Victor

I laid there in the cold, lonely darkness.  With no sunlight, I have no sense of time, and I don't know how long I've been in this cell.  What I do know is that my stomach feels as though it is eating itself because of a lack of sustenance. None of this is new to me, though. 

*****

Six years ago, while walking home from school, a flash of blue light enveloped the sky.  All electricity shut off.  Cars who trusted the stoplights careened into one another.  Airplanes, which relied on power to keep crucial components of the aircraft in the air, descended in uncontrolled fury.  To make things worse, machines keeping the sick alive shut off as well, killing those who relied on electricity to live.

I stood in the road watching the mayhem take place, my fourteen-year-old self too afraid to move.  A rust-covered car zoomed by me, it didn’t rely on as many electronic parts as its newer renditions had come to need.  I expected sirens to go off, alerting citizens of the electricity epidemic taking place.  Now that I am older, I know now that those sirens ran on electricity to forewarn the population of danger.

A dark chasm tore open the sky over Connerton, Indiana.  Black dots with a ball of light surrounding them floated delicately from the dark abyss.  The dots reminded me of watching a leaf swaying in the wind as it falls from a tall tree that scrapes the sky.  Curious of the hole in the air, I took off at a run to see what the black dots were.

I passed by stalled cars and angry adults who complained about paying hundreds of dollars for their phones for them not to work when they need them the most.  Ahead of me, the intersection for State Road 63 piled up with wrecked cars.  I glanced at the chaos but looked away quickly as I saw a man lying on the hood of a vehicle, blood oozing from his eyes and forehead.  He looks as though he didn’t wear a seatbelt and broke through his windshield when he smashed into two other cars head-on.  I turned a quick right through the alleyway for Keckler Road, where I live.  I need my bicycle, so I can get downtown and see what is falling from the sky.  I shouldn’t have gone home.

The garage door lay in the middle of the alley; claw marks looking like they tore the door off.  Nothing appears different in my garage, except the wooden door that leads to the house looks like someone tackled it with enough force to obliterate the wood.  Stunned, I grabbed a wooden baseball bat from my dad’s bucket of old baseball bats and entered the house.  I quieted my breathing in hopes that I could sneak up on whoever or whatever broke into the house.

My house resembled one that I saw in a post-apocalyptic video game－the kitchen ransacked, furniture destroyed, and doors broken down.  I snuck upstairs, skipping the third step, which usually creaks.  I heard something rummaging through the drawers in my bedroom, and knew that has to be where I need to go.  I held the bat up, ready to swing with the home run hitting rhythm I practiced thousands of times as a child.

I approached my bedroom with terror in my legs.  I gripped the wooden handle of the bat tighter to stop my sweaty hands from shaking, but I dropped the bat when I saw what destroyed the house.  A bear with silver fur and ice shielding its back tore through my bed and sniffed around.  When it heard the echo of the wood reverberate through the room, the ferocious beast turned around and let out a heartstopping growl.  The bear swiped a meaty hand through the air, sending shards of ice my way.  I ducked out of the way and held up a piece of wood from the broken door in hopes that it might protect me.  I backed away slowly, watching the icy animal intensely.

“Good bear,”  I said, trying to calm down the bear.

“What happened to my house?” I heard from downstairs.  My mother just returned home from work; she didn’t work too far away.

“Why did you show up at the worst time?” I muttered to myself.  “Mom, run!” I yelled with a panic-stricken voice.

“Benny, down here now!” She screamed.  The bear let out another anxiety-inducing roar; I followed my mother’s wishes.  I slid down the railing－mom hates when I do that.  “What did you bring－.” She stopped when she saw the monstrous animal charging after me.

“Let’s go!” I pulled her by the shirt, but instead of running to the door, she ran to the basement.  “Where are you going?”

“Guns,” She muttered breathlessly.  I understood my father’s gun room is downstairs.  I locked the door behind me, knowing the enraged bear can stampede through it within seconds.  When we got downstairs, my mother unlocked the door to the gun room and entered it.  It didn’t take her long to find what she needed.  She exited the room with two Mossberg 500 shotguns and a pistol strapped to her hip.  She tossed a gun at me, and I flipped the safety off and pumped the gun once before sighting it.

