Michael Soll - Scorched

I stumbled to the ground and gasped for breath. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. All I could do was lay there as her screams for me got more and more faint. Above me, sparks leapt from swords as they connected with claws. They twinkled and disappeared.

Another spark. Another twinkle. And then, I could no longer hear her voice.

The Earth shattered and I stood unscathed amidst its ruins.

I overlooked bodies without breath, one of which was my only. Cotta was the first to die in the bloody battle, but he wasn’t the last.

My people lay scattered. Those who had vanquished were gone while those who survived were incensed, entrenched deep within their anger.

Life happens. Then it ends. There’s beauty in its brevity. But we yearn for longevity. We yearn for the forever which we are inevitably denied. It is a natural part of being, for there could be no life without death. Every beginning needs an ending — there would be no start were there no finish. The middle is the buffer. She separates the two, for if they touched, they would be one, and if they were one, they would be none.

I scanned the Zone and took in the destruction. Gunnar had already begun lifting the bodies and moving them toward the cages, several at a time. I counted 34 dead, 22 of them ours and 12 theirs. The numbers would not be so skewed had we been aware of the attack. The Newburyian cowards could only defeat us when we were defenseless.

Gunnar picked up a body. “This one’s still alive.”I looked over and spotted Spec lying in his arms, unconscious with a gash on his forehead and breathing slowly, but breathing nonetheless.

“Put him down and finish collecting the others. We need to cook them before they spoil.”

Gunnar put Spec back on the ground. “What about Cotta?”

“Put him in my hut.”

It didn’t take long for the bodies to be cleared away. Beadurinc created a large pit which we filled with hot coals, slowly roasting the fallen soldiers. There’s no way we could eat it all, but we would eat as much as we could for as long as we could.

Cotta was different. I took him to the edge of the village and siphoned out all of his blood. He had already lost a lot on the battlefield, but I took what was left and drank it. I tried to keep it down, but the sheer volume of blood left me vomiting. Still, I drank every last drop.

Next, I sliced open his stomach and pulled out his organs and carefully placed them on hot coals. I inserted a sturdy metal rod up his nose until I cracked through to his brain. I churned the rod, draining the organ through his nostrils. I placed a large bowl beneath the nose, collecting every last remnant, then put it atop the hot coals.

I sat beside my hallowed Cotta, empty but free and soon to be a part of me. I drank the brain and started on the innards. It was more than any person could consume in one sitting, but I ate it all. Until I couldn’t move, like Cotta.

I lay beside his pale body, immobilized by his presence, consumed by his spirit. My stomach ached as did my heart. I placed my hand atop his lifeless fingers and imagined a world where we had lived until wrinkles plastered our skin, a time when most of our memories had faded and all we could rely on was each other. I could see it as clearly as I could feel his cold fingers.

But that future was gone. That possibility was slaughtered along with Cotta and now, all I had was my hatred. All I had was my anger. All I had was my vengeance.

We gathered everyone to the Zone where Toril led the village in a memorial service. I waited for my time to speak. I waited for my time…

I stood before my people. They felt what I felt. We were one and as one, we would conquer.

“The Bungs have attacked us for the last time! They come into our village and take the lives of our people. They are destroyers, merciless and unyielding. They kill for pleasure and suffocate the dead beneath the ground, torturing them for all eternity. They take refuge behind their technology, behind the hard labor of those from the past. They are a plague in this world, an unruly, unsatiated beast. They’ve tried to decimate our tribe twice and both times they have failed.”

I held a piece of Cottas rib I had sawed off. Squeezed it tightly.

“We will no longer wait. We will no longer remain stagnant as they flood our caverns and wash away everything we hold dear. We will no longer allow them to force their will. They will no longer take our lives. They will no longer instill fear in our people. They will no longer thrive!”

I looked down at the piece of bone and remembered what I had lost.

“We are going to kill them all. Every last one of them! We are going to tear down their buildings and demolish their futures. We are going to take everything from them! Everything! And with them, we will extinguish our fear. In one swift move, we will wipe out the Newburyian threat and mollify our wounds.”

I looked out at the enthusiastic crowd and then noticed the only person not riled up. Spec stood at the edge, watching me with solemn eyes. I turned back to my people and raised my spikes to the sky.

“We will burn their city to the ground!”

I see the world through stained-glass eyes, a hollow projection of the person I am, of the woman I could be. I see the pain and the suffering and the torment of all, the average the big and the small. I feel the breaths of those left still and dry, their whispers that trickle and tickle inside, they mute in the darkness, lying quietly as they wait to resurface and take their vengeance. And I am their leader.

They would all die. That is the only possible outcome. That is the only truth and the only reality. I knew their city would burn and therefore it was truth. As long as I imagined it, as long as I knew it, it would happen… it already happened.

They would suffer when they died because they would lay witness not just to their end, but to their future’s end, their past’s elimination. I would command that nobody speak the name Newbury, that nobody would mention their existence. And in time, they will have disappeared from this planet, from all existence. Not only would they die, they would cease to ever have been born. And I would be the one to undo them. I would be the one to scour their village and lay waste to that which should never have been.

After the blood melted beneath the ground, we made the Zone a map for the final battle. We created an outline of Newbury based on what my father had told us years ago. We constructed dirt buildings based on his notes, but our dimensions were not as accurate as we needed. There was only one person who could help us…

I found Spec staring up at the glowing mushrooms, alone in the cavern I had spent many cherished moments with my father.

“We need your help,” I said. “We’re going to war.”

He didn’t look over at me. Continued to gaze at the simulated stars until he finally spoke.

“What is war?”

“The solution,” I responded.

“To what problem?”

“Newbury.”

“Are there any other answers?”

“No. There is only war.”

He finally glanced over at me and we felt each other’s pain. “I don’t want anybody else to die. Nobody should be ended by another’s hands.”

“They attacked us. We’re just retaliating.”

“And they were just retaliating from your attack on them. Who was the first to attack? Does it even matter?”