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Tranquil and serene, Richard stared at her, an occasional blink on an otherwise motionless face. “Who are you?” he thought.
The moisture on her lips caused them to tug at each other as her mouth gently opened. “Shanna.”
The word itself whispered as though to a child for the first time, seemed familiar to him. Trying to search his memories, he found that nothing else would show other than the face of this mysterious woman.
Panic took hold as he quickly thought. “Am I dead?”
Her expression remained unchanged. “No,” she replied softly.
“I killed my wife,” he thought, sadness showing even through the words in his head.
“Yes. We know.”
“What other choice did I have?” he continued, frustration mixing with anger through his head. “Why is this happening to me? Why do you come to me now?”
“I come to know you. To know yourself. To show that you are never alone.”
“I killed the person I loved the most. The one reason I had to live.”
“You have your son. You saved a great many people.”
“Where do you fit into this? Are you an ancestor?”
“I am the first ancestor. The first Atla.”
His eyes flicked open as a searing stab of pain caused his muscles to tighten. Through gritted teeth and blurred vision, he looked down to see his leg bandaged with a yellow cloth, blue cream oozing from each side. A hand squeezed down pinching at the bandage.
Peter relaxed his grip as he stood up. “Glad to see you’re awake Richard. I hope I didn’t interrupt any dreams you were having,” he said sarcastically. “You put on quite a show. Banding the shackles together like that. That crossbow, well that was genius. True genius.”
Grabbing a small piece of fruit from the table, he began to toss it casually into the air. “I didn’t think you had it in you. Murder your own wife like that. Of course, I didn’t really think that she would make it so easy for you.”
Richard, the pain subsiding in his leg, spat his words at him. “You bastard. You gave her no choice.”
“No choice!” Peter shouted as he threw the fruit at the wall. “If she had killed you then we would be free. She would have been with her son and your dead flesh would have been our way out.” Calming down, he sighed deeply. “Richard Whyte. Saviour of humanity. Killer of his wife. Who would have thought?”
Moving over to the doorway, he paused briefly. “We leave in sixteen hours.”
“What about my son?”
Peter continued to walk to the doorway. “I said you would see your family again and you have.”
Richard attempted to move as Peter disappeared from sight. As waves of pain fought through his body, he relaxed back on the makeshift bed. Several moments of silence passed as he kept his gaze on the ceiling above him.
“Hello, Richard.”
Connie’s familiar soft voice broke the silence as he kept his gaze on him.
“I’ve bandaged your leg and treated the wounds. It should heal most of them, but they will have to be removed before you leave,” she said checking the bandage on his leg.
“She was Atla.”
“Yes,” Connie replied kneeling down next to the bed. “She loved you very much. She hated the idea of fighting you. Peter thought that your emotions toward her would be the edge he needed.”
Still staring at the ceiling through blurred eyes, Richard swallowed hard. “Did you know?”
Fighting back tears, Connie grabbed hold of his hand. “No. I swear I had nothing to do with it. You were supposed to fight our champion. It was meant to be a fair fight.”
Richard blinked, causing the tears in his eyes to run down the side of his face. “They were on the eighth boat, weren’t they?”
Connie placed her forehead on his hand and sobbed.
Attempting to get out of the bed again, Richard winced as he tried to move his leg.
“Richard, you have to rest.” Connie pleaded as she placed her hand on his shoulder. “Give the mixture a couple of more hours to work. Then you should be able to walk.”
Richard winced again as he laid back down on the bed. “I want to see my son,” he said as his breathing became heavy. “I’m not leaving here without him.”
“Richard. You must rest. We’ll talk later about your son.” Getting to her feet, she brought the wooden bowl of tepid water over to him and washed the beads of sweat from his brow.
Richard closed his eyes as the damp cloth cooled his skin. The gentle touch cradled his anger and soon he found himself staring into the face of Shanna.
The sound of thunder, close by, awakened him to an empty room. Richard was greeted by the flickering of a single torch, its small, contained fire causing the shadows to dance and scatter around the room. Feeling as though he were suffering from the mother of all hangovers, he gently rested his hand on his pounding head. Looking at his forearm, he could see the seared skin from where the shackles had made their mark.
