7 years later...
The year is 007AH. AH meaning “After Humanity,” as some call it. Humanity’s fight has been long over for nearly a decade. We lost this fight. We knew, as soon as the electricity had been stolen from us, that we were no longer the top of the food chain.
Scientists (and many occultists) thought it would be alien invaders that brought human beings to our knees. The military had prepared weapons and countermeasures against space invaders of any sort. They didn’t think about the ones that already walked among us.
Mythology and urban legends proved science and the military wrong. Aliens couldn’t care less about us. Not when our weapons didn’t harm attackers worth a damn, and they certainly couldn’t care less now that we hid ourselves underground.
The only ones interested in cockroaches such as us, were the creatures hidden in the dark underbelly and in plain sight of our civilizations: the Nightwalkers. Nightwalkers, the unnaturally beautiful creatures that would lure you in and by the time you realized what was happening, it was too late. One could drink all your blood in a nanosecond. Another could transform into familiar, yet far more beautiful, animals and eat you, leaving not a trace. Others could cast dark enchantments that could torture a victim’s mind and body for weeks on end. Worst of all, many could turn into nightmare creatures that laugh in such a way that your blood freezes and your bones feel like they’re shattering under your skin, all while you scream in intense agony as they tear you apart, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Fifty percent of the planet’s population succumbed to such fates. Forty-eight percent were captured to either be used as slaves, or for the disgusting pleasures of the creatures that now openly walk what was once our world. Now, only two percent still remains free after all these years. I am one among that two percent.
My name: Lyon. 17 years of age. Occupation: fighter for the human resistance. Weapons of choice: omniscient. Current location: Carlsbad Caverns, NM. Stress level: maximum. Current predicament: forced to the ground and straddled by Marissa Jenkins, one of the few girls still alive and free.
The light from the lantern next to my head bounced off her light hair. She sat tall on top of my stomach, and in the light, I could see her expression clearly. Her dark eyes were half closed and from what I could see of them, they were coated in a thick haze of lust.
Crap, I thought. This is not good. Not good at all.
She’d tricked me into following her. She’d said one of the farmers needed my help in the agricultural cavern, but as soon as my back was turned, she had shoved me into a small alcove, a rocky bubble hidden in a dark corner. It was barely big enough for us and only she could move around freely while I was trapped underneath her, arms pinned to my sides.
I really am an idiot. Damn it, I thought, mentally beating myself up.
Her lips twitched upward, trying to form a seductive smile, but still falling short. Those smiles didn’t work on me, being the person I am. She lowered herself down, lying completely on top of me. Her nose was barely an inch away from mine.
“I finally have you, my sweet, sweet, Lyon,” she purred, her voice dripping with desire. Her finger gently stroked down the side of my temple, leaving disgusted goosebumps that she mistook for pleasure. Her warm breath stirred the strands of hair that fell across my forehead. “Please. I want you. Let us rekindle the human population by starting here.”
You could fill an Olympic swimming pool with all the pent up stress and panic inside of me. In fact, you could fill several of them and still not have enough room to contain it all.
The raging storm going on in my head abruptly cut to an end when I realized her face was leaning in closer and closer; close enough that I could smell the apples from breakfast on her breath. Her lips were barely a fraction of a centimeter from touching mine, when I could sit still no longer.
I shoved upward and twisted out from under her. Soon, instead of her straddling me, it was the opposite. I masked my inner emotions with a small smile. She stared up at me with adoring eyes and I had to fight the urge to gag.
I held her in my gaze and gently cupped her chin between my thumb and forefinger. She was shaking slightly beneath me and her eyes were clouded with her strange form of ecstasy. I again had to hide my inner revulsion.
“Is that truly what you want, my little Marissa?” I purred, despite wanting to hide and scream at the top of my lungs. Her shivers of pleasure increased; my mental shudders escalated.
“Yes,” she pleaded, reaching for me. “Yes please, Lyon. It has to be you. You are the only one.”
Oh man, I thought. What the hell did I do to cause something like this to happen?
I pressed her shoulders to the floor with the flat of my palms and posed a sad smile on my lips.
“I’m sorry, darling,” I whispered. “But I could never do something like this to you. Especially since I don’t love you as more than a friend. It would cause us both a lot of grief, so would you please refrain from asking me again?”
“B-But...Lyon...I love you so much. Why don’t you love me back?” Her eyes were filled with tears and the ones that escaped formed distinct trails down her face.
