The Day the Earth Met the Sky

by Pat Ellis

  Van smiled and lead the way.

  The two boys would find their way out of Ariadne, the last great city of mankind, but things weren’t as simple, the world wasn’t as simple as either had considered—not that either of them had considered the outside world much at all before. Parents and teachers alike generally refrained from telling children how their grandparents had destroyed everything for as long as they could manage. Ever was determined the “green place” still existed though, and Van would follow his weird friend until the end. What he’d felt that day when Ever had touched him on the shoulder was nothing like the greenhouses and gardens of the upper tiers. It was much bigger than any human could dream of creating on their own. It was real, they both knew it without a doubt, and they would stop at nothing to find it, even if it took them the entirety of their youth.

  Though unware at the time of their departure, what the two boys sought was nothing less than humanity’s last hope for redemption, and the key to surviving their dying world.

  To be continued…

  What’s in a Name

  (Included in: The Demon King and the Boy Who Hardly Knew Anything)

  There was a cat in the jungle. Some sort of wildcat that could’ve passed for a housecat if it wasn’t for the unusually large ears with extra-long fur at the tips. War was rough enough on nearby human communities, but at least some effort was placed on sparing people’s lives; civilian lives, the lives of allies, or even the lives of surrendering enemies. But, nobody gave two shits about the animals, and most of the warzone was their home. At least, it used to be. Their numbers were diminishing rapidly and Aaron resented this more than just about anything. Probably the only thing he resented more than that was the fact that he was a part of the problem himself.

  But, there was this cat. It just showed up one day, how or why nobody knew, squirming underfoot and begging for food. Aaron couldn’t ignore it, so he fed it scraps of dehydrated mystery meat and kept it mostly dry when it rained, which was almost always. It hung around for a few months at the bivouac, never following them out, but always waiting patiently for their return. He supposed it was the cat’s way of adapting to its morbid situation.

  One day, a day of light misting as opposed to real rain, Aaron said goodbye to the cat, leaving it curled peacefully in his cot. It looked up at him contentedly with its big green eyes—one slightly blacked out by some unknown affliction—then went back to licking its matted grey-orange fur. Echo was taking a few helos out somewhere Aaron had probably been before—he didn’t bother to keep track—where they were to drop in for a minor search and destroy mission. Or clear and secure. Aaron thought there used to be a difference between the two, but he couldn’t remember what that was anymore, and the Sarge didn’t bother to specify anymore. During the ride, he suffered through his typical ritual of sheer panic, sitting in strained silence for what seemed to him like hours, and when they hit the ground he felt what he’d always thought of as a highly inappropriate sense of relief. He dreaded the ride home. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that every time they flew was always the last time they saw somebody. Or, maybe flying just scared the shit out of him.

  They landed about 8 clicks from what used to be a Glenn village, though it was hard to tell anyone had lived there in centuries. It always looked like ancient ruins to Aaron, not that he knew what ancient ruins looked like for real. But, whatever it was, it didn’t have a name anymore aside from “Site B-23.” Rumor had it, Site B-23 was turning itself into an effectively disruptive enemy bunker. The site sat right next to a road that was heavily trafficked by Glenn supply units, and, according to Supply, Morandians had weaseled their way into the territory unnoticed, setting up a substantially fortified road block that was only becoming more and more fortified every time another supply truck attempted to pass through. The situation reminded Aaron of the Old-World stories where bandits always waited along the sides of ominous roads, ready to ambush the wealthy. The Sarge had been teaching him how to read with those stories.

  Echo Company was to check out the rumors and, if there really was an enemy bunker, eradicate it before it got out of hand.

