The Fall

by J. L. Wood

  “We call this viot,” it said. “You should not waste. It is delicacy.” It then looked at the alien that attacked Don and waved its hand. “Go, Akrid,” it said.

  “Brother—” Akrid started but the alien dismissively waved his hand again, and he left.

  Don tried to catch his breath. “Freakin’…Slenderman over there attacked me.”

  The alien sat on the floor, blocking the entrance to the room. “Not attack. Your friend killed his dikap. We are not pleased.”

  “Seriously? Those monsters killed Keener!” Don yelled.

  “That was not intention,” the alien replied. “Sit. I am called Kezmir. What are you called?”

  Don tried to calm down and slowly lowered himself against the wall. It seemed that Kezmir wanted to talk, and he wanted to see what he had to say. “I’m Don.”

  “Don,” Kezmir said. “Finish viot. You are safe.”

  Don forcibly swallowed the last of his viot. It gave him a sugar rush and made him feel sick to his stomach. He showed Kezmir the empty bowl. “Okay, I ate the viot. Why are you keeping me here?”

  Kezmir leaned back and deeply inhaled. When he exhaled, small slits on his sides opened, letting a dozen of the creatures escape. They floated near Don, lighting up the room. “These we call the dikap,” Kezmir said. “They are ours. The closest word you understand is pet, but more than pet. They are of one mind. It is how we communicate, learn, live. When the hive or host is attacked, they react. And they did. Akrid wanted to break his helmet so he could see. He meant no harm.”

  Don sighed. It was true—Keener killed dozens of the dikap. Akrid was just trying to break Keener’s helmet as he’d tried to break Fackler’s. “Okay…I get that,” he said. “But why am I here? Why did you signal us?”

  “Young one,” Kezmir said. “We are the Akabko. We see through storylines. We protect from outside but not within. That is our role—to keep the universe in order. Earth is out of order.” Slowly, he exhaled, letting a small brown cloud of the dikap escape his lips. It hovered in front of him. Don stared into the cloud and realized they were miniatures of the dikap. Slowly, the cloud inflated into the large, familiar forms of the creatures, and Don sat back in awe.

  “We sent dikap when you left Earth to your moon. We gifted humankind with element. We warned humankind. Instead of using the element to fix, humankind ran. So now we intervene. We will save Earth from the Fall. You will save Earth from within. You must cleanse your world until this world is ready for you.”

  Don scratched his head. “I knew about Element 122 but not of a warning. I don’t understand. What are you saving us from? Are you making our children sick?”

  Kezmir stood, his eyes on Don. “You can learn through the dikap.” He placed his large hand on Don’s chest. “Do you commit?”

  “I…I want to save Earth, if that’s what you’re asking. But I don’t know how I could…”

  “Do you commit, young one?”

  Don nodded. “I commit to saving Earth.”

  “Good,” Kezmir said. “We will start with a peace offering. You should return Akrid’s dikap.”

  – 19 –

  Dikap

  Kezmir led Don a kilometer north away from his village, letting his dikap light the way. “We must call to them,” he said. “The bond is a lifetime. Can you commit?”

  Don nodded, tired of the walk. He knew it was his calling to do whatever it took to save his home. His family was there, his friends, Missy. “Yes,” he croaked. “I commit.”

  With a firm push, Kezmir forced Don onto his knees. “Release Akrid’s dikap. They are being called.”

  Don knelt in the sand and slowly blew out of his mouth, as he had seen Kezmir do. A small cloud of creatures escaped and flew toward the village. His immediate thought was of disgust that those creatures had been living inside of him.

  “These are free. They must choose you,” Kezmir said, his eyes gray as he looked toward the sky. A small swarm of creatures flew to ground level and levitated in front of Don. Slowly, they decreased in size, and he opened his mouth, letting them in.

  The creatures caused him to choke, and Don squirmed in the sand.

  “Calm,” Kezmir said, but all Don could feel was pain as the dikap tore him apart from inside.

