World on Fire

Everyone had been talking lately, but more along the lines of ‘It can never happen’ or ‘They’ll never live long enough if they try something’. I was ten when all this started, voices usually hushing up when I got close enough, ‘Don’t let the kids hear, they’ll get scared’. Should have been more worried, but I had JUST turned ten, so, honestly, if it didn’t concern me personally, then I didn’t really care what the adults were talking about to themselves.

But then, it DID start intruding on my personal space, I noticed that my classmates were getting fewer and fewer, until, one day, it was only me and two others left in the class; our teacher had been worried, borderline frantic, as she called the principle. According to the stern man, it was the same with all the classes.

He had looked at me and the other two and had said in a flat tone, “Until we’re instructed otherwise, school is cancelled. Your parents have been contacted, you’re to stay here until they or a guardian can come to get you personally.”

I frowned, my parents never got me from school, we lived two streets away, and the neighbourhood was quiet and safe for me to be able to walk the 10 minutes home; besides, it’s not like we lived in a large place. I tried to tell this to the principle and our teacher, but neither would listen, even with my persistent gibbering, until, finally, I was FORCED to go silent when the entire building around us shook. My two remaining classmates - Sasha and Alex - both screamed as the lights flickered hectically before going out and casting us into darkness, our teacher rushing to calm them.

I watched as the principle scrambled to our intercom system and pushed the button, all-but yelling into the microphone, “Put the school under lockdown! No one gets in or out of this goddamn building! And call for help, we’re sitting ducks here!”

“Y-y-yes sir, r-right away sir!”                                         

He didn’t wait for a reply, nor did he look back at us as he rushed from the room as a loud siren tore through the air; I slapped my hands over my ears, looking towards the high windows on the far side as literal bars dropped down, completely darkening the classroom. I jumped as I felt my teacher grab onto me, her other hand holding Alex, who held Sasha in turn, before she pulled all three of us out of the classroom.

“What’s going on?!” I demanded of her, but she only shook her head.

“Something bad has happened, the school might be targeted, we need to get down to the shelter!” she said as we walked down the corridor, the school already having been so empty, we passed barely a dozen other students, all led their own teachers as well.

“But...things were going so well! My parents said that the war wouldn’t happen!” Alex said desperately and I looked over; I forget that Sasha and Alex’s parents were government employees...but, really, a war?

“This could be something else entirely Alex” our teacher sighed in frustration as we reached the door to the bunker and she pushed us towards it, “Go down, I need to help with the other students, go sit in our class’ area and I’ll check on you when I’m done, alright?”

She didn’t wait for an answer as she ran off, stopping at the end of the hall to help her wife with her own class of 4-year olds.

Alex and Sasha immediately headed downstairs, gripping each other in fear, but I didn’t, I looked into the narrow staircase, lit only with dim, generator-supplied lights; from down the other hallway, I heard sounds, no doubt from outside the school, given we were very close to the front. I don’t know why, but I decided to not head down to the basement, I didn’t want to cower down there like a scared child, I wanted to know what was going on, so I did just that, turning on my heel so fast I nearly slipped on the floor, and ran to the front of the school.

The doors there were also closed, barred and locked, and no amount of pulling and lifting had them jarring even the slightest bit; so I crouched down and stared out between the gaps in the thick bars, out into the world beyond, the single eye peeking through widening when I saw a world on fire.

I heard the screams, saw the shapes of people running, objects flying throughout the sky; it was chaotic out there, I could see fires and smoke alike, painting the sky in morbidity.

I couldn’t look away from the scene playing out right in front of me, eye focusing on a woman to the far left, just within my sight; I watched in horror as she ran away from a squad of humanoids, in vain, as they easily gunned her down, bullets ripping apart her torso and sending her flying to the ground.

The humanoids were shouting, but I couldn’t understand their language; my first thought was that they were monsters, maybe alien invaders, that was the only thing that would scare the people around me. After all, humans couldn’t be THIS destructive, could they?