I made her cry. Crap.
“My heart isn’t something I can give so easily, sweetheart,” I answered. “I only think of you as a friend. Besides, somebody else already has my heart. You couldn’t ask me to break my own heart so that you could be happy, could you?”
An indistinct figure filled my thoughts then. All I could remember of this person was their smile and the deep, heart-tearing yearning I felt when I thought of them. I couldn’t even remember if the person was male or female.
Marissa’s eyes had grown wide, the thick cloud gone, but they were still watery from her crying. She shook her head vigorously. “I could never do that. I-I’m so sorry, Lyon. I didn’t realize--”
I held up a hand, halting her stuttered apology. “Its not your fault. Its mine for giving you the wrong idea. I should have made my intentions clear to begin with.”
We sat in awkward silence for almost a minute before she broke it.
“I-I better get back to the fields.” Her eyes were glazed, and I realized I’d hurt her more than she first implied.
“Yeah.” I sidled back so I was crouched on the balls of my feet in a corner of the small space. She scrambled to her hands and knees. Without looking at me she choked out a “Good-bye,” and fled through the entrance.
I sighed loudly, loathing myself for hurting her and so many other girls. I waited a few minutes before leaving the cramped quarters and turned down a tunnel opposite the one she’d run down.
A few feet into it, I slumped against the wall and closed my eyes. Both my chest and my head hurt, the stress turning the pain from bearable to agonizing.
Fourteen. Marissa was fourteen. Gods, this wasn’t the first time girls had gone after me, but she was certainly the youngest.
I slid down the wall to sit on the floor, pulling my thighs up to my chest and stomach. I buried my face in my knees and sighed again.
If things keep going this way, my secret won’t be a secret for that much longer. I thought, wrapping my arms tightly around my legs.
After what felt like years, I felt a soft, furry head brush against my arm. I lifted my head warily to look at my finder. Luminous eyes stared back at me from the center of a dark, fur covered face.
I smiled gloomily up at him. “Hey Moon. You found me.”
The wolf grunted in response and curled up on the stone floor next to me. I carefully placed my hand on the top of his head and scratched his ears. A growl of happiness rumbled deep in his his chest and he leaned into my hand. As he continued to do so, one of his ears flicked in the direction that lead away from where I’d come. I glanced up just in time to spy the fennec fox walk out of the darkness and up to me.
“Hey Tear.” I criss-crossed my legs and she hopped into my lap, curling up into a ball of fur. I patted her on the back and continued to scratch Moon’s ears.
I leaned my head back against the rock wall behind me. Staring up at the ceiling, I smiled grimly. “The world sure has a twisted sense of humor, huh. Is this my punishment for having so many secrets?”
Moon huffed next to me and rested his chin on my knee. I laughed at how much he acted like a normal dog. He growled at me and I reduced it to small chuckles of amusement. Tear pawed at his nose for a couple seconds before finally climbing over his head and lying down on his back, her small head perched on his much larger one.
We sat that way for another twenty minutes before I decided it was time for us to head back. I sighed sadly and struggled to my feet as Moon shifted to stand as well, careful not to let Tear fall off his back.
“We’d better go before they start getting worried and decide to send out a search party.”
We reached the small crag I’d stashed my weapons in and I pulled the harness out. Attached to it was an overly-large broadsword, a rapier, a braided whip, a quiver of arrows, and a bow. I pulled the harness back on and the clasps clicked back together once more. The sword now rest against my back, the rapier and whip at my waist, and the quiver and bow at my hip. I felt the familiar weight of them pull on my body, but I’d carried them around for such a long time now that I was used to it. Pulling the wrist sheaths for my daggers over the bandages on my wrists, I began walking again.
As we continued further through the stone corridor, I found myself leaning on Moon more and more. Not just because the tunnel was so dark and he could see better than me, but also because my legs were shaking so badly. He didn’t seem to mind the extra weight luckily, but he did glance up at me curiously.
Marissa had gotten farther than any of the others had even hoped to achieve. It frightened me to no end and my uncontrollable shaking showed that rather well. With all the times this had happened, I couldn’t even comprehend why none had managed to steal my first kiss.
“Girls are formidable creatures,” I said aloud. Tear just stared up at me with large eyes while Moon snorted with what I took to be the wolf form of laughter.
“Shut it, you,” I hissed, but I couldn’t help but snicker as well. I was laughing happily, anxiety completely forgotten, by the time we reached the main cavern and the Rock of Ages came into view.
