The World I Know |
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Chapter 3 |
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| The spray opened my eyes. Light that was too intense to be artificial streamed ahead for barely a second. Then we were back under. We were out of the mountain – this much I knew. The wall had collapsed as the force of the water had impacted against it, opening a giant hole to the outside. Somehow, I held on to the raft. So did Kin and Blank. Breathing became my only priority. Time had no meaning. It was an age before the current slowed its merciless thrashing. We lay sprawled on the makeshift raft, defeated and exhausted as the water carried us further away from the broken city. I didn’t register drifting into unconsciousness, but suddenly I was woken. Blank was shaking me upright; we had reached calm waters. I sat up wearily, and looked around - really looked. The world was laid before us in an expanse of colour and majesty, a stunning sight. Stunning because it was dead. The sky was a harsh swirl of greys and whites, with an unnatural hue of purple blended in amongst the black clouds. Whatever land we glimpsed was a menacing charcoal; burnt and scorched beyond recognition. There was a noxious sense in the air, and it wasn’t long before we were coughing and spluttering as we breathed. I forced myself into a sitting position. Kin was curled up on the other side of the raft, saturated and nearly unrecognisable. Blank was propped on his hands, looking down at me worriedly. His glasses were missing, thrown off his face in the turmoil, and he squinted in the harsh light of the white sky. The sunset exploded over the horizon. I blinked the sudden onslaught of oranges and reds out of my eyes and stood hesitantly. The raft seemed stable, supporting me on my two feet robustly enough. We were floating gently, drifting down a river that stretched forever, wide enough that I knew we could not reach land. I stepped to the edge, to see my world below. One word surfaced in the boiling disorder of my thoughts: apocalypse. I turned away. What had caused me to even think that? Kin turned to face us, still in her coiled position, coughing up the dark water. I stepped over to her side and helped her sit up. Her hood fell away. I gasped in unison with Blank. Although wet and clinging to the side of her face, Kin’s hair was a dazzling shade of red unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was the colour of rose, and with its exposure another memory slammed into me. This time I was a small child, barely six, crouched in a secret crawl space inside a conference room. Wearing a nightgown and slippers, I was curled forwards, my eye to an opening offering a view of the room’s proceedings. A meeting was taking place; three men and two women sat at the polished ebony table in the centre of the room. One I recognised: the man from my previous memory, wearing a suit similar to before, seated to the right of the head of the table. His hair was differently styled, shorter, and he was very young, but the smile was unmistakable. The other figures were blurred; memories fading away. I focused on what had really brought me here. Flaming red hair spiralled down her back in illustrious curls that glowed in the light of the chandelier. She sat across from the Familiar Man, and I could make out her voice from my hiding spot. ‘Where will the construction take place?’ She addressed the man at the head of the table, but the Familiar Man answered. ‘In the mountains, most likely. Plans have already been made.’ His voice was curt and lacked the lightness from our previous encounter. ‘There is another place,’ argued the Head. ‘A valley of some sort, am I right?’ ‘Yes…’ replied Flaming Hair distantly. ‘But it would be inconvenient to us if it were -’ ‘No use worrying about convenience,’ cut off Familiar Man. ‘We’ve already begun programming it.’ ‘Already?’ asked Flaming Hair, clearly startled. ‘But we haven’t agreed -’ ‘It’s not about agreement. We just need the people, now.’ The Head of the table looked worried that the discussion was wavering out of hand. ‘Let’s not argue. Fell, we have INES to think about.’ Familiar Man smiled, and Flaming Hair stood up in earnest, leaving the room without another word. I could hear her talking still, but her voice now took on a familiar disembodied air. ‘INES was never a good idea. What will become of us…?’ I snapped back to the present. The woman with the hair so similar to Kin’s… was she a relation? My mind struggled to comprehend these sudden flashes of memory, in no apparent order and utterly useless to my cause. Kin was already slipping the hood back over her head, as if alarmed by her own hair. Blank opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. ‘Kin, how did you begin using fire?’ The words spilled out of my mouth, and I instantly regretted them. Her voice was solemn when she answered, and I saw Blank listen eagerly. ‘I don’t know. It just… happened. No one ever knew, until -’ she broke off suddenly. ‘Until what?’ Blank asked quietly, after a long silence. Kin shrugged, and looked over his shoulder distractedly. I turned to follow her gaze, and saw that the river had begun to narrow. The raft’s sides were almost reaching the muddy banks. ‘We should get to land,’ I prompted, moving over to the edges of the raft. If the current slowed enough, we could risk a jump to the other side. I offered my proposal to the others, who agreed, and decided that we should try; we couldn’t stay here forever. Kin went first, and after a swift run up catapulted herself to the bank, landing on her two feet. Her shoes squelched as she ran to keep up with the raft as it drifted onward. I went next, and Kin caught me as I landed. Blank followed, and soon we were all standing in muck watching our life-saving raft float away into the distance. A minute’s silence resumed as we lost ourselves in our own thoughts. ‘Blank?’ I asked, breaking the stillness. ‘Where did you say the camp was?’ The sky was getting a darker shade as each second passed, and Blank looked from the river to the mountains, now far off in the distance. ‘Farther up the mountains - but we can’t stay outside for long.’ ‘Why not?’ Blank looked at me, puzzled. ‘Do you have any idea what’s happened?’ I shook my head, fearing the worst. The unnatural state of the world seemed evidence enough to my judgements; something was wrong. He began heading into a thickness of trees, leaning over in death and disease, which edged off from the river’s edge. Kin and I followed silently, waiting. Kin’s expression was one of sorrow and loss – I feared to ask her anything. After a while, Blank spoke again. ‘We call it the Great White.’ He turned to face us. ‘There was… an accident. Everything just fell apart. Now – now it’s the end of the world.’ |
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