A Little Bit of Light

“What is this place?”

"Bellerie Valley is a world within a world," I respond. "Something that shouldn't have existed but does."

"That's saying nothing," he replies. "It's difficult to explain.”

"Try."

I close my eyes softly, trying to remember the rules of the Exios. I can't tell him everything, and it's the only thing that will help. Seek the truth you can say, I remember. Forfeit what you can't. "My first memories are from when I was a small child," I start. "Bellerie Valley was already here, but it's changed much since."

"Changed how?" I look away again, a bitter smile on my lips. "That's not without its complications."

"I figured," he utters. "One thing I can say: nothing in here is what it is out there, and there's more to it than meets the eye," I assure him. "Underneath us, there's a different life; all around us, there's a different air."

"What do you mean?"

"Oxygen. Carbon dioxide. Metals and minerals unknown to Ezaran kind. Life, the way it was in the olden days." His eyes widen and he jumps on his seat, grabbing at his throat in a panic. I laugh at his manner, realizing what’s wrong. "Relax... If you're still alive, it’s not toxic." He becomes calm at once. "How? How is this possible?" I shake my head. "That's a mystery yet to be solved. All I know is, whatever we're standing on, it might as well be Earth."

Berlin's chest pumps excitedly, as though his heart were flipping somersaults. His hands brush a palm upon the green bristles of grass below us. I'm touched when his eyes waterlog with sentiment. "My grandfather... He used to tell me about this place. All the stories... Gahnem speak, they were really true." I frown. His grandfather? "I thought everyone believed Bellerie Valley was a myth." Now it is he who looks puzzled. "So, you know about the myth?" I don't respond but hunch my shoulders. His countenance shows a bit of desperation. "Look, I know there are questions you don't want to answer," he tells me. "I can respect that, and my aim is not to bring back any troubled memories, if that's what's going on here. I'm just trying to understand."

If you want your questions answered, you're going to have to answer some questions, too, I tell myself. "I know about the myth, and so much more," I say. "Even though I was just a baby when I came here, I've experienced life outside the wall. It wasn't what I hoped it would be.

"Things were different inside the dome. Everything grew around me, for me... Sometimes, in spite of me. And I haven't always been alone in the Valley." My hand rises to my neck almost absentmindedly, fingers tracing the line of a round, silver pendant hanging there. "And whoever was with you gave you that?" I feel my eyes narrow funnily. "In a manner of speaking..." The truth is that I took it from my uncle, while he was sleeping. "And a book on Shakespeare, of course." I grin. "And Angelou. And Fitzgerald. And many others." His eyes pop. "Wow."

"Yes, I had an unusual education... To say the least."

"The very least! Their work was destroyed."

That's right. The Big Burn.

All books written by humans were banned and put to flames, their ashes buried ten feet under the ground so that not even a trace of human thought would remain among Ezaran kind. That was three hundred years ago. But some of those books survived the Big Burn and found their way into the right hands, their words and ideas saved for those who sought knowledge of the olden days. As it seems, Berlin is one of them. So am I.

"And here I thought I was transgressing by reading Robert Frost," he chuckles a bit. He is surprised when I giggle alongside him. We are both disarmed by our ability to just be.

I realize with certain bitterness that we are quickly becoming friends. I know it from the way I let him close to me, enough that he can see the shape of my small neck and smell the light sweat on my skin. His eyes come to the pendant, which I'm now holding out for him to examine. The round ornament is made from a rough, silvery material. Intertwined lines etched on the metal give it the peculiar appearance of a net. "It's nice. Strange, but nice."

It is then that I notice his eyes are set intently on my hand. When his frown intensifies, I know what he has seen... or rather, what isn’t found there. Every Ezaran has the mark; etched in black ink, the code rests on their left wrists like a price tag on fruit. The ID.

I never got one. No one was supposed to know about me. After Nairobi left, I thought no one else would. But now, Berlin does.

I hide my hand behind my back.

"What does this symbol mean?” he asks about the pendant. "I don't know. It's supposed to be a family heirloom." He looks up at me. "You came to the Valley with your family."

"I suppose that's what I called the people who brought me here," I take a deep breath, trying to ease the pain of the memories that come rushing into my conscious mind. "But that was long ago. They want nothing to do with me now, and I want nothing to do with them, or with their world."

"Why?"

"Anyway, it's all a lie, as you can see," I evade his question. "Bellerie Valley, a myth? It's the Council's biggest invention since..." I stop myself before going too far. "I'm letting my mouth run away with me."

"Please, do!" he smiles. This time, I don't smile back. "It's forbidden, for a good reason."

