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Love to publish someday. Scifi, aliens, fighting arena, edit and rewrite in progress. |
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In the last days of man, the Earth suffered. In our darkest hours came its savior, a reckoning for all mankind. The world had become a casualty of man’s greed; and so, the lesson. We were never truly alone. They took back what we'd destroyed. The remnants of man worked in the fields fulfilling prophecy set forth by these new ancients. The forest sat off limits; pristine and glorified by the red, streaming boundary-lines reflecting across its greenery - a shunt to the men and women wasting away in the fields. Enslavement ensured survival for us all. Auria She sat straight up from a noise in the hallway. Auria pushed bare feet into worn, muddy boots and set out to confront the calamity coming from the dark aisle between bunk-rooms, tip toeing not to wake the sleeping faces. “Good Birthday morning ta ya, Babe.” said an old man stumbling down the hall. “What in da blazes is da matter wit us all?” Auria noticed the way he leaned against the cold, stone wall. He'd soiled pants, wet from the crotch to the tips of two mismatched, dirty socks. “Ya’ve done it again, Morris.” she said. “Half yer bunk time is already gone by da way-side. Ya’ll be ta work in da fields after a couple hours." She faced him with defiant hands to her waist. "What do ya tink de’ll do about ya dis a 'way?” “De’ll get a cob shoved up der arses if dey mess wit me... Aw betcha!” he slurred, shaking a fist. “Aw told dem. Aw told dem all, years ago tis was gonna come ta pass, an dey didn't bleeb me. Now, it takes its lashes an it carries on, doesn't it?" He lunged forward and backed up again, training his one good eye on the ground to stop the dizzies. "Now, could ya do an old man a favor an... lean inta is shoulder fore he doesn’t make it ta bunk... pissed drunk aw am an all.” She grabbed Morris when he purposely stumbled toward her. He leered against her face puckering for a touch of lips. She'd caught him beneath both arms, strained into his dead weight and narrowly escaped a fouled beard by dipping out of reach. Both grunted, then he belched into the bobbing pile of sweet-smelling red curls under his chin. “Ere, have some...” he growled. "Aw don't need it na more." Morris spilled ale down her backside, then poured it slowly over her long curls and laughed, slinging the empty bowl against the wall. Auria reached the tip of a boot to catch it right in the center before it fell, raising it high enough to grab and hold against his backside, all while trying to brace the old fool. “Ya’ve soiled me wit yer drunken stench.” she said, pulling him along. ‘Aw might as well ave been tellin da walls.’ she thought. He gurgled and writhed when she tucked him in to bunk. Now, she'd become the unwilling accomplice. Random thoughts consoled little. ‘It might be da same punishin fer me now in da mernin.’ She returned to bunk, dabbing damp hair with a brown, linen shirt. A while later and still awake, a sense of urgency weighed deep within her mind. She slipped out to check, finding his bunk empty. Damp, muddy stone greeted from the cracked doorway leading to the fields. The door stood wide open in the brisk breeze, slapping and flopping to curse an approaching storm. She smelled the ale, not from her dried hair, but a musky odor coming in across the wind. She walked into the uplifting currents, letting her conscious guide a familiar, animalistic instinct. He simply stunk too much not to follow. Up ahead, dark tracks littered a newly-plown plot of rusty soil. She'd surmised these were left by a man’s miss-steps, one suffering from influences. Her dainty steps were light, much lighter, as to leave barely an impression in the pits of the plug-holes she followed. Bare feet insured she'd tread with hesitation, aiding in a certain silence of travel. 