More of "Reigniting Suns"...

Again the name is quite malleable, it's consistently changing... This is the third title I've considered: "Reigniting Suns".

I'm having a lot of fun with this one, and I'll admit the writing process is proving more complicated as time ticks on, mostly because of all the edits I'm doing (already?!  I know... already!!).  The voice is a little more difficult to nail when the tales given from two perspectives, but it's thoroughly entertaining.  I'm finding the voices are becoming more clear as the plot unravels, but consistency is important, so I'll be doing more and more changes as I go.

Anywho, here goes!:

Thane

The rest of the trip we take at a leisurely pace.  We’re too early to reenter the Core anyways, both A and B ducts are open now, heating the Surface.  The B ducts will close as soon as the day color is yellow, allowing for incoming and outgoing traffic, but the colors have been too sporadic lately for anyone to predict when the next “sun” will be in full view. 

We finally make it to the edge of the Dome, the blinding whiteness of blistering ice winking at us through the transparent wall.  Nitra always presses her hand to the plastic-like substance that separates us from the outside, incomprehension inching across her face, the barren wasteland that’s never visible.  It looks like white nothingness, a cold never ending empty canvas. 

I place my hand beside hers on the cold surface of the Dome; it legitimately feels like the frozen is trying to claw its way through, further deaden our already lifeless milieu.   

Then the click of a depleting cartridge interrupts my thoughts, and Nitra’s voice follows the silence, “Thirty-one?” 

“Yeah.”  I tug at the strap buckled at the base of my head and slide my finger across the power strip, immediately interrupting the oxygen flow.  I pull the mask off my face and take a staggering breath; the deadly concoction of chemicals in the dirty air instantly affects my perception, the world swims a little bit, my head lightens and there’s a metallic scent that lingers on my tongue.  I laugh and take another deep breath through my nostrils, sucking in the sweet poison.  It’s surprisingly easier to breathe this way, the air is calming and sickly slippery in my throat. 

I watch Nitra’s head shake, her voice slips into my ears, the creepy mechanical voice sounds hundreds of feet away, but my eyes seem to think her face is just inches from mine.  The intoxication is instantaneous.  “I’ll give you three minutes.  That’s it.” 

I nod and feel the laughter spill through my lips.  “You want a sniff?”

Her head shakes and I can see her eyes roll through the transparent visor of her mask.  The incoherence of deadly chemicals and oxygen depletion is the only intoxicant we have available, the only opportunity I ever get to escape from reality.  I have no responsibilities in this moment, so I relish in the hallucinogenic composition dripping drops of contortion into my sight. 

My heartbeat slows.  Thoughts are fleeting and I’m engulfed in an ease I rarely have the privilege to experience.  My rate of breathing deepens and decelerates. 

The scrawny frame of an unknown passerby walks through my line of vision, he’s in all black clothing, he’s tumbling along in a curly-cue motion in a blasé fashion. 

Then a fear erupts inside my brain, breaking through the barriers of my intoxicated ease; my natural response to a stranger triggers a desperate need for coherence.  I’m fumbling to replace the mask on my face, startled out of my mind.  Instantly a hundred scenarios flash through my brain, and each one ends in mine and Nitra’s death.  He’s a threat.  Like all strangers on the Dome Surface.

Someone’s on my back and I feel the urge to swing my arm to my belt and reach for my knife, but what my body wants to do and what my brain is allowing me to accomplish are two different things entirely.  All I can manage is a tiny turn of my head, then I see Nitra’s shiny black hair attached to the body behind me and relax as I feel her fingers buckle the strap against the back of my head and push the power strip back into place. 

Oxygen flow stabs at my lungs, detoxification tumbling through my organs and revitalizing my coherence.  I breathe in hard.  The slender person is yards away from us now, wandering aimlessly down the orange-lit alleyway, apparently not the threat I’d originally assumed. 

I let my guard down and I shouldn’t have, not in this vulnerable position with our backs pressed against the frozen wall and a dead end fifty yards to our right.  As soon as I’m fully back in the present, not an ounce of intoxicant clouding my mind, I slam my fists against the rock strewn cement and swear. 

