When we reached the prison, it barely looked like it was affected by the war. The door creaked when I turned the knob. Light somehow streamed through the glass ceiling on this cloudy day; perhaps the glass was designed to intensify it? Other than that, the asylum had something no other place in the city had. It held a secret closely, it guarded it jealously, and it was embarrassed to find its secret spilled so soon.
That secret was life. Vegetation fought against the synthetic materials as it sprouted from the walls, the desks, the ground, the hinges. Weeds sprouted from the tiles, leaves proudly hung on the walls, and branches winded through the pipes in the ceiling and clutched the Greek pillars tightly. Water raced down the staircase from the library. It glistened in the sunlight with every color known to man, and some that were not; Tank would be hard pressed to identify THAT with his fancy everything-in-one vision. I turned to Danni, and she already had a wide grin spread across her face. Life had overcome decay in our Chernobyl.
I had to see what the library looked like! I took a strong grip on the rail of the spiral staircase, and placed a nervous foot as firmly as I could upon the watery steps. It immediately gave out, and I fell flat on my face into the stream. Danni laughed at my misfortune, but was quick to help me back onto my feet. Now with both hands, I gripped the railing tightly. I took one step at a time, the water pushing against me, as if it was trying to say “Stay back! You’ve seen enough! You’ve had your fill of seeing our capabilities!” I ignored their calls, and finally twisted until I was back upstairs.
Up here, the books were all intact! A sign? The water formed a pool up here, reaching up about six inches. My shoes and feet were absolutely freezing, but that hardly mattered. This was all that I needed to see…inspiration. A sign that, no, not everything had been lost.
Without warning, I felt myself thrown into the pool, face-first once again! I was on my hands and knees, coughing all the water out of my lungs and then some. Danni rolled into the water right next to me, and laughed hysterically.
“YOU SHOULD…YOU SHOULD SEE YOURSELF WITH YOUR HAIR WET! YOU LOOK LIKE A WET DOG!” she laughed uncontrollably. I rolled my eyes, and playfully ducked her head under the water for a moment before taking her glasses.
“Hey! Give those back! I need ‘em!”
“In a minute, I wanna see just how badly you need them.” I quipped.
“Ugh! Fine, go on, try them.” she dared. I hesitated for a moment, put them on, then gave them right back when my eyes felt like they were about to rupture.
“God, I forgot how blind you are!” I commented while rubbing my eyes.
“Hmmph! Serves you right!” she declared with a hearty laugh. She rubbed some of the water off of her glasses, then placed them right back in front of her meadow-green eyes.
A new thought entered my head, and I suddenly shot up.
“THE SCI’LYK!” I shoved my hands in my pockets and patted myself, looking for any sign of them. How could I forget they were on me?! Danni also flew into a panic, patting herself as well to see if we had perhaps forgotten that I gave them to her. When she half-closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh, I knew it was ok.
“Look.” she pointed to another section of the pool.
One, two, three, four, five. They were all there in their little recreational activity. Two swam around, one was drinking the water, and the other two floated in place, constantly shaking the water out of their large ears.
The seven of us stayed there for a few minutes more. The fountain from earlier was the source of the kaleidoscopic flood. Sometime after the fighting, it became rebellious and made what was once an asylum of fear bloom into a greenhouse of hope.
“Hey Leo…?” Danni asked, her head laid back in the water.
“Hey Danni?”
“Well…what do you think of leaving the Sci’Lyk here? We can’t carry them around forever. This place is huge, after all. It could definitely hold, like, a hundred generations’ worth of them! And they have plenty of food and water, temperature is moderate…Plus, it should be safe now that all those monsters are gone.” she reasoned.
“It’s not a bad idea… We could come back to them every once in a while too. I’d love to come see these original five. Then again, it’d be kinda hard to tell them apart if they start to have babies.” I laughed.
“No way!” Danni grinned. She went over to them, scooped them up in her arms, and came back. She sat Indian style, now completely drenched from head to toe.
“See? This is Bobby…” she placed one in the water. He swam around.
“Susan…” Danni placed another. She shook the water off instantly.
“Spike! See, he’s got big muscles!” she held the little mouse-like creature right in front of my face before letting him swim around.
“This is Leo…” she chuckled and even let a little blush blossom over her cheeks before letting this one drink the water from the pool.
