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

by Casey Herzog

  “There aren’t many other places to go unless we make our search grid bigger,” Alex said, finally, as they pulled up half a mile in front of the large bridge that crossed over a foggy ridge and led towards the large city. He didn’t look too happy with the results of their journey. Even though they had plenty of fuel for a protracted voyage, it felt like they had just wasted time and resources up to this point. “They must have gone into the city at one point or another. After all, if they wanted basic supplies it was the only choice.”

  Maria bit her lip.

  “Don’t criminals live in there? If they somehow ended up in Ayia, it probably didn’t end well.”

  Alex didn’t turn to look at her.

  “Look, we get close and see what’s going on. Don’t jump to conclusions before we’ve even investigated. We haven’t seen a single enemy patrol, and the bridge doesn’t have any guards on it. Maybe the criminals have left. Who knows, Maria? Please, control your tongue and your thoughts. We need to be optimistic.”

  The young girl looked at her partner and feigned a small smile. Alex was being immature, but she had to allow him his moment of hope.

  “Okay, darling. Let’s go and find out what happened.” She stuck her head out of the window and shouted at those in the back. “Guys, we’re entering a very dangerous city soon. Please have your guns armed and ready for what’s coming. Be prepared to fire on anybody who fires on us!”

  Alex pushed the truck forward once more, and they reached the bridge within a few minutes. He slowed the vehicle down as they passed, and Maria caught sight of a few cigarette butts, a crate and a metal cup lying on the side of the road. Somebody kept watch here until recently, she realized. Why did he leave?

  The city became larger and larger, and now she and Alex could see the details — it was one of the biggest metropolitan areas that remained standing this side of the Atlantic, and its tall buildings were a rare sight in post-war times such as these.

  They approached until the nearest structures were close, but not too close for a sniper to pick them off. Alex drove the truck off the road and parked it within tall grass that would partially conceal the vehicle if anyone came past.

  “I think we should enter the city with a small group first, just in case,” Alex said with a grimace. There was clearly something on his mind. “It’s quiet, but even if the known warlord and his men have left, somebody else might have replaced them.”

  Maria nodded and descended from the truck. They walked to the back, and Alex chose a few of the more experienced children to come with them into the city.

  “The rest of you stay here and be on the lookout. We don’t know what’s behind or ahead of us, so we can’t let our guard down.” She knew the kids would do what they were told, but many didn’t know just how dangerous the outside world was anymore, “We’ll come back for you once we’re done. One last thing,” she added, “Don’t come for us if we don’t return.” She glanced at Alex and he nodded, handing over the truck’s keys to the third oldest community member after themselves: a sixteen-year-old named Lewis, a blond boy with a specialty in circuits and electricity in general.

  “I’ll keep these for you until you get back,” the boy smiled.

  “Okay guys,” Alex said to the five other teens and kids who accompanied him and Maria. “Let’s go.”

  With a last glance back at their truck and their community, the group sprinted towards the city within the tall grass that grew beside the road, and made their way towards the buildings sitting on the outside streets.

  Welcome to Ayia, Maria thought with a bitter sensation, enjoy your stay.

  The city was not as lonely as expected, they soon realized.

  An armed woman was seen as the small group walked silently along an alley between two buildings. She passed in front of them without realizing they were there, looking as cautious and lost as they did.

  “We should talk to her,” Maria said, and Alex nodded. He signaled three fingers at himself and two to her and made an enveloping movement. An ambush. Maria and the others nodded, and she tapped the arms of the two children who would be coming with her. They would keep the woman at gunpoint while Alex went around the block to ambush her. Even though she was alone and lost, it could still be a trap; she could have company elsewhere. No risks taken, Callum and Johanna taught us that, among other things.

  Alex took her two companions and ran to the end of the alley, making no noise at all as they reached the corner and held their rifles up. It was just a matter of—

  “Shit!” she heard a female voice hiss, and the sound of running footsteps reached her. Maria was bowled over by a figure that came bursting from around the corner, and she barely managed to grab the woman’s ankle before she could escape.

  “Get down!” one of the kids said, pointing his rifle at the furious stranger’s head, and she lifted her hands in surrender.

  “Fine, come on! Don’t shoot me!” She looked dirty and sickly.

  “Everyone lower your voices,” Alex ordered with authority. He threw a man onto the ground beside the woman and shook his head. “This one saw us first and tried to bail. Looks like it all ended well, though.”

  “What do you want?” the man asked angrily. He was older, a middle-aged thug with a bald head and an ugly scar on his left cheek. “Russell’s army is finished. If you came here for revenge or something, you’re too late. Anyone that should be dead is dead, and anyone that ain’t is long gone.” The man glanced at both ends of the alley, already planning an escape. It was foolish, Maria thought. I’ll gun him down without a second thought if he attempts anything.

  “We’ve come here for our people,” Alex said.

