by Stephan Knox
Far more than the terror over the dangers his life would bring to hers, was seeing her dead, when the last thing he had said to her was he was sending her away to be safe. She had been right, his life was no more a threat than the one she was in. Hiding under the lion’s paw. Yet he had taken her from the one she knew how to survive in with plans only to take what he needed then abandon her. He heard her rage echoing in his ears.—
~~You should have left me there.~~
— but he hadn’t.
“I’m going to find you, Aari. I swear it.” His heart ached to have her returned to his arms. He knew if he ever found her, he would never let go again. He would find her. He would teach her how to survive in his world. He had to.
Tannin felt the surge of emotions and lifted his head up, and bellowed out to the sky, and all its creatures, “BY DESTINY, I SWEAR IT!”
THE PAIN ON THE OTHERSIDE OF DEATH
A HALF DAY’S TIME BEFORE TANNIN’S ARRIVAL
Pain.
It was the first thing to come back. Pain— as though a bead of red-hot molten steel coiled around her neck like a noose and then trickled down her spine. More pain flared up as her head throbbed like a whirling drum of water, surging and churning in her eardrums. She felt woozy and disoriented with no way of knowing which was up or down. Cold— hot— she wasn’t aware of either. Just the taste of blood, dried thick on her tongue, and in her throat; they were first details beyond her pain. Long moments of just that— keeping her stirrings trapped behind the darkness.
Something clucked around her head or somewhere else. She wasn’t sure. It seemed both near and far away— until something pecked and scratched at her.
More clucking.
The soft sound called her back, no longer allowing her stay in the dark silence. Sensation slowly crept into her body. Bringing with it a ray of heat and pressure of being cramped against something.
Each new revival was slow in its return and took even longer before the next. She tried to move feeling twisted in a strange position, but movement was yet to return. But she was becoming aware of a feeling that was odd. Not a tingle, but small things wriggling under her hands and arms. Somewhere she felt the strange sensation that made her skin feel as if it too was crawling. A sensation other than the pain. Or maybe it might have been the scratching and pecking.
More clucking noises.
Then a caw.
And after what seemed like an age had passed— breaking through the darkness of her foggy mind— came a stench of wretched and pungent decay.
It was more than just a smell; it permeated the cells in her sinuses. A sickening fetor and before she ever began to crack open her eyes to see what created the suffocating wretchedness, her stomach began convulsing. One stomach-crawling heave triggered another, forcing whatever contents she had, or didn’t have, up the raw passage of her esophagus.
Aari twisted involuntarily, in a convoluted attempt to flip herself over. Self-awareness fettering awake followed the dyer motion from her back to face down doubling the strife of her excruciating pain that went with it. But it happened just as the upheaval of stomach acids came up and splattered over whatever it was her arm was rested upon.
She retched until there was nothing left to vomit up and still her stomach made the effort. With every gasping breath, the triggering foulness saw to it there was no relenting. The muscles in her stomach protested. Exhausted by it, she kept her eyes closed then rolled herself, dropping back once again. Face up towards fresher air she hoped to convince herself existed, as she lay there gasping.
Something was wrong. The burning chokehold around her neck still very real, but she had no recollection of what had happened. She didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten there. And too exhausted. She lay there, motionless, just stared up through closed eyelids and imagined clouds that passed overhead. Just staring without looking. Numb. All but for her stomach and the ring of pain around her neck. And more clucking and scratching.
But her mind didn’t care.
At some point the cackling caw of black birds broke the silence and a shadow that floated over, blocking the sunlight that permeated her eyelids, drew her back to where she was— not numb.
The world returned or she to it and the ground underneath her became vividly lumpy and it buzzed of insects, seemingly to surround her in an eerie roar that hummed in her ears— and again the stench. She bobbed in place, fighting to get her muscles to respond and her body ached as if breaking out from a frozen hold and again her stomach— it too roiled inside but with no food or acrid matter to toss, it did little else and subsided. Once up, she hoped it was done, but it wasn’t, the bitter stench of bile and stomach acid rose to her nose, causing her stomach to churn once more. The putrid smell now laced with the rancidity of coppery sulfur forced her stomach to revolt again, in dry heaves. The convulsions continued as the stench of death clung to every cell of her body. Dreading the onslaught of light that would skewer her brain, she forced her eyes open only to find herself looking down on the rotten remains of a face. An eerie smile frozen in death belonged to an aged face, blind and with her throat sliced open.
Movement out of her peripheral vision tugged at her. She snapped around to look, but whatever it had been was gone. Until she spotted an arm come rising up out of the sea of decay. Either by the force of some unseen scavenger or someone had been written off long before they’d taken their actual last breath— or someone like her.
She stared in its direction waiting— maybe even hoping she wasn’t alone, but the waving arm never beckoned her again. Despair seized her heart and she let out a scream, shoving back. Catching herself, her hands found other equally disturbing remnants. Once again, she felt things wriggling around her. The disturbing feeling had her looking when she knew not to. She shot a glance down, finding her right hand had sunk in the maggot encrusted bowels of a dead man. White squirming larvae squirmed in a stench of their own on the rotted flesh. Then suddenly a plump brown chicken rushed in beside her, clucking as it scratched at her hand to move it out of the way and began to feast on the wriggling things.