I glanced up at it as we walked past. I knew there was a small cave behind it, just big enough to be a bedroom, because I always hid there when I wanted to be alone. I paused for a second, considering slipping back there. I thought about how the masters might be looking for me and decided against it.
Over the last seven years, many caves had been discovered in the Carlsbad Caverns tunnel system, many of which I’d found myself. We’d discovered and mapped out all the tunnel systems we found, which was double what the national park used to have recorded beforehand.
We walked along the cracked path between the old railings. They were completely covered in rust and several had broken apart and lay forgotten, unused after so many years of neglect. It made me sad to think about, with such a large population living in these tunnels. I thought about the other person in my memories, next to the one whose smile was the only thing I could remember. She was the same as these railings, forgotten and unneeded. The only mementos of her existence that remained were the animals she'd left behind.
I brushed my eye with a finger and turned back to the path ahead and saw a family walking down in our direction. I knew the three of them well. I usually trained alongside Sam, the father. He was a great fighter and a strong ally. His wife, Tricia, could usually be found helping tend to the underground crops in the agricultural cave or watching their eight year old daughter, Carrie. I knew Carrie especially well because whenever both her parents were busy, I was often asked to babysit her for them.
As soon as she saw me, Carrie let go of her parents’ hands and almost tackled me to the ground. When her face turned upward to look at me, her eyes were beaming and she was grinning from ear to ear. I noticed one of her front teeth was missing.
“Lyon!” she giggled. She let go of me and pointed to the gap in her teeth. “Look! I lost one of my front teeth!”
“That’s great, kiddo.” I smiled and crouched down in front of her. “Be sure to place it under your pillow so the Tooth Fairy can find it.”
“Mhm!” Her smile was so radiant, I felt like I had to spill all my secrets right there. She had that great of an effect, that I had to watch what I say around her, otherwise I might let something slip.
“Now, Carrie,” Tricia said, walking up to detach her daughter from my waist. “Don’t cause any trouble for Lyon, you hear me? Your father came to get him because the masters are looking for him. We just came along because you promised you wouldn’t cause him any trouble.”
“Ok, mommy,” Carrie replied, letting go of me. She pet both Moon and Tear on their heads, then took her mother’s hand. “Bye-bye Lyon!”
I smiled and waved goodbye to her as they went around a corner. I silently placed my hand on Moon’s back and Tear licked my hand.
“Lead the way, Sam.”
He nodded and began walking back in the direction he’d come from. I followed, Moon still following close by my side.
Sam led us into what used to be the national park’s cafeteria. It had been converted into a permanent dining hall for everyone living in the caverns. Here, we ate our meals, played games, told stories of the happier times, and pretty much hung out as one big family.
It made me sad to see the children chase each other, shrieking with delight while they played games such as tag and hide-and-seek. Most of them had been born after we were chased underground, and even the older ones had still been too young to remember anything but stone and assorted rocks.
I rubbed at my eye again and continued to follow Sam across the room and past the kitchen where people were grabbing their dinner early from the counter. Fires were being lit in the fire pits, and grill tops were set over the top of them, pots with liquid being laid across the top of those. The cooks were cutting ingredients for tonight’s dinner and dropping them in the pots, where the liquid wasn’t even boiling yet, but a delicious aroma still hung in the air.
We continued on and entered a passage just beyond the food. Sam went through first and I followed a moment later. With each step I took, I detached the broadsword from my back and slid the rapier from its loop at my belt.
As I left the darkness of the tunnel, I swung the broadsword upward to cover my head and thrust the rapier’s rubber capped tip into the padded chest in front of me. My arm and the broadsword didn’t move an inch when the over-sized axe connected with it and the reverberation of metal on metal echoed off the walls.
I shoved up with the sword, knocking my challenger off. I slid against the wall, not turning my back and faced the group in the room.
“Nice block there, Lyon,” the tall man holding the battle axe grinned broadly. “I taught you well.”
I watched his and the other man’s body language, trying to gauge whether they were planning another assault. “Why do you guys still feel the need to test me, Mal, Liam?”
Liam brushed himself off and removed the padded vest. “You never know when you’ll be attacked, so you always have to be prepared.”
I silently put my weapons away, watching warily.
“It’s all to make sure you can defend yourself, Lyon.” The voice came from across the room, among the group watching the spectacle with quiet amusement.
