Thank you for checking out chapter eight of this speculative novella. We’re over halfway through this story! This chapter introduces another key side character, and some more supporting characters too, plus some scenes I really enjoy, and concepts I’ve further expanded upon in future WIP stories in this universe.
Please see this dedicated post to the origins of this story. Here’s the whole story so far. The first chapter has a bit more preamble. I released an article this week about the playscript version of this story I wrote at age fourteen too! Here’s the poster:
Eight
It has been a slower first couple of days than he would’ve liked, especially after they’d left the roads and moved onto the paths, and then had gone off-piste. However, leading a band of wounded survivors had given him a chance to enjoy the scenery, really soak up the world he is saving, the world he has been so hastily thrust into after suddenly becoming conscious in a cold night-time field.
These last two days have been his first real days living.
The green rolling hills had stretched to the horizon in the sunshine—a sea of life with wild flowers swaying gently in the wind, adding their spices of colour to the landscape as if it is one large impressionist painting.
They had crossed a stream at one point earlier today too, gushing its winding route. It was so clear; the boy had made out the little specks on the pebbles forming a cobblestone lane on its bed.
And walking through the trees, the differing heights and shapes and movements of differing conifers and deciduous trees alike, always felt like a sheltering embrace, guarded, secret, sacred groves of peace.
And now the boy stands in a different shelter, in the school kitchen, helping set up the cutlery ready for dinner when the others have gone to see the ‘Shadow Nursery’ in the reception area after their small kitchen tour.
They’d all been given a proper tour of the community, starting with the little fledgeling garden. The toilets, painted blue for boys and pink for girls, are a luxury. The classrooms function as dormitories of recovered bedding, like those Angela’s mother had brought with her up until they left the camping shop.
The teachers’ room has been turned into the medical facility. The woman had received a check on her leg and Jonathan had been given more bandages. They’d already managed to gather quite a few supplies from a nearby pharmacy, plus what was already there in a school nurse’s cupboard. The community’s nurse had been a little too happy, though. She’d said it had all worked out very well. In denial, as his father had later stated.
The school library still maintains its function as more of a leisure area. When they had entered the cramped space of tall shelves, there had been one man that didn’t immediately come to greet them. Philip Pearson was busy writing down a sort of first-hand history of the general state of the world, to the formation of this community. Once he did look up, the boy had been roped into some sort of interview later, for his section expanding and explaining their shared dreams.
Mr. Pearson, a teacher that liked to stay behind to get all the marking done based on the fact he awoke in the school wearing a blue ID badge as a necklace, had also been willing to share his theory with them all, of why some survived whatever shadow wave, blast, bomb attack had wiped out ninety-nine percent of the population.
As they already had a few families there, he had wondered whether the key to survival was genetic, that somehow, something within a person’s DNA could protect them, maybe some ancient mutation from the time of the cave paintings—which he had pointed out were unusual for that area. Mr. Pearson, certainly one for conjecture, had promised Harold to talk with him at dinnertime more about his understanding of their memory loss, as well.
The boy doesn’t fear his dreams tonight—if the girl will visit him again—but he hopes that if he beats her this time, it will keep her out of his head for a while at least.
Fork, knife and spoon pass through his hands from their drying rack and to their designated spots on a large indented tray, while an older grey-haired man, Charles, prepares a stack of bowls next to him. Lucy, an auburn-haired thirty-something woman and Doug, a shorter, wider man, stand over a big batch of simmering rice and a pot of chilli sauce cooking on a gas cooker. The boy doesn’t know what to make of these three on tonight’s dinner duty yet.
“What’s it like, then, having the light?” Doug suddenly says, in not the most pleasant tone. “Bet it must be nice to be the special one with some BS magical power when we’ve all lost our families.”
The boy now knows what to make of Doug. What he doesn’t know immediately is what to say to that.
“Doug!” Lucy scolds. She turns to the boy apologetically. “Ignore him.”
The boy can understand, though, that everyone’s been through quite a lot. It would be easy to be resentful towards someone getting all the luck, it seems. Though the light isn’t a light weight to carry. He doesn’t know why he was destined to be the ‘one’.
“It’s… hard to describe. Like a hot feeling under my skin, like I’m flushed, but not really. But it’s scary. I’ve got this power, but I don’t want to harm anybody, any children like the girl did. That’s why I don’t dare go anywhere near your shadow nursery, though I think it’s great you’re trying to look after them. I wish I could see it.”
Doug, perhaps surprised he got such an answer, looks down and goes back to his stirring.
Charles walks out with his stack of bowls, muttering mostly to himself. “I still can’t believe it was all real. It felt real, but… I didn’t want it to be real. I just want to wake up from this nightmare reality.”
The boy feels a pang of sympathy, and identification.