  “It’s so…it’s so…” Don whimpered.

  “They’re feeding,” Kezmir said. “The viot is delicacy. Your blood purifies it. It is like a drug to them. It is what gives them illumination. Your gift.”

  The pain stopped, and when Don sat up, he saw Kezmir’s hand outstretched with a dikap in his palm. “Dikap live in hives,” Kezmir said. “You have your own now, as you took from the free. With my dikap, you can see my hive as well.”

  Don looked up. “I can see storylines?”

  Kezmir nodded and held out his hand. Don gave him one of his own, and he breathed it in through his gills. Don cringed. He wasn’t sure he would ever get used to that.

  Don followed Kezmir and breathed in his dikap. He could feel it moving inside him, settling. He rolled onto his back and stared into the night sky. He understood now. He could see through the darkness. He saw storylines. Another intelligent species who had long ago been eradicated, encapsulated chemicals and nuclear waste in protective containers and buried them deep within Venus before it was the fiery planet it was today, over three billion years ago. Seventy years ago, the containers met their life expectancy and began to break down, letting the chemicals and waste sink farther into the planet’s mantle. The waste was stewing, and soon it would explode.

  Venus would be destroyed. Its many pieces would fall to Earth. That was the warning—for humans to protect themselves. But instead they chose to let Earth suffer, and all the people on it.

  “You protect from outside,” Don whispered. “You gave us the element to change our storyline so we would save our world. But we didn’t change it. We ran away with it. So you came back to do it yourself.”

  Kezmir nodded. “And we gifted dikap.”

  Don continued to look through the storylines. He could see that the Akabko had sacrificed their own dikap, not free ones like he’d acquired today, to reduce the effect of the Fall on Earth. Every pain the dikap felt, the Akabko felt in return. It was their bond. And to protect that bond, they chose only the children of Earth to harbor it. Young minds with no prejudices, no agendas. Young bodies to grow with the dikap. They were betrayed by the astronauts in the 1970s. And so they gifted it to children only, a precaution not to have their gift used for the wrong reasons again.

  “Why do they have it?” Don asked. “What will they do?”

  “It is gift. We do not protect within. Earth will need to protect within. Continue journey, young one.”

  Don closed his eyes. He watched the dikap travel to Earth through the portal that humans created with Element 122. Some did not make it, but those who did began to replicate in the children and then spread. He saw Earth’s sun giving out far into the future, and Lerner 4d, beautiful, waiting for them. The dikap created unity through the hive. Don would take the children and their descendants to the new world.

  It was so simple, but as Don watched the destruction of his world through the inherited knowledge of the dikap, he could only think of losing those he loved most. The adults of Earth who deserved a spot in the new world. He watched a woman tending to a room full of small children, pure and sickly. Tired, but forcing herself to move on. Don realized there was space for people like her too—it would make his plan difficult, but it would be worth it.

  “Can I bring them all?” Don asked. “Is that why you gifted me with the dikap?”

  “That is your choice, young one. But understand, Lerner is for life in peace only. The storylines on Earth are yours. But as you have seen with element, they are hard to change. And change can lead to worse outcome.”

  “I can deal with that,” Don said. “Through my hive, we can work the storylines together.”

  “You are Ambassador now. The children have our dikap
but are not part of our hive. Invite to yours. Tell through dikap.”

  Don looked around, confused, and Kezmir pulled him down to the ground so that he was lying on his back. Don closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. “I am the Ambassador,” he whispered. “I invite you all to my hive. You are safe.” He sat up. “Is that it?”

  Kezmir tilted his head. “Strange, but yes. I see them connect. Soon you will need to call to them in cavern.”

  Don’s eyes grew wide as he saw the storyline. “The call will kill the children who did not adapt to the dikap. I can’t do that.”

  Kezmir stared at Don. “Sacrifice.”

  Don smiled. “Not this time. I have a plan.”