Reaching down to his leg a gentle aching reminded him of what had happened and what he had become. Trying to remember felt difficult, as though the details were just out of reach. Hazy pictures played in his mind like crumpled newspaper headlines.
Moving off the bed, he managed to stand up and walk over to the table. Lifting one of the beakers, he paused as he pressed his lips to the rim. Lowering it, he held it out at arm’s length before pouring the contents onto the table.
The bell still rang in the distance. Low and obtrusive, like a dull mechanical thud marking time every few seconds.
He had no idea of what time it was, or how long he had left. Limping from the room, he quietly made his way along the corridor. Following each turn, as he had earlier, he eventually stood at the doorway to the great hall. With no guards’ present, he opened the door and entered the darkened room.
One solitary torch snaked its light in the middle of the hall. The T-shaped plinth, its shadow jumping around the wall, stood ornate against the cold and darkness of its surroundings. Walking toward it, Richard could see the shackles on either side, resting on the wooden frame.
Quickly unravelling the bandage from his leg, he slowly lifted each shackle before wrapping them carefully together in the dampened material. Limping toward the door leading to the arena, he silently turned the handle and entered the anti-chamber. Opening the door to the arena, he paused before pushing it enough to squeeze through.
The arena, save for four torches, was in total darkness. Small fires burned in cages at equal intervals around the walls. Limping toward the entrance to the corridor at the centre, it wasn’t long before he was swallowed up in the darkness.
Guiding himself along the walls of the tunnel, he eventually found his way outside of the arena walls. Retracing his steps as quickly as he could, he headed back down to where the boats were docked. Several times, he encountered people in the darkness of the narrow streets, but all paid him little attention.
Reaching the jetty, he spotted several figures loading boxes onto the eighth boat, cursing and shouting at one another in the semi-darkness. Heading for the boat he would have to stand on, he carefully boarded and crept below deck.
After several minutes, he emerged, his hands grabbing the railing as he lowered himself back onto the dock. Keeping to the shadows he quickly made his way back up to the arena. Walking back, he headed for the stairway leading to the large central balcony. Stepping onto it, he gazed around the empty seats and stained silk cushions. Moving over to the far wall, he spotted the unimposing doorway in a darkened corner. Stepping through, he found himself in a long corridor with doors along one side at short intervals.
Believing his son could be in any of these, he anxiously investigated the first one. Inside several people lay naked on colourful cushions of satin and silk, blissfully unaware of his presence. He moved to the next one in the corridor. After checking all twelve rooms, he began to follow a small staircase leading up to the top level.
Reaching the top, only one doorway presented itself. Opening it slightly he gazed through the gap into a large room. Stepping in, he quietly walked around the room checking each area and doorway. Finding no one, he sighed before turning back to the main door.
Peter stood between him and the doorway with a drink in one hand. “I don’t usually get visitors this time of night,” he quipped.
Richard shook his head. “Maybe you should be more inviting.”
Sitting on one of the large cushioned chairs Peter smirked at him. “If you’re looking for your son then you’re out of luck. We don’t keep the help in the dignitary’s quarters.”
“Where is he?”
“With one of the families in the city. I don’t think you’ll find him anytime soon.”
“I won’t rest until I get my son back. Even if I have to travel back to this godforsaken place again.”
“Richard. Soon this place won’t even be a memory for you. Do you think you’re the first to love his family? To want their son back with them. We’ve seen it all before. There isn’t anything you can do that hasn’t been tried. What you all seem to lack is any respect for the process. After all, we keep our side of the bargain. You go free and we’ll try a new approach when your next ancestor is ready.”
“You know as well as I do that the only way you can use me is to kill me while wearing the shackles in the confines of the arena. Anything else and your process doesn’t work,” Richard said, glancing at the doorway.
Peter took another drink.
A woman, dressed in a red tunic quickly walked into the room and whispered into Peter’s ear, his smile becoming wider as she continued. Standing up, she left the room as he finished the drink he was holding. “I see you’ve already visited the gift shop.”
