Crashing Tides Read online

  Alone once more, only the falcon remained.

  Chapter Two

  The Reaper’s hand brought quiet to the night-lands. In its clutch life was gone: the fish had died and the Fisherman had walked away. Disappearance and death were synonymous to the beholder. But she embraced this solitude, even if in her brief memories she had known solely one. Now every moment that passed marked his departure from her life.

  The Fisherman left no trail, though the spear and the shirt she wore offered proof of his existence. The purpose of the shirt was basic: to cover, to shelter, to inhibit. Tied and weighted by its material, she wondered how much this piece of cloth restrained her. The small pleasures, such as feeling the wind caress her skin, were lost and lost not by an uncontrollable force but by her own hand. Certain freedoms were denied in her choice to keep the shirt on, but in a simple way it allowed her to remember the Fisherman and to know he was real.

  She spent sometime in the water, teaching herself to swim. Not knowing if she already knew or was learning anew, she moved her arms and legs through the sea. The buoyancy of the salt helped her, but she did not go too far from the beach in order to be able to put her feet down and remain above water when needed. Soon the cold became too much and she walked to the shore to start a fire.

  Trees stood alongside the coast, and broken branches were abundant. She took some birch tree branches and several strips of juniper for tinder and searched the rocky shore for quartzite. She created a fire pit, and then struck the rock against the Fisherman’s knife, which she had removed from the spear. The sparks lit the birch after several tries.

  Survival by fire: was it instinctual or learned, she wondered as she cared for the sparks until they became stronger flames. She then set to readying the fish. Soon the smell of roasted meat filled the salt air. She breathed in, taking joy of her labor in making the fire before her. Perhaps the knowledge of creating fire was innate, and perhaps, she mused, the Greek Titan Prometheus had not only given fire to humans, but had wired it within their biology so even when memories were forgotten, fire never would be.

  She held the fish at the end of the stick, cooking it as sparks danced from below. She watched the incandescence of flames pirouetting, watching as they grew and danced in the breeze. The fire seemed alive. Life must exist in the fire, for nothing else could animate it with such wonder.

  As she stared at the burning tinder, her thoughts strayed to the whereabouts of any other human.

  The Fisherman was the first, could he be the last? She supposed others lived beyond the shores, but now she wondered if society existed at all. The lighthouse she saw in the distance did not shine. The tower stood, stark against the shadows of night, lacking the ray of hope it offered to seafarers. But even if the revolving beacon shone, it would be in vain. Not one ship appeared on the sea. The shore was empty. She did not even see a solitary beachcomber. She saw houses between the trees, but the lights were not on. Were the people all asleep? Or simply not there.

  In the sea, the fish swam, the sharks hunted. Nature flourished, as long as the lights were off, as long as the land remained empty of humans.

  Grateful for the seclusion, she sat still watching the flames, yet curiosity spun in her mind as to what happened.

  Maybe everyone was sleeping. Dreaming, hidden from her sight.

  Or maybe they had never existed. Perhaps her presumption of human society was false—that her memory failed in this conjecture. Though, if it had, what other beliefs were false? Would the sun rise or would blackness forever possess the earth?

  No. The sun will rise. Society existed.

  Her musings became reflective on her own nature. Her blank past, yet her inability to mourn the lost. To basic things such as her name. Had she ever been a child with a mother to name her? The foam from the sea, gave rise to Aphrodite, so it may be with herself. Not that she was godly, she mused knowing that was far from the truth, but rather brought to this earth whole, as an adult. She was one who rose from the shores, and now was in need of a name.

  Nyx. For some reason those letters combined in her mind’s eye. Maybe it was her previous name, if she even had one. It did not matter, for it felt right.

  With a name, came an identity. Wanted or undesired, needed or useless, she could not tell. But being alone, her name was left unspoken, only real to herself.

