Escape from Harrizel (3 page)

“It’s time.”

“For?”

“Our departure,” he looks to me as he begins
to pace, hands casually in his pockets. “I told you I prefer the
term ‘escort.’ The others just don’t quite fit. I’m not introducing
you to a new religion—not yet at least. Once you get to Harrizel,
you can decide for yourself. And I’m not snatching you under a
cloak in the middle of the night.”

“Just the afternoon?” I tug at my wrist
restraints behind my back. Something hard like brick presses deep
into my skin so I stop.

“And liar,” he goes on, “well, that’s not
really
an occupation—just a way to get what you want. So
again, it comes back to
escort
.”

“Can I still call you Clarence?”

He stops, offering a slight bow. “You
may.”

“Then why does it matter what you call
yourself?” I ask through gritted teeth, struggling to sit up.
“You’re taking me regardless.”

“This is true…” he nods, peering down, “but
I’d rather you feel accompanied rather than
taken
. You’re
going
home
, Fallon,” he waves his hand slowly, as if wiping
something clean from the air, the restraints disappearing from my
hands and feet. “To start your new life.”

I massage my free wrists, rubbing release
into the joints. The thought of fleeing rises but the field is too
wide to run off in any direction. He’d catch me. He’d catch me in
less than a second. And I’d only be bound again.

“You are correct,” it’s as if he’s reading
my mind, his focus off on the distant trees. “Better to just come
along with me. It’d be less painful for you.”

“And these are my options?”

“Sadly.”

I scowl, angered and terrified all at once.
“Where are you taking me?”

“To your new home, Harrizel.”

“Which is?”

“Jeb will explain things further. I haven’t
done a very good job and for that, I apologize. You’ll learn soon
enough and if Jeb doesn’t teach you, the others will.”

“Others?”

“Yes—the other survivors. You think you’re
the only one who escaped the war? Harrizel hosts a little over four
hundred humans.”

Other survivors? Humans? Then this is real?
I shut my hanging jaw and replay his words.
Harrizel hosts a
little over four hundred humans.
Is that all that’s left of us?
Or all that he’s taken?

“And growing?” I try to gauge an idea.

“Hopefully,” he nods, “that’s my job. To
find
you… and escort you to Harrizel,” he offers his
hand.

Escape is futile. But if I go with him,
there’s a chance I’d never be able to leave. I could try and make
my way back… but to what? I don’t even remember this place. Not yet
at least. But what other choice do I have?

“Will I ever come back here?” I ask,
slipping my hand in his. It’s oversized, like a catcher’s mitt and
he uses it to pull me from the ground.

“To what? This is no longer your home. This
is no longer
anyone’s
home,” he threads our fingers as the
same invisible air restraints lock our wrists together.
“Ready?”

The wind sweeps through the distant trees,
shaking them in unison as if waving a final goodbye. I nod,
squeezing Clarence’s hand tight.

And then we’re up.

Gusts of purple air sweep past, billowing
soft swirls and thickening as bursts of light shine through. Each
light grows brighter, crackling the purple dust, parting like mini
fireworks exploding around us. Clarence watches it too. He sits
across from me, or maybe stands, his blue eyes smiling into mine,
curious. They’re the only constant. That and his face. Even his
neck and hair fade into the smoke screen of lavender gliding behind
him.

Am I dreaming?

It’s my voice, loud and just as I would say
it. But the words never left my mouth. It’s my thought.
Am
I
dreaming? It would explain all this. Where we are and what’s
happening. Him. Everything before. Why I can hear myself but not
remember speaking…

No
.

It’s Clarence’s voice but not from his mouth
either. His lips remain upturned in that curious, playful smile
like he’s waiting for some reaction, some punch line to a joke. But
I hear him just the same, just as he heard me, a monologue of our
thoughts overhead.

It feels like a dream.

You’ve never traveled through space
before
, his eyes flicker between mine,
it’s impossible to
move at our rate and see an accurate portrayal of things. This is
what your mind allows you to see.

Then this is real?

Yes.

And we’re moving?

