The world remains, p.12
The World Remains, page 12
Instinct told me to flee.
I was easy to read.
“Don’t run from me,” said the tall young man. “Whatever you do, don’t run.”
Chapter 6: First Contacts
Don’t run. Don’t cry. Only the foolish issue commands like those.
Children impulse to do the forbidden. So, too, do the grown when in the midst of panic or danger. Condemnation only makes the action that much more appealing – particularly when it comes from the mouth of a stranger.
Being the foolish thing that I am, I’ve made that mistake, issuing commands carelessly. Never does it end well. Never does it end in the interest of the people it’s meant to save.
“Don’t run,” the stranger said again, taking a step toward the bed. He held his hands in a gesture of surrender.
The gesture meant nothing. Like hell I wouldn’t run! What the heck was an outsider even doing there?! And what would happen if anyone found out I’d made contact with him?! I’d never paid much attention to the specifics of the Melojim, but I was pretty sure crossing paths with an outsider qualified as something greater than or equal to treason.
Like it had on the day I’d first witnessed the videotaped mass of true Remnants, my breath came short. All the same, I sprang from the bed and made a wild charge at the door. The true Remnant caught me round the waist. He was strong. His arms were long and lean and they held me tightly to his hip, though I kicked and squirmed.
“Let go!” I cried.
“Shh, shh. Just calm down, all right?” The Remnant laughed a little. “Aren’t you curious about me? I’d heard you were taken with things that are . . . different.”
He’d heard? How had he . . . It didn’t matter. It was hard to see his features clearly beneath the amber glow of twilight, but there was no mistaking it: He was one of them. His hair was dark. Like mud. Like rock. Like wet wood. How peculiar that hair could be that color. . . . But I couldn’t waste time examining it. He’d said not to run, so that was exactly what I felt compelled to do.
I elbowed the Remnant in the face.
“Ouch!” he yelled. “Harsh!” He didn’t let go, but his left arm loosened its hold just a little. Enough for me to slip out of it. I planted my feet and dropped to the floor. His arms slid upward and collided with my chest. Or rather, they collided with my breasts.
“Ah!” He let out a yelp and threw his arms completely from me.
That was odd. Odd behavior for a . . . a capturing . . . mannish . . . thug guy. Wait, what was going on? Why had he let go? If he meant to harm me, then why had he let go just because he’d hit my chest? My panic started to cede.
But my feet were still afraid. They continued to move. Out of the house, through the garden, into the orange, shadow-infested forest beyond.
“Stop!” the man called. “Honestly, what do you think I’m gonna do to you?”
What did I think? Well . . . I just wasn’t sure about that, but whatever it was, it wasn’t something good!
“I didn’t expect this, you know.” He sounded close. Damn. He was faster than me?! Well, that was no great feat, really, but what was I supposed to do about it?
“No!” I cried.
“Geez!” He grabbed at my shirt. “Settle down, spazoid!”
Spazoid? That was a familiar insult. But it wasn’t enough to stop my running feet. I tore from the path, distraught and mindless, into the part of the wood without even ground. Through the decayed-limb underbrush, I hoped to lose him, but it was no use. He was still at my back. He was nearly there.
“You can trust me!” he insisted. And from behind, a hand grappled onto my shoulder. “I’m a friend!”
Friend? Yeah right! I wasn’t buying it!
“A FRIEND, you hear? Ever hear of a guy named Olté?”
That was it was. If my feet wanted to run further, there was nothing they could do. At my secret person’s name, I forced myself static. But I did so abruptly. The Remnant pummeled into my back, I lost balance, and we nearly toppled. We would have, had it not been for his footwork. It was swift enough to steady us both. I clung to the stranger’s arm for support, asking,
“You . . . know Olté?”
But that was a dumb question. Uttering Olté’s name in and of itself meant the man knew him. But that didn’t necessarily mean he was a friend. He could’ve been . . . an agent. Or something. A someone from the world beyond who’d found Olté; who’d caught Olté; who’d come to erase anyone commiserating with the forbidden ninety-first member of our Purité commune.
