by Drew Briney
Until that moment of realization, Blaze had made every effort to harm his opponents as little as possible – to avoid inflicting any fatal injuries, and to simply send men tumbling away from himself relatively unharmed whenever possible. Now however, he recognized that these men would tenaciously follow him wherever he went and they would not stop fighting until their mysterious foe was felled.
This was a fight to death.
And while his soul recoiled at the thought of killing another person, Blaze’s instinct took over. Twisting the center coating of his staff, he sent very strong electronic pulses to each of his nearest opponents, sending them reeling backwards and convulsing from the shock. The result was not fatal – and it wasn’t intended to be fatal – but it gave him time to look carefully at the staff’s operating panel. Two quick swipes later, Blaze’s staff made a nearly deafening buzzing, energy snapping sound and sparked around is tips. Now glowing with a bluish hue and buzzing softly in echo of the first sound, the staff showered energy bullets in every direction.
Repulsed at the carnage he himself created, Blaze nearly wretched at the sight of the many fallen opponents around him but controlled himself as more natives appeared every second that passed. Within a half hour, hundreds of men lay dead throughout the village while women and children had made their way to safer places.
All except one broken, disfavored family.
Eventually, silence reigned throughout the various huts that decorated the village – with one exception. One very worn cry pierced the silence. The sadness of that sound nearly overwhelmed Blaze who was now acting more on instinct than rational thought. He began walking towards that heartbreaking sound, forcing his feet to plod along underneath his strong will to finish the task. He could feel that adrenaline dump that inevitably comes from intense combat – in fact, it seemed that he had subconsciously noted that feeling quite some time earlier but instinct had pushed him through the fatigue. Now, it was taking conscious willpower to push him through that same fatigue. He was tired beyond anything he had ever felt. He was exhaustion itself.
Trying to be aware of his feelings, he cautiously approached the doorway of the hut where the baby was uncontrollably crying. I caused that fear, Blaze castigated himself, feeling sorry for her sorrow.
The entryway to the hut was nothing more than long strands of dried grass hanging from the doorway to provide some semblance of privacy – or perhaps just to keep out a certain percentage of insects. Either way, it allowed Blaze to peer into the dwelling.
Staff set on strong electronic pulse, he twisted the center coating and pushed the bladed portion of the staff through the entryway, briskly moved it back and forth to make sure there was no one close to the opening, and stepped in.
Apart from the mother and child, the hut was empty. There was no furniture, no personal belongings, and no provisions for food or survival whatsoever. The child lay in a thin cloth, trembling and crying with unspeakable terror. The mother lay next to her with very little clothing, no blanket or cloth to lay upon or underneath, and nothing to subside her continual trembling. But Blaze could instantly discern that the mother was not trembling with fear. She lay in convulsions from some disease or infection that was taking her life. Darting his eyes each direction, half suspecting someone to come crashing through the hut, Blaze consciously realized that the natives had been leaving this woman to die – and they left nothing for the child either.
Indignation welled up within his heart as he considered the inhumanity of their act – but then he considered his own inhumanity in crushing his way through this village of people he had never met before. Sure, he could justify his actions – but then, he could justify their aggression towards him as well – so he was slow to judge them. But leaving a child to die alongside its mother seemed worse somehow. He silently cursed at himself for what he had done while simultaneously looking to see what he could do to preserve the child’s life and get out of this terrible place.
That’s when it happened.
The mother’s trembling suddenly stopped; her eyes opened and instantly fastened themselves upon Blaze with a death grip; and then, with pleading eyes, she pointed. Unable to hold her hand up for more than a very brief moment, her arms failed, leaving her hand to quietly pound the bare earth below her. And then she lay motionless, dead.
Finding the object of her attention was easy – there was nothing else in the entire room except the baby who was still rhythmically wailing, shrieking, crying. Blaze bent down to lift the blanket covering the baby and found a small, crude bowl half filled with food for the infant. Instinct took over again. The young warrior wiped his finger clean on the baby’s blanket, dipped his finger into the mush, and put it to the baby’s mouth. After a few echoing cries, she suckled his finger, feverishly feeding upon the surprise meal and crying the instant the food was gone from his finger. Blaze dipped it in the mush again and repeated the process for several moments as the baby calmed down and slowly fell asleep.
In that moment, Blaze realized that he had become mesmerized by the child and unaware of his environment. He had calmed down. His heart rate was stable. He felt more relaxed. He noticed tension had dissipated and that peace now enveloped him as he embraced the child and turned around to exit the hut – only to stare directly into eyes he hadn’t expected to be watching.
Icy blue eyes. They were peering through the long strands of grass separating the hut from the rest of the village. Instinctually, Blaze became intricately aware of his surroundings: He was four feet from the left wall, three feet from the right wall, a foot and a half from the wall behind him, and three and a half feet from the doorway. The mother’s corpse was to his left, angled slightly away from the wall and curled up. If he put the baby next to the mother, it would be easier to keep track of her location to protect her and avoid tripping if the melee ended up on the inside of the hut. There were branches hanging slightly from the ceiling in disrepair that appeared loose enough to pull down to distract and misdirect his opponent. They were slightly to his right and one was within reach if he set the child down. There was enough room to jump out of an opposing window but it couldn’t be done while keeping the child safe.
