were only a few feet away, I struggled searching in the black.

  As I bumped into furniture, I could hear the distant screams get louder and the Nanashi roars emanate throughout Newbury. I reached the light and quickly wound it up, supplying energy to the stick so that I could rush through the bloodshed to find Kaolin.

  I grabbed the spikes I had taken from Nanash, and I left the house and found myself amidst chaos. Hundreds of beams of light cut through the darkness, in search of those attacking. A few of the beams shone toward the ceiling, still as can be. Either Newburyians were examining above, or they had fallen to their doom, the only life left were the radiating beams of energy bursting toward the ceiling, only to be kept and confined within the city.

  I hurried through the City Center when I tripped over something, bringing myself to the ground. I looked back and spotted a slain child, melted in the dirt. He was no older than five or six with a sword grasped in his lifeless hand. There were four slash marks across his stomach. If Newbury survived, if his loved ones made it past the night and the lights were renewed, they would find their child slain, but would they wonder why? Would they examine the series of events that led to their child face up in a puddle of his own blood? The surprise attack on Nanash which led to their attack on Newbury? The Nanashi attack on Joey which led to the Newburyian attack on Nanash? Their old tribe decimated by the old Newbury. When did it all begin? Did it matter? Did it matter who struck first? Did it matter why? Regardless of the reason, the boy was dead and that was that. There would never be another one of him for all time.

  I pushed through the screams and the cries and the death, striking through beams of white light and flying green mushrooms, briefly illuminating the above. And then, a beacon at the center of the city burned a bright white, pulsating its light outward across the city. The center of the city became well lit, allowing all who looked toward to see the massacre which was occurring. The further away from the center, the dimmer the light. Somehow, they were able to restore power to the beacon while the rest of the city lay dark.

  I continued to run across the city, dodging swords and spikes. I turned and spotted Gunnar holding an elderly lady in his hands. He launched her toward
the ground with a loud crack that shook the air. The body dented the Earth, causing a puff of dirt to cloud the area before he swiped at the next attacker, sending him beside the woman, shrouded in the gray dust.

  I was unphased. I sprinted passed everything toward Meredith Washburn’s house. My heart thumped ferociously and I could barely breathe. I wanted to vomit, I wanted to fall to my knees and lay beside the lifeless, but I couldn’t. The only way that would happen is if my legs were taken from me, but even then, I would pull myself along the ground, shredding my body apart until I found her.

  I finally reached the house and I heard screams from within. I burst through the door and from the other room:

  “I’m trying to save you, Kaolin! I have a place we can hide.”

  “Let me go!”

  “I’m trying to help you!”

  I hurried in and spotted James grabbing at Kaolin who had been backed into a corner.

  “Let her go!”

  James turned and held his sword firmly. I raised my hands, spikes protruding from my knuckles, but I did not know how to use them to defend or attack. I knew what they could do, I had seen them in action, but that did not mean I knew how to use them as such.

  He swiped at me and I jumped back. He took a step forward and swiped again and all I could do was jump back. If he were chasing me, I could tunnel away, I could escape, but here, I was powerless. I could not defeat him with the weapon like Valasca could. He knew that. I knew that. Kaolin knew that. I could not defeat him with words like the Mayor could. He knew that. I knew that. Kaolin knew that.

  I wanted so desperately to save her and vanish with her to the above. I wanted us to leave this place, this cruel and unforgiving city, but in order to do so, I had to become Valasca, I had to become the Mayor. I needed to defeat James.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said as calmly as possible.

  “I want to hurt you,” he said defiantly.

  “We just want to go. We just want to be happy.”

  “Yeah? Well what about me? I want to be happy.”

  “What can I do to help you?”

  “Leave.”

  “I can’t do that without her. Don’t you want her to be happy? She wants to leave with me.”

  “She’ll be happy with me. She just can’t see that yet!”

  He raised the sword and swiped. I put my hands in front of me. The sword connected with the spikes, pushing me back into the cabinet, causing several plates to fall and crash to the ground.

  Despite my best efforts, I could not talk my way out of the situation. I would have to fight.

  He raised the sword up high and I wondered, is this the same thing so many people felt long ago when the ball of fire flung its destructive energy toward the surface? Did they look up, knowing their imminent doom and wonder what would happen next? Where would I go? What would happen to me?

  And as he brought the sword down, Kaolin jumped from behind and grabbed around his neck. His weapon fell to the ground as the two of them slammed against the sink.

  He pried her off of him as I stood still, watching and immobile. He raised his hand and struck the side of her head, causing her to stumble back. He turned to face me and froze in place.

  He looked down at his stomach and saw my fist pressed against his shirt, spikes sunken deep within. He grabbed at my hand, trying to pry me away, but I wouldn’t move back. I couldn’t move back.

  I willed my hand forward. He stumbled backwards as I sunk the spikes deeper and deeper into his gut until he backed into the wall. He coughed and blood spurted from his mouth onto my face, but I was undeterred. I kept pushing forward as his power left his body and this world.

  I could feel his energy subside. I could feel his everything vanish in a wisp of a memory. He whimpered as he pleaded for me to stop. But I couldn’t stop. Not anymore. He looked out the window and could see the city being extinguished.