  Shifting the timbers, she moved the fish to outside of the fire and picked off pieces to eat. The flaky white meat vanished in her bites. She saved some and threw it near the tree line, knowing the falcon was still nearby. Her insatiable appetite fed, yet somehow her hunger persisted, being more than a hunger for simply food.

  Night turned to dawn. The sun rose at her back as she began to walk, the fire a withering blaze behind her. She did not follow the seashore again. Rather, she started inland, diverging from her journey across the coast. Intentions changed like the direction of the anarchic winds; winds roused by the gods or in her case by the Fisherman.

  As she walked further from the coast, she saw a town. Would she find the civilization she had forgotten, she wondered. But she was hesitant to find companionship and answers for she felt like an outsider, and almost stepped away from society’s door.

  This was not society though. A closer scrutiny proved that to be true as she walked closer.

  A broken sign marked the entrance; the town’s name was worn on it—not by age but by misuse. She could not make it out, but if the Fisherman was correct, she was on a coastal island in Maine. However, the settlement did not paint a picturesque northeastern summer. Vacationers did not enjoy the sunrise. No cars drove along the roads to arrive to early morning jobs. On the contrary, it appeared to be abandoned. Abandoned not solely by life but by the divine, the town being left to fend for itself but failing profoundly. But to Nyx it promised the enchantment of a forsaken land awaiting an outsider to break its isolated, lonely existence. And in return, it would end her own isolation, her own solitude.

  The buildings once swarming in a hive of life now whispered farewells from beyond. They stood to both sides of her, reminiscent of a ghost town. She wondered if she would find someone ... something. The Fisherman perhaps.

  Yet no life resided in this forgotten world of abandoned relics. Houses but not homes. Dwellings but no one to dwell within them.

  Yet there was something.

  The air. The smell.

  Rot, death. Humans evolved to abhor such a scent, but alas curiosity overcomes even that. And so she pushed ahead.

  But then through the silence, through the smell, came a noise. It cut upon the emptiness and seemed to make all else disappear. Even the smell shriveled, as her hearing peaked above all other senses. She was not by herself. It escalated behind the side of a building, speaking otherwise against her musings that none inhabit this forgotten town.

  She heard steps. A rodent? A scavenger? No, she reasoned, it was too regular. Too heavy.

  Nyx followed the noise and walked around the corner. Then it came to sight. Her senses pivoted, her mind uncomprehending of what was before her, as if her vision was now compromised due to her reliance on hearing and smell moments before.

  Disbelief came. And then belief.

  A human figure walked before her. He, or rather it, was not the same as the Fisherman, nor as a human should be. A festering emptiness in its eyes echoed what should be found in a corpse. But it was not dead, nor ever had been. It lived. It moved with the desire to quench its thirsts rather than to lie down and accept the end—of the world, of humankind, of civilization, of itself.

  It had red hair. It was taller than she. Soiled, tattered clothes hung from it. Sores spotted its flesh: gashes never bandaged, wounds filled with puss, boils. Injuries along its skin, which could have been healed by antibiotics or even care and cleaning, were left to rot. Tissue surrounding the more fragile surfaces of the face and neck had deteriorated, revealing underlying muscle. The nose of the male, both flesh and septum, had been broken away. The nasal passageway underneat
h lay exposed, like a dark third eye staring upon her.

  Hopes of escape turned ill as it lessened the space between them in seconds. As it came close she could see it was not red hair color. Rather, caked blood. Blood that it desired to spill again; its slobbering lips curled back, anticipating quick satisfaction of cravings that seemed to have gone unfilled for too long. It brought its teeth near.

  It was human before her, but there was no wisdom behind its stare. No logic or sagacity for what she saw was solely primitive impulse. She stood in awe, unable to register whether it was reality or an illusion.

  It reached out and grabbed her, awakening her to its reality.

  Snapped out of her shock, she took the Fisherman’s knife and pounded it forward and in, embedding it deep between its ribs. She felt a gush beneath the impact, and her strike sent all the air out of this human beast causing it to release its hold on her. She turned and ran, the knife left embedded in the wound. But its tall form swayed as a blade of grass against the wind, and it again took chase. Even as she ran, she heard the trailing breath close behind.

