Abel

by Zack Metcalfe

  Chapter – 21

   

  I had a dream. It was about fireflies of all things. I had never seen one before, but Mary talked about them in loving detail one night. I wasn’t sure why I held such a fascination for them, but I did. They would flash innocently in the dead of night, allowing anyone near to see them. They intrigued me so much because I didn’t know why.

  Why flash?

  Why let everyone know where you were?

  Maybe it was so the observer wouldn’t fear you.

  Maybe it was so everyone would think you were beautiful, instead of elusive.

  …Maybe.

  I tried breathing, but it was difficult. I opened my watery eyes, and saw a small flashing light. There was a firm tightness across my chest, so I used my shaky left hand to investigate. There were straps holding me in place, in a seat of some kind. It took a great deal of effort, but I repositioned myself to reach for the clip attaching the strap to the seat. It took more struggling that I thought.

  The clips gave way, and gravity pulled me from my seat and threw me to the floor. Afterward, I felt a very warm sensation on my face. There was blood coming from my mouth and nose. I became sickeningly dizzy, and remained motionless on the floor, out of fear I would vomit. The urge to sleep became very tempting.

  Just as I started to drift into unconsciousness, the dreadful image of my ship falling away from me came charging into my mind. As if tearing myself from a nightmare, I shot upright, and was met with awful dizziness. A scream was on my lips, but I held it. I began breathing heavily, trying to calm myself. I tried to make out my surroundings. This was a nearly impossible task. The only illumination was from a few small flashing lights.

  I groped in the dark for something…anything with which I could place myself. I felt around until my hand came in contact with something warm. It was a foot. Wasting no time, I reached out with my other hand and squeezed the foot as tightly as I could. Holding my breath, I waited. The gentlest pressure of a heartbeat pushed against my grip as blood flowed through the foot, and relief washed over me. Exhaling, I loosened my grip and rolled onto my back.

  I wasn’t alone. Wherever I was, in whatever deadly situation, for however long, I wasn’t alone.

  Wherever I was…

  My eyes burst open again, this time with understanding.

  The straps.

  It all came screaming back to me. I knew those straps, the ones that held me in my chair. I knew where I had seen them before. I knew where I was. Realization flooded me.

  Rolling onto all fours, I crawled my way forward, using my hands to direct me. I felt more feet on the way, all with life still in them. Soon, I found a terminal. Reaching beneath, I pulled open a compartment and was met by a very helpful green light. Gently, I pulled the glowing power cell from its socket and held it up. Using the terminal for support, I stood and observed the relatively small space which held my family and friends. Everyone was in a seat on either side of the space, strapped into place. No one was conscious.

  Even now, in a blindingly sad moment for me, I couldn’t help but look at my brother fondly.

  He'd saved us.

   

  __________

   

  We had strong doubts, years ago, about making it beyond the Martian atmosphere. It was entirely possible our ship would begin falling apart while we were still launching. Everyone had accepted this, everyone except my brother and I. We repaired and modified an emergency pod, one capable of carrying survivors from the lower atmosphere to the Martian surface should there be a catastrophe.

  This was a pod with distinctive straps to hold survivors in place, a pod we were never forced to use while leaving Mars.

  Moving around the pod, I made sure everyone was alright. There were many cuts and bruises, but nothing life threatening. I almost dropped the power cell when I saw Mary clutching the cylinder containing the apple tree. The image of Mary fighting her way down a corridor came to mind.

  “I can save it!” She had screamed.

  Sinking slowly to one knee, I set down the power cell and reached for the cylinder. I slid it from her grip and held the light to it. To my amazement, the small red tree remained upright, with all its leaves intact.

  I found a level surface on which to place the cylinder, then sat down myself. It was good to sit down. My limbs were heavier. My hair was heavier. The cylinder was heavier. I knew why. I wasn’t on Mars or in space. I was on Earth, the giant planet, where everything was heavy.

