Sunchoke

Blue is the rainless sky which bends around him. Brown is the withering grass which crackles underfoot. Sharp are bones which distend coriaceous skin. The stone ridge is hot against tired soles, and bony hands pressed firm against rough stone. He surveys the dusty valley. Yellow Sun screams heat and distorts air drooping above distant ridges. Desiccation silences the barren forest, except dying leaves rustle in a torrid breeze, and insects chirp weakly to nothing. 

He wipes his perspiring forehead with a dirty cloth, then suckles the moisture. There is concavity where once a protruding belly. Upon his eyes is painted the desperation of a failing predator. Starvation makes movements jittery; his gaze quickly targets every sound. Vultures soar in far southern skies, barely visible through dusty heat—beasts migrate, or die. Two valleys between the circling vultures means an onerous journey, slowed by growling stomachs and dulled senses. But their valley holds nothing. 

He descends the stone outcropping, hopping with grace to the small camp at the hill’s base. There is a man seated against an old pine; he draws shapes in the dirt. And another stokes a small fire over which a pot of berries simmers. He approaches, though the others pay no heed. 

“Vultures circle to the south,” he says.

The fire-stoker bemoans, “We die here or there,” without averting his gaze.

The young man against the pine says, “I am weak.”

A pause in which the fire crackles, and the leaves rattle, and the spoon scrapes the iron pan. 

“Will neither of you join me?”

The fire-stoker stops, and turns. His face had been rugged, though now is gaunt and drooping from unrelenting despair, and darkness encircles eyes which have been tortured by vision. “We can prolong no more. There is nothing left, it’s all bare.”

“What about you, Revan?” he says, addressing the man against the pine.

Revan hesitates, and looks to the fire-stoker. “I will come, Ori. Though I share similar worries—I dream no longer of rain.”

Revan is a pine growing in an oak’s shadows, tall, but thin, and yearning for that which he will never have. Swollen joints protrude like knots from a frail frame; he rattles in wind. 

“My hope is dry like the river beds,” the fire-stoker says. “Any food we find is scraps. Any water brown puddles in rock. I cannot live teetering always on death.”

Ori leans his bow against the rock face, then sits beside it. Sun continues its sky-journey and fills the camp with scalding midday light. Revan wraps a cloth around his face and leans weakly back. Sweat pools on the fire-stoker’s brow, streams over dirty cheeks, and hisses as it falls from chin to fire.

“I dream of rain,” Ori says, “and meat, still. Rivers flood in my mind, and deer are full-bodied from green leaves and fresh shoots. The sky is gray and the air misty.” He looks to the others, aiming to inspire some reaction.

“Not a cloud in the sky for months—this world suits no longer the needs of man,” the fire-stoker says. 

“Hieser may be right,” Revan says. “I know not what compels my survival, but know it is not hope.”

Shadows shift and contort as the fire dances. After some time, Heiser fills Ori and Revan’s raised bowls with a third each of the bubbling berry syrup—blueberries, teaberries, partridge berries, all meager fruits from the ground which had been withering close to death. 

Ori empties his bowl, and lays in a concavity of the cliff to escape Sun desiccation, though still perspires heavily from heat. Before he closes his eyes to rest through midday’s calidity, he addresses Revan and Heiser:

“I leave at dusk, alone or otherwise, towards the vultures.”

Heiser, having found a shaded area beneath wind-felled pines, shifts his body but remains silent. Revan responds from beneath a stained white cloth:

“Wake me when it is time.”

Ori nods, then turns his face towards the rock. Stone is cooler than the air, and he rests his hand upon it. It is emaciated from heat and hunger, skeletal in appearance, and decaying. He dares not observe it any longer and falls into a shallow sleep. In his half-dreams flowers wither to dust, rivers are roads of cracked mud, and vultures starve as even death becomes scarce. My hope is waning; Revan must not know. 

The dry air cools at dusk, and Ori awakes when a breeze chills sweat on his brow. Soft purple has replaced day’s shallow blue and the full moon hovering above skeletal trees is surreal in its opalescence.    

Ori softly nudges Revan. He is slow to rise, but quickly gathers his belongings. With quivers and bows shouldered, and small rucksacks of provisions slung across torsos, they start southward. It was difficult to leave Heiser, though implausible to alter his mind—his stubbornness had stalled lesser decisions. Still, Revan etched an arrow in the dirt pointing towards the vultures.

