by Quil Carter
“The gas won’t be good anymore,” I said to him. “It’s been too long; the gas is too old.” How could he not know this? My nervousness increased.
Cristo didn’t seem fazed though. “We’ll find a way. I’m sure there’s a way to filter it or something. If not… once we secure this place, there’s enough for the boys to do and enough literature to continue their schooling.”
Dylan stalked past him. He didn’t look happy. “What’s the use schooling them if you’re planning on keeping them here forever?” he said bitterly. “This plan is going to get us all killed and you’re in fucking denial, Cristo. We essentially kidnapped Silas fucking Dekker’s children. His heir and his military genius.”
“I’m a genius?!” Nero exclaimed. He looked at me with shining eyes, and I got the distinct impression he was going to remember this compliment for the rest of his life.
And to prove I was right, Nero made eye contact with me and a smug look appeared on his face. I was always calling him an idiot, since he was, so this, I knew, meant a lot to him.
“I’m not going to let Silas kill them!” Cristo spun around and yelled. His voice bounced off of the tall blue and grey walls of the mall before becoming swallowed up by the silence. “Nor will I allow him to continue torturing him. He fucking made Nero shoot the damn dog, Dylan!” Tears sprung to Cristo’s eyes, making the blues in his iris resemble a swimming pool. “And he’s too hard on Elish. He’s going to make him have a mental breakdown and I’m tired of letting him do this to them.” He kicked a nearby rock and it bounced away until it hit the bottom of the planter. “My only regret is leaving Garrett in that bedroom.”
“I deserved it though,” Nero whispered. He shifted his feet and scraped the ground with the tip of his sneaker. “And I learned because I won’t ever do it again… I… I want to go home.”
Cristo stared at him, his chest going up and down from his emotions getting out of control. He’s an adult so that really shouldn’t happen. “Nero, you don’t know any different. It’s not normal for a father to make his kid–”
“He’s not our father,” Nero and I said at the exact same time. We’d both had that hammered into our heads at a very young age. Ellis was his daughter, we were his heirs, his chimeras. Silas didn’t want a girl chimera but she split from Nero to create a female twin and he decided to keep her and raise her as his kid. She didn’t have a set job laid out for her like we did. It was good for her because she didn’t have to endure what my brothers and I had to deal with, but it was bad because she also didn’t have a set purpose and Silas didn’t spend as much time with her as he did for us since he trained us a lot.
“And you guys don’t even know why he gets upset when you call him such,” Cristo said. His voice was so low it felt like it was scraping rocks.
Nero and I exchanged glances. I looked back to Cristo. “It doesn’t matter… he treats us like his and he loves us. We don’t mind calling him Master Silas.” I turned my gaze from Cristo to Nero and we nodded our agreeance at what I said.
Cristo didn’t answer. He turned away and ducked down to get back into the mall. Dylan sighed and gave a nervous glance over his shoulder, then he zipped up his jacket and put on our packs. “Let’s follow him then. Who wants to go see the Toys-R-Us?”
“ME!” Nero exclaimed with a big smile. He ran ahead of Dylan and followed Cristo through the broken bottom window of the glass door. Soon the two of them disappeared out of sight and it was just Dylan and I standing outside in the sun.
Dylan swallowed hard. “Let’s… let’s go, Eli.” He motioned me to go ahead of him and he followed a pace behind me. I got down on my knees, grimacing when my trousers immediately got coated in dust and little shards of glass. As quickly as I could, I shuffled to the other side of the door and stood up. Right away I brushed the grey dust from my pant legs and tried to get them as clean as I could.
“Wow…”
I looked up as Nero whispered this, and my own jaw hit the floor when I saw where we were.
In front of us was a large room, overwhelmingly large, with a mezzanine that wrapped around the entire expanse and two escalators going up to it. On the first floor were shops, and right in the middle was a recessed floor with kiosks and empty plant pots, and vending machines and old arcade games too. They were all standing where they’d been left, amongst lumps of grey, fallen down tiles, and random bits of debris that seemed to be everywhere you looked.
