Michael Soll - Scorched

We methodically moved through the Earth, creating our own path. Eyvindur punched through rock and dirt, puncturing its skeleton and entering its soul and we happily followed.

There wasn’t much talking on our journey. Gunnar had been my father’s apprentice a long time ago and took it upon himself to look after me. We had never made an emotional connection, even though we had spent more time with each other than any other person. He watched over me as a silent guardian. I had always suspected he loved me more than he loved my father, but who could know for sure with a silent statue.

For all I knew, Eyvindur was a mute. In all the time I knew him, he had never spoken. During Council meetings, he would vote with his hand and facial expressions, but he never uttered any words. He had been alive during the first Bung raid so many years ago when my father was taken. He was just a boy when he witnessed our village get decimated. He survived, but maybe he lost his voice alongside the village. Maybe all of his words were burned with the fire and buried next to his loved ones.

Beadurinc was strong and young, only a few years older than I. He kept his hair long and tied behind. When he traversed through tunnels, he would wrap the hair around his neck. I always considered the hair problematic in battle, but thus far, he has survived. I once approached him about the subject, but he refused to cut it off, despite my asking. Since then, we seldom spoke. So on this journey, I was with a distant guardian, a mute, and a boy filled with resentment.

Eyvindur stopped his digging and looked back at Gunnar. I glanced at my guardian, wondering what Eyvindur was saying with his eyes.

“Whereto now?” Gunnar asked me in his stead.

“To the left. Over there. It won’t be much further until we breach through to the water. Do you need a break?”

“No,” he said with his eyes.

And so, Eyvindur began digging again and we followed behind. I imagined Cotta traversing the land with us. He would have enjoyed himself thoroughly. I wonder sometimes how somebody I knew so briefly had such a profound effect on me. But then, I think about my father and realize the two people I cared for most in my life were in it so shortly.

We breached through and the cool breeze whipped across our faces. Heading through undocumented territory was always dangerous since some places had less air to breathe. You had to fight through the dizziness and breach through to a new area filled with nourishment before your vision left you completely.

We laid out some of the mushrooms in front of us and the body of water glowed green. I turned to Gunnar, who was noticeably sweating from dragging the bodies. “Over there looks like a good place to tie them up.”

Eyvindur and Beadurinc helped Gunnar lift the corpses to the spot. I looked out across the vast body of water and imagined Cotta moving within. Dunking his head. Enjoying the newness. That’s what I liked most about him. He appreciated everything when with me. He enjoyed the smells and the tastes and the sights. Everything was fresh and his spirit revitalized me. He taught me how to breathe again without my ever knowing I had been consistently gasping for breath.

The others found a firm place to tie the bodies but my mind was elsewhere. I was floating in the water next to Cotta and imagining another time and another place and another reality. And in those moments while I pictured myself next to him, there was no other reality. I imagined it and it was no longer a fantasy, it was truth.

I lay on my stomach and ran my fingers through the water, watching the ripples pulsate from my fingers and spread outward until dying back into the bottomless, watery pit. I tried to make the trickles bigger and see how far I could make them travel. The bigger the trickle, the longer the indentation in the liquid.

I made a big splash and followed the mark until it bounced off the wall and hit another ripple. I watched curiously for a moment, wondering where the other ripple had come from. Had a previous splash of mine lingered out of sight? Had the force of my hand created a ripple I had not noticed until it smashed back into the one I had been watching? Was I watching the wrong ripple?

I jumped to my feet and heaved a mushroom as far as I could, across the water towards the other side and that’s when I saw their small army. There were a couple dozen Bungs moving across the other ledge, weapons in hand.

I quickly screeched our call to arms signal. Eyvindur, Beadurinc and Gunnar dropped the bodies and looked across the water as several flying objects hurled their way. Gunnar stepped in front and swiped the projectiles away with his spikes.

I leapt into the water toward the army, plunging beneath and cut my way through below. The water was disrupted as a foreign body crashed into the liquid beside me, blood obscuring my vision.

I slashed passed him through muffled screams, dodging falling bodies and navigating around seeping blood. I pushed through the water, stabbing ahead and slicing water behind, propelling myself forward like I had practiced in our Central Stream throughout my childhood.

I arose to thickened air filled with heavy screams. A woman held a man in her arms, four slices across his chest. She cried for help, pleading with an invisible force either incapable or unwilling to acquiesce. The light was scattered and most of the yells emanated from the darkness between blocks of green haze and shattering white rays.

I jumped onto land and was immediately hit by the white beams. I sliced down, cutting the mechanism in half and falling into darkness. I connected with flesh until screams turned to echoes. I heaved myself across the ground to a man holding his sword up high.

I jumped onto the wall and dug my spikes into the dirt and sped horizontally, away from his cumbersome swipe. I launched myself from the wall and sliced his throat, quickly moving to my next target. I obliterated all who appeared before me, swiping and screeching, ripping apart when a screeching came from across the cavern.

I turned and spotted Gunnar as he lifted a boy and heaved him against the rocks, shattering the spine, and bringing an avalanche of dirt down into the water. On the ground beside him, I saw Beadurinc smiling with vacant eyes, blood smattered across his lifeless face. I hurried over and looked down at the boy as he looked past me, his long flowing hair dampened with either his or another’s innards. I picked up the head and closed his eyes.

Gunnar hurried over to me. “We’ve gotta go—”

“No!” I screamed, standing my ground. “We take them all out!”

“It’s only us. Eyvindur’s gone too. We need to retreat.”

I ignored him and growled, ready to take on all of Newbury by myself. Gunnar hurried over and grabbed me, picking me up with one arm and retreating back into the tunnels. I screamed and swiped at the air. Beadurinc’s head fell from my hand. I grabbed at it, catching him by his long hair. His head dangled back and forth as Gunnar tore through our path, swiping above to collapse the tunnels behind us.

My guardian carried me the entire way, my body limp and drained. When we reached Nanash, I was finally released. I fell to my knees and screamed at the top of my lungs. Everybody hurried out of their huts as I held Beadurinc’s head up high.

Harva appeared, startled by the scene before her. “What happened?”

“It was a trap,” I uttered. “They knew we would come. They were waiting for us.” I turned to the Council. “No more waiting. Strike them down now.”

She helped me to my feet, and I looked out at my village. “Where’s Spec?” I asked, noticing his eyes were missing from the crowd.

Harva looked at me, confusion across her face.

“He’s gone,” she said, as if the information should have been known to me long ago. “He said he was going to help you navigate to the water.”