I am Aura

There is no way, no possible way, that I could be doing what I’m doing right now without, yet here I am. 

Perched in a cherry blossom’s full, blooming branches, I sweep the forest around me with my sharp eyes. My bow sits ready in my hand, arrow strung and string taught. My breath is next to silent, sneaking in and out of my mouth with little more than a shake of my dark curtain of hair. 

My hair is supposed to be twisted and in a woven bun, but obviously, running for my life and flying through the forest changed that. 

I peer past the branch, searching the forest for unnatural movement. There’s no way this is happening. Humans are gone. I’m alone, I have been for a year. There is no one left but myself and the flora and fauna on this planet. 

Except there was someone. 

Checking one last time for any kind of sign, I jump out of the tree, floating the twenty feet to the ground at the pace of the petals falling beside me. My feet are wrapped in strips of deer hide, and make no sound on the carpet of pine needles and moss. Eyes darting East and West, I’m scouring the thimbleberries and salal and trees for any kind of being. There’s a raccoon in a sitka spruce, ten paces to my North, and I can hear the elk herd romping around in the marshes about two hundred paces North-West. Other than that, no life big enough to be human. 

Human. The word sends a shiver down my spine. After the War, only kids survived. The chemical weapons used to attack civilians had given some of us abilities that were unheard of to scientists, but less than two years later, I was the only one left. Or so I thought. 

The sharp snap of a stick launches me into the air, and I spring into my ready position. Knees bent, toes brushing the tops of the salal bushes as I hover, my deadly arrow tip directed at the sound. There is no way an animal made such a noise-- prey are afraid of giving themselves away to predators; predators remaining silent to hunt their prey. 

“Show yourself,” I order icily. “Now.” 

Silence fills the forest, and for a second I can hear the waves crashing against the sandy beach, two hundred and fifty paces West. Stillness, from every corner of my vision. 

Drawing my arrow back further, I advance toward the source of the sound. The knife strapped to my leather-clad thigh glints in the early morning light, and I freeze three paces from a spruce tree. There, against the trunk. A shadow. Blurry and deformed, but unique from the shapes of the woods I know so well. 

Sun to the East, shadow to the West… someone is here. Lowering my bow, I sink down from the air until both feet are planted in the ground. The smudges of dirt on my tanned face likely give me a wild look; the green, form-fitting tank on my torso a reminder of a civilized past. 

Resting my hand on the butt of my knife, I lean forward. Closer and closer to the source of the shadow, until I can feel its breath, warm against my cheeks. 

Slowly, the forest air in front of me materializes, and a boy sits, leaned against the tree, knees hugged to his chest. He has to be around my age, some seventeen-- no, is it eighteen?-- years. His dirty red hair is long, and accented with bits of moss that must have stuck recently. 

I’m shocked, beyond words. A person, like me. Alive, and in my woods. My breath comes quickly, and I’m stinging with a numb feeling. About three years of trapping, hunting, gathering, building shelters and sewing clothes and living off the land. All this, and there was another. 

I’m floating again, and the boy is watching me. 

“You can fly.” He says this as a statement, the hoarse edge to his voice no doubt lack of use. 

“You can camouflage,” I counter. He smiles, and sticks out a hand. 

I tilt my head, and notice a lone dandelion resting on his palm. Glancing back up at his freckled face, I infer this gesture as friendly. Weighing the options, I stand quiet for a minute. 

Finally, I reach into the pouch tied to my left hip, removing a small handful of deep purple berries. Salal. 

Smiling again, the boy accepts the berries, and I tuck the golden flower into my berry bag. 

“Name?” The question takes me back. There is something they used to call me, back when ‘mother’ and ‘father’ and ‘friend’ were things I knew. But thinking this, I know there is no going back. I’m solo, strong, clever. I rack my brain, and finally emerge with a memory. 

A picture book, about Greek gods and goddesses, one a beautiful personification of air, wind, and the breeze. She was quick-thinking, sure of herself and her surroundings, and held herself accountable to get things done. 

“Aura.” 

The name slips off my tongue, and when I look at the boy’s eyes, I know it’s true. I have adapted, created, lived a life fuller than anything the girl I was before the war could have ever imagined. This girl, the one who has lived by the sea, has the instinct to harvest wapato root in the summer, gather berries in the spring, to set traps and sew clothes for the colder seasons. She views the land as the ticket to life, enjoys the freeness of air, wind, and space, and lives undaunted, fearless, and bold. 

“I am Aura,” I say again, the name setting in my memory and my soul. This is me, Aura, tamer of the gentle spring breeze and howling autumn storm. Floating here and there throughout the ferns, fresh with morning dew. Gliding over the ocean’s crashing waves, pounding against the sandy shore. Drifting through the forest as deer nudge pockets with their wet noses in search of lunch. Aura, defying gravity and the grasp of fright, leaping out of the sky and tumbling, free, and in control. I am Aura. 

The boy’s lips curve upward, and in that instant I trust him. I can show him the ways of the woods, the secrets of the sea. And I won’t be alone. 

“Clay.” He gestures to himself, then grabs a bag I hadn’t noticed in the commotion of meeting someone. 

“You ready to help me find the others?” He looks to me for a response, and I hesitate. Leave the coast? 

The willows and spruces around me whisper with wind, the cherry blossoms from the tree floating easily around us like summer snow. Plucking one from the air, I tuck it into my raven hair, tying it back with the leather on my wrist. 

“Yes,” I say. “Let’s go.”

I leave without turning back, knowing that someday, I will return.