Richard’s heart sank.
“Unfortunately, we don’t allow you to take souvenirs. Especially ones so valuable. What did you expect to do with them?” Peter said standing up and heading for the decanter full of dark liquid.
“You’ve seen it all before, so why don’t you tell me?”
Peter laughed as he poured the liquid and filled his glass. “I would offer you a drink, but it would only be wasted on you.”
Richard ignored him as he picked up one of the glasses and poured himself a drink.
“You know Richard. You’ve adapted amazingly well in the brief time you’ve known about this.”
“What if I tell the world about this place when I get home,” Richard said before taking his first sip of the pungent liquid.
Peter smiled. “Good luck with that. An island only you can see. A battle for the soul of mother earth. Bindings that allow you to shape anything from your mind. The son of a man who died in a lunatic asylum. Somehow, I don’t think you’ll get many believers. It may make a good book, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Richard forced himself to take another sip from his still full glass. “Where does the Vermilion cloud come from?”
“Chemistry. A sort of carbon dioxide oxygenated soup. You’ve seen our reaction to it. Humans have an entirely different one.”
“Death.”
“For most. Some have a slightly higher resilience. Something, in all honesty, we’ve never been able to figure out. Of course, the tools have changed over the years so maybe we’ll crack that one next time.”
Richard placed the drink down on the table next to the decanter. “What if I decide to stay here?”
Peter pondered the question. “Well. I would say we were flattered. However, that’s not going to happen. You’ll go back to your dreary life in some provincial town somewhere in the back of beyond. A new identity, slowly believing you are who people think you are.”
“Unless I drink myself to death on distilled whiskey,” Richard said eyeing up the partly filled glass on the table.
Peter laughed. “Even that’s been tried before. No. The best thing for you to do is to allow yourself to forget. If you can’t remember, then what have you really lost. No one is going to believe that you’re a hero let alone someone else entirely.”
Richard’s gaze lay fixated on the drink in front of him. “How long would it take?”
Peter lowered his glass. “To forget? Usually happens in the first three days. That’s if you don’t fight it. You’ll be kept a close eye on, obviously.”
“You mean another Atla wife,” Richard replied with disgust in his tone.
Smiling, Peter shook his head. “No, not this time. You’ve earned your reprieve.”
Both sat in silence for a few moments before Richard got to his feet and walked toward the doorway. Peter continued to sit and drink as he watched Richard leaving.
Once he had made his way onto the balcony, Richard stood for a few moments before making his way towards his quarters.
Reaching the glowing flicker of a single burning torch he found Connie as she paced around the room. Sighing and in obvious relief to see him, she placed her arm softly around him. “I was worried you had tried something silly.”
Richard shrugged. “Like what, steal the shackles.”
“I was thinking more of a boat. But I suppose taking the shackles would have qualified. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Lifting a glass, she offered it to him.
Richard examined the contents. “Blue water?”
“Yes. I noticed you had poured the other onto the table,” she said looking down at the spilled liquid.
Taking a large drink, he immediately felt the effects as his headache began to subside. Looking at the remaining liquid, he stared deep into the glass. “Do you think I should forget?”
Connie paused before answering. “I think it would be painful to remember what happened here. Your wife and son wouldn’t want you to suffer.”
“So just forget everything. Move on believing I’m someone else,” Richard said, moving to sit on the bed. “What about my son? Does he stay here?”
Connie sat down beside him. “I can’t tell you that. I can promise he will be well looked after.”
Richard began to feel drowsy. Placing the now empty beaker on the floor, he lay flat on the bed. “How long before the boats leave?”
Gently stroking his forehead, Connie whispered the answer. ‘They leave one hour after sunrise. Get some rest and I’ll wake you when its time.”
Richard allowed his eyes to close as she continued to soothe his head.
Shanna, calm and serene, stared at him under her white silk headscarf. As she remained motionless, Richard could hear voices from behind her.
A young woman’s voice giggled in obvious excitement. “I told you he could do it.”
A man’s voice replied to her. “The battle has only just begun Richard. You must remember. Once you are free from the island, you must seek out and destroy all the Atla. With no one on the outside then the game must surely end. Your ancestors will never need to return here.”
