The Lucid Dreamer (Dystopian Child Prodigy SciFi) (The Unmaker Series Book 1)

by Casey Herzog

  Callum slammed his foot into the brake and his hands onto the steering wheel before cursing loudly. Only then did he see movement on the left side of the road. Subhumans. It was all happening too quickly. At first, it seemed like it was just a few of them, but more and more emerged until there was a steady line of the mutants walking out from a ditch and onto the road. They carried varying degrees of mutation: some with warped limbs and faces, others seeming to have been transformed more in the mind than the body. The latter were equally as dangerous as the former; most were extremely violent and were known for actively hunting and killing humans for little more than their own personal pleasure.

  “We need to go, sir!” Dante cried, struggling to open the truck’s door and leave the vehicle, but Callum grabbed his arm.

  “We’re not leaving this truck behind. We have no chance in hell of getting where we want to go without a vehicle!” Tearing the gear stick into reverse, he slammed his foot on the gas and pushed the vehicle back at high speed, smashing through a line of shacks as he did. The cries of the mutants followed as several of them, who had been in hiding, were rammed and run over. Callum winced as he felt the irregular bumps and humps under the wheels of the truck, but he had no choice but to get out of their predicament as soon as possible. More subhumans were stepping out of nearby buildings; their senses alarmed by the noise coming from the streets around them.

  “There’s a narrow road there,” Dante pointed, “It may be all we have!”

  Callum threw the gear back forward and sped ahead in the direction the lad indicated. True enough, it was a cramped and risky street to drive through, but it was either that or be bogged down by a swarm of bloodthirsty mutants.

  “Come on,” Callum begged the vehicle as it smashed a wrecked car out of the way, “Don’t fail on us now, come on…”

  With a last push of acceleration, the truck managed to burst through to the other side of the street, returning to the lane they’d been following, but on the other side of the roadblock they’d encountered.

  They were through. Despite the obstacles and the enemies, they had made it.

  “What is it with this world?!” Callum exclaimed. “It was once a paradise, now look at it!”

  Dante turned to him and spoke his mind.

  “It was something special, but now that’s dead, as are the millions who helped keep it that way. Only the strongest and cruelest survive. This world is no longer built for the weak or the good.”

  Only then did Callum see the look on the healer’s face. It was cold and uncaring, nothing of the fear the boy had once carried everywhere with him showing itself on the lad’s features.

  “Paradise? Paradise is dead, sir…” He breathed softly and looked out the window at the swarm of frustrated creatures trying their hardest to keep up with the truck. “…All we have now is our new personal hell.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  ~Something Left to Live For~

  The moment they emerged from Nicrodia, both of them released a long sigh of relief. The subhumans had not given up their pursuit, despite the distance being clearly too far for them to catch the truck — they had remained in sight for two hours until Callum had found a way out of the city and towards the roads that led to the northern highway. The faint groans and screams finally faded when the pair was able to speed up on the lonely trails leading out of the city.

  Signs of dawn began to appear: clouds turned slightly less black, very tiny holes in the sky through which thin columns of light shined on the ground below appeared. They had braved the night. Perhaps the day would be better.

  “What happens once we arrive? Will you stay there with me?” Dante looked hopeful; clearly he didn’t wish to be left alone again. It had already been difficult enough to grow up without parents, let alone without a decent group of people around him. He had never been able to get used to anybody; they usually died or got separated just when he was starting to feel comfortable. It was a disgusting feeling, as if he wasn’t good enough for anyone to care about him. Callum, Johanna, and the rest had been the first to make him feel truly cared for, not just as a valuable asset, but as an actual member of their community. I didn’t want to lose that so soon, but she’s gone now, and Callum, well…

  Callum swallowed hard. He didn’t know how to break it to the lad.

  “I’m sorry, Dante.” He looked forward and concentrated on the road in an attempt to avoid seeing the expression on the boy’s face. He didn’t want to leave him alone in yet another foreign place at all, but he and the rest had gone as far as they could with Dante and his abilities. It was time for him to meet experts, people who would actually give him tasks and lessons that could expand his mental and physical capacities. There was also the fact that the community was pretty a failed experiment, except for the children.

  “Unless someone else managed to get out — which as far as I know nobody did — I’m the last surviving adult of the group. I need to get back and continue teaching the rest of the kids. I must take care of them. You’ll be safe at the University; I’m sure of it.”

  Dante bit his lip.

  “Okay.” Not for the first time, he wished he could trade his ability to heal his body for an ability to cheer himself up. Life had never been easy.

  As he dozed off on the truck’s window, his mind drifted.

  Only then did he remember the date, and a sad smile spread across his face.

  “Are you okay, Dante?” Callum asked from behind the wheel. “What’s going on?”