  If there was a bunker, they would have eyes out, so, to prevent themselves from being suspected, they’d landed a reasonably hellish march away from their target. It took a while to get close enough to scope out the old village, but, once they’d made it, it was Aaron’s job. He tried to keep a good distance between himself and the site, hiding high in the trees like he preferred, but was forced to move in closer when he hadn’t managed to spot anything. He was really missing his sight right about now. Being a scout wasn’t so bad when he could see what was going on right away and return to the Sarge with the intel, but going in deep always had him on edge. For as long as he’d been a scout he’d never once been spotted, which the others took as a blessing, but to Aaron it only meant that every time he went out again his odds were getting worse. How many retired undefeated? Not a fucking one that he knew of. The pressure was on. Out of necessity, he detached himself from the trees and slunk into the town. There were plenty of destroyed homes and stores to use for cover at least.

  The place was full of ghosts. Deserted towns always were. For some reason, when a town or city was emptied after god knows how many years of constant life, all the dead that had accumulated over the years loved to repopulate the place. It was an unexplainable phenomenon that happened everywhere. Not that Aaron had been everywhere; it was just something he knew from back when he used to know things.

  He didn’t mean ghosts as in spirits though. Few spirits ended up lingering around long after death, and hardly ever in groups. Ghosts, in the sense he’d always known them, where something like echoes; a little piece of a life lost remaining in the world, but not attached to the soul. Souls were almost always reborn with new life, unless there wasn’t enough new life in the world to carry them after their death. The world only birthed more souls when the population exceeded any previous numbers, or there was an excessive amount of lost souls roaming around, unable to attach. But, this was an unpopular truth in the minds of man. Aaron had learned that most people believed every person had a brand spankin’ new soul all to themselves that they’d take with them into some utopian afterlife for all eternity with all the other countless souls of the universe, being reunited with whomever they so choose, happily ever after or some shit, unless they did bad things, then they’d be tormented forever or some shit. In Aaron’s opinion, not only did these beliefs make life seem practically meaningless—as if it was just some initiation before becoming a part of the real it—but they were hella narcissistic, as if every individual person was so special that there was some entity watching them all the time, keeping tally of all their minor, personal deeds and deciding how to reward them or punish them for eternity… every single soul! It was ridiculous. But, normal people didn’t have glimpses of eternity like he did, and normal people had shitty lives that they didn’t want to believe were the real reality. Aaron knew, though. He knew everything and everyone had a purpose; a purpose to the collective, not the individual; working parts of one massive organism. Nature was much more organized and efficient than most humans could accept.

  But, that didn’t matter right now. The ghosts were distracting; floating in Aaron’s peripherals and putting him on edge.

  He hadn’t come across anything to indicate enemy activity near the city limits, so he went deeper. It felt like someone was watching him, but it always felt that way with the ghosts. He avoided the main streets, sticking mostly to alleys and areas where there was enough rubble to decently conceal him. Walking around what could have been an Arianite Church—the Sarge had pointed them out before, with their pews and steeples and golden eggs—the hair rose on the back of his neck. Someone took a shot at him just as he frantically ducked inside of the church through a blown-out hole in the wall. Shit! Shit! I knew it!

  He darted across the church, hunching his body over his rifle as much as he could—as if that would make
him less of a target—as more shots were fired, some coming through windows and hitting the pews behind him, and then he kicked out a back door that was miraculously still standing, fled to another alleyway, and kept moving; a fast target was harder to keep track of. He knew the Sarge would’ve heard the shots and was probably moving the squad in to save his dumb ass. The Sarge had a good ear, so maybe the shots raining down on him would prove to be useful intel, meaning his recon wasn’t a complete failure. He turned a shadowed corner and crashed right into a Morandian rifleman, taking them both to the ground. Aaron was quick, pulling the knife from his belt on the way down and using the force of the fall to insert it bellow the kid’s ribcage. The Morandian was green, probably his first fight in the jungle. He probably didn’t even know he was dead. Aaron thought offhandedly that it was interesting to discover the Morandians still had non-veteran soldiers at their expense. Interesting and disheartening. He picked himself up off the body and went the other way. The kid couldn’t have been here alone. He heard voices. A bullet skimmed his calf as he slid down a short flight of stairs, inadvertently giving the enemy the higher ground. He scrambled across a stone pathway, crawled behind a massive fountain with no water, and that was where he stopped. Every direction he could go now would put him out in the open. Shit…

  He could recognize the sound of Glenn artillery in the distance, which was a good sign most of the enemy had better things to do than hunt him down. But, there were still bullets buzzing through the space above his head. He crawled around the edge of the fountain, not sure how far he could go before he was in the enemy’s field of vision. He stopped, picked up a piece of stone rubble and tossed it into nearby brush. Someone fired at it, but another yelled at him to stop wasting bullets. “Come out and we won’t kill you!” the same man said.

