“We’re taking a break, Tyna. Look at them all.” He gestured to the dozen exhausted kids around him. Tyna’s mouth worked slightly, but she gave a curt nod. “Alright. Five minutes.”
Sirius bent down in front of Zak.
“Listen, we’re gonna stop for a moment. It’s not gonna feel too good because we’re exposed as all hell right now. But if you really can’t make it once we get up again, I’ll carry you. You hear me? I’ll carry you if I have to.”
Zak, already looking a little better, gave a sheepish smile.
“Ya don’t gotta do that. I’m okay.”
“Good. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of all of you.”
Kora made a disgusted noise and broke away from the group, sitting by herself a few feet off. “Kora… stay close…”
“I AM!” she shrieked suddenly, turning on him with her green eyes wild and furious. “Just leave me alone!”
An awkward silence descended for the remainder of the break that they took. Soon enough Tyna was rousing them once more. Sirius took the smallest of gulps from the canteen at his side, and ensured that it was passed around to each of those that didn’t have one. Kora refused his, but took a drink from Ziggy’s, eyeing him with vengeful spite. It dug its way into his already sickened heart. How he longed to be back in their scrubby little home, arguing over seats at the table and laughing over some funny noise that the baby had made. It wasn’t meant to be like this. Was never meant to be like this…
As the day wore on, Sirius began to doubt himself. The city disappeared behind the dunes and slopes they’d left behind, and beyond there was nothing to see except the vast expanse of salt and grit, and the mountains in the distance; anything between that was obscured by the rippling heat. No sign of a town, not yet. The only indication that they were going the right way was in the next few hours, the sun dipped to the west until it was staring them right in the face.
“Spirits, I can’t take this light!” Tyna moaned, keeping her eyes down but still they stung with exposure. “Can you see anything?”
“If I had my welding goggles with me, then maybe I could, but…” Sirius replied with regret in his tone. “I guess we just have to keep going.”
And keep going they did. By the time that the sun finally started to drop below the mountains beyond, the entire party was panting, heaving. Zak leaned over once they’d finally stopped and threw up, wasting precious energy and fluid.
“Oh damn it,” Kaz groaned, patting their twin on the back. “There, there. Come on. It’s just like that time on our birthday, remember? Breathe deeply.”
“We need to find some way of staying warm.” Tyna sidled up to Sirius and spoke in hushed, anxious tones.
“What do you mean? It’s been sweltering all day.” Sirius questioned, peeling his sweat-stained tunic from his torso. Tyna pointedly kept her gaze above his neck.
“Yeah, and all the heat is going to escape. Trust me, I learned in my training. It gets really, really cold out here at night.”
Sirius stuck a piece of dried meat in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully.
“You say this used to be a river, yeah?
“Yeah.”
“So let’s dig.”
Upon doing so, and with quite little effort, amazingly they recovered some ancient wood. It was dusty with the mud but dry as a bone, and once Celeste had used a little of the fuel from her fire bombs to soak it, soon it was roaring and crackling as the sun finally disappeared. They sat around it as close as they could, instinctively leaning against each other or laying on one another to preserve body heat, any awkwardness forgotten in the horrors that they’d seen that day. Kora, of course, sat in the bundle of white that was the rescued Harvested, pointedly not meeting her brother’s eye. It stung, but what could he do? He almost couldn’t blame her. Kora had always had an unbelievable faith in the system of the city, not questioning once her place in life, or why someone should be higher than her. At the temple of Earth, even as a baby, she never cried nor was disruptive; the priests and priestesses had loved her wide-eyed, unquestioning faith. The family had been sure that she was meant for the position of acolyte, but sadly never passed the tests. Despite her disappointment Kora hadn’t let them feel sorry for her for a moment. “All labor is holy in the eyes of the spirits,” she’d said, trying to hold back tears. She’d been heard crying under the covers later that night, but had gotten up the next morning for her labor with a spring in her step and a smile on her face.
