The Barrens (NaNoWriMo Day 6)

sofer (53)in #writing • 7 years ago

On we go. You can find previous days here:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5

Day 6 Word Count: 1904
Total Word Count: 9311
Goal: 50,000
Remaining: 40,689

"He's awake.”

Rasul tried to sit up, but a hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down.

“Easy,” said Isaac. “You need to lie down.”

“I’m fine,” Rasul said, pushing Isaac’s hand away. He was stretched out on a couch in Magda’s room. Isaac was crouched on the floor next to him, and Magda was standing over him. As he blinked, everything came into focus, and his vision felt almost unnaturally sharp. The room was lit by a single lamp near his head, and the light hurt his eyes. He looked around. They were the only ones there. “Where is everybody?”

“Home,” Magda said. “The meeting’s been over for hours.”

“This is two in two days, right?” Isaac said. He looked especially pale. “That’s not good, man. I wanted to take you to the hospital, but Magda wouldn’t let me.”

“I couldn’t risk them finding alcohol in your system,” Magda said. “That wouldn’t go well for any of us.”

“Honestly, I feel fine,” Rasul said. It was the truth. His vision was clear. His body felt rested. Even the wound on his head wasn’t throbbing. He sat up despite Isaac’s protests. “Strong, actually. I feel like I’ve been asleep for days. It’s like I’m rejuvenated or something.”

“He actually does look okay,” Magda said. "For somebody who just had a seizure, at least."

“Don’t rush anything,” Isaac said. “Just keep sitting for a little bit.”

“What time is it?” Rasul asked. He felt full of energy.

“Late,” Magda said.

“We should go home,” Rasul said. He stood up and stretched. His body felt spring-loaded, like he could send himself careening in any direction in a split-second.

"I really think you should just rest a little bit longer," Isaac said.

"You're welcome to stay the night," Magda said. Her tone was flat with forced hospitality.

"No, thanks," Rasul said. He wasn’t offended. More than anything, it just annoyed him that people felt the need to put on false politeness. Say what you mean, he thought. "We should really go. You both have places to be in the morning, and I don't need to keep you up all night. I need to move. Walk. Something.”

"You promise you'll go back to the doctor tomorrow?" Isaac asked.

"Fine, yes."

Rasul had absolutely no intention of doing that. Truthfully, he felt energized. He wanted to walk. He wanted to burn some of this energy.

They thanked Magda for the hospitality and left for the train. Outside, there were clouds gathering in the sky.

“You remember seeing that a storm was scheduled?” Rasul asked. They usually happened late at night to inconvenience as few people as possible. “We better hurry.”

He took off running towards the train station as Isaac yelled after him. Every step was strong and steady. The cold air burned on his face, but he pushed on effortlessly. His breaths stayed measured and calm, like he was barely exerting himself. He hadn’t realized how fast he was moving until he skidded to a halt at the entrance to the underground station. Isaac was blocks behind him, jogging and huffing.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Isaac asked when he finally caught up. He was panting, and his face was red and coated in sweat.

“I have no idea,” Rasul said. “I usually hate running. I had no idea I could do that.”

“You’re insane.”

The train back to the Forges was empty, except for them. Rasul watched the station disappear as they entered the dark, underground tunnel. The lights inside the train hurt his eyes, and he closed them for a moment and leaned back.

“I still think you need to go to the hospital,” Isaac said. “Tomorrow, okay?”

“I really feel great,” Rasul said. “It’s not like the last one. It came on the same, but I’m not worn out at all. I haven’t felt this good in a long time.”

They sat in silence for a while, and the train hummed along underground.

“It’s incredible, what the vicar said,” Isaac said. “Can you imagine if there’s a whole society living out there in the Barrens?"

“It’s probably nothing,” Rasul said. “Really, don’t get your hopes up. Nothing can live out there. There’s no way there’s some hidden civilization at Elysium.”

"I'm surprised you're not more enthusiastic,” Isaac said. Rasul opened his eyes. Isaac was clenching his hands together and staring out the train window.

“I’m just realistic,” Rasul said.

“But I know you don’t have any love for the administration,” Isaac said. “You don’t even use your confirmation name.”

“I don’t do it out of some sense of rebellion,” Rasul said. He closed his eyes again. Why were the lights so bright, he thought. “My mother gave me this name, and despite anything else, I’d rather use her name than the church’s. She, at least, certainly didn’t have any love for the church. I didn't even know what Ecclesia Vera was until she died."

"Seriously? What was she, some kind of dissident?"

Rasul looked around. Even though they were the only ones on the train, he felt cautious about speaking too loudly.

“Not really," he said quietly, closing his eyes again. "I don't think so, at least. She just had her own crazy ideas.”

“Like what? Like heresy?”

