It was November 23, two days since Mia’s awakening. Today was Clay’s birthday, which he only realized after staring stubbornly at the date for a good five minutes. This meant that he was now eighteen years old. Quite the strange feeling when Clay thought about what could have been.
He surly would have celebrated a big party with his family for successfully becoming off age, was legally allowed to drive and drink alcohol, but instead he sat in an abandoned house, that was fortified on all sides, letting little sunlight in, while a small girl of eleven years sat depressed before a bar of chocolate.
Taking a deep breath, Mia ate a small piece, carefully swallowing it, waiting in fear. The seconds ticked by, when suddenly a loud grumble resounded through the kitchen, causing Mia to snatch the beforehand prepared bucket from the counter and vomiting her stomach contents into it.
When her ragged breath calmed down, trailed a few tears from her cheeks, dropping on the counter. She wasn’t crying loudly, she was depressed in the realization she had come to in the last two days.
Wiping the tears away with his thumb, smiled Clay. “It’s fine, Mia, we will find a solution, don’t you worry.” There was only a silent nod in response. It seemed like Mia was unable to digest any form of food, be it crackers, canned food, sweets or meat, it didn’t matter, the only thing that didn’t leave her body was water.
Clay already tried every thing he could think of, or that he had at the house at least. The only thing they didn’t try yet would be fruits, and fresh vegetables, but he doubted that it would make a difference. This cause of events was quite troubling, it was already the second day without Mia eating anything, and he didn’t know what he should do.
He had the theory that she needed heart blood, but he would wait a little while longer, for once, to see how long she can do without it and what would happen to her body. If her body really was dependent on heart blood, then that would complicate things quite a lot. Not to mention that Clay didn’t know what would happen once she consumed heart blood without the help of the tree she was bounded too.
Thinking of the tree remembered Clay, the root that was still inside Mia’s chest. By now, it shrunk to a small bump on her chest that densely covered her chest, looking like someone patched a hole in her body with a complicated construct of densely packed roots. It still shimmered in the same deep purple as her eyes, in response to her heartbeat.
It seemed like he wouldn’t need to remove it, or specifically he couldn’t. They were too deeply intervened for Clay to do anything that wouldn’t also harm Mia in the process.
His thoughts were interrupted when Mia asked, “Clay, why is your hair snow-white? Only my grandpa had white hair, and even his wasn’t so bright.”
Surprised by the question, he rubbed a few strands of his shoulder long hair between his fingers. “It’s something that happened while I built the immunity to your poison.”
“Not fair!” Said Mia while pouting. “Why do you get beautiful hair, from my curse and I nothing? I can’t even eat food without throwing up!”
“I think your hair is gorgeous as it is,” replied Clay while ruffling through her hair, while she futilely tried to stop him.
***
Another five days passed, and in that time Mia’s situation only worsened. Her hunger grew day by day and not long after came all sorts of ailments, like headaches, nausea, a mild fever, stomach pain and just yesterday hallucinations. That was the moment where Clay refused to wait any longer, it was getting hard to talk to her without her mumbling about something he couldn’t understand.
With a vial of heart blood in hand, he sat on the chair besides the bed Mia was resting in. She was currently awake and breathing heavy, her eyes staring at the ceiling. Only after Clay opened his mouth to speak did she realize that he sat beside her. “Mia I brought you medicine could you open your mouth for me?”
She gave a small nod before slowly opening her mouth and swallowing the complete vial Clay gave her. The moment the liquid entered her body distorted her face in disgust. “It’s bitter!”
Smacking her lips a few times, she stretched her tongue out, trying to scrap the disgusting taste from her tongue. Giving her a glass of water, she gulped it all down in one go, before closing her eyes to sleep. Waiting patiently besides her bed, saw Clay how her state improved by the minute, not seeing any form of transformation on her body.
The only thing visible from the outside were the roots covering her heart, that pulsated in an intenser light than usual. Sighing in relief massaged Clay, his temple. Well, at least she didn’t transform into some sort of grotesque abomination. Still, Clay couldn’t stop but worry, only time will tell how her health will develop in the following days and weeks, he could only pray.
***
There was a heavy tug from behind as Clay rolled his eyes in Mia’s attempts to tackle him. Only a day passed since he gave her the heart blood, and she was already up and as energetic as a squirrel.
Grabbing her hands that rested on his shoulder, he lifted them up before heaving her whole body over his, cousin a high-pitched scream to resound in the room, before he safely sat her on the ground. Turning around, she softly hit him with her little fist and pouted. “You are no fun.”
Sighing in frustration, Clay cursed Jim in his mind. He never mentioned that his sister was an inexhaustible ball of energy that got way too quickly bored. Well, he had to make it work somehow.
