Michael Soll - Scorched

“Then, by what you’re saying, I don’t live every day as my first. Because I’m filled with fear.”

He slammed the knife down on the table so swiftly that he erased any memory of it ever being in his hand. He laughed, heartily, as if he just heard the funniest joke ever told.

“No no nono nono no no ! Spec, what are you afraid of?

“You.”

I watched him as closely as a person could watch another and he watched me back, sizing up my answer. I could see the thoughts race through his mind.

“Good. You should be. I could kill you while you slept and nothing significant would come of it. You would be gone, I would still be mayor, and Newbury would continue to thrive.”

“No,” I said. “You’re wrong.”

He laughed again. “Prove it.”

“Do the ignorant know they’re ignorant?”

“How could they?”

“So, how could you? You seem full of bliss. What does that say about you?”

“You confuse laughter with happiness. A childish mistake. But understandable.”

“What makes you think you’re smarter or wiser than I am?”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“You’ve been around more than twice the amount of my life, but you assume you’ve lived more than twice the amount. You were given knowledge I didn’t have access to for most of my being, so you assume you’re more knowledgeable. But what have you lived? A truly isolated existence. You see a moment from one angle. You see only in two dimensions. You cannot see that the line is actually a circle. You’ve never been forced to step around a situation and view it from another perspective. You stand glued to your spot as the world turns in front of you and assume what you see is the only. But it’s not. You are one man in one place in one moment of time. You rule this space, but one quake can fill the hole. One solar flare can destroy everything that is you.”

“You’re getting better at speaking,” he said dismissively. “Like a child mimicking its father.” He stared at me for awhile and I could feel my being fill with dread. “I enjoy our conversations, Spec.” He grabbed the knife from the table. “And you’re right. I do live alone, but I make it so. It is my choice to willingly bind my hands. And one day, maybe sooner than you think, you will too. It’s an inevitable decision made by all free men. It is better to live in a world you can see clearly than live in one with no boundaries. It is better to really understand one thing than have a vague recollection of the multitude that is the universe.”

We sat, staring at each other, listening only to the humming of the refrigerator reverberating through the kitchen and buzzing into the living room. In one hand was his glass, half empty, but how many times had it been filled? In his other hand was the dagger.

The humming continued and at the moment, that’s all that mattered. That humming. Those vibrations. That energy flowing from the river to the mill to the turbine to the house to the refrigerator to our ears in the living room. How much time it took for that energy to be transferred, I did not know.

And then, after moments of listening to only the buzzing, I asked, “Do you think life can exist on the surface?”

“Is that where you think you’re heading? To see God with your own eyes?”

His hand tightened around the knife and the humming pulsated within. Buzzing and buzzing, reminding us we were still alive despite our own silence.

Humming and humming until, the noise quickly muted.

Our heads turned toward the kitchen, simultaneously as if we shared one mind. And a moment lingered where we both were filled with fear. Him for his own life, and mine for Kaolin’s. Two people, different in almost every way, filled with the same fear.

And then, the house’s lights shut off and the city went dark.

The alarms blared throughout the darkness. I could feel the Mayor jolt to his feet and grab an item on a nearby desk.

The flashlight illuminated the room, and I got a glimpse of his eyes, filled with fear and excitement. He had posted a dozen soldiers at the water mill, but apparently a dozen was not enough. The Nanashi were attacking and for many of us, tonight would be our last.

For me, there was no more waiting. I needed to find Kaolin and get to the elevator. Whether Newbury was destroyed or survived was of no concern to me.

The Mayor grabbed his sword and rushed out of the house, leaving me alone in total darkness. I knew where the extra flashlights were and although they were only a few feet away, I struggled searching in the black.

As I bumped into furniture, I could hear the distant screams get louder and the Nanashi roars emanate throughout Newbury. I reached the light and quickly wound it up, supplying energy to the stick so that I could rush through the bloodshed to find Kaolin.

I grabbed the spikes I had taken from Nanash, and I left the house and found myself amidst chaos. Hundreds of beams of light cut through the darkness, in search of those attacking. A few of the beams shone toward the ceiling, still as can be. Either Newburyians were examining above, or they had fallen to their doom, the only life left were the radiating beams of energy bursting toward the ceiling, only to be kept and confined within the city.

I hurried through the City Center when I tripped over something, bringing myself to the ground. I looked back and spotted a slain child, melted in the dirt. He was no older than five or six with a sword grasped in his lifeless hand. There were four slash marks across his stomach. If Newbury survived, if his loved ones made it past the night and the lights were renewed, they would find their child slain, but would they wonder why? Would they examine the series of events that led to their child face up in a puddle of his own blood? The surprise attack on Nanash which led to their attack on Newbury? The Nanashi attack on Joey which led to the Newburyian attack on Nanash? Their old tribe decimated by the old Newbury. When did it all begin? Did it matter? Did it matter who struck first? Did it matter why? Regardless of the reason, the boy was dead and that was that. There would never be another one of him for all time.

I pushed through the screams and the cries and the death, striking through beams of white light and flying green mushrooms, briefly illuminating the above. And then, a beacon at the center of the city burned a bright white, pulsating its light outward across the city. The center of the city became well lit, allowing all who looked toward to see the massacre which was occurring. The further away from the center, the dimmer the light. Somehow, they were able to restore power to the beacon while the rest of the city lay dark.

I continued to run across the city, dodging swords and spikes. I turned and spotted Gunnar holding an elderly lady in his hands. He launched her toward the ground with a loud crack that shook the air. The body dented the Earth, causing a puff of dirt to cloud the area before he swiped at the next attacker, sending him beside the woman, shrouded in the gray dust.

I was unphased. I sprinted passed everything toward Meredith Washburn’s house. My heart thumped ferociously and I could barely breathe. I wanted to vomit, I wanted to fall to my knees and lay beside the lifeless, but I couldn’t. The only way that would happen is if my legs were taken from me, but even then, I would pull myself along the ground, shredding my body apart until I found her.

I finally reached the house and I heard screams from within. I burst through the door and from the other room:

“I’m trying to save you, Kaolin! I have a place we can hide.”