Aari yelped, jerking back and shaking her hand violently to get the crawling things off. The shrilled shiver traveling up her spine and she crawled backwards away from the pool of swimming larvae. Her hands felt even less desirable sensations with each reach and she bit down on her tongue and tightened her jaw to keep her head up. Forcing her eyes away from what she knew she didn’t want to see. But it was impossible not to.
All around her, body after rotten body, piled upon each other in a trench that seemed to go on forever. As far as she could see, they filled a lake.
The need for self-preservation grew. Pain seared every muscle and bone in her body, reminding her she wasn’t one of them. Yet the pain didn’t stop her as she kicked and crawled, backing out as fast as she could make her limbs work. Her eyes locked wide with horror and the scream that wanted to come jammed up in her throat. Flies went up in swarms that buzzed around her face as she fought her way out of the field of dead.
She reached a bank and for the first time her fingers felt dirt. She kept crawling until she was tumbling helpless down the other side of the berm, landing with a splash into a small creek.
Aari immediately took advantage of the water source, splashing it over her face and head, trying to wipe the lingering smell from her nose and mouth, until she threw up once more. She lay there face down in the trickle of water, trying to find that numbness once again, just watching the water flow past her cheek and downward somewhere away from here. There she remained for long moments without the strength to move or endure anymore pain. Watching as the day’s sun shifted overhead to dip behind a line of trees.
Aari never moved in that time.
Little paws stepped into her peripheral, rusty-brown in color and a whimper tempted her to move for the first time since collapsing there and glance up. It was one of those mongrel dawgs. It stood at the edge of the water lo
oking at her, making more of the whimpering sounds then lay down putting his belly into the cool wet sand and stretched out both its fore and hind legs, seemingly to relax as she did. Though Aari hardly considered herself relaxed, jut to tired to move against the pain that still claimed her limbs.
Still watching her, as if his intention were to wait at her side until she was all better. And she closed her eyes.
Something woke her. If she had in fact slept. She wasn’t certain, but her eyes crept open once more. Seeing the world from the view of a beetle that’d been turned up on his side, unable to right itself.
Still the sound of clucking seemed to surround her, but while one seemed close, another was far away disorienting her. But none scratched at her any more. She blinked, glancing at the spot of sand just a few hands away. Something seemed missing. Hadn’t there been something there before? She couldn’t remember. She took a deep inhale, feeling the expansion in her lungs for the first time. The stench was still there, saturated in the pores of her nose, but her stomach had finally eased enough that she dared to push herself up, sitting back on her heels to look around her.
Behind her in the distance, loomed the fortress and its deadly symbol. The sun was still up with a few hours left of daylight reflecting of the structure’s windows, reminding Aari that anyone inside it could look out and possibly spot her. It wasn’t likely to be a good idea to be seen— walking and talking amongst the dead. She turned to glance at the dawg, only to find her new companion had vanished.
That’s what had been there.
At least her mind was returning. She searched, but saw no trail of it, instead discovering a man stiff with fear, staring at her from where he sat on a large rock and there clucking and scratching about his feet where several fat chickens. She stared back at him for a long time then stole her eyes away for another look at the looming fortress atop the pitched ship and she knew every second she hesitated took a chance of being discovered.
Aari forced herself to her feet, eyed the gangly man wearily, then staggered down the creek, ducking into the first group of trees she came across. It was difficult at first. She had to concentrate and willfully force her feet to work and even then, they stumbled and twisted under her. She grasped at the trees to keep from falling even as it felt as though their bark was tearing the flesh from her bones. She even stopped at one point just to see if it was what was actually happening. Fearing she’d become walking dead flesh rather than living, but her skin and her body was perfectly healed. It was just a phantom pain of becoming reanimated.
She cut across the woods, continuing to stumble from one tree to the next, using them to keep on her feet and keep moving.
Surely, she would come across a peasant village soon enough. She could hide away in some stable or feed storage for the night while her body finished healing. At least now she knew the answer about broken necks. But no healing had been as painful as this. Her head was pounding, and she could hear a whirring rush inside her ears, both making her dizzy.
She first came upon an abandoned house structure. A large tree grew where a roof no longer existed, so she passed it by, still struggling with each step. She was exhausted and needed to rest. She also needed to find survival gear. She didn’t even have a weapon or enough clothing to keep her warm. But rest would have to come first, for she could barely force herself to walk any farther.
She soon came upon a cleared lane of trees, several rows of rusted abandoned vehicles lined up as if waiting for the way to be clear. Only time had caught up with them. They were smaller than her scamper or anything she’d been accustomed to using at the military base. Some said, in old-world, nearly everyone had wheeled transportation. Perhaps this was their graveyard. The irony of moving from one pit of death only to seek refuge in another. But at least these had roofs to hide and keep her dry and the only smell was mildew and rust.
