Awakening

by Hayden Pearton

  *

  Back at the camp-site, Barsch was greeted by a very amicable Kingston, wearing a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

  “Not funny,” he said, sitting beside Kingston.

  “Hah! You need to live a little, m'boy.”

  “If something like that happens again, living longer will become a challenge!”

  “Don't worry m'boy, I knew that you wouldn't do anything foolish... well, I hoped you wouldn't.”

  “Thanks for the confidence.” Barsch said dryly.

  “You're welcome. Embarrassing encounters aside, we are wasting daylight. We should get a move on. Now do you want to go and tell your little friend or should I ask Maloch?”

  Kingston took Barsch storming off as his answer, and proceeded to ask Maloch to call Alza. A few minutes later, she reappeared, causing Barsch to suddenly sprout a luminescent blush when she looked in his direction. As soon as he did this, she turned away, a mirror of Barsch's blush lighting up her delicate features, to her understandable confusion. The awkward silence was only cleared when Maloch and Kingston gathered up the last remaining packs and headed away from the crater.

  The wasting country-side was no less despair-inducing during the day, and the light only served to exacerbate the decimation of nature that had occurred there. Barsch winced whenever his eyes fell upon a mangled copse of trees or a vile bog, as if the tortured landscape was a personal offence. The scene did not improve much as they journeyed further, and the destruction only increased as they approached the nameless city. In fact, the path forward became harder and more convoluted as they neared their destination.

  The undergrowth had been treacherous to begin with, but it had not reached almost impassable levels. Thorn-barbed plants and sickle-sharp leaves blocked every route, cutting and spiking while doing so. After an hour of traversing through the impossible vegetation, the entire group -with the sole exception of Maloch- was covered in multitudes of scratches and cuts. The joviality seen that morning had evaporated like the morning mist, leaving behind a tense silence.

  Before long they reached an impasse, which took the form of a massive bog. It lay between them and the city, and was bordered on either side by Nightblighter-infested woods. To go around would take hours, and would invariably be more dangerous. Thus, they decided to wade through the marsh, and pray that no lurking horrors would assault them from the murky depths. With trepidation, Barsch inched forward towards the swamp, ready for anything waiting beneath the nefarious waters.

  Using Lanista to measure the depth of the sludge, and finding it to be acceptable, he called for the others to follow behind. The first step into the dark sludge brought a sudden chill, as if the cold water had sent an icy shiver into his heart. It was as if the bog was devoid of heat and warmth, replaced by deadened nothingness. An unbidden gasp escaped his chapped lips after the first submerged branch caught his leg, and only a quick realisation of his foolishness prevented further outbursts.

  The way forward was tough due to all of the impediments hidden beneath the mud, and Kingston's almost continuous grumbling did little to lighten the situation. Alza remained tight-lipped, though she too looked unhappy with their current circumstances. Only Maloch, a fortress of patience and congeniality, remained pleasant to be around. The sky seemed to reflect the mood: a dark and twisted dome wreathed with sombre clouds and mystifying mist. Despite his earlier preparation against the sudden entangling presence beneath the sludge, Barsch was still caught off guard by the frequency of the attacks. As they slowly made their way through the bog, a strange thought presented itself to his miserable sub-conscious.

  “Kingston, is it just me... or does the shape of this bog strike you as... odd?” he asked, hoping that Kingston would tell him otherwise. The alternative was too horrible to imagine.

  Kingston looked up from his melancholic stride and gave the swamp a quick once-over. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and he dismissed Barsch's comment as baseless paranoia, but something at the base of one of the trees caught his attention. He knew that it was most probably a trick of the failing light, or his old eyes seeing things, but nevertheless he moved towards it. At the same time, Barsch had been looking for more things out of place, and had found plenty. Aside from the shape of the bog -an oblong shape about a hundred feet across and three and a half feet deep- the plants around the water had roots that resembled fingers and arms. Additionally, the putrid smell he had only just managed to get out of his mind was suspiciously like the one given off my rotting meat, though it was muted, as if something had diluted it.

  “Um... Kingston... I don't mean to be a bother... but I don't think this is a bog...”

  “I think you might just be right about that m'boy.” Kingston had been facing away from Barsch, inspecting the oddly shaped object at the base of one of the trees. He turned back towards to Barsch, holding what was unmistakably a body part. Barsch's breath caught when he realised that it was a half-rotten hand, a grimy wedding ring present and a body absent.

  “What is this place?” he asked with a soft voice. The horror was there, but he refused to acknowledge it yet.

  “A product of the war... we're standing in a mass grave, filled up by years of mud and rain. When the first bombs were dropped, and the first human voice was silenced, these pits were made and filled. Soon after that the dead started to outnumber the living.”

  “What should we do? Turn back or press forward?” Barsch wanted nothing more than to turn back and leave the corpse infested waters, but they were already halfway across. Turning back would only grant them temporary relief. Sooner or later they would have to cross.