Yes. It feels like we’re right across from
one another and in a way, we are. But physicality and spirituality
are two different things. They must travel in their own way as we
are, right now.

So where am I?

Between.

A soft gust of purple breathes roughly
behind Clarence, tickling his neck hair and ears with the swirling
wind. The same chill runs down my phantom back, a body I no longer
possess. It’s attached but somehow not. I can feel its reaction
though, tingling in my core, a shiver from an unexpected breeze.
Maybe the sense comes from within, from what I expect it
should
feel like or would feel like if I was not here...
wherever here may be.

How is this possible?

It is possible because it has always been
this way. Your culture portrays travel by ship or craft. This is
all they’ve known, but, it is not truth.

My heart, wherever it is, pounds away in the
tin drum of my chest. How can I feel my body when it’s not
attached? None of this is real. It can’t be.

I don’t believe any of this.

Clarence’s mouth turns up, into that amused
smirk whenever I disagree. His blue eyes focus on mine, shifting
between them.

It doesn’t matter if you believe it if it’s
fact.

Am I going to die?

No.

Then how does this end?

The way it always does. With a landing.

Then I’ll awake, to what it was like
before?

No,
his smile finally turns down,
it will
never
be like before…

Familiar dread fills me, especially as he
fades to black, stealing all light with him. The fireworks stop
exploding, sucked into the darkness and even the purple smoke
dancing around my head drifts away. I’m still here though, alone,
in the black. The quiet.

Then, suddenly, it all flies at me.

The fires first, lighting up the trees, then
the nearby houses and barns, deathly smoke rising into the night
like demonic ghosts set loose on the world. And their faces,
especially the children. Walking for days with pain from
unimaginable, torturous thirst. Hiding in the caves, scrapping with
others over a bag of found dog food. And the winters when there
weren’t enough clothes. Bodies pressed together in long rows,
hoping their heat might suffice this night, unlike so many others
before…

The images fly past forever, then just for a
second in time. And they’re gone. And I’m tumbling in the darkness,
tumbling and falling. Falling, falling. But I have no voice to
scream, no body to break. Perhaps this is it. Perhaps this is end
of me, whoever that is.

Perhaps this is death.

Suddenly, I plummet through an unearthly
substance, the separation between my rapid descent and the new
tranquility I sense around me. I’m no longer moving but still,
standing, my body belonging to me again. It’s tensed, as if feeling
balance for the first time or remembering what it’s like to use
muscles after a long absence. Inhaling, I calm the thumping in my
chest, reminding—or I suppose,
convincing
—myself I’ve
survived, when I smell it.

Rain.

“Alright,” Clarence’s voice muses, “we’re
here. You can open your eyes.”

And then there are colors.

Brightly glowing purples, blues and greens
dot the mammoth-sized plant-life hanging over us, reaching with
long, spiky-edged, yellow-tipped leaves that unfold like flower
petals to the dew-stricken ground below. Golden-coated lavender
bulbs bloom from unruly tree roots with mammoth trunks extending
like skyscrapers into the grayish-white clouds. Crimson blossoms
grow wild among their hugging branches, interweaving a rope of ivy
that drapes from tree to tree, like a limitless swing set in the
sky. And it all sits in a soft, settling mist, gathering at our
knees.

“Where are we?”

“This…” Clarence beams, breathing in the
scent of wet plant-life, “is Harrizel, your new home.”

“A jungle?”

“Well…” he faces the other direction, his
voice lowering, “
that’s
where you’ll be staying.”

There’s no happiness in his words. What
could change his demeanor so quickly? We’re already standing
outside in the damp air—surely shelter can only be a positive?

When I turn, Clarence points through a
screen of netted ivy, built up by plump shrubbery and falling
yellow-tipped leaves that fan over one another to obstruct the
view. “Can you see it?”

I pin back a leaf and then another, the
jungle proving overly lush and damp. Water trickles down my hand
and into the sleeve of my elbow as I swipe away more fauna and
finally, through the broken fragments of jungle still ahead, it
comes into view.

The shadow lurching in the distance.

