Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash
A sun beam brightens my closed eyes. I instinctively squeeze my them tight against the light, covering half my face with my hand. Past my fingers, the strong morning sun sneaks between an opening in the curtains. My neck feels stiff and I have a tinge of a headache. Panic beats in my chest.
“They didn’t come.” I don’t believe it. Propping myself up on my elbow, I look over to see my brother sitting on the floor next me asleep. His back is pressed against the sofa and his chin resting on his chest. He looks like he had a rough night. And he did. We all did. There was so much preparation for the Honored Ones to take us last night. The one night they were going to save us from this melting hell. Yet here we are.
We all gathered here at Sanctuary in our pressed cornflower blue linen. A ritual uniform to set us apart from the rest destined to die a fiery death under the discretion of the Chosen. Sanctuary is just Zenon and Zethra’s upscale mountain house in the Catskills where they’ve managed to squander enough water to keep the garden fresh. They chose us, they said, just as they had been chosen by some celestial being. A Guardian, they said. I believe them. Well, I did. If they were really the Chosen, they wouldn’t be sleeping in their wicker thrones wearing white gowns. That’s what they said the Guardian wore when they were chosen. The two to decide who burns on this melting hellscape and who ascends to the celestial plane. If they were really the Chosen, they would be walking around this planet scorching the unworthy into damnation. Or a crisp. They were never clear about it. But we were already saved, prejudged, living in Sanctuary. Praise the sleeping Chosen.
We all made ritual offerings last night. What an other-worldly being would want with a bunch of jewelry, comic books, and pressed flowers has me puzzled, but we all put our stuff on a quartz dish. And it was overflowing. Zethra was busy outside in the garden gathering ingredients for our cleansing cocktail. Everyone was excited for the cocktail because we aren’t allowed to drink alcohol. I saw him picking white flowers, berries from a blue-belled flower, and of course, the most important part, a gift from the Guadian itself, bark from the Somnus tree. That bark was supposed to put everyone in a deep sleep, and it worked. Everyone looks dead. The champagne sweetened the deal, but it was the worst thing I’ve tasted. Tim is going to be so disappointed that we’re stuck here another day.
“Tim, wake up.” I nudge my brother’s shoulder to rouse him from the deepest sleep I’ve ever seen him in. He’d almost look sweet if his mouth wasn’t covered in drool. “Tim, you’re not gonna believe this. They didn’t come!” I shove him a little harder this time and he flops heavily onto the floor. “Tim!”
I get up onto my knees and lean over my brother turning his face toward mine. His lips are blue and there’s vomit on his shirt. I press my fingers to his neck already knowing the answer. “No, no, no, no,” I sputter. His skin is pale and cool. I struggle to pull my brother to my chest. We sit and stiffly rock, my face buried in the back of his neck. Holding him close. Hugging him for the last time. My tears stain his shirt a shade darker.
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault.” Tim never wanted to join Sanctuary. Jess and I found him on the street when we were looting for Sanctuary. He was one of the Beggars living in the streets after we lost him. We convinced him he’d have a better life at Sanctuary. That he needed to join us, Zenon and Zethra, and the others on our mission to live on the celestial plane. I brought him to the Chosen for their blessing and he became part of the Few.
“Jess?” I hear my voice muffled against Tim’s back. I roll my head back and bellow, “Jess!” Squeezing Tim tight, I wipe my eyes on his shirt. I look to my right and Jess isn’t there. All three of us sat on the floor together last night. Where is Jess? I sit up taller and look around the room. Bodies. Bodies everywhere. On the floor. Strewn across chairs and sofas. Last night’s ritual wasn’t a final celebration. It was a mass offering of souls.
I finally let go of Tim, unwrapping our limbs, and kiss his forehead. Leaning my head back against the sofa, I stare into the death-masked slumber of a member of the Few I clinked glasses with last night. Moving to the coffee table, I search the offering dish for my tribute, a picture of the three of us, and Tim’s, a key-chain pepper spray he said he’d never need again. He was wrong. The streets were dangerous but now he’s dead in Sanctuary. I pocket the picture and gently pull Tim’s fingers apart just enough to put the keychain in his hand. The only tribute I can think to do for now.
The sunlight pours brightly through the curtains now. The morning is progressing. I’m climbing over bodies looking into faces for Jess. All I see is a sea of light blue. A death uniform. Blurry eyed, I turn over bodies half hoping to find my sister, half hoping she slipped away into the wild night. I cover my nose with my shirt. The acidic smell of vomit permeates the air. All my friends are dead but what I don’t understand is why am I alive? I drank it, too. The Chosen were so strict with us. How could I be so dumb to think they would give us alcohol without consequence?