  I closed my eyes, and soon I started to doze. Or maybe this was one of my more pleasant hallucinations. I was standing under a fully grown apple tree. It gave me shade, and a peaceful spot to rest, from which I could overlook a Great Garden stretching into the distance. It wasn’t nearly as large as I imagined the ones on Mars to be, but it was still the largest I'd ever seen. The vegetables were thick and mature, my family working between the rows. They were not filthy. Of course their hands were covered in dirt, but their faces were clean, and their hair colourful. They weren't tired or thin. Around the garden were other plants, such as trees of every variety. These plants weren’t controlled. They were free. We were free. There was no cold. There was no distant war. There was no shortage of food.

  I thought of our life on Mars. I thought of the small garden we shared with neighbours. It was never enough. We often had to fight for our share. The soil was weak, the water scarce, and our surroundings harsh. This was a far cry from my vision.

  In my vision the soil was fertile.

  The water was clean and came as rain.

  Around us was other life.

  There was no fighting for food.

  …The sky was blue.

  Why was the sky blue?

  My eyes opened to the sound of someone stirring behind me. It was my brother. He moaned after a raspy breath. I went to his side, seeing he was having trouble breathing with the straps still pressing on his chest. I fiddled with the clips, having a surprisingly difficult time doing so. My hands were trembling. I felt a little dizzy, and my vision became blurry.

  The pod became a swirling mix of grey and green, and I starting to feel sick to my stomach. Sleep was so tempting.

  I tightened my jaw and shook myself conscious.

  I heard another moan, and saw my brother's eyes open. After some wondering, his eyes landed on my trembling hands. Cain looked at me, then mumbled something I couldn't understand.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s happening to me?”

  He mumbled. I couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Come on,” I insisted. "Try again."

  “The h…the ha…” he attempted.

  “Please Cain, try harder. Plea…” A wave of dizziness washed over me. I thought I'd fall back, but I didn't. Placing a hand on my brother’s shoulder, I locked eyes with him. I waited.

  “Hatch,” he articulated.

  “Hatch,” I said sleepily. “I need to open the hatch!”

  Cain’s eyes closed, and I let go of him, struggling to my feet. I was so tired, my eye lids fluttering uncontrollably. I walked and stumbled to the hatch separating us from the Earth beyond. I shoved the power cell into the hatch's control terminal and instructed to unseal the hatch. Then, I fell against it, wrapping my fingers around the latch. I began opening it with some effort, only moving by fractions. I grew tired, but it grew easier. After a few moments, I heard a loud click, and the large hatch I was leaning on fell away from me. I toppled forward with it.

  I was met with the sensation of weightlessness for one glorious moment, when my body landed heavily on a surface of dirt and stone. I remained there for a few moments before I began coughing. My lungs rejected this new, odd tasting air. The dirt on the ground stuck to my face.

  With shaky motions, I pushed myself up, wiping my face with the sleeve of my shirt. Once standing, I saw the most majestic things.

  What I saw was a sunset, over the ancient skeleton of a Terran city, with a massive backdrop of magnificent mountains, taller e
ven than Olympus Mons back on Mars.

  There was rubble.

  There was desert.

  There was me.

  And there were the most beautiful pearls, being playfully run through my fingers.

   

  __________

   

  There was something in the air here, something awful. I couldn’t smell it, but it was there. We felt strange because of it. I personally developed a headache, and my pulse was unusually fast. My dizzy spells grew less frequent, but when they came, they led to blurred vision, and my hearing became hollow and distant. If only that were the worst of it.

  April was suffering. Her small, fragile body barely survived the impact. She had difficulty holding down food, and wasn't able to support her own weight on this world.

  Cain, as luck would have it, prepared the pod with emergency supplies before we attempted landing the ship. We had food, water, but very little else.

  I was regaled with the events of the crash, once the others were awake. No one knew what went wrong. Something, some part of the titanic puzzle, didn’t connect properly, and my beautiful ship, the mass of space faring metal I resurrected from the Martian wastelands, began tumbling uncontrollably towards the mountains we were attempting to land near. Our angle of decent was incorrect, and would mean our doom. Everyone went to the emergency pod, following my brother, but I didn’t. They said I ran away from them, shouted that I could save the ship.

