Through the Never

by J. A. Culican

  Just as she was about to repeat her petition for help, a voice replied, “Lewu. Gamma faction has received your message, and we are in route.”

  Chapter 3

  “Thank you,” Rodan exclaimed through her tears. She allowed herself a few moments to finish crying before going back into action.

  She turned off the comm device, crawled back out of the comm center, and closed and concealed the opening. She scampered back down the rock face and ran back toward her encampment. She had no idea how much time had passed, and really it did not matter. She had to get back to Jabok.

  The sol was still high in the sky, its rays beating down on her as she ran through the forest. Sweat drenched her body plastering her brown hair to her head and face. Over uneven surfaces of copper grass she scampered. She scurried over and around bushes containing multi-colored flowers ignoring the scratches she received from the sharp leaves and pointy branches. Each gasp of air seemed harder to take than the last. Her legs and her back ached. Her head hurt, as did her throat, which felt dry and scratchy. But still, Rodan pushed herself. The sound of a skyship going by overhead got her attention. She stopped running and looked up through the canopy of trees long enough to confirm in which direction it was going.

  An involuntary cry of relief escaped her. She took a strangled breath and started running again.

  The smell of smoke was present in the air long before she arrived at the encampment. As she reached the edge of the settlement, she expected to hear something, but it was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  She burst through the wooded area into the clearing surrounding the encampment. What she saw was almost too much to take in.

  There were homes and other buildings either on fire or reduced to smoldering rubble. There were bodies strewn throughout on the ground. And there were fighters pointing guns at her and shouting. She stopped, unable to continue forward. What did this mean?

  As she tried to understand what was happening, one of the fighters walked up and touched her shoulder. She turned and looked at him. Rodan could see his mouth moving, but all she could hear was a high-pitched screaming noise that drowned out everything around her. It took a few moments, but she finally realized the screaming was coming from her. She collapsed to the ground. Exhausted. Deflated. Resigned.

  Eventually, her voice gave out. Her throat felt raw and cut open. Seated on the ground, she watched the fighters as they walked around her. Time jumped in fits and starts.

  The fighter who had initially approached her crouched on the ground beside her and identified himself as being with Gamma faction. He asked her questions, but Rodan could not form a thought coherent enough to answer him.

  Then suddenly, she blinked, and two small children were sitting beside her in the spot where the Gamma fighter had just been. The young children were covered in soot. They held one another and stared straight ahead in silence. Rodan knew them. They had been just starting school when she was finishing three annums ago. However, she could not remember their names.

  She blinked again, and five more people were sitting near her. Two were elderly. The other three were near-adulthood children. The group grew. No one spoke as they all sat and waited.

  Then, a soldier stood in front of them. “Everyone should come with us back to Gamma. The sol is about to set. And we do not know if the Keepers’ fighters will return. So, please, stand and follow us.”

  Rodan and most of the other people with her stood as instructed. She watched the Gamma fighters walked amongst the crowd to help anyone still sitting on the ground. When everyone was on their feet, someone else from Gamma began walking. Rodan and the small crowd moved with them in stunned silence. Even in the dimming light of the setting sol, the only home she had known looked almost unrecognizable.

  Suddenly, the person they were all following stopped moving and began guiding everyone back the other direction. As Rodan turned to go the new route, she caught a glimpse of something that stood out amongst the ruin around her. She turned away from the group and walked back in their original direction. There, on the edge of the settlement, was a group of bodies lying near one another. It was this scene the fighter was trying to prevent them from seeing. It was here that Rodan saw Jabok’s body splayed on the ground lying near his parents and hers.

  Rodan’s world went dark.

  Rodan opened her eyes and found herself staring at a ceiling consisting of bright electronic lights. There was the sound of beeping and whooshing nearby. She pushed up from the sleeping unit and was immediately overcome by the pounding pain in her head. She fell back, too tired to figure out what to do next.

  “The Medic said you would likely be weak and in pain when you awakened. Do you need anything, Rodan?” a familiar voice asked from her left.

  Rodan turned her head toward the voice to find Kada sitting in a chair beside her. His short, light brown hair was pointing all over his head, and his normally piercing gray eyes were softened with concern.

  “My throat,” she croaked trying, and failing, to raise her hand to touch it.

  Kada nodded and retrieved a cup from a nearby table. He helped her raise her head enough to take a few sips and then let her lay back down. The fluid in the cup was not just water. Rather, it tasted like a mixture of herbs the people of Lewu used to treat non-serious sicknesses.

  At the thought of home, sadness welled up inside of Rodan. But she could not cry.

  Kada came back to her side. He took her hand into his and held it in silence while she struggled. Eventually, she slept again.

  When Rodan opened her eyes, she found herself in a room different from the one in which she had awakened before. Whereas the first room had been bright and open, this room was dim and crowded with what looked like stacked single-person sleeping units.

  Her throat felt better. As she sat up she found that her head felt better also, but Rodan had no idea where she was. Once she felt more alert, she climbed down from the upper sleeping unit to explore her surroundings.

