There she stood, her bundle of curly hair pulled back, allowing the light of the city to embrace her dark features. She wore a black track jacket with red stripes down the sleeves, baggy grey sweatpants, and running shoes. She took calculated breaths and wiped sweat from her forehead. If it hadn’t been for several streaks of grey in her black hair, Evan might have mistaken her for being in her twenties.
Those pale and dark eyes still hadn’t blinked, looking at Evan with an expression that said, Well?
Vihn clapped Evan on the back. “See you around, kid,” he said, and then left.
Evan knew he was looking like a fool standing there not saying anything, but the truth was that he didn’t know where to start. This was a woman that the Federation had spent decades trying to kill. Yet there she stood, barely looking like someone decades old, out for a jog in the heart of her rebel base, waiting for Evan to find his voice.
He finally found his words, and said, “You’re Andrea, the Ark.”
“You’re Evan, the Governor’s kid.”
So much for being ready to meet her, Evan thought.
Andrea nodded, as if he’d spoken again. “Well then, we best get started. I know you have a lot of questions. Some of them will be worth asking, others are going to be painfully obvious. But don’t worry, we’ll sift through it all.”
Evan cocked his head. “How do you know what I want to ask?”
She smirked. “Try to keep up.” She turned on her heel and jogged up a twisting concrete path and disappeared into a cave in the wall.
Evan rummaged his hands through his pockets and brushed his fingers over those two citizenship IDs: his life, and Ken’s. Why did he hesitate? Perhaps every step he took was deeper into this unescapable hole where his life became inverted, and where death awaited. But death awaited around any corner. The question was who’s?
Save Ken, save my father, save myself. He repeated the prayer in his head as he made his way after Andrea. The cave swallowed him. It would have been pitch black if not for a bunker’s open door; a blue glow emanating from a table within it. Evan pushed his apprehension further down past his stomach and ventured into the bunker.
Inside, the glowing table greedily spanned most of the room, leaving just enough space for someone to walk around it. Tiny monitors and tall computers clung to the walls. A thin beige curtain draped across a doorframe to the right, where orange light escaped underneath.
Evan took a deep breath and advanced through the cloth.
A heavy smell of incense wafted through Evan’s nostrils. Smoke trailed from copper plates scattered around this new place, where tiny flames sauntered upon candle wicks. Pastel colors dribbled down to the plates where an inch of wax had already caked it. Long linen sheets sprawled across the floors, and up over short pillars where the incense and candles rested.
This room was little more than a narrow corridor. Hundreds of news clippings and photos hung from either side, depicting some stories Evan recognized - Afflicted murders, political arrests, vaccine discoveries, and the string of wars known as “The Dreaded Three – The End, The Civil, and The Schism.” There were also hundreds more things that referenced dates and conflicts from years before Evan was born. There were books stacked past his height in columns next to the candles. The Story of Harriet Tubman, What Was the Worst War? WWI, WWII, and WWIII Compared, and The Federation: Evolving from Religion.
A quilt stretched out from Evan’s feet to the end of the room. Each square on the quilt incorporated colorful images of characters made from blue and crimson fabric. The pictures were a menagerie of events. It appeared the crimson images represented the history of the Afflicted, whereas the blue depicted the Federation.
Andrea stood at the end of the corridor. She rolled her neck, peeled off her track jacket to a tank top, kicked off her shoes, and cracked her knuckles. “Do you recognize anything?” She asked.
Evan inched forward, “Uh, a few things. Why so many things about history and wars?”
“Those who forget the past are bound to repeat it,” she said.
Her voice was odd, an accent Evan hadn’t heard.
“I’m from as far South as you can go. Chile it was called, before the Federation killed everyone and snatched it up.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
“You were, but that doesn’t matter either. And no, I don’t read minds, but I’ll explain later.” She took a match and lit a row of candles that stood on a podium in front of her. “You ever wonder about your heritage, Evan? Where your people come from?”
Of all the things he’d expected to talk about, his ethnicity wasn’t one of them. “Why would I? It doesn’t mean anything.”
Andrea blew out the match. “Evan, one thing I’ve learned in my years fighting rebellions is that your past will always mean something, whether you want it to or not.” She sat on the ground with her legs crossed. “I’m going to say a prayer. Would you join me?”
“Pray for what?” Evan asked.
“For the dead.”
He didn’t know what good prayer would do for them now that they were dead.
“I’ll pray for our people… and the soldiers.”
Evan raised an eyebrow. “You’ll pray for Federation soldiers?”
“Yes. I’m not heartless. I know most of those men and women fight for survival same as anyone else. More so, I pray for their families.”