  Aaron didn’t answer. He couldn’t bear the thought of being a prisoner.

  “Hey, you hear me? Come out now and I won’t kill you! If I have to come down there and get you, you gonna wish you was dead!”

  Either way I’m gonna wish I was dead… Shit!

  Aaron heard a grenade go off somewhere near the man’s voice and he shut up. They were firing at something else, so Aaron took that as an opportunity to make a break for it. He bolted towards the brush, but another grenade fell from the sky and landed at his destination. He scrambled to a stop and, just as he was about to futilely change direction, something smashed into him from the side with enough force to send him tumbling down a small hill at the same time the grenade detonated, causing debris to fly above his head and a large man to land on top of him in a single moment. The Sarge rolled off him with a groan, helmetless, holding his ears with bloody hands. Aaron couldn’t tell if it was his blood or not. Aaron drug him to the side, behind a narrow tree. The air was filled with dust and smoke and the firefight was right above them, loud as hell. “Sarge!” He could barely hear himself say it.

  The Sarge was dazed. His eyes were glazed over, not focusing, and he probably couldn’t hear anything. “Sarge! We have to move now! Sarge!”

  It was no use. He was out of it and much too heavy for Aaron to carry to safety quickly enough. They couldn’t stay here though; under the cover of nothing but a narrow tree at the bottom of a hill and some dust. “Sarge! Sarge!” He pulled the Sarge’s hands away from his ears, but the Sarge hardly noticed. His head was bleeding. “Fuck, Sarge! Wake the fuck up! Sarge!” A stray bullet hit the ground inches from Aaron’s foot, but he didn’t think they’d been noticed yet. “Sarge! Sarge! Fuck! Erik! Erik, wake the fuck up! Erik…”

  The Sarge blinked rapidly and met his eyes. “Yeah?” he slurred.

  “We gotta move, Sarge!”

  “Fuck!” He winced, tentatively touching his head wound. “Let’s go.”

  The Sarge took Aaron’s rifle, since his had disappeared somewhere, and motioned for Aaron to follow him into the trees.

  The battle was messy, but went better than Aaron thought it would. The Morandians weren’t as well fortified as rumored; just a small company with some machineguns and a few mortars. Echo, though outnumbered, was better armed and better fed and easily took them out. They returned to the bivouac with few casualties, but they’d lost little Bobby, the draftee. Aaron was more tired than usual. He just wanted to see the stupid cat, but it was nowhere to be found. He wandered into the trees behind camp, where it usually came from, but he couldn’t find it. He wanted to call for it, but realized he’d never given the poor creature a name. “Here kitty-kitty? Fuck…”

  He sat in the wet grass, leaning his back against an old, twisted tree, and cried. He felt like shit and he wanted his stupid fucking cat to come home and make him feel better. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Nothing particularly terrible had happened today, but he’d never felt worse in his life. Maybe he was just tired. Exhausted, with no end in sight. If I could just see the end…

  “Aaron? What the hell are you doing? Wanna eat?” The Sarge’s voice came from only a few feet behind him.

  He tried to compose himself. but his nose was stuffed and running. “Yeah. Ok.” He stood up quickly and tried to walk past the Sarge, running his hand through his hair to hide his face, but the Sarge grabbed him by the arm and turned him around. He kept his head down.

  “What’s wrong with you?” the Sarge said, pushing Aaron’s chin up with his forefinger. The Sarge’s head was wrapped in a bloody bandage and his eyes were still a little glassy, but he smiled easily.