And like the greywastes outside, everything was made up of dull colours, a pallet of many shades of greys, off-whites, and browns, with the occasional colour peeking through the layers of debris and dust. The monotone coated everything, as if it had been created by a colour-blind painter, and there was enough of it to make your eye immediately go towards the peeking-out bits of colour that one could see. But not only was colour rare, what I could see with my naked eye was limited as well. The ceiling above this large room had holes all around it, and those holes let through beams of light that shone onto the ground like a god left its heaven beams on by accident after the Rapture. This natural light was enough to illuminate the room, but unfortunately it was also enough to not trigger my chimera night vision. When I looked towards the dark stores however, I could see the beginnings of the blue glow so I knew when we went exploring I’d be able to see.
I stepped forward, my boots crunching against the crumbly stuff on the ground, and my eyes travelled up. The ceiling looked to be made out of that push paneling that a lot of commercial places had, and lots of the tile had fallen onto the ground and either broken or disintegrated. The ceilings missing tile revealed nothing but black, and the off-white of the paneling that remained made it look like a chess board was above me.
It was a lot to take in. We walked past a row of dusty Coca-Cola vending machines which Nero was already walking towards, and beside that, was a row of snack machines. Then there was a shop which was called Kitchen Essentials, the inside of it cloaked in a thick layer of dust with small paw prints that looked almost calcified from being undisturbed for so long.
Nero sneezed, a plume of grey rising from the direction he’d done it in, and a moment later, I felt my nose tickle and I sneezed too. Nero then banged on the Coca-Cola machine, and when more dust rose up in the air, more sneezing came from him.
“Nero,” Cristo hissed. “We can get pop later. We’re going to find shopping carts and load up on food and blankets in the Walmart. Then we’re going to move to the Pier 1 and stay there since that has all the furniture.” He looked around nervously. “What do you think, Dyl? I think it would be safer to stay in the Pier 1, less area for things to hide out in and we could live pretty comfortably if the rats and croaches haven’t invaded.”
Dylan glanced down at an old pile of bones, his expression green, but he then nodded slowly. “Yeah… I… I like that idea. This place is so fucking big… we can come here for supplies and whatever we need to entertain the boys… Do you think… they’d sell guns here?”
“Yeah. It’s a mall they must have a gun store.”
I snorted, and when Cristo and Dylan both gave me a look, I looked back, not impressed with their knowledge of things. “The war was going on for years previously and they were sending missiles down on this island,” I said to them. “Not only did Canada have extremely strict gun laws, one which prohibited guns and ammo being sold in malls, since people might have a problem with a gun store being beside a Toys-R-Us, but they’d be sold out long ago to people while the war was at its most heated. If you want guns, you’re going to have to look for one in a strip mall or a stand-alone, but since they’re most likely sold out, I wouldn’t bother. Luckily for us, there’s probably a map of the area and we’ll be able to find a police station or a military base or check-point. That is where your guns are.”
As I spoke, Cristo’s expression got flatter and darker towards me. “I suppose you’re right, Elish,” he said in an unhappy tone. Then he looked back to Dylan, Nero in the background sticking his hand up the
Coca-Cola’s dispenser. “After we’re settled in and we have a secure place for the boys, we can check some maps and find some places where they’d have guns.”
Nero gave up with a sigh and turned around, his jacket now covered in grey and plumes of it surrounding him like a fog. “Man, with my military genius and Elish’s everything-else genius, we’d be fucking set here.”
“Language young man,” Cristo snapped, his voice echoing. I think he was still mad about me telling him he was wrong.
But Nero only snorted. “Fuck off, Cristo. We’re greywasters now. I can fucking say whatever the fuck I want.” Then he laughed. “And you’re not even my master, and once Silas finds you, you won’t even be our sengil!” His eyes suddenly widened like something had just occurred to him. “I don’t need to listen to you anymore.” He grinned. “Fucking sweet!”