The speaker was Angel. She wore white denim shorts. A white, off-the-shoulder blouse with long, puffy sleeves and a dark pirate corset covered the the busty top of her frame. Two tails of alternatingly colored satin were stitched to the bottom edges of the corset and hung down alongside her legs, just past her knees. Hooked to the bottom hems of her shorts by faux metal buckles were black, thigh-high boots with two inch heels. She somehow always managed to look stylish, even during training.
Her long black hair was tied and pinned in two tight buns on her head, though enough hair still escaped them to form twintails, making her look closer to a teenager than her actual age of twenty-five. A quiver of arrows and an old-fashioned bow (made from redwood bark) were strapped to her back and in her hands she held a pair of thickly woven whips.
Her eyes glinted with amusement and she smiled dangerously as she cracked the whips at Mal’s feet.
“Now no more surprise attacks,” she smiled sweetly at him. “Okay?”
Liam walked calmly back to the other masters, but Mal wasn’t let off the hook so easily. With the whips cracking underneath him and the combined weights of the large double-sided axe and mace strapped to his back, Angel had him dancing on his feet, unable to get away.
I turned my attention to the group standing behind Angel. Liam’s face was lined and worn, but he was apparently only thirty-seven. He had an assortment of swords strapped to his waist, ranging all the way from a thin fencing epee to a thick knight’s broadsword. Shin, the youngest of the masters at age twenty-three, had his hair spiked in a faux-hawk style with gel I didn’t know even still existed. Although I couldn’t see any, I knew he had a stock of daggers strapped to various parts of his body, from a thief’s the length of my middle finger, to an assassin’s blade the size of my forearm. The only weapons Suoh had were a pair of silver katanas belted on either side of his hips. Tom, in his 50s, sported a rifle across the top of his shoulders, wrists bent over the top of it to hold it in place.
A young man a few years older than me stood just behind them. He wore the same weapons as me, though a pistol bag hung off his belt instead of a whip. His hair was a fair color in contrast to his eyes, which stood out starkly in his pale face. Seeing the sadness in his eyes evoked a twinge of pain and guilt in my heart.
I inclined my head to him. “Richard.”
His smile was as bitter as his eyes. “Lyon.”
I felt heartsick, knowing I had to continue doing what he hated so much for important reasons I myself had yet to uncover. To take my mind off the matter, I turned my attention back to Angel and Mal.
Angel’s whips were now still and she grinned at Mal. He was leaning heavily against the wall, trying desperately to get air back into his lungs.
“Had enough yet, Mally?” Her smile was absolutely wicked.
Mal grimaced at the nickname and looked up at her, still breathing hard. “You know I yield.”
“Good.” Angel turned around to look at Richard and me. “Now then. To start with today--”
I glanced over at Mal just in time to see him whisper the dreaded words.
“Devil woman.”
What occurred next happened so quickly, my mind didn’t have time to register it. One of Angel’s whips had quickly wrapped around his ankle and she yanked, pulling him, flat on his back, across the room to her feet. She dug the heel of her thigh-high boot into his chest.
“Beg for mercy.” Below the sugar-coat of her voice, I could see the raging force barely contained. “Before I incapacitate you.”
“I beg you, oh merciful queen,” Mal said, his lips cracking into a smirk. “You have already claimed my heart. What more could you possibly want?”
The only sign Angel showed of her shock at the public confession was the slight change in color of her cheeks as blood flowed to them.
“I shall pardon you today,” she declared, removing her boot from his chest and helping him to his feet. Watching them closely, I realized they actually stood closer to each other than I had originally noticed before.
I was beginning to think it was my imagination, when a messenger ran into the room. I recognized him as one of the men that was supposed to be on guard duty right now, watching the entrance of the caverns.
“What is it?” Tom asked.
The man turned to him, out of breath from running all the way here. “Strangers. Two of them. We found them wandering around outside, not too far from the entrance. What would you like us to do with them?”
“Take us to them right now,” Liam said firmly, assuming his role as leader of the masters once more. The messenger nodded and Liam, Angel, Mal, Tom, and Suoh followed swiftly after him. Shin turned to look at Richard and me.
“You two come along as well.” We nodded and ran along after him as he dove into the tunnel, following the others.
Little did any of us, especially myself, know, that these two strangers would hold a much bigger role for how the future would play out. Or how I would be affected personally.
No comments :
Post a Comment