“I don’t know. Not really. Just some stupid shit she would say.”

“Tell me.”

Rasul exhaled and opened his eyes again. “She taught me that eighty-five percent of the world is in darkness. Ten percent know the truth, but they use it to enslave the eighty-five. The other five percent also know the truth, but they work to overthrow the ten."

“What truth?”

“Exactly. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s what a person says when she’s looking at an unfair world and trying to find her place in it. It gave her some sense of superiority, like in her core she was worth more than what the world told her. Like she was some special elite with secret insight. But it’s all bullshit.”

"I don't know,” Isaac said. The train came to a halt and they stood to leave. “There might be something to that. Makes a hell of a lot more sense than what the church teaches."

Back on the street, in the darkness of the night, Rasul’s eyes stopped hurting. As they walked to their apartment building, he noticed that everything seemed sharper. He could see details in the buildings that he had never noticed before, or had never taken the time to notice, at least. Above, the synthetic clouds were gathering, and he could see the rain start falling before it hit them.

“Hey, c’mon,” Isaac said. “We’ll get rained on if we don’t hurry.”

Inside the lobby of the apartment building, Isaac walked with Rasul to the elevator that would go to his floor rather than his own.

“I just want to make sure you make it up,” Isaac said.

“I don’t need to be escorted to my apartment,” Rasul said.

“Yeah, well, maybe you do. You don’t want to mess around with aether poisoning.”

Rasul rolled his eyes and punched the button to his floor. When they reached their destination, Isaac walked out behind him.

“Jesus, man,” Rasul said.

“Deal with it,” Isaac said as they walked down the hallway to Rasul’s apartment.

Rasul opened the door to three tall figures standing in his apartment. The lights were off, but he could see them in surprising detail. They were from the church, but they wore body armor instead of vestments, with a flaming sword on their chests.

“There he is. We were about to send out a search party.”

“Who the hell are you?” Rasul said, stepping back into the hallway and bumping into Isaac.

The three men walked towards them, following them out.

“You need to come with us,” said the one in the middle. His head was shaved, and he was at least a foot taller than Rasul. “Nothing to worry about. The vicars just want to help you figure out what’s going on.”

“You can’t just barge into people’s homes,” Isaac said.

The bald man looked to the man on his right.

“Let’s get you back to your room.”

The other man lunged at Isaac and grabbed him. Isaac pushed back against him, but the man had him by the arms. Rasul rushed at them, but the bald man grabbed him by his collar.

“Get the hell off me,” Rasul shouted. They were all outside in the hallway now. Behind Rasul, the hallway dead-ended at a window, and ahead, where the elevator and stairs were, Isaac and the man struggled.

Isaac managed to free himself and he swung at the bald man, connecting with the side of his head, and Rasul pulled away. The bald man grabbed Isaac and threw him to the ground. All three of them were now between Rasul and Isaac and their escape path. Isaac scrambled to his feet, and he and Rasul back up towards the window.

“You’re wasting your time,” the bald man said. He drew a gun from his belt and pointed it at them.

“Wait!” Rasul yelled as the bald man fired. The hallway lit up in an instant, and Rasul’s eyes burned. A bolt of energy flashed past him, and he heard the sound of glass shattering. When his eyes readjusted, he saw Isaac on the floor next to him, a smoking hole burned into the side of his face. A blast of cold air and rain rushed into the hallway from behind him, where the window had been shattered.

“What the fuck did you do?” Rasul yelled. He backed up towards the open window as the three men approached him.

“You have to come to the cathedral with us,” the bald man said. “I’m not asking.”

Rasul bumped against the open window. He turned his head and looked down. Despite the darkness of the rain, he could see the ridge around the building below the window. He knew that there was one at about every floor of the building, a slightly protruded area ringing the outside. It seemed to stick out about a foot or so. He looked back down the hallway.

“Don’t try it,” the bald man said. “That’s a stupid idea.”

Rasul turned and grabbed the edge of the broken window, and the glass cut into his palms.

“Fuck, grab him,” he heard the bald man say as he pulled himself over the edge of the window, dropping down to the ridge. His feet landed and slipped, but he was still hanging onto the edge of the window, which was above him now. He could feel the glass sticking into his hands, and he tried his best to focus on anything else. With his hands extended over his head, Rasul steadied his footing. All he had to do was drop down to the next ridge, and then the next. Eighty or so times, he thought. This was stupid.

A hand grabbed at him, and he instinctively let go. The world dropped out from under him, and he flailed his hands. He managed to grab onto the ridge he had just been standing on with his right hand, but the surface was smooth and slick with rain. For a brief second or two, he gripped the ridge, and then it slipped away. With his gaze to the sky, he felt himself tumbling down to the ground.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.