  PART II

  – 20 –

  Move

  Sherrie turned over the body of a small boy. His chest was littered with bullet holes. Her hand was shaking as she checked his pulse. Her head dropped, and she wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

  “Dr. Dressner,” Chris said while grabbing her arm. “You need to rest.”

  She pulled herself away and strode quickly to the next child. This one was barely breathing. “Here! Here!” she yelled, ripping his shirt up. She pushed lap sponges onto the wound on his side. Medics ran to the boy and pulled him onto a stretcher, then hauled him away.

  She moved to the next one. Dead. Her heart raced, and her head was buzzing, but she had to keep going. She was covered in blood, and she didn’t care. It was in her face and hair. All over her scrubs and lab coat. As she got up to find the next child, she saw Nurse Amber lying face down in the gymnasium. Sherrie rolled her over and checked her pulse. “Fuck!” she yelled.

  “Dr. Dressner—” Chris started.

  “Not now, Chris!” she yelled. “Either help out or get out!” She paused and looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she cried. “Even the well ones…we lost the well ones too.”

  “I know,” he said, his eyes soft and comforting. “Let me help.”

  Together, Chris and Sherrie checked the status of the children while the medic team hauled the children who were still alive into transport vehicles. “Only twenty-three made it,” she whispered. Slowly, she lowered herself to the floor and stared at the corpses. Chris sat beside her and wrapped his arm around her back.

  “They had a chance,” she said. She stretched out her legs and rested her hands on her pants, leaving two bloody handprints. “I don’t understand. We were onto something.” Sherrie rested her head on Chris’s shoulder, and he held her while she sobbed.

  She looked up and saw that he was crying too. She leaned over, pulled a lap sponge from her bag, and wiped at his face. “Thank you for what you did.”

  Chris looked away. “We should get to the cafeteria. That’s where they’re holding everyone.”

  Sherrie nodded and searched for her suitcase. She followed Chris to the remaining group, both of them leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind.

  *

  Chris and Sherrie sat in the school cafeteria with nearly fifty unharmed survivors, waiting for instructions. Sherrie tried not to think of the children. It was a pain that dug at her core. A large corkscrew waiting to be removed, ready to pull out everything inside of her, leaving her an empty shell of darkness.

  The school was a ghastly battlefield, littered with garbage and stained in blood that had been trodden on numerous times. She had been spared, left to continue her work as initially intended, if her services were still required. The survivors sat quietly, already accustomed to the new normal: sickness, fighting, and death. Sherrie watched as a group of heavily armored soldiers huddled just inside the large blue cafeteria doors, their voices inaudible, but she knew they were trying to decide their fates.

  Chris grabbed her hand and held it. “We’re safe now,” he whispered, but those words meant nothing to her. Safe did not exist anymore. There was just danger and not yet in danger. Safe was off the table.

  One of the soldiers walked toward the group, short and petite, with long brown hair tied tightly back in a ponytail. She must have been in her early thirties, but Sherrie couldn’t tell from her stern face and chiseled definition. Her eyes were lifeless and dull, the face of someone who hadn’t slept for days. Someone who was exhausted but ready to react once the adrenaline began to flow.

  The soldier sat down at the table across from the pair, then clenched her hands together on top of the long white cafeteria table. “I reviewed your statements. The NROS gang has been steadily growing. However, with the status of the illness, I do not expect it to continue in its current state for much longer. With that said, we are going to relocate all of you to Kinsley Hospital. It will be overcrowded, it will be uncomfortable, but it is the safest place for you now. You cannot stay here, Dr. Dressner. Your reports are still needed.”

  Sherrie leaned forward on the table, her thin arm propping her head up, too weak to continue sitting up on her own. “Have you found the others? We are still missing two children and two teachers. They were outside the gym when we were attacked.”

  The soldier pulled out her phone and began texting while Sherrie patiently waited for a reply. “No, we searched the entire premises. They are not here,” the soldier replied blankly.

