Singing Through The Fog

A Chapter by PlacidoDi

The real monsters are people.

When I was 6, my first little sister was born. Olywen. A red haired baby girl. We respect both men and women where I come from- as long at they are strong. Olywen wasn't.

When I was 10, I started training. I had no plans of joining the army then, but it's obligatory to learn certain survival skills, from the ages 10 to 16. Fire starting, basic combat, how to stay warm. I excelled at all of it.

Olywen would follow me to the bunker sometimes, that's where the gym, learning room, and cafeteria for the soldiers were. That first year was wonderful for me. It was exciting. I got stronger, I grew. The Warden was proud, my family was proud.

Year two, 11 years old, I set the record for my weight class in wrestling. Olywen hugs me and calls me a superhero.

Year three, 12 years old, I started lifting weights every morning, I ate like an animal and read books at night. The agriculture books were my favorite.

Year four, 13 years old, and my best friend Leif turns 18, an adult. He chooses his occupation, “Military Placement”, and he doesn't ask me first. I stop liking the bunker, disliking it because it took my friend from me. Then, my second sister, Avriel, was born. Mother doesn't make it. That's what I get to hear. That, “There was nothing we could do.”

Year five, 14 years old, I'm still strong, but I tend the garden in the mornings now. My trainings have become tedious, until Leif decides to sneak out with me. He wants to apologize for leaving, I think. Maybe he would have, before the attack. I spend the night in the medical ward, looking at where his leg was, and feeling where my heart used to be. I learn to hate.

Year six, 15 years old, I'm a pretty girl, with long hair and light skin and I don't want to learn how to fight anymore. I never want to leave the gardens, or my family. I beg to skip the last year. They don't let me.

Year seven, 16 years old, and so many people are disappointed. They tell me I was strong. They needed me. I start working at the farms, I take on the role of Mother for my sister. That was the first year of training for Olywen.

She hated it, even from the beginning. The guns frightened her, the assignments confused her, the fighting hurt her. She would come home covered in bruises, her copper hair in knots. “What happened?”, I would ask. “Who did this?”, but she never told me. Her first year was hell, and I couldn't do anything. Poor, precious Olywen who brushed everyone's hair before bed and talked to my plants to help them grow. She was too pure, too sweet for us. For anyone. Weak.

We both grew more and more beautiful. I was coveted, she was adored, and even Avriel- at 3 years old, was considered precious. The Warden and his daughters.

The year I was 16, there was an outbreak. Just a cough, nothing big. Just a cough. But Avriel was so young, and 'just a cough' was 'just enough'. I wore black to my graduation. I mourned for myself, and for the sweet dark-haired girl who couldn't stop coughing.

I felt that something was taking bites out of my life, my very being. I kept on losing things.

When I turned 17, I started sneaking out. I did it for the adrenaline. I missed war, I missed fighting, missed being strong. I would sow seeds and pick fruit and seem satisfied, but I longed for a struggle. No one knew. I waited until everyone slept, and took the lift to the surface. I never wore a jacket, I rarely wore a mask. I shivered and flirted with death in the dark and I loved it.

I felt guilty for lying to Olywen. I let her brush my hair every night, I sang her songs and I promised her we could work in the gardens some day together. She wouldn't have to fight forever. And it was okay because she didn't want to fight. She wasn't like me.

I told her she was magical, not weak. And her blue eyes would look up at me like I was the stars and then I would kiss her goodnight through the fog. The fog that hides things. The Warden may have protected our people, but I protected this family.

It was the day before becoming an adult, and I'm so close to 18 I can feel it in my bones, like a cage. I will need to move one, I will need to keep living. I will be expected to let Olywen continue her journey on her own, and I can't do that.

I didn't know it then, but that night was very warm. Warm enough for the Lickers to go farther North, warm enough for a Heathen hunting party to venture past the border. I didn't know it then but I wasn't careful that night. I didn't lock the door, I didn't hear her behind me, I didn't know.

The night air was cold, warmer than normal but still cold enough to make me shiver. The stars were breathtaking. Maybe because I wouldn't see them again, or maybe because they were my secret. They were my secret lover, but I had to grow up now.

I sat on the freezing concrete and wished for all sorts of things I would never have. And I didn't know that they were waiting.

Heathens have dreadful night-vision, because they have never needed it before. When Olywen opened the door and cried out my name, they heard her. I heard her. And I didn't know what was happening- there were noises, torches and shouts- and it wasn't monsters. It wasn't Lickers, it was humans, and they were worse. I turned around and saw them grab her, her red hair reflecting the torchlight. I could see her mouth screaming my name because it's my job to protect her. I'm her sister, I'm her stars.

I didn't know then, how to hate. I thought I had learned, lying next to Leif in that white, white room, looking at his crumpled body. I didn't know then, how much we could hurt, how much hurting we were capable of feeling.

They broke her in front of me. The snapped her like a plant, like those flowers she sang to, those flowers she helped grow. We were going to grow them together. She wasn't going to fight anymore. I promised. I promised.

I didn't know then, that the night-guard had heard the yells. I didn't know then, that they chased the Heathens away just in time to save me. I only knew that I was already dying. I was holding my broken sister and I was dying. There was no one else except for us, and then there was only me.

I stayed with her that night. I brushed her hair. I sang. I tried to. Beautiful, magical, strong Olywen. I cried and cried, and cried. I wanted to reach through the fog and just hold her again.

I never got to be an adult sister. I had no more plans, I had no purpose. I had two hands and so many bites taken out of my life.

I thought only of Olywen as I gave the officer my I.D. I heard her voice when Leif hugged me. When they shaved my head, I didn't think of gray eyes. I though of blue ones, and soft, small hands brushing through my hair.

With my new name around my neck I thought of her name, and the future we had planned. I dreamed that night of stars, and flowers, and so much hurting.