The bear tore through the basement door, roaring as it broke through the frame.  Mom and I took our stance and let off rounds－one after the other.  After we let off five rounds each, we stopped to examine our efforts.  The bear lost functionality of its limbs and slid down the stairs leaving a trail of blood on the stairs.  My mother drew her pistol and let off two rounds at the animal’s head.

“What was that?”  I asked, poking at the ice that isn’t melting.

“Just wait until you see outside,”  Mom said, turning around, walking back to the gun room; I followed her. 

 “What’s out there?” I pondered. She reloaded two rounds into the magazine of her pistol and lifted a scoped rifle from the wall display.

“Remember those things that fell from the sky?” She asked.  I nodded intuitively.  “Those were monsters floating down.  Strange ones that breathe fire become one with the ground, or even explode randomly.” She dug through a drawer until she found a full magazine for the rifle, and stuck it into the gun.  Mom used the leather attached to the weapon to sling it across her back as she lifted an AR-15 from a wall display, and clipped a magazine into it.  “Your dad is still at the cabin and won’t know what’s going on.  We can take our bikes.  Reload your shotgun, and get a strap on it.  Find a pistol you want to use, load it, and get a holster.  Remember, it isn’t a toy.”  My mom’s voice sounded stern, and I felt like it was her military days coming out of her.

Although my dad has a room full of firearms, and my mom was an Army machine gunner, they didn’t allow me to handle guns too often.  I’ve been out shooting with my dad a handful of times, but not enough to be exceptionally well versed in how to aim at moving targets.  I took a few minutes to find everything I needed, and when I was ready, we climbed the stairs.

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Mom opened the pantry and stuffed her pockets full of packaged peanuts.  She then opened the door next to the pantry and withdrew two fanny packs, filling them full of granola, and more peanuts.  I watched her then fill two water bottles, then clipped one to her belt loop and mine.

“Breathe,” Mom told me while staring me in the face.  “Everything changed so quickly, but I need you to be brave for me, can you do that?”  I nodded while opening my mouth wide to let in a mouthful of air and exhaling.  This havoc has to be more than an average fourteen-year-old should have to go through.  I embraced my mother in a tight hug－she returned the embrace.

We made our way to the garage and picked our bicycles off of the wall mount.  We rode swiftly through the alley and took a left to the mess that was State Road 63.  Mom held up a hand for us to wait.  Giant tortoise creatures with cannons on their back blocked the way.  They morosely chewed on the metal of the cars.  Above the canon, turtles flew eagles with fire wafting from their wings.  My mother twirled her finger in the air, and we turned around.  The area behind us wasn’t any better.  A stag with electricity pulsing in its antlers stood a few feet away from us.  I didn’t know what to do, so I looked back to my mother, but she stood there, one foot on a bike pedal, the other on the broken concrete road.  She started pedaling, so I did as she did, but when we tried dodging around the electric stag, it charged at me.

Panicked, I rode faster, but to no avail.  The male deer hit me with a force that knocked me off of my bike, then ran and hit my mother.  I skid across the ground, my elbows burning as they were sliced open by a rock.  I looked back to prepare for another attack from the deer, but it was gone.  My mother laid on the road in horror, but I didn’t understand why.  Her body tensed, and electricity flowed around her arms.

Before I could talk to my mother, an explosion caused dust to fill my vision.  The heat from the blast singed my eyebrows.  The dust cleared, and my heart dropped into my stomach.  The place where my mother once stood is now a crater－nothing, not even bones remaining.

*****

I stood in my cell, unable to make out my surroundings, but I can hear someone unlocking my door.  A short, plump man with no hair and an unkempt goatee walked into the room with a lamp.  He threw clothes at me; I caught it quickly.

“There is a shower in the back corner.  Get cleaned up, dressed, and knock on the door when you’re done.”  The man said.  He set the lamp on the desk by the door, closed the thick door, and locked it back up.

I peeled my stench-filled clothes off and turned on the water.  Unfortunately, the only knob for the shower controlled cold water, but it was still lovely to wash.  An old bar of soap sat on a ledge to the left of the shower.  The soap lathered nicely but didn’t have any scent to it.  Once I finished, I noticed I had nothing to dry myself with, so I did jumping jacks to air dry myself.  I slowly got dressed; the dress clothes surprisingly fit perfectly.  I knocked twice on the door.