  As she turned the corner of the main street, her run from the creature faltered. The smell from earlier should have prepared her for the sight of corpses littering the street. She paused for seconds and then realized she would be dead herself if she hesitated anymore at this sight. It would be through the dead, for her now, where salvation existed.

  Nyx ran between the corpses in hopes to escape. What had befallen the lifeless was not something to fear, but it was difficult not to as she saw their lifeless gazes upon her. She ran; the smell of rot danced in the air, filling her nostrils. One could only guess how long they were decomposing. Flies swarmed in delight around some and even inside their banquet. Degenerated lips exposed teeth and painted on the faces was an expression cemented with the horror of the moment before death arrived. Jaws opened, shrieking in their hushed tragedy. They seemed to cry to her, as if to suck her down besides them. But they were of no true threat. The threat came from the creature chasing her; the one making the only sound besides her amidst the silently screaming dead.

  The redhead gained on her. Its hand reached for her again; it grasped her shirt and began pulling her toward it. She tried to rip away, tried to pull against this tug of war battle, realizing how the clothes condemned her. If she had been nude, escape would have been hers. But the choice had been made, and the shirt now truly became a prison. As if knowing this, the creature pulled more tenaciously, causing her to lose balance and fall. The human beast drew over her, teeth clenched in a grin as it looked down at Nyx.

  The human remnants of this world came full force unto her in the rotting brutality she beheld. Was it always this way, even back when this city flourished? Maybe, but it was not as apparent—the beast not as visible. The blossom deceives. Appearances mislead. Behind the refined smiles of the past civilization, this frightening monstrosity had always been present, hidden in manifestation. Present, even if only behind closed doors. But now it lived unrestrained in the absence of the pretenses and norms of society. Restraint from within and without were gone; what remained was chaos. Its eyes reflected this. Its greedy mouth told the unsaid story as it sought its feast.

  This cannot be the end. She pulled herself along on the ground, continuing to fight against the eventual, no matter how seemingly hopeless. But as it hovered, pausing for a second to ready itself for the final attack, a shot sounded. The creature’s lips receded further back, the grin stayed though now it reflected one of fear. It fell. First to its knees, then its body went limp, and it fell to the street, the other dead welcoming it home. Dust swept upwards in the wake of the perpetrator and behind stood a stranger holding a weapon.

  The gun bearer was a man. Not like the dead scattered in this town, nor the thing that had chased her, but a rational living human. Older than herself, his face depicted a depth carved by the sights of war. He was dressed in a thick grey material that covered most of his body, supplemented by gloves and boots. The clothes held a strange balance between a soldier’s field clothing and that of a hazmat suit. A fabric covered his mouth but his eyes were lucid above it as he stared at her.

  She looked between the warrior and body of the redhead, a thankful acknowledgment hinted upon her features. He said nothing, however, allowing only his gaze to accept her unspoken thanks. Then he moved his weapon to take aim on her. No shots were fired, not yet at least.

  Three others came from behind him: two more men, one woman. Dressed similarly in uniform, the others stood as humans, not creatures. As soldiers. Quizzical expressions painted what she could see of their faces, as if they could not comprehend her existence. They asked no questions and kept their distance from Nyx. It seemed they waited for her to begin, to explain her appearance here ... or to attack them. Rather than fulfill their mindsets either way, she stood and ran.

  She ran across the street away from the four. Weeds scattered in the sidewalks, breaking through the cement crevices as nature tried to reclaim its dominion. The human dead lay motionless in her path, no longer the kings of the land, only a part of the landscape. But she ran nonetheless. Were the soldiers good or evil, she wondered, for though one had saved her, he had also took aim on her. They could be the ones responsible for the dead she saw.