Three rows of the vehicles cut out an alley way in the trees and she could feel the tar cap road under her feet. In between, and growing over some if the vehicle shells were thick vines and other wild growth. Some even making it inside the vehicles, and she realized none of them were the same. Some hardly had room for two passengers. Others could fit a small patrol or family into.
She went down the rows, testing the doors until she found one that opened, and she crawled in to surrender to exhausted sleep.
DO YOU HEAR THE CODE TALKER
Aari slept. For how many days, she wasn’t sure, but she had grown so cold now her body shivered uncontrollably. Her sym had woken her this time. She was in agony from the bitter freezing and began to frantically send out shards of warning pains that traveled down Aari’s arms and legs like white hot electricity. What was it Tannin had told her?
~~ “By drenn, Aari! You’ll freeze. You’re not entirely immortal, you know. If you lose all of your core heat, your sym will separate from your spine and then you will both die.” ~~
Aari forced herself to sit up in the car. But the painful movement and the annihilating thoughts that she was doomed to die after all, brought on tears before she could stop them. She didn’t understand how They would allow this to happen to her. They had watched over her in some odd way when she was amongst the Skaddary. So why now had They abandoned her? Aari’s entire body shuddered violently which sent more pulses of suffering ripping down her limbs. It was time to move and find warmer shelter.
In the distance, she heard or thought she heard a familiar voice singing to her.
Weak and in pain, Aari slid from one rusted shell to another, following the sound, until she reached the trees, and from there, the trees and stands of scrub became her crutch. Each step, both excruciating libations to Destiny, and whatever gods existed, that she was not defeated yet. She would earn her place in this world to remain in it.
The voice she had heard drew closer. She was most certain now she knew what it was— who it was, and so she pressed on.
She reached the end of the woods and stopped. Taking some caution to peer out, having happened upon a small camp of men hunkering around a canister fire alongside an old-world rail train box, now converted into a cabin shelter under a slight overhang, rusted and grown over like most anything else, but it was an ideal home for slummers. And with them, the voice of her code talker telling a tale in the form of a hymn come across from a low band radio box sitting on a crate next to the men at the fire.
Aari no longer cared about caution. She could barely walk any farther and the sunlight was fading again. She would not survive another night without a fire. So, at the risk of everything, she stumbled out of the trees towards them.
The code talker’s song came to an end when he spoke of a tale. One word stuck out—
Titan—
She nearly burst into tears as she rushed towards the men— towards the fire can— and the radio voice who spoke of Tannin.
One of the men spotted her and jumped to his feet, swinging a rifle around pointedly at her. “Who goes there?”
Aari didn’t stop, for she knew if she did, she’d never get back up again. She stumbled but caught herself before going down, her attention remaining fixated on the canister fire and a curved slab of crumbled concrete wall that stood behind it, creating a crescent shaped shelter around the fire. And tucked into a pile between the wall and the canister fire was a nest of miscellaneous bedding. Blankets or just rags, she didn’t care which, she just knew that was where she need to be. She’d fight them for it. She’d kick, scream, and cry to claim it for herself. In an instant, the nest became her lifeline. Get to the nest or you die.
“Tulo, let her through,” one of them called out.
Aari hung her head, her eyes watched wearily as the man on guard slowly lowered the rifle and stepped aside. She stalled— teetering— trying to keep upright, needing to make those last few steps before she could not. She needed to know though. “The code talker, what does he say?” she asked franticly on the edge of hysterics. “Do you know what he is saying?” she
pleaded, hoping they understood her, that they understood the code talker’s words. “He spoke of the Titan. Did you hear him say titan?”
The men exchanged looks, before one answered. A gangly fellow wrapped with several layers of clothes, his thin gray hair pulled back and tied with a cord. He swallowed, listening, then began to translate, “He sings of the Titan. How he is moving, stepping over mountains— he is looking for the lost one. He says the lost one is still alive and needs Titan’s help. The Titan is the lost one’s guardian.”
Tears poured from her eyes. Joyous madness mocked her in her pain. He was looking for her. But how could she reach him? Aari took a step, swayed then took another. Get to the nest or you die. Almost there. She could feel the first touch of warmth reaching out from the cannister to grasp her fingertips. Another step, then another— but next set her off balance. Aari went crashing forward. She reached out hoping to catch herself and in doing so her hands landing flat on the steel barrel.
The sizzle and stench of cooking flesh snapped her awake and she quickly jerked her hands from it and cupped them to her chest. The new pain hardly registered in the storm of all else that ripped through her. Get to the nest or you die.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t move any more. She was too late. She felt the pain in her spine, which she could only describe as having a sword made of ice slicing her back open to cut out her Symbiotai. And the thought strangled her panic ridden fear.
“Pain! By Destiny, I beg, we can’t bear the pain—” she screamed silently inside because all else locked up inside her. She felt the screams of her sym. She was terrified now. Afraid of their death. “I don’t want to die,” she told the three horror-stricken faces staring at her. Get to the nest! It was only a few yards more—