Against the Sun

Trigger warning: attempted rape, assault

Aylen picks through her bag with dirty fingernails on weather-worn and calloused fingers. Scavenged smaller essentials dodge them: tweezers, a rusty pen light, small tight wads of tissue balled up. Her hand moves mindlessly, feeling for the shape, and closes over a small tube with letters faded almost white on the peeling label. She removes the cap and carefully, sparingly, blots lip balm on her dry lips. She drops the tube back into the bag.

Overhead the sun blazes like what it is: a fireball, heating the scorched landscape and driving what creatures remain in this place for cover. Too hot to move about while it still stands so high in the sky. Aylen sits in her shelter for today: what amounts to about thirty square feet of space in what was a ground floor storefront. The building has long since caved in on itself, windows exploded, and broken blocks of concrete and rebar surround her. She has enough clearance to kneel, but not much more.

Her eyes scan the former streets beyond the building for any signs of movement. There are none.  “My dystopian paradise,” she mutters, and somewhere behind the robotic survival mode her mind is now locked into, she thinks in a whisper, I can’t believe this is my life. Her hand dips back into the bag again, this time into the small side compartment, zipper long gone, and pulls out a folded slip of paper.  She unfolds it and reads the words:

“Still looking for you. Breathed you in and have not exhaled. Find me. -Raven”

She holds the note in her left hand, eyes no longer seeing it, her right absently pressing the handkerchief fastened to her jacket against her cheek.

Many weeks ago, maybe months, Aylen was out scavenging. In a now wild parking lot of what had been a rest stop, there was an old truck, pulled over the curb, once hidden by brush before the rains had stopped and all of the leaves had dried and crumbled. For three days and nights she had made camp across the abandoned highway in a rock outcropping. She had seen no one, heard no one. People, what few remained from what she could tell, were scarce and hid away mostly within the city limits. 

When the sun dropped beyond the horizon on the third day, she moved through the shadows to the abandoned cab. There wasn’t much inside, but she spotted a red plastic box behind the seats, what must have been a little toolkit. As she reached her small frame deep into the cab and touched the box with her fingertips, hands closed around her hips and ripped her backwards. Suddenly she was on her back, her attacker below her with his hand over her mouth, and only then did she hear their cackles and commands.

“Well, well, what do we have here? Shh, honey, we’ll take good care of you,” one said. It was dark, but she could make out two more standing over them. She kicked and bucked her hips away from the man below her, a deep forceful sound coming from her throat and chest despite her full cries being interrupted by his hand over her mouth. But then one of the others had dropped to his knees and pushed her hips down, the other grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her off the man and into the dirt.

Are you serious?! she thought even as she fought what she knew was coming. She didn’t want it to happen, of course, but even more so had been incensed that after the crumble of the world as she had known it, and her survival in this disassembled and desecrated new one, this was going to happen to her. Someone struck her in the face twice, hard.

She fought.

She fought as they whooped and hollered, as one of them unbuckled his belt and another unbuckled hers. Her arms were pinned down. Maybe she should have been surprised or disgusted that this was what ranked on the top of the agenda for people, but she was not. The general breakdown of decency and decorum had been swift amongst what had remained of society. It was shocking how quickly they had all become savage, selfish, and violent. But fear does funny things. The complete unravelling of anything one has ever known does funny things. And how would anyone have known it would be so until it happened?

Her thoughts, her emotions, her reactions were muted. Just as everything around her was muted, the pale beige tone of what used to be colorful now coated with dirt.

Still she fought. Her eyes shifted to look beyond them to what mattered more to her. Thank god in the darkness they could not follow her gaze. Her rucksack stood on the windshield of the truck where she had placed it. If they chose not to kill her after, she did not want to lose all that she had collected.

Suddenly a silhouette had moved between her and where she looked. A fourth, she thought at first, but then a long blade had appeared through the chest of the man directly on her and he froze. The blade was withdrawn.

This new stranger pulled a second attacker away from Aylen as she pushed the slumping and bleeding body off her. He kicked the third in the face, sending him back temporarily. In the interlude of that small battle, he pulled her up and had whispered something to her. Something like, “I’ve seen your figure against the sun. I am pulled to you.” He drew a cloth from around his neck and pressed it to her bleeding nose gently. Then he growled, “RUN!” as he turned to meet the men that were on him at once.

He was tall, ominous, steady. She grabbed her bag from the hood of the truck and sprinted across the highway and back toward the city. She did not look back.