Cristo’s face turned a bright shade of red but he remained quiet. He turned from Nero and walked towards the large room with the escalators. I followed behind but I was barely looking where I was going, there were four shops on each side of the room and in the middle were benches but they were completely covered and not comfortable to sit on.
A nail store… that was useless. A jewellery store… I might check that place out since Master Silas said I could get my ears pierced when I was a teenager. A store that looked like it had clothing in it and sewing stuff, nah. And… oh, a customer service desk, that might have a map in it, we could go in later.
Since that area only had boring stuff in it, I kept walking. The air was full of the sounds of our boots crunching against the debris, that and our occasional sneezes. This place was so vast, in every direction there were more shops and more hallways that disappeared into the darkness. Since the rest of Skyfall Island wasn’t inhabited, everything had remained the same.
I yelped when I tripped over something. I stumbled forward, cursing at myself for not paying attention to where I was going, and looked to see what I’d tripped over.
“You tripped over a dead dude!” Nero exclaimed. He sprinted over as my eye brows raised.
Nero was right! I’d tripped over one of the grey lumps I’d seen everywhere when I’d initially entered this place. My tripping had disturbed the dust and debris that had fallen over the body and now, like a brittle sack had been ripped open, dusty grey bones were poking through. It was like I’d opened a horribly morbid birthday present with how they just… spilled out.
Nero kicked the dusty time capsule and more bones scattered about, their odd, almost musical, noise being added to the crunching and the sneezing. My brother, with a smile on his face, dissected his prize and even stepped on a few bones. The snapping put my teeth on edge.
“I’m going to go kick the other ones!” Nero said. “Want to join me?” When I shook my head no, he rolled his eyes and bounded off. Cristo called to him once to stay with the group but Nero ignored him. I wondered if Cristo knew that he was going to have trouble with Nero now that he figured out he didn’t have to listen to him. My brother needed a heavy hand and only Silas had that hand, and even Master Silas had expressed concern over what he’d do when Nero eventually became taller and bigger than him. Right now he was only about seven inches shorter than Silas.
We walked through the mall, Cristo and Dylan with their hands forever hovering over their handguns, and finally we arrived at the Walmart. By the time we’d gotten there, Nero had become bored with kicking around bones and had taken to running into any store he could find to try and find something for him to play with.
The Walmart was dark, completely dark. My night vision kicked in and I could see easily, but Cristo made us stop so he could root through the bags for a flashlight.
“We should split up,” I said, my eyes squinting from the flashlight. “Nero and I can see a lot better than we can with the flashlight.”
“No,” Cristo said sharply. I narrowed my eyes at his tone. “We’re all staying together.”
Nero, like he’d been doing quite a lot since we both had woken up, snorted. “They’re not our masters. Let’s go, Elish.” Nero walked off into the darkness.
I watched him go and was conflicted. I didn’t know how I felt about Cristo and Dylan right now. On one hand, I loved Cristo and respected him a lot, but he’d been acting like he didn’t know what he was doing and that was making me wary of his decision-making abilities.
And I wasn’t sure how I felt about him taking us from Skyfall. I knew he thought he was doing the right thing… and Silas’s words had really hurt me, but I didn’t think Silas was going to kill us. Master Silas loved us, and like Dylan had said, people say things they don’t mean when they’re drunk. I was injured and hurt over Silas’s words, and every time I thought about them I felt a pang go through my heart and a burning in the back of my throat… but I didn’t think he was going to kill me and Nero.
Well, I wanted to speak to Nero about escaping. So instead of being conflicted, I just justified what I wanted to do all along instead.
“I’m going to follow him,” I said politely to Cristo.
Cristo’s face became tense, made all the more menacing from the shadowed lighting of the flashlight. “No, you’re going to stay with the group!” he said angrily. I was shocked at his tone. “I have enough to worry about right now, Elish. Stay with us.”