If it had been any other day, Evan might have agreed with her. He’d always thought, “Sure, the Feds scared him, but they were just people stuck in a system.” But at the same time those soldiers chose to hunt Afflicted. They chose to arrest Ken, and support Krow as he killed Zachary. They were as complicit as anyone. It wasn’t lost on him that merely a day ago he chided Vihn for the same thinking, but after what Joseph Krow had done to that rebel…
“Maybe they deserved to die,” he said.
Andrea frowned. “We all sin. We all kill, in our own ways. We all fear and curse and lie when it suits us. It’s not for us to judge who deserves death.”
“Yet you kill people anyway. You kidnap people, blow up stuff, terrorize the world. You’re just a hypocrite. Yeah, I guess both sides have that in common.”
So much anger and hatred boiled through his eyes and mouth and Evan wanted to destroy everything. To rip apart the books. To bring down the bunker. It was wrath – so strong, so tangible. But it came out of nowhere. The heat of his powers manifested, and for a moment he thought he’d lose control again. But then he noticed nothing was happening, absolutely nothing. This revelation snapped him from his anger, and he finally realized he was on his knees. He looked at his hands. They were normal hands. Fingers that were no more destructive than a normal person’s
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“You have a wonderful gift. This is mine.”
“You took my powers away?” For the first time ever, Evan missed them, mourned for them, desired them.
Andrea shook her head. “No. Your powers flair out when your emotions do. You spend so much time pushing them down, that they break out whenever the pressure gets too much. But when you are with me, your internal struggles are allowed to exist plainly. Many folks assume seeing the future is my gift – or reading thoughts. They insist on it. But all I am is an empath. I see what you feel, Evan. I see it, and I see what that emotion might drive you to do. I can see the choices splayed out in front of you like toys. You might pick up this one, or that. It’s not that I know what choice you’re going to make, it’s that I see what your emotions want to do most, and I can see what you’ve already done. I can take that sight and help you see it too. In your case, part of you is desperately fighting to break free of the emotional prison you’ve created for yourself.”
The weight of air pushed down on him, suffocating. It was like he was food being overcooked in a microwave, ready to explode but nowhere for his erupting emotions to go but back into himself.
Andrea’s voice was like snow falling across a desert. “You’ve witnessed so much death, enough to drive anyone insane. It’s something no one should have to endure.”
Tears welled in Evan’s eyes. He fought them back, trying to stomach the vulnerability. “Please. It hurts.”
The woman’s hand brushed over Evan’s back. “It’s ok, you’re not running anymore, child.”
His suffering, trauma, hate – everything poured out from him. Evan lost control. Tears washed down his face. Why in front of this woman he barely knew? Why now? Why him?
“You are no monster, Evan. Don’t let them say you are,” she whispered.
Evan wept far longer than he ever had before. Long enough that he fell asleep.
*****
Evan opened his eyes, and this time he wasn’t in a concrete cell, or chained to a shelf in the back of a pub. He was somewhere familiar, somewhere he’d known most of his life, the place that he’d dreaded ever seeing again – his bedroom.
A place of blue walls, cluttered shelves, and overflowing hampers of clothes. His mattress depressed underneath him as he was already sitting up and his red bed sheet crumpled in his lap. No. His bed sheets were white. But now they were red. The bed was red, his hands pulled back and were red. Evan’s chest caved with pain when he realized where he was.
Blood. Blood that splattered all over his clothes, pooling in a sickening mess on the floor where a woman writhed in agony, spreading the redness across a wooden floor. Her hands clasped around her face. A face Evan wanted to tear his eyes away from. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. His eyes and hands were not his own.
Two piles of blue armor and melted flesh lay at the door next to his mom. Father stood there, his mouth gaping in eldritch horror. And there was Ken, staring at Evan with a dumbstruck fear that Evan had never seen him express before.
Stop! I don’t want to be here, let me go. Cried Evan’s mind, trapped in this hallucination.
“It has already happened,” came another voice, “you cannot hide from it. It’s time to face the reality of that day.”
“Evan…” Father said, also splattered with red.
“Dad?” he replied.
Father shook his head, almost as if coming back to his senses. He rushed over to the woman… to Mom. “Shwood!” he called out.
“Evangelos?” Replied a man, footsteps clacking up the stairway.
Father jumped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
“Oh my God-” the other man gasped.
“Shh. Listen…”
The face of the other man smudged like a drawing. Evan had never looked up to see who it was. It didn’t matter at the time. Their voices became hushed, so that Evan couldn’t hear what was being said. He sat there frozen, as his mother…
He could feel his past self, the one who was actively experiencing the event – crying, cold, hopeless.
His mom’s face burned into his mind, the half that was still there, her eye piercing Evan’s. Hatred.
Father returned to the room. “Medical drones are on their way. Boys.” He came to Evan and Ken, grabbing them by their shoulders. “No matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, thinks, or sees – neither of you are Afflicted.”
“But-” Evan stammered.