I watched as the small group dispersed into ones and twos, walking away towards the sides and into the houses surrounding the school; I couldn’t hear much from this distance anymore, but I also knew for a fact that if there were people left in those houses, then they would no doubt suffer the same as the woman lying dead and cold in front of my school.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, so rough that I knew it would bruise; I tried to scream, but a rough hand closed around my mouth and I looked up into a face of black, the shiny eye-window staring down at me, enabling me to see my reflection, able to make out the terrified look in my green eyes.

The person held a gun, nearly the size of half of my body, but it wasn’t pointing at me, instead hanging at their side from a strap around their shoulder; I wanted to speak, maybe plead for them not to hurt me like their friends had done outside, or maybe wonder how they got in if the entire school was locked down. But, I couldn’t, with their hand still against my mouth, all I could do was stare, vision blurring as tears seeped down to soak into their gloves.

A sound from behind them had them looking around and I followed their eyesight to see another group of their squad entering from a side door, all pointing guns in an arc around them, but the one in front of me still didn’t let me go. One shouted in our direction, in that same, unknown language, and my captor responded in kind, their voice deep, maybe a man then?

The one that spoke first continued their conversation, their voices sounding more and more malicious as they went on; a noise echoed down the other hallway, to the basement where everyone else was hiding by now, and I quickly looked over to see my teacher just emerging, calling my name as she looked around. Her eyes landed on me and my captors and horror overtook her face at once.

I tried wiggling away, tried telling her silently that I needed her help, my tears blurring her image even more, but I managed to make out her shape still…but not coming to me, instead watching with increasing fear as it vanished from my sight, no doubt fleeing back into the bunker. And leaving me alone with these murderers.

I screamed around the hand, before gasping loudly when it suddenly left my mouth, only for the arm to wrap around my body and physically picking me up like a bag of potatoes; my screams echoed around the hall as my eyesight cleared enough to see my captor motioning for his squad in the direction of the bunker.

“No! Please, don’t hurt them!” I shouted as the others headed away, easily shooting through the locked door and pulling it open, filing in one after the other.

I continued shouting as I was carried away, hitting my captor in any place I could with my fists and elbows, my shouting turning to wordless screams as more gunfire reached my ears, accompanied with the dying screams of my teachers and schoolmates, people I had known all of my life.

My captor carried me out through the way they had come in (an emergency exit, no doubt an escape route for a fire or something) and out into the world outside; the nearby fires caused the air to be thick with smoke, lodging in my throat and chest and causing me to choke, coughing loudly as my attempts weakened, eyes watering for another reason entirely.

My captor put my down not too far from the street, one hand still holding my arm tightly, even if the thought to run back into the school never even crossed my mind. I looked up to see him pulling off his mask and, again, I imagined a monster, an alien, who had just given the order to kill an entire bunker full of children and adults. But, no, it was a man, extremely pale with contrasting black eyes; he pulled the rest of his mask off entirely, showing off brown hair and he looked so NORMAL that that very thought was even worse than my mind trying to convince me this had all been organized by some monstrous creature.

When he spoke again, it was still in that same deep tone, but now it spoke my language as it said, “You can’t go back in there, we’ll have to kill you too.”

“W-w-w-why…” I stuttered out as he crouched down in front of me.

“We’re putting down any resistance; it’s for the better of your people. We’re allowed to save some, given that they do not pose a danger, and there won’t be a risk of another rise up; if you do, you will also be killed. Do you understand this?” he demanded, his tone flat, like father talking how the garbage truck was late.

I couldn’t do anything, but he took my silence as enough, standing back up and pulling me along, having me to almost run to keep up with him as he led me to a large, black truck not far away. It was mostly empty and I only saw three other kids inside, far younger than me and wailing, covered in blood and urine where they sat huddled in the far corner. My captor easily picked me up and put me in, I expected him to leave to gather others, but he also got in, crawling past me and the others who only screamed harder, to loudly hit the front of the truck, which immediately started up and drove away.

I watched out the back, sitting with my feet hanging off as my captor sat down next to me again, staring out at the neighbourhood that I had grown up in, staring as the houses moved past, my house in the opposite direction, parents long dead by now. The houses gave way to a small field before I saw the watchtowers, their sight scaring me more than the man next to me, who had discreetly put his arm behind me, probably to grab me if I decided to jump off, but I wouldn’t, not this close to the towers.

