Life

Since its inception, war has been an integral part of humanity's existence on Earth. Unfortunately, as time passed, the Earth itself began to feel the effects of violence. Bombs, cannon-fire, dangerous chemicals. After being abused for so long, it was only natural for Earth to start fighting back.

Just as humans have been fighting, they have also been learning. Scientists have been researching the earth’s natural life cycle, global warming and climate change in particular for decades. In one such study, a pond was found in Siberia that never seemed to melt. Scientists took ice samples from this pond to study, and found that the ice contained pathogens never seen before--and a lot of them. They sent the ice samples to the CDC to be studied in a safe, secure place, but even the CDC’s protocols weren’t enough to keep the viruses contained for long. During the research stage, it was revealed that the pathogens seemed to almost evolve similarly to humankind. But before the CDC could get control of them, the viruses found a way out of the research center.

In a last ditch effort to contain as much of the damage as possible, the CDC initiated its self-destruct protocol, destroying the building and any viruses still in the vicinity. But the damage was already irreversible. They worked fast, and with the ice caps melting from the earth’s warming, more pathogens were being released, with no way to stop them. They ravaged civilization--where one pathogen failed to kill, another succeeded. Within months, humanity had fallen.

In the age that followed, the world drifted through its natural cycles, growing warmer and warmer until chilling into the next ice age. Under the pressure of the ice, the buildings of earth, covered in ivy and held in winter’s grip, crumbled apart and fell through the ground. In the holes that were left, often miles wide, caverns stretched beneath the crust of the earth. Untouched by humans or animals, filled with limestone cliffs and crystals that glowed in the dark. They lay hidden for millenia, stretching all over the world in a massive network of stone--one of its caverns even lying below the frozen pond.

Light shone through the pond’s thick layers of ice, waxing and waning as the sun passed. When the weather warmed once more, the ice began to melt, and while the frozen pond never melted, a stream of water dripped from its underside, from the cracks in stone and the layers of ice that still coldly reigned. Slow but steady, and as the ice above faded, life flourished below. Sunlight became stronger, shining down through the craters left behind, through that frozen pond’s surface, to illuminate the forests growing beneath the thawing earth.

The forests spread throughout the caverns, branching from the limestone cliffs and its roots digging deep. Eventually it grew largest and strongest beneath that pond, pushing the boundaries of the caverns, its topmost branches brushing the pond’s underside. Global warming, time, and persistence pushed the tree through the pond’s ice and spread aboveground as well as below. And as the remnants of humanity vanished beneath fern and bush, the forests grew to cover the earth once more.

But they were not alone. The pathogens had not faded, finding refuge in the ice as they had once before. And with the ice gone, they were free to roam again. Strangely, though . . . they showed no signs of the fatality that had wiped humanity from the globe.

Instead, the pathogens strengthened the forests and helped them flourish, carrying the seeds across oceans and settling them in dirt yet untouched, pushing the roots to grow deep and take hold. And without mankind to interfere, those forests were allowed to grow far and wide--and with unusual effects.

Trees grew in strange shapes and unlikely places. Where forestland covered the ground for miles, some areas bore nothing at all, where wildlife did not dare to venture. Where oceans had once washed up on sand and cliffs, now they brushed against tips of branches. Where temples of man once stood, proud as their makers on mountaintops, now birds made their nests in broken windows.

And where that frozen pond still glittered under the sun, a massive tree stretched far and wide, as high as any man had flown. Its branches brushed the stars, and its roots burrowed deeper than even where the fire of earth’s center burned. Water flowed from high in its boughs, and wildlife flocked to the massive trunk to drink.

The fauna itself did not escape the pathogen’s influence. As time passed, it was noticed that many animals appeared . . . different than their past incarnations. A horn where there had been none, an extra toe or missing tail. However, one thing had always been the same, no matter how many years passed, how many more life cycles the earth passed through.

Humanity never returned.

Evolution followed its course--as far as it was allowed. As if the pathogens were a protector or sorts, the natural evolution of mankind was always stunted, halted. As if humanity was now a virus, one to be prevented at all costs.

At least, for a time.

Time immemorial has passed since the pathogens have been seen. The world turns as it always has, the Tree grows strong and proud, and all is quiet. It seems the pathogens have finally gone--as if their work has finally been completed. One can only assume. Without humanity’s old ways, there can never be an answer. Not truly.

