Post by QueenFoxy on Sept 8, 2019 8:45:36 GMT -6
Light and Blood
by Lydia Kurnia
My tears had long gone dry. Like the blood, caking around their flesh, making dark rivers over the rotting landscape. Their faces—what remained of them—held a shadow of dread. Every single one of them. The murdered and the murderers.
My parents lay before me, their vacant eyes staring into the stars. The houses were no longer burning—rubble and ashes on a crimson mud.
I was alone. Crying. Until my sobs matched another’s.
You were as broken as I was, naked and lost in the sea of corpses. We were the only two that did not drown. The only two who wished we had. I crawled to you. My hands aglow. It was as if I held the sun in my palms. Your legs were twisted the other way. I folded them together, making a criss-cross of bed where I would lay.
I remember how you held me, so gentle the way a fog kisses the ground. I lay there in your arms, curled up like a foetus. You curled over me like summer.
I bit into your thigh. You didn’t even flinch. Perhaps you were too broken then. Perhaps I was too hungry to care. It didn’t matter because we must have been beautiful—a shimmering red island in a sea of death.
I drank you in, your sweetness swirling over the walls of my mouth. You melded with the glow emanating from my body. I closed my eyes. Feeling you feeling me.
Intertwined forever.
In light and blood.
Faith woke up screaming. The ghosts were still scraping inside her head.
The caravan door opened and Victor walked in. His hair was scruffy and he smelled of sand. "Hush, Muffin.” He pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay. I’m here now. I’m here.”
Faith tried to speak, but her tears wouldn’t let her. Dreams aren’t real. She clutched Miffy more tightly and wished she were braver.
"Want me to read you a story?" Faith shook her head. She was too old for stories. “Beetroot juice then?” Victor’s beetroot juice was the best, but she didn’t want it tonight. She shook her head again. “Tickle-boo?" He did not wait for her response this time and poked her waist. She giggled and poked him back.
That sort of worked.
She looked down. Her hands were still glowing. That always happened after the nightmare. Victor took them in his and rubbed the knuckles with his thumbs. She followed the light as it travelled his hands, along his arms before it withered away. When she looked up, Victor had his face all twisted as if lifting something heavy. He always looked like that when she glowed.
Victor pulled away. Confusion shrouded his eyes as his fists curled and uncurled on his lap. “Muffin, you want—you want to talk about it?”
She didn’t. Victor had heard all about her nightmares. She had it so many times, he could probably recite the scene detail by detail. “Will you just sing for me, Victor?”
He hopped into her bed, her body melding comfortably into his like dough to a mould. He wrapped around her, making a blanket. Her fingers played with the hair on his arms. Victor felt like a massive stuffed bear. A giant Miffy. He was the best place to be.
He sang. He picked the one in that language she did not understand. She loved his voice. It reminded her of mountains—strong and scenic—the peaks touching the clouds. Victor was the rainbow, splashing trails of colours along the path traveled.
She closed her eyes. Everything’s alright when Victor is near.
They had a visitor.
Faith did not remember the last time they had visitors. They were stationed so remote in the outback, the caravan stood alone in the middle of red like an alien invasion. Sometimes she liked to think it was their spaceship, star-crashed in the midst of red dust and Eucalyptus trees.
They were the aliens.
The visitor was a curious sort—tanned skin covered in tattoos, almost like Victor’s, but more faded. His hair was long and he wore it half-up like a girl. His cloak was odd, like those ones she had seen in fairy-tale books. It went down to his knees, the hem touching the ears of his boots.
Victor told her to stay in the caravan. She did, grudgingly, but she remained by the window and stalked them like a hunter.
"What do you think you’re doing?" the visitor roared as soon as Victor walked out. "You took an oath, Veren. Have you forgotten who you are?"
Faith didn't know why he’d called Victor by a different name, but Victor did not correct him. He answered with a question, but it was lost in the wind. Faith leaned forward, determined to steal pieces of their conversation.
"It doesn’t matter how,” the visitor replied. “I found you and I want answers! Your job was to eradicate all of them, not collect souvenirs.”
Victor ushered him away, but the visitor broke free, throwing his arms in the air. “You don’t get to make decisions, Veren! You’re a warrior. Warriors follow orders. Now Alpha wants both your heads.” Victor did not say anything, so the visitor continued. “It’s not too late. Finish your job and your life may be spared.”
“Go home, Greth.”
“Think of our family, our friends who have died in their hands. Think of your army, the ones you left be—“
Victor spun around so fast, she didn’t even know where his fist had landed. The visitor tumbled down. When he wiped his mouth, there was blood on his sleeve. Faith had never seen Victor so angry like that. She did not recognize this man with fire in his eyes.
“What are you doing playing mummy to the last of their kind? I swear, Veren, sometimes your heart is bigger than your head.” The visitor paused. Victor’s shoulders rose and fell like the tide. “Come home with me.”
"You weren't there.”
“I was there! Fighting the same war on the other side of the world.” The visitor’s voice screeched like a banshee’s. “Or are you planning to start another?”
Victor looked as if he was about to hit the visitor again, but he didn’t. He just shifted from side to side. “I should have died,” he murmured, falling against the side of the caravan as if he had taken a blow. “I should have died with my men, but I didn’t.”
The visitor laughed. “You think she saved you? It’s a false sense of bliss, typical after the healing. It’s their way to make you trust them before they go back to the ripping and—”
“She never touched me that way.”
“She never—“ The visitor caught himself. “By the Gods. You one sick masochist.”
“How much time do I—”
“No, Veren, I’m curious. How does it work? She’s your drug and you’re her food?”
“How much time do I have, Greth?” Victor’s eyes were aglow with warning and that made the visitor behave.
“Two days. Maybe less.”
Victor ushered him to his car, opened the door, and pushed him in. "I thank you for the alert."
“Veren, I beg you.” The visitor’s face softened and he looked at Victor with pleading eyes. “It’s a lonely place where you’re going.”
Victor didn’t say anything but banged the car door closed, just missing the visitor’s leg. “You saved my life more than once. Let me save yours,” the visitor persisted. “When Alpha sends his—“
“I don’t expect otherwise,” Victor cut him short. “You do what you must. So will I.” He tapped the hood of the car. “Goodbye, Greth.”
The visitor stared at Victor for a long time, looking struck. After a time, the engines came to life and he drove off.
Victor stood still, watching the dust settle on the spot the wheels had ruffled. He stepped backwards and slumped into the plastic chair, burying his face in his palms.
Faith came out then, and ran to him, wrapping him up in her arms. Her light returned and she could hear him hauling his breath in before he squeezed more tightly than usual. She waited until he pulled away. She saw pain in his eyes. How she wanted to brush it away like the cookie crumbs on her dress.
Victor grabbed her hands and just stared as if he didn't know what to do with them. "Muffin, go get your things. We leave tonight." More to come. ~