The young woman’s voice interjected. “Trapped and forgotten.”
Richard, transfixed by the vision of Shanna, spoke wearily to her. “I’m tired of this. I’m no vigilante. Why shouldn’t the Atla have their chance?”
Shanna faintly smiled. “In the whole of the world, only the pure bloodline can bond the time between both realities. Others of your ancestral line have never returned. Nothing is known of them. A great hidden mystery. However, things are hidden for a reason. Find that reason and stab at its heart.”
“What if that reason isn’t anything? How could I even begin to try and discover what it is?” Richard said despondently.
Shanna, her eyes glistening kept silent. Slowly she faded from view replaced by a memory of a teenage boy holding a Musket, its fuse lit and pointing at a sack hanging from a tree.
The loud bang and thick puff of smoke brought a smile to his young face. As the sack moved, he lowered the musket and turned to look around him. “Can we stop now pop? That one fair hurt my shoulder.”
He could hear himself answer. “Load it once more, this time with less powder.” His voice, stern and clear gave the boy no choice but to follow his command. Watching him load the powder and shot from his position, Richard smiled as the boy again hit the hanging sack.
Lowering the musket, he looked over his shoulder at him. “Maybe Lucy should have a turn.”
Richard watched as his hand reached out to grab hold of the weapon. “Go and collect your shot then you can learn to clean this. I’ll see you back at the house.” Turning, Richard found himself looking at a large wooden house close to where they were standing. Fields of corn surrounded it on all sides reaching up to his waist as he walked forward.
Reaching the wooden framed porch, a slender young girl, nearly as tall as him, ran forward in a fervour of excitement. Her face shone a wide smile as she stroked her long golden hair plaited into a thick braid that she had pulled around the front of her shoulder. Wearing one of her mother’s pinned up blue dresses she stopped at the top of the steps and spun around, the braided hair swinging around as she moved. “What do you think father? Mother spent ages on my hair, and she let me have one of her dresses.”
“You look beautiful Lucy. A real lady,” Richard could hear himself saying.
The memory began to fade and jumble as a more recent one from his own father, as a child, replaced it. Sitting at the bottom of the stairs, he was listening to his own parents arguing as a whisky bottle smashed against the wall. From what he could make out, through the slur of words, he felt she had betrayed him. Made him weak and held him back. Without her, he knew he could have been more.
Richard could feel the boy’s tears running down his face. His hands squeezed tightly together causing his pale fingers to whiten.
He listened as a woman’s voice spoke calmly of forgetting what had happened and it was time to move on. She asked him several times to drink the water. After a seemingly endless silence, a glass could be heard smashing.
Exiting the room, a slightly younger Connie closed the door behind her, pausing as she rested her forehead against the wooden panel. Turning around, she saw the boy sitting halfway up the stairs. Staring at him for a moment, she drew a sharp, deep breath before ascending the staircase and sitting beside him.
She sat silent for a moment, her arm snaked around him, pulling him close as he wiped the tears from his face. “Charlie. When the time comes, you don’t have to fight. We’ll figure something out. I don’t want you go through this.” Staring into his eyes as though she were trying to see into his very soul, she held her hand under his chin. “When you remember this, tell no one.” Her face softened as a fake smile pushed at her cheeks. “It can be our secret.”
With the memory fading, Richard opened his eyes as a hand gently shook his shoulder.
Connie stood over him, her face softened in the flickering glow from the nearly extinguished torch. “It will be light soon. I thought I would check your leg and make sure you were okay.”
Richard didn’t move as she examined his wounds. “I saw you sitting on the stairs with my father.”
Connie glanced up at him. “Oh. Was it a good memory?”
“You said he didn’t have to fight. When the time came, you’d make it possible.”
Standing, she looked across at him. “Your grandfather wasn’t well. I couldn’t see my son go through the same thing.”
“Wasn’t that your duty? To provide the next fighter,” Richard said, sitting up.
“Some things get in the way of duty.”
Richard’s stare hardened. “My grandfather tried not to forget.”