Putting the matter at the pack of his mind, he turned serious, which Mia seemed to have noticed because she stopped playing around.
“Sit down,” stated Clay simply before sitting on a chair in the kitchen, resting his arms on the simple table waiting for Mia to do the same. Her face immediately told him that she was scared of some sort of berating, which caused Clay to laugh internally. It didn’t hurt to let her suffer for a moment. Not to mention that their conversation was indeed of serious concern.
“Clay, I didn’t–” started Mia before being interrupted by him, “Just listen for a moment, I’m not going to scold you.”
Surprisingly, that actually seemed to make her relax. Was she really scared? Anyway, it didn’t matter for the moment. “Mia, I already explained that the world changed a lot since the last time you were under other people.”
“The monsters?” Mia asked carefully.
“Yes, the monsters,” confirmed Clay with a nod. “There will be a few rules between us to make sure that we both survive this, you understand that, right?” Seeing her nod along continued Clay, “The first rule is to always trust your instincts. Everything outside these four wall is dangerous and when something seems off then it probably is. Always be careful and aware of your surroundings, you can never let yourself be too relaxed, okay?”
After making sure she understood that, he continued, “There will be a lot I will teach you over the following weeks and months, all that I know, but I’m no expert. To be honest I barely qualify as an amateur, but I did somehow survive out there, so I will try to teach you to my best abilities, that means we have to trust each other.
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I want us both to be honest with each other, that means no lies, no matter how uncomfortable the topic. You have to question everything if you want to someday survive on your own, and I will tell you everything I know without holing anything back. I’m an advocate of honesty, but you have to realize that, the truth can be hard sometimes, so be prepared for it.”
Nodding, Mia fiddled with her fingers for a moment. Noticing this, Clay asked, “Do you want to ask something?” Nodding strongly in response, Clay simply gestured her to ask her question. “How exactly did my brother die?”
Not surprised by the question, Clay asked, “You really want to know every detail?”
“Yes,” Mia replied without hesitation. It seemed to have bothered her for a while now and from what Clay could observe she was tougher than she looked, it wasn’t that he could hide the cruelty of this new world for long anyway. “The big threat I previously mentioned was a mutated ant colony that drastically rose in numbers, something that we feared if not stopped soon would consume us all…”
Remembering the expedition caused Clay to ponder what they could have done differently. Well, he couldn’t change the outcome anymore, it already happened, but it was something he would consider later.
“... we prepared an expedition of close to forty people. Some of the best fighters we had followed us, each one a brave soul that didn’t have much more to lose. Mia, you have to understand that this catastrophe claimed uncountable numbers of lives, and I’m sure is still doing so this very moment, while we are having this conversation.”
He remained silent for a moment to underline the severity of the topic. “We moved confidently, having passed countless trials that seemed impossible to survive, being able to prevail each time… well this time was different. The way itself to the ant's nest went smoothly, but then we were caught off guard by a big patrol of ants and the ambush of a despicable psychopath.”
Holding three fingers up, Clay explained, “My third rule is to never trust humans, especially those that you meet for the first time, how casually you were around with me was your luck, if I was someone else you could have well been dead by now or maybe even worse… You have to remember that humans do a lot of things when they are desperate. The thing that eventually doomed us all were not the ants but a single mad human.”
Gritting his teeth, Clay took a deep breath. “This human had an ability to mess with our heads, preventing us from reacting to the ants properly, we were overwhelmed almost instantly. Only a small group of six survived, after being trapped on a mountain for about a month we eventually had an opportunity to leave and encountered in this trip the very thing we were looking for – the queen of ants.”
Making sure that Mia was still listening, he was positively surprised to see how serious she took the story without interrupting him. “Accidentally stumbling over the queen ant that seemed to be moving nests was a pure stroke of luck, but killing it costed the life of my best friend Chris…
“I’m sorry,” respond Mia hesitantly.
“It’s fine, he was always reckless since his parents passed, putting my life over his own, he was a fool, but a kind-hearted one, someone I miss dearly…” Clay explained, while a single tear unknowingly fell from the corner of his eye, he should hurry and finish the story.
“The end result was that Clay and I put ourselves against the royal guard of the queen and fought it to the death, in the process your brother got severely injured, and I carried him into a cellar to hide from the other ants that would soon come. He strained to stay awake and talk with me so that I wouldn’t lose consciousness, which eventually was enough for my body to heal, but for Jim was it was too late, causing him to die.”
There was a long moment of silence that Clay didn’t dare to interrupt, before she eventually asked, “Where is his body?”
“I buried him under a tree in a village not far from here,” stated Clay before hesitating. Should they visit him? It should be fine, the forest was still rather empty and his own heart blood had recovered to the brim, he could fight without a problem. “Do you want to visit his grave?”
