The Shattered Genesis (Eternity)

by Rudacille, T.

  “You seem to feel that I have some emotional investment in their relationship.”

  “I know you don’t. But you looked curious.”

  “I was curious as to why she does not just punch him. That is what she wants to do.”

  “Would you punch me?”

  “If you were making me that angry, then yes.”

  “You would not.”

  I smiled up at him and kissed his cheek.

  “You are right. I would use my words to punch you.”

  “That would probably be worse.”

  “Indeed, it would.”

  Alice and Quinn had disappeared into the brush up ahead.

  “That is so very odd…” I whispered in awe at what was in front of me.

  James and I were looking up at a wall of thick palm leaves and pine needles. Interspersed with them were the crumbling leaves of the various trees that surrounded us. It was a huge green behemoth standing before us, blocking out the late afternoon sun. There was something threatening about its great mass. The feeling of being so small in the shadow of something so gargantuan was overpowering. I had to turn away for a moment.

  When I turned back, I found James looking up towards the canopy overhead. The wall of shrubbery reached up to the very top of the tallest nearby tree.

  “It’s blocking something. Alice! Quinn! Are you there?”

  “Guys,” Alice’s voice said tremulously, “you have to see this!”

  “How did you two get through there?”

  “It parted for us. It was so weird!” Quinn called back.

  “Well, I am just thrilled that they are so very special that…” I was beginning to mutter irritably as I walked up to the wall. But as I spoke, the leaves pulled back and up, revealing a small, oval-shaped tunnel. James and I looked at each other, our faces contorted into expressions of shock and amazement.

  “That was quite impressive.” I told him as I stepped inside cautiously. I looked back, my eyes widened slightly as a new worrisome thought passed through my mind. “You don’t think this is going to close on us, do you?”

  “No.” James replied, laughing. But his smile faded as he added, “At least, I don’t think so. I’ll go first. Scoot over.”

  I moved to the side of the tunnel, grasping the twisted branches that made up its walls. He moved inside and maneuvered around me so that he was in front. I turned and grasped his hand as we walked through.

  The walls never even shuddered in desire to close on us. We stepped out into the soft orange twilight once we had reached the end.

  But it was not even close to sunset. Both James and I were dumbfounded by the sudden darkness of the world. We saw Alice and Quinn staring off, wide-eyed, into the distance and we looked.

  Of all the sights I had seen, that was by far the most breathtaking.

  The sky over the metropolis was dark purple, like an oil painting made from the juice of smashed wild-berries. Interspersing with the vivid darkness were flecks of burnt orange swirled spectacularly into the canvas. The clouds hanging lazily against the backdrop were a deep hazel, though those cumulus beings stacked on top of one another were nearly transparent.

  The city itself was alight with silver; the towering buildings and their surrounding subjects were made of soft chrome. The lights burning away in their windows were as orange as the light over our heads. It was natural translucence, so unlike the harsh, white, artificial lights we had used back home. Though I could feel the city bustling with life, not a sound reached us. The Pangeans were quiet folk, in no rush and with no need of the excessive, deafening noises that we were so used to hearing.

  It was the only city on Pangea. It was where its more futuristic-minded citizens lived. I wanted nothing more than to run down the steep, high-grassed slope we were standing on top of and disappear into the depths of the fantastic place that stood before me. I wanted to see every part of it and experience the life of the Pangeans.

  But they were hostile to us. Surely, we would be killed.

  I could understand it now. We were on their land, fresh from the planet we had so dirtied and inevitably destroyed with our filth and greed. We were a plague on those people whose age-old planet was as clean and pure as the day it had been born from empty space and a Godly hand.

  Purissimus. That’s what the man had called it. Pure.

  I understood why they hated us. We had shunned the creation gifted to us so many thousands of years earlier. The Pangeans feared that our kind would do to their Purissimus what we had done to our Earth.

  I understood it perfectly. I sympathized greatly. I almost hated us for being there until I remembered that we had no other choice. My self-interest powerfully overruled my empathy. It certainly was not the first time that had happened. It certainly would not be the last.

  “We have to go down there!” Alice exclaimed, and I could hear that she was beaming brightly with excitement.

  “No.” I replied simply before turning my eyes away from the city to squash the temptation.

  “Come on, the wall parted for us. They want us to come down there.” Alice informed us and I suppressed a derisive chuckle unsuccessfully. I always found it so difficult not to correct people when they were so obviously wrong. In this case, I did not even try to stop myself.

  “Yes. So they can kill us.” I said, “Darling, you must start using your instincts. They’ve been gifted to you for a reason. Embrace a little cynicism.”

  “That seems to have worked out well for you so far.” She replied as she looked at me coldly.

  “It has saved me and everyone I have ever held dearly to me. So yes, it has, as you say, ‘worked out.’” I said all of that without skipping a beat. I could have used my gift of reading minds to bring up some darkness from her history. But the dark memory I could see through a thin haze in her mind was fresh. It had only just been burned into permanence. Her mother’s crumpled body was at the forefront of her thoughts. Apparently, her trustworthy nature had allowed her to be fooled into letting in a Scout. That’s what I called them: Scouts.

