by Rick Wood
There were so many people doing things to help their community—something bad people wouldn’t do. Maybe she should relax a little; let it be.
After all, Cathryn had seemed happy. Cia briefly met the young couple Cathryn was staying with a few streets away, and Cathryn couldn’t have seemed more content.
Which was why she allowed Boy to sleep in his own room.
She had said goodnight, recited their poem a few times, and gone to leave. She paused by the door, looking in at him.
He was a teenager now.
She tried to recall herself entering her adolescence. She was a dork. A geek. An outcast.
It was a different person from a different time.
“I’m going to leave this door open,” she said. “And I will be in the room next door. If anything happens, anything at all, come and let me know, and I’ll…”
Boy’s eyes were closed. His breathing was deep. He wasn’t listening. He was sleeping. Such marvellous conditions allowed for a quick, deep slumber. He wasn’t used to a mattress, or a pillow, or a duvet.
Such frivolities seemed bizarre. She could get used to them—but she had prepared herself for better conditions before, and it hadn’t turned out well.
Was she right to be so pessimistic? Or was she just a prison of her experiences?
Without a society to contain the bad, the good become the bad.
But maybe this was society. A resemblance of it, at least. People performing specific tasks with specific functions, with a leader, and people cooperating with one another.
She loitered in the doorway, hesitant to let him out of her sight. She had regretted letting him out her sight before…
There I go again.
More assumptions that everything will go wrong.
She had pulled herself away from the door, leaving it open, and took the few steps into the next room along. She left the door open and walked into the room, pausing by the bed.
She looked at it.
The sheets were white. The duvet was blue. The pillow was big and soft.
She wanted to get into it, but to do so was to admit…
What?
What was she admitting?
What was she fighting?
Maybe she didn’t want to allow herself to get used to these conditions. If she did, it would make her less lethal, less tough. She had survived on her tenacious spirit and cruel, cautious mind—would a life of comfort strip her of those? Then, when she would inevitably return to life outside those walls, she would…
She sighed.
Shook her head.
She pulled back the duvet. Sat on the bed.
The mattress sank in response to her pressure. She willed herself to lie down, to embrace the softness of the bed, its warmth, its security.
She did.
Awkwardly.
Laying on her side, pulling the duvet over her, forcing herself not to enjoy the pleasures it brought her.
But she sank into it, further into the bed, more comfortable than she ever thought possible.
Just as her eyes began to close, she opened them and leapt from the covers.
She listened, making sure Boy was okay, that she heard nothing.
Silence.
It was just what she was used to, that was all. There was nothing there.
She pulled back a curtain and peered out of the window to see the darkened, empty streets, absent of blood and guts and danger.
She opened her bag.
Removed her knife.
Marvelled at its blade. Curved and sharp.
She lifted the pillow and placed the knife beneath it.
She allowed herself to return to bed and find her way back beneath the covers.
She sunk further and further into the comfort until, eventually, she found herself soundly asleep.
NOW
Chapter Twelve
The corridors of a makeshift school…
She had walked past this place in the days after she’d arrived in the community.
She had seen children learning. It was a place where the young had thrived to learn once more.
Silly people, thinking they could recreate things as they once were.
When a house gets ripped apart by fire, you cannot rebuild it brick by brick. You could look for the foundations, you could try to recreate it; but you could not create the same rooms, the same memories, the same feelings…
This world is that house.
And for them to think they could recreate something as simple as a school...
It seems preposterous now.
But she had entertained it, even for a short time.
She thinks back to her childhood. To when she had considered school to be the worst thing forced upon her. Back when a strict teacher was the worst thing to fear.
She had hated it.
Not that she hadn’t enjoyed learning new things—in fact, quite the opposite. She found herself in every top set, excelling especially at science, as she was bound to do with her father being such a profound scientist. She was destined to follow his path, to produce marvellous experiments in laboratories, produce a ground-breaking thesis for her PhD, to even make discoveries that would shake the way we perceive our world.
But school wasn’t the building blocks for her—it was the rope around her chest. It was broken lockers, dirty looks and tiles of doom. The corridor was the walk to the gallows. It didn’t set her free or give her the learning she needed, it just taught her what she already knew.
And wasn’t she resented for it!
As any child entering their early teenage years would be, other students were envious of her talent. Their arduous trying failed while her instinctive abilities flourished. They begrudged her for it and boy did they let her know.
Staring at the charred remains of broken chairs and bloody tables, the classroom brought back one specific memory that Cia couldn’t help but relive.
“A black hole,” spoke Mrs Orchard, “is a bizarre thing.”
Cia had loved black holes. They were fascinating.
Yet, as she looked around the classroom, she saw one boy stifling a yawn and a girl secretly painting her nails beneath the table.