Connie’s expression saddened. “Yes. But he knew that remembering meant a slow death. Nobody understood what he was going through. People called him a drunk and a lunatic,” she said, as her own memories showed on her face.
Richard stood and placed his arms around her, pulling her closer. “Is that why you’re staying?”
Connie released her arms and stepped back. “If my people find out that I betrayed them, they will kill me to make way for another. Our society only functions if people fit into their role and there are only so many.”
“What will you do here?”
Connie sighed. “We brought some equipment to the island on the eighth boat. Hopefully, we can improve the lives of everyone on Atlatier.”
Richard stared at the small flickering torch burning by the doorway. “What if I stay and help? Live on Atla with my son and help your people.”
Connie smiled. “Richard. Your place is outside of the Vermilion cloud. If you stay here, then your bloodline loses the ability to open the doorway between our societies. Just by being here the time you have, means that you won’t be able to see the cloud for at least a year. You become joined, unified with its existence.”
Richard glanced toward the ground. “I don’t want to leave here without my son.”
Placing her hand against his cheek, compassion echoed in her voice. “I will make sure my great grandson is looked after.” Smiling, she wiped the tears from his face.
Pulling away, Richard slowly walked over to the torch and flipped the metal cover down to extinguish its flame. A shard of daylight stretched over the floor. As thin as a finger, it remained as dull as the flame that had camouflaged it. Small wisps of smoke dispersed in the light and around the room as both stared silently for a moment at the line of light.
Connie gazed toward the gap at the side of the small high opening in the wall. “The boats will be leaving in less than an hour,” she said, turning her attention back to Richard. “I’ll walk you back down to the dock.
Richard smiled at her as he attempted to compose himself. “Would you mind if I walked by myself?”
A look of curiosity crossed Connie’s face. “No. I can meet you down there to see you off if you like.”
Grabbing a large piece of fruit, Richard tossed it into the air and caught it. Smiling at her, he nodded. “I’d like that,” he said as he smiled at her again. “I’ll see you there, grandmother.”
Connie smiled back at him as he walked toward the door. Watching him leave, her face became more serious as she once again stared at the origin of the shaft of light. Turning, she quickly left the room and walked down the opposite corridor that Richard had taken.
Richard quickly made his way through the arena in the half-light of the slowly rising sun. Heading for the central tunnel he had used when he first walked in, he ignored the feeling of belonging that he now somehow felt. Despite the brief time he had been here, it seemed as though he had spent a lifetime walking through the sand and dust of the arena.
Walking the length of the darkened tunnel, he exited the arena and began to retrace his steps through the blackened narrow streets. Finding the area he was looking for, he began to look through the windows of the decrepit houses either side.
Several people dressed in a variety of decaying garments began to occupy the streetscape. Each shuffled along an off-putting scraping of sandal against the hardened ground amplified by the closeness of the houses. Each open invitation was taken and explored in turn. One by one, he entered the open doorways, searching for an item that would help him prove he still had a chance of not losing his sanity.
Coming out of one of the houses, he caught a brief glimpse of what he had been searching for before it disappeared down a small side street. Limping quickly toward it, he turned into the thin alleyway, sure of the fact that this time it was definitely real. Searching, he saw a flash of blue dress heading into one of the doorways. Reaching it, he cautiously stepped inside.
Kneeling at a small square wooden table, was a woman dressed in a patched blue dress pouring four beakers of blue water that were placed either side of a small bowl of what looked like oatmeal. The room itself was sparse. The reddened clay walls were clean, as was the cold floor. Other than the small table, several repaired and faded cushions surrounded it, one of which the woman was kneeling on.
Noticing him for the first time, she stood, her head slightly lowered to avoid his gaze. A few moments of silence passed between them as she fidgeted with the thin fabric belt around her dress.
Holding out the large piece of fruit, he watched as her eyes lit up and her hand carefully picked it from him. Richard attempted a disarming smile before talking. “I’m sorry to just come in here like this.”