  The more I think about this, the less sense it makes to me. With the ship in that kind of danger, I couldn’t imagine a way to have saved it. Maybe in those moments of desperation, I thought of something truly brilliant, or maybe I was acting on complete lunacy. Perhaps I merely convinced myself it could be done. Whatever the case, I clearly failed.

  Apparently, my family saw me vanish down a hallway, not knowing where I'd gone. According to Robert, he managed to keep up with me. He tried stopping me but I fought him off. I was somehow knocked unconscious, and Robert them carried me to the escape pod. This explained my head wounds. He said I'd done something to the computers he found me lying next to, but he wasn't sure what. I had no recollection of this.

  Mary had gone after the apple tree. I apparently told her to abandon it, but she refused. The next thing my brother remembered was my arrival at the escape pod just in time for departure, with an apple tree in my arms, and a bloody face I didn’t seem concerned with.

  Everyone had different words to describe the ship as it plummeted away from us. A small window in the pod was open for ten seconds after we launched, and we saw the ship falling towards the mountains, its many engines firing randomly. Words were used like:

  Tragic.

  Horrible.

  Heartbreaking.

  Dreadful.

  Everyone saw their home falling to oblivion, but I needed none of their descriptions. I recalled the scene. There was nothing I remembered more clearly. I didn’t just see my home falling. I saw a part of me, and I only have one word to describe it.

  Helpless.

  I was thankful no one knew what went wrong. In fact, there was nothing I wouldn’t give to keep that knowledge away from them. Thank goodness Robert didn't see what I attempted doing with that computer. I preferred to believe there was nothing I could have done.

  There was nothing.

  We could see the mountains stretching up into the sky, farther than I could imagine any clouds daring to climb. These mountains were terrific, absolutely engulfing the sun every day in a premature sunset. It may have been these mountains that preserved the Terran city, at least partially. Maybe these cities were common. I couldn’t know.

  We needed a destination. We weren’t sure exactly how we intended to survive now, with little more than a few packs of dried food and precious water. I was no stranger to hunger, but starvation had at least been a safe distance away most of my life. For better or for worse, we marched towards the ancient city, hoping to find suitable shelter for the night.

  Walking in the sun was unlike anything I had ever experienced on Mars. After no more than five minutes my exposed skin reddened, and still the colour has not faded. Cain tells me I have been burned, and I believe it. The sting was unmistakeable, but I couldn’t believe how quickly it happened. I suppose being in the shade of the mountains was a mixed blessing. It gave us more time during the day to walk, once the sun finally moved past their peeks.

  In single file, carrying packs over our shoulders, the remaining members of the human race made their way to the barren city. This place was a desert, and deserts were prone to harsh storms. We didn't plan to be caught in one. The pack I carried was of good size, and was heavier than it should have been. I refused to complain, because my father was forced to carry April. I would have volunteered, but father was stronger than me.

  I knew the sun had finally set when I saw the first twinkles of stars in the sky. They reminded me of my ship, something I had no desire to remember at the moment. I kept my eyes on the ground, putting all else out of my mind, and walked onward.

  When we set out to reach the city, it was almost too hot to bear, hotter than I can ever recall it being on Mars. By the time we had reached the city however, my skin was greeted with the all too familiar bitterness of cold. It was a dreadful cold in fact. I could see my breath, much like the outer most decks on my ship. I knew we would need shelter very soon. The city was as far spanning as the mountains themselves, some structures reaching so high into the air I grew dizzy just peering up at them. The more we advanced, the taller the buildings became. Great dunes of sand found their homes among the city streets. It frightened me to think of how many building floors were buried under the dunes. Just how deep had this city sunk? I was forced to find out once the cold became unbearable.

  A building before us had a section of wall missing. I was hesitant to enter, worrying it may collapse on top of us, but this was ridiculous. This building has been standing many hundreds of years. It would hold for one more evening. Entering, my father laid down my sister, and beckoned over my mother. My mother came and pulled food from her pack. Father turned to Cain and I.

  “Look around. See if you can find us a place to sleep,” he said.

  The room in which we stood was partially filled with sand. There were stairs leading up, and others leading down. Cain looked at me, wondering if I had any preference.