These details flashed through his mind like a sudden gust of air breezing by – come and gone so suddenly that you quickly forget them. Despite his instincts, quickened pulse, and heightened reflexes, Blaze felt completely calm. Inexplicably calm. Those eyes were, after all, attached to some very significant canine teeth – teeth that appeared to be at least 14 inches long. Based on the beast’s posture, Blaze estimated that its head was lowered from shoulders that neared five feet in height. Without a better look, he couldn’t be sure of its full size but his gut feeling suggested those eyes were attached to a good 700 pounds of rippling muscle. His rational mind told him that he should be setting down the child, swiping the control panel on his staff and shooting a hundred energy bullets into this thing before he and the child were both consumed. But he just stared at the creature.
And it stared back.
Suddenly, it swiped the long strands of grass sideways to remove this obstruction of vision, smashing the doorway so hard that it broke the support beams. The resulting crash sent Blaze involuntarily back a foot, nearly hitting the back wall, and drew a very surprised reaction from the beast as well. Furrowing its eyes slightly as it looked at the compromised doorway, the creature appeared confused for a moment before it turned its attention to Blaze and Elayuh. Somehow, Blaze remained very calm inside but at the same time, his rational mind told him to engage the staff’s control panel while he stared down this tremendous beast.
The panel illuminated.
But he could see the beast better now. He would have classified it as an albino but for two features: first, those saturated, steely blue eyes were as far from an albino’s eyes as he could imagine and second, its fur had silvery tips that made its coat reflective and shiny. Canine incisors gave the beast the appearance of what he imagined a saber toothed cat mi
ght look like but it had longer fur than any large cat he had ever seen pictures of – other than perhaps a Siberian tiger coming out of a hard winter. He had seen long haired house cats with fur similar to this but that might be like comparing a gecko to a T-Rex – this thing was huge! Its face somewhat resembled a cross between a jaguar and a Siberian tiger. From what he could make of its legs, this beast did not have the stubby appendages of any species of saber toothed cat he had read about; it boasted long muscular legs that belonged to a hunter.
Noticing the size of those legs normally would have made Blaze feel more intimidated – after all, saber toothed cats were built to attack their prey from above, while jumping off of a tree or a boulder. Walking on the ground with shorter legs would have suggested that this beast was not hunting for food and that would have left Blaze feeling more relaxed. In contrast, the longer legs of this hunter suggested something different: an imminent safety problem.
Blaze’s staff buzzed and made that energetic popping noise indicating that it was activated and ready. Already startled, the giant feline jerked back slightly while maintaining eye contact with Blaze. Rather than growling or snarling like the young warrior would have expected, the creature respectfully bowed its head and slightly lowered its shoulders as if showing some respect towards Blaze before quickly turning away and running.
Heart pounding and too shocked to react productively, Blaze dropped to one knee before straining his neck to see which direction the magnificent beast fled. By now, the grassy entryway was half torn off but there remained significant strands to partially obstruct one’s vision – enough to leave Blaze disappointed by the view but enough to observe something remarkable – the feline flew.
Never in his life had Blaze felt so many strong and conflicting emotions. He should have been terrified; instead, he felt peace – and as the creature flew away, he felt wonder and awe. His precautionary effort to prepare the staff was nothing more than his rational mind refusing to heed his instincts – instincts that were serving him well. And moments before the intrusion, he had been experiencing feelings he never felt before – fatherly instincts to provide for a child. Moments before that, he had felt intense shame; and moments before that, intense feelings of self preservation; and moments before that, feelings of revulsion and disgust.
Now full circle, Blaze was feeling revulsion as he exited the broken hut and scanned the village for any remaining danger. But there was none. Nothing moved. There was nothing to be seen here other than bloodshed, smoke, and fire. For the first time, Blaze noticed that several huts on the other side of the main thoroughfare were burning from rogue energy bullets sent from his staff. Most of the vegetation here was so moist that there could be no raging bonfires but there were some few branches of flames that had made significant progress. As Blaze walked towards where he left his clothes, he had to cover the baby’s face better to protect her from the fumes. He wondered whether or not it would be best to plaster mud on her face to protect her from mosquitoes and other biting insects or whether he should keep her face covered with this light blanket. Having never been around a baby for any significant period of time, he really didn’t know what was best but determined just to leave her under the blanket for now.
Carefully holding Elayuh close to his body, Blaze practically jogged through the village so as to avoid prolonging his time around the dead bodies. He had seen many corpses in the simulator but somehow, this was much different – and besides, when someone died in the simulator, the game was over and everyone went back to their normal lives and full health – and usually without any lasting injuries. Visually speaking, nothing about these corpses appeared much different from any he’d seen in the simulator – It is simply different, he concluded – and that was enough reason to get away as quickly as possible.
