Humble Beginnings (Tri System's Edge Series Book 1)

by Ron Schrader

  “It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me this,” Kalla said quietly, attempting to comfort him.

  “No,” Jarek replied immediately. “I need to tell someone, and you need to know so this will all make sense.”

  “You’ve never talked to anyone about this before?” she asked. It seemed like the kind of thing he’d have told a friend long ago, if he had any. How long has he been alone in this cave? she wondered.

  He shook his head but didn’t elaborate. “I was born about seven months after the meteor showers, a couple months premature. Although I was early, everything about my growth at the time of my birth was completely normal. My mother said they kept me in the medical center for a couple extra days to make sure nothing was wrong, but I was fine. Everyone was baffled, but with everything that had been going on, so much chaos in the aftermath of the meteors, we were both sent home without further thought.”

  Kalla listened, trying to picture the scene in her mind as he spoke.

  “Though I grew at a normal rate, it didn’t take long for my mother to realize that I was different, stronger than I should’ve been. But she loved me as any good mother would, caring for me and teaching me what she could about life, this planet, and my father, who I never got to meet. She even told me all about the meteor showers and about the horrible things that had happened after that night; how she lost my father, her only love. She said it was some kind of virus or organism brought to Paradise by the meteors and somehow enhanced by the lake water out in the valley—a no-man’s land these days. At least that’s what my grandfather managed to tell her before it killed him, before it turned him into one of those abominations.”

  Shocked by what he’d just said, Kalla sat speechless. She could sense the anger and hatred Jarek felt, and it made perfect sense. Her thoughts inevitably turned to her crew, wondering what fate they had suffered. Had they been killed or turned? “Please,” she finally spoke, “tell me about the—what did you call them—Vie?”

  “Well, they’re like mindless vampires, like something out of a horror story. Whether they kill you or not, one bite is all it takes for the infection to set in and you’re as good as dead.”

  “So what about my crew? Do you think they became . . . ?”

  “No, your crew . . .” Jarek looked away. “They feed on any living thing they can catch. Only the unlucky ones that get away with just a bite will turn.”

  “I get why you hate them so much,” Kalla said softly, feeling both anger and remorse for her crew.

  Jarek continued as if he were rehearsing it all aloud to an empty room. “They’re driven by an almost insatiable hunger that seems to have no end. I do hate them for what they did to my family, and yet, I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for them.”

  “Wait—what?” Kalla blurted out. Although she was beginning to put some of the pieces together, enough to know that he wasn’t normal anymore, she still couldn’t see the whole picture. “You’re here because of the Vie?”

  He turned toward her with a melancholy smile. “My strength. Mother noticed it when I was still pretty young. She made a big deal about me keeping it to myself as much as possible, which meant I was always more of an outsider, trying to hide the real me. So I never really thought much of it, treating it more like a handicap, hiding it from everyone.”

  Still confused as to how this was all relevant to her own situation, Kalla refrained from interrupting, believing Jarek had waited long enough to talk to someone about all of this.

  “When I was about fourteen,” Jarek continued, “I was at the cliff face one day with a group of kids, watching some of the guys climb the wall. They usually wouldn’t climb too high without gear, but Reav Litchard was showing off that day. He wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t challenged him, and I wouldn’t have challenged him if he hadn’t been mouthing off—calling me names and bad-mouthing my mother. Reav was in training with the exploration team and had some official training on wall climbs, so he assumed he could take me without breaking a sweat. I challenged and he accepted, laughing and insisting I’d regret ever being born. He told me he’d be back in the morning, just before dawn, waiting to destroy me. I agreed and made the long walk home, knowing that what I’d just done was a bad idea, but it was done. There was no turning back unless I wanted to be ostracized for good.”

  “Living in a cave like this, way up high, I’d imagine you’re a pretty good climber. Probably smoked him real good!” Kalla said, listening intently as she now sat leaning forward, resting her chin in her hands. She could picture him scaling the cliff like an insect, leaving Reav in the dust. The image made her smile.

  “Yeah, it didn’t quite go like I’d expected. When I got to the cliff the next day, a group of over twenty kids had gathered. I figured they expected to see me humiliate myself. Anyway, it was early in the morning, like we’d both agreed, when the mist was the thickest. We needed to conceal our stupidity from any authority figure for as long as possible. We both chose our starting positions, and seconds later the race was on.” Jarek sat back in his chair and folded his muscular arms as a big grin emerged on his face. “The look on Reav’s face just a couple minutes in was priceless. When I glanced down about three meters below, he was struggling just to keep up with me. At that point, though, we were high enough that it was his word against mine, since we were above the mist where the crowd couldn’t see us anymore. But I didn’t really care. I’d know, and he’d know.

  “You said you climbed without any gear, right? How high did you make it?”

  “I was probably fifteen meters from the ground when I stopped climbing, so Reav could catch up.” Jarek grinned with pride. “But as I hung on to the jagged face of the cliff, I lost focus. I started imagining the applause I’d get from everyone below for beating him. That’s when Reav grabbed hold of my leg and jerked me away from the wall.”

