Finding Her

The smell of their charred remains penetrated his sweaty bandana. A muffled coughing pierced the silence about 50 feet away and he pulled the thin material taut on his face, his sunken cheeks numbing from the tightness of it. He wondered if this man was choking from the smell of burnt flesh or from the Great Disease that wiped out half of the population.

The Great Disease, along with the devastation of The Last War, left little in the world and very few people outside of Center City alive. He didn’t know who was left, nor did he even feel alive himself. Yet somehow he was here, trudging through the twisting wreckage of what was once his home.

A mechanical buzzing penetrated the air and he dropped to the dirt, thrusting his face into something soft. A putrid stench filled his nostrils and he held his breath. He realized he was on the remains of some kind of animalbut didn’t dare budge, not now with the drone flying overhead. Survivors told tales of huge, vulture like drones circling the bombed buildings, scouring for anyone that could still be alive and if there was movement, a small, powerful bomb would be dropped on that spot. There were to be no survivors. No witnesses. No one to rise up and create a revolution again. No. The Last War was supposed to be a kind reckoning for this planet, forcing us to become unified, as one people, moving toward a greater world. Anyone who didn’t agree, well… this is what happened to them. They were obliterated. Not just them, but the town where they lived. When the buzzing finally faded into the distance, he stumbled away from the carcass and felt a wave of nausea sweep over him.

He dropped into a cross-legged position and tried to focus on slowing his heart rate, and calming his mind. But with every deep breath, sharp pains and that awful stench filled his lungs, so he turned his head and retched onto the dirt next to him. He didn’t think it possible to still be throwing up when he’d had nothing to eat or drink in 36 hours. Maybe that should be his priority. He had to find water. But he felt stuck like cement to where he was, what he was doing. He had to find her. But then again, he didn’t want to find her. If he found her here, that would mean he’d be living without her again, but this time permanently. He cursed himself for leaving. What was he thinking taking off like that? He just wanted a few minutes to sort his thoughts and think things through. Just a few minutes. But that turned into a few days, and then a few weeks. Why he always ran from relationships, he’d never understand. This one was different though. Somehow she understood him in ways no one else ever seemed to. She saw right past the walls he had built up to the person he truly was. Past the anger, past the hurt, to see him, just a broken up mess of a man, trying to forget his past. He could remember those soulful brown eyes staring into his, and with tears cascading down her cheeks insisting that he needed to make a choice. His choice. And what did he decide? He took off to the wilderness for weeks and left her behind. And in those few weeks that went by, everything changed. He was disgusted with himself. One of the few good things that happened in his life and he left it. He would rather be under all this rubble with her than out here alone in this hell. He kicked the rock in front of him and recoiled as it sent a shockwave of pain through him.

“You idiot!” He thought.

The pain quickly reminded him of his broken up body from the fall he took earlier, while stumbling his way through the moonless night. It brought his mind back to focus and he started shoving the broken building this way and that, throwing the piles of rock and debris in a methodical madness that somehow soothed him. When he reached down this time, he felt the familiar plumpness of a swollen body. His heart fluttered and he fumbled into his pocket to pull out a small flashlight.

