World’s Gone Crazy

The rapid sound of many footsteps upon the wet concrete approached our hiding place, then passed by and dimmed into the distance. We were safe - for now.
 
I risked a slight movement of my head and peered into Aaron’s deep brown eyes.
 
“Have they gone yet? I whispered quietly.
 
He remained crouched for a while, impassive. Without meeting my eyes, he merely nodded in response. Relieved, we stood up in unison.

Aaron looked around the small warehouse we had stumbled upon in our fleeing from the raid. “Come on,” Aaron said. I grasped his hand tightly. The thought of investigating a room that had obviously been looted long before did not fill me with delight – but I wasn’t going to let him leave my sight. Aaron, sensing my indecisions, turned to me puzzled.     
 
“What’s wrong Kristi?” Then he turned mockingly. “Afraid a Jabberwocky might be lurking in the shadows.
 
“No,” I scowled. “And you shouldn’t even joke about that.” 
 
“Your right,” he apologised, sober. “Sorry.”
 
I nodded, absent minded, and peered into the depths of the room. 
 
“It’s too dark,” I insisted. “There’s no chance we’ll find anything without a torch.”
 
Always prepared, a thin orange tube appeared in Aaron’s hands. He smiled, cunningly. I stifled a chuckle - he was so unpredictable that I sometimes wondered if I really knew him. Yet in a weird way, his randomness had a sort of pattern to it, something familiar, reassuring.
 
I smiled, yet then looked quickly up at the barred window above us.
 
“Is it safe?” I asked, again frightened. “I mean, what if some rebels should see the light?” The square in the wall revealed a fire burning bright on one of the many streets of The City. For now it was our only source of light - and an insufficient one at that. With the smell of ash that wafted from the fire, the memory of The Raid resurfaced in my mind, as a Jack-in-the-box released by a mere flick of a switch.

The screaming of trapped wild-frees and the smell of burning flesh rich in the air - I shuddered. It was suddenly real again, and I instinctively clutched Aaron’s hand as the world around me unbalanced and turned to red. “I’m scared Aaron,” I whispered, and then sobbed. “We’re probably the only ones that escaped.” I felt his arms wrap securely around me, and I hugged him in return. My wet faced buried in his firm chest. “God Aaron - what’s happening to us?”
 
“We’re surviving and that’s what counts.”
 
“Isn’t there more to life then merely existing?”
 
“Once there was, but now,” we clung for a while, silent. Then, breaking out of his melancholia, Aaron moved back slightly and placed his hand under my soot-covered chin, raising my face so our eye’s met. “It’s time.”
 
I nodded, and wiped my face with my grime-covered sleave. My clothes and the man opposite me were the only things that proved I had ever had a life before now. 
 
Aaron flicked on the torch and the thin beam of light peered into the heart of darkness.
We stepped forward.
 
“Wow,” I gawked. “This stuff is really old.”
 
We had passed through several cubicles, remembering our path in case we had to backtrack. We had wandered for several minutes, until finally - rumbling through a pile of empty and discarded casks – we had stumbled upon a trapdoor leading down a flight of steps. Through the portal darkness stared back so densely that not even the torch could pierce it.
 
Before I could suggest we turn around and try another door – in spite of all of their locks hanging smashed and useless - Aaron gingerly edged forward. Taking a deep breath, I followed, unsurprised if my next step would be my last.
 
By some miracle we reached the basement below. Now we stood in awe at the richness of the treasure we had stumbled upon. The torch beam passed along shelves packed with cans, plastic boxes, all covered by a thick layer of dust from the ages.
 
“Wait,” I ordered. “Point the torch back over there again.”
 
The beam swung back to rest on a small hemisphere which - where the dust had failed to grasp onto it - reflected the light into a thousand other directions.
Aaron picked it up, his bewildered expression equalling mine. Gently, he took it in both hands, treating it was if a single breath might crush it into a million tiny shards forever. He wiped the surface clean with an ever-present bandanna around his neck.
 