His eyes, hardened things, stopped Evan. “You can tell no one about this. I have a plan; I won’t let anyone take you. Do you trust me?”
Evan nodded.
“Good.”
Then everything swirled together into a black mist.
Evan was alone in this darkness, a hollow existence, waiting for salvation. Why are you doing this to me?
You won’t let go, let go. Let go. Let go…
Why are you showing me all of this? He thought.
Andrea’s voice came to him. You are the one showing me. These memories are what have held you back from your destiny.
Destiny… I hate destiny.
Why?
I believe in choice.
You do have a choice. Do you embrace your potential, or do you refuse it? That is always up to you…
Out of the void, a single leaf of orange and red and yellow flittered down to Evan until it collided with his forehead and erupted in glorious fire that peeled back the emptiness, bringing Evan into his eyes again. He was at the hospital where they’d taken his mom, standing beside his father as they faced a crowd of reporters. Father spoke into a set of microphones.
“The rumors are true. On Unification Day, two Afflicted rebels disguised themselves as Federation enforcers and used their Affliction to kill my wife, and then succumbed to their own unpredictable powers.”
It was the lie, the great deception, the farce that Evan allowed to exist. He stood there, doing nothing, too scared to tell the truth. He let his father speak, and craftily guide the world into believing that two soldiers had been Afflicted. What of their families? Evan would never know. It was as if they didn’t exist.
Evan’s mind clawed at the border between his consciousness and reality. No. It was me! I killed her. It was me, idiots. She didn’t deserve it. I deserve to die. Me. But Evan couldn’t change the vision, and he had no control over his past self. He could only watch as his young body stood compliantly, allowing his sin to be blackened by more lies.
Monster…
Everything spun as reality seeped back into Evan’s mind. He choked for air. His head dropped between his knees; he grasped at the quilting that was underneath him and retched.
The rebel leader knelt and lifted him to sit. “Easy.”
“Why-why did-” His thoughts swirled.
Andrea handed him a cup of what smelled like tea. “This’ll calm you.”
Evan took the cup but didn’t drink. The memory he’d just seen flashed over and over in his mind.
“You’ve been holding that in for a long time,” Andrea said. She sat herself cross-legged in front of Evan. “Drink.”
He took a sip. The liquid scalded his tongue and throat, but he instantly felt his head refocus. He took another sip. “Why did you show me that?”
“I didn’t. You showed me.”
“It was so real. I couldn’t control myself, I tried to stop it. I didn’t want it to happen. I didn’t want to hurt her, or kill those soldiers, or lie, or any of it.”
Andrea placed a hand on his knee. “It happened, but this was not your fault. Only the present is in your control.”
Evan tried to gather his senses. “Why would God allow something like that to happen? Why did He do this to me?”
“God did not create evil, nor the Affliction. Humanity’s will, driven by evil, is what did this to you. But there is no use asking why, but instead what.” She pointed to Evan’s pocket where the IDs hid.
Evan pulled them out.
Ken Doleson.
Evangelos Hendricks Jr.
“Why do you hold on to two IDs? Isn’t one enough?”
He had been asking himself that since graduation, but the answer finally came to him. “I made it through graduation, he didn’t. I still have a life that he doesn’t. There must be a reason for it. There has to be a way I can save him.” He deflated. “I wish I’d wake up from whatever nightmare I’m in.”
Andrea nodded. “You’re awake for the first time. You’ve been trying to break from a dream your whole life, and now you see reality for what it really is. There is a reason why you’re here and he isn’t.”
Evan scowled at her with trepidation. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you have the reason inside of you. It’s your chance to do something about the world. Don’t like it? Change it. Hate the suffering of others? Help them. The dead and the weak can’t fight anymore. It’s our duty to fight for them.” Andrea stood, looking down upon Evan with both the eye of light and the eye of dark. “But it isn’t for me to tell you what your destiny is. You must decide that for yourself.”
Evan pondered the IDs again. Thoughts of his mom and dad came back to him. Thoughts of laying on the beach with his father. Thoughts of his mom’s half-hearted smile. Thoughts of Ken stolen, and Zachary being murdered. He’d hidden his powers since the day they manifested, and nothing ever changed. He still lived in the same hell that was bent on killing him and everyone like him. Andrea’s words resonated in him. It was time to be the change he’d always needed. It was time to seize his own destiny.
He rose. “I’m tired of other people dying because of me. I’m tired of people sacrificing themselves on my behalf. I want to be the one to save someone.”
“Then save someone.” Andrea offered her hand to Evan.
He considered it, knowing that by taking it he’d be joining the Blood Red Army. Did he want to be a rebel? No. He knew what he wanted.
He didn’t take the hand yet, a plan forming in his mind that he didn’t want her to know. “I’ll help you, if you help me save my friend first.”
Andrea cocked her head to the side and folded her arms. “Help me do what?”
“Defeat my father.”