by Aimee Hunter
At the end of the century and into the middle of the next, warehouse buildings like this were renovated to hold various vehicles and weapons as well as emergency food and water supplies. The entire structure was reinforced by six feet concrete exterior wall to withstand a nuclear blast. Nothing could survive a direct hit but buildings such as this one could endure the blast. The interior had been designed to be an airtight environment. Protecting anything or anyone inside from, not just the deadly explosion, but the devastating effects of radiation poisoning from the fallout. Not for the first time, Kylie was astounded by how dramatically the world had changed, was still changing, from the War. How everyday life was still affected by the residual radiation that clung to hot zones the world over. She sometimes struggled connecting what the world became, to the world she was born into.
Approaching the building, they heard the sound of Diana voice snapping out orders and the quick shuffle of feet as the Midland soldiers hurried to obey. Entering through the open cargo bay doors, Kylie’s group were dumbfounded by what they saw. Many of them had only seen pictures of automobiles, but none of them had ever ridden in one. Excitement skittered through the entire squad when it sank in that this was about to change.
Hearing the sound of footsteps approaching over the rumbling of the trucks engine, Diana’s head popped out from under the hood grinning widely at her astonished daughter. Dropping down from where she’d been dangling half in, half out from under the hood of the multi terrain vehicle, Diana sauntered over to the returning group.
“Would anyone care for a lift?” she quipped, laughing when Kylie wrapped her up in a hard hug. Diana glanced at Xavier over the excited young woman’s shoulder, surprised to find him staring back at her. Pulling back, she squeezed Kylies arms affectionately before turning to address their little squad.
“Everyone should be able to fit comfortably in the back. It will take several hours for us to reach our destination now, instead of days.” She smiled at the relief that washed through the group. She knew they had to be worried about their families. Xavier moved to her side, watching with her as Kylie got the soldiers moving, helping them to load themselves and their belongings into the truck.
“Would it be alright if I rode up front with you?” he asked her unexpectedly. She glanced over at him, an eyebrow lifting in surprise.
“Of course, Captain. Though I would have thought you would want to ride with your people.” She mused, not quite questioning his reasons. Xavier’s lips quirked in amusement at her subtlety.
“Normally I would,” he admitted, returning his attention to his anxious officers that were peppering Kylie with question after question about the machine that would be carrying them. “But there are some things I would like to discuss with you.” At Diana’s cautious, questioning gaze, Xavier allowed an awkward chuckle to slip out. “I just have some questions, Lady Diana. A few things that I don’t entirely understand. I thought this would be the best time, since we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing our conversation.”
“I see,” she replied. Diana had a pretty good idea what he wanted to ask her, but appreciated that he took into consideration that the subject matter was not one she would discuss freely. She let loose a calming breath and turned towards him. “I understand, Captain. To be honest, I’ve been expecting to have this conversation since I first told you about us. However, Kylie and Private Koontz will be joining us since it’s a double cab.” Xavier frowned in confusion at the inclusion of the Private before dipping his head in acknowledgment and walking away to help his people finish loading up.
Kylie appeared at her mother’s side, watching her watch the others. She’d noticed an underlying tension in Diana that she’d never seen in her before. Its presence was worrying. She didn’t know what exactly was causing it. If it was what was happening in Culville or Wolfhaven’s fall or Marcus’ death. It could be the fact that she would be reunited with her own mother very soon and she had no idea what state of health she would find Aine in. Or a combination of everything starting to settle onto the woman’s shoulders. Either way, Kylie kept getting a sinking feeling in her stomach the closer they got to Sanctuary. A feeling like everything was about to change again, and not altogether for the better.
She climbed into the passenger’s seat of the truck’s cab, pausing for a moment at the unexpected sight of Colin Koontz in the back seat. Completing her climb up and making herself comfortable, Kylie looked up when the opposite back door opened to reveal Captain Dumas awkwardly climbing into the seat. The atmosphere was uncomfortable until Diana climbed behind the wheel and shifted the truck into gear with a wide grin plastered on her face.