Amidst the confusion and auburn, I struggled to get a proper view of his face. Were his eyes trustworthy? Were his lips lying? But when I tried to focus, I found myself dizzy. I’d gotten overworked. His face was blurred.
“I was told a girl would be there. I was told to give her a message,” he said. “Are you the one . . . Huh? H-hey!”
The Remnant noticed what I, too, was beginning to feel. A change. More accurately, a deterioration. Not now. Of all times, not now!
“Hey! You okay?!” The man took my arm just as my legs began to give.
No, I wasn’t okay. It always happened when it was least wanted it to. Though, in all fairness, I never exactly wanted my blood to weaken.
“Dummy.” The man’s voice was low. It was also affectionate. He held up the weight of my body, which was trying its hardest to collapse into the ground. “Why were you even running? Since when have you become so skittish?” Since when? Another peculiar thing for a stranger to say.
I couldn’t answer him. I was out of it – nauseous; ready to fade – when I vaguely heard something. The sound of an onlooker moving away stray branches. The branches cracked in defiance.
“Oh,” said the Remnant’s evaporating voice. “It’s you, Ri. Did you see that? Some reaction, huh?”
But that was all I heard before falling deeper and deeper.
The dreamworld welcomed me with snaring arms.
There was a bridge I was trying to cross. A very long, very thin bridge that was swinging from side to side across an open pit. On the opposite bank, there was no one. Still, I knew I had to cross. Maybe it wasn’t to run to someone, but to run from someone. Yeah, that sounded about right.
I made it a third of the way across, and then I was no longer on a bridge. Suddenly, I was trying to squeeze through a dreadfully small opening. My head wouldn’t fit. I tried to force it. The frame of the hole pushed against my temples. Fearing entrapment, I clawed at the sides, and they became lenient. Soppy. Like rotting wood. Everything was wet.
When I awoke, everything was still wet.
“Olté! She’s coming to!” said a new voice. The new voice was hyper. I couldn’t tell if it belonged to a man or a woman.
“Well, get off her, Croix!” said a man. No, not a man. THE man. The man who’d been chasing me.
I opened my eyes. I couldn’t tell where I was for sure, but I knew I was in a room. A well-lit room. THE man was leaning over me. He was coming into focus. Finally, I could make him out. Skin that was golden. Hair that was dark. A chin that held stubble. And eyes that were . . . green. Bright green and flecked with bits of amber.
I knew those eyes.
“Olté!?” I cried on impulse. But then . . . No. Those were his eyes, but they couldn’t be. There were two of them. And one of Olté’s eyes was blue. Not to mention, the skin, the hair, the height, the voice. All of those qualities were different, too.
But it didn’t make sense. If that was true, why, then, did it feel like I was looking at Olté? Why was my heart beating off-kilter? Why did I feel like throwing my arms around him?
Because I was desperate. And because I hadn’t fully come back to my senses. I wanted this person – this agent – to be Olté, so that was who I was seeing. But it wasn’t Olté. It was desperation. Pathetic desperation that was playing a trick on me. But desperation also served to take away most of my fear. Now I was just curious.
The Remnant studied me. “Have I really changed that mu-”
“Don’t bother.” The hyper voice was less hyper now. “She’s confused. Think about it, man. Self-tanner. Hair dye. Contacts? None of that stuff’s even in her vocabulary. Not to mention, you’ve probably sprouted since the last time she saw you. You’re so different her mind can’t accept it. She can’t comprehend how you could’ve gotten that way. Get it?”
I tried to find the source of the voice. That person had said Olté’s name too. And that person was trying to get something across. I was still a little too dazed to gather it, though. If only I could make eye contact. If only I could find the other –
“No, don’t do that.” The green-eyed man shook his head. “It’s going to be a lot for you. I just want to take is slow, okay? Ash, look at me. It’s ME.”
“You?”