Shadows are long in Moon’s pallid glow and dusty silicates, disturbed as Ori and Revan walk, glitter softly in pale light. Tree shadows imprint on desiccated ground. Dark polygon braids litter the landscape. The sky is only black—stars muted by moonlight—and cloudless. Insects rattle and chirp into empty night, though they are scant in number. Soon, Revan thinks, night will be silent. They rest upon a granite ridge and look over forest graveyards. Bare branches rattle in a soft breeze. Over westward hills lies a motionless town. A steeple backlit by Moon’s light rises from wooded darkness. Perhaps people are there amongst splintering structures, scraping cans and making difficult decisions. Or they have fled, as the living eventually must, to forage berries or kill game, to find moisture. It is likely they argued over their direction of travel, knowing not that no correct decision could be made; and quarreled behind doors, then openly, about leaving weak behind—the less empathetic won always, and the crippled and maimed withered in beds, or hobbled hopelessly into woods and died amongst rotting leaves. These ruins littered the landscape, and their stories of melancholic despair repeated evermore.

“Should we search the town?” Revan asks. 

Ori brings a moosewood berry to his mouth. It is sour and tough, but the juice is nectar upon his tongue. He shakes his head.

“Nothing is there,” he says, “nothing for us.”

The downward path meanders through lifeless oaks, and loose soil descends the slope like water beneath each step. Stillness permeates the landscape. Devoid beings enclose. No longer is life dominant over its opposite. Instead of pollen, petals, or insects fluttering through air, there is only dust. Before everlasting drought, one did not notice trees’ breaths, or streams’ pulse. It was not until death’s reign that life’s once-encompassing power was realized. 

In a valley between ridges, Ori and Revan stop to rest. The air is cool, and the next slope gentle, but malnutrition and dehydration foster deep weakness. Each movement requires more effort than the last—the time would come when one takes their final step.

Revan sits upon a trunk caught between two trees, perpendicular to the ground. Moonlight silhouettes features and shapes. Ori observes with sorrow Revan’s gaunt form. Amongst shadows, the boy disappears, he thinks,  he is still as stone, jagged as fallen branches. Revan spoke not of hope, though exuded it, and offered much trust to Ori to foster it. His subtle optimism encumbered Ori. I cannot carry this.

Moon’s light is darkened momentarily. An upwards glance shows a gliding shadow, a bird with such hunger that desperation has pervaded once restful nights. When the bird disappears fully behind distant barren canopy, Revan looks to Ori, and whispers:

“Not quite hungry enough yet.” 

Ori can no longer manifest smiles, and wonders instead if the bird had even seen them, their starving bodies appearing more as destitute trees than human. Predators of air and ground were scarce, though haggard and frenzied from hunger—what unseen yellow eyes did watch desperately from tangled brush, patient even as a violent yen for flesh pulsed through them? 

Nervous eyes scan unseeable forest. Ori nods southward, and Revan slides from his perch. The crackle of dead leaves underfoot has intensified, or the forest’s silence draws closer. They crest the next hill, then descend into the a small glen. They stop before a line of disturbed ground perpendicular to their direction.

“Footprints,” Revan says, “many of them.”

Ori follows the prints east, where the dried stream bed softly descends, then up the hill to the west. Without rain, soil is disturbed only by wind and footfall, and the air has been still for many days—it is difficult to assume the prints’ age. Though, despite the weakly defined nature of footfalls into desiccated ground, it is clear, due to the orientation of more distinct impressions, that the group was heading down the hill and had not returned. 

“We’ll keep moving,” Ori says. “I can’t say if they’re near, but they seem to be moving away.”

Atop the opposite slope the canopy thins, and bare stone is underfoot. The southern view is uninterrupted by tree or shrub, which shows a desiccated lake bed stretching for many miles beyond shoreline hills. It was over this lake that Ori had observed vultures, and he strained his eyes to discern dark spots atop the dried mud flat—perhaps carcasses which drew scavengers. Ori turns to Revan, who is crouching low, to inquire about the dark spots, but notices his attention is elsewhere. 

Revan, noticing in his periphery that Ori faced him, points east, into the valley, and whispers, “Look.” Ori crouches to mimic his view.

At the base of their hill, a caravan is walking through the forest, their movement obvious beneath bare canopy and full Moon’s light. They are not far from the travelers, as the hill is only gently elevated—with focus entirely on the caravan, their crackling footfalls become audible. 

Revan grips tightly his bow. Ori brushes his shoulder with a calming arm. The young man had never been so close to a large group since the Rain’s End. Ori understood his anxiety, as drought had bred aggression in humans, but concealment in stillness was vital. 

Traveling in night’s coolness was common, though groups of dozens were not. Revan turned, and whispered:

“They must have seen the vultures.” 

Ori nodded. A decision must be made. Dozens traveled southward in the valleys below—likely armed, and with such numerical advantage, it was imperative that they did not meet. With the group so close, slow, quiet movement was necessary, but means they would not reach the lake before the travelers. Even if they moved quick enough while avoiding detection, concealment is null on the lake bed. 