When he found and recovered his clothes, he held them for a moment, pondering over his best course of action. On the one hand, putting them back on would protect him from possible scratches from this unpredictable terrain – and scratches in the jungle could quickly become infected and cause severe problems in a very few short hours. On the other hand, the only clear, running body of water close to the village ran in a direction that would require him to travel through the carnage an additional time. Right now, that simply wasn’t a viable option for the young warrior – he would rather suffer some other inconveniences than look over that scenery one more time. Without running water however, his clothes would get all muddy from his body and that would ultimately make the trip back to camp more difficult. In order to make it back before nightfall, he would have to move quickly – this time paying more attention to which direction he was heading.
With no good solution, he chose the least problematic option. Patching his skin with mud in places that were no longer well covered, Blaze carried his clothing with the baby bundle and carefully reviewed his directions on the cube. His choices proved problematic once more: either he could follow the path he had chosen before – which was now relatively clear of underbrush and which was easily followed because the cube could direct him to retrace each inch of the way with great precision or he could choose the more direct path which would theoretically get him where he was going faster than the messy path he had mistakenly taken earlier this morning. Either way, he needed to be quick to beat nightfall.
He chose the direct path. Fortune treated him well – although he doubted that when he first saw that there was a large pond right in the middle of his chosen pathway – a pond that he had not seen on the cube’s mapping system. Looking at the cube now, the pond was quite obvious but the damage had been done – the mistake would surely cause a significant delay as the area was marshy and the pond was nearly the size of a lake. At second glance however, fortune was better to him than he had expected. Giant lily pads grew throughout the middle of the pond. During the Classic Ages, these pads were known to grow up to eight feet in diameter and to support up to three hundred pounds. Apparently, the Second and Third Holocaust had treated this species well: they now averaged ten feet across and grew so closely together that a medium sized man like Blaze could easily cross them. At 185 pounds, they would easily support his weight.
But he was not so certain.
Initially, he pushed at the lily pads with his staff to see how sturdy they were and to see if there was any indication of danger. Making a mistake could be disastrous. He could swim well enough – swimming pools were a common form of exercise in the Order – but falling into a pond with an infant was far from an ideal situation. If he could reach the bottom, it would undoubtedly be muddy and difficult to traverse. If he could not reach the bottom, swimming with a baby would be tricky at best – and there could be dangerous creatures here. Alligators, crocodiles, caiman, and who knows what else.
On the other hand, navigating around the pond would be an extra delay he wasn’t anxious about either. Today, he was tired. The hike to the village had not been so bad and while the battle had been tiring, he commonly recovered from exertion like that fairly quickly. But putting all of these factors together and adding the extreme heat and saturating humidity left Blaze particularly drained of energy. It almost seemed as if he needed to sleep half of a day just to recover from this environment. He estimated – and hoped – that he would grow used to it soon but he wasn’t overly confident about that. In his schooling, he had read about how weather was controlled within the Order but he never appreciated the vast difference that weather could make in one’s daily life – not until now.
Carefully guarding his balance, Blaze stepped onto the nearest giant lily pad and hoped for the best – and he wasn’t disappointed. Soon, he was confidently strolling across the pond much like a child playing hopscotch. By the time he reached the other side, he was almost disappointed that the pond hadn’t been any larger. The change in terrain and the change in the rhythm of his hike had been refreshing. Moreover, this small portion of the trek was uneventful – and that was something Blaze could be grateful for today. His subcon
scious mind needed to process the events of that morning – not to mention the horrific events of the past few days. With all of his family gone and most of his friends too, life was forever changed and as of this very moment, he had no idea how it was going to play out.
Possibilities of what might happen next were very dissimilar in many ways. He could end up staying here on his home planet with Evelia, spending the remainder of his life looking for other survivors of the Third Holocaust – hopefully finding people more friendly than the natives he ran across this morning. Or, perhaps Blaze would end up joining with the scientists behind all of this crazy gene splicing experimentation – surely they would be more civilized than the natives. Or, he could end up exploring space with Dr. Boyd and his team, looking for a planet where humans could live and thrive. The more he thought about it, there was little reason to stop Dr. Boyd from leaving now – there was still a reason to let the crew know what Dr. Boyd had been planning from the beginning, what he had been willing to do to all of their friends and family. They deserved a better leader. Blaze didn’t care whom that might be just as long as it was someone besides Dr. Boyd. But then, if all possibilities were to be explored, Blaze and Evelia could simply find some lovely piece of land where they could live by themselves and raise a new family, a new civilization. But somehow, none of these options seemed ideal and none of these options seemed like they would be easy to accomplish – there were complications with each path he might choose to follow.
For now, he needed to keep pressing forward. For hours, he did just that – he trudged forward as fast as his legs would allow him. He concentrated on getting back to the pond where Evelia and the magic woman were at. He concentrated on choosing pathways that would not cause the slightest physical injury – he had read about the consequences small mistakes like this could make. He concentrated on avoiding trouble all along the way and in every way; he concentrated on looking for plants that might make that mush the natives had been feeding Elayuh and when he spotted some, he quickly gathered a pile of it for her next meal. He focused on each step – and only one step at a time.
