Metal Memories

A Chapter by PlacidoDi

I am a number, I am a soldier, I am ready to die. For a reason.

Lickers are not good, they're not... right. The first time I saw a one, I was sure it had crawled up from some pit in hell. Nature is cruel but it has purpose for everything. Those creatures don't have, they don't have a reason. They shouldn't be.

They're big, as tall as man and as long as two. Their heads are elongated, from nose to pointed ears- maybe the length of my arm for the adults. They look almost like the old pictures of wolves we have left from the time before. A wolf the size of a horse with a snake's mouth. It's the mouth that reminds me of hell. Always open, impossibly wide, with two enormous, reaching tongues dribbling out. Their fur is matted, dark and knotted. Their eyes glow at night, reflecting light, like most predators. They have four of them, the eyes, two where they should be and two farther up, towards the ears. It is always night in the North, and my people don't fear the dark anymore. We fear the other things, that like the dark more than us.

I was there when Leif was attacked. I was 14, a child. He took me to the surface for my birthday, smuggled a gas mask for me and everything. I had only been above ground three times then. Most of us stay in the Prison, safe under the floors and behind the walls, content to crowd around our UV lamps. I used to be like that. I still was, at 14. I had already gotten my occupation- my favorite, farming. I liked tending to the lamps and crops underground, feeding my people.

He wanted to show me the stars, and I told him a story my father used to tell.

“Before the end, we were many. There were people on every island, in every cave. The world is a great big place, but it was so great, and so beautiful, that humans wanted everything. The universe, of course, demands balance. So it took away the stars. The skies that we loved to look at so much became cloudy, and even at night, the stars were hidden behind the fog. We despaired.

“After the end, we were few. We became precious. Each one of our lives is worth hundreds of those selfish humans' lives. We want less, we need more. I think”, he would say, leaning in, whispering, “that the universe thinks we deserve a little more beauty now. So it gave us back the stars. We can only survive, and take care of each other, and hope that we deserve them.”

Leif said he liked my story, the way my father had told it, but I saw that it made him sad. I remember his cheekbones, and the way he bit his tongue when the dark silence drifted over us like a fog from the universe. I had so many questions, I has so many wants and plans. I was a child, but I was part of the stars that night.

I saw the lights after half an hour. Four of them. Small. Two of them higher than the others. No, not lights, something reflecting the glow from Leif's small lantern. I shook his shoulder then, I pointed. He was so pale.

Leif and I have a joke that “we used to be pretty.” We laugh about it now, we laugh about my shaved head, his leg, our scars. We grin at each other and we “used to pretty”, it's funny but it's not. 'Pretty' doesn't help anyone anymore. 'Pretty' is for children, for selfish humans and stars- but I used to be a child. We were all were once.

I still don't know how Leif or I survived that day. Probably a combination of the Licker being young and the adrenalin induced state that comes from being surrounded by darkness. Even when we are calm in the dark, we aren't. Try. Lie down in a pitch-black, freezing field and try to relax. Northerners, all survivors as well, are strung as tight as a coiled spring. You react, you live. You don't, you die.

Minus a leg, Leif still gets around. In the North, we have perfected the use of prosthetic limbs. 'Licker got you? Gangrene? No problem, we'll just cut that off and give you a built in weapon.' I admire that in an civilization. In the South, I'm pretty sure they just kill you. They certainly like killing us, at least. Heathens have no boundaries.

I dream about the war- my war- when I'm stressed, which is always. Especially when I'm passed out in the truck of a stranger. I dream that he, the weird one, is there when they first let me into the military.

I walk into the training room. I'm not allowed here, but I refuse to wait. I'm 18 now, I'm joining now. My long hair is curly and brown, soft against my back. I've been crying. Red eyes. I know it's obvious, but I allowed myself one last time, my last sign of weakness. It was.

I'm calm when I speak to the officer. I give my I.D. but he already knows who I am. The Warden's daughter. Oh yes, Olywen's sister. Poor, poor Olywen. I'm sorry for your loss. She was a beautiful little girl.

“Beauty is for children, sir.”

My dream skips all the paperwork, it skips my new bunk, it skips Leif hugging me- already in his uniform. It skips his hands in my long hair and his comforting words and I really wish it didn't. I want to hear them again.

They cut my hair. At first I don't see them do it, I keep my eyes shut, but I can feel the old me dying. The pretty girl. I see the gray-eyed stranger in my dream. He stands beside me and watches the hair fall from my narrow shoulders to the stone floor. He looks at me like he wants something. Expects something.

All I can see are gray eyes as the shave away my past, and put a silver future around my neck.

1289-ZW, 18yrs old, 88yrs a.t.e.

-Zefirino Winterfast, 1289-ZW, 90yrs a.t.e.

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