“And…” she twisted her face as she held up the final and smallest Sci’Lyk.
“Hope!” I named her. Danni nodded enthusiastically in agreement. She gently placed this one back into the colorful water. Hope just floated there, staring up at us with huge black eyes, just like the others.
“You know what, Leo?” Danni smiled as she kept her eyes glued to the antics of the Sci’Lyk.
“Yeah, Danni?”
“You’re not a bad kid.” she planted a little kiss on my cheek and giggled.
“I can live with that. You’re not so bad yourself.” I smugly grinned, seeing what kind of response I could prod for. She arched her eyebrows, inhaled, and closed her eyes. I closed my own, and leaned in. Our lips met somewhere in the middle. I leaned on one of my arms so I could cup her face with my dripping-wet right hand. She let out a little sigh, but didn’t break the kiss. We shared this moment for a few minutes more, and the only sound for miles was the Sci’Lyk splashing.
We threw open the door of what was once my asylum. We closed it behind us as soon as we left, promising the new home for the Sci’Lyk that we wouldn’t spill its secret. Now that we were on the outside again, it was startling to see that the haven we just left could exist in this bleak land. The contrast between the lively hues of green inside and the grays that had already given up their dreams was enough to make me realize that things weren’t as perfect as I would have hoped.
Even though I was glad to have given the Sci’Lyk a good home, depression began to sink again. I was giving them back to the ruins of my home, just reminding me how much I’ve lost. I leaned against the wall, and Danni was beside me. I was about to say something irrelevant, but I couldn’t help keeping my mind on the matter. I slid down.
“How could he…” my head was in my hands.
“Huh?” Danni slid down beside me. Danni held me close, knowing exactly what I was thinking. I was grateful that she wasn’t upset over my sudden mood shift.
“Eddy had the best intentions, Leo…”
“You’ve seen that damn place! He would’ve had NO problem hiding us!”
“You’ve also seen the tech in there. The second that a piece of dust that doesn’t belong in there falls, everyone knows…” Danni sighed. I could only imagine just how red my face was turning. Danni opted to give me a little more consolation.
“We’ll be ok…we’ll be…fine…” she looked off into the distance; she couldn’t even fool herself. Where would we sleep? Where would we get clothes? What would we eat or drink?
“We’re never going to see our parents again! We’re never going to see our friends again! We’re not seeing ANYONE again! And he just LEFT US!” I tossed a stone off to my side at a crumbling wall in the distance. I missed.
“God, don’t talk like that!” Danni pulled me closer and held on tightly. Her breathing was coming in short gasps, and my throat ached, holding back tears. We both thought about a way out in vain, the same way that the man on death row plans his escape moments before imminent execution.
Without warning, Danni raised her head.<
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“Photographic. Memory.” were her only words. Her red, puffy eyes now shone with that passion that never went out.
“…Can’t believe we didn’t think of that sooner.” I smiled as she held onto me, and I returned the favor. As precious as this moment was, there wasn’t a second to lose.
“C’mon, we have something to go rub in the face of a certain someone.”
The U.S.P.L. HQ was in sight again. This time, we marched towards it with blazing passion; it was the kind a person feels when they’re certain of their cleverness, so certain that that were about to challenge their opponent’s mind, making it sulk and wonder “Why hadn’t I thought of that?” Every footprint we made was a milestone instead of a tombstone. Eddy was outside of the HQ, guiding soldiers and ordering materials around. We snuck up on him.
“EDDY!” We shouted into both his ears. He jumped up in shock, and gave us wide eyes, speechless.
“I’ll reconsider your offer if you hear mine.” I punctually delivered in a straight-to-the-point manner. Without giving him a second to respond, Danni took over.
“You guys want him as a lab rat, don’t you? Alright, fair enough. I guess I can’t blame you that much. But not me, as far as I know. Am I just too average for you guys to keep around, what with having a photographic memory that, quite frankly, is the only reason you found Miller in the first place? Did you also forget that it was my memory that managed to save Leo in the tower, giving him a chance to take on Miller? If we’re keeping score, I think I’ve helped save this place more than once.” Danni let out a short huff by the time she was done. Eddy simply stared at the both of us for a moment before a wide, toothy grin spread across his face.
