Scorched

I once saw a beautiful green sprout pushing through the dry red earth and at first, I wasn’t sure what it was. Then I saw the delicate veins in the paper-thin leaves that are the size of one of my finger joints. I had to lie down on the dusty ground to stare at the bud with the sunlight streaming through its fragile existence. In that moment, I felt as though I could feel its pale roots in the cool ground, as though I could sense every tiny grain of sand and rock beneath me.

There was an overwhelming connection between this brave little plant and I, the way we both were trying so hard to live in this lifeless world. I wanted to embrace it, pour my heart and soul into it so that it would have a better chance of success. Together, we would find a way to survive.

I felt a part of me die inside when, two days later, that little green sprout succumbed to the burning sun and lay limp and blackened on the ground.

☀☀☀

Deidre and I were awake before the others, ahead of the sun that tinged the sky pink and gold. We walked along the outskirts of the village as I showed her all the tiny hideaway places that we’d created since she was last there while she told me about every little event that had happened at her village.

They’d heard a rumor that there was a distant place to the East where rain had fallen for the first time since the Old World had died.

“Mom told me to not think about it, though,” she said, running a hand through her sun-streaked hair. “Even the elders don’t believe it. They say that in harsh times, people will believe what they want to believe, so much that they think it’s real.”

“Sounds like something that Sandra would tell us,” I replied. “She doesn’t like us to be very hopeful of things like that. One of our many disagreements.”

Dee laughed, knowing how rarely I got along with Sandra. She was wearing only her chest band and a pair of frayed shorts. There were old scars marring the tanned skin of her arms and legs, trophies of the years she possessed. I had quite a few myself, the reminders of youthful falls and carelessness in the junkyard behind our village, where the most deteriorated of things were deposited.

“Has your mother been pressuring you about the Fire Dance? Mine definitely has,” she grimaced. “She’s afraid that soon I’ll bee too old for childbearing. Pfft, because 18 years is borderline ancient.”

I ducked beneath a rusted metal shed and we sat inside a small shed that had a hole in the backside to watch the sunrise unfold.

“I’m certain that if you can survive the first 18 years, you’ll be fine the rest of your life,” I said. “I’m certain your unborn children are fine. But no, Mother actually hasn’t said a word about the Dance. She doesn’t even want me to mate.”

Dee’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious? She has to be the only one who feels that way in the entire world. What’s left of it, anyway. I just…I can’t wrap my mind around it. But you’re pretty lucky, I suppose.”

“Yeah. So who’s new this year?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Let’s see. Well, there’s me and Soriah, of course, Brianna, Isaac, and Darryl. I’m pretty sure Darryl is going after Amalia this year,” she adds.

“He has some competition, then. Lia and Jake have been pretty close lately,” I said, thinking back to the many times I’d found my friend being drawn towards Jake.

She nodded, understanding. “Anyway. We’re all in the same village but a few new people showed up last month. The guy who was leading us here is Charles and he brought his wife and three-year-old son. I forget their names.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “Everyone was pretty quiet so I don’t know many of them, but there are a few more people our age this year. Sean, Kevin, Mary, Shazza,” she listed, counting them off with her fingers. “And Adam.”

“Was he the one with the bandana yesterday?” I asked.

“Yeah. He’s a wanderer and, at first, he didn’t want to come with us but Shaz convinced him. They seemed to understand each other in a way that we didn’t, so they stayed together most of the way.”

“You think they’ll leave again after the Dance?” I asked, saddened by the possibility that we could lose newcomers so soon after we met them.

“Who knows? You’ll have to ask him yourself,” she said, nodding to a distant figure that disappeared behind one of the buildings. “Seems like we’re not the only restless ones around here.”

“We’re all restless, Dee. We’re just the ones that show it.” I stood, brushing dirt off my faded jeans. “I’ll see you at breakfast, ‘kay?”

She nodded and laid back, arms behind her head, to watch the rest of the sunrise. I loped off after the boy, Adam. It wasn’t often I met someone with a wandering spirit—with the exception of Deidre—and I wanted to ask him about where he’d lived before. I craved for a taste of the world outside of this village.

I found him standing in near the fence that surrounded the village, fingers loosely curled around the weathered metal links. He was staring off into the desert, as though he could see something that I could not in the stunted trees and cacti. He glanced at me when I came near enough but soon directed his attention back to the horizon.

“Hi. Adam, right? I’m Evalyn,” I said, straightforward as usual. Adam flicked his eyes to me again and nodded. He’svery quiet. I’ll have to bring some volume to his voice.