  Staring at the name patch on the soldier’s shirt, Sherrie continued, her speech slowing as the pain began to kick in once again, “Sergeant Morales, can you file a missing persons report for the children at least? They need to be found. Those monsters could have taken them.”

  Sergeant Morales stood from the cafeteria table, causing it to rock forward from the imbalance, and placed her phone back in her front pocket. “Now, Doctor, you and I both know that means nothing today. Pack up. We’re leaving in fifteen.”

  The survivors in the cafeteria began to mumble amongst themselves, concerned about their arrangement and the status of the wounded that remained in the gym. All of the deceased were moved to an empty classroom, abandoned, and shut off from the rest of the group, a horribly hidden secret waiting for an unsuspecting visitor. No graves. No memorial. No manpower. “It’s a matter for later,” Sergeant Morales said. “Now fall in line or get left behind.”

  “We should leave a note in case they return and find this place abandoned,” Chris whispered to Sherrie, staring at the commotion outside of the doors, where the remaining wounded were being lifted onto transport vehicles. “Too bad the soldiers confiscated all the supplies.”

  “Not everything,” Sherrie whispered, tapping a suitcase by her side. “Ms. Brackenridge and I hid a few things. If we got another drop sooner, she wanted to distribute them to the parents who were waiting for a spot. We can hide it for Missy on the way out.”

  Chris looked toward the floor. “I wish it had played out that way.”

  Sherrie pulled an empty chart from her clipboard and flipped it over, pushing it along with her pen to Chris. He picked up the heavy pen and placed the tip on the paper. We’ve returned from where I came. We’ve let the guards know you might join us. You have a spot there, and if you can’t make it, everything is as it was before, in the operating room. Be safe. —Chris.

  Sherrie reviewed the letter. Satisfied, she replied, “Hopefully they find us. It’s too dangerous for them to be out on their own, and if they decide not to try to make it to the hospital, at least they can use the supplies stored away here.” Chris folded the paper in half and wrote Missy over the blank chart in large capital letters. The commotion outside of the room stopped—the last of the injured in their transport vehicles were headed to the hospital. “It’s time,” Sherrie said. “Let’s see what today has in store for us.”

  *

  When Sherrie exited the women’s locker room, Chris was waiting for her. “Whose lab coat did you swipe?” he asked.

  Sherrie looked at the name tag. “DeJarnes. I also borrowed these clogs,” she said, holding her foot out.

  Chris raised his eyebrows. “Borrowed. Where I’m from we call it something different.”

>   Sherrie almost let a smile out. “We’re showered and changed. Let’s get back to work. I need to find Dr. Katz.”

  Sherrie looked around the hospital as she made her way to Dr. Katz’s office. In all of her years in the medical profession, she had never seen a hospital so packed. The hallways were lined with people, on stretchers or sitting on the floor, their backs against the walls. Rooms made for two beds were filled to the brim, a mix of children and their parents in multiple states of despair. The parents clung to their little ones, hoping their next breath wasn’t their last.

  Sherrie walked past the rooms, once a place of hope and healing, stepping over people sprawled out on the floor, around pools of vomit and garbage that littered the hallways, almost losing her footing as she slid through a pool of spilled soda. The smell of feces stung her nose through her mask, the air overwhelming and unsanitary, reminding her to fix the nose bridge and tighten the straps. Hands gripped the bottom of her lab coat—injured citizens who wanted more meds, who needed to be seen immediately, who were looking for their loved ones. Chris shooed them away.

  “This is where I left him,” Chris said, pointing to the empty office, dead body long removed and blood stains scrubbed away. Sherrie walked inside and ran her long, bony fingers over the smooth desk to the single peacock feather sitting in an aged I love Florida mug. She slowly picked up the feather and stroked it against her sunken cheek, long-lost memories better left forgotten. She was sick and he was not, and their brief relationship had panned out just as it should have.

  As she replaced the feather, a voice called from the doorway, “Sherrie?” His voice was all too familiar, smooth and concerned.

  Without turning around, she whispered, “Jeremy.”