Smiling back, she waved her arm toward one of the cushions, beckoning him to join her as she knelt back down. “There are no doors outside of the arena. Everyone is welcome,” she said, in a soft-spoken voice. Placing the fruit down, she produced a knife from underneath the table and carefully sliced it into four even pieces before offering one of the segments to him.
Richard shook his head. “No thank you.” Pausing he picked up the beaker of blue water and sipped it. Placing it gently back on the table he softly cleared his throat before talking in a faint voice. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
The woman glanced sideways at him as she cut a small chunk of fruit from one of the segments. Placing it delicately in her mouth, Richard could tell she was savouring the taste. After a few moments of silence, she closed her eyes briefly as she swallowed. Turning her head, she smiled at him. “Don’t you just love the taste and feel of it on your tongue?” Sighing, she looked back down at the table. “I’m Sylvia. I thought it might be nice if you knew my name before you asked your questions.”
Richard cleared his throat again. “Sorry, yes,” he stammered before continuing. “My name is Richard. Richard....” Thinking for a moment, he shook his head before remembering his surname. “Whyte. Richard Whyte.”
“Are you sure about that?” she replied before cutting another small piece off the quarter segment of fruit. She again savoured it before continuing. “Yes. I know who you are Richard. Our warden. You should be dead, and we should be rejoicing.”
Spoken in the same friendly tone, Richard was slightly taken aback by her words, leaving him wondering if he had heard her correctly. “Do you hate me for killing my wife or for trapping you here?”
Sylvia thought for a few moments before answering. “Hate? No. Life is life. We are what we do. You fought well and sacrificed your wife to save another, to save many others.”
“Why is it that I can seemingly walk without fear yet everyone on the island would see me dead?”
Sylvia smiled. “We know that one day we will return. We know that we need your bloodline to carry us forward. There would be no sense in killing you outside of the arena.” For a moment, she seemed distracted. “Your cells are pure, a rare and beautiful thing.”
Richard lifted the beaker and drank a mouthful of the blue water. Looking into it, he thought for a moment on where it came from before dismissing the question. Still holding the beaker, he looked up at Sylvia. “The dress you’re wearing, everybody else I’ve seen has those togas.”
Sylvia stood up and grabbed the hem of her dress before quickly spinning around. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It used to be my grandmothers. I know the men think I’m strange wearing it, but most of the women comment on how fine-looking it is.
Richard gripped the wooden cup tightly. “Your grandmother. Is she still alive?”
Sylvia paused for a moment and knelt back down. Picking up the knife, she cut another small piece of fruit before holding it in front of her mouth. “What you want to know is whether or not my grandmother was from outside. One of your ancestors,” she said, before placing the small piece of fruit on her tongue.
Richard sat quietly, his hand still gripped tightly around the beaker.
After several moments of savouring the piece of fruit, Sylvia opened her eyes and looked at Richard. “One thing that you have by being Atla is time. My grandmother lived here until she was fifty-seven. Now, my oldest child is sixty-two, my youngest forty-three. When my grandmother died, my mother said she looked as though she was seven hundred.”
Richard gulped hard on the remaining blue water.
“Richard, your son will be well looked after. He will procreate and his offspring will carry the Atla gene. They will live long lives.”
“Or slow deaths,” Richard replied, placing the beaker down harder than he intended.
Sylvia stopped cutting. “Is that how you see us? Trapped, dying a slow and meaningless life.”
“If your lives are that great then why do you all want to escape from here?”
“We have limited resources. Only certain people can give life. I have two children, my mother had three and my grandmother had four. Each of my children won’t be allowed to have any of their own. No single children. Your bloodline infuses with ours, which in turn keeps us healthy. Your son will be allowed to father four children. A spot of blood in a sea of Atla.” Pausing for a moment, she continued in almost a chant. “Each time one is born then one must die. Each time one dies, a child is allowed to be born.”
Richard shook his head. “The population is kept exactly at twenty-five thousand. Who decided that number, the UI?”
Sylvia laughed. “The all great and powerful guardians of the galaxy. That’s just a fairy-tale that we tell our children so they will go to sleep. There are no over-sears.”
Richard, a look of realisation on his face, tilted his head back and sighed.