Every passerby is a threat; leaving Nitra alone to fend off thieves should have resulted in both of our deaths.  I was fortunate this time, but it would never happen that way again.  You don’t just get lucky like that twice in one lifetime.  Most slim bodies that wander past are moments from death, desperate enough to mindlessly kill for the cartridge secured in the nearest mask.  We had nothing on us but the single, two-thirds of the way empty, O2 cartridges already steadily depleting in our lungs.  But that was enough.  Anything is enough to kill for when you have nothing. 

I know. 

“Calm down,” Nitra says.  She’s flopped down beside me again and is pushing her hair behind her ears almost as if she’s not even remotely rattled by the disaster we’d so easily evaded.

“What if he took your mask?”  I stammer indignantly, her nonchalance disconcerting.

Nitra

I rub my hands against my knees slowly, then shrug.   It takes me a minute to recollect my thoughts, because my mind’s latched onto his voice, the real human tenor that’s musically haunting.  The tangible words, though he only managed a few, were full of emotion, were rhythmic and I’ll admit it, amazing.  I don’t need to inhale anything but the sound of a true human voice to feel pleasure.  It’s why I don’t really mind when he inhales Death, I get to hear words straight from a mouth.

But he’s right, it’s too dangerous, it’s selfish of either of us to let it continue.  There’s a pretty obvious way to fix it though, “Maybe you shouldn’t get high anymore?”

“I’ll consider that,” he’s reaching behind his head and adjusting the strap so it’s seated at the base of his neck; it’s less secure there, but more comfortable.  We’ve been told hundreds of times not to put the strap anywhere near our neck, but Thane tends not to listen if anyone’s telling him what to do.  “I’ll take first watch.” 

I don’t argue.  I don’t want to be conscious when we’re leaning against the Dome, the frostiness of the ice wasteland tugging at my heart.  The proximity of the Dead Surface sends invisible stabs at my sanity, as always.

I hate the Domes: the thick transparent material that separates us from the devastation just feet away from our fingertips.  It was created originally to keep the dirty air out, when the environment originally went sour, wiping out almost every living thing in its path.  The Domes failed, though, they weren’t built quickly enough to keep the Oxygen in and Death out. 

Masks were the only other option.  Only some were sufficiently prepared: masks became a precious commodity, O2 cartridges even more valuable.  But millions died in the initial devastation left by environment depletion. 

Domes just sat there, unused and unnecessary, and masks became life support.  Or at least this is how I was told it happened.  I was born years after masks became necessary. 

I was alive for the death of the sun, though.  It took little more than a week for the star to dwindle out of the sky.  It faded to an orange more quickly than ever theorized, then it was as if it bled to death over the course of but a few days.  Then, it just went out.  Now every moment of life is like the night time, the only light visible by way of the millions of stars burning billions of miles away.    

Scientists were aghast, presidents removed from office by force, chaos reigned because people feared there was nothing anyone could do to save humanity. 

Waves of ice took out entire countries in minutes, spouting from the sea unpredictably.  The most warning anyone ever received was five minutes, and this was almost never enough. 

Then something miraculous happened, and Domes became a saving grace no one previously expected.  For some reason unbeknownst to us all, Domes were resilient against the waves.  When the world froze over, leaving us with little more than a Dead Surface, everything within the Dome was left unscathed.  Life continued on, however depleted, however cold.  The few of us that remained tunneled deeper into the Earth for heat; ducts were set up to deliver things to those living underground, while others progressed even deeper into the Core to deliver heat to the only living part of the Surface: the Domes. 

But I hate everything about them.  The Domes, if they had only extended further than the miniscule reach they’d attained, maybe my family would still be alive. 

The Dead Surface is just as haunting, if not more, than the surface of the Dome.  There are countless bodies, frozen and preserved, sitting just feet away from us.  I shudder and gulp down the disquiet clawing up my throat. 

Thane’s already got his thigh extended for me to place my head upon, so I press my cheek against his leg and curl up, exhausted at the emotional turmoil raging through my mind.  Then his words drift into my ears, “You comfortable here or do you want to find a more concealed spot?” 

“I’ll be fine.”  I manage, then I close my eyes and drift off in wait…

I’m running.  I’m running so fast I can feel the tendons in my calves catch fire.  Every pore leaks a salty substance, even the ducts of my eyes.  The path I maneuver is familiar in the dying sun light that sits directly above my head in the midafternoon, the icy trail more slippery than usual. 