Now she slid that dirty red cloth to her nose and breathed in. Dirt and sweat and the faint muskiness of a man. A crude R was scrawled on the corner of the cloth in marker or paint. She had not known what it stood for until finding this letter on the counter of an old diner. Even as tattered as it was, the light color of the paper had been the cleanest thing in the place, and it had glowed in the grime of the room as though the light of Heaven itself were shining on it. R. Raven.

Slowly Aylen’s consciousness returned. The sun had slipped lower and now hovered close to the Earth. Time to move now that the temperatures were dropping to bearable. It was also safer to move about once darkness came on. Since the attack, Aylen never sheltered in the same place twice. She slips her scarf up to cover the bottom half of her face and steps one booted foot and then the other onto the sidewalk.

Most nights pass uneventful. Occasionally a mangy dog or coyote that has wandered into the city in the hopes of finding some small sustenance would cross her path. If it did not run and instead came at her bold, she fought. She always won, despite the scars that were left behind on her hands and arms. The greatest win when they refused to run off was a meal. Aylen was always sad to take a life even after all this surviving ugly, but she paid her respects well enough, and was grateful for their sacrifices. Aho Mitakuye Oyasin… to all my relations.

This city, this city that once was, had been partially swallowed again by the Earth, even as wounded as She was. Standing on the swell of ground below her now with the old life underfoot, she watches the last of the glowing ball touch the horizon. “I’ve seen your figure against the sun.”

A breeze kicks up and Aylen closes her eyes. She pictures her own figure there on the hill, long strands of tangled dark hair lifting in the wind. Scarf blowing softly behind her. The gentle curve of her back as it slides down beyond her waist. The swell of her breasts under dirty clothes. After all this time of loneliness and brutality she had nearly forgotten she was a woman. What did that matter when one was alone, just a fighter trying to survive? For… what, exactly? The will to survive, instinctual, she recognizes.

But now. That moment that he had stood over her, took her hand, lifted her and pulled her close. It consumes her. In that moment all the sound had gone away, hadn’t it? In the dark, impossible to see, still she had looked into his eyes. And then the sound had returned by way of his voice.  His breath on her face as he spoke.

To her left, stones crunching and movement. She pushes him from her mind. Don’t be distracted, Aylen. And what kind of name is Raven, anyway? The sound again, and then the subtle rhythm of padded feet on dry earth. A quadruped. A pretty big one. Her right hand wraps around the scabbard of the knife on her hip and she runs in its direction.

Following the sounds of running feet and panting, Aylen treads as lightly as possible in her old leather boots. Stars are appearing in the sky as twilight comes on fast. Ahead she sees its figure dart across the street into an alley and follows. It is a dead end. The animal must have gone into the dark and crumbling doorway that stands at the end of the passage. Aylen fumbles into her bag and pulls out the rusty pen light, clicks it on, and places it between her teeth. She draws the knife from its sheath and holds her forearm across her chest and throat. She steps over the threshold.

The walkway is narrow and crowded with broken stone and concrete. Her ankles wobble a little as she moves forward. Steadying her footing, steadying her breath. No light befalls the space save the tiny beam from her mouth. If there are windows anywhere in the place it is now far too dark outside to know it. After what she estimates is about twenty feet, the air opens up some. She sees no sign of the dog. Except, was it a dog? It had looked big. To her right a dusty shape forms. A sofa. Beside that a chair. Her mind starts to assemble a picture of the room, and she realizes she is standing in the lobby of a hotel. Trash litters the floor.

She moves past the old check-in desk, coat closet, the bank of elevators that are now corpses, forever retired. A staircase that may have been grand at one time, now impassible. The space is big, keeps unfolding before her. Past the stairs it stretches in two directions, restroom doors on one side, and a small hotel dining room on the other. Suddenly, quick movement, the sound of breath through nostrils, and fur pushing past her as the animal bounds by and is gone. Her heart leaps into her throat and she fights to calm herself. The dog had been quick, strong, thick. Healthy. Too late to chase.

In the bathroom she tries the faucets, half habit, half due diligence, and checks the toilets for any water left in the bowls. Of course, there is none. She pockets a few toilet paper rolls with a sheet or two stuck to the cardboard. She listens for any signs of life but hears nothing. Across the hall the dining room stands in disarray. Most of the tables are overturned, most of the chairs broken with parts likely repurposed as weapons. At the end of the room is a swing door to what she knows will be the kitchen. Cautiously, she enters.