Kylie laughed, shaking her head at this rare expression of childlike glee from her normally reserved mother. Diana rolled her eyes and let the truck roll forward, taking a moment to re-familiarize herself with the mechanics of driving. It wasn’t long before they were on the road to the Kahlian Sanctuary.
They’d been driving for several hours. The sun having long since set. Occasionally dodging fallen trees or ancient rusted out cars that still dotted what was left of the highway. The men in the back finally settled down after exclaiming in excitement or fear at the speed they were traveling just a couple of hours earlier. The Captain now sat in the passenger’s seat next to Diana since they’d made a quick pit stop so everyone could stretch their legs. Kylie opted to curl up in the back seat to get a little sleep. With the only sound filling the interior of the cab being the sound of the tires rolling across the ground and the rush of wind from the open window, Diana was a bit startled when Xavier turned his head to look directly at her, words ready to spill from his lips
“I was beginning to think you had changed your mind, Captain.” She spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb the two sleeping passengers. Xavier opened his mouth to speak but hesitated, glancing back at the young Private. “He’s asleep, Captain. Practically dead to the world.” Training his gaze on her regal profile, he wondered how she sounded so sure. There were many things about this woman that often left him wondering. Noticing that he and Diana seemed to be the only ones still awake on the dark, dissolute, shattered road. Xavier watched Diana twist and turn the steering wheel every so often to avoid one obstacle or another. He thought now was as good a time as any to ask some of the questions that had been plaguing him for days.
“Where exactly are we going?” was his first question. Diana tightened her grip on the steering wheel before answering.
“Do you recall my mentioning a small mountain range a few days ride away?” at his nod, she continued. “At the heart of the range, there is a system of caves that my people discovered nearly a millennium ago. We were granted permission by the leaders of the native tribes at the time, to convert these caves into a safe place for our people away from prying eyes.” Diana paused, glancing over to Xavier quickly, who was hanging onto her every word. “It is where we went to escape the bombs.” She said, resting her elbow on the door.
“What will we find when we get there? I know you said that’s where your mother is waiting for us. But why there?” Xavier wanted to know. Diana was quiet for a long moment, eyes trained forward.
“Sanctuary is the closest thing to an ancestral home my people have left. It is where we keep our stories. Where our histories are remembered and repeated to the next generation so that we never forget.” She told him, her voice remained low but the deep love she held for her people added a weight to her words.
“So that you never forget? What?” Xavier wanted to know. Diana down shifted to slow the truck, maneuvering it around a large section of missing road before she answered him.
“I’ve told you that we are not mutants,” she began, “Neither are we human.” Xavier’s eyes widened at this revelation.
“I don’t understand.” He told her. Diana chewed on her lip for a moment before taking a deep breath.
“My people live very long lives, Xavier. Because of this, we have very long memories.” She stated, �
��We pass down our stories and history, one generation to the next, through our wordsmiths’. They remind us of who and what we are.” Reaching an open stretch of road, Diana shifted gears, gradually increasing their speed, gathering herself for what she was about to reveal.
“Xavier,” Diana began slowly, “I am fourteen hundred years old.” Xavier’s eyes widened in disbelief, but forced himself to remain silent, wanting to hear her out but not entirely sure he believed her yet. “I was born to Aine and Marcus Stone, who had already lived for centuries before I was born in 942. I have seen the rise and fall of empires. I have seen civilizations destroy themselves time and time again.” She paused then to look at the human male, noticing that under his olive complexion, he’d grown pale. “I witnessed the events that brought about the War that shaped the world into what it is today. I lived in the city whose ruins Culville sits on. I was here in the early Twentieth Century when all the great cities of old were built. I was here before they were built. I saw the events that led to their destruction.”
Diana fell silent for a moment as her memories started to swirl in her mind.