“Dang, space-case! Do I have to spell it out for you? It’s ME. It’s Olté! Remember? You DO remember, right? You haven’t forgotten me, have you?”
“Hee! Wouldn’t that be the rocks?” The hyper voice turned hyper again. “After everything you’ve gone through?”
“Shut it, Croix! You aren’t helping!”
Croix. The name of the other person was Croix. And the green-eyed boy was . . .? Wait, boy? Why was I thinking of this man that way? Because . . . he was a boy, in a sense. He was a man in many other senses, but beneath the face stubble, he still looked boyish. His eyes. His cheeks.
“Are you hearing me, Ash?” The stranger leaned closer. “I’m Olté. There are ways to alter appearance. This,” – He pointed to his left eye – “is fake. It’s like this little slip thing you put over your eye to change the color. I don’t know how to explain it without showing you, but I CAN’T show you right now, so you’re just going to have to trust m-”
But his voice was muffled because I’d just clasped him round the neck.
“OLTÉ!”
“A-Ash!” Olté hesitated. I felt him hesitate due to the forwardness of the motion, but then he seemed not to care. He put his hands around the top of my hair and breathed deeply. “Ashy,” he whispered. “I missed you.”
It felt good. It felt so good to be held by him. Different than it had been before. We were both older now, and never had hugging him made me feel so . . . desiring. My blood began pumping in my neck and ribcage. Rapidly. Insinuatingly. His body was thicker than before. His Adam’s apple more prominent. His jawline sharper.
“Olté,” I said again, squeezing the back of his shirt. I was thinking of nothing but him. I was thinking neither of where we were, nor of the hyper stranger in the place with us. Nor the anger hidden beneath my delight. “Where have you been?” I said.
“Long story.”
Where, oh, where had he been? I wanted to know. It didn’t really matter since he was here with me again, but still I wanted to know. Or . . . No, that wasn’t quite right. Something in the depths of my gut was pushing, trying to get out. I didn’t ‘want’ to know where he’d been. I needed to know, didn’t I? I needed to know . . . because he’d left. Because he’d just up and left without any real explanation? Yeah! That was what the jerk had done! And he’d been gone all that time! All that time I’d been waiting for him!
It came pushing out, from the darkest parts of me, in a bitter outburst.
“YOU BIG JERK!” I pounded my fists against his chest. “You stupid head! What were you thinking?! Just leaving like that?!”
“I told you,” he said calmly. “Everything is for you.”
But I wasn’t listening. “I didn’t know what happened to you! You could’ve been dead for all I knew! Where were you?! And for that matter, where are we right now?!” I finally wrenched my drilling gaze from Olté and placed it around . . . wherever we were.
It turned out to be someplace small, indeed. A small box of a room with hardly enough room for a cot. There were no windows. There was no anything, really – save the back, where a figure crouched in a patch of darkness.
“G’day!” he sang when I noticed him.
“Don’t look at him, Ash!” commanded Olté. He threw himself between the stranger and me.
“Who’s that? What’s going on? Where are we?” I tapped a fist against the wall of the room. It made a clanking sound. Metal?
“I will answer you, only once you’ve cooled yourself down a bit!” said Olté.
“Cool myself down? How can you possibly say that after what you’ve put me through!” I lashed.
“After what I’ve put you through? What about me? What about our little trek through the woods? What about you completely forgetting who I was? You didn’t even recognize me!”
“Well! You’re all different! You know! Your hair. And your eyes! And . . . your voice is deeper . . . and . . . and stuff.” I blushed. I felt it in my cheeks and neck.
Why was I blushing?
“And stuff, huh?” Olté grinned.
My face grew even warmer. I hid it in my hand.
“You’re different too, Ash,” he said.
“I . . . am?”
His face turned serious. “You are.”
“Oh.” My pulse had reached a speed that was deemable annoying. It was in my ears. My head. My wrists. The tight, dense air of the small metal room seemed to be filled with my breath, which was most certainly pouring out of me at a disgusting rate.
