At some level, I had always wanted to reconcile with my mom and dad; they were good to me growing up, but once I fell into that pit of despair, things fell apart between us. My oldest brother moved out of state, and I haven’t spoken to him in nearly six years, while my younger brother...well, I think we’re in the process of recovering our relationship. I had dreams of somehow earning enough money, moving out, and speaking to my parents as equals, instead of the adversaries we’ve become. Though I was a bad son, I still loved them.

Would they have taken her into one of the buildings here? That I was stepping on? There were literally hundreds of places to check. Why, though, would she be kept separate? My mind flashes to the image of the man’s torso over a roasting spit, and I shudder. I lift my nose to the sky and take in a deep breath. The smell of cooking meats and spices, and the odor of burning wood hang heavy in the fog-covered air. What direction was it the heaviest? I have to eliminate this possibility from my mind. I have to; else it would continue to bother me throughout my search.

I hop along the rooftops going as silently as I could. I notice the roofs of the houses with occupants in them are quite a bit warmer than those that are empty. Only about a quarter of the houses hold this warmth. What happened to the others? Oh well. It’ll make taking the town all the easier.

I follow the scent of cooking meat toward the eastern edge of town. In a small clearing, pressed against the palisade in the middle of a heavily populated block, a fire blares through the night. I prefer scouting in Shadow’s form; not only for the added stealth, but for the fact that with her form I have both of my eyes, and I don’t have to worry about anything in my periphery.

On a table; being cut to pieces, were animals — both from Earth and from Efra, I assume. Skinned border collies, and cats hanging on hooks next to deflated bodies of those quilled flying squirrels. A large, shelled insect sat on a table, while a cook worked some sort of tool to remove the meat from the shell. No humans, however. I suppose, for the most part, humans were used for slave labor, and for those awful experiments above. Perhaps the cooking human body that I had seen was the body of that woman’s husband. I hadn’t seen her body on the poisoned island, and my father was quite sure she was down here somewhere.

I hop across the roofs out of sight and mull it over. Once I rescue her, she’ll probably need a lot of healing and some water. Some food. I’ll try to find some more of those berries as well. After I got here out of here, I’ll tell Dad that I’ll pay his rent, so that he would no longer have to worry about that.

I spend the next fifteen minutes hopping from rooftop to rooftop. Panic flushes through me, and I head back to the building where the freed prisoners currently were. A couple of fresh bodies sit in the small clearing, as Nyt shoots a small greeting toward me.

“Find her?”

I shake my head as I shift back into my regular form. I step into the building.

“YAH!”

Someone rushes at me with a spear. I step out of the way, and the point scrapes against the wooden door. It is a teenage boy who, upon realizing his mistake, quickly retracts his weapon and apologizes. The argumentative man sits with his back pressed along the far wall muttering as he sees me enter.

“Are you lot the only prisoners within the walls?”

“Should be.” The man, who had become the de facto leader of the group says.

“Well...” I sigh, “My mother. I haven’t been able to find her yet.”

“Can you describe her?”

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“Well, she’s a White woman. Wouldn’t have been thin or fat when she came in here. Far away look. Olive green eyes.”

“Would she have had red in her hair? Like that bright neon stuff?”

One of the women says. Her hair had all been shaved, but the small bit of budding buzz held a black color, and her skin matched the color of the dark wood that made up the supports of the building we were in. She looks to have been here the longest; the faint scars of long ago lashes criss-cross her arms, and what little of her legs I can see from beneath the rags she wore.

My mother, in a vain attempt to keep hold of the reins of fleeing youth, liked to dye her hair in a variety of colors — usually bright greens or red. I swallow and nod.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.” She answers, “They pulled her out of the pen at the order of that...thing that looks like a chihuahua, you know what I mean?”

The apostle?

“Where did they take her?”

The woman shrugs.

“Towards the canal, is all I know. Not up,” She points to the sky, “No boats left until hours later.”

Not up? So one of the buildings between the canal and the pen. That significantly decreases my search radius.

“Thank you.”

With that, I step inside and shift into Shadow’s form.

Nyt waves goodbye as the Ir keeps a look out on the grounds below. Where would the apostle go? Into one of the houses? Why? No, she would have been taken somewhere significant. I know in my heart...no I don’t. No, Lawrence. She’s okay. I stop and let out a long shuddering breath. She’s okay, Lawrence. Once you take her out of here she’ll recover from whatever punishment she was receiving. I could pay for whatever treatment she needs. I could make sure she didn’t go back to Oxy. I could heal her to ease whatever pains she’d feel. She’s okay. She’s okay. She’ll be okay.

I ditch the rooftops and shift into my form. It's quicker, and I don’t want the shock of her seeing me change back into a human to kill her. That would just be a cruel, sick joke.

The dark waters of the canal lap against the docks, as the hollow bodies of the boats bang against one another. The crooning song of a night bird flittering overhead accompanies this dull beat. What was a significant place for the apostle? Surely not any of the houses, if houses they were. Surely not the smithy, nor the mill. No. It had to be that large, gray stone chapel pressed against the wall.

A ratman spots me rushing through the clearing and scrambles to get two pieces of metal to bang together as a warning. I don’t care. I’ll deal with them, and carry my mother to the fortress so I can tend to her. The ratman picks up a weapon and runs after me. I can’t risk him taking a swing at her before I had a chance to secure her. I turn around, look at him as a spike of earth runs him through, I pivot — my heels kicking up gray dust as they try to find purchase on the gravel.

I lower my shoulder and barrel through the two heavy wooden doors. Two ratmen and three dogmen are in here. One of the dogmen wears a long white robe and carries a silvery chalice. They scramble to stand, but I won’t let them. Five spikes jut out from the stony ground, and four die immediately. The priest had stepped backward to avoid the spell. He hopped onto the top of the wooden altar and reached for a wand on his leather belt.

“Bombard my enemies, O’ thou servants of Gob, the magnomious.” I draw the line of the rune just in time for him to pull his wand free.

The top of one of the spikes poking out of the nearest creature breaks off and hurls itself at the priest at speeds that were impossible to follow with my eye. A red blot forms on the father’s chest, as he staggers back and falls to the ground.

Where was she? Where was she? I glance around frantically. I stop at the altar. A long, golden pole runs up to the stone floor above this one. A thick, sticky liquid runs down it and fills a large basin attached to the pole, and welded somehow onto the wooden altar.

I scan the wall just beyond the altar. There. A door. I step over the dying dogman, and over the silvery chalice filled with this sticky, dark liquid, and push through the door. The spiraling staircase is as tight as the one in the building where the liberated humans currently were. I squeeze through, and nearly knock down the door as I enter the second floor. I take a few steps into the room, filled with the perfidious stink of rot, and stop.

Throughout those darkest years of my life, when I hadn’t had a single thing to look forward to in my life; the one light that had guided me — the one light that I had eventually come to realize kept me from tying that knot, or downing that bottle of pills, was the faint dream of improving my lot in life, and repairing the relationship between me and my parents. So that I can, once more, see the pride in my father’s eyes. And so that I can once more see the love of my mother. A vain dream, perhaps, but one that I had clutched to like a lifeline in the middle of a dark, and storm-strewn sea. A dream no more.