“I remember when the bombs fell. Sometimes in my dreams, I can still see them streaking across the sky and the blinding light that followed when they hit their targets. After all this time, I can still smell the world burning. I can still feel the dirty, dark energy that was released into the air from hundreds of atomic bombs being detonated at one time.” She had to stop speaking in order to swallow past the lump that formed in her throat from thinking back on that period of time. Well over half of the world’s population, including far too many of her own people, died in a flash of heat and light. It was then, that she and her sisters vowed to never let such a catastrophe happen again.
Regaining control over her voice again, Diana continued.
“It was that energy that made all these mutations possible. The Impure. The Nightkin. All of the animal and plant mutations. None of it should have been possible.” She sighed tiredly, looking up at the moon hanging high in the night sky through the windshield. “When everything began in the early Twenty-First Century, it was all nothing more than wild speculation about what would happen if a human were exposed to nuclear radiation. It spawned tales of super heroes and people with unimaginable powers. For the most part it was all pure fantasy, but no one could have guessed what would happen after a full scale worldwide nuclear war. All of the data led the top scientists of the day to believe that exposure to such high levels of radiation would be a death sentence. Never in their wildest dreams where the Nightkin a possibility.” She grew quiet. Giving the Captain a few moments to digest the information while taking a moment to pull herself from those painful memories. “We were such fools.” If Xavier hadn’t been listening so intently to her, watching her every expression, he would have missed that last whispered statement. One that contained such a wealth of sadness, his heart constricted in sympathy.
“But that is my story. My mother, Aine, was born in 119 in what became Scotland, during the time Rome occupied the island. She was among the most strident of those who opposed Roman rule.” A soft smile slipped across Diana’s face when speaking of her mother.
“My father, Marcus, was born two hundred years before her in Rome during the time of Julius Caesar.”
Dumas felt as though he had fallen into another world listening to Diana. It was hard to wrap his mind around the enormity of what she was telling him. Just imagining what it would be like to live for so long, to witness so many important events in history, left his brain scrambling to keep up. Xavier has always been a student of history. He believed whole heartedly that if we didn’t learn from our past mistakes then we would be forever doomed to repeat them.
“Does Culville have a museum?” Diana asked suddenly, darting her eyes over to him quickly then refocusing on the road, not for the first time thankful that the headlights miraculously still worked.
“Yes. We also have an extensive library. I used to spend my afternoons wondering through them, trying to imagine what life must have been like back then.” He told her, revealing another layer to her along with his struggle to grasp the very concept that the person sitting next to him was someone who’d actually experienced the events he dreamt about as a child. A smile stole across her face at his words, relieved that he at least knew about the people and events she was talking about.
“Then you probably know the story of Cleopatra and Marc Antony.” She stated, navigating around a sharp bend in the broken road.
“Yes. The time of Caesar is still taught in our schools.” Xavier informed her. She nodded, pleased to know that classical history has survived.
“It is rumored that when my father was a mortal man, his name was Marcus Antonius. More commonly known as Marc Antony, Cleopatra’s lover.” Diana smirked at Xavier’s stunned expression, chuckling softly. “He has never confirmed it, but neither has he ever denied it. This is the history I know, Xavier. My parents and I, even Damian, are considered the oldest of our people. Yet none of us, could tell you exactly where we come from. How our race evolved. All we have are myths and legends that have been passed down through the ages. The most ancient of these tales make no mention of another species that lacked the ability to shape shift. In fact, by the time of the earliest mentioning of the human race, my people were already old. We had already created a thriving civilization when your ancestors figured out how to shape bronze into tools.” She told him, a light amusement coloring her tone. “No one remembers who made the decision for our peoples to remain apart. We are taught from birth not to interfere in human matters. And except for one or two instances, we never have. It is one of our strictest laws.”
