by T. Wyse
With a final, furious motion of her trembling hands she managed to brace herself against the blowback of another car, and closed the sails of her dress again. This narrowed the obstacles to the gravel cutting into her foot, her right shoe having been lost in that last struggle to stand.
She hadn't been alone in the feeling of shelter it seemed. There were a number of cars, a couple haphazardly in the ditch, and four of them neatly parked under the shade of the concrete roof. To the right a group of people huddled, braced against the narrowest point of the angled hill. There were beams of support, naked and under the bridge, the people leaned on them, clinging desperately.
She scrambled up the slope, the stink of collected exhaust and mold in the place overwhelming her nose. Her pack had stayed with her, but now slipped from the single shoulder it had clung to in her struggles, sliding downwards. She glanced back at it, as it slid neatly and infuriatingly into the light of the world now coloured a deep red.
"Leave it, come here, quickly!" A deep voice echoed against the breathless and silent world. A huge figure ushered with a single free hand, his other still clinging hard to a support beam.
She scrambled up the hill, slipping twice, but arriving to the theoretical safety regardless. Without prompting he placed a massive arm around her, locking her tightly in place beside him.
The engine of a lone car roared its defiant run from the wall of inevitability, approaching the overpass. It was the only sound, even the wind hushed in anticipation of what was to come.
The car’s moan echoed through the enclosure as it tore through. In the time it took to pass from one edge of the shelter to the next, the wall of red was upon them. Two of the women huddled in the human chain screamed as it came.
It ripped passed, easily outpacing even the frenzied car. It manifested solely in a strange feeling, and a flash of red light like the sun against one's closed eyes. She felt as if she were being stretched inwards, warped upon herself, and then pulled upwards by some gentle but insistent hand.
Strangest of all was a feeling in her chest, from that bubbling coldness that had harbored her inky dread. A bubble of calm, a circle inflating with a reflexive urgency, frothed forward and negated that tugging tether pulling up. It burst beyond her chest with all the relief of a ruptured pustule, and then the feeling snapped away leaving only a vague ringing in her brain.
It couldn't have lasted more than a small fraction of a second, yet it had stretched the time out enough that she could remember it with a tangibility as it passed. The car had tried to turn, its driver apparently realizing that it couldn't outrun the wall, but it was too late. The car's momentum was relentless despite the driver's ninety degree turn, and it took a flipping leap into the air. In a kind of surreal joke it was swallowed up by the wall mid-launch. Not a single piece of the machine touched the surface of the new world.
She watched the wall tear off into the distance, leaving nothing but brown in its wake. Whatever destruction it had wrought they had been spared.
It had passed them in complete silence, and a perverse feeling entered her still ringing brain. She felt cheated somehow. If it had been loud, shrieking like the devil's breath, shown some kind of wrathful destruction, then perhaps it would have felt more logical or have offered some kind of consolation.
The wall passed beyond sight down the horizon. It had stripped the world without as much as a whisper.
She couldn’t see any of the others in the place, not the bushes of their hushed breath, or even their bodies upon the silent and cold air. It was her tree which broke that silence, and in that moment she was alone in a darkness as perplexing as the world beyond the mirror.
Her breath became quick, gasping and burning, there was that numb clutching like drowning again, drowning in silence. Finally, and almost in practiced concert the other bushes around her ignited, breathing again.
Still that empty fear remained. She scanned their faces, forcing her eyes upon each of them for a moment, desperately seeking some emotional anchor that simply wasn’t to be found. Their faces were blank masks, the closest emotion she could snap to from studies and observations was confusion. She glanced again across each of their faces, hypnotized and reeling with that drowning dread. There had never been a cue card shown to her for fear, never a full explanation from her mother, but she supposed this must be it.
She didn’t want it, but she was drawn into this circle, and felt a rising panic in her chest. She wanted to look away, to break this awful spell, but she was unable to stop the locked sentiments, and felt herself losing to empathic despair.