“Yes!” Mia replied without second thought.
***
Resting the flowers in front of the crude cross, that presented Jim graves, sat Mia before it silently. Grass already growing over the patch of dirt that Jim rested under. Clay could hear the sniffling of Mia and left her alone for a moment, moving a few meters away, but still close enough to sense her with his aura.
In just a few weeks, the grave could be hard to spot, with all the vividly growing greenery. A month and a half have already passed since Clay’s awakening, and he felt that Jim deserved a more permanent landmark. Looking around, he soon found a stone that almost reached his hips, with a smooth surface on one side. It would make a good gravestone.
Tapping inside his heart blood, he intensified the embers smoldering inside him by several times, forming a huge flame that carried newfound strength through his body. Bending over, he embraced the stone (quite the hard task with only one arm) but he still managed to lift it without too much trouble.
His essence pushed him onwards as he carried the stone over to Mia before slowly dropping it behind the cross he made. His muscles thumped and pulsated from the heavy weight, but with his heart blood still burning, any damage was swiftly swept away. In just two seconds, Clay felt like nothing happened at all.
Stifling the flames back to embers, he laid his arm on her shoulder, gesturing wordlessly to the stone he carried over. Nodding resolutely, she pulled out her dagger and turned her whole attention to the stone, beginning to diligently chisel away at it.
Clay watched over the process without speaking a single word, not daring to interrupt Mia in her work. Once she was done she slowly stood up, observing her work one final time before nodding proudly and putting a hand on the grave, she spoke a few words Clay couldn’t make out and then turned around to him, indicating that they can leave.
The sun would be setting soon, so they would have to hurry, thankfully Clay didn’t need to convince Mia to allow him to carry her. She was mentally exhausted after focusing for so long. One mistake would ruin the gravestone, so she was very cautious when handling it.
While Mia rested on his shoulder, her eyes closed, smiled Clay to himself. She had outdone herself chiseling each letter with care, in a fancy and yet easy to read writing. From what he could tell, she had quite the artistic talent.
Turning around to look at the grave, he slightly bowed before the grave. He would never forget Jim’s sacrifice. With that out of the way, he made the way back to their home, leaving the grave behind…
Jim Hawk
2007~2019
Savior and Loving Brother
***
Clay decided to make a small detour on their way back. They were currently on a small hike, not far from the city. He wanted to show Mia one of the few spots he visited when ha wanted to be alone. There was a small hill that overlooked a good part of the forest and almost all of Churchville. He had found the spot after discording an old abandoned hiking trail that no one seemed to care about.
After another few steps, the forest and bushes cleared slightly, giving way to a cliff that Clay positioned himself on. Watching over the forest, he felt a rush of nostalgia and memories rushing up. It felt good to be back.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw how Mia rested on one of the stones in the forest. “Did I promise too much?”
Taking the sight before her in for a moment, Mia exhaled deeply, shaking her head, while smiling. “No, you didn’t… but the hike was a bit too much...”
Clay laughed at the response, causing Mia to blush, before looking away and saying something under her breath that sounded like a curse. He primarily wanted to visit the place for himself, but also in the hope that it would distract Mia.
While they watched over the forest, each of them lost in their own thoughts, felt Clay, something ominous. It was already late, and the Moon was hanging leisurely in the sky, providing them with more than enough light to see.
Was there a beast in ambush? No, his aura didn’t pick anything up, or was he just getting emotional? No, that wasn’t it, then what was it–!?
Snapping his body to the right, he saw a bright light like similar to that of a shooting star flying into his direction at ridiculous speed, causing Clay to feel a déjà vu. He knew that light all too well – the origin of all his pain and hatred.
He followed the light, seeing how it crashed into the Moon in mere moments before shattering it into countless fragments, traveling onwards before eventually stopping. Speechless, Clay watched the sky with his mouth wide agape.
A huge part of the Moon was splintered away, reminding him of a cluster of meteorites, rather than the Moon he knew of. This might of destruction caused Clay to be left speechless, it looked as if a third of the Moon was suddenly pulled away in one direction, as if it was a simple ball of sand.
Clay waited in anticipation for anything to happen, but even after several seconds, there was nothing. Just a blue star in the sky – a trail of destruction following in its wake – shining brighter than anything else, strong enough to shroud the Earth into a hue of blue, illuminating the forest below them, turning night into day.
Clay felt a tug on his sleeve. Looking besides him, he saw Mia looking flabbergasted at the Moon, too shocked to put much outrage into her voice. “What…?”
He silently looked at the destroyed Moon and blue star before speaking more to himself than Mia. “A new age is dawning.”