Sylvia sliced another small piece of fruit. “They can’t just kill you, Richard. Unless you die in shackles, then you have to live to carry on the bloodline.”
Richard tilted his head forward. “So where did the shackles come from?”
“There are only two of us of pure blood, the origin. They are the only ones who know our full story. No one else can tell you and the two are hidden amongst the people.”
“There must be some way to find them,” Richard said, leaning forward.
“No one knows who they are. Unless they reveal themselves to you, which they won’t, you’re not going to find them.”
Richard patiently watched as she placed the last small piece of fruit from the quarter segment into her mouth before carrying on. “Do you remember your grandmother’s memories?”
Closing her eyes, her face motionless as she allowed the fruit to dissolve on her tongue, Sylvia slowly tilted her head back as the small amount of juice spilled down her throat. Tilting her head forward again, she opened her mouth and sucked at the air causing a slight smile to appear on her face. Looking straight ahead, she spoke clearly. “Yes. Now ask the question you really want to ask,” she said, turning to look at him.
Richard stared at her in silence for a few moments. “Are all Atla related to my bloodline?”
Sylvia smiled. “We are all your children. Your brothers, your sisters. We are your family.”
“No.” Richard quickly stood. “You’re all part of what was stolen from my family. I came here to fight for the freedom of humanity.”
“You came here to offer a release to your family,” Sylvia said sharply.
Richard glared at her before shouting. “I will....” He stopped himself as two children, a boy and a girl both of which looked about nine years old, cautiously walked into the room, their eyes fixed on him.
Sylvia beckoned them to sit down. “Look what Richard has brought us,” she said, lifting one of the quarters of fruit. Neither child spoke as they each accepted the piece of fruit from their mother. The young girl carefully smelled the segment before licking it with the tip of her tongue. Her face showed a measure of uncertainty as she withdrew her tongue and winced at the bittersweet taste.
Richard shook his head as he watched the same reaction from the boy. Turning back to Sylvia, he looked at her as she watched the reactions from her children kneeling across the table from her. “When will your husband be here?”
Sylvia began to stand. “There are no husbands and wives here. We all do as we must. We all help each other, and we all take what we need.”
Richard glanced at the two children. “So, who is their father?”
Standing in front of him, Sylvia smiled. “I don’t know. Nor do I need to.” Leaning forward she placed her right hand on his left shoulder. “Thank you for the fruit. It was a nice treat, but they will be waiting for you at the boats for your leaving.”
Placing his hand on top of hers, Richard nodded slowly. “Thank you for answering my questions. Aren’t you all coming?”
Sylvia shook her head as she pulled her hand away. “We have a day’s work to do. The only celebration I would have attended would have been your death.” Turning, she stepped back to the table and refilled his beaker before offering him it. “Take a last drink of purity before your journey. If you take one memory forward with you from your time here, then let it be that we are all prisoners of circumstance. It is said that time is rewritten from each new dawn of men. If not now, then it will come one day.”
Richard accepted the cold drink of blue water and drank hastily at its contents. Handing the beaker back to her, he glanced at the two children as they each stared up at him.
The boy stood up and moved next to his mother. “Have you gotten what you came for? Maybe your parting memory can be that of me beating you. I hope it’s me in the arena next time. Standing over the encased shell of your descendant.”
Richard swallowed hard at the threatening tone from someone who looked less than ten years old. Nodding toward Sylvia, he ignored the confrontation from her son and headed for the doorway. Walking along the cold clay street, he paused for a moment as he took in his surroundings. With the sun now catching between the buildings, light flaring against the uneven glass of the broken windows. He watched as several people dressed in brightly coloured tunics, contrasting their surroundings, darted between the various crumpled houses either side of the narrow street.
“You’re a hard man to find, but I thought you would be around here.”
Richard looked over his shoulder as the familiar voice of Cherah cut through the silence. “I’m sorry I didn’t die,” he said returning his attention back to the street in front of him. “Have they sent you to find me?”
“Yes. Maybe the next to enter the arena will be our salvation. I’m young, I have many of your lifetimes to live,” she replied, an obvious sadness in her tone.