Except for the sound of wind rushing past them, silence reigned in the truck shooting down a shattered remnant of a highway that served as a metaphor for the world in Diana’s mind. For the world is every bit as destroyed as the cracked, and blasted apart concrete that had long since lost the fight against nature. Looking out into the black night, Diana found she missed the distant glow of cities, their light reflecting back against the darkened sky. A sure sign of life even before the advent of electricity. Now, there was nothing. Only a cold, star filled horizon as far as the eye could see.
As Xavier listened to Diana speak about her people and her personal history. He found himself inundated by the emotions she kept under an iron control but were obviously there just under the surface, visible if only you looked closely enough.
“Then why are your sisters fighting for Culville? If it is one of your laws, why involve yourselves now?” He asked the question quietly, his tone gentle. Mindful now of just how affected she is by recent events. How hurt she remains over those that are long past. Diana’s hand tightened on the wheel at his question.
“Besides the fact that Damian is involved?” she ground out angrily. “My race has always remained in the shadows. We’ve always stayed out of human affairs. However, after the devastation of World War III,” she shook her head, bemused. “My sisters and I decided we can no longer remain on the fringe of civilization. We must now try to guide and affect change in the human race. Your ancestors not only nearly wiped yourselves out, but my people as well. There were a few species that were not so lucky.” Diana’s lips press into a thin line as she shakes her head. “You will never know the loss that your people have visited on this planet. That is why I am doing what I’m doing, why I’ve chosen to live this life of immortality. No matter how painful the path is to walk, no matter what I’ve lost in the past or what I’ve been through. As long as the human race is doomed to repeat this mistake again, I will not stand aside and allow it to happen if it is within my power to stop it. We have chosen to intervene this time, Xavier. Mason, Lana and myself made a decision after the War. Once we took over from our parents, who were already taking the necessary steps to abdicate; it would be different. We would step out of the shadows to inspire change in the human race. We all made the choice to break our oldest laws to ensure that circum
stances never again reached the point where all life is threatened with annihilation,” she says heavily, her shoulders seeming to slump a bit as she settled almost dejectedly into her seat.
“I’ve fought and died in too many human wars to count, Xavier. Not a single one of them made anything better. Nothing was ever truly resolved. In all my long years, I’ve never seen war spawn peace. And there has never been a period in time where there wasn’t a conflict. When one war ends, another breaks out in its place. I have never understood how a race that is capable of creating such beauty and is capable of such extraordinary kindness, can also be capable of committing such monstrous acts against each other.” She blew air out of her nose in exasperation. “Your people can hope and despair in a single breath. Is it any wonder that brothers will kill each other over a battlefield of opposing ideologies, then weep for the loss they are responsible for? Humanity is its own worst enemy and as cohabitants of this world that humans have come far too close, far too many times to destroying. My people will no longer leave it up to yours to decide its fate.” Diana turns off the road they’d been traveling on, saying. “I do not know now what difference we will be able to make with the four distinct species already going to war against each other. It was bad enough when the differences people fought over where religion or skin color, or which gender you happened to be attracted to. But these four races are so vastly different, I don’t know if a common ground is possible.” She glanced into the back seat, smiling when she saw both Kylie and Colin sleeping.
Diana thought about Rena and Mason back in Culville, how determined they were to defend the people who called the city home. She hoped that despite the obstacles in their way, those two would find their way to each other before they lost the chance to see if the love growing so quickly between them would simply flare and die like a snuffed out candle. Or if it had the power to withstand the flames of time. She then thought of Lana and Sylvia, who were still so in love with each other that regardless of the pain they’d gone through, they couldn’t resist the pull to be in the other’s presence. Then there was Kylie and Colin, both so strong and so very unaware of their strength. Both determined to do everything in their power to protect the people they claimed as family. The same could be said for the man beside her, except perhaps on a larger scale. Xavier was a man who felt the call to serve. To protect. And he answered that call without hesitation. Thinking on these special people, Diana felt hope spark in her heart for the first time since she lost her husband and son. Bringing the truck to a stop, she shut off the engine then turned to face Xavier as much as the confines of the cab would allow.