“And which theory tells us about their mass, can anyone remember?”
The general relativity theory, Cia thought.
Mrs Orchard awaited an answer. Twenty-five dumb stares responded.
“Come on, we did this last week,” Mrs Orchard insisted. “What is the theory, and what does it suggest?”
The general relativity theory, and that a compact mass can deform space-time into a black hole.
“Fine,” Mrs Orchard said, giving up.
A girl across from Cia showed her friend a text message beneath the table, and they giggled together.
Cia could not for the life of her figure out why they did not find this interesting! This is space, black holes, the rules of the universe and beyond—and they were more interested in some dumb boy flirting via a wasted text message.
“It was the general relativity theory,” Mrs Orchard finally said. “And it says that a compact mass can deform space-time into a black hole.”
The two girls giggled again, then the one showing the text message smiled cheekily at a boy across the classroom, then they stifled another giggle like a bunch of mute hyenas.
“And what does a black hole do to the gravitational pull?”
Strengthens it.
“Come on, what does it do?”
Cia huffed.
This was fascinating, and her dad had taught her it, and she wanted to hear it again.
Yet everyone else would rather stare at a phone or their nails or, as with one guy, sniff their arm pits then fall asleep on their bag.
“Cia,” Mrs Orchard announced, prompting Cia’s entire body to stiffen.
She really, really hoped Mrs Orchard wasn’t about to ask her the question.
Her eyes widened. Her heart thudded. She shook. She wanted to shrink away and have the gr
ound swallow her up, or maybe even a black hole that would destroy everyone else in the classroom with it.
“Surely you know,” Mrs Orchard prompted.
Yes, I do.
“What does a black hole do to gravity?”
Speeds it up so that nothing, not even light, can escape it.
The answer poised on the edge of her lips.
Then she looked around.
The girl had stopped painting her nails.
The girls had stopped looking at texts.
The boy had lifted his head from the sleeping position on his bag.
Everyone was looking at her. Smugly. Waiting for her to be the know-it-all they all presumed she was going to be.
She wanted to give the answer.
Hell, she’d settle for just saying something.
But she just stuttered.
And everyone grinned. Satisfied at her apparent lack of knowledge. Deliriously happy at her inability to form words, at her cripplingly introverted nature.
“Cia?” Mrs Orchard prompted again.
Cia went to speak, but didn’t, and gave a shrug so small it probably went unnoticed.
“Fine,” Mrs Orchard said. “A black hole speeds up gravity to such a speed that even light cannot escape it.”
I knew that.
Cia bowed her head, let out a breath, and hated herself for being so smart, yet being so dumb.
And now, standing over the remnants of a school built by hands and destroyed by fire, she realises how little it mattered.
This classroom is decorated with the corpses of ambitious minds eager to learn.
Because that world is burnt to ashes, and not even the foundations survived.
No one cares if a child can read or write anymore.
No one cares about black holes or gravitational pulls.
No one cares about space exploration.
Thousands of years of scientific knowledge are gone, just like all the memories of homes and loving times the dead took with them.
A school where they teach you to read does not help in this world.
The only lesson they should have taught a student is how to survive—something none of these children have managed.
If only they had been taught the things that mattered.
Like being able to run, or fight, or kill.
And, looking around at the remnants of a classroom transformed an image of death within minutes, it is clear they had not known enough.
Cia has the education she needs.
She can run.
She can fight.
And, boy, could she kill.
THEN
Chapter Thirteen
Cia was almost surprised to wake up the next day. As soon as she was aware enough to know where she was and what had happened, she felt for the knife beneath her pillow.
It was still there.
She propelled herself out of bed and marched to the room next door, panicking. Anything could have happened to Boy.
But nothing had happened.
Boy slept soundly in his bed.
She remained in the doorway, watching him. She couldn’t help but smile. He was peaceful, sleeping the best sleep he’d probably had in the time she had known him. He never slept in, but here he was, still unconscious.
“Hey,” Cia said.
Boy’s eyes slowly opened. He looked around with the same confusion she’d awoken with, then looked to Cia with a sleepy smile.
“Rosy?” he said.
“Yeah,” Cia replied, her smile widening even further. “Remember where we are?”
He looked around the room then nodded.
She smiled an even bigger smile. She felt a feeling she hadn’t felt before, an overwhelming surge of lightness—perhaps, to the person more accustomed to such feelings, they would call it happiness.
“Want to go check on Cathryn?” Cia asked. “See how she is?”
Boy nodded. He was so sleepy. It was adorable.
“I’ll meet you downstairs.”
She made her way down the steps that barely creaked or sunk beneath her step. The walls were so intact, the carpet so soft, the house so quiet; it was so strange. Even stranger, was the kitchen with cupboards full of food.