  Dante chuckled and closed as his eyes and rested his head back onto the seat.

  “It’s just the date, sir.” He suddenly remembered someone from his past who had made sure to celebrate days like these, despite the end of the world. “Today’s my birthday.”

  The truck ran out of fuel several hours outside of Nicodia. For all that Dante could repair or heal; he couldn’t create gas out of nothing.

  Callum cursed loudly and rested his head on the steering wheel for a few moments until he could make a decision. They were on the highway sitting above the wastelands and pretty much in the view of anyone for miles all around. He knew they needed to get off the road as soon as possible if they valued their lives. People on foot were always victims to the worst kinds of fates, as if not having a vehicle gave bandits a reason to be crueler in their methods of hurting travelers.

  “Callum, there’s not much to think about. We get out and we go on foot. Stop feeling sorry for me.” Dante’s eyes were shining angrily; it made them a lighter shade of their typical green. He opened the door and hopped out, grabbing his bag before he slammed it shut again. “We have guns, we have tools. Food and water may be the only issue.” He was already walking away from the truck.

  There had been a small bit of food inside the truck when they’d grabbed it and escaped from Ayia, its glove compartment and dashboard containing a few protein bars and a large water bottle, but that was it. They had both managed to get away with a few weapons, though Dante knew that sometimes it was better to travel lightly when faced with situations like these. Long walks and heavy bags didn’t combine very well.

  Thorpe slid out of the truck, pulling his things out with him. He glanced at the railgun for a moment too long as he picked it up. Do I really need this? He wondered. It was his favorite weapon, a rifle that delivered projectiles at velocities that could punch through any kind of armor with ease, but it was heavier than most other firearms.

  “Fuck it, I’m not leaving you behind for a scavenger,” he said, oddly to the rifle. The weapon might come in handy if they were forced to face aircraft — he’d seen how good the thing was at knocking fighter jets and other vessels out of the air, and the Coalition regularly needed to be reminded that they weren’t the only ones with firepower.

  The Allied Human Forces had started out as a liberation army, a force that had proven to humanity that they were capable of uniting and fighting together if need be, but it had degraded and lost its way over the time. Many of the offi
cers within the force had forgotten their heroics against the alien force that had entered their planet and sought to conquer them — The Outsiders — and now had become little more than warlords with weapons of mass destruction. Both he and Dante had been targets of the famous bleaching that the Coalition aircraft used to cleanse entire areas of subhuman life, an activity which, most often than not, killed swathes of innocents with the single flick of a button.

  “I’ve never asked you this, sir, but are things harder now than during the war?” Dante’s hunger for knowledge had made him forget his moment of anger already.

  Callum wondered about the answer to the sudden question and remained silent. During the war there had been two types of days: bad days and terrible ones. Even so, there was something about the planet after humanity’s pyrrhic victory that screamed of a stagnation that hadn’t existed while the alien race was at its strongest.

  “Until we smashed their main force at the Battle of the Atlantic, things were pretty grim…but I do believe that certain things are worse now than they were. We still had ways to ship food and items with ease back then. Hardly anyone went hungry, unless they were in an Outsider-controlled sector. There wasn’t this ugly sky,” he added, pointing above them, “Or airborne viruses and other sicknesses hunting us down like packs of dogs. The fact that people actually wanted to help each other and fight as one, and not take everything they could from the most vulnerable, was also positive.” The new world was a dog-eat-dog reality where only the strongest and cruelest prevailed.

  “I see.” Dante remained silent as they walked; sticking to one side of the highway in case they needed to hide. “I once asked you if you’d killed any of the invaders. You looked uneasy. I’d like to ask again, now that you know I’ve seen worse with my own eyes.” The boy’s expression looked smug, and Callum nodded with a smile.

  “Yeah, there isn’t much I can hide from you anymore, is there?” His mind began to replay a particularly strong memory in his head, and he finally accepted that Dante needed to know how bloody the war had gotten. “Do you really wish to know? Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I have to tell you what made me go down that road, though…This took place before we actually knew what we were fighting and what they were capable of. I’m speaking of the months after they hit us for the first time.”

  His eyes looked firmly ahead as he walked and goose bumps rose on his skin as horrible memories began to return. It was still a very difficult story to share, but Callum began his tale.

  Fifteen Years Ago

  “Son, is that you?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, and she winced with pain as she turned on her cot. “Please, come closer.”

  A fifteen-year-old lad took a small step forward from the doorway, still standing far away from his dying mother. Although he tried to hide it, tears were running down his face when he saw the condition she was in. He hadn’t been in the city when the attack took place and couldn’t help but feel a bout of survivor’s guilt.