The kitchen is the expected mess, picked over and tossed. Empty cans, broken plates, pulled out drawers. The wall size refrigerator doors stand open like toothless mouths, shelves removed and cast aside.

But in the middle of the room a single steel rolling table is clear save for a few things on its center. Her heart speeds up. Perfectly placed sits a plate, piled with some sort of potted meat and gravy. Beside it, a fork resting on a paper napkin. She bends down and smells. Fresh, as fresh as canned food can be. Her stomach tightens, not unpleasantly, and her mouth waters. She pays no mind to the concern that this could be a trick.

Greedily, she gathers up the fork and napkin and pushes them in her pocket. The plate she carries back out to the lobby where she can sit on the sofa. She slides her rucksack off her shoulders and sets it with her sling bag beside her. Offering a heartfelt thank you to Whoever is watching this mess, she eats. It is glorious, and it is quick. Setting the plate on the floor at her feet she reaches into her pocket for the napkin and lifts it toward her mouth, then stops. Clicking the pen light on again she sees it: another note. At the bottom, R.

“If you’re reading this, he found you and led you here. You found me in my dreams. Tomorrow find me against the setting sun. The area has been cleared, you are safe, sleep well.”

Her finger traces the R. Her breath is caught in her chest, her body tingling. Alive. She folds the note and slides it into her bag with the other. Finally, after a long time, she stretches out full on the soft cushions and sleeps almost immediately.

When she opens her eyes in her dreamworld, Aylen finds it clean. She is clean. And there is sunlight. The floor in the massive room is white and shining. Music is playing from somewhere, everywhere, and she is dancing. Dancing! A strong arm is wrapped around her back, her right hand folded into another, much larger one. It all unfolds in fragments the way dreams do. Looking up, those eyes looking down into hers. She knows those eyes, the ones she felt in the dark that night.

The song fades into another and this man leads her to the windows. Below she sees people moving about beneath shade ceilings of opaque netting. Gardens in one corner. Water pumps in another. Children in a small class practicing with wooden swords. Children! In the distance and all around stands a wall, beyond it dust and nothing. But inside, life.

The low voice beside her says, “It has begun, my darling. It is happening. It was you.”

She leans against him and smells the faint musk of him (can you smell in dreams?). “It was us,” she says.

And then she is awake. The light that spills in from the crowded doorway is already the warm, soft color of fading afternoon. Could she have really slept that long? It was the first time in forever that she had more than half-slept for an hour or two. She felt…good.

Before leaving this little haven Aylen makes a final pass in the daylight. Crawling around on her hands and knees she finds a bottle of water deep under the shelves in the kitchen, hidden and overlooked but there for her. She drinks half of it immediately, and it pulses through her, her cells coming online.

Standing at the exit, she thinks for a moment in half trepidation. Would she go to meet this stranger? Others equal danger, groups become nefarious collectives. But him. (“I am pulled to you.”) Maybe this was her what for. She decides to find out. And as it is with Aylen, once she is decided, it is decided. She steps through the door. She does not look back.

Aylen walks for about an hour following the dropping sun. As she walks, she remembers. She remembers her home, her green lawn. Her children who had gone swiftly after it all started. She remembers her parents and the last time she saw them, gone too, she assumes. She remembers walking to work in the mornings with hot coffee in a paper cup, standing on the corner waiting for the light. She is weary and sad. But also resigned. Adapted.

Finally, the remnants of the buildings grow less and underfoot only rocky sand. She pauses when the ground begins a slow slope upward. She shades her eyes with her hand and a breeze lifts, softly tossing her hair. At first she sees nothing but the blinding glare of the sun. Then two forms begin to take shape. (“I’ve seen your figure against the sun.”) A man, tall, his dark clothing covering his frame in layers, his hair, too, lifted by the wind. Beside him, a large dog, the largest shepherd she has ever seen.

Aylen swallows and inhales, then steps forward. He does not move toward her, instead letting her come to him. The dog pants softly, watching her as his master does. Behind them the sun burns orange. Her heart is ablaze the same. She is pulled to him, the two drawn together like two bodies in a stellar magnetic field. Her feet are moving on their own, and still he stands steady, until she is inches from him. They stand for a long while, holding the moment, the indefinable moment.

Raven lifts his hand to Aylen’s face, and runs his rough fingers over her cheek, softly over her lips, wraps them around the back of her small neck under her hair. He bends down and kisses her now, against the sun. The world drops from beneath her feet as she falls into the cosmic tornado of whatever this is. He kisses her forever, and then he speaks to her in that low voice.

“And so it begins.”