  “People?”

  “A group of adults went missing a while ago,” Maria responded, trying to sound sweet and innocent. “They took care of our community. They were led by a man named Adam and a woman named Johanna.” She began to describe the group, and at one point, she caught sight of an expression on the woman’s face. It wasn’t much, but it was there. Recognition.

  “We don’t know nothing about no people,” the man said. He was being honest.

  “Nah, nothing at all,” the woman said. She was not.

  Alex stared at them, but Maria pulled him away slightly and lowered her voice.

  “The woman knows something.”

  “How do you—” he began to answer, but Maria rolled her eyes and returned to the female captive.

  “What is your name?”

  “Michelle,” she answered reluctantly.

  “Michelle, tell me what you know. Right now.”

  “I don’t know nothing, we both just told—”

  Whack. The man beside Michelle cried out as Maria slammed the butt of her rifle into his scarred cheek, knocking him painfully to the ground and causing him to spit out blood and a broken tooth.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “You’re crazy, you little bitch!”

  Maria kicked him in the groin this time, raising another cry. The other kids took a step closer and pointed their rifles at both captives, basically begging them to make a move. Michelle lifted her hands again.

  “Okay, okay. I saw them. That Johanna bitch started it all. It ended badly. Very badly. For all of them. Even our Russell.”

  “Take us there,” Alex breathed. He seemed emotional. Maria had given up hope ages ago, but the boy — for despite his age, he was still a boy thrust into war too early — was only now realizing what this meant. His father was dead. “Shut up and show us what happened.”

  The man with the scar nodded.

  “Fine, don’t tell us we didn’t try to save you the pain, boy.”

  Maria kept her eyes on the captives. They kept to the darkness of the alleys and the shadows of the buildings around them. The tower, she realized. Their destination was a great skyscraper that stood several blocks away; she was certain of it. It seemed to call them with a powerful voice, a call that was heavy with fate. We should have come here earlier, s
he thought suddenly, as soon as we realized that Callum and Dante were never coming back. Were they both dead? Was everyone dead? It was the worst case scenario, but it was possible.

  Even likely in this world.

  They reached the entrance lobby of the building before she even realized it. Luckily, there had been no other enemies, and the captives had behaved. Maria had been so distracted; it might have cost them dearly if they’d encountered a threat.

  “In here.”

  Alex looked inside and gasped. Only then did the rest see why.

  The building was still mostly intact on the outside, seemingly just a tall tower with a large burned-out section near the middle and the top, however…

  “There’s nothing left of it…” Alex breathed.

  The insides of the tower had collapsed inwards, similarly to how a stack of wood will collapse eventually when placed over a fire. The metal supports were heaped on top of each other on the ground floor; the concrete rebar lay smashed all around.

  “We need to go in,” Maria said quietly, and Michelle turned to look at her with a scowl. “We need to go in,” Maria repeated, and the woman sighed and turned back to the main door.

  “Let’s go,” she said simply, opening the door.

  A few moments later, Alex released an anguished cry and Maria felt her eyes growing moist.

  It was as she had expected, but it tore her up all the same.

  “May they rest in peace,” Michelle offered solemnly.

  “Dad,” Alex said to his father’s corpse, the man’s skull cut to the bone by a savage cut with a heavy blade, “I will follow your steps and make your dream come true. I promise.”

  A silence followed, and for a moment all that mattered was the respect and the mourning owed to the dead.

  For that is all that is left for us to give them.

  They did not give up immediately after, their search becoming more and more painful as they shifted rubble and pulled concrete from steel supports. Maria had not expected to feel such a hurtful pain after finding both Frank and Johanna’s corpses, but everything had come to a standstill when she’d found Paola’s mangled body at the bottom of a particularly ornate heap of rubble consisting mostly of treasures and velvet carpeting.

  Michelle and the man they’d captured were kept in sight as the group began to leave the city, moments after they all stepped out of the tower.

  One particular boy was weeping freely, twin streaks of tears running down his face as he shook his head and mouthed silent, anguished laments to the world, or his god, or whatever. He had been one of Johanna’s favorites.

  “At least we didn’t find Callum or Dante, eh? The healer escapes yet again,” Maria said with a fake merry tone. It didn’t have any effect on her companions, though the scarred man turned to see her.

  “The healer? The green-eyed boy and the soldier? Those bloody bastards caused all of this. The healer boy was the reason the tower collapsed. Everybody would be alive if he hadn’t used those powers of his. Would have saved you the tears, although Russell might have hacked them all to pieces anyway; not just the two idiots who got sliced apart,” he laughed. He caught sight of Alex’s glare at the very last moment and realized his mistake, but it was too late.

  Bang.

  The scarred thug fell to the ground, dead. Michelle cried out, but nobody else reacted. Alex’s smoking pistol returned to its holster.