'Old man, ya owe me.' Moonlight revealed a row of prints leading to the trees. The young girl suspected the bright-red illuminations along the tree-line already broken, though she’d never seen nor heard of anyone breaking the red oath in all her twenty years. In the distance, a wolf howled, followed by fowl cursing - just outside the red-glow boundary. Auria forged ahead, crossing the lit, red stripes; the light breaking as she passed and resealing behind. The ground felt different there; firmer, wetter, colder than the red-clay field. It itched - a warning between numb toes. The old man yelled in the distance. Breaking limbs and her own rasping breath soon became overpowered by Morris's preaching. She kept up a steady pace, grabbing a dead stick along the way. “Aw’m comin, old man.” “Get back! Leave me ta die. Tis de devil here... come ta take me away.” She ran faster, noshing through rows of damp limbs and sharp vines. Stinging cuts accompanied a rush of running in the dark. Mud stuck to paining ankles and slapped off again in each pounding step. He stood ahead; a smoky torchlight waving to and fro in a rolling haze of bearded nostrils. Auria squeezed the stick between both hands, guiding it to stave off another pillar of stinging vines. She saw movement between them, something large, and Morris stared straight back at it. His eyes turned to her and so did the long, dark creature ahead, only a few, short steps from a taut staff. She swung. It moved. She'd missed. “Ya should not a set after me!” yelled Morris. “No.” she gasped, still rushing toward him. “Ya shouldn’t" she coughed. "have drank so much again.” "Aw do dis fer me, nobody else." he cried. "Aw'm old. Aw'm done fer, aye tells ya. Aw can't keep on, keepin on like dis." He reached out, pulling her closer and pushed the lit torch farther into the night. She drove the staff into the ground, leaned into it and turned toward the looming threat. Two glowing eyes shone, large eyes, low to the ground, tainting the forest with a guttural growl. She reached for his torch, took it from the old man’s cold hands and turned slowly, keeping him at her backside. A covey of eyes appeared all around. She counted them… four, five… then stopped trying. A creature closed in a snarling growl, blasting foggy breath to mask its face. The stick flung skyward, curled overhead and struck the ground just short in a loud thud. The animal backed away. The stick lay in three pieces. She raised the longest end aloft against flickering torchlight and touched a hand to Morris's. He steadied his feet and laid an arm across her shoulder. “We’re not gonna make it.” said Morris. “Says who? Damn yer whiskey… an damn de All-Wisdom.” “Don’t say dose words, der blasphemy.” “Don’t want me goin a bout wit de All-Wisdom? Tis der fault t'we're here.” "Rot now," as he lowered his voice to her ear. "dey are not da enemy." Another set of eyes rushed, as did another, and another. She flailed the stick back and forth, smashing heads and ceasing growls. Morris yelled and lost grip of her. She turned and saw the poor man take flight, drug into the darkness by the nape of his neck, kicking and clawing as he slid. Little had she known, defending the All-Wisdom would be the last thing he'd do. The torch became a second weapon. She hadn't the time to think of him anymore. She bashed two at once in a flashing spiral, cursing and screaming into the wind, under countless, millions of stars - in a universe more massive than she could ever imagine. Auria no longer mattered. Her spiraling world came crashing down all at once from a chattering of confusing thoughts - the sins of giving up. "Aw’m not gonna become sometin's shat." she screamed. "Damn ya, All-Wisdom scum." A bright light appeared overhead; no sound, no air stirring, only a brilliant light illuminating her small clearing. She continued to bash and swing the smoking torch and short-stick, holding ground until falling flat to protect a tender backside. Kicking and screaming continued to fill the air. The All-Wisdom were there - for her mistakes. Auria lay stunned in a curl of irrelevance gazing skyward into the light. "Aw can't do dis witout ya... Aw jus can't... Daddy!" The weird mind-numbing struck without mercy. The wicked ways of the All-Wisdom ensured Auria's thoughts remained only partial remnants – bits and pieces and fragments broken apart and wrapped deep inside an inner sanctum of a tormented mind. An overhead light drenched her in waves of gravity and pain. The girl rose high above the cold, not warmed at all by the light, but tucked somewhere deep inside a total loss of feelings for worldly matters. Arms and legs hung low while the spine arched against streaming bands of helplessness. The great white-light pulled a limp body into vast uncertainty. |
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