“I suppose it must be a lot,” says Lucy, supportively. “But at least you have your father.”
Dinnertime comes, and the boy sits at one of the six large tables in the school hall which seems to double as a gym—based on the climbing course attached to the wall—an assembly area—based on the projector and screen—and a canteen based on the adjoining kitchen and the fact that the foldable shiny plastic-coated and metal-rimmed tables and benches seem to belong in the school. Candles dot each table, but darkness looms outside.
He sits across from his father as they both mix in their chilli sauce and mince with their rice, the perfect white grains forever stained by the red sauce, like the children of this world will forever be tainted by shadow.
Jonathan, Boots and Smith join them on this table—the pair of scouts had been allowed the opportunity to sit with the one from all their dreams as they had found him. Everyone has accepted their dreams were a reality. There are no real leaders, in this safe haven, which is nice. They all just coexist and work together, trading skills and goods that they find and sharing equally amongst them. There is no need for money in this community, which the boy is fond of.
He looks across a table of more people he’d only been introduced to once, to see George, Angela and their mother really enjoying themselves, smiling as they fork their chilli with another family, a greying woman with her adult daughter. And Harold on another table is laughing a hearty laugh, engrossed in conversation with Mr. Pearson. The boy listens in on some words about long-term and procedural memory. Everybody seems at ease here. Will they want to leave?
The boy wouldn’t blame them, but he does enjoy their company.
Yes, he has his father, but the rest are like family too—he’s known them just as long.
He wonders if he had enjoyed school. He thinks of all the other children. Of all those, just in this school, that are now lost. All of the posters and artwork and writing adorning the walls had been made by talented individuals, creative spirits that are no more. There is a beauty in the colour and life of a child’s simple drawing, and a delightfulness to their spelling mistakes that phonologically make sense. But all that youth is gone now…
He wonders if his school had had a hall like this one, where everyone ate together unless it was a sunny day. Everyone’s certainly tucking in now, conversations quieting. Thankfully, because of the thicker doors that are partially soundproof, their rescued baby’s crying can’t be heard even in the hungry hall.
But peace never seems to last in this broken world.
The muffled sound of glass shattering suddenly reaches everyone’s ears.
Stopping eating, the boy sees that his father, their table, and virtually every other person has stopped too. Forks clatter and benches creak as Lucy mutters, “The nursery.” She and the people closest quickly rush to the door into the rest of the school. They’ll have to rush through two classrooms and through a hanger-filled corridor to get there.
“You left them unsupervised?” Jonathan questions.
“The toddler’s usually fine. We just check on her every now and then,” Boots is quick to explain.
Lucy soon pops back through the door, out of breath. “It escaped—the toddler. Somehow… it climbed up to the windowsill, maybe even stood on the baby’s back… There were splintered pencils by the broken glass.”
“They worked together,” somebody sat behind the boy points out.
Then, over his father’s shoulder, in the encroaching darkness outside, the boy sees the toddler strolling past. Its pale arms are outstretched, lumbering like the children in the field.
But there’s even more of a contradiction with this toddler, a little girl in purplish clothes and her hair bundled together in two little balls. The paleness of her skin, the lack of emotion, any real animation, is the opposite of the glowing, teetering child so full of life. She’s learned to walk just to become enslaved to shadow, an ‘it’ now, rather than a ‘her’.
“Where’s it going?” Smith asks, while others rush to try and catch it.
The boy stands and backs up. He realises he was close, too close, just in case his light can reach the toddler. It turns to look at him with soulless eyes and he feels his heart crack.
“I think I know,” his father says, without even turning. The boy thinks he knows too. “All the children, they’re all heading to the crater.”
By now, the nurse has grasped up the toddler. It behaves more like an animatronic doll pushed to ‘off’ in her arms as she smiles at the toddler as if nothing is wrong. Soon, they're both back out of the boy’s view, no doubt locking away the toddler somewhere more secure.
“Where you’re going?” Boots replies to his father. “All the children?”
“That is what I fear.” The commotion over, his father returns to his chilli.
“They might all be there, waiting for us, like the girl,” the boy confirms, solemnly.
The children of shadows seem to possess a greater drive than the light within him could ever evoke—the drone drive enabled the baby to offer itself as a step for the toddler to escape.
The shadows, whatever they are, must want as many children as possible. But why? To serve as some army to stop him? Or are they using them as slaves for some undertaking at the crater? Whatever’s planned, it’s not good.
“Well best of luck with that,” says Smith.
“Not that you’ll need it,” smiles Boots. “You have the light to guide you.”
Once the meal’s over and everyone’s washed up their own plates and cutlery, the boy is cornered by Mr. Pearson, but he willingly goes with him to the candle-lit school library. Whatever the zany, clever man has planned, it’ll be a nice distraction from the inevitability of prophesied life.
