What Lies Beyond the Truth

Prologue

"Six skeletons found after the excavation near the old nuclear fallout shelter," the speakers blared throughout the camp in the same monotonous voice Albany had grown to hate, reporting catastrophes as one would note the weather. "After nearly fourty years of extreme radioactive activity, the place was finally deemed safe for research." The voice concluded its speech before turning off. The announcement barely meant anything to people aimlessly walking around the place as if they had lost the ability to feel for their fallen brothers and sisters.

That wouldn't be too far from the truth, Albany thought melancholically. At most, they could no longer feel emotions that went beyond their basic survival needs. Albany signed; she occasionally believed that she was the only person still capable of feeling empathy.

Still, she trudged on the barren land to the point where the gods of the sky and those of the land met; the beach. It brought back memories of a simpler time and feelings of a once-lived life. Deep down, she knew that she was stalling. Perhaps she hoped that thinking things through would dissuade her from the inevitably severe repercussions, though she reasoned that every noble deed required some sacrifice.

Albany sat there long, contemplating how she could have ended it there and then, and no one would have ever known.

The scariest virtue of a revolutioner was that they had nothing to lose. The only thing Albany could potentially lose was the land that had nurtured her, seen her first steps etched onto its soil, the ocean that had rocked her to sleep, and the wind that had sung her symphonies. She owed her at least that much.

The heat turned unbearable as the sun was beating hard on her face. This was utter madness, Albany thought with a sense of foreboding. Yet she knew she would be back tomorrow and replay this scene again and again until the sounds of the waves were the only things she could speak. With this in mind, she stalked back to the camp. Dreading seeing the same faces with less and less reasoning ability.

Albany smiled as she thought back to when her campmates had convinced themselves that the bark of a long-dead oak tree was editable. And yet it was the hardest she had worked to save.

No one could take better care of this place than her. Even if the air was hard to breathe without burning her already blackened lungs, her eyes filled with moisture as soon as she stepped outside (she was surprised to be among the few who could still barely see compared to those who had rendered themselves entirely blind), the dark gray sky that greeted her every day, the soil that had no longer grown anything in the past four seasons, and people became more and more unaware, hope for best possible future still resided deep within her soul. She knew that the only way to bring an end to this would be to start over again.

The once revered Earth had fallen from the gods' favor, and despair and longing for a seemingly out-of-reach past grew in its place.

She stopped in her path, halfway across the field already, and only a few more steps would get her back to the camp. An unbearable itch at the back of her throat. It was happening to her, too, she realized. She had forgotten why she had initially gone to the beach, to drink water from the sea, and only her sore and bloodied throat reminded her of it.
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She couldn't lose her ability to think. She was the only way the Earth could finally get justice. Her ability to ponder was the only thing keeping her from going berserk like the rest of them.

Determination filled her hazel eyes as the ocean drowned in her resolute gaze. With all the gracefulness of a camel on ice, she sprinted back to the beach across the field and threw herself at the ocean.

The seemingly calm water stirred as the waves tried to keep her afloat, "Stop!" they seemed to scream, "Stop, there are other ways to fix this." And yet Alaby kept pushing, hoping the waves that had calmed her since childhood would take her in their embrace.

How fitting, she thought, to be swallowed whole by the one place she could find solace. Albany found it hard to move; thus, she concluded that the ocean had accepted her exchange, and soon she would awake in a place not touched by her hands yet but would be impacted just the same. And so she was carried by the waves, away from dreams not yet conjured, even in children's imaginations.

A place where her present misfortunes were the future doubts of others.