“I know you don’t talk much so if you don’t mind, I’ll just fill the silence myself,” I said, plopping down on a stack of cracked tires behind and slightly to the left of him. “I’ve been in this village for almost all of my life. I can see that you aren’t used to being kept in one area. You’re like an animal, never knowing the boundaries of a fence and resentful of its existence. I feel the same way but I’ve grown up with these walls; they’re just another part of life for me. But that doesn’t mean I want to be here forever. So, where are you from?”

He turned away from the fence and looked at me, puzzlement creasing in a frown between his brows. “You’re strange,” he finally said, his voice still quiet but clearer now somehow, as though he were actually thinking about what I said. “You talk as though you know something about me when I’ve never even seen you before yesterday.”

He didn’t say this in a confrontational way, merely as though he were stating his train of thought. But there was an edge in his voice that told me he would defend himself if he perceived me to be malevolent. I grinned. This one has teeth and isn’t afraid to use them.

“That’s because, like all animals, I can sense when someone is comparable to myself. Did I say anything that wasn’t even remotely close to the truth?”

His eyes narrowed but by the set of his mouth, I could tell he wouldn’t say “no”.

“So tell me about the outside world,” I continued. “One animal dreaming of freedom to another.”

He answered immediately, with no signs of being taken by surprise at the turn of conversation. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “Beautiful and grotesque.”

I smiled wide. “Everything that I’d thought it’d be.”

☀☀☀

“Flash!” I screamed, leaping out from behind a stack of lumber, giving Sean and Michael a second to react before hurling two dirt clods at them.

“Thunder!” they both called back.

One disintegrated into a cloud of dust on Mike’s lower back but Sean narrowly managed to dodge the other, disappearing behind a dilapidated shed. I heard Mike utter a curse before I quickly followed Sean, going around the other side of the shed.

To my surprise, a red clod exploded on the metal shed wall to my left, a smudge of dirt sticking to the side. A bit of the dust collected on my arm. I looked up to see Adam lying low on the slanted roof of the shed, grinning before he disappeared.

A challenge? Always, I had been the one on the offensive; no one tried to pursue me, only vice versa. My interest was piqued and I took off after him.

All around me, I could hear the shouts and laughter of the others as they chased each other in the light-hearted game of Catch and Tag. Most of us were shirtless—the girls wearing bands around their breasts for convenience’s sake—and caked in dust that clung to sweat. We had no shame; we were comfortable with one another and enjoyed only the thrill of the game.

There were taunts and shrieks and I saw the girl named Shazza dart by, followed by Sean. I chased my prey silently, keeping my eyes on my target while keeping my peripheral vision wide open. Adam was clever, taking unpredictable paths that few would consider.

Too bad it’s the same strategy that I use.

I cut through an old trailer that was open at both ends and saw a flash through one of the windows as his dark figure rushed by. I timed myself just right and, as he ran by the doorway at the other end of the trailer, I flung myself toward him, catching him mid-body. We rolled several times from the momentum, stirring dust into the air like a miniature dust devil.

I had the advantage and crouched over him triumphantly. His cheeks were flushed from the heat and exertion and his eyes were bright with adrenaline as they looked up at me in defeat. I smirked at him for a second. I win, I said without words, before bounding away, off to find another conquest.

I felled two more of my peers before we all collapsed in happy exhaustion in the Square, lying on our backs as our chests rose and fell and our muscles relaxed. I unbound my hair, letting it spill across the red earth so the elastic band wouldn’t dig into my skull. A small gust of wind caught a strand at my lip and I spit it out.

Deidre plopped down beside me. “Ah, I’ve missed this village’s game of Tag,” she sighed, stretching her slim legs. Aside from the usual dust, she had only a small smudge of dirt on her shoulder where a dirt clod had clipped her. “My village is so boring, they always complain about the heat. I tell them we can play at night but for some reason, they’re reluctant to begin a game with me.”

I snorted. “Perhaps because they know your victory is inevitable. Though I must admit, Night Tag does sound interesting. But I think I’m the only one here who can go without sleep for a few more measly hours.”

“Hey! Just because any more beauty sleep can’t help you doesn’t mean you should belittle the rest of us!” Sean yelled indignantly from somewhere to my right. I rolled my head to side to watch as he smeared a light coating of mud on his pale skin.

“Just how is it that you live in the Valley of the Sun but you still can’t tan like a normal person?” I asked teasingly. He squinted at me and I stuck my tongue out at him.

He sighed. “I don’t have the energy for your—what does Sandra call it? —shenanigans. I’m getting something to eat.” Most of them followed suit, shedding dirt as they stood.

Deidre stood as well. “I’m going too; I don’t like Soriah being in the sun for too long. Are you coming too?”

“I’ll be there in a little while,” I replied. “I’m going to go check the pond to make sure the tarp is still in place.”