  In her encampment, most of the homes and buildings were made of wood. This place was made of all metal and ceramic. As she thought of her encampment, her head throbbed, and tears fell. She paused and squeezed her eyes shut tightly. She had to stop thinking about what was lost.

  She exited the room lined with rows and rows of stacked sleeping units and found herself in a hallway. Unsure of where to go she decided to walk toward the sounds she heard coming from one end. The large open corridor at the end of the hallway overwhelmed her. Electronic lights glared making everything too bright for her aching head. Dozens of people walked by the spot where she was standing without giving her a second glance. Their busyness reminded her of Market day back in Lewu.

  She froze. Rodan had no idea what to do or where to go. Feeling weak, she leaned back onto the wall behind her, closed her eyes, and slid to the floor.

  A strange female voice hovered over her asking, “Young woman, do you need help?”

  She weakly waved her hand in response.

  A set of arms grabbed her and helped her to her feet. “Let me help you back to your sleeping unit.”

  She looked at Kada and nodded. She leaned on him as they walked. “Where are we?” she finally asked.

  “We are in Gamma compound. They brought you and the other survivors back here until a decision can be made about where you will go.”

  She was quiet until Kada had helped her back into her sleeping unit and under the covers. “How many?” she asked unable to complete the question.

  “They brought back about seventeen people, including you,” said Kada as he tucked her in and helped her settle into a comfortable position.

  Rodan lay on her side and curled into a ball. “I saw Jabok. He...”

  Standing beside where she lay, Kada’s head was at approximately the same height as her. He lay his hand on her shoulder but could not look her in the eye. “I guessed as much. When he was not with you, I assumed the worst.”

  She wiped away the tears that were
once again streaming down her face. She had broken the vow she had been waiting all annum to say to him. She had not gone with him. She should have been with him.

  Kada stepped away from her. He seemed to be searching for something to say. “Do you want something to eat?”

  “No,” she answered while blinking slowly.

  “Rodan, you need to eat. You have been here over three helios. This is the first helio you have been out of the medic’s quarter. Food will help you regain your strength.”

  “I do not want food. I want to sleep,” she answered. And as if her body was responding to her command, she felt herself drifting off.

  Someone shook Rodan awake. She opened her eyes to find Kada standing in front of her. And just as he had done on the previous helio when he had awakened her, he tried to make her eat.

  She shook her head weakly and rolled away from him. She wanted to go back to sleep.

  Unlike the previous helio when he had left her alone, this time he walked around to the other side of the sleeping unit and said, “I will not accept no as an answer this helio. You need to eat. If you do not, you will make yourself worse.”

  “I do not care,” she replied.

  “I know you do not. I felt much like you when my parents were killed. But I knew they would not want me to harm myself. So, I worked to get better.”

  Rodan could see his concern for her in his eyes, but she did not want his compassion. She wanted peace. “I want to be left alone. I want to be with Jabok.”

  Kada turned away from her. Just as she thought he was going to allow her to return to sleep, he faced her again and said, “I know what you are going through. I know how it hurts. But allowing yourself to die does not honor your dead. You should fight to live now, more than ever. It is the responsibility of the survivors to live and fight for the dead. You giving in and dying now disrespects the memories of everyone you knew and loved. Is that what you want?”

  “No,” she shouted. “But what would you have me do? Join Gamma faction and go to war against The Keepers?”

  A mirthless smile crossed his face. “Yes. Joining this war is exactly what you should do. There are reports spreading through the nearby settlements of a group of Keepers’ fighters attacking and razing any support encampments they can find in Resistor territory. Gamma is going to stop them.”

  “Gamma? Alone?” she scoffed and rolled onto her back. “What about Tau? They are also close to this area. What is Tau faction doing?”

  “What they always do, absolutely nothing. Tau is more focused on protecting themselves and their own people than on actively combating The Keepers.”

  Hearing Kada say Tau faction was not doing anything to stop this group of Keepers’ fighters attacking and destroying support encampments made Rodan feel something other than deep sadness. She felt anger. She had called them first when Lewu was being attacked. And as far as she could tell, they had ignored her call. Tau faction was closer to her encampment than Gamma. And they have a larger fighting force. If they had responded to her call, could more people have survived? Would Jabok?

  Thoughts of her intended mate dampened the intensity of her anger, and the despair returned, even heavier than before. Tiredness began to overwhelm her. At fourteen annums, Kada may have been strong enough to decide to live so he could avenge his family’s deaths. But apparently, at twenty annums, she was not.

  “Kada, I am not as strong as you. I do not want to go on without my loved ones,” she said closing her eyes.

  “Move over,” Kada commanded.

  She stared at him, but eventually did as he asked and moved over to one side of the sleeping unit and rolled onto her side.

  He climbed in and lay down facing her. It was a snug fit. Their foreheads were touching, and there was only a thin sliver of space between them. But, Rodan noticed, she did not feel so alone having someone close to her.