  “I’m going down there. There are a lot of people. I can feel them. I’ll just blend in. They look just like us.” Alice told us but Quinn grabbed her hand.

  “You can’t, Alice.”

  “Maybe we should go down there.”

  James shocked me by spewing such empty-headed nonsense. I had been beginning to feel that he was on par with me, intelligence-wise. Part of intelligence was a firm hold on common sense. To go down into that city filled with natives would be suicide. Suicide defied common sense.

  My face conveyed all of that before I could even open my mouth.

  “Baby, we could reach out to them. They might look at us coming down there as a noble act, like we’re bravely extending them the olive branch. That could make them listen. You know it could.”

  “Or they will rip us apart on sight. That is perhaps a predication far too extreme to be plausible. But I know that it is certainly a possible outcome. In fact, it is far more probable than them granting us an audience with whoever their leader is so we can explain ourselves, James.”

  “What if it’s the only way?” He asked me.

  “What on Earth or Pangea, in this case, I suppose…” I shook my head slightly, pondering the drastic change in a simple expression. I almost lost my train of thought, which most certainly was not new to me. With so many thoughts running wildly through my head before the change-over, I had always been apt to lose what I had been musing on silently. Now, I had the thoughts of others to contend with. In that case, I found my way back to the point with little effort.

  “What makes you think that this is the only way?”

  “Because it seems so obvious.” He laughed slightly in disbelief that I was not grasping the genius behind his great plan. He failed to realize that if a plan truly was one of great intelligence, I would have thought of it first.

  “James, do not force me to go into a lengthy, intricate tirade. I am becoming more and more exha
usted as this day progresses. All of this running is draining my strength.”

  “This could be exactly what we need to do. Maybe we’re meant to make peace with them, do you know what I mean?”

  “Of course I know what you mean, James. That was not a difficult thought to decipher. However, I think you are wrong. You did not see what they did to people. It was brutal. It was sick. I certainly do not want to be ripped apart!”

  “I will never let that happen, Brynna. I promise.” He changed courses immediately, “Alright, I have an idea.”

  “Dear Lord…” I sighed heavily and sat down on the ground. He knelt in front of me.

  “I’ll go down there alone. I’ll tell them that I need to come back to get you…”

  “Let me stop you right there. If you go down there and then say that you need to leave immediately to fetch me, they are going to suspect that you are a spy. That would be any person’s basic thought when the enemy strolls so willingly into their midst. Even a brain-dead, crack-addicted vagabond would suspect that.”

  He covered his face, trying to hide the fact that he was laughing. I raised one eyebrow in irritation as I looked at him.

  “Do you find me humorous, James? Because you should know that amusing you is just about the last bullet on my list of priorities.”

  “I find you very humorous, baby. I know that you’re being serious and I appreciate that. But sometimes, the things you say just make me laugh.”

  “Yeah? The scrawny body you possessed on Earth made me laugh but I did not call your attention to it.”

  He laughed even harder now. I wanted to slap him.

  “What do you want me to say?” I snapped at him angrily. “Do you want me to say that I am worried about you? Is this plan you are proposing some roundabout path to get me to say that I care?”

  “No. Baby, stop it.” He grasped my hands, “You’re getting defensive.”

  “You’re being stupid.”

  “I know. I know.” He kissed my hands. “I’m sorry. You’re just funny sometimes.”

  I studied him for a moment as he tried to suppress his crooked grin that I loved so much. I found myself fighting a smile. I was irritated, surely, but his amusement at what I had said did touch me.

  “Well, I am glad you feel that way, honestly.” I told him as my shaken nerves calmed. “Not many people find me to be even slightly funny, so this is a plus, I suppose.” I looked at him, feeling myself choking back words that I wanted to say. But those particular words were forceful and after several seconds of attempting to suppress them, they had to be spoken. Finally, they spewed forth from me as my defenses crumpled before him. “I need you, James.”

  Those particular words were always waiting to be said. There was never a moment when they were not true.

  “I know,” He leaned in to kiss my lips tenderly, “I know, Brynna.”

  “I have never needed another human being. I never needed a parental figure, even. But I need you. I hate it, but I do.”

  “Why do you hate it?” He asked me.

  “I do not hate it because of you. I hate it because I cannot stand allowing myself to rely on someone. I hate knowing that at any time, I could be…” I searched for the right term. “I could be damaged by you.”

  His warm brown eyes gazed into mine for a long time. He was stone-serious now.

  “I can’t promise you that I won’t hurt you, Brynna, but I will try my best not to.” He told me gently after resting both of his hands on my face. “I know that this is all very new to you. I know that it is something you’re learning.”

  “Splendid. You know that you are my guinea pig. That eliminates awkwardness, surely.”

  He smiled.

  “That is definitely new. I've seen you use your disdain for people to avoid feeling things. I’ve never seen you make a joke to do it. That’s far more normal than anything I could have expected of you.”

  “Well, I am not going to apologize for embracing a little normalcy, however unconsciously I embraced it.”

  “I’m not asking you to. See? I made you angry. You’re getting defensive with everything I say.”