  “But you were able to grab on to something, right? A fall that high would have killed you.”

  “No, I fell. Swear I heard him say ‘good riddance’ as I passed him too. Never was sure about that, though. Fifteen meters goes fast, and I hit the ground hard. Landed flat on my back.”

  Kalla jumped as he smacked his hands together.

  “You want me to believe you survived a fall like that, landing on your back?” Kalla questioned, struggling to believe the tall tale she was hearing.

  “Had it been anyone else there that day, you’re right, the fall would have been fatal. And that’s what everyone thought about me because they all scattered. No one wanted to be involved in a murder.”

  “Impossible . . .” Kalla whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. “There’s no way,” she blurted out. Looking at him, she could clearly see he was very muscular, but fifteen meters was a long way for any man to fall and survive.

  “Before that day I would have agreed with you, but the fall didn’t kill me. It should have, but here I am.” Jarek glanced down at the floor, a look of sorrow on his face. “When everyone left, I laid there for hours before I finally woke up to nothing more than a sharp headache at the back of my skull. There was no other sign of injury other than some blood in my hair.”

  “Maybe you weren’t as high as you thought,” Kalla suggested, looking for an explanation she could accept.

  “I asked myself the same thing,” he replied. “But the fact is, I knew exactly how high I’d climbed because I’d done it several times before. The fall should have killed me, or at the very least broken bones or caused a severe concussion. It should have caused a lot more damage than just a headache, but a headache and some dried blood on my head and neck were the only visible signs. Couldn’t even find a cut or scrape.”

  “So, dumb luck? Soft ground? How . . . ?”

  “When I got home I reluctantly told my mother what had happened, not because I needed to confess what I’d done but because I was confused and needed some answers. I remember the cautious look she gave me—like she was scared of me—before she finally said anything. She just asked
if I remembered what she’d told me about my father when I was younger, about the infection he got from the meteor shower. She said that after he woke up and left the hospital, they spent a night together, the only one before the infection started to change him. Something from his infection was passed on to me and it had made me stronger and able to heal a lot faster than normal.” Jarek smiled, appearing to reminisce for a moment. “I was pretty mad at her for not telling me sooner, but it scared me a little too.”

  Putting more pieces together, Kalla began to feel some concern for her own situation. What about the ache in my shoulder? she thought, realizing now that she’d probably been bitten. “Am I going to turn into one of those things?” she demanded.

  “No,” Jarek replied. “Let me finish and it will all make sense to you.”

  Trusting his answer, Kalla felt mildly relieved. “I’m sorry. Keep going.”

  “Well, when I asked her if I’d eventually become a Vie, she just shrugged her shoulders and said she didn’t know. I was confused and upset, so I ran out of the house, needing to be alone. I did hear her yell at me. She said she loved me, but after seeing that glimpse of fear in her eyes when I told her what had happened, I didn’t believe her.”

  “So you just ran away, then? Came here?” If he’d been alone all this time, she couldn’t help but wonder how strange this must be for him, to have her here with him.

  “No, but that brief conversation was one of the last times I ever spoke to her. Not that I didn’t love her, but there just seemed to be a wedge between us from then on, like she finally knew that I wasn’t normal; she even acted scared of me. Maybe she thought I would eventually turn into one—a Vie. The fear was always there when she looked at me.” Jarek paused and looked out into the sky again. “Ironically, the Vie wouldn’t be able to turn me,” he said, speaking more to himself.

  “What do you mean? Did those things attack you? Kalla replied with some caution as she tensed in the chair like she was getting ready to run off.

  Jarek just glanced at her with a smile and a light laugh.

  “Are you invincible or something?” she joked in an attempt to put herself at ease.

  Jarek looked her dead in the eye. “More or less,” he said in a serious tone before turning away.

  As her brain interpreted the meaning of what he’d just said, a feeling of curiosity and intrigue swept over her. She felt stronger too. Was she like him now? Was she invincible?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “You already know you’re not turning into a Vie, so you’re wondering if you’re like me. You’re wondering what I am.”

  A silence filled the room as Kalla waited for him to finish his response, but instead, he continued his story, making her wait a little longer for the answer she needed to hear.

  “The fall that day changed everything for me. Word got around, and people stayed clear of me. I was an outcast living inside the city walls.”

  “That must have been hard,” Kalla said, unable to really understand—she’d always had the attention of others. Probably a lot to do with her looks. The thought of people avoiding her was one she struggled to even imagine, but she could see it had made life rough for him.

  “Yeah, but you do anything long enough and you just get used to it. I just ended up spending more and more time exploring outside the city, though mostly up high on top of the cliffs where I was less likely to run into any Vie. And all of that climbing was good for me too. Made me stronger.”

  Kalla blushed a little as Jarek flexed his arms, showing off. “I can see that,” she responded playfully. But her tone quickly became serious again. “If you spent more time out in the open, you must have run into the Vie, right?” She felt a growing need to know more about the Vie and whether or not she could kill them.