“As far as we know,” a voice murmured.

A girl stood from the rock she sat upon, gazing out over the verdant green fields. Boughs whispered above her head, a cool breeze brushing her cheeks. Her fingers drifted up, tracing the edge, feeling no difference but knowing it was there.

Across the field, the World Tree soared above, its lowest branches tickling her skin. In the fields, deer and small wildlife grazed, and high up, the sun shone down on the bright green leaves, searing them to gold. Higher still, the stars froze them a cold silver, and the girl stood still as she gazed at them.

The others had to fight a shiver when they looked higher than the sun. She couldn’t understand why. But then, they had to fight a shiver when they looked at her, too.

The World Tree was the giver of life. Everyone knew the story. “Humanity failed its king, Life itself,” she murmured, walking through the grasses. Her fingers brushed the long stalks, and a curious fox ran up to sniff at them. “So Life sent an avenger to teach them. They failed that lesson, too.”

A deer lifted its head as she passed, and then returned to its lunch. It knew it had nothing to fear. Within the bounds of the World Tree, death was a sin.

“After humanity lost, Life sent the World Tree, and bid its avenger to make sure it prospered. And so it has,” she said, stepping onto the ice. She crossed its wide surface and stopped at the trunk, so wide it would take dozens of her people to span it. She lifted her head, staring up at the wood. Birds of prey nested in the knots, chipmunks and squirrels skittered up and down the old bark.

Old, and yet somehow new. The girl lifted a hand to it. Her callouses scraped, reminding her that next to this, she was fragile. Breakable. Like the ice beneath her feet.

Her lips twisted into a smile. Her hand trembled against the bark, and her voice shook like the leaves of its highest boughs. “Like me,” she whispered.

Like the body her spirit resided in, so easily scarred. Warmth tracked down her cheek, as uncaring of the jagged edge of skin as Life itself. And yet it was all she could see.

“You gave me this body,” she whispered, laying both hands flat against the trunk. “But I am too easily broken.”

She waited for an answer she knew would not come. The girl gritted her teeth, hating the tears that escaped, fighting to hold them back--

“Tala!”

The girl straightened. She wiped her face, and her fingers twitched as they passed her ears. She forced them to stay still and turned.

A woman stood on the other side of the fields, waving her arm. “Tala!” she called. “Holfar is burned again!”

Tala sighed. Every day at sunset, like clockwork. She turned from the Tree, and a breeze, as soft as swan’s feathers, brushed her neck. The girl took a shuddering breath, unseen by Lyanna, and began to trek back through the field.

When she reached the stone where she’d sat, Lyanna had the elder’s tablet in her hands. She was frowning. “You shouldn’t be reading this,” she said, as they began walking.

“I was curious,” Tala answered.

“You’ve read it four times.”

More than that, Tala knew. But Lyanna didn’t need to. She would just tell Alisse, and she would tell Sifan, and he would go straight to the elder. Again.

So Tala shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

Lyanna’s sigh was quiet. “If you would just ask me, I would borrow it for you.”

They had reached the village, so Tala didn’t answer. They didn’t like it when she talked. The houses were lit up warmly inside, and as they ducked inside one, the light illuminated a large man laying on a bed, cradling his hand.

His blond hair shone golden in the firelight, as golden as the leaves on the World Tree. Tala shook the thought away and knelt at Holfar’s side. He offered a pained smile. “Hey there, Tal,” he said, voice tight. “Sorry about this.”

“It’s okay,” Tala said, feeling her lips curl up slightly. She set her hands over his injury and focused.

She knew Holfar was only burned because he was her friend. One of her only friends, besides Lyanna. Sifan didn’t like her, and when she simply healed her own wounds, he’d decided to hurt others instead. He was abnormally immature for an adult, Tala ruminated. Oh wait.

She felt her lips curl in a smile, and when she set the gauze down, Holfar’s burn was gone. “Ahh,” he said, sitting up. He flexed his hand and smiled broadly at her. “Good as new, as always, Tal!”

Tala smiled, squinting a bit when he ruffled her hair. Lyanna pulled her up. “Come on, let’s get some supper before it gets cold,” she said, and steered Tala out of the hut.