“How much food do you have?” Ori asks. 

Revan removes the bag from his shoulder. “A few handfuls of crickets. And a finger of water.”

Ori strokes his chin. They have acclimated to starvation and fervent thirst, having survived thus far with only mud, berries, and insects. But my bag is empty, and my water the thinnest line in my canteen, Ori thinks, Revan cannot know. Death was near, though the difference between life and death had become indiscernible. “We won’t beat them to the lake, and we can’t meet them. But, if they find something of worth, we can steal it.”

Revan places a hand on his temple. “You mean follow them until their day-rest, then grab it while they’re unaware? I doubt a group of such size has no security.”

“Two or three will be easier to deal with than dozens.” 

Revan glances at his meager rations, then meets Ori’s eyes. “We have no choice.” 

They remained atop that bare ledge until the caravan was out of view, then followed their imprints down the hill. Once in the glen from whence they came, they veered eastward, their feet falling for the first time in many moons upon the prints of other survivors. Eventually the glen recedes unto flat land where once a swamp flourished. Ori and Revan kneel under the tall, skeletal grasses, following a trail of flattened or broken stems. The swamp’s opposite edge is walled by dense, barren thicket, and the prints turn left to avoid them; there is another inlet to the swamp, and the thickets give way there. 

Dark stones, stained by water long unflowing, make their quiet path as they continue into the forest, using only the sparse imprints in sandy areas as their guide to the caravan. Revan stops and squats over a hole in sand, dug nearly three feet deep, which is bordered by many footprints—there is no water. Onward they walk for nearly a mile until Ori raises a hand and perks his ear. He sniffs the air, then whispers:

“Woodsmoke.”

The scent emanates from their right, and they kneel on the streambed to listen. Faintly are voices carried on the still night air, coming to them like phantoms, otherworldly and indiscernible. Revan begins to stand, but is pulled down harshly by Ori—leaves rustle behind them, loudly and from numerous angles. Ori grips the boy’s arm and guides them both to lay flat against the dark streambank, hidden among the full Moon mosaic and dark stones, as the rustling nears. Like ambush soldiers of some horrible war, a dozen dark-clad figures come storming through the forest, all yelling and whooping, and with guns held at their waists—so close were some that the sand disturbed by their footfalls landed on Revan’s back. Silent night became at once a cacophony of screams and gunfire, voices calling out, people running blindly into the forest to escape massacre felled swiftly by bullets. 

Ori places a trembling hand on Revan’s back, who heaves with quelled sobs. After much savage commotion from the caravan, the violence recedes, and the Moon fades into blue and Sun returns. A cicada rattles nearby, roused by dawn’s unrelenting heat. Ori raises his head and peers over the streambank towards the site of massacre; there is no movement nor sound. He tugs on Revan’s shoulder and he stands, and his face is red and moist with tears. Revan notches an arrow with trembling hands and follows close to Ori as they move with immense care towards the massacre site. Trees are splintered from gunshots, and a body dressed wholly in black lies motionless among dead leaves, which they give a wide berth. The caravan had constructed camp in a depression adjacent the lakebed—Ori and Revan go prone and crawl to its edge. 

It is ransacked: canvas tents shredded and burnt, tossed asunder, mottled with bullet holes. Blood stains the ground in long streaks, or had puddled, soaking swiftly into thirsty ground. Bodies are gathered in the depression’s center, all naked and most are mangled beyond recognition. Vultures circle overhead, their shadows warped by Dawn’s narrow Sun.

“Wait here,” Ori says.

Revan nods and Ori slides down the depression's sandy embankment. He moves with care, but all is silent. His path weaves through blood and debris—there is nothing left. Canvas hangs limp from wooden frames like the flag of some defeated nation, a statue to complete ruin. The body pile in the center pulls him forth like a whirlpool, for he feels compelled to lay eyes on the victims of this inhumanity. 

There is a woman lying on the sand. Her hair is long and dark and splayed above her head like a headdress. She is tall and gaunt. Despite the surrounding violence, she was relatively untouched. Her life ended quickly, a single red mark on her forehead. Ori kneels beside her, and observes her deeper. There is a tube in her chest, just above her heart. It is red and from its rim blood languidly drips; all the bodies share this heart-tube, drained like the prey of some ravenous arachnid. He stares at the woman for some time, knowing but not wanting to accept this new reality. That reality in which the survivors are those who massacre the weak and make unholy wells of their bodies; for what had humans become but vessels of life-bringing nectar? This world is no longer for me.

He stands and looks to Revan. The boy’s tears had made streaks over the dirt on his cheeks. Monsters exist and would be the architects of the new world. “Come on, Revan,” Ori called to him. “Let’s keep moving; we need to find shade.”