“It’s beautiful,” my voice croaked harshly. “It’s so beautiful!” Beneath the layer of grit was a tiny world, safe beneath a dome of glass. I turned to Aaron, who grinned back. But there was something else beneath his smile – a sadness I had never seen before. Suddenly he began shaking the half-globe madly. Before I could cry out, though, he handed it to me in outstretched, cupped hands. The scream froze in my mouth. In the centre of the dome stood a tiny cabin, surrounding it a thick collection of strange green poles, with smaller poles stretching out from their sides. White flecks that slowly fell down around the dome and settled as a fine layer upon the ground. “What are they?” I asked, pointing at the green poles.
 
“They’re trees, Kristi,” Aaron answered, the strange sadness now in his voice. I looked up – and though he stared at the dome, I knew he was no longer beside me. 
 
“And that?” I pointed to white flecks.
 
“That’s snow.” 
 
“’Chnough’?” I tried the word in my mouth, unsure, and looked up at him for his approval, to see his cheeks glittering damply. I reached out – and the torch-light flickered, loosing its brightness.
 
“Damn,” he cursed, back by my side – “batteries drying up.” 
 
I turned, and started scanning the labels on the containers. Soon I found one filled with the greasy white sticks that Aaron called ‘kandals’. I handed one to him. He pulled out his lighter and thumbed the top – producing an almost inaudible hiss but no flame. He tried again. And again, and then began cursing madly. He threw the lighter and kandal down onto the ground and made to climb the nearby flight of stairs. 

“Wait,” I said quietly, staring down at the lighter, and kandal, lying at my feet – pieces of a jig-saw puzzle taking shape in my mind’s eye. I crouched down, picking up the two items up, and stood again. I fished my own lighter.
 
“It’s out of gas – you know that. We have to go – the torch is almost dead.”
 
I passed him the kandal by the wick, and held the top of the two lighters together, trying them both at once. A bright orange flame ripped into the darkness. I moved Aaron’s lighter slowly to the candle, and the wick burst into flames. 
 
“The sparky bit on your lighter wasn’t working, but there was more then enough juice. The sparky bit on mine was working - but there wasn’t a drop of juice left. Working together they lit our fire. ‘And they all lived happily ever after’.”
 
Aaron burst into laughter for the first time in - in forever.
 
“Very good - very good indeed,” he affirmed, genuinely impressed. I smiled.
 
Together, we looked around the basement with the aid of our newly lit kandal. The basement was small - barely a dozen paces wide and long. Yet the quantity and quality of materials and supplies that had been stored in here countless decades ago was astounding: roles of toilet paper, cans of food, more kandals, guns and ammunition, even a strange circular board with checked circles within it, spiralling down into the centre. Our final finds were a plastic-wrapped mattress. We unrolled a sleeping bag we’d found earlier, and collapsed, exhausted, and feeling something resembling happiness. 
 
I awoke to the sound of my own stomach groaning. Greedily we attacked a pile of supplies we had put aside. I didn’t want to think of how we would take them out of the building, how we would survive long enough to use any of them, where we would go once we made it to the surface. As we ate, though, thoughts of the future became easier to ignore. We dined on a cold, weird flavoured fruit Aaron called lychees, on peaches, and sculled the best tasting water I’d ever had. 
 
We rolled back onto the bed and lay for a while, staring at the ceiling as the Kandal burned down. With a seemingly infinite supply, conservation wasn’t a concern. Aaron drew a deep breath of the cold, stale air.
 
“What you said about the two Dragon’s working together, so that they could make a fire. It was very true and I - I couldn’t but help look at it a different way.”
 
I turned my head and peered into the side of his face, the kandal-light dancing on his cheek. 
 
“What sort of way?” I asked.
 
“Well, us two.” He frowned. And I knew that he was trying to explain something that had for many years been obvious to me, yet I never had attempted to put feelings into words. “Like, when you’re away on one of your expeditions. I feel as useless as a lighter with fuel but no spark. I’ve got - all this potential, yet without you, it all seems worthless.
 