And it will keep him from dreaming for a little bit longer.
“So, I have a very well corroborated account from quite a few here of their dreams. I’m especially interested in the idea of this ancient prophecy,” Mr. Pearson begins, hands steepled for the moment, but itching to bring pencil to paper in his little A5 lined book. They sit quite close on a small table. “May I please have your description of the artwork, and your understanding of it?”
“Sure. Well, it was a bit hard to make out details in the darkness, but it was mostly done with just black outlines for me and the stones and the crater, and other images on the way. There was some yellower paint shading the image of me. The bodies of the children were colourless, though.” The boy pauses as the scribblings of the once-teacher offset him. “I guess they’d been etched in by flint or something. But yeah, it went left to right, starting with me, the back of me, standing there, the… dead children scattered around. To the right of that were large depictions of the stones as they are today atop that long barrow. From there, a line of thick black led to the crater, very strikingly set furthest right.”
“Very strikingly set?” Mr. Pearson asks. He’s been nodding his balding head along.
“Yes, well, it was painted with big black lines, you know, curving downwards from the edge, and there was a slight scraping in the middle of the hole, but the wall was too worn to see. Sadly, the rest of the images between the stones and the crater were also unclear, eroded or something, or the ancient artwork was not so good at representing modern buildings. I think there was a little picture of a stream we crossed, and some hills dotted around, but it seemed like more decoration. Like I said, the striking bit was the crater, where everything is leading towards.”
“Yes, thank you. And your understanding? Most say you touched the artwork?”
“Yeah, I just got the urge to. It was hard to see in the dark anyway, and part of me wanted just to feel the paint and the etched art, to be closer to it. And I knew as soon as I touched it that it was definitely me depicted in the field. A lightbulb moment, I guess. The girl helped too.”
“Yes, I have an account of her words here. I won’t read them out now—it’s all a bit self-explanatory or overly-poetic I feel. But you just knew it? That you had to fulfil what was depicted, travel to the crater… like a mother knows how to calm her baby?”
“You could say that… especially after I awoke at the stones. In my comatose state, I saw the whole path to the crater as a blue ribbon, a line like in the artwork.” He fully fills the eager once-teacher in on the stone circle and their blue runes that he envisioned. “I can accept some sort of unnatural forces here, after the state of humanity now, but how did cave people know I would come, know the shadows would take over children, know I would have that dream at the stones that would show me the way? How come they knew that, but the girl got the light first? Gave it to me and then…”
“Maybe because her light turned to darkness, she was not included in the artwork that may have been highly spiritual. As for their foresight to modern times? I cannot say. Some kind of witch-doctor, shamanistic ceremonies may have induced visions of sorts. There is a lot we don’t know, especially now… And that is why books are important! Writing things down means we never forget, and that what we know is still there for others even after we’re gone.” Mr. Pearson sighs. “On that note, shall we leave it there? Your account seems to match as a grounded retelling of everyone’s dreams. But, I’m sorry that together we could not glean any more insight. Looking around this place, I imagine the staff here, including myself, would have played off everything we just said as crazy, but now, we have empirical evidence! Anyway, I’m rambling a little again. Sorry. You must have another full day tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
“Yes. Mmm. Well, as I was a teacher, I feel I should impart you with a lesson, something I’ve learned from the books I’ve read in the last few days: History is written by the victors. As yours has been written for thousands of years, you will win this!”
“Thank you.”
He is right, but the art never said anything about winning.
All that it said was that he would make the journey to the crater.
The ancient mystics never foresaw what would happen in the darkness’s centre.
When he does get to sleep on a classroom’s floor, she awaits him again.
The charred oak stands alone in endless black rocky plains this time. Clouds as dark as heaven permits tower over the spire.
“Don’t try it,” comes the dark voice of the girl, but the boy has already committed his will to the action.
He reaches up a hand to the cloudy sky.
They part, and a beam of sunlight shines through and hits the tree. Then another, and another. Tiny pockets of sparks erupt from each spot the light touches. The spire of an oak begins to burn with golden yellow flames. The dark clouds cover the sun again, until the burning tree is the only real light source.
Wild flames. The intensity is astonishing as it sizzles, flames licking the sky.
It is a smokeless blaze, as the boy crumples to his knees, face contorting.
He can feel the energy expended, the toll of summoning that much light, a pain in his chest, like his heart giving way.
“You will not uproot me from my new home as Daughter of Shadows.”
The oak slowly turns to ash, crumbling down to a black mound. The flames die down to nothing. He looks up at the roots of the tree that still remain beneath the ash.
“You’ve burnt yourself out. It’s hopeless. Just like it will be if you join me at the crater. You’ll push yourself too hard and you will fail.”
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Cheers,
Harvey