Paracosm

Marbhs

Magda

Joe