It’s a giant’s domain of obsidian stone and
rounded into towers on each corner of its boxed shape. Four peaks
reach to the sky from each tower, like deadly daggers threatening
to slice open and spill forth the watery contents from above. An
enormous wrought iron gate encloses the darkened fortress, wrapping
around it and separating us from the gray, flat land of dirt.

“I’ve heard some refer to it as the
‘Castle,’” Clarence explains, “but it has no name really.”

“So what do you call it?”

He sighs, trying to find the correct answer,
“Right now… Harrizel.”

“You sound disappointed.”

He wipes the frown from his mouth. “There
they are,” he points again, “do you see them? The last survivors of
your human race.”

I follow his finger and find blue dots
strewn behind the gate. They’re carrying—or maybe
dragging—something, some keeping to a large pole that extends in
the center of the open lot, the only beacon in the distance.

“What are they doing?”

“I’m sure Jeb will explain all that.”

“And out here?” I turn to the trees.

“Well it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Is this part of our home too?”

“Not exactly…” Clarence lowers his head,
stepping past a patch of golden lavender bulbs, “this is the
outskirts. The
wild
. You’re not allowed to leave the
gate.”

“Then why take me here?”

“To show you the beauty that is Harrizel.
Sometimes things can seem so…” he stops, searching for the right
word, “
cold
. It’s not all like that. And I want you to
remember this.”

What does he mean by cold? And
remember
this?

“There’s an opening in the gate,” he
gestures ahead, “Yerza and Norpe should be at their post to let you
in. I’m sorry to abandon you like this but I must go.”

“You’re
leaving
me here?”

“My job is done. I’m your
escort
,
Fallon. I have to go back and find other survivors.”

“But…” my mind races with everything that’s
happened, everything he’s told me and everything he still hasn’t.
“What now? I live in
there
,” I point to the black daggers,
“for the rest of my life? Doing
what
? You can’t just—”

“Jeb will explain everything,” he cuts me
off. “He is, after all, the Guide,” Clarence leans down, his hands
on his knees. He lowers his voice, speaking in a gentle tone, the
way a father would soothe his daughter. “You’ll be
fine
.
This is a new life, Fallon. A new beginning. Open yourself to the
possibilities.” He eyes the Castle as if it were something peaceful
in the distance. I follow his gaze, peering through the ivy to the
fortress ahead. It sits like a brick in my stomach, trepidation
suddenly rising.

“When will I see…” I turn to Clarence but
he’s gone.

I’m alone.

Fear grips me like a hand to the throat.
Suffocation takes over. I’m about to fall but the assault at my
neck keeps me standing, each limb too frozen to move, too weak to
fight back. I need to find movement in my body but I can’t. I’m
trapped inside myself. And out here, in the wild.

I close my eyes and count to ten, listening
to the jungle breathe around me. It comes in droplets first, a soft
trickling stream of dew from petal to petal and leaf to leaf. Some
are quick, rushed descents while others take their time, slowly
dripping drop by drop, their songs overlapping to create a chorus
of watery chimes. And then the windswept leaves start rustling into
themselves. Humming erupts and I open my eyes again, the golden
lavender bulbs releasing a soft glow, some cricket or animal
responding in its own mewling screech.

My heart slows to its normal rate, the grip
of fear at my neck dissipating, freeing my limbs to move again. I
trek forward, swiping wet leaves from my way and ducking under
sodden branches. A few more overgrown bushes of the yellow-tipped
tongues and I’m there.

The edge of the jungle.

All lush plant life stops at my feet and a
new ecosystem exists. The desert to this ocean. The dry, cracked
skeleton of a dead earth left to its eroding bones—a wasteland of
dust and ash. Cinder rises over the rocky ground leading up to and
beyond the iron-gate, which stands as tall as the trees behind
me.

Something flashes ahead.

It’s a movement, darting over the gate—a
giant bug zipping from rod to rod. Another appears, springing down
the railings, zigzagging until it reaches the ground. Paused in its
curled state, it’s hunched over and small… until it starts to rise,
standing erect on two mountainous, greenish-brown legs.