She was saved, snapped away from it with a slap from the new world. It was a feeling that came as a rush that she mistook at first for the stranger that was terror. It was, in fact, another force however, one that tore through the underpass with a primal and piercing shriek. It blew her dress fiercely, wildly animating the two primer sails on her back, and caused those by her to huddle in ever tighter. No-one had the strength to scream this time.
It was the wind, returning with a thundering howl.
Glad to welcome her oldest friend she shut her eyes tightly and embraced the return. To her astonishment however everything was much clearer now, the wind cutting across with a primal rawness. Unhindered perhaps by obstacles, she mused darkly. She allowed her consciousness to stretch out and saw the ruins of the overpass with a wonderfully razor edged clarity, the wind filtered through the exposed rebar, she could see every imperfection on the shells of the cars.
This odd wonder and clarity helped to propel her to her feet, slipping out of the man’s arm which has lost all of its mighty resistance. She opened her dream hazed eyes and focused to where she had come, but the mirror falseness confounded her. Her footing lost a moment, she fell to her hip and slid the remainder of the way, still hypnotized, her eyes still burning worse than she could remember, but the light of the new day forced them to bear witness.
In the shade there was still the asphalt of the road, still the cars, still the people. A smell permeated the place, or rather the complete lack of one. The force of the air had stolen away the clinging scent of mold and exhaust, and even removed the subtle sense of the afternoon’s heat.
She strode with all of her bat-like grace towards where the shade and the overpass ended, and looked out onto the world. It was empty, a void of brown with a chaotic smattering of roughness and shadow that gave it the look of visual static. It lacked even the visual appeal of a beach or desert, the brown soil lay utterly without dunes or ripples, it was like a fresh layer of dirt had fallen in lieu of snow.
Her bag had slipped from her hands perhaps minutes ago, but it had fallen outside of the conserving shadow, and had been gobbled up by gnawing red. She glanced at her naked foot, already caked with dirt, and then back to where her slipper would have been. Nothing.
The heightened breathing of the people above cycled still. They still huddled motionless, still speechless and dumbfounded.
She leaned and regarded her foot Surely there would be another shoe, another backpack? She wondered, musing idly on the loss. Still unsure of exactly what she should be feeling, but happy to be away from the influence of the others at least, she hobbled over to the edge of the asphalt and reached a hand out into the warmth of the sun.
“Careful!” A strong hand tugged hers out of the light. The man’s voice was deep, but quiet. The blankness in his face was gone now, though his attention was locked outward onto the horizon.
She looked at the man, regarding him in the light rather than in the wind. He was tall certainly, taller than anyone she had ever met, wide and strong shoulders about him too, though there was a stockiness to him as well that seemed to fit him as badly as the faded plaid shirt he wore. It hung loosely on those wide shoulders, untucked at the waist, and seemed so out of place upon him somehow. She realized this was because underneath it were the trappings of the white collar, the starched shirt, a tie loosened after work as to not choke him, the neat black pants hanging on
his legs.
She couldn’t help think of Ellis again, that ‘mentor’ of her parents when looking at him. They were both massive men, though Ellis was much older, sporting a raggedy white beard and an equally wild set of long white hair. This man was a little unshaven, his hair long enough just to curl back upon itself a little. It was the breaths that were so much the same: deep in deep out, calm, thoughtful. His lungs were larger, and though dimmer by a magnitude than Ellis’ they bore no scars or darkened clusters.
“Is the man happy?” The cue card asked. “How is he feeling?”
Amelie scanned his face, though her vantage point offered a skewed picture. His eyes seemed so ponderous and distant, still scanning the horizon. She had never met him, but there was a familiarity there, somehow.
Was it loss?
“What…what do we need? What do we need to do?” The man spoke slowly to himself. His voice was so deep it seemed to rumble the ground underneath her feet, to shake the silent world from its slumber.