  “You did make me angry. I can admit that to you. I am so used to feeling mild annoyance. But you are making me genuinely angry with your empty-headed suggestions. I have always been independent and if something happened to you down there, I would survive. But James, I would grieve for you.”

  The words being said aloud shocked him as much as they shocked me.

  “I would be so sad.” I whispered as I felt a rush of tears in my eyes. Furiously, I blinked them away but they were bullheaded, with a will of their own. “Don’t look at me!”

  Respectfully, he looked away. My own will to suppress the new insurgence of tears surpassed their own power. They never fell from my eyes.

  “Maybe you are right.” I told him in a voice devoid of any emotion. Whatever onslaught of feeling that had passed over me had dissipated, leaving no trace of its cruel, sudden grip. “Maybe this is our only way to reach out to them, to make them understand. But I have seen what they can do.”

  He was looking back at me now.

  “If they decide they want you dead, even with all of this power we have now, you would not stand a chance in a crowd of them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I don’t agree. But I do understand.”

  “Either way, it is not a risk I am willing to take. I am not willing to risk your life, not for anything. Okay?”

  He nodded and pulled me close to him, kissing the top of my head after my arms had tightened around his middle.

  “Okay.”

  XXX

  The hunt had to stop as night descended on us. We slunk back through the wall that opened for us again and set up camp in a clearing about a mile away. Alice rambled on excitedly, actually believing that I was listening. But in the firelight, I watched James as he studied the boxes of rations. In his mind that I could not see, he was speculating on how to give equal portions to the four of us while still preserving enough food to last. He was worried that when we found Elijah, Penny and Violet that they would be starving and thirsty and we would have no food or water to give them. We had to have enough for them, too.

  Our supplies were wearing thin. At least the tent and sleeping bag were holding up.

  That was the other dilemma. We had one sleeping bag. The night was growing colder as a huge, bright moon rose over us. I would have been disgusted, honestly, if we all had to sleep right next to each other in order to keep warm. But I would gladly oblige that request if it meant all of us would survive the night. I found Quinn and Alice to be slightly aggravating with their constant bickering and their never-absent urges to chat but I certainly did not wish death on them.

  Alice and Quinn. Their youth should have been infectious. I should have adapted to their normalcy. Instead, I felt nothing but the familiar cold in my heart. I felt neither desire nor ability to behave the way they did.

  James was capable of entertaining them. Besides his sagely wisdom, he also had a fantastic sense of humor that shifted with every person he met, according to what he or she found amusing. Earlier that night, I had watched Alice and Quinn laugh hysterically at something he had said. They had forgotten their animosity towards one another for a moment as they heard his rambling, clearly quite entertaining story. In their amusement, I saw what was expected of me. I was supposed to be like them. Even after the world had ended and we faced new, far more dangerous threats on Pangea, I was supposed to laugh as I pulled the wool over my eyes.

  I could not hold with such foolishness. I knew that for sure. What I did not know was if my will to remain so firmly grounded in reality was a blessing or a curse, if it was right or wrong. I truly did care to know which was the truth, by the whomever's standards I should value.

  I needed to pull away from James. He was too close. He had breached the battle-worn walls of my innermost defenses and I needed to get away before they crumpled, never to be rebuilt again. I was in the
palm of his hand. At any moment, he could make a fist and crush me.

  I would not allow myself to be destroyed by a man. I was far too strong for that. I would not allow myself to love or even hold fond feelings for him. I had sworn never to engage in sexual activities with anyone. The vulnerability those acts required made me so sick, I could have vomited just by pondering the implications of such weakness for too long. I would not be seen as weak. My protection of myself and my pride were far more powerful than my need for James.

  But no, all of those insidious thoughts were losing their life force inside of my crowded mind. I watched him worrying over the food we had left. I studied the creases in his face that were outlined by the shadows cast by the flames. I had never seen such a handsome man. I had never met one with such a gentle heart. Yes, he was acid-tongued and angry at his worst. But at his best, he took my breath away with his tenderness. I had no reason to fear him.

  Ironically, the voice now reasoning on James’s behalf was not my own; it was my mother’s.

  Evil witch. Drunken, cold-hearted shrew. I would not allow myself to hear her voice, not even when the sound soothed me despite all logic.

  I had looked away from him, my expression souring into one that betrayed great pain. I shook it away, allowing my impassiveness to resume its place on the front lines of my appearance.

  When my eyes moved back to where James had been sitting, he was gone. My heart gave a leap of protest at no longer being able to see him. Then, the warmth in me resumed when I felt his hands rubbing my shoulders.

  “Were you listening to me, baby?”

  I shook my head.

  “I apologize. What did you say?”

  “I said that you need to eat something. You’re starting to look sick.”

  I shook my head again.

  “You think I cannot read your face?” I replied softly, “I might not have access to your thoughts just yet, but I know of your worry.”

  “You know, you sound like you’re from the medieval age when you talk sometimes.” He told me as he laid down on his side behind me. I leaned back against him, took his arm and pulled it over my shoulder so I could grasp his hand in both of mine. “Not in inflection, just in word choice.