Chris Pourteau - Tails of the Apocalypse

We climbed the highest mountain in the region, and at the top found a cave. We walked to the edge and looked out over the world. Water surrounded the mountain. Keena looked over the valley, the only home she had ever known. She bayed mournfully, and I knelt beside her and gently stroked her back. In her guttural wail, she expressed what I could not—a kind soul’s lament for the loss of her world. I stayed by her thinking I was comforting her, but it was she, through her song of sadness, that gave me the courage to face what was to come.

We watched as others sought higher ground. A bear climbed seeking safety and howled as it was washed down the cliff face. Seeking better shelter ourselves, we ventured deeper into the cave. We found a shaft leading into the core of the mountain and followed it deeper in. Eventually, the tunnel formed an elbow, and we followed it until we reached an open chamber. We sat against the far wall and rested.

“We will be fine, girl,” I soothed.

She sat next to me, her ears perked up and the fur at the back of her neck bristling and wet. The tunnel amplified the constant, driving rain outside, and the chamber was filled with the eerie echoes of those pattering drums. We needed to keep moving, but we also needed rest, so I coaxed her to relax next to me. We slept.

I was startled awake by a rising pitch in the sound that filled our chamber. In the dim light of the cave, it was hard to tell how long we had slept, and Keena had awoken before me. She sat at attention, staring down the hole. I rose and we walked down the tunnel to see what the sound was.

When we reached the bottom where the tunnel started upward again, we saw that water had begun to fill the elbow down the tunnel. It was ankle high and rising. If this kept up, I knew, we would soon be trapped.

Keena and I climbed back up the path toward the outside of the mountain, slipping along the way as we fought for purchase in the running water. We reached the upper chamber and saw the problem. The water was already trickling in from the opening to the outside. The rain was fierce now, heavier than before, if that were possible.

I looked at Keena and saw her shaking. She pressed against my leg as if to reassure me that she was there to protect me, but I knew deep inside she was as afraid as I was. The world was becoming one unbroken ocean. The earth-sea had claimed everything and everyone.

The horror struck me deep in my heart. Keena and I were alone with nowhere to go.

The end chamber was still dry, at least for now, so I judged it the best place to wait out the rain. As we carefully made our way down the shaft, a fish slid past my feet. The water at the bottom of the shaft was now knee deep and teeming with fish. Keena grabbed one and I snagged another. We might be trapped, but we would not be hungry that night. We climbed up to the back chamber and had raw fish for dinner.

The roar of the water got louder and louder. I had no idea how long we could last in the dry chamber, but we made trips back to the surface to watch as the waterline rose. Rain even filled the elbow of the tunnel.

I held my breath and dove under, swimming for the surface. I reached the top and saw that the water had breached the opening. It was flooding in. I knew it would soon cover the entire mountain. I dove down again and swam back to the chamber where Keena waited, anxious for my return. I could see that she knew it was hopeless. Any words I could say would be wasted. I sat down with my back against the wall and she put her head in my lap.

Her eyes looked up at me, and I could see in them her resignation. Her low moan filled the chamber. The sound of sadness for the loss of the world. Of fear for the loss of her life. We listened to the droning of the water for a long while. It finally lulled us both to sleep.

I woke up several hours later with a raging headache. Keena was lethargic, and I soon realized that even though we were still dry, our fresh air supply had been cut off by the flooded tunnel. Our time, like our air, was growing short.

She knew it, too. Keena stretched upward and licked my face. She snuggled into me and rested her head on my shoulder. Her breathing became shallow and ragged. I knew this was the end. Finally, after all the destruction and loss of life. After the washing away of the Watchers and the drowning of His other creations, I began to weep. Not for all or any of that. But for Keena.

I wept for Keena.

Some have said that you see your life pass before your eyes at the end, but I did not. I saw hers. Every moment we had shared together played out in my head. My own flood, a flood of tears, came as she huffed her last breath. I kissed her on the end of her nose as I inhaled her last sigh. I clutched her tightly and told her I loved her. The sobs became louder and more violent and for the first time I knew what real love was. How losing one so close can devastate your heart.

Losing Keena broke me in two.

I held my friend as blackness surrounded my vision. Then all was silent and dark.

The hollow emptiness of death.

I awoke. The quiet was the first thing I noticed. I had become so accustomed to the rushing sound of water that the silence was deafening.

Then I heard the birds.

As my vision cleared, I remembered my friend and found her still lying across my chest with her head on my shoulder. The emotions of loss consumed me again. I cradled her stiff body in my arms and headed down the chute to try and escape the mountain tomb. The shaft was wet, but no longer standing in water. I could see bright sunshine beaming down from the outside.

I stood in the mouth of the cave and stared at the devastation and destruction.

How did I survive?

Why me?

Why not her?

The guilt was almost too much to bear. Why had the air been too thin for her but allowed me to survive? Did my heritage as a half-Shining One protect me somehow?

What about all the others like me? Did they survive? As I stepped into the world once again, holding my friend in my arms, I wondered if I would ever know.

Under the warm, baking sunlight, the waters receded quickly. Perhaps the Creator, having cleansed the world, was anxious to uncover its beauty again.

I made my way carefully down the hill, holding her body close. The thought consumed me: she must be laid to rest properly. I walked for miles that day, searching what used to be our fertile valley and surrounding forest for a proper place for her.

Utter devastation.

I walked until I could no longer feel my feet. In the fading twilight, I reached the end of the valley, a place that was known among the Watchers as the Spirit Road. I had never walked the Road before, but as the sun set along the horizon, I felt compelled to take it. Somehow, it would lead me to Keena’s final resting place. This I knew.

As I stepped onto the Road, a rushing wind whirled around me, lifted me up. My stomach lurched, and I experienced the sensation of falling into a black abyss. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

I found myself standing in a peaceful grove in the warm, afternoon sun. But had it not been sundown only moments before? Had more time passed than I knew? Or had I simply appeared elsewhere upon the Earth, a place where the sun was high and shining? My surroundings were completely unfamiliar, but I remembered the old stories of the travelers, and I knew that I was in a place as enchanted as my companion was.

I had found Keena’s resting place.

I stood in the midst of hallowed ground, clutching my most faithful companion, the closest thing to my heart. I had traveled the Spirit Road to the place my heart most desired: a final home for Keena. I stood among the wreckage of what used to be an oak grove, still soaking from the Creator’s wrath. The acorns crunched under my feet and the air fairly crackled with the energy surrounding the intersections of the ley lines of the Earth. The sacred oaks would grow back, I knew. The earth would reclaim what was hers, and the world would have a new birth. The world that had been taken from Keena, the world for which she had mourned so achingly. And from here, upon this hill, Keena would see it all renewed.