I shook my hair free of earth and pulled it back, far off my sweaty neck. Despite my recent activity, I opted to jog to the pond rather than walking, feeling the glorious loosening of muscle in my legs. At the pond, I poured half a bucket of water into a nearby trough that was used for washing so we didn’t dirty the pond.

I rinsed the mud from my arms and chest but as I turned back towards the pond, something caught my ankles and sent me flying into the water. I surfaced, sputtering water from my lungs.

“Damn it!” I parted the black curtain of my wet hair—I’d somehow managed to lose the elastic band in the fall—so that I could see what I’d tripped over. I looked up into hazel eyes crinkled in laughter. Adam offered me a hand but I waved him away, hoisting myself up over the edge and standing indignantly before him. At least I’m even more clean now.

“I would have pulled you down and drowned you but I didn’t want to dirty the water,” I said matter-of-factly before dropping into a crouch and sweeping his legs out from under him. Before he could recover, I was on him, one knee planted firmly in the middle of his chest while I held his arms immobile.

“That’s the second time you’ve surprised me,” he said mildly, shifting slightly beneath my knee. “You’re faster than you seem.”

“Are you saying that I seem slow? That’s not helping your case,” I replied, tendrils of hair dripping water that darkened the patches of dried mud on his chest. “Though I must admit, it’s nice to see you actually interacting with people instead of wandering off by yourself.”

“I was curious,” he said, looking almost comfortable on his back in the dirt, “I wanted to see if you were as untouchable as Deidre described you as.”

“And?”

He looked me in the eye. “I could catch you,” he said.

I threw my head back and laughed, digging my knee harder into his chest. He exhaled sharply. I leaned down close to him, my long hair creating a dark curtain around us. I saw flecks of bright green in his brown eyes that reminded me of that little sprout from so long ago. I spoke and he breathed my words.

“Adam, you’re cute, but you couldn’t catch me in a thousand years.” I pressed a feather light kiss against his lips and removed my knee, preparing to stand up. He brought his hands up and pressed his palms against mine, pushing up. I tried to keep him immobilized against the ground but he was stronger than he’d let on and he pushed me up easily.

He sat up, his fingers encircling my wrists. He brought his face close to mine, mirroring what I’d done to him before.

“You know, Evalyn, you’re pretty cute but you’re not nearly as invincible as you think you are.”

I narrowed my eyes and was about to retort but I could hear Deidre calling out to me from the Square. I stood and left Adam sitting beside the pond.

☀☀☀

“Hold still or I’m going to prick you again,” Sandra mumbled around a mouthful of pins.

I obeyed her irritated command and straightened my spine, concentrating on each breath as I endured the torture of being fitted to a long, flowing skirt that she was trying to adjust on me. It was for the Dance of Fire, only two days away, and all of us had to wear a skirt or dress for the celebration. Mine was stained a dark red at the hems and faded to peach as it progressed upwards. It was beautiful, I’ll admit, but it was a shame that I’d tear it to pieces and grind dirt into the soft fabric. I always did.

“You’re growing too fast, Evalyn; I had to add a few inches to it this year,” Sandra said reproachfully, as though it were my fault that my body grew every year. I knew what she truly meant; her disapproval was from my needing a Fire Dance skirt at all. Once a girl was mated, she no longer needed a skirt for the Dance.

I merely smiled and did not reply, knowing that that would bother her more than a retort. She pressed on.

“So, is this the year that the notorious Evalyn will finally carry out her duty and allow one of those boys to catch her?” she asked, trying to intimidate me with the biting tone she used to control the kids. It’d been years since that tactic worked on me.

“Probably not,” I replied cheerfully, as though we were discussing whether or not a sandstorm would come soon. “It appears as though I’m simply too fast for them.”

Sandra snorted, though it was muffled as she had to close her lips tight around the pins. She inserted another at the waistband and we were finally done. I twirled on the crate upon which I was standing, the skirt billowing out and batting her in the face. Her eye twitched and she motioned for me to step down.

“Evalyn”—she never called any of us by our nicknames—“I’ll be frank with you. You aren’t getting any younger and yet you still persist in denying your mother, this community, this species the only thing we live for. I’ve spoken to the other elders and we are deliberating on just how much longer you will be allowed to stay here without contributing the one thing that makes you valuable to us.”

I laughed outright then, and a dark blush of anger colored her round cheeks. I wiggled out of the skirt and handed it to her to put in her basket.

“I do my part here, Sandra, as much or more than any other. It’s amusing to me that you’re threatening me with exile because I will not whore my body to produce children that we don’t need.”

She blinked at the word “whore”, probably surprised that I knew what it meant. I was one of the few that read the collections of books we had in one of the spare trailers; I could see it bothered her that I knew the words that the elders knew, words of the Old World.