  “Everything is ending,” he said, spitting out his words. “The true apocalypse.”

  And then, I felt nothing. No movement. No more whimpering. I pulled my hand back, spikes gleaming red and James fell to the ground where he may lay for all eternity. Where he may disintegrate into billions of specs of dirt.

  Kaolin got up and threw her arms around me. “Are you okay?” she whispered in my ear.

  “Yes,” I said, to soothe her nerves, to calm my fears. I looked out the window and saw the screams and heard the killing. My gaze turned from the outside to my own reflection, captured in the translucent glass, my own image disrupted and distorted. It didn’t feel like me, like my reflection in the water so long ago. Things were not all right. I was a new Spec, older and wiser and tainted.

  It poisoned me, I thought. Newbury and Nanash. They infiltrated my mind and changed my very being. They transmuted me into something I did not want to be. They transformed me. They turned me into a beast.

  They made me a savage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Scorched:

  The screams continued to echo throughout the city. They had a way of piercing your insides like the spikes had cut through James. Their fear was transferred from their cries into my being. I could feel the pain of the fallen, I could feel their dreams vanquished, and I could do nothing to stop their penetration. Their screams weren’t pleading for help. Nobody could help them. They were a way to be recognized one last time. To have their voice and thoughts heard. I felt what they felt. For a lingering moment, I absorbed their pain and fear, before both them and their essence dissipated into the darkness.

  Kaolin and I sliced through the screams and to the North, toward the elevator that would save us from the inevitable doom below, bringing us to our potential doom above. We hurried up a hill through the dimming light and spotted the large mechanism with a pile of junk we could easily move.

  I grabbed at rubble and flung it away like Gunnar did his victims. I looked over at Kaolin and saw her working just as hard, wanting the future just as badly as I wanted. I wondered if we survived the night, could we survive the surface, could we survive the future?

  We broke through and stood before a metal gate with a small metal lock, blocking us from the elevator. I raised the spikes and hit down on the lock. Again and again, but it was no use. I found a large rock beside but couldn’t lift on my own. I glanced over at Kaolin and she knew what to do.

  “Now --”

  We hoisted the stone and heaved it at the lock. Again and again until the lock fell to the ground in a heap. We dropped the boulder and I walked inside of the contraption. There was a lever propped to one side. Is that all we needed? Is that all it took? One turn of a lever to fulfill our dream? Would it work? Did it need electricity? I took the flashlight and shined it upward, and for the first time in my life, I could not see a ceiling. I just watched as the light faded into the dark. How far down were we? I guess there was only one way to find out.

  “Are you ready?”

  I turned to Kaolin, but she was nowhere to be found. I took a step out of the elevator and spotted her pinned to the ground beneath Valasca’s knee.

  “Hi, Spec. I’m afraid I’m going to have to break my promise.”

  “Don’t…”

  “My friends died because of you.”

  Kaolin tried to speak, but her face was pinned to the ground and her breathing was labored.

  “She didn’t do anything to you, Valasca.”

  “Yes she did. She did everything!”

  “Please don’t hurt her.”

  “There’s nothing you can say, Spec. Because I don’t care the way you do. Your sadness means nothing to me. I have seen the world sulk. I have heard her moans, and I am left pristine. Your loyalty was all I asked. I gave you freedom and you gave me betrayal.”

  “No, you didn’t. You gave me false hope. You gave me a substitute. Glowing mushrooms so that I would be content and Cotta would stay. I was never free. There was never freedom. You manipulated my mind to give me the illusion, to believe I had what I wanted. But you
could never give me it. How did you earn your loyalty? I never betrayed you because you never had my allegiance.”

  She moved the spikes against Kaolin’s neck, but then, shot her head up, as if something struck her in the side of the skull. She jumped off of Kaolin and stabbed in the dark and we heard metal clash and then a spark.

  The Mayor appeared, yielding his sword, dripping red. He sliced downward toward Valasca. She connected her hands together, blocking the attack but pushing her back. I moved toward Valasca with my claw held high, ready to end the threat, but Kaolin held me back and shook her head.

  The Mayor raised his sword and struck again. Another spark as the metal connected, her spikes blocking the weapon. Another blow and another block. She had no time to attack, she was consistently defending.

  Kaolin placed her hand against my chest and pushed me toward the elevator. “This is our chance.”

  I watched the two continue their battle and wondered where I stood amongst the chaos. Who was good and who was bad? Who was right and who was wrong? Both only cared about themselves. Both would destroy the other in a heartbeat. But were either evil? By Newburyian standards, Valasca was bad. By Nanashi standards, the Mayor was bad.

  And as they fought, generations of anger pulsated in the dim-lit arena. But there was no place for me and no place for Kaolin. Our place was above. We rushed into the elevator and watched as the Mayor struck again. This time, Valasca pushed his sword aside, and both of their weapons pierced the rocky wall beside. A gust of invisible air rocketed out of the Earth, blowing their hair back.

  The Mayor stopped suddenly, as if his heart were stabbed. He put his hand out toward Valasca, pleading for her to stop:

  “Don’t!” he shouted. “The gas is flammable! It’ll kill us both!”