The Mutants (5 page)

‘The raiders are back,’ said Lyle quietly. His voice sounded anxious and Cora wished she knew what he saw.

‘What is it? What’s out there?’ she rapidly asked.

‘Ships …
big
ships.’ Lyle took her arm and guided her around to the side of his house where the flying ships could not spot them. ‘There must be hundreds of Utopians inside those things.’

Cora felt panicked.
Of course
the Utopians decided to attack during the day, when everyone but a single girl could see!

‘They’re dropping something …’

Lyle did not get to finish his explanation of what was dropping, for a thunderous bang echoed in the distance. Cora felt the ground shake and a warm wind touch her face. She fell against Lyle and clutched his arm for support.

‘W-what was that?’ she asked, panicked.

‘I-I don’t know,’ responded Lyle, also jittery.

Another crash boomed nearby, causing the earth to tremble once again. Cora saw pieces of stone hurtle into the ground at tremendous speeds and she cowered against the side of the house and behind Lyle, using him to shield the light.

‘What’s happening!?’

‘Explosives,’ breathed Lyle, ‘and Shyla is closer than we are. Wait here.’

Cora felt Lyle break free from her grip and she abruptly looked up in fear. The full force of the sun struck her, and her gaze filled with darkness, leaving her – not just alone – but blind.

‘Lyle! Lyle, come back!’ she cried. Another tremor knocked her to the ground and her hands clawed through the dirt, reaching for the side of the house. She felt the hot stone and moved towards it, her breathing shaky. She held on through the tremors, too terrified to move.

I am sitting prey like this
, she thought bitterly, her eyes slowly filling with tears.
They will blast me into the sky
.

Though, as hard as she tried, she could not move. Her sight was mostly gone, only blurry outlines left to see. If she tried to run she would become an easy target. So she sat where she was, her fingers dug into the stone of Lyle’s house, while she waited for him to return. She didn’t even know if he
would
return. Blasts were sounding left and right, all around her. Soon she lost track of what time it was and how long Lyle had been gone, and her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness that crept in around her.

Eight-legged creatures found her, shaken awake by the blasts. Cora used one hand to strike them away, while keeping her other locked upon the wall of the house. Before long, night had fallen and her sight returned. She moved away from the house, but only a little, to drive chase off the creatures that had attacked her. She was not so helpless anymore, and she crawled her way into the house to find the supplies still lying upon the floor.

I have to run
, she thought. At this point, Cora had to assume that her friends were not coming back and she was on her own. She could only hope that they had died quickly and not been taken away by the Utopians.

She found a rucksack and filled it with a few necessary things: two burrowers, her quilt, a warm shirt, and an empty bottle. The bottle she would fill as soon as she found water. For now she would just have to do without it. There was no way she would be able to get back to her house and drain the remaining water from her water-catcher. It had probably all leaked out by now anyway.

Cora swung the bag over her shoulder and exited the house, first checking to see if any ships were above her or any Utopians lurking about. The village seemed quiet, though, and she slunk away.

Destruction was everywhere. Houses destroyed, holes in the ground, blood upon the rocks. Cora tried not to think upon whose blood it belonged to. She had already taken part in one death today. She would not stand around and witness the Utopians massacre whoever was left – if there were any left.

‘Cora …’ a weak voice called out to her, and she stopped to look around. It was coming from the well, which caused a shiver to run up her spine. She cautiously approached it, hand on her knife. It could have been a trap, knowing Utopians, and she needed to be ready.

‘Lyle …?’ Cora spotted him leaning against the other side of the well and she quickly ran around to join him. ‘Lyle, you’re alive!’ She hugged him tightly and only stopped when he cried out in pain. There was bruising on his arms and blood dried upon his jacket, though he was alive and that was what mattered at this moment.

‘I tried to find her, Cora,’ said Lyle slowly, his eyes filling with water. ‘I looked everywhere, I swear, but I couldn’t find her.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Cora, her throat tight. She helped him to his feet.

‘I meant to come back to you right away, but one of the blasts trapped me,’ he explained. His leg limped as they walked, and Cora further supported him with her arm. ‘I had to dig my way out, and by then it was really dark. I used the light from the explosions to find my way back.’ He paused. ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Run,’ answered Cora. ‘We are going to the colonies.’

Lyle was silent for a while. ‘Do you think Shyla headed that way, too?’

‘I hope so,’ said Cora.

The truth was, no one was certain if the colonies existed or not. They were like the stories of the cities out west. But the traders had to find their products somewhere, and so the cities and the colonies
must
be real. If not, they were headed into the teeth of wild creatures, but better eaten than monsters than poked and prodded by them.

‘Which way?’ asked Lyle, once they arrived at the village’s exit. A whole desert of nothingness awaited them out there, or so it appeared from where they were standing.

‘I’m not sure …’ Cora looked back and forth across the wasteland, hoping to see some sign that would lead them to their destination, though she saw nothing but rocks and glowing eyes hiding in cracks, shaken awake by the blasts.

Another thought came to her mind, then, and she pulled out the strange object Rorian had given her. She studied it for a moment, looking at the “N” at the top and the pointer that wavered slightly even when she held it still. The traders spoke of directions sometimes: the cities were west, their village was east, the lake was south …

Perhaps this “N” was also a direction, and this pointer was a guide. Maybe it wasn’t broken. Maybe it was just stationed to a particular point, and that point was the “N”. She looked directly behind to see the moon.
The moon rises in the east … because the village is in the east, which means … which means
…

Cora tilted the device slowly, allowing the pointer to move until it was just left of the “N”.

Which means this is west!
She smiled proudly and kept the way-marker out. She was sure she wasn’t using it properly and that it had more complicated instructions (all old-world objects usually did) but right now she had established what way they needed to go. That was about as good as they were going to get to finding a real direction to guide them to the colonies.

‘Did you discover something?’ asked Lyle. ‘I can hear the ships starting up again. If you have a destination in mind, I suggest we go for it.’

‘This way,’ said Cora, pointing off into the empty desert.

‘Lead the way, then, because I can’t see anything,’ muttered Lyle.

It would be a hard struggle to cross the wastelands, though their entire lives were a hard struggle and more of it would not make much of a difference. Cora had brought supplies to aid them, along with the best aid: her eyes. Yet they only relied on a whisper – a hope – that the colonies actually existed. If there was nothing out there in the desert, then they not only wasted their time, but their lives as well.

As Cora trudged through the sand and scattered rubble of another time with Lyle, she could not help but wonder if Shyla had made it out of the village in time. She was a clever girl, but her home had been so close to the blasts …

If she did manage to find her way out alive and to the colonies, the three of them would be reunited and everything regarding their old life would be washed away. They could start a new life in the colonies – a peaceful life without fear of the Utopians and their war ships.

Cora smiled in the darkness.

Peace on Earth … it sounded like a story. Could it be true…?

To be continued

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