“Back away from the door, turn around, and place your hands on the top of your head!” Came the man’s voice from the other end of the door.  I did as he told me.

The door opened, and my bald captor entered the room.  He grabbed my wrists and lowered my arms behind my back; then I felt a cold piece of wood touch my forearms－locking them into place.  The man told me to follow him.  I turned around and followed him out of the dim room.

My captor held the lamp in front of him.  The hallway was barely lit, and I could make out faded pieces of artwork on the walls.  Many other doors that reminded me of the door to a safe－handles that spin to lock the door.  I thought about creating small talk as we walked in the dim lighting, but talked myself out of it.  After a few more steps, we stopped at a set of double doors.  The man rapped the door twice with his knuckles.  The door opened and blinded me with a burst of white light.  I squinted, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the aura emitting from the room when someone pulled me into the room.

“Here he is,” I heard a man say as I was forced into a fluffy couch, my arms still locked into place behind me.  “My new ward.”

“Slave, you mean?” I asked him.  He considered my words for a moment.

“Essentially, but I like the term ward better,” He replied.  My eyes slowly came into focus, and I saw a man about eight feet away from me, sitting behind a dark brown desk.  He tied his long black hair into a bun and tucked his stray hairs behind his ears.  This man’s green eyes were prominent and stared me in the face.  This long-haired stranger leaned back in his chair and chuckled.  “How long has it been since you’ve seen the sun?”  I thought about his question.

“My last owner let me out for an hour during Christmas, but that was my first time in a while.  I’m usually stuck cleaning, crafting, or sleeping in a windowless cell.” I told my new owner.

“Crafting?” He asked, picking at his chin.  “How so?”

“I had to learn to make old school bronze armor, taught myself to smelt, I can turn hides into leather.  I started all of that a year ago,”  I said slowly, looking at my calloused hands.

“I like it.  How familiar are you with the new world?  Did your last owner tell you anything?”  I shook my head.

“No, the last thing I remember was my mother being blown up by a giant turtle with a cannon its back then some people dragging me into an old van.  I’ve been alone through most of my captivity.  Why do people need old fashioned armor?”  The long-haired man chuckled.

“We’re running out of ammo, kid.  People who aren’t magical use swords, daggers, and bows.”

“People who aren’t magical?”  I asked.

“Yes, yes,”  He said, nodding.  “When the power went out, magical monsters fell out of the sky and took over the world.  If one of the creatures bonds to you, you become magical, and you can use one of these.”  The long-haired stranger pulled out a smoothly carved stick and twisted it around his fingers, then pointed it at me and muttered something.  I regained the feeling in my arms, and I brought them in front of me.

“Magic,” I whispered while massaging my wrists, even though they weren’t in pain.

“What I need from you is to－.” The man was interrupted by an explosion from the left of me.  Jets of light flew through the air, and one of them hit my captor in the face.  His face struck the desk with full force.

“Save the captives!” Someone shouted.  Dust flooded the room, and I saw someone walking towards me, a stick pointed at me.  The man wore blue-tinted leather and a black mask that covered his mouth and nose.  When his dark blue eyes caught mine, I knew I was saved.

“Help,” I said under my breath.  After six years of captivity, I am free.  The monotony of waking up, cleaning, crafting, cleaning, eating, cooking, and sleeping every day, it’s over.

“Don’t worry, kid,” My savior said, dropping his mask and flashing his white teeth.  “We’ve got you; you’re safe.” He removed his backpack, unzipped it, and handed me a bottle of water and a box of crackers.  “Someone will be with you in a moment.”  He lifted his mask back to his face and proceeded to help his cohorts.

I looked at the man whose head was on the desk.  I saw his shoulders moving, which means he isn’t dead.  I smirked.  This man purchased me at the right time.  If I stayed with Julian, my former owner, I would be stuck living a meaningless life for who knows how long.

It took my saviors half an hour to clear the mansion of criminals, and save the other captives.  Now ten of us sat in a wagon being pulled by two horses.  A caravan of eight other wagons pulled the others who were liberated today.  The man who gave me the crackers and water rode his horse next to where I sat.  We locked eyes before he asked me a question.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

“Victor,” I told him. “Victor Davis.”