  Kingston looked to Alza and Maloch, noting their placid glazes, and said, “We've come too far, we might as well carry on, even though it may leave a bad taste.”

  Carefully, Kingston placed the hand back where he found it, muttering an oath about, “Defiling the lost,” as he did so.

  Barsch tried not to think about what he was wading through, and instead allowed his thoughts to drown out his disgust. “So much killing... so much death... families destroyed... lives taken, all because of selfishness. It makes me sick to my stomach that a human being could be capable of such... repulsive behaviour. Did they never stop to think of what they were losing, of what was being destroyed forever? No... they were just thinking of themselves, of their own petty greed, and their own survival.”

  “You don't seem too upset, given our current situation. Is there a reason for your calm behaviour?”

  For a moment, Barsch thought that he was still hearing his inner voice, but then he realised that it had been Alza, who had moved closer and was looking at him with those strange, penetrating eyes.

  “What do you mean?” he hesitantly asked.

  “If I am not mistaken, the old one announced that we are wading through a place of the dead. I am curious as to why you seem so composed.”

  Barsch thought of her words, and realised that what she had said was the truth. From the moment Kingston had told them, he had felt no disgust, only unease, at being surrounded by the dead. He knew that he would have been revolted before the Great Sleep, but he simply could not make himself feel revulsion for their situation. With a straight face, he replied, “I guess I've just gotten used to it... All the violence in the world, and still no one does a thing to stop it... It's infuriating, but there's nothing I can do... not when I'm so powerless.”

  Alza seemed to study Barsch for a moment, searching for the truth in his green-blue eyes, before replying, “So you desire power? Power to rid the world of violence? And how do you intend to find this power?”

  This was their longest conversation to date, and Barsch would not let it end, even if in truth he wanted to avoid the subject.

  While thinking of an answer, he thought of his dreams of anger and hatred. He thought of his sin on that unforgettable night, of the cries of the dying cóyotl. He had had power that night, a power of violence and destruction. “To fight violence
with greater violence... that will create nothing by a cycle of anger and death.”

  “I don't know. I don't know if it's even possible to rid this scarred world of the violence that created it, but I still want to try. Perhaps... if I find an answer, I'll let you know.”

  “You speak with words that do not match your age. Why?” What was she thinking, behind those shimmering eyes. What was she trying to find out? As always, she was unreadable, and her motives lay hidden from him.

  “I guess you could say that my father was a big influence on my life. He taught me so many things... even though he should have been worrying about his own well-being.”

  They had reached the last quarter of the mass grave, and the conversation had kept Barsch from noticing the odd preserved corpse knocking against his leg, or a severed hand touching his chest. Barsch realised that their conversation was the only thing keeping him from screaming and trying to flee.

  “My mother passed away when I was young, and he never forgave himself. From when I was old enough to talk, he started teaching me everything he knew, maybe as a way for him to gain repentance. He always blamed himself for her death, you see? And he was determined to not lose me as well. So he wanted to prepare me for the world, as best he could. He taught me how to defend myself, how to adapt to any situation, and how to always stay positive. His favourite thing to say to me, when he thought that I was losing hope, was:

  “Through Fire,

  Through Ice,

  Through Deepest Despair,

  Never lose your stride.”

  Whenever I think of those words, It's almost as if I can feel him, standing beside me, urging me to stand up and continue moving forward”

  “What happened to him, your father?”

  “When we were being prepared for cryogenesis, we were all separated, so I don't know where he is. I can only hope that he will be there waiting for me when everyone wakes up.” Barsch thought of what he had said, and felt guilty. He had someone waiting for him, but Alza had no-one, no-one that she remembered at any rate. Still, he reached out and said, “Have you had any luck in remembering? Has anything come back to you? Your home? Parents? Friends? Anything?”

  When she didn't answer, Barsch wondered if he had said something wrong, if he had crossed some invisible line by prying into her forgotten past. She alleviated his worries by saying, in a quiet, almost inaudible voice, “When I close my eyes, and concentrate on my memories, I can see... shards... pieces of memory with no context or connections. It feels as though my brain is one big puzzle, and If I could just solve it then everything would come rushing back.” Alza took a breath and raised her voice, saying in a firm tone, “But there is one feeling that never wavers, that never disappears... my home... the place of my birth... is a very bad place.”

  “Alza, I had no idea... I'm-

  “We're here.” It was Kingston, climbing out of the far side of the bog with a look of relief plastered across his aged features. With his elderly yet firm arms, he helped Barsch and Alza out of the watery grave. They stood there for a moment, letting the cool wind dry their skin; while giving a silent requiem for those that lay hidden from the world, never to feel the warmth of the sun again. Soon, the moment passed, and they carried onwards to the foreboding city.