Ally

by C A Gleason

  Fighting wasn’t uncommon these days, because he typically only encountered outliers. He hardly ventured into towns anymore.

  Points of view had never been up to him. No matter how hard he tried to see things their way, he was often left confused. He learned it was a waste of time explaining himself. People were different out on the flat, in between towns. Whether within the quadrants or not.

  Plus, he didn’t have the language skills others did—one of his few weaknesses—to debate with them or change minds. He didn’t know all their persuasive or angry words.

  He’d attempted to mimic them when he was younger, when his size wasn’t so intimidating, or assure them that he would go his own way and not be a bother. But it hardly ever worked. His appearance intimidated.

  And it didn’t help that he didn’t talk much. For some reason him being quiet was often taken as a slight.

  Onnin intentionally traveled toward the tall, flat topped mountains in the distance, but they still looked far away. Not because it was night. His eyesight was sharper than anyone he knew of.

  With it, he peered around constantly. Sometimes above in the sky, to spot the occasional defunct spacecraft drifting circularly in orbit.

  Below, on the ground, across the flat is what often drew his eye. He could even see where battles ended depending on where he was standing. The armies didn’t fortify in the mountains, they’d been out in the open.

  The scorch marks from their powerful weapons were still visible to this day, but the scars of war were often veiled in a thick, and soup-like fog.

  Some believed the fog to be poison, residue from the war, but it wasn’t true. The war had been catastrophic, but with time the land healed. There was poison but it lessened over time. Enough for emergers to emerge and survive.

  Still, there were people who were afraid to venture outside their known territory because they were told it was as deadly as it was when the war ended. That wasn’t true either; there were emergers out there. Onnin saw them.

  Humans survived the war and bred, otherwise none of them would be here.

  Even though he sensed the outliers pursuing him, he hadn’t spotted them for days. And as those days passed like his many footsteps, once again it occurred to him he hadn’t slept in far too long.

  He could keep going, and a lot farther still, but he wanted to be safe when he rested. In case they—whoever they were this time—were still after him.

  But he was losing patience. He was getting more and more tired by the hour and wanted to rest. His interactions with enemies was always brief. But no one should be underestimated. Sooner or later, he suspected he would meet his match.

  Hopefully, not before getting a few hours of sleep tonight.

  Based on their knowledge of him, or what they perceived, he imagined what his current stalkers were thinking. They suspected he’d stolen plants. He heard one of them say: “the cannibal stole our food.”

  Well, it definitely wasn’t him who did it because he was no thief. An ironic accusation on their part, as they were surely planning on taking his belongings. After they killed him.

  And he was no cannibal, not exactly. It was likely one of their own who’d taken the plants. But Onnin was blamed because he had been in the area at the time and an easy target because he was a stranger. And visible. And not a member of their group. Not part of any group.

  Avoiding towns, his size didn’t allow him to hide out in the open.

  Their apprehension and occasional anger was probably based on the primitive instincts of humans, and being territorial was often a dominant one.

  There still were protein plants. Though sporadic, and not as much as there used to be, they still grew.

  There was also canned food left over by the colonists, and military food left over by soldiers from the war. Those items were rare and fairly hard to come by though. Even in shops in well-traveled towns. Unless you knew where to search, as he did.

  There were battles over the stockpiles of the goods long ago, and towns were erected in the places of the defeated who were reduced to dust.

  The frustration by the outliers after him was understandable. Stockpiling food often took a long time. If the food Onnin collected was stolen, he too would be angry.

  Protein plants were tasty. At least he thought so. He was the lone emerger he knew of, who did. He’d discovered some of the rarer food and it was tastier than the plants, but few times.

  Definitely enough for him to keep his eyes open for more though. Especially because protein plants were slowly disappearing from the landscape.

  Regardless of distaste for many, protein plants were a reliable food source. They likely would be for a few more years, at least. He wasn’t sure how he would survive if they all disappeared one day. How anyone could.

  Gather enough until he could explore and discover another source of sustenance, he supposed.

  There was the barbaric way the inhabitants of the terrible place survived, but he’d rather starve to death.

  These days, protein plants tended to grow where it was rainiest. Except it wasn’t raining much the last few years.

  Humans could survive on the same sustenance but it wasn’t preferred. The palate desired more flavors.

  He heard many living things on Earth ate the same food, plants too, but humans were much more accustomed to eating what they wanted, to have variety, a choice, more than a common—now extinct—animal.

  Ordinarily he would have killed the outliers who mistook him for a thief before they could track him down, would have made camp and be sleeping already. Except they’d made the mistake of thinking he’d done something he didn’t.

  Thieves deserved to die. Their way was weak. Easiest. It was opposite of what was best; to earn. Stealing showed how pathetic and lazy thieves truly were.

  There would likely be less than a dozen of them. Not nearly enough to slow him down. But because the outliers believed something untrue—he’d never been a thief—he decided to trek ahead. Try to disappear instead of waiting for them to be within range of his rifle.

  It didn’t mean he wouldn’t deal with them. Hopefully, he already created enough distance. So he’d never see them again. And there wouldn’t be violence.