Richard started to walk as she stepped in line beside him. “It’s a long life to live,” he said as they turned a corner and began heading down toward the harbour. “Will you live to be a thousand?”
“Few live to be that old and who would want to? Shrivelled and unable to look after yourself. I’d be happy to reach eight hundred, maybe nine. Most who die of old age reach that,” she answered.
Glancing sideways at her, Richard smiled. “I’ve just been threatened with a beating from what looked like a ten-year-old boy. It’s difficult to equate the fact that he was actually around forty.”
Cherah laughed. “Although the blue water keeps us pure it does tend to make the males a little aggressive. Especially before puberty.”
Reaching the bottom of the road, the amount of people began to become a crowd. A pathway sliced through them as several people reached out to touch his shoulder. The look in their eyes showed they would rather have seen him dead but as each hand reached out, it made Richard feel like a conquering hero returning from battle.
Occasional murmurs broke the silence. Small, indistinct remarks he felt were not directed at him, but at the girl walking beside him. Nearing the dock Richard noticed the stripped down eighth boat was gone leaving the seven remaining boats bobbing in the gentle breath of the water around them. The people on each boat stood and stared at him, loathing, hatred filled stares.
Richard drew his gaze away, unable to hold eye contact with any of them. Moving toward the boat he had arrived on, he could see the friendly face of Connie as she stood on the dock in her yellow tunic, a look of sadness rather than hate on her face.
Richard raised his right hand and placed it on her left shoulder. “I wish you were coming back with me.”
Connie smiled. “In a few months you won’t even remember me,” she said, placing her hand on top of his.
“What if I do? What if I remember it all?”
Connie’s hand slipped from his. “Don’t try to remember us, think of the memories of your father and how he suffered because of your grandfather wanting to keep his memories. Please Richard, forget all that has happened.”
Richard half smiled at her as he removed his hand from her shoulder. “Your willingness to stay here and help the Atla shows that things are changing. I intend to change things. To make people remember their own ancestors.”
Connie stared at him, her eyes widened in a realisation of what he could do. Shaking her head, she grabbed both of his hands in hers. “Please Richard. You can carry on in a life you want. The life you had. If you try to reverse what has been done, then they won’t let you live.”
Richard squeezed her hand tightly. “They need me to open the gateway to the island or else they would be trapped here.”
Connie shook her head. “No. There are always two. Always another.”
Richard, the smile fading from his lips pulled her closer. “Who? I have no other family.”
“The other is not in your family. They have no connection to you or your memories,” she said lowering her head slightly. “What you’re thinking of doing would create anarchy. Even if you found a way to reverse it, they would be one step ahead of you.”
Richard looked past her in silence for a moment, whispered into her right ear. Her head raised as she stared into his face. Releasing her, he stepped past and onto the boat. Turning, he watched as Cherah hugged Connie while they exchanged a brief inaudible conversation.
Stepping onto the boat, Cherah stood next to Richard as she looked down at Connie.
Richard nodded slowly. “You’re Connie’s sister!”
“Yes. Didn’t she tell you?”
Richard stood in silence as the boats cast off. Walking to the bow, he stopped short of the railings jutting out to take a last look at the island where he was to leave his son. A thoughtful Cherah clung to one of the railings at the side of the boat while Peter stood next to her.
As the boats, tethered together one behind the other, approached the vermilion cloud, Richard made his way onto the gantry and waited patiently for them to reach it. Placing his hands out in front of him, he could feel the wetness of the cloud hugging his skin. With the cloud thickening, he could feel a resistance against his hands as though it were trying to restrain him from leaving.
He felt the fresh coldness of the outside world before he could see it. He had ignored the sounds from behind him and knew that the silence now, broken by the lapping surf, meant that they were all passed out from their very own ecstasy. Looking down, he could see and feel the gentle swell pushing the boat from side to side as it drifted free of the cloud.
About to turn, he felt his legs buckle beneath him as the side of his head was struck hard. Falling onto the deck, he glimpsed a figure, a large leather gas mask covering their face, grabbing him and pulling him back before he succumbed to the darkness.