“That… now that oughtta be good enough for everyone else. If it’s not, screw ‘em. I can’t see anyone not saying that was damn good. I’m gonna have a few guys I’ll need to talk with in a bit, but for now… welcome aboard, and welcome back!” he laughed out loud in his booming voice. He threw his long arms around us, and we quickly squirmed out. We watched the U.S.P.L. HQ being repaired, rising up from the ashes.
“We’ve got a lot more we’ve gotta clean up, but, y’know…it’s comin’ along.” Eddy detailed as we walked back into the facility. The rows upon rows of lights that once stared us in the face were gone. Many had been shattered in the fighting.
“Yep, you should’ve seen those bastards…thought it was bad fighting them the way you did? You should’ve seen it in the dark. Scary as hell, I honestly didn’t know if I was gonna get out.” Eddy gulped. We entered the area which was once the busy factory. Little bots ran to and fro, cleaning up the mess in a hurry. They held bolts, they fixed lights, they tested machines. They were part of an organism that was half-destroyed, and building itself from the inside out once more. Its body had been shattered, but with the help of millions of cells, it would soon be one again.
“Look, I’ve gotta get going to work on some things on an upper level, I’ll see you again soon, alright? One more time though…good to have you back.” He gave us that familiar toothy grin and a vigorous handshake. We simply stood in the middle of the floor until he was out of sight. I had no clue what was next, but in all honestly, it didn’t really matter. Danni and I had a new family now. That isn’t to say that we forgot our old ones by any means, though! They would always be in our hearts. Their memories would always guide us onward, just as we traveled in the direction that our future memories would guide us in. Speaking of precious memories, old and new, I knew there was one last place that needed to be visited before getting into the swing of things with U.S.P.L. I turned to look at Danni, and she smirked.
“Way ahead of you.”
Subliminally, Danni and I both knew there was one spot in Burybury that we still needed to cover. We couldn’t get there quick enough, sprinting the entire time. We were panting before we were even halfway there, our muscles begging us to stop, but there was no time for that. The place on our minds was too important to let temporary afflictions stop us. It was an area that held deep meaning, somewhere that we both knew from the inside-out.
The Wall.
Once we were in the city, we crossed the roads, jumped over the debris, and reached its meticulous paintings once more. It was still intact! We ran our hands over it just to make sure it wasn’t ready to fall underneath our hands; it didn’t cough up an ounce of dust. We went back and forth, all around The Wall, seeing all of the graffiti we remembered. That childish teasing was back. The colors were slightly faded in places, but after wiping away some of the dirt, some were just as vibrant as ever. The characters that crawled out of the minds of many teens still bounced around, the profanity that came from disgruntled men still stuck around, but most importantly, the immortal words and images of a town that wasn’t afraid to live still presented themselves proudly.
“Leo, lookit this!” Danni called out. I went over, and couldn’t be happier at what I saw: Miller’s old “graffiti” had been defaced! It showed a crudely drawn snake eating a man in a suit, and all of Miller’s words had black spray paint all over them so that they were illegible.
As I was looking this over, proud to be part of a generation that was bold enough to pull such a stunt, Danni tapped my shoulder.
“Lookit what else I found!” she grinned cheerfully, showing me a spray can! She shook it and tested it on the pavement. There was still plenty of blue paint left in it!
“What do you want to put up?” I asked, looking over the can.
“It’s gotta be something good, something symbolic. I dunno how much paint is in here…” she bit her lip, thinking over what could sum up everything that we needed to say, something that could spill our thoughts to future generations that will learn from our mistakes.
“I’ve got it!” she proclaimed.
“Go ahead then!” I laughed, anxiously waiting to see what she had in mind.
“Well…here, put your hand on the can. It sounds dumb, but I don’t want you to miss out on helping me make this.” she stuck her tongue out. She shook the can one more time, and I placed my hand right by hers. The resulting drawing was far from ideal considering the antics that came about from our collaboration, but it spoke for itself. The lines were slanted, distorted, but the image didn’t mind. It was proud to be easily understood, it appreciated the simplicity of its message, and it was happy to be alive.
I held Danni close to me. Smiles refused to leave our faces, and the laughter was endless. Our creation was a door with light filtering in through the keyhole. It fearlessly told the viewer that something great may be on the other side. The obstacle may be intimidating, but you would never know what the reward was until you went through. The door may be locked, it may try so hard to hide what it may, to defy you, to challenge you every step of the way, but for every lock, there is a key…
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