  He closed his gray eyes and said in a barely audible voice, “At first, I was not strong either. When the other Poncot encampment survivors and I were brought to Gamma faction, I wanted to die. I stopped eating and talking to everyone. The Medics had to force feed me. And when we were brought to Lewu…” He let that thought trail off, inhaling and exhaling deeply. “The reason I asked Mother Erken and Father Mirt to allow me to stay in the room in the storage shed, is because I had planned to kill myself, and I did not want to do so in their home.”

  Rodan gaped at Kada. She had no idea what to say. She had had no idea.

  He continued with his eyes still closed. “And then came the helio when I decided it was time.”

  A gasp escaped her and she covered her still open mouth with her hand.

  “I will not tell you what I had planned for obvious reasons.” A nervous smile spread on his face. “But just as I was about to kill myself, a voice in my head asked why did I have to be the one to die? I had done nothing wrong. If anyone should die, it was The Keepers and their fighters. They were the ones who had murdered my family and so many other innocent people. And at that moment, I found a reason to live.”

  Kada finished speaking, but remained in the sleeping unit with her.

  The silence stretched on as Rodan processed his story. Why did she feel the need to die?

  Because she felt guilty for surviving. She clutched the ring still hanging around her neck.

  When Jabok went back to the encampment, part of her wished she had gone with him. Even though she knew now, as she had known then, that going with him would have meant no request for help. And if she had not called Gamma, it is possible there would not have been any survivors.

  No. Going for help had been the correct call. She also wished Jabok had gone with her. If he had survived, they could have been one another’s reason for living. But maybe going back for both of their parents had been the correct call for him. And now that they were all dead, could avenging them be her reason to live?

  Thoughts of how Tau had ignored her plea, and how the Keepers’ fighters who killed her loved ones were still planning to do the same to other encampments stoked the embers of anger buried deep inside of her.

  She would live. She would live long enough to make those responsible for the death of her loved ones pay. Nothing would stop her from making The Keepers pay. And as for Tau faction, at the very least she was owed an explanation for why they ignored her plea for help. And once her loved ones were avenged, well then...

  She pushed Kada’s shoulder gently and stared into his eyes. “I want vengeance, too. Tell me what I need to do.”

  Chapter 4

  As she ran up the hill to the small clearing, Rodan once again found herself at the rear of the group. She had been training with Gamma faction’s other trainee fighters for seven helios. And while after an entire lunaquart she still was not accustomed to the level of physical activity they required, this helio, at least, her breathing was not as uneven and ragged as it had been when she had started. Kada, on the other hand, was among one of the best new fighters.

  She pushed her sore muscles to continue moving, and finally, she crested the hill. When she made it to the finish line, she collapsed to the ground and lay on her back with her eyes closed.

  A shadow hovered over her blocking the sol.

  She opened her eyes and saw Kada, as she had expected, standing over her with a cup of water in his hands.

  He said nothing. He merely held out his hand to help her up from the ground.

  Begrudgingly, she took it and stood.

  “Keep moving. Resting like that will make it harder to run the next segment,” said Kada. His breath was even, and the only evidence that he had been sweating was the water droplets in his light brown hair and wet patches on his shirt.

  Meanwhile, she was still huffing and using the ends of her damp shirt to wipe the sweat from her eyes.

  She took the water from him and emptied the cup. “I am not, the fighter, you are,” she said through strangled breaths. “So, the next, segment, will be hard, for me, no matter what.” She held the
cup out to him for a refill.

  He gave her his cup, and then took her empty one and walked away. Instead of returning to the ground as she wanted, she forced herself to remain standing. She drank all of the water and let the cup fall to the ground. Then, she slouched over, gripped her thighs just above each knee with her hands, and used her arms as braces to keep herself upright.

  Her breathing began to even out.

  Kada retrieved the cup she had dropped without disturbing her. Finally, she felt strong enough to stand fully upright. From where they were positioned, she could see nothing but forest in every direction. She truly hated the physical training portion of becoming a fighter, but she loved being outside.

  Life in Gamma compound was nothing like how she had grown up. First, within the compound, she was surrounded by harsh and sterile metal and ceramic surfaces and artificial lighting that was too bright. Growing up, everything had been made from warm and inviting wood and natural stone. Further, light was primarily provided by sight stones that absorbed energy from the rays of the sol during the helio, and emitted that energy as soft light once the sol was gone. And as farmers, they had worked outside all of the time.

  But in Gamma, most of their time was spent buried deep within their confining compound. She had no idea how they lived like this. And sleeping in the barracks. She had no privacy, no quiet time to herself. Thankfully, most of the other trainee fighters had picked up fairly quickly that she wanted to be left alone and had respected the fact. Still, when they were joking and playing with one another, it was still loud and bothersome.

  “Fighters. On your feet. Move out,” boomed a loud voice pulling Rodan out of her thoughts.

  A collective groan went through the ranks as their commander called for the next run to start. Rodan wiped away the stray tear that had welled in her eye and fell in line with the group. The run would help keep her thoughts on the present and not her past.