Sirius used to be bitterly envious of what he thought was blissful ignorance. He believed in the spirits as much as he believed in the ground beneath his feet, the air around him and the sky above him, but…
He was brought out of his reverie by an exclamation from Ziggy.
“Guys, look. Look up.”
Sirius turned his head to the sky, and what he saw almost took his breath away. Without the crowding of the buildings back in the city, the sky was laid bare for them, and every twinkling star was defined and shining against the inky sky. Tones of black gave way to purple around the horizon. It was… beautiful.
“…Damn,” he whispered, not realizing in lolling his head back that his soft black hair was brushing Tyna’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to mind, however, moving a little closer with a smile on her face.
“Makes everything else seem a little less dire, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. I could die here. That wouldn’t bother me.” Ziggy flopped onto his back to see the view better.
“Don’t jinx it like that, idiot,” Tyna shot across the fire, but her tone was light. Apart from the sullen silence of Kora, even the Harvested were joining in nervously, joking with them, asking questions. There was Harley, aged fifteen, who’s labor had been cleaning the apartments of higher-up Airborns, and had hated it. There was Yama, who thought that he might be seventeen, but whose mother and father had died in a collapse of the section of wall they’d been repairing. There was Frankie and Selene, the eldest at eighteen, best friends since they’d met starting their labor working in the same greenhouse as Sirius’ mother. When they’d been chosen together, the only reason they hadn’t run off themselves, they said, was that at least they were going to die as they’d lived, side by side, hand in hand. Sirius felt a stab of envy. The only person that he’d had a connection that close with had been Xan, and since he’d been gone, there”d been a notable hole in his chest where he was sure some sort of connection was meant to be, but nobody else in the world could satisfy. The other two, Desi and Jack, were already sound asleep, exhausted from the day, but the others said that Desi was too quiet for anything to be known of him and Jack used to make garments for the city.
They sat wide-eyed as Sirius and the Missing Ones told their stories- Sirius, of course, was soon exhausted of anything interesting to say, but Tyna, Ziggy and the twins had boundless tales of near escapes and monsters in the dark of the tunnels. Slowly he found himself sliding down until his head was resting against Tyna’s side. Without saying anything, she re-positioned him until he was half-laying in her lap. Her long fingers curled in his hair, sending small shocks down his spine as he listened to her talk. After a while he found himself unable to keep his eyes open against the soothing touch of the girl that he had seen kill several men just hours before. He tried to keep his eyes open, but the exhaustion of the day claimed him, and soon they were closed gently and the sound of his gentle snoring filled the camp. Kora watched from across the fire, green eyes boring into his face, but not saying a word. Unaware was she that she, too, was being watched.
She boded her time. When everyone else laid down to sleep, despite being so exhausted, she remained awake. The fire burned down to embers before she deemed it safe. Gingerly lifting Frankie’s arm, which had been thrown over her in a good-heated attempt to share body heat, she stood and started picking through the sleeping bodies.
“And where do you think you’re going.”
She whirled around. Celeste, in a perfect imitation of a sleeping person, h
ad laid in wait, curled up in her cloak. Even now the only indication that she was watching were those eyes, wide and dark and shining, watching her with an intensity that she felt might burn her bones.
“None of your business.”
“Oh, but it is.” Celeste sat up, stood, walking to the edge of camp where Kora was readying for a fight. “Calm down. I’m not going to stop you.”
“You’re… not?” Kora was suspicious, but Celeste put her small hands up.
“Honest.” A small smile played on the younger girl’s lips. “I’m sure by now you know that I’m an acolyte. In a year I would have been a priestess. But the spirits have other plans for me. And the spirits have plans for you, too. Not to be butchered and peeled apart so that a fat, vain villain in a lofty tower may live twenty years more. But not with us, either.”
“I don’t trust you,” Kora said plainly.