I am not a child anymore and you have no power over me, I thought triumphantly.

Sandra said nothing more, instead gathering her needles and thread and cloth, and leaving to fit another with her skirt. I left the trailer at a leisurely pace, heading back to the trailer that I slept in for a pair of jeans. It was late afternoon, almost evening, and the sun burned into my bare shoulders and legs.

“Flash!”

“Thunder!” I called automatically before swiftly leaping backwards to dodge the dirt clod that would have hit me directly in the shoulder. It bounced harmlessly on the ground, breaking apart. I turned to see the girl named Shazza walking towards me.

“Huh. You are quick,” she said. She tossed her twisted locks of red hair over her shoulder. She’d wound little wooden beads into the ends of the locks and they clacked whenever she moved.

“Shazza, right?”

“Just Shaz. Hungry?” She tossed me a wedge of bread and I bit into the hard crust.

“Isn’t it hard to play Catch and Tag with those?” I asked, nodding towards her beaded hair.

“Of course. That’s the point; the challenge makes it more fun,” she grinned. I liked this girl; she had a feral side that Deidre and I shared.

“So where did you live before you came here?” I asked her. “I’ve never seen you before.”

She shrugged. “I come and go, I guess. I usually live in the deserted cities. They’re interesting but dangerous, which is why I decided to come along to one of these communities and see what I thought.”

“Dangerous how?”

“The building are so old that sometimes they collapse without warning,” she said. “The day before the group found me, I was caught in some of the rubble but I managed to free myself.”

She pulled her green shirt over her back, revealing enormous, deep purple bruises spreading across her tan skin. There were angry red lines clashing with the purple bruises in vertical scratches. I winced in sympathy.

“I think we have some alcohol,” I said. “Those scrapes look a little infected.”

Shaz nodded in thanks and we headed to the storage shed, where all of our supplies of non-food items were kept. Cameron, one of our elders, almost 60 years old, waved to me and asked where we were going.

“Do we have any alcohol left?” I asked him. “Shaz has a couple of scratches on her back that I wanted to disinfect.”

He chuckled. “In the Old World, I think you would have made an excellent nurse, Ev. Yes, there should be a bottle or two left. I’d tell you to only use a little but you know that.”

Cameron was one of the few elders I respected. He didn’t patronize us like Sandra, didn’t expect us to act within a strict parameter of so-called etiquette.

I found the alcohol and a small, clean square of cloth. Shaz pull her shirt over her head again, holding it against her chest while I dabbed the stinging liquid on the cuts. She hissed and I patted her shoulder reassuringly.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “The burn means it’s killing the infection. It’ll go away soon.” I gave her back a few more pats with the cloth. “So what do you think? Do you like living by yourself in the Ruins or here with other people?”

She shrugged. “It’s alright. I find it very strange that the ones you call elders here are so fixated on this mating system. I personally never plan on bringing a child into this world; surviving for myself alone is challenge enough.”

“You can’t know how much I agree with that,” I said. “In fact, I’m not sure what will happen to me after the Fire Dance. I know I won’t be mated.”

“Deidre told me that the mates are determined by a game of Catch and Tag, aren’t they?”

“Yes. But so far, no one has caught me and I don’t plan on it happening this year either.”

Shaz cocked her head to the side to look at me. “Sometimes things happen that we don’t plan for.”

I laughed. “Perhaps, but I’m quite certain I’ll still be mate-less three days from now. I’m faster than all the boys in my village.”

“What if I told you that you’ve caught the attention of someone who isn’t from your village? Someone who I believe has a very good chance of catching you.”

I bit the inside of my cheek as I folded the cloth and put it in a basket for cleaning. “I’m sure you mean Adam, right?” I stated more than asked.

“Yep. He sleeps near me and we talk sometimes. You interest him more than the other girls because he says you’re as strong as he is,” she said, slipping the shirt back down over the now-sterilized cuts.

“Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?” I said lightly. “I’ve already told him he can’t catch me and if I have to land him on his ass in the dirt to prove it, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Shaz laughed. “You’ve got fire, Evalyn, but believe me when I say he’s relentless and he won’t let you go that easily. From what I’ve seen, it’s a trait both of you possess.”

“You may be right,” I said. We left the storage shed, walking as dusk began to fall. Michael and Jake had begun tossing small logs into the fire pit in the Square and the aroma of stew drifted from the kitchen. Shaz began to turn away when I stopped her with a hand at her elbow.

“Can you tell Adam something for me?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him all day, not even when we’d played Tag. In light of what she’d told me, I was beginning to anticipate the Dance of Fire. She nodded.

“Try to keep up.”