I stared at him and realized my teeth were clenching. “I wish to follow my brother,” I said slowly and in a low tone.
“And I said no!” he snapped back.
And like his words were a needle popping a balloon full of anger, I exploded. “And I don’t give an ever-loving fuck what you say, sengil!” I walked up to him and pushed his chest. “Know your fucking place, slave. I’m following my brother.” And with that, I turned and marched after Nero, absolutely fuming.
At the end of the aisle I’d marched down, I saw Nero and he was grinning. While I approached him he raised a hand for a high-five. I rolled my eyes but indulged him, and he slapped me on the shoulder. “Way to go, bro bro! I knew you had it in you,” he said through his grin.
I shook my head, still angry. But then the anger disappeared and I sighed. “I don’t know if I’m angry at him or not. Or what I think of King Silas,” I admitted. “I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be so I just feel confused.”
Nero turned around and gave me a funny look. With my night vision, his eyes were bright orbs with black dots where his indigo irises were supposed to be, and his body was shades of bright blue, his skin the most vivid. Ever since I could remember I could see in the dark, and it was only once I got older did I realize this enhanced eyesight and night vision were a chimera trait. It was also a chimera trait to have enhanced hearing which we all had, and general increased endurance, strength, intelligence, even our bones were stronger. All in all, we were genetic demigods.
But the look Nero was giving me suggested I had the intelligence of a hopper.
“You think too much,” he said with a shake of his head. “You shouldn’t be worrying about how you feel about something… you should just be feeling it. You seriously gotta tell yourself how to feel?”
I hated myself for being self-conscious over his words. “I just don’t know if I should be mad at Silas or not. Or mad at Cristo and Dylan.”
“I’m pissed at all of them,” Nero said. “That’s why I just want to go. Just feel pissed off, that’s the easiest feeling to feel, so go with it.”
I ran my hand over a dusty aisle, then picked up a random bag of something. “Why do you always choose to do what’s easiest?” I said as I dusted off the bag.
Nero’s crunching boots stopped. “Why do you always have to do what’s hardest?”
I stopped and scrunched my brow at him. Nero smirked back.
“You know… you always gotta make things so complex and difficult. You should be more worried about surviving than who you should be mad at. It’s fucked up in the greywastes. There’s lots of mutated animals, ravers, and people with guns who hate the Legion and love to e
at kids. We’re with two dimwits right now. You need to worry about not getting killed.” Nero grabbed a small bag of something and ripped it open. And as I continued to scowl at him, he whooped and picked up a colourful brick, which I realized were gummy worms, gummy worms that had stuck together and hardened to a squished yet vibrant rectangle.
Nero put a corner of it in his mouth and grinned contently. He then turned around and continued down the aisle.
“Everything that happened to us is stopping me from worrying about this place…” I admitted. I felt strange talking to my brother, but in the same vein, I also didn’t overly mind it. If there was one thing about Nero, it was that what you saw was what you got. He would say what was on his mind and give me his opinion. Nero, I didn’t mind speaking with him… unlike the others.
“This place is keeping me from worrying about everything else,” Nero said after he’d swallowed the bite of candy. He peeled off a gummy worm and offered it to me, and I took it from him. When I put it in my mouth, I was content to taste that it was still rather sugary, but a bit stale. Not too bad for being well over two hundred years. “You really gotta stop overcomplicating things. Silas isn’t going to hurt us. Cristo is just being stupid. I don’t even think Silas meant all the bad things he said. And if so, so what? He’s like you, overthinkin’ shit.”
I thought for a second. “You’re really not scared about Silas killing us?”
Nero shook his head back and forth. “He couldn’t hide it if he hated us. Does it seem like he hates you when he’s with you? Since we moved into Alegria, he’s been around us even more and he seems to enjoy himself.”
“I guess so…” I said warily. I tried to believe his words but my mind wasn’t letting me. It was still wringing out my stomach over this whole situation and filling me full of angry butterflies.