“Nor should you have any reason to. But if you go back, they’ll know that the rest of us are out here. They’ll be after us, and this time, there’ll be no adherence to the Law of No Death. Your brother will be hacked to pieces and left for the desert to take his blood, and so will the rest of us. We have proven ourselves too much of a threat to leave alone, and the crime of taking the Skyborn's precious harvest… there’s not many crimes that have been committed in the last hundred years or so that can even hold a flame to what we have done. Even if we have only saved six of you.”
“Seven. There’s seven of us.”
“Oh no, I wasn’t counting you. You, Kora, have to save yourself.”
Kora jumped as a howling broke the night, somewhere far away but close enough to chill her bones.
“What was that.”
“The Spirits come to make you atone for your sins, maybe,” Celeste replied with a smirk. “So you won’t stay. Will you go back and damn us all? Or do you want to hear what the spirits have for you?”
Kora looked into the girl’s hood, caught in her mysterious gaze. She took a deep breath, exhaled, a strange tingling in her bones enticing her to know more. Celeste’s sneer turned softer, and she took the other by the hand, leading her away from the embers slightly. “Remember…” she began, just as a hail of shooting stars filled the sky with their fleeting light. “Once you’ve begun, you can never turn back.”
“I understand,” Kora whispered. “I… want to know.”
Celeste’s smile grew wider. She leaned close to whisper in Kora’s ear.
***
“Kora!”
The company were awakened the next day by Sirius, putting his hands to his mouth and bellowing his sister’s name at the top of his lungs. “KOR-AAA!”
Tyna held her head against the already pounding headache, taking a gulp of water before getting up and approaching him. The dawn had just started to light up the landscape, and already the chill was beginning to lift from the air.
“Did the little cow run back to the city?” she asked her sister as everyone solemnly began to prepare to move on. There wasn’t a single person present who hadn’t expected this, but some that had hoped that it might not be the case. However, everyone was a little too preoccupied with their own survival to worry about someone who might so carelessly throw theirs away. Celeste shook her head slowly, pointing to the footprints that Sirius was following, calling out again and again.
“Kora. KORA. KO-RAAA!”
The footprints lead off to the north. Nobody knew what laid north- they’d been told in school that nothing but endless desert would meet a traveler going that way. If one went far south enough- that is, more south than any Uleadian had business going ever in the history of the city- then eventually the edge of a putrid and poisoned ocean would be met. But north? North was dead. North was nothing. North would kill you with the sheer wide emptiness of it, and that was the truth.
Tyna’s face twisted in sympathy as she approached Sirius, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. He whirled around and threw her off, eyes wide and panicked. “Tyna, we have to go. We… she…”
“No, Sirius. Not this time. I’m sorry.”
The boy stood there for a moment, broad shoulders shaking, looking like he was about to barrel into a tirade and set off anyway. But over Tyna’s shoulder he saw Kaz struggling to help Zak to their feet, Ziggy watching them with concerned eyes, Frankie digging through the bags of food and water with a slight fearful look as they assessed just how little they had. He slumped in defeat. It pulled him down to sitting upon the rough, salty ground, an agonizing pain beginning to burn away in the center of his chest. He swallowed, finding a lump sticking in his throat.
“But… but…”
“She never wanted to be saved.”
“But she… she didn’t want this… she’ll die out there…”
Celeste glided up to Sirius, taking the side of him that Tyna didn’t, and together they helped him back a few paces to the little camp. Each of them leaned on one side until he was enclosed in their embrace, a small but noticed attempt to bring him some comfort.
Sirius couldn’t take it. He broke down, big, gulping sobs wracking his entire body. He felt a sudden flush of all the tension and anger and sadness from the last four years wash over him. Xan was gone. Kora was gone. He might never see the rest of his family again. He found himself wondering not for the first time why he was even here, but the way in which it came over his mind drove all of the fight and will from his body. With a moan of dejection he looked up through tear-streaked eyelashes, precious water running down his cheeks to drop down to the salt below. The endless stretch of shadowed desert before him seemed larger and longer than ever.