  ”I stayed clear of them for a long time, but after a few years, when I was in my early twenties, the Vie started to get more aggressive. They’d mostly left the city alone for years, aside from the occasional incident, but all of a sudden their behavior changed. Outside the city, they pretty much had most of the planet to hunt for food, so why bother with the defended city, right? Well, for some reason they started climbing the walls and attacking people inside the city, and it started happening a lot. I didn’t care much for anyone else, but I wanted my mother to be safe, so early one morning before it was light out, I decided to go hunt some Vie.

  “So did you kill any?” Kalla asked, sitting at the edge of her seat. This is what she wanted to know. If he could kill the Vie, maybe she could too. The loss of her crew made her mad, and she felt a pressing need for revenge.

  “I’ve killed a lot of them, but it took a bite from a Vie to make that possible.”

  “What do you mean? she asked. “You said you were infected from birth. How would their bite make a difference?”

  “I went out that day thinking the same thing, that I was indestructible because of my strength, but they were still stronger and faster. Even with my gun and this sword, I still couldn’t take them like I thought.” Jarek stood and walked toward Kalla. Pulling the sword from its sheath, he handed it to her. “It’s an old Katana. Belonged to my grandfather.”

  Kalla admired the craftsmanship of the blade. “It’s nice,” she offered as she examined it for a moment. Even after all these years, the blade was sharp and smooth, a sign that it was a very high-quality blade. “Have you used it a lot?” she asked as she handed it back to him.

  “Yeah, it’s been a good companion, seen its share of action over the years. Wasn’t enough on that first hunt, though, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered much.”

  “So what happened on your first hunt?” Kalla asked with curiosity.

  “When I got out into the open valley, it didn’t take long for the Vie to find me. Several of them surrounded me, and I figured out pretty quick that I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Barely managed to take out the first two that attacked, then started running for the cliff. I killed the other three that chased me, but not before one of them managed to sink its razor-sharp teeth deep into my left arm.”

  Kalla grabbed her shoulder as she listened, though the dull ache was completely gone now. “So it bit you, then?” she asked with some concern. He was clearly fine now, but the thought of being bitten by one of those things sent a chill up her spine.

  “Sure did. Hurt like someone stabbed me with hot steel, but the pain didn’t stop me from killing it.”

  “Well, you’re obviously not a Vie, so what happened?”

  “A bite meant you’d eventually turn, and I had no reason to believe otherwise, so after resting, I headed home to tell my mother good-bye. Passed out just inside her front door. I was out for a couple days too, just like you. I remember seeing visions of others flashing through my mind, people changing into Vie. I even remember seeing both my father and grandfather, like I was somehow connected to them now.”

  She didn’t say anything, but Kalla had seen visions too. She’d felt the painful transition while she slept, the change of a person turning into a Vie. The bones cracking, the skin burning. “What an awful death,” she whispered.

  “You’re right,” Jarek said, having heard the comment. “It’s a horrible way to die. The infection takes over and the person you were is gone forever.”

  The two sat in silence as Kalla’s thoughts turned once more to her crew. I hope they were just killed, not turned, she thought, believing that was more humane.

  “When I finally woke up,” Jarek said, breaking the silence, “I was laying in my own bed. I could hear meat sizzling in kitchen like I was standing right next to it. And the smell—it was stronger and sweeter than I ever remembered. When I tried to sit up, though, I just blacked out again.”

  Kalla could see the parallels now from her own experience, except for one thing. He’d already been infected and she had not. “Why didn’t I turn?” she asked with some confusion.

  “Because I bit you,” Jarek replied.


  The puzzle of information seemed to come crashing all together with this final piece. “So you knew your bite would counteract the one from the Vie?”

  “I didn’t know,” he said as he looked at her. “I’ve never had a reason to bite anyone before, but when I found you, I couldn’t just let you die. It was a blind guess really.”

  “So what, you just woke up again and things were fine?”

  “Not exactly. After the blackout, when I finally came to, soldiers were dragging me away. Somehow they found out what had happened and assumed I would turn into a Vie. They dragged me just outside the city gates and put a bullet in my head. It was a bit of a shock waking up after being shot in the head. And it really pissed me off when I realized they’d taken my weapons and boots, but I managed to get them back. Anyway, I figured that if a bite from a Vie couldn’t turn me, then maybe my bite could save you. Just a lucky guess, really.”

  Kalla sat back in her chair, digesting everything this man—practically a stranger—had just told her. But she knew she felt different—the ability to see in the dark, for one—and began to embrace the power she felt deep inside.

  Chapter 4

  A silence filled the small room of the cave as Kalla processed everything she’d heard. Deep down she knew she felt different—stronger and better—than she ever had before, but what did it really mean? She felt a growing urge to find out what she was now capable of.

  “So what about the Vie?” she finally asked. “Can they still hurt me?”

  “Well,” Jarek began, “I’ve gone up against maybe thirty or so at a time. Wouldn’t recommend it, but I survived. You, on the other hand, we don’t even know what you are or what you’re capable of. You’re just lucky to be alive.”

  “But you saved me. I’m like you,” she argued. “How can you say we don’t know what I am? I sure feel different than I used to, and my shoulder doesn’t hurt at all. The pain is gone.”