  “I dunno man… it’s just a stupid cat…” He broke. It all fell out of his face, right there in front of the Sarge.

  He covered his face with his forearm in a vain attempt to hide the damage and turned away, but the Sarge pulled him back, saying, “Come here.” The Sarge enveloped him, holding him tightly against his chest, and said, with a hint of laughter in his voice, “It’s not a stupid cat.”

  He was so warm. Aaron returned the embrace, burying his face in the Sarge’s shoulder. Unable to breathe through his nose anymore, he opened his mouth against the Sarge’s bare skin, tasting dried mud, insipid and raw, mixed with rain, salty sweat, and tears. He fought the urge to bite down on the meat at the base of the Sarge’s neck, and cried harder. The Sarge put a hand on the back of his head and gently gripped his hair, which was getting too long. Aaron felt lulled, almost intoxicated, and the tears subsided slowly. As he regained some sense of the moment, he realized this was the first time he’d ever physically felt the Sarge, skin against skin. They’d known each other for almost four years now, but never gotten closer than a pat on the back or a gripped shoulder. It had never even occurred to him that this was strange, but that was probably because no human had ever actually held him before.

  He knew this very feeling though, from so long ago. He hadn’t felt it in years; not since the start of it all. It was his first and most pleasant memory; engulfed in the damp warmth of the earth. Living off the land. The unconditional, indiscriminate embrace of Mother Nature. Overcome with nostalgia, he began to drink the moisture from Erik’s skin as the drizzling rain trailed down his neck. The Sarge didn’t seem to mind it. In fact, his grip tightened, pulling Aaron deeper into his chest. Indiscriminate and unconditional. This was better than the earth though. As a human, the Sarge had agency. He had choice, and he chose to be close to Aaron, despite everything he was…

  The Sarge was hard bodied, muscles like stone, but his skin was surprisingly smooth underneath the dirt. Like a perfect marble sculpture wrapped in silk. Except… so fucking warm. Aaron wished he never had to let go.

  When Aaron could finally breathe through his nose properly, and had regained some semblance of who and where he was, he said, “You won’t tell nobody, will you, Sarge?”

  The Sarge laughed and released him, stepping back and examining his face, and then pushing the remaining tears away with his thumbs. “There.” He smiled. “You know, you said my name today…” His eyes fell to the ground and he chewed on his lower lip. “Been so long since I heard it, you know. Didn’t think you
actually knew.”

  “Course I know.” Aaron should’ve understood how important it was a long time ago. After all, it had been years since the Sarge had called him by anything other than his given name, aside from the occasional epithet, ‘honey.’ The Sarge had known it was important. It was about time Aaron returned that kindness. “And I like it… Erik.” His heart thumped in his chest.

  Erik beamed at him. Aaron thought he saw him blush before he turned away, motioning for Aaron to follow him back to camp. Just my imagination. Wishful thinking, probably…

  The One I Love: Part 2

  Tristan felt better than ever after almost dying. Whatever Ren had done to him had more than healed his wounds. It was like being born again! Same old Tristan Roth, but truly awake for the first time in forever. Almost four months had passed since then, but Tristan was still feeling the effects. The numbness and desensitization brought on by violent routine was all but gone—as corny as it sounded, Tristan felt as if he was experiencing life for the first time, consciously aware of all of it—and there was still the lingering euphoria of cheating death.

  And then there was Ren…

  Trying to have a private conversation with the kid after all that had gone down had proven impossible. It was annoying as fuck, but admittedly a bit endearing the way the kid sputtered and turned red whenever Tristan caught him alone, making some unintelligible excuse and bailing. Fucking obnoxiously adorable. If he would just give Tristan five seconds to talk—but, really, it wasn’t all Ren’s fault. Tristan had a habit of clamming up on the spot. He wasn’t good with words; unless it was in the form of song, but, even then, he’d never been able to write anything straightforward, preferring allegory and obscurity, sacrificing clarity for depth and beauty. Or, maybe he was just a coward who couldn’t express his feelings without ambiguity. Likely both.