He tugged at his loosened tie, grumbling and tearing it off. It was his clothes, that was the feeling. The way he shuffled under the cloth with discomfort, the way that his skin seemed to reject the very touch of the fabric. It was the same way the school’s uniform hung against her skin, grating and itching, and wrinkling away as if equally disgusted by her touch.
She stood beside him and leaned in feeling the warm glow of his lungs. There was that thing in it, fear, or at least the heightened stress she had come to associate with it. He was still in control though, his heart didn’t give that funny punctuation to his breaths, his mind was still very much lucid.
He motioned as if to toss the tie into the dirt, but held his grasp closed. His eyes shot to it, and his breath trembled in the slightest before he tucked it away into his pocket.
“First, going to assume whatever it is isn’t going to come back. If it is then…” He held that thought. “Water, need water, then food.” He leaned out into the sun. “Shelter too. Did the sun get higher in the sky?”
“Lost your shoe.” He muttered a question, though the inflection was absent.
“Oh, it’s…” She glanced towards the left, that empty space where her possessions had been. “Yeah, it’s okay.” She wiggled her naked and dirty toes.
He strode away from the edge, and towards the remaining cars, pulling her along with his very gravity. He stopped at each, glancing inside a moment and then passing on. It wasn’t until he reached a rather tired looking pickup truck that he actually went inside, and gingerly placed the tie into the glove compartment before returning wordlessly.
“Few things, will get them later.” He sighed, glancing up. “Don’t want them to think I’m stealing.” He headed back to the edge of the asphalt with an even more reluctant stride.
He looked upwards, then down again, prompting her to repeat the action. Her eyes weren’t much help, and the wind offered little clarity of what fascinated him so.
“There are a few more cars um, three, up there. I don’t think there’s any people though.” She muttered, reporting what was hidden from sight.
“Hm. Look at the shadow.” He pointed downwards.
She gazed at it, but found nothing, just seeing the black asphalt line. “I don’t see it, sorry.”
“It’s perfectly aligned with where the asphalt becomes dirt.” He produced a pen, and gently poked it out into the light. “Nothing, stupid for not checking before.” He muttered, then slipped a single finger into the light. “Nothing again, little warm though, strange.”
He knelt down, touching the sand gently, and she knelt too, watching his experiments with fascination.
“Nothing too strange there.” He crushed it in his hand, and tossed it down, but the sand simply blew into the wind, leaving an imprint of his hand in the otherwise flat dirt.
“Hm.” His head cocked to watch the cloud fly off.
"Sand?"
"No. It's..." The man trailed off, going further with his experiment he dipped a booted foot gently into the earth. “Loose, moist and aerated like tilled soil.” He muttered, putting his full weight on it, and sinking a full foot into the dirt. He lurched forward, apparently not expecting this depth, and she reached out a reflexive and useless hand to steady him.
"Hard walking, worse than sand." He muttered, both of his feet submerged, his pants now caked with clinging brown silt. “If we can’t find water, we’ll need to dig. No clouds anymore, crystal clear.” He gazed upwards at the sky. It was hotter than the day had been, but without a trace of humidity in the air, it lacked that weight that she had come to expect from the lower climate of the town.
In his shadow, in his footsteps, it was enough to spark a light against the muddled cloud of confusion. Enough inspiration to start a desire to act, to help.
“I think…” She knelt, closing her eyes tight, and allowed her perception to flow outwards, all around. She pushed it further, beyond the point of true clarity, enough that she lost track of her physical form. She drifted down the path of the howling wind in spirit, through the vast empty void, and finally…
Her perception snapped back like a dreamer with a night terror. “There’s something out there, trees I think. Slopes too.” She pointed to the blank horizon. “It’s not all gone, I don’t think.”