It’s still a little dark in here. The light is concentrated in a beam illuminating the center of the room. If I open the curtains, maybe Jess’s face will appear. There’s broken glass and bodies all over. I need to be careful. There was a flash of light but no sound. Did I just see the front door open? Is my mind playing tricks on me? “Jess?”
The front door isn’t that far from me, but I feel like I’m moving in slow motion. I don’t want to leave my brother behind. My head is in so many places now. My brother is dead, he was murdered by someone I trusted with my life. With his life. I brought him to Sanctuary to save him and it led to his ultimate death. It’s hard to see and move. I’m pushing through the pain and tears to find Jess. I hope she is alive.
Walking on my toes looking where I step, I avoid every possible chance to stomp a glass shard. I pull open the door and the summer heat takes my breath like a punch to the gut. The sunlight flashes in my eyes and I raise my arm to look down the driveway. No one is there but the gate is open. Only the Few have the code. I run down the driveway, my feet burning on the pavement, and stop at the gate. Where would she have gone?
Walking toward town, I try to stay on the grass, but all of it is yellowed and crunchy off Sanctuary grounds. No one is in charge outside of that gate, and to be fair, we have been stealing the water for our garden for a very long time. I don’t think it has rained in at least a year either. Where is everyone?
Jess will be easy to pick out. She’s the only other person wearing blue linen. A color that stands out against all the dead shrubbery and crispy patches of grass. I move past empty shops, cars with smashed windows. Not one person is on the street today. There’s a church nearby. This is the only time I want to run into a group of Beggars. It seems like a logical place to take shelter.
My feet are getting sore, but I need to find Jess. We’re going to have to adjust to this new life without leadership. Without a garden. Without a permanent shelter and a family. Scavenging for food and water. Fighting off dangerous Beggars. She must be scared and feel so alone thinking both of her brothers are dead. I drank that cocktail that killed everyone and so did Jess. How are we both alive? Is she alive? Yes. Don’t think like that. Why else was the gate open?
There they are. I need to approach them. They might have seen Jess. I need to be strong for her. And for Tim. “Hey!” I shout toward a group of Beggars standing near the front of the church. “I need your help!” Fifteen pairs of eyes shift in my direction. They look worse than the last time I saw them. It must be really bad out here. They’re all so bony and filthy. I’m glad Jess and I saved Tim from that life. Although soon we’ll look just like them.
“You’re the Chosen,” one voice proclaims.
“No. The Chosen are dead. I’m looking for my sister. I have her picture. Maybe you’ve seen her?” I offer.
“The Chosen have come back?” I hear a voice reverberate from inside the church.
“No. They’re dead,” I say again.
The group starts to move toward me, and more Beggars start to come from inside the church. I get the picture ready and walk toward them holding it out for them to see. It is a picture of me, Tim, and Jess on the river before this whole thing happened. Before the Chosen, and the Few, and the Beggars. Before animals and people started to starve and die off. Before this terrible mess. We’re all smiling in our bathing suits posing in front of the river. Tim looks so young. Unrecognizable. But Jess and I haven’t changed much since then. We were teenagers. Our father took the picture before he … well, died like most of the people on this planet. I push the thoughts away and ask, “Have you seen this woman? Her name is Jess. I am looking for her.” Someone takes the picture and starts passing it around the growing group.
“It’s the Chosen,” someone tells the group.
“Have you seen her? She is dressed like me.” I say.
“I stole from the market!” I hear someone yell.
“I took the shoes from a dead man!” I hear another voice. The group forms a circle around me.
“I killed a person for their shelter!” A young Beggar yells in my face.
“I don’t care!” I yell back. “You’ve seen my sister. Is she the Chosen?” The group starts pushing in on me, a chorus of confessions, begging me to choose them. Panic fills my chest. I feel a thousand hands pulling me in all directions. Their sunken faces contorting into wet desperation as I struggle to stay on my feet. My arms begin to swing and make connections. Cries of pain join in the sound of “choose me, save me”. I’m fighting my way out of a nightmare pit of all the terribleness in the world. My clothes rip and tear. Memories flood my head. After my father died, Jess, Tim, and I lived on the streets. Jess and I had to scavenge for food to take care of our brother. The Beggars always singled us out. One day I was in a circle, just like this one, when Zethra towered over the group and pulled me out. Jess was with me, but Tim ran away. It took us a few months to find him again.
I open my eyes and connect with a Beggar’s jaw imagining Zenon and Zethra’s cowardly faces. Killing off the Few with lies of a celebratory drink. Taking Tim from me. With that right hook the circle breaks open and I run as fast as I can into the forest across the road.