"That's what I keep hearing..." he mutters. "Well, I can finally say I know what the reason is." I try to hide the fear that creeps into me. "You do?"

"My mother said a creature of great power had been trapped in here, but the myth got it wrong. It's not just one, it's all of them. These beasts, they're... monstrous. We've already almost been killed twice!" I exhale, in relief. "That's not the reason."

"What else could it be?" I stare at him now. "You don't want to know, and I don't want to say." Berlin clamps his mouth shut, knowing by now that when I say no, I mean no. "Can I ask just one more thing?" Oh, dear. "How did you get past the wall?" I chew on my lower lip nervously.

I could continue to use the Exios, though, to my annoyance, as much as I try, the ancient art is lost on me. My uncle always said my attempts were pitiful. It had something to do with my inability to lie. But the greater truth is, at this point, I don't even want to. "We didn't have to get past it. The wall wasn’t there."

A strange feeling lodges at the pit of my stomach. I can't define what it is, but it comes as I watch the way his face changes. There is more than curiosity in his eyes; there is worry and empathy. It almost defeats what little hold I have on my secret. I wish I could tell you, Berlin. I wish I could say my unspoken truth. "But, you know... You're wrong about the creatures of Bellerie Valley. They aren't monsters."

From nearby bushes, a beast peeks its elongated snout out of the shrubbery. Berlin gets up in alert, ready to run, but I hold his hand reassuringly. I don't let go, even when the beast's eyes glow in a green light and its pointed, long ears appear in the bright of the moon, along with the rest of its gnarly, gray face. "At first, they seem like the scariest parts of the night; jarring darkness, daunting shadows; the grisly strain of silence, or worse, the sound of what cannot be seen hiding, creeping amid the fog."

I release Berlin's hand and walk towards the bushes slowly, hunching gradually until the caps of my knees and the palms of my hands have touched the ground. The beast lunges forward, displaying the rest of its shrill body, growling menacingly, slime oozing from behind its sharp fangs. "But if you look closer... If you find it in you to see beyond the differences, beyond your fear of what is unlike you, you will see something else."

I crawl nearer the beast, who matches each one of my movements. When we are only inches apart, the creature lowers its snout. It moves its head against my cheek in a soft caress.

"It is something you hadn't seen before, something you had thought impossible," I draw away from the beast and sit on my legs. "That all life, no matter where it comes from or how it seems, is interconnected. That it is one. And that in all of us there is a bit of light."

The beast sits on its hind legs and sends a melodic howl into the night. Its voice awakens the shine of hundreds of bugs gliding over the space around and above us. Their colors glow, sizzle, dance. With each different note played in the howls, they change pattern, crossing and twisting and turning, to form shapes and swirls, painting a fluorescent drawing on the transparent sheet of night. The music, the lights, lift Berlin's spirit. He laughs and I join him.

"This is astounding!" he says. "It is. And it won't last much longer," I exhale. "Soon, Bellerie Valley will find itself empty of the light of the shimmerbugs and of the song of the bazelhound."

"Why?"

"These creatures are living at the brink of existence. They're dying out because they can’t leave the dome."

"Can't you help them?"

"I tried. I tried hundreds of times, until I realized it was of no use. Even if I can heal them, I cannot sate their hunger. What kind of life can a creature who's always lacking live? It was wisest to stop trying and let nature run its course. But now I find myself running from them more often."

"Well, they are beasts. They're bound to be predacious."

"No, it's more than that. Life is a very tiny circle here in the Valley. Like you and me, these creatures are just trying to survive, and they'll take their food wherever they can find it, even from its creator." She raises a brow at me. "You didn't think they just wanted to kill us for fun, did you?"

His features turn suddenly gloomy. "Well, now I feel like an idiot."

"Why's that?"

"Back there, in the tunnel, when you killed the klingers... I was glad. I was relieved and happy to be alive. I didn't once think about the life they had lost." I nod, understanding, remembering the words of my first trainer. "Everything living wants to survive. Today, we did."

My face turns to the lights above us. Berlin watches as my eyes waltz with the movement of the shimmerbugs. "Dea is my favorite of the twin mountains," I say "She is the warm one, the green one. She has everything I want, from fruit to nuts and edible leaves. She has fresh water and creatures that bring me joy. Trista is always cold, and white, and distant. She brings me grief and trouble. She makes me starve and dries me up.

"The problem is, you can't make it to the other side of the Valley without experiencing both. I've had to learn both, to survive." I gaze back down at him. "Nothing is ever one-sided. Take this lesson from your time in Bellerie Valley, and then tell no one where you've learned it. But, more importantly, don't tell anyone about me."