Anne Winchell - The Last War

Without warning, the lights went out. Outside the window, a white light stretched across the sky, momentarily blinding everyone. When Scott’s vision cleared, the lights were still out. No backup lights came on in their place. Screams filled the darkness and Scott felt tears running down his cheeks. The flight attendants yelled at everyone to stay seated, buckle up, and stay calm, but chaos had already broken out. Luckily everyone was too scared to get up as the plane dropped further in the sky.

The earth seemed so close outside the window, far too close, and it was rising steadily to meet them. The trees were almost as tall as the plane, Scott thought. Then the plane crashed into the ground, sending everyone rushing to the ceiling. Skittering to the right, it bounced up into the air and crashed down again, slowing with each shuddering, screaming collision. Finally, there was silence, broken only by a drawn out wailing.

Scott opened his eyes and raised a hand to his head. There was blood on his fingers. His pelvis felt shattered, but he could move. One of the flight attendants managed to stand up and she urged people towards the emergency exits. She seemed to be trying very hard not to look at the other flight attendant, whose limp body lay in a pool of blood.

Scott managed to climb out of the plane and was surprised as he assessed the other survivors. Everyone was in bad shape, but most had survived. One woman carried a moaning blue bundle and his stomach twisted as a baby’s hand reached out, but at least the baby was alive. His throat constricted as the flight attendant pulled a small girl screaming from plane. He didn’t want to know where her parents were.

The land around them was heavily scarred by the plane, but it appeared to be farmland and mostly uninhabited. His hands shook as he took out his phone, and he frowned as he heard nothing. He checked, but the phone wasn’t damaged in any way. It just wouldn’t work. Could the cell network be down? He saw other people trying their phones with similar misfortune and a new thought struck him. The white light they had seen might have been an electromagnetic pulse, which destroyed anything that depended on electricity to run. EMP weapons had been developed, but none had ever been used. Had Atheus resorted to such means?

An EMP would mean more than just phones being down, it would mean that all of the cars, trains, and even airplanes would fail. The whole planet would be unable to communicate and chaos would reign. Scott wiped his brow and his hand came away slick with sweat and blood. Would all the work he had just put into uniting the Eastern World go to waste because Atheus managed to isolate everyone with a new weapon?

People started to show up from the nearby town and Scott was relieved when he saw doctor’s coats along with the brightly clad farmers. As the two groups met, he recognized one of the women, a former writer for the paper. She paled when she saw him and took him to one side. She forced him to sit and washed and bandaged his head. She was biting her lip to hold back tears and he wondered how bad it was, but he didn’t have time to be hurt. He needed to get to NeoLondon and Raven. Raven would know how to undo the EMP.

“What happened?” Scott asked.

“No one knows. A bright light, everything went dead, phones, computers, everything, and next thing we know a plane’s falling out of the sky. You’re so lucky to be alive.”

“I need to get to NeoLondon.”

“It’s gone,” she said, placing a cold cloth against his head as he winced in pain.

“Someone there can fix things,” he said, not knowing how to explain any further. He was starting to get dizzy and he needed to reach NeoLondon quickly, before his injury caught up with him.

“I have an old fuel-cell car with enough fuel to get to NeoLondon. It might still work.”

“Thank you,” he said, and stood up. He ignored her protests and pushed past her as he headed into the small village nearby and found the car. She accompanied him, protesting the whole time, but she must have seen that this was important because in the end she gave him the key and a kiss, telling him to come back safely.

“I’ll do my best,” Scott said, holding her close for a moment and wondering if he would ever hold Lydia like this again. She would be proud of him, he thought. Pushing aside his own pain to help others. To help Raven. He shut his eyes and prayed that he found Raven alive.

Raven opened his eyes to the sound of someone calling his name. It was a familiar voice. For a moment, he forgot where he was and he remembered Scott calling him like this in an earlier time, after the massacre. He had often come to Díamont Crater to clear his mind, and he would stay for days sometimes until Scott came looking for him. But this time, there was no amusement in his friend’s voice. There was panic. Sheer and utter panic, as if everything in his world was falling apart.

“I’m here,” Raven called.

He didn’t quite seem to be able to stand up and when he looked at himself he realized why. Blood seeped from where Atheus had shot him and his skin was dangerously pale. The rest of his body was covered in minor cuts as if he had been caught by shrapnel. He lifted a hand to his head but could only remember a white light, and nothing before it. His hand was covered in ash and he stared down at the bracelet on the ground before him. Then it hit. The memory of Medane, standing here, sending the gamma rays into the sky but unable to channel all of the energy safely away. Medane, who had cared for him like a father, gone forever.

A tear ran down his cheek just as Scott skidded to the top of nearby column and spotted him.

“Raven! You’re alive!”

Scott leapt down beside him and stared at the bracelet curiously, but his attention was mostly on Raven. He immediately put pressure on the injury and started swearing.

“Of course you’re injured. You don’t know how to stay safe, do you?”

Scott scolded him lovingly and Raven wrapped his arms around the other man in a hug that Scott returned. Scott had a bandage on his head and Raven wondered what had happened. He tried to get to his feet and winced.

“What are you doing?” Scott asked. “I’ll get people to come here.”

“No,” Raven said. “I can walk.”

And he could, with support from Scott. He took one last look at Díamont Crater and the deceptively calm Lake Thames. Lifting the bracelet from the ground, he threw it into the lake with all the force he could muster. He would have thrown it in the sea if he could, but he didn’t have the strength or the means.

He thought of Nalia, lying white as death in the rebel camp. Was she still alive, or had he waited too long and the damage become permanent? Tears ran down his cheeks as he thought of Medane’s sacrifice being in vain and Nalia dying, but he clung to hope as tightly as he clung to Scott as they staggered out of the ruins together. Scott was trying to tell him something about power and electricity but all of his thoughts were on Nalia. Nothing else mattered.

They reached the camp and Raven stumbled to the tent where Nalia slept. She was still there, still pale and sleeping with burn marks twisting their way up her arm. He fell to his knees beside her and kissed her.

“Please, Nalia,” he whispered. “Please wake up. I need you.”

He laid his head on her chest while Scott called for doctors, but he wouldn’t let the doctors come near. Not yet. Not until he was sure she wouldn’t wake up. An hour passed and he began to grow faint. Black spots danced in his vision but Nalia hadn’t changed. Scott pulled him away and there was sympathy in his eyes.

“Come on, Raven. The doctors need to look at you and a few minutes won’t matter.”