My feet carry me deep into the woods, the debris crunching beneath my feet. I fall to my knees and hold onto the base of a tree desperate to catch my breath. I check over my shoulder between breaths to see no one has caught up to me. “They’ve seen her. She’s alive.” My chest heaves and tears stream down my face. I lean my shoulder into the tree trunk hanging my head and let the tears splash on dead leaves. The sound of the river catches my ear. How long have I been running? Jess must be at the river. Where else would she be? We spent countless summer days on the river as kids. The three of us on the riverbank. Cooling ourselves and relentlessly ganging up on Tim in water fights.
I don’t know why I’m crying anymore. Is it the memories? Is it exhaustion? I’ve just lost my last connection to my brother to a group of mindless Beggars. The tears pool on the ground beneath me. A light flashes behind me. “Who’s there?” I turn around and press my back against the tree. The blood drains from my limbs and I feel my heart beat in my stomach. My breath shallows. Floating five feet off the ground is a human-shaped being. A milky substance drips from its limbs splashing little sparks of electricity on the forest floor. I watch, awed, as it stretches out its arm and pulls the thundercloud surrounding it into a lightning flashed robe. I look up into it’s face to find no face, but, instead, a galaxy swirling in a void contained in the shape of a head. I grab my head and scream in pain.
Aidan. You are the Chosen. It is time for you to choose who dies and who ascends. It’s voice echoes in my head. My skin begins to burn. I look at my hands and they burst into flames. I blink and they’re just my hands again. What was in that drink? The power is in your hands. I kept you alive and one other. Together you must choose.
“Jess? Where is she? Who are you?” I mouth the words but no sound comes out.
I am Uriel. Do as you are told, and you will live eternally.
And with that, he disappeared with a flash of lightning. My stomach burns and I hear the crunching of leaves in the distance. I follow my instinct and head to the river. I’m running faster now. Whatever that encounter was it has made me stronger. My foot barely touches the ground before the next footfall. I feel like I’m flying. I crest a hill and see the river. To my shock I see Jess submerged to her waist in the water surrounded by three of the strange creatures. She is having an exchange with them. I can see her hair swinging back and forth as if she is saying no over and over.
There’s a large group of Beggars on the riverbank and in the water starting to encircle her. I see three flashes of lightning and the strange beings disappear. As I move closer, I can hear the awful chants of confessions and begging to be chosen. “Jess!” I yell. She looks at me and stands still. I’m moving closer to her and she locks eyes with me. Is that fire in her eyes? A ball of flames disintegrates a small group of Beggars. Was that me or Jess?
Behind me I can hear the group that was following me is starting to catch up. I turn to face them and shout from my gut. Fire shoots from my hand and Beggars burst into flames. Uriel’s voice comes back in my head. You must choose. I run down the hill closer to the river’s edge and direct another explosion near Jess to clear the Beggars away from her. I run into the water, spraying bits of the river into the air with every sprinting step like when we were kids, to find her floating face down in the water. I turn her over and drag her to shore.
In my rage I burn everyone on the bank. I’m going to be stuck in this awful world alone and I want to watch it burn. Everything that was good in my life is gone. The world isn’t safe anymore. My brother and sister are both dead. The closest thing I had to a family was taken away last night. Zenon and Zethra gave up hope. We had a good life in Sanctuary. Sure, the world was falling apart. More and more people were dying every day. But we were thriving. And they took it away from all of us. I wish I could set myself on fire. Can I? I make a circle of fire around me and I don’t even feel the heat.
“Great.” I say.
I walk over to the water and hold Jess in my arms the same way I was holding Tim only an hour earlier. Her clothes are torn, and her hair is covering her face. I push it back to see peace there. Such a difference from only a little while ago when she was staring at me with fire in her eyes. Uriel floats down from the sky.
You’ve made your choice.
“I don’t care anymore! My brother and sister are dead!” I shout at the evil thing.
You may come with me now. You’ve traded many lives for your own. She is not dead.
I look at Jess and her chest heaves a breath. My eyes shift to Uriel, my new family, and I accept my new life on the celestial plane. Whatever that means. “What about Tim?” Lightning strikes and we’re floating in the sky.
Now the true end begins.
Ryan Norman is a writer from New York living in the Hudson Valley. Inspired by the landscape, he writes what he feels. His work has appeared in From Whispers to Roars, XRAY Literary Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, Storgy Magazine and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @RyanMGNorman and an updated list of his publications at Linktree: https://linktr.ee/RyanMGNorman