“Please work.” He begged as he pushed the button. Nothing. He shook it vigorously and somehow, it flickered on and shone a dim light onto the subject in front of him. He couldn’t tell who this was. The clothes were tattered and burned. And where’s the face? It was- he quickly turned away when he realized the brokenness of this body in particular. The head was laying mostly detached, at an odd, twisted angle as if something grabbed at the skull and twisted it off, leaving only the spine connected. He looked back again to see what was left of a man’s long beard, matted against a mangled face. It wasn’t her. He breathed a sigh of relief. One more body that’s not hers. He knew some managed to make it out of the city and they fled into the dense mountains nearby. He had searched some there already and, nothing. The survivors he ran into that would talk to him, gave him very little information and he couldn’t blame them for their caution. As he went to shove the flashlight back into his pocket, the light flashed against a metallic object in the ashes. He scrambled over to where he thought he saw the glint and scanned the light over the area. Then he saw it. A heart-shaped locket around someone’s neck. Her locket. A gift from her late grandmother that she always wore. As the world around him started to tilt, he fell to his knees in agony. It’s her. She didn’t make it. He buried his face in the remnants of her body and wept, his tears mixing with the dirt and ashes, smudging filth onto his face. If only he had been here, if only he didn’t run, if only… A new kind of anger gripped his being. He hated the New World Union. Hated President Vixzo for his grand ideas and smooth talking. Hated all the people that agreed to the massacre of the millions. And more than anything, he hated himself. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms. When he finally looked up, peeks of light had started to streak across the sky. Time to move, but he couldn’t leave her. He dared to glance at the face and his stomach twisted. She was unrecognizable. With adrenaline fueling his strength, he heaved her lifeless body onto his shoulders and started his trek towards the mountain. Up, up, up the seemingly never ending cliffs and trails, but there was safety and solitude in these hills.

He reached a point to where he couldn’t take her any farther. There was an area of loose rock 10 yards away and he decided to bury her there, beneath an outcropping, hidden from wild animals and those dreaded drones. Sliding her body down his and onto the rock, he pulled the gold locket off her neck, placing it around his own.

Every rock that he stacked onto her body seemed to slice a knife through his soul until he felt there was nothing left of him. He was buried there with her. He fumbled into his jacket pocket and pulled out her picture. He didn’t want to remember her like this; broken and charred, buried under the rocks. So he stared at those brown eyes in the picture until he felt a familiar warmth penetrate his dark mind. He carefully slid the photograph back into his pocket and zipped it tight. It was time to go back to camp. The others might think he had died, or worse, given into the regime and was leading them to the encampment. He didn’t want to be alone again. Not now.

When he made it up to the camp nothing stirred at first. It seemed no one was there until he tapped out a short code on a nearby rock. One at a time, the others started coming in closer. They were all staring at him, wondering. Blue spoke first. He was called Blue because of his bright blue hair and melancholy manner. No one went by their real names here. Those people died with the war.

“You find her?” It was more of a statement than a question because one look at the broken man in front of them told the answer.

The man, whom the group named Lone Wolf, held up the locket dangling off his neck. No one spoke. No one moved. They knew the pain he was experiencing. A woman stepped towards Lone Wolf and handed him a canteen. Her name was Mother because she was always tending to everyone else. He gladly accepted the canteen. Once he was finished, he handed it back to Mother and gave her a small nod of thanks. He really needed to go wash in the brook but couldn’t find the strength. He sat down on a rock and pulled the locket from around his neck. He gazed at the only thing he had left of her. Something suddenly seemed odd about it. He had stared at that locket many times, but this one didn’t seem right. It seemed bigger somehow. His large, calloused hands fumbled with the clasp to open it and when he saw what was inside he let out an involuntary exclamation of disbelief. Mother and Blue came running over.

“What’s wrong?” Mother asked, true concern in her wavering voice.

“It’s not hers!” Lone Wolf shouted. “IT’S NOT HERS! It looks just like hers, but it’s not. The picture in here, it’s not of her momma. This is someone else!”

Lone Wolf continued to examine the necklace in front of him and noticed a tiny set of initials engraved into the gold. KLJ. Not her initials either. He jumped to his feet and grabbed Blue by the shoulders. Blue looked up in shock. This is the most emotion Lone Wolf had shown since they met.

“It’s not her locket! That was the last building for me to search. The last area she could have been. Don’chya see? She is still alive. I knew it. I knew she was a survivor. She’s a stubborn old goat, that girl. Stubborn enough to survive. She’s got to be out there!”

A newness flooded over his body and he knew he was going to find her. He would have a second chance! He ran over to the brook to wash himself and started planning for the next day. She was out there and he was going to find her, no matter what it took.