The breathing apparatus strapped atop my mouth accentuates my wheezing as I continue sprinting forward.

“Miss.  Please get in the vehicle immediately.  This is your final warning.”  The voice reverberates through my ears as it exits the megaphone on the police vehicle trailing along behind me.

I shake my head in desperation as another bout of hot liquid pours down my face; I push myself further. 

“This is your last warning.  Get in the vehicle, the wave is hitting in three minutes.” 

No.  My parents.  My sisters.  They won’t know.  They won’t know anything.  They won’t make it. 

I can’t leave them.

If he wasn’t wearing a mask I might be able to hear the exasperation in his voice, “You will die if you don’t get in the car.” 

But my feet are still pounding against the frozen concrete and I feel absolutely no urge to let them save me.  The screech of tires doesn’t knock me off my course, the black vehicle swerves, cuts around a street lamp and comes to a rubber-burning stop directly in my path. 

There’s a blue uniformed body that wraps its arms around me, I’m kicking, screaming and biting at any inch of flesh I can find, but the strength of his clasp keeps me from accomplishing anything. 

“NO!” My mechanical voice screams.  I won’t go on.  I don’t care what this man says, I need to get home, I need to tell my family what’s happening.  Maybe, just maybe, we can survive it on our own.

My side slams against a plastic seat cushion that’s not the least bit padded and a metal door smashes against my feet as I’m shoved in the back compartment of the police vehicle.

They’re not even giving me a choice anymore. 

“You should have left me!”  I’m screaming, a piercing sound that deadens even my own ear drums, and scalding liquid runs like a river down my cheeks, parting around my mask before the salt can reach my lips. 

My rage is ignored entirely; I move to the handle and attempt to free myself from the back seat of the vehicle, but the door doesn’t budge in the slightest. 

“Two minutes and thirty seconds,” A sweet, true voice seeps through the speakers of the car and I’m momentarily calmed by the beauty of the words, unaltered by a stifling mask.

Then I realize what the voice is counting down to, and my breathing stops.  Again a thrusting pain erupts in my chest when I know there’s no way anyone in my family will make it.  The motorized engine of the vehicle roars and we pick up speed as I consider my options.  I know without too much thought that life without my family is not a life worth living, and there’s only one way to accomplish my demise at this moment.

I rip the mask from my face and the intoxicants fill my weak lungs; my misery briefly squelched out by the dangerous chemicals now simmering inside me. 

At least I’ll die feeling good, I think.  Restraints fly out and wrap around my arms, securing me to the seat; the man in the passenger’s chair at the front whips around and secures my mask upon my face, his fingers working quickly and efficiently as the oxygen tingles uncomfortably back into my lungs. 

I drop my head against my chest and breathe in the oxygen, my hands unmoving behind my body.  I expect the man to turn back to the front of the car but his face is still glued in my direction; I can’t see even an inch of his features, though, so I don’t get why he continues to stare.

His counterpart in the driver’s seat is still accelerating; I can hear the desperation building in his gasps through the mask as “two minutes” pounds through the speakers.  My own breathing increases in ferocity and I want to scream out again, demand they let me out so I can die with everyone I love. 

But then something completely unexpected happens and I’m plunged into silence.  The officer who’s caught me up, thrown me in and restrained me reaches behind his head and I hear the click of the strap as he pulls the contraption from his face. 

The still mechanized voice of the other cop says, “What the hell are you doing?”

Then I hear the silky sounds of real voice and slip instantly into an emotional coma, “It’s okay, sweet heart.  Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.  What’s your name?”  His square face is so kind I can’t help but feel an ease creep down my body at the sight of it.  His eyes bend in with concern, not in scrutiny or annoyance as I had assumed.  He’s young, but there’s a significant amount of stubble on his chin so I know he’s much older than me, and his eyes are a deep chocolate brown like the hair that’s cut short atop his head. 

“Nitra.”  I manage, my own voice sounding disgustingly more masculine than the man’s before me.  I feel my head loll to the side, my breathing slow and even out at his words.

“Put your mask back on.”  His fellow’s voice interrupts our attempt at a conversation, but the mask-less man ignores his partner. 

“It’s nice to meet you Nitra, I’m Thane.”