The towers were close to the wall, large and imposing and I made a sound as I saw bodies against it, others dressed exactly like my captor on machinery and ladders, cutting them from where they had been literally nailed to the concrete.

I had never been this close to the wall, close enough to smell the death; no one was allowed, they trained it hard into even the children, as the punishment was being put up there if you got too close, no matter the age. Point proven as I focused on a child not much older than me falling to the ground, having been on the wall so long that one of his legs had rotten off many moons ago.

“How many generations?” my captor asked.

“Fourth” I responded, jumping when he put a hand on my shoulder.

“You’re one of the few lucky ones, you know, I knew it from your eyes. I’m sorry that you had to see what happened to your friends at your school, but they’d all been a lost cause already, you’re lucky that you’re only fourth, if you’d been in here a bit longer, you’d no doubt be sick too” he said and I could see something akin to regret in his eyes.

I could understand that; living in this area all your life had side effects, I’d grown up with them, so I was used to them, like everyone else, but I still saw what the outside world looked like from books and the few movies we’ve been able to get. I knew what he meant, looking back at Sasha and Alex, I knew why…he and his squad would have acted like they did, just because they had been conjoined, just because they had been missing some body parts and had a total of three arms between them, none of it naturally belonging to them, they must have looked very odd to him.

I was lucky enough to just have part of a tail and weird ears…lucky by his standards, the other kids had picked on me relentlessly, especially because of those eyes he mentioned. I hated my green eyes, they got me beaten the most.

“And my parents?” I asked softly, “How many will…?”

“Don’t think about it, it’ll eat you up on the inside, trust me” I looked up at him, focusing on his hands as he pulled of his gloves to show me his hands, five fingers fused together into three; my eyes widened and I looked up at him as he gave me a bleak smile, “I wasn’t much younger than you when they raided my camp. You’ll be better outside, if you can adapt, but there are people who can help you.”

I looked back outside as the truck pulled to a stop and I knew that we were at the gates, gates that I had only ever heard of, had never even been able to see in my life. The sound of them OPENING had me whimpering, fingers clutching my ears again as the man beside me moved his hand to my back, the sound of rusted metal scraping against overgrown concrete, a gate that hasn’t been open for longer than anyone I’ve known has been alive.

I couldn’t see from the angle, but the light from outside blinded me momentarily, just the wide window that extended on either side of the truck; I had never seen actual sunlight in my life, only the artificial light from inside my home.

I didn’t dare open my eyes yet as they burned even from behind my lids from the bright light as we fully emerged into the sun; the three behind kept crying, but I forced myself to ignore them, waiting several more minutes before cracking my eyes open.

They teared up again at the bright light, but I couldn’t look away as soon as I saw TREES and GRASS and A BLUE SKY and I leaned forward to look around, eyes going from the new, outside world to the enclosed camp that I had been born and raised in.

I saw objects flying high above the dome of the camp, similar to what had been invading the inside, and I looked away to the man next to me, asking softly, “What will happen to my home?”

“It will be destroyed and then quarantined, for how long I can’t tell you, I’m not a science guy, but it’s until whatever sickness is in the ground is cleared up. But you won’t ever have to go back, you’ll be allocated to someone who will be to care for you, you’ll be well taken care of, I promise” he swore, his voice so sincere that I could only nod and look out again, eyes on the multitude on colours that I had never even seen before, much less knew the names for; his curious voice reached me again, but I didn’t look away, “What’s your name?”

“…” I paused, not replying at first, before saying in a soft voice, eyes focusing on a range of high hills in the far distance, “Bael.”

That soldier ended up taking me in, raising me in a way that I would fit in with the others around me, but still not entirely alien to the first part of my life; I was still shunned, hated even by some, but I kept going. I was determined to find out more about how we evolved, how we could still be human, yet be so different to each other.

The soldier encouraged me to learn as much as possible, giving me access to anything he could, even if he wasn’t allowed too; it was because of him I made a name for myself, a GOOD name, that had me meeting important people. I managed to find out more than anyone else why certain lands seemed to be ‘cursed’, why those on them changed so drastically like me and my people had, yet our core data still always remained similar. We were all human in the end, some were just a bit…different. And I wanted to know why exactly.

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