  Before she could distance herself forever from their presence, another noise rang out from behind her. A needle-like dart pierced her back. It allowed her a few moments of clarity—and dread—and then her body dropped to the ground amidst the town’s tragedy. Limbs paralyzed as the chemical of the dart raced throughout her. She began to lose focus, but she still saw a human carcass lying to the left of where she had fallen.

  Maggots had made it a home, inching their way across the precipice of the chin to the throat in search of fresh decay. A hole was torn on the cheek; however, the cause was not of bacterial lesions or decomposition. Instead it seemed to be chewed off. Maggots spilled from the tear, finishing the feast that was started by another. That was the last sight before the induced sleep came. The dart’s sedative drowned out her movements and thoughts, caging her. But alas even if caged, the wild can never be tamed.

  Chapter Three

  “Why did you run?”

  The voice awakened Nyx from her forced slumber. She tried to get up, to move, but could not. The soldiers had shackled her by ropes; the bondage chafed her wrists. She pulled against them, but to no avail. Panic edged inside her, but instead of allowing it to overwhelm her, she looked to the sky. It was as if the more she stared within the blue abyss, the more likely she would transcend the ropes that contained her. Then once more her spirit would fly. Take me away, she silently prayed, to where the seas thunder to find their forgotten fury.

  Clouded visions, which had been induced by the tranquilizer, began to fade. The understanding of her predicament became clearer. She tilted her head and looked around the horizon to the distance, wanting to know her surroundings in hopes it would convey some advantage. The far off trees, visible between the buildings, rustled in the wind. In the past one would never hear the forest’s song for it would be lost in the town’s commotion. Her focus shifted from the natural sublime to the man-made degradation. Buildings stood that were void of illumination, vacant of life. Every window embellished a dark hue, lacking any light and any movement.

  She then looked to the immediate surroundings. They were just outside the buildings in a clearing. It must have served as a park, for rusted swings and slides hid in the overgrown grasses. An age of innocence reflected here; children’s laughter rung in her mind superseding the brutal cries of the past. Her captors must have treasured the clearing of the antiquated park, though not because of the lost echoes of mirth and childhood joy, but because it granted the ability to see and kill any attackers before they became a threat.

  “I am Leander. Please tell me who you are.” The same voice. A different question.

  When she had first come upon the soldiers, she assumed the worst; it was why she had run.
And her instinct served her right, for here she sat, contained with rope. Outwardly, they were unlike the creature she had come up against, for these humans did not look monstrous. But inwardly, she believed them to be the same. Both had sought to make her their captive. Both threatened her, and though she did not realize why, freedom was everything to her. All hopes and dreams seemed ingrained in being free, for it felt as if all of her life she was not. And so she did not respond, instead she continued to survey her situation.

  Out of the four soldiers, two stood in the distance as guards. The other two stood near to her. Both of their masks were off, but they still kept an adequate distance from her. The one who identified himself as Leander kneeled to her right as he questioned her, repeating himself in a fruitless interrogation. The second, the gun-bearer she had first seen, stood close to Leander; a stern, almost emotionless, expression graced his face.

  An eerie feeling grasped her: that he was there to guard them from her. Somehow they viewed her as a threat. Not surprising considering her appearance. She wore an over-sized ripped shirt, akin to the indecency of the beast and not of a civilized being. All that they probably wished was for her to enlighten their understanding of who—or what—she was, in order to change the potential foe into a friend. But so far she gave them no reassurance, only silence.

  Leander turned to the other soldier, probably seeing her distrust over his weapon.

  “Hector, it’s okay,” he said, motioning to take aim off of her. Then he turned back to her, hope in his voice that she would now answer the questions. “Where are you from?”

  The soldiers, the beast, the dead, the Fisherman even: these were what she made them to be. They translated into a mirage of thoughts, a reality that held whatever truth she made of it. It was in the mind where reality existed, transformed as we wish. And she was not sure if these soldiers were good or evil. The only evidence to who they were were her chains.