Olté was staring at me. Wittingly staring at me without patch, and without shame. How was that possible? How was my knight able to be that way? Confident. Unapologetic of his ‘abomination’. How was I able to look into both his eyes and freely study the forbidden amber pieces of the right iris? How . . .
Olté was grinding his jaw. He seemed frustrated about something. Or maybe he was concentrating hard on something. His hair was shorter than it had been. Before, it had fallen over his face. Now it was pushed to the side. It curled at the bottom, in the places around his neck. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to run my fingers through it. I wanted to . . .
“Shit, Olté! The tension between you two is rank! I know your village is all inbred and crud, but come on, man! She’s your sister! And you look like you’re about to devour her! Get a grip!” The hyper voice shattered whatever ‘tension’ there was.
“Sister?” I was confused. “Oh, I’m not his –”
But Olté’s hand was on my mouth. “It’s okay, Ash!” he said, anxious. “That is, we don’t need to pretend anymore. He knows all about our situation. He knows I’m your brother, and that I was exiled. He even knows about your sickness, so there’s no need to keep up the act. No reason at all, okay?”
Brother? Sister? What the heck? But those green irises were begging me to agree. For some reason I had to pretend to be his sister? Fine. Weird, but fine. I could take a hint.
“Uh, sure, Bro,” I said. “And now you’ll be telling me what’s going on?”
“Er, yeah. About that. It’s a long story.”
He breathed a sigh of relief that I’d agreed to play along. I, on the other hand, breathed a sigh of weariness because I was now only more confused. Hoping for clarity, I tried to steal a gander at the person in the corner, but Olté took my shoulders before I could.
“Promise you’ll keep your back to Croix until after I’m finished,” he said.
“Him?” I pointed to the back. “Why? That’s rude.”
“Naw. Your brother’s probably right,” said the one called Croix. “I’ll only make it worse.”
Brother. That felt wrong. And I wasn’t supposed to look at Croix? I didn’t understand why, but I tipped my head in agreement.
Olté sucked a breath, faced me squarely, and then he told me everything.
“I’d been thinking about leaving for a while,” he said. “It wasn’t spontaneous or anything like that. My hunting trips – my trips through the woods – I guess those were the beginning. Those were my recon missions.”
“Recon missions?”
Olté nodded. “Putting my invisibility to good use. I knew I was the only one who could explore the far reaches of the place without them noticing.”
“Far reaches? Like through the woods?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I don’t get it. What were you looking for?”
Unblinking, Olté left his eyes on mine. He left them there, and his jaw bulged at the back to show he was flexing it. That was new. That was a new little quirk. I wanted to poke the place where it tensed. After a bit, he said, “I was trying to find the borders of our cage.”
“Bord-”
Croix cut me off. “Inquisitive thing, she is.”
At that, Olté’s mouth wiggled a bit. He spoke nothing to Croix, though. “Your Purité hamlet is one of many, right?” he said instead.
I shrugged. “So they say.”
Olté continued, “But it’s not just a lone village in a secluded part of the world. All of the Purité communes butt right up next to each other. That’s what I found out after I left. They’re separated by these things.” He motioned through the air with his hands. “Uh, how should I explain?”
“Just call ‘em ‘walls’ for now,” Croix suggested.
“Okay, sure. They’re separated by walls. I was trying to figure out just how far into the forest these walls were, but even after going for hours in any given direction I never found anything. No signs of outsiders. No walls of any kind.”
“Again, I don’t get it,” I said. Big surprise there. “How did you even know there were walls?”
“At first I was just looking for other people. You know how the Purités work. Don’t tell the children the forbidden truth, so as not to corrupt them. It’s all a control game. The children’ve gotta to be brainwashed into thinking they’re special and holy and the like. Feed them that rubbish long enough, and they won’t want to leave even after learning the truth. That’s why that particular rule is so important to them.” He lifted his hand with the intent to place it on my shoulder, but it didn’t make it that far. It hung in the air a moment and then dropped, laboriously, onto his leg. “Only you were different, Ash,” he said.