Despair ate at his edges and he felt his limbs grow three times heavier. The rest stood around, awkward and upset and in no way equipped to talk the young man through the loss that he had just endured. It was as though everything had been for nothing.
He felt something soft brush his arm and realized it was Frankie’s hand as the other Earthborn moved in to embrace one side of him gently, carefully, testing the water. It was a slow, measured movement that said throw me off if you want… but I am here.
When Sirius did no such thing, even leaning into the contact, the others, first Ziggy then the twins and so on, all knelt down together to wrap their arms around him. They held him and each other like that, in a bundle of barely held back tears and grasping hands desperate to feel a moment of safety, of companionship. Missing Ones and Harvested alike- the impossible youth- remained there until the sun brushed the very tips of the dark hairs on Sirius’ head. Tyna and Celeste, apart from the embrace but still looking on with small, exhausted smiles.
Tyna didn’t have the heart to rally them when the time drew nearer that they should be moving, but didn’t have to. After a moment of silence, slowly the company stood, at least three pairs of hands gently hooking themselves under Sirius’ arms to help him to his feet. He looked to Tyna, who gave a small, affirmative nod, before reaching out and squeezing his upper arm for a moment.
“We’ve got you,” she said quietly, before taking her place at the head of the group and marching them onward towards the distance.
By midday it looked as though they might be reaching the end of the salt flats, which was good, as the noon sun was reflected so fiercely off the white ground that Sirius was beginning to burn slightly underneath his chin. The collective water supply was already running dangerously low the night before, and his lips cracked and split in hours with the strain of abstaining himself so that others might be able to stay hydrated. Both he and Tyna had been doing the same thing, and once they caught each other at it argued for a solid half an hour.
“Well, at least one of us needs to not be hallucinating and foaming at the mouth if we’re going to get anywhere!”
“Yeah, and that one of us needs to be you, seeing as you’re the only one out of the two of us that can use a damn spear! Don’t be an idiot!”
“You’re the idiot, listen to-”
“Guys!” Ziggy finally spoke up. Tyna and Sirius w
hirled around, both with equally thunderous faces, to a very tired and stressed-out looking group of teenagers behind them. Hardened salt was beginning to give way to soft, warm sand. Celeste knelt down to scoop some of the crystal white residue into a small glass bottle, ignoring the whole exchange. “Can you please just chill out? Both of you need to be drinking because neither of you are any use to us if you drop dead from dehydration, okay?”
“Ziggy, stay out of it.”
“No way! You’re not our leaders, alright?” Ziggy marched to the front of the group and stood in front of Sirius and Tyna, arms folded. “You’re just a little older and you’ve got a little bit of a better idea what the hell it is we’re doing or need to do. So when we tell you that both of you need to be looking after yourselves so you can look after US, just listen!” As though to underline his point, Ziggy turned on his heel and carried on walking, taking the lead himself this time.
They went on in silence, Sirius and Tyna burning with indignation and embarrassment at being called out like that. Sirius was still stuck in a black mood at Kora’s disappearance, and Tyna knew that he would be for a while, but she had her own dark clouds gathering above her head. Seeing her father for the first time in years had not only shaken her, but watching his soldiers slaughter her people had proven to her every reason as to why she slipped out of her parents” villa all those long months ago. And yet.
Celeste appeared at her side as though summoned by thought alone, linking her ringed fingers with her sister’s and squeezing her hand slightly. Neither of them were much for outward expressions of affection or comfort, but it meant that the slightest show of it was enough to comfort the other. Tyna looked at the younger girl and felt a surge of pride in her heart. She hadn’t lost her family. Not like Sirius had. Hers was still right here, walking beside her… all that mattered of it, anyway.
She let go of Celeste’s hand, driven by the thought to reach out for Sirius. The full impact of what he must have been going through at that moment had hit her with the wave of love that she felt for her sister. Just as she was about to find some way of comforting him, perhaps pass him some of the dried meat from her own supplies, an awful chattering cackle split the air. The whole line froze.
Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction: The Missing Ones: A Dystopian Adventure Page 8