Then there was that chill in her heart, the warning given not a day ago, and having been given so many times before. “Being too blatant about what you can do, and who you are, when we aren’t around to protect you…” But surely…surely the scientists weren’t lurking in the shadows now, hiding underneath the stilled earth.
“Amelia, is that your name?” His gaze didn’t cross back to her, he squinted at the horizon. “I knew I’d seen that strange thing you’re wearing before. You were that ‘wonder child’ or some such nonsense a few years ago.”
“Amelie. You aren’t surprised or…”
“Maybe they missed it but I caught you floating down there. World’s too strange to be surprised by anything nowadays. Didn’t see this coming though.” He craned his neck at her again, and forced a smile. Not quite convincing, especially because she could still read the unease in his breath, but enough to spark the expected reaction in her. She smiled back, his breath was sincere at least, and that was enough for her to be sincere in her own smile.
“Nothing, still.” He sighed, glancing upwards at the people still huddled. “Well, give em time I guess.”
“I could help. I could check on the things I saw, maybe see if there’s water, or standing buildings.”
“Couldn’t ask that of you.” He shook his head. “Need to stay together, absolutely need to stay together.”
“The wind is strong enough, and the mountains have water, from springs. I’m sure…”
“Wind may be strong enough, but it only goes in one direction. If you get stranded far away then we won’t know where you are. I’d rather not risk it.”
“That’s not true, it may seem like it from here, but it’s much more complicated than just going one way. It’s just a matter of finding the way back, like a maze, a really big maze.”
“You’re not helping your case.” The man sighed.
“The wind has never left me stranded before, never.” A lie, as she had been stranded by the wind simply refusing to blow on an increasing number of occasions in the last few months. “And I can see that it’s moving in the other direction above, just as strong.” Another lie, but surely it was.
He gave a great bellowed sigh. “If that’s really what you want I suppose it’s not my place to stop you. Find buildings of any kind, water of course, trees I guess.” He glanced at the cars as if looking for some kind of approval. “I want you to promise, if you see anything strange like that red thing, if the wind isn’t going to take you back here, I want you to set down somewhere I can see.” He pointed at where she had felt that tree. “In that line, hopefully I’ll be able to see you come down there.”
She nodded quickly, and made that arcane motion to
set the primer pouches free again. They lapped curiously at the new wind, and whipped with eager vigor to taste it fully. She freed the full pouches and was immediately bowled over by the wind’s force. She made a tumbling skid directly towards the earthen soil, and then upwards. The man anchored her to the ground, a thick arm holding having caught one of hers.
“No, no, this is a bad idea.” He tried to pull her back, his footing slipping on the silted earth it had accrued.
She was held there in a funny kind of breathless time, her eyes locked onto his. His grey eyes crackled with panic, with fear of letting her go. She hovered there, white dress fluttering dangling nearly upside down, torn between the wind and this strange man who seemed to suddenly care so much.
“I promise I’ll come back.”
“No, I can’t let…”
“Please, it’s starting to hurt.” Her arm stiffened further, a little stretching ache setting in. “Please.” She whispered.
Resignation flashed over his face, and she was taken away by the wind wildly upwards and outwards, his grip dismissed. His face was gone from her sight quickly enough to stop that pang of regret from rising too high in her chest. The overpass became a toy in an instant, and then a black smudge in a moment beyond that.
She was going in that straight line at least, and it was a consistent enough draft to allow her to attain full control. She ascended at first, to taste the upper winds, and found that while they there as always, less clear perhaps but there was enough whirling current to bring her back where she had come.
That was a comfort, to be able to keep her promise. The world below however was unsettling even through the aloofness of the winds.
There was hope though, small glimmers of objects below jutting out in the waste. The interruptions in the brown were easy to spot, but the alien surroundings made discerning precisely what they were difficult even within her practice. She dangled low, and passed that curious obstacle she had sensed. It presented a chaotic blur from the heights above, and flowing through it low revealed a grove of skeletal trees, bleached and bare branched basking in the still sun.