Most of it was stuff the community had grown. Bananas, apples, carrots and so forth. There was also some bread, and some tinned food.
She took a banana, unpeeled it and took her first bite.
Many years ago, if you’d have told Cia she would relish the taste of a fresh banana, she would have told you to go away and get her some chocolate. But now, it was delectable; so different to the rotting or expired food she was used to.
Boy came into the kitchen. She gave him a banana and watched him devour it with the same surprised pleasure she had.
And, after throwing their banana skins into the recycling bin—yes, they had a recycling bin—they entered the streets.
It was already busy with people carrying boxes of fresh produce, two men carrying a dead hog, one person even leading a class of children in perfect formation.
It was surreal. It was perfect. It was paradise.
“Come on,” Cia urged Boy, taking him by the hand and leading them through the crowds of people.
After they’d turned the corner and past a few people harvesting some crops, she arrived at the home where the young couple were taking care of Cathryn.
She knocked then turned and beamed at Boy, so pleased that Boy would get to play with another kid; something he’d never really experienced. It was too late for her, but maybe Boy could still regain some of his childhood.
When the door opened, however, the grim faces that met her told her it would not be happening. That something was wrong.
The couple stood with their arms around each other, as solemn as they could be.
“What’s going on?” Cia demanded.
Ryker appeared behind them.
“Ryker, what is it?”
“Perhaps you two should talk alone,” the man said. “We’ll watch your boy.”
Reluctantly, Cia allowed Boy to go with them into the living room and followed Ryker into the kitchen. She could still see Boy through a few panes of glass in the door, so she knew he was safe—meaning she could focus her attention solely on Ryker.
“What is going on?” she snapped.
Ryker hesitated. Sighed.
“Tell me!” Cia said. “Where is Cathryn?”
“During the night,” Ryker said, slowly and cautiously. “She, er… she ran away.”
“What?”
No.
Not possible.
Cathryn would not run away.
“She kept saying she wanted to find her dad,” Ryker continued.
“Her dad is dead. She knew this.”
Did she know this?
Did she see him die before she ran?
Cia’s memory of the event was a little hazy. Could she be so sure?
“They put her to bed, telling her she would get to see you again in the morning,” Ryker continued. “Then they woke up during the night to see her running.”
“Well, where did she go?”
“Some people were coming back in through the doors, and she ran past them.”
“Well, did anyone chase her?”
“Of course they did.”
“And?”
Ryker shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“The truth.”
“She kept running, and they lost her.”
“Why would she keep running if they were trying to help her?”
“You’re not listening, Cia. She was adamant she was going. They kept trying to say they would help her, but she just kept running.”
“How on earth would she outrun your guardsmen? Are they not trained?”
“Yes. It is unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate!”
Cia threw her arms into the air and turned around.
“We sent another team out to find her this morning. They came bac
k a few minutes ago. Nothing.”
“When did this happen?”
“About midnight.”
“Midnight! Why did no one tell me?”
“Cathryn was not your responsibility, she was this couple’s–”
“Yes, she damn well was. Her dad is dead because of me, and she was my resp–”
Cia cut herself off. Turned around. Covered her face in her hands, then turned back decisively.
“I’m going out to look for her.”
“Cia, we have sent trained men out to find her. If they haven’t found her, then…”
“I don’t care. I’m going out to find her.”
“And what about your boy? Are you going to risk his life out there too?”
She paused.
He was right.
She wouldn’t let Boy stay here alone, not yet.
At the same time, she didn’t want to risk his life out there if she didn’t have to.
Then again, they’d spent so long out there surviving, surely he could endure another few hours…
But at his speed she wouldn’t get far. He’d slow her down too much, and the search would be futile.
The debate raged around her mind. She changed her mind one way to another, then back again, unable to settle on a single decision.
“Cia, I know this is tough.”
Cia scoffed.
“Do you think we wanted her to go?” Ryker said.
Cia glared at his turning defensive.
How dare he?
He knew nothing of what they had suffered. He had no right to be defensive.
Cia looked through the door at Boy, playing happily with a box of Duplo. He organised the red bricks, the blue bricks and the green bricks into different piles, then arranged the piles into perfect symmetry.
He sure did have an extraordinary mind.
“I know this is tough,” Ryker said.
“Do you?” Cia snapped.
“We’ve lost people before. It’s heart-breaking. But it’s always been down to their decisions. You are not responsible for this.”
Wasn’t she?
If she hadn’t been responsible for Cathryn, who had been?
This couple?
Great job they did!
“Cia,” Ryker said, forcing her to look at him.
She looked back at him expectantly, then he said those two words that concluded the issue and left Cia knowing that she had to think with her head, not her heart.
