A Host of Fallen Dreams - After the Rising Book 1

Chapter 10

Lukas

The Wasteland

Although Lukas understood perfectly the danger of his situation, and that, in all likelihood, it would never come to an end, he had hoped that on reaching this place that he might be granted a period of respite. His hope was in vain.

When he stepped through the gate, the white, snow-covered vista continued on and on, undisturbed for as far as he could see. There was nothing else here. No building to shelter in. No-one to meet him. Nothing. And there was no indication of what he was to do next.

It was true. This place was an unforgiving wasteland, he thought as he looked about, wondering what on earth he was supposed to do now.

He tried to think. He tried not to panic. He failed on both counts. It was winter, meaning that daylight was short, and it would be dark much sooner than he could imagine. There were no street lights out here. Hell, there were no streets. Then there was the temperature, which wasn't particularly high to begin with, but it would begin dropping as soon as the sun went down, no doubt dropping well-below freezing.

He had made it out of the city only to find himself stuck in a barren, foreign landscape, all alone, where he knew he wouldn't - couldn't - last the night. Four years he had survived being a wanted fugitive inside the walls, but he wouldn't make it through a single night out here.

He fell to his knees, as he realised that he would soon be dead and there was nothing he could do about it. It had been a gamble, contacting the Underground, and it looked like it hadn't paid off. He had no provisions, nothing to keep the freezing cold at bay. He wasn't scared of death; it eventually came to everyone, but he was terrified of feeling helpless. It reminded him of that day when his mother had died in his arms, the day the world fell apart.

'Run,' his mother had said, as blood had bubbled at the side of her mouth. 'Find your sister and run.'

He'd run for four years. He had also found Lyra, but had never been able to get to her. He wouldn't have left the city, wouldn't have left her, if he'd had another choice, but the last few months had been hard. Places to hide were getting more difficult to find, and rumours of shelters being infiltrated by spies had started going round. He didn't know what else to do. So he had left a coded message on a noticeboard at a soup kitchen, and somehow it had found its way to the right people, and they had somehow found him. He had woken that morning to find the set of instructions he had followed to the letter in his rucksack.

So what had gone wrong? Who had lured him out here?

He sighed. He wasn't going to find any answers out here, but he sure as hell wasn't going to simply give up. He could have done that years ago, but he didn't, so he wasn't going to let despondency get the better of him now.

And so, to prevent him dwelling on what was - or wasn't - to come, he knew he had to keep moving; keep his mind and body occupied. As he made to push himself up, his hand went right through the snow and found itself resting on something cold and hard. Stone. For some reason, the snow in front of the gate didn't appear to be as thick as everywhere else. He didn't know what drove him to do it, but he scooped the snow away and uncovered a large, flat paving stone, then another and another.

Hidden beneath the snow was a footpath. If he had to guess, the snow must have been cleared a day or two ago, but a more recent dusting had covered it back up. The path had to lead somewhere if someone had made the effort to uncover it.

He ran back to the hedge and pried a dead branch from beneath its evergreen limbs. Then instead of using his hands to reveal each stepping stone (for they were now freezing, and the process too time-consuming), he pushed the branch through the snow every few steps, scraping the wood across the surface of path, ensuring it struck stone each time and guided him true.

Now all he had to do was find out where the pathway went. He hoped it was somewhere warm and dry, and not too far away.

On a couple of occasions, he only found deeper snow or hard earth, meaning he had to go back a little and find where the path turned a corner. The landscape was bare of any hints at all that might suggest which direction he should go in, or where the road - for he had realised the path was wide enough to accommodate a vehicle - might be heading.

During his time on the streets of the city, he had heard tales of the Wasteland. Mostly regarding what The Territory had done to turn it into a wasteland. What had once been a thriving rural community, made up of small towns and villages and farms, had been systematically destroyed and dismantled. The Territory had decided it wanted The City, but it didn't want the bother or hassle of trying to govern such a disparate, complex area that made up the countryside which had surrounded it. Furthermore, they didn't want those who didn't agree with them to find a foothold in it either. So their solution was simple: make it so it no longer existed. The City was self-sufficient, it didn't need the agricultural economy beyond its borders, so it could afford such a ruthless policy.

As Lukas walked, he couldn't help but think of The Rising. He didn't understand it. He didn't understand why these people thought they had to do it. Things hadn't been that bad before, had they? He wasn't sure. All he had to go on was what he knew from first-hand experience of school and his home-life.

At the time he had hated school. He had hated the rules his parents made him follow at home. He had hated how annoying his older sister was. But these things were nothing. The whining of a spoilt child. He would do anything to go back and just have his sister take his bar of chocolate from him, or have his dad ground him for a week, or his mother get him to walk her through how he had managed to arrive at the answer for his homework, as if she had known all along he had cheated. He hadn't known how good he'd had it, and now it was gone.

He remembered hearing of The List, which had been leaked to the press a few months before The Rising, and he'd asked his parents why they were on it. He had thought they were too boring and stuffy to have been selected by some strange political group existing on the fringes of society.

'Don't worry, son,' his father had said, dismissing any concerns out of hand. 'They're so disorganised they can't even keep a secret list secret.' And his dad had laughed.

Who were "they"? No-one thought to tell him. What had they wanted or where had they come from? No-one told him this either. No-one had told him anything.

Yet these people had taken fields and forests and meadows and destroyed them all. They had taken control of a country and killed its citizens indiscriminately. Four years on, and still Lukas didn't understand why.

* * *

Thanks for taking the time to read this chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please feel free to press that magic star and vote for it. Or share your thoughts and leave me a comment.

So as Lukas tries to find his way in The Wasteland, we learn a little more about the mysterious Rising which seems to have turned this little corner of the world upside down. It's interesting that, even after four years, the situation hasn't become clearer. Why do think that is? What do you think the purpose of The List was? Why do you think the parents of Lukas and Lyra were on it?

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Have a wonderful day!