  “Mother…” He crossed the room then and hugged her as firmly as he could, plunging his head into her shoulder and releasing all of the pain and emotion he had been carrying until then. He felt her put her arms around him and sob as she enjoyed her son’s warmth for the first time since the invasion. “I’m sorry for not being here, I really am.”

  He had left his hometown for college, his life’s dream having always been to become a civil engineer, or maybe an architect. He’d loved building as a child, always creating little masterpieces out of blocks, or even common household objects. His parents had supported his decision and given him enough funds to move to a city a couple of hours away to make his dream come true.

  It had been what had saved his life, or at least his wellbeing. He hadn’t yet asked about father, Mary or Tom, but he could guess what had happened to them. Grief still hadn’t hit him though; it was mostly the shock of finding his mother like this. Even so, he had to know.

  “Mother,” he whispered, unsure of whom it was going to hurt the most, “Where are dad and my brother and sister?” She pretended not to listen, making a shushing sound and rubbing his back with affection. “Mother, please.”

  She pulled away from him and cowered back into her bed, pulling the blanket above her head. The refugee camp outside was noisy, but suddenly the room became very silent.

  “Mother.” This time his voice was firm, and she jumped at the sound.

  “They’re dead. They’re all dead, son.”

  Suddenly, Callum looked at his mother as if he was seeing her for the first time. Only now did he see how badly hurt she was and realized what a stupid question he’d asked. Half of her face had been burned almost to the bone, the signs of synthetic flesh and skin replacements clear on her recovering cheek and brow. Her body was frail and, although it hurt him to admit it, slightly deformed in a way that spoke of transformation. Her hands no longer looked as human as they were before, now slightly curling inward like claws. Her hair was almost entirely gone. On his arrival, he hadn’t noticed any of it. All that had mattered was that she was alive.

  “How?” he breathed.

  “No…” she said. “Don’t…”

  “Tell me.”

  She broke into tears and lifted her blanket to her eyes, wiping them uselessly.

  “Your dad and sister died immediately, the biological weapons in the air eating through their flesh in seconds. I was caught on one side of my body before managing to close the car door. It did this to me,” she pointed, showing her son the damage, “But I pulled your brother into the car and got away as fast as I could. It was horrible, baby…I saw Felicia, our neighbor, literally falling to pieces in front of me. The security guard at the Williamson household, he threw himself in front of the car. I couldn’t stop,” she said, her voice breaking, “I didn’t stop…”

  Callum hugged her tight, but knew there was something she still hadn’t said.

  “My brother?”

  She breathed deeply and continued.

  “He…Well, we drove for hours and hours. People were desperate; I saw riots and distant explosions. There was fighting in the streets as shop-owners attempted to defend themselves from the looting, but it all ended in tragedy for them. Many were killed. In the end, some of the people tried to attack our car, so we got out and left it to them.” She pursed her lips in an attempt to keep the tears from falling. “But nobody would have thought that we would be killed by our own.”

  “What?” Callum asked.

  “The military. They probably heard about the things going on. They heard of people being liquefied, listened to police radio and knew that the riots were suddenly uncontrollable; probably they thought they could contain it by killing us all. They didn’t manage to, but they did their best. My poor son…We were caught in a bombing. Fire rained down upon us — someone pulled me into a home, but Tom was not quick enough. I heard his final scream, but it was quick. At least it was quick…”

  Her son stood and stepped away. He had made a decision.

  “Mother, I am leaving.” She looked at him and began to protest, but he shook his head. “Around the country — no — around the world, what you just described is happening a million times over. People are dying, mom. I can’t let this keep happening. I’m looking at you right now and I…” he paused, trying to contain himself, “I want to remember you as you were.” She looked at him strangely. It was as if she was grateful that he knew what was coming. The woman was dying and didn’t need a doctor to tell her to know it. Her son continued, recovering his composure. “I’ve made a decision. Those creatures that have to come to hurt us, I don’t know what they are, or what they want, but I do know one thing: I’m going to fight them, mom. I’m gonna fight them, and I’m going to kill them all.”

  Kneeling, he kissed her on the forehead one last time and stepped out to meet his destiny.

  Dante let out a long breath. He was speechless.

  “Have I answered your question?” Callum asked bitterly.

>   “Yes, sir. I won’t ask again.”

  The man laughed bitterly and patted the healer on the shoulder. Sometimes I’m too rough on him. After all he’s just nine…no wait, ten now. I should—

  Thorpe froze and straightened. He heard it again.

  The howling of the winds dominated the sounds of the wastelands, but somewhere beneath them was a faraway echo of engines that kept reaching Callum’s ears. He wrote it off as his imagination, but it had been going on for too long. It was a certainty now.

  They were being followed, and whoever it was was getting closer by the hour.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ~Undesired Company~

  Dante finally won his own internal conflict after a few hours of walking and decided to ask what he’d wanted to know since they left Ayia.