  “You go up,” I told him. I then pulled out my power cell. He nodded and made for the steps, ascending and disappearing. Before leaving, I turned to see Mary and Robert. Mary was inspecting her apple tree, with Robert kneeling down next to her.

  “Don’t do that. We don’t have any to spare,” Robert urged. His hand was resting on her shoulder, but Mary shook it off.

  “It’s my water, and I’ll do what I want with it,” Mary retorted, clearly intending to water the plant. Robert persisted as politely as he could, but I didn’t wait to see who won.

  I moved to the stairs, seeing how quickly it became pitch black below. I removed my pack, setting it next to the staircase. Taking a deep breath, I flicked on the power cell and descended into the shadows below. Holding the power cell high, I was able to follow a spiralling staircase downward.

  I entered a world very similar to my home in space. Here it was dark, and absolutely silent in spite of the increasingly strong winds above. I found myself at the top of a large staircase, which spiraled downward farther and farther and farther until not even my power cell could illuminate the dark. There was some sand mixed into the soft material of the floor. There were rooms all along the staircase, most of the doors closed. The few I tried to open were either inaccessible or filled with sand.Here

  A part of my mind enjoyed this place, even if I had the unshakable feeling of trespassing.

  My only choice was to go still deeper, trying to find a room that was suitable. Level after level passed, and I began to grasp the immensity of what was buried down here. The bottom level finally became apparent to me, as the green light of my power cell shon
e downward.

  At the bottom was only one door. I walked cautiously to this door, resting my hand on its strange handle. I was only familiar with the latches on my ship, not these strange knobs you could turn rather gently. I turned this one and eased the door open, peering inside. In the small room was a desk, with a layer of dust hiding any items that might be on its surface. There were cupboards on the far side, and a single small mattress to my left, complete with two thick blankets and pillows. Someone had lived here, hundreds of years ago. There were no pictures.

  I've seen many abandoned homes in my life, on my ship and otherwise. People always leave behind a trace of themselves, and each abandoned home told a story. This place was lonely, and its past occupant was lonely. I had no way of knowing who this person was, but I wished so dearly that I could at least find a name. The tragedy was that, no matter how much I searched, no name was recovered. Now, even the memory of them would remain lonely.

  With my failure to uncover a name came sadness. When I returned to my family with the news of a place to sleep, I did my best to hide this. My spirits were lifted when I saw my sister sitting upright, a small smile on her face. My father asked if I had found anything, and I explained the room on the bottom level. After I was done, I moved to my sister and knelt beside her.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, looking into her heavy eyes.

  “Very weak,” she admitted, “but much better than before. I was able to eat something a bit ago.”

  I nodded in approval. “Just hang in there, alright? We’ll figure something out. We'll be fine.” I smiled with a false optimism.

  Her smile faded, and she watched me. She asked me something I wasn’t at all prepared for.

  “Do you promise?” she asked, still eyeing me with some interest.

  “I…” was all I was able to say. “I…”

  My brother returned from the upper floors, speaking loudly to the room.

  “Do we have a safe place below?” he asked, chiefly looking at me. My father answered.

  “There is a room on the bottom level we can use.”

  “We had better hurry,” Cain urged.

  “What’s wrong?” my mother asked. Everyone looked to Cain.

  “I think I saw a storm coming. It’s still far away, and may not even come this direction, but there’s no point taking chances.”

  My parents agreed, and everyone started gathering supplies.

  I paused, then looked back to my sister and her unanswered question. My expression was a little helpless I admit, but she made it easier for me.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s okay. Help me up.”

  I did, and we began moving everything down the steps to the safety of the lonely room.

  During the short downward journey, my sister was completely dependent on me. Without me she couldn’t have possibly stood, let alone used the staircase. Still, as we walked, I felt as if I'd somehow already failed her. She'd asked me to solve our problems, to assure her that everything would be all right, to give her hope…and I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I would have been lying. The truth is, I don’t expect any of us to survive, and I felt it was my fault.

  I dreamt of fireflies that night, drifting in and out of existence, in a pattern completely meaningless. I wanted to reach out and touch them, but I was being pulled away…