  “Michelle, get out of here before I do the same to you. You were a lot of help, but we’re all too distraught to hear another word from anyone about our people that your fellows took captive and killed.”

  She scowled as if to argue the last point, but edged away slowly and finally ran towards a corner and disappeared for good. Maria looked out to the streets leading away from the city and took a deep breath.

  They walked in silence and remained vigilant. The city was definitely occupied by survivors of the destruction. Perhaps Callum and Dante were out there somewhere, but neither Maria nor Alex nor anyone else in the group cared anymore. It was simply time to move on and recover from all of this.

  The road back to the truck was as empty as they’d left it, and they all kept close to the buildings in case Michelle had betrayed them. ‘Betrayed,’ Maria thought, as if she owes us loyalty.

  Suddenly, one of the kids spoke up.

  “Oh, shit guys. What’s that?”

  True enough, there was something approaching the truck on the road. Several somethings.

  Alex and Maria glanced at each other; their emptiness faded and was replaced with something else.

  Fear.

  “What’s going on,” Alex said, his voice trembling. “Why aren’t the kids challenging those vehicles?”

  The cars approached until they were only several feet away — three military jeeps full of ragged, armed men and a black sedan with tinted glass. They stopped on the road, and the men descended from the cars, their rifles and handguns trained on the back of the truck, where there were supposed to be armed children ready for any threat that could come at them.

  Maria was in complete shock.

  “Why aren’t they reacting to this? What—” she froze as she saw the small, pale figure step out of the back of the truck with a grenade in his raised hand, his finger keeping the safety lever in place to avoid it from detonating. She knew who it was immediately. “No, that sneaky little bastard,” Maria breathed. In his other hand was a gun that he had pointed at the heads of two kids, a boy and a girl. The kids from the other night. They fell for his trick and must have helped him do this. Nathan was never one of us…

  “What are you talking about? Isn’t that Nathan?”

  A shadow stepped out from around a corner beside them and a cold barrel came to rest on Alex’s head. Maria’s rifle barrel was pushed downward from one side of her a moment later, and more men appeared, their guns pointing at the group and their grins wide with triumph.

  “Who are you?” Maria asked angrily. She felt helpless, weak, and guilty for leaving the children behind to look for dead bodies.

  A man stepped closer to her and tore her rifle out of her hands, throwing it several feet away. His hand grasped the back of her neck, and he approached her closely.

  “We’re the worst possible thing anyone could possibly encounter out here in the wastelands…Today is not your lucky day.”

  EPILOGUE

  ~Loose Ends~

  Morning caught him lying on his back with a sore ache in his gut. Dante coughed painfully, and found his saliva was laced with blood. He felt sick, weak, and hurt, three feelings he had never endured in such a way before. The healer cried out as he attempted to move, but it was completely useless. He couldn’t even shift a few inches, such was the pain coursing through his nerves.

  “Poison,” a voice rasped from nearby. Dante tilted his head ever so slightly and caught sight of a rugged, bearded man. The guy who fought me on the roof. “Yes, definitely some sort of anticoagulant powerful enough to nullify even your supernatural ability. Whoever made it was something else,” he said with a sort of unwilling admiration. “I was reluctant to cancel my class for your incident, boy, but it seems that I have learned more from your wounds than what you would have learned from me. Curious, to say the least.”

  Dante felt annoyed that the man was treating him more like a test subject than an innocent student who had been stabbed, almost to death, after having lunch. He tried to speak, but it was difficult.

  “R-Rob?”

  “The fat one, you mean?” the man grunted. “Alive. A beast, he is. Killed the one who stabbed you, left the other one hanging from a thread. Probably a goner too, just doesn’t know it yet. Your friend Rob is a guardian angel, kid.”

  Dante nodded very slightly, lying back on the hospital bed he had been placed in. He would thank the heavy boy, if his wounds allowed it. The pain started to grow, and he willed himself to heal in a way he’d never needed to. It only lessened his agony a tiny bit, which truly frightened Dante.

  �
�What’s with the look of horror, child?” The man laughed and patted Dante on the shoulder, causing spikes of pain along his body. “Just realizing you’re not immortal? Better you find out after surviving this attack, than in the last instant as a bullet goes through your head, just saying. Nobody is free from death. You knew it; you just needed to be reminded.” He stood and walked to the door, stopping to add a thought. “Get better, son. I have plans for you.” Dante heard the door slam shut, and somebody else stepped in.

  Immediately, the drab, featureless chamber began to shift, turning into a beautiful throne room of some sort, gold decorations hanging from the walls and chandeliers from the ceiling. A fire crackled in the hearth that had formed in the wall, and Dante wasn’t lying on a bed anymore, but instead on a kingly couch that enveloped him. My bodily sensations shouldn’t change, but the bastard knows how to trick your mind into doing so, the healer realized. The Chameleon’s powers had even made him feel warmer, despite the temperature not rising a single degree.