Usually the others would wait until Tala had left. But she was still brushing the curtain from her path when Holfar’s brother, Lichel, said in a low voice, “How can you touch her so familiarly? You could get sick.”

She didn’t hear Holfar’s response. Lyanna gripped her shoulder tightly and propelled her toward the village center, where the pot of stew boiled away.

“Don’t listen to Lichel,” Lyanna muttered, pouring them both a bowl of stew. “He’s as dumb as a pile of rocks, and as pretty as one.”

“Rocks can be pretty,” Tala objected, meeting Lyanna’s eyes. There was a beat of silence, and then the both of them burst into laughter.

“Oh, Tala,” Lyanna murmured, reaching with a hand to cup the younger girl’s cheek. “When will you remember what’s most important?”

Tala blinked at her. “What--”

She gasped, shooting upright in bed. Her chest heaved, sweat slid down her back, and there was a tight coil of pain in her belly, like someone had gripped her insides and was squeezing them.

A scream echoed outside, and Tala’s head whipped to the door of her hut.

Lyanna.

Tala leapt out of bed and threw her robe on. Foregoing her shoes, she dashed out of her hut and up the path. Lyanna screamed again, and Tala felt tears burn her eyes as she skidded to a halt.

Lyanna’s house entrance was crowded. The villagers were murmuring, and on a rock outside the door, Holfar sat. He was bleeding, and breathing heavily. Tala let out a distressed sound and went to him, but he shook his head. “Lyanna needs you,” he said, then coughed and spat. Even in the darkness, Tala knew it was blood.

Shaking, she passed the crowd, and something to her right caught her eye. It was a long shape, scaled and armored, and blood leaked from its long mouth, filled with serrated teeth. It was dead.

Tala brushed the curtain aside and called out. “Lyanna?”

Her friend was crying. Lichel stood aside, illuminated by the fire behind him, and revealed Lyanna kneeling at her bedside. Tala rushed forward.

“Lyanna, are you--”

She broke off in a gasp. On the bed, Bandor lay, his side nearly torn apart. Blood leaked in a steady flow from the terrible wound, and Tala could see the marks in his side, where his tunic had been shredded.

Her eyes burned. She lifted her hands, begging that voice to come to her, to help, but Lyanna pushed her hands down. Something warm trickled down her fingers, and Tala realized it was blood. Lyanna’s hands were covered in it.

“Nothing can save him now,” she whispered. At the headboard, her children cried quietly, shaking their father’s shoulder.

Tala stared at her friend in horror. “No! I--I can save him! Lyanna, please--”

Lyanna turned to her, the usually vibrant green of her eyes dulled to dark moss. “He is beyond even the World Tree now.”

Tala was crying. “I can help, just let me try--”

“Tala,” Lyanna whispered, taking her hands again. She pressed them into Tala’s lap and stared at her so fiercely that Tala was shaken enough to hear what she said.

“Tala, you must not forget this,” Lyanna insisted. “You must remember what is most important. Do you hear me? You must remember--”

Tala didn’t answer right away, so Lyanna gave her a rough shake. “W-what is most im-important,” Tala cried, standing with her friend. She was dragged to the door and to a horse, waiting behind Lyanna’s hut. There was sudden shouting behind them, and Tala looked behind, frightened, but her friend seized her shoulders and made her focus.

“You must ride from here, do you understand? You must get far away. I can’t go with you, but--but you must promise me!”

Lyanna was crying too. Tala didn’t understand, she could barely see anymore, but Lyanna grabbed her and set her on the horse. “But the World Tree!” Tala cried, trying to twist in the saddle to see the Tree, rising into the dark stars far above them.

“The Tree is with you everywhere you go,” Lyanna said, looking behind them. The shouting was getting closer, and torchlight flickered in greater strength. Fear made Tala dumb, choked. She couldn’t speak.

“Listen to me,” she breathed, cupping Tala’s face. “You carry Life with you,” Lyanna said, her eyes so fierce once again. “Now go!”

She slapped the horse’s rump, and the gentle beast galloped away, ignorant of Tala’s sudden screams, of the way she slumped over the saddle, her hands tangling in the horse’s mane. She shut her eyes, feeling her tears, her cries, ripped away by the wind, and left her village, her friends, and the World Tree behind.

Remember what is most important.