  As he marched on, he debated when and where to make camp and how soon, and he felt the sky darken over him.

  Peering upward, there were more clouds. To his annoyance, he also noticed a fog rolling in. From one of the large lakes. Probably. He could no longer see the mountains. They were always a comfort because they were somewhere different than where he was currently.

  A mountain in view gave him purpose. Somewhere to go. A goal. A destination.

  A growl rumbled his stomach. He’d have to eat some of those tasty plants soon. No better time to eat then while camped. Which also meant he was close to getting some sleep.

  Another rumble but this time from the sky. No matter how keen his eyesight, he wouldn’t be able to steer clear of the rainfall. The dark clouds grew darker by the minute and looked so heavy with wet, they seemed they couldn’t remain airborne.

  He wouldn’t have been surprised if they slowly lowered to the ground and burst to create a lake so deep he could swim in it. He swam as often as he could to remain clean.

  Swimming also presented the opportunity to soak his underclothes and change into spares. And wash his fatigues. If he didn’t wash often enough, it wasn’t only his appearance keeping people away.

  The current weather reminded him of Orthal. It rained there all the time. Orthal was closer to the mountains behind him, not the mountains he was headed for, and it wasn’t a coincidence he was headed away from there.

  He wanted to get as far away from where he grew up as possible. It was where they had abducted him. It happened shortly after there was concern, fear really, of what he might do to the other kids his age. What he was capable of during a fistfight.

  Before the terrible place, he actually liked Orthal. Back then he didn’t know it was in proximity t
o such horror. But how could he? He was completely unaware of its existence until they forced him inside. With the rest of them.

  There were suddenly protein plants growing everywhere around him. Hunger continued to gnaw at his stomach and he craved sustenance. He decided now was as good a time as any for a brief rest.

  Onnin squatted, his knees and thighs stiff until the motion gave relief, and he started gathering. He kept his backpack cinched tight and on, even though its weight felt heavier while he was squatting low.

  It would have been easier to roll it off onto the ground as feeling the sudden reduction of its weight was a reward after a long trek. But it was a little harder to pull back on when he was this tired. He suspected he wouldn’t want to and might decide to make camp right there.

  It didn’t mean he never took his backpack off while walking. He needed to often actually, to sip water, or retrieve whatever supply he deemed useful. Or when he found something else he wanted to stuff in there. Or withdraw a gun.

  But his backpack was a lot easier to pull back on after he’d closed his eyes for a few hours.

  He never bothered washing the plants. They wouldn’t make him sick. They never did. The emergers who fell ill were inferior, like the first arrivals from Earth.

  Onnin knew he was not one of them because he was unlike anyone. Whatever he truly was, nothing slowed him down.

  His pile of plants grew bigger the more he plucked, knowing once he finished, it didn’t matter how large the pile grew; he’d be able to stuff all of it into his food bag. It was a military supply bag he found left over, buried by battle.

  Dug up by someone who didn’t appreciate its usefulness and abandoned. Crammed full of plants whenever possible, he forced it into his backpack and grazed whenever he was hungry.

  Because it was raining so hard, he decided not to go much further. He chose to make camp out in the open. He was too tired to press on.

  Because he never lost a fight and never met anyone he was afraid of, not since he was a kid, he knew the rain would hide him from whoever might or might not be searching for him.

  The storm would also hide him from the prying eyes of others who might happen to pass by thinking him interesting.

  Being in plain sight, any outliers would be out in the open, too, and Onnin favored his skill in a gunfight.

  8. Onnin

  The tug of weight to one side was purposeful as he allowed the heavy backpack to gently slide off.

  He needed to flex—what some described as—a mountainous bicep to lower it to the ground without damaging all of the food, water, useful tools, items, grenades, and guns he’d collected. The needs from day to day.

  Without it on his back was instant relief. He always looked forward to the reduction of weight. Home’s constant wind cooled him off under his fatigues and through his sweaty undershirt. So soothing.

  A good portion of the grenades in his possession were the old kind from Earth. Pull pin and boom. He’d augmented a few, adding sharp points to stick, so as not to waste any shrapnel.

  Grenades were an effective weapon for combat but they wouldn’t serve their purpose if they soared over the intended target, possible with his arm strength.

  Grenades were rare but he’d found enough, if a battle escalated to require such devastation. He definitely carried enough to weigh down his backpack.

  The explosives—and also everything else in his possession—was an additional deterrent to his belongings being stolen by outliers; they wouldn’t be able to heft it.

  Stretching, he glanced down at the bulging backpack and felt how spry he was without it weighing him down. He wondered how much it actually weighed. It was packed tight and about the size of a regular sized man so it must weigh at least two hundred pounds?

  At the moment, he felt like he could run all the way to those mountains. If he weren’t so tired. A pleasant fantasy from too much travel and too little sleep. He’d probably slept ten hours in the last two weeks.

  No choice but to close his eyes. Hopefully, plenty of rest would wake him, not a threat. When he was younger, he slept sometimes two days in a row but not anymore. Probably because he was no longer getting taller.