“And it’s the same with the other wild-frees - if you hadn’t come along we all would’ve been finished long before the rebels tracked us down to our hide out. You’re our lifeline to another world - a better world without all this-” he flicked his hand, signifying the world beyond the basement. “And hope in the chance that there is better - that’s what separates us from them.” 
 
‘Them’ meaning the Rebels: the ones who, when strong, controlled the streets, roamed in pacts, enforcing their rule on a useless patch of cement; the ones who, when hungry, hunted us.
 
“What I’m trying to say is that-” his face twisted in frustration. I laid a comforting hand on his forehead.
 
“I know.” I rolled over and put my lips to his, eventually rolling back.
 
“What was that for?” Aaron asked, surprised. Yet he could tell from the look on my face what it was for. He rolled forward, and stole a long kiss of his own.
 
The dampness of sleep evaporated quickly from my body. With a sharp inhale I opened my eyes and blinked – still darkness lay draped around me. I sat up quickly. This bed felt different from the usual soft bundles of rags of my sleeping pile. With a lurch the memory of the past day came back, and I slumped back as I realised that the nightmare I had barely escaped from was reality. The complete darkness that enveloped me seemed to swim. I moaned, willing the blackness back into light. In a few moments it did: a light appeared on the other side of the room and quickly approached, Aaron’s face floating behind it.
 
“Nightmare?” Aaron asked.
 
I struggled to control my voice.
 
“I’m- I’m scared Aaron. It’s so dark.”
 
Sitting beside me on the bed, the flame close to my face, he wrapped his free hand around my waist. I drank in the smell of his perspiration, clinging to him.
 
“I want to show you something.” 
 
I looked up, and nodded. He led me to the other side of the room. We approached the flight of stairs that we had descended the night before, the Kandal light revealed a large door that we had previously overlooked.
 
I began to take in what Aaron was so excited about.
 
“A car - I found a car.” I stared at him in a stupor. The word was new to me - as much the other words Aaron used when telling stories his mentor - before he had become yet another victim of the Rebels - had once told him. Eventually, the new word conjured the image of the empty metal shells that littered the streets. With a swift motion of his hand, Aaron pulled a dust-covered cloth from the metallic beast. The ka was entirely different from those on the surface: a huge red box, its surface reflecting the kandal light like a red mirror; its front, sides and back covered in unbroken glass, the inside warm and inviting. It was something from a dream. “I’ll take you to the snow, to the trees - Kristi. I’ll show you what it means to be alive.”
 
The ka roared like a mob of Rebels. My body vibrated uncontrollably, the sound filling my ears.
 
“Ready?” Aaron bellowed, and I nodded, grabbing hold of the belt that Aaron had strapped over me, and holding on like hell. “Then let’s go.”
 
We cried out together as the car lurched forward, and I felt my back press hard against the seat. I gasped, fighting for breath – as the lit wall in front of us exploded, and the car ploughed through. Instinctively I raised my arms to fend off the splinters – the glass held, and we sped out into the street. 
 
The car’s abrupt presence did not go unnoticed: a dozen rebels from different clans stood on the street, dumbstruck by the sudden appearance of the huge red beast. Aaron’s arms twisted the disc in front of him as he tried to avoid the startled onlookers. The nose of the car dug into their sides, flinging them into the air. The piercing lights that stood on the front of the nose flooded the small street. The rebels dropped their clubs and pipes and covered their arms with their raised arms. 
 
I rested my eyes upon Aaron’s earnest face. His arms twisted from side to side in swift, controlled motions. Firelight played on his unshaved chin and his blue eyes. I leaned against the seat, blocking out the noise, the chaos, leaving only Aaron, my world: the one sane thing in a world gone crazy. It all made sense: I would surrender myself to the promise that still echoed in my mind.
 
The car sped towards the hint of the rising sun, into the dawn, and into freedom.
 
-- Ash Hibbert

Image Courtesy: www.flickr.com/photos/alyssafilmmaker/