Awakening

by Hayden Pearton

  *

  A little while later, it was time to take of his bandages. As Kingston worked, Barsch’s trepidation grew, as he imagined what his body would look like. Soon, the wrappings were gone, leaving only his supposedly marred skin. Turning towards a nearby mirror, he gently raised his eyes up to his presumably disfigured body. To his surprise, he was relatively unscathed, a fact which Kingston could not explain away. The only scars he could see were those that he had gained in his turbulent childhood, which consisted of a long gash along his left arm and an inch-wide hole in his right calf. However, relatively unscathed did not mean that he had suffered no disfigurement at all, as a quick glance at his back soon told him.

  There, below each shoulder-blade, lay several newly formed scars. They consisted of eight parallel streaks -four on each side- each about five inches long and an inch across. Seen from afar, they looked like the remnants of torn off wings, discarded after a descent from the heavens. The cóyotl’s mark would be with him forever, a permanent reminder of their desperate struggle.

  As he turned away, something caught his eye. Leaning forward, he gazed up at what had always been a midnight mop of hair. He turned his head this way and that, trying to confirm his dawning suspicions. His hair was now a cheery shade of brown, with only streaks of black remaining from his original colour. Whilst his new look was surprising, it was not unexpected, as in his childhood he had heard many tales of men and women whose prolonged exposure to the pollution had changed their features. Besides, his lightened hair had the effect of lighting up his face, which made his usually shadowed features look quite open and welcoming.

  Next to the door, he found his clothes, mended by a deft hand while he had slept. Beneath his garments, he found a sparkling clean Lanista, all evidence of carnage scrubbed away by an elderly hand. Remembering the old man’s advice, he gently picked it up. It seemed to be a lot lighter than he remembered, as if it had been weighed down by his guilt. As he was gathering his belongings, Maloch entered the room. The dents and scratches that covered his body told of better times, but it did not seem as though he would complain.

  In his mechanical voice, he announced, “I am glad to see that you are well, Barsch La Tergan. As for myself, I have been recharged to almost full capacity.” He turned to Kingston, who was sitting in a vacant chair, and said, “Rain water analysis is complete. The water has a 0.05 concentration of acidic elements, which is far below the norm. In its current state, it poses no direct threat to us or our health. However, judging by cloud composition and falling velocity, the storm is unlikely to pass anytime soon. How would you like to proceed?”

  With a grace only given to the elderly, Kingston stood and stretched out his crackling joints. After pacing across the room for a while, he stopped and said, “There’s no point in staying here for who knows how long, waiting for the rain to stop. The faster we find the madman, the faster we can go home.”

  “Do you think we’ll really find him? He could be anywhere!”

  A very small part of him had hoped that Kingston would just call off the hunt. They could go home, or the closest thing to it, and forget about madmen and false gods.

  “We could forget about them… but would they forget about us?” his treacherous side answered.

  “I would like to believe that the Avatars would not set us on this path for nothing but a cheap laugh. As for where he is, I have a feeling that he is not too far away…”

  Seeing Barsch’s disbelieving stare he added, “Don’t fret m’boy! I’m sure we’ll be back home in no time!”

  As Kingston called Alza and readied his belongings, Barsch had an odd thought, “Home... but what is home to me now: the station... or Kingston’s hut?”

  Minutes later, they were out of the door, their packs stuffed with preserved food and bottled water; their spirits lifted; and their course set thanks to Maloch’s built-in compass.

  Barsch did not look back on Wareven. The village, now a ghost town once more, had been a place of blood and loss. Loss of innocence. Loss of control. Loss of the young man who had believed that protecting people was an easy, bloodless affair.

  A boy had entered Wareven. A man had left. And although they bore the same name, the look in their eyes could not be more different.

  The rain, having supposedly viewed its earlier performance as laziness, came belting down in a great torrent of water and hail, which soon drenched the odd group making their way towards an uncertain future.