  Now when he slept, he slept for only a few hours. Sometimes all night. During sleep, he hoped to be undisturbed by those who wanted to find him. Without gunblasts. Or even without a dream about the place he hated.

  Then again some nights, he’d prefer gunblasts over another nightmare about the terrible place near Orthal. While dreaming about it, he felt like he was actually there again.

  He couldn’t control his mind while asleep, so there was no use worrying. The terrible place, being there, it was a long time ago. No sense in fretting about what could no longer hurt him. Just frighten him, as he dreamt about it before waking up. From time to time.

  From flint rock and steel, steel he’d shaped from a gun, he was able to light a fire using tree wood. Flint rock was natural, and steel was easy enough to find if you knew where to look. Almost everything left over from the war was made of it.

  Bushes and trees for burning grew more sporadic than protein plants. But they could not be consumed. He, and he was sure many others, tried.

  For some reason, trees didn’t grow tall before dying. Maybe they’d been engineered to be burned? Perfect for fires as long as they weren’t soaked with rain. People and plants were pretty much all there were on Home besides the Alien.

  The strong survived here. This planet was hardly meant for life at all, or at least not much of it, and those who did survive earned their mortality.

  Conveniently, flint rocks were indigenous to Home. Without the rocks bulging up above ground, Home probably wouldn’t have been so desirable to those who first discovered it. They were likely the initial reason humans decided to remain. Before the planet was fought over.

  Technically, everything Onnin heard while eavesdropping on the net was some stranger’s opinion. But a lot of it made sense. He still liked to make up his own mind though. It was years ago, but the longest he listened to the net was in a town near Southo.

  At night, he would slip into town and sit outside an old woman’s house. He could always sneak around quietly, which never made much sense to him because of his size.

  She obviously never knew he was there. She never spoke to him. Even though he was practically right next to her, outside near the wall. He must have listened—intently—for two months, and she never spoke into the mic once. She only listened. It was rather sad.

  She must have felt as alone as he did. He often thought about starting a conversation with her and wondered if she would invite him in for the company. Then they would talk about their lives and he would consider her a friend. If anyone tried to harm her, he would have fought them.

  Except Onnin never uttered a word because he didn’t want to frighten her. Even though he was sure she wasn’t mean, he couldn’t be sure how she might react. He had already experienced frightening people by his mere presence plenty of times. It wasn’t a good feeling.

  Still, he hung on to the idea that there might be someone on Home, who might not shrink back upon sight of him. Be as afraid of him as he feared they would be, or consider him an enemy. He liked to think the old woman, whose name he didn’t know, was one of those people.

  Before listening to her radio, he always peeked inside her home briefly to make sure he wasn’t noticed, and one night he discovered she was dead. She was lying on the floor next to the radio.

  Upon realizing she died earlier, sometime during the day, he left, thinking someone might blame him.

  Because she died, he moved on, and never went back. He liked the old woman, even though they never met. She was comforting. In a way he recognized in mothers. How they cared for their children no matter what. And he’d sensed she wasn’t mean.

  It didn’t really matter where Onnin decided to sleep, he could do it anywhere, he owned a reliable shelter and he set it up whenever he needed to. He’d owned it for a few years.


  The tarp and poles went up easily and could be broken down as quickly, meant for explorers. In juxtaposition, there was a long skeleton lying inside the shelter with a small hole in the skull when he found it. Whoever it was wore fatigues.

  Probably died by a gunblast since there was burn residue. Whoever did the shooting didn’t understand the shelter or fatigues for their worth. They’d merely wanted to kill whoever was inside it.

  It’s possible the one doing the killing got killed themselves. It might explain why the shelter and uniformed skeleton was left undisturbed. Exposed on the flat, abandoned supplies—and skeletons—weren’t a rarity.

  Also, even if outliers took interest, the fatigues wouldn’t fit them, as it did Onnin. He’d made sure.

  Onnin dragged out the remains, made sure the fatigues fit, and buried the skeleton. He felt bad about taking everything, but he reminded himself the owner was dead. If he were dead, he’d want someone to take the shelter and all his belongings for their uses. No sense in wasting anything.

  Even if he didn’t have his backpack weighing him down, he still would have rested tonight. He was so tired.

  He knew it was because he’d made the decision, sort of like when he would urinate; difficult to stop once he started going.

  He sat as comfortably as he could, moving his thick legs back and forth in the dirt to carve out a sitting spot until it was the shape of him.

  Then he ate quite a bit more plants than he intended. It was because of what his body required. Being big meant he needed to eat a lot. Probably a lot more than any other emerger.

  Again, he thought of what would happen once the plants died out. Hopefully, he’ll be dead by then.

  Before he knew it, he’d grown so tired he didn’t even set up the shelter. He lay down on his back and fell asleep chewing on what was left in his mouth.

  Unfortunately, restful sleep allowed the nightmare to once again plague his mind.

  9. Yohiro

  There was a grace to sweeping, a technique, practically a dance. And he made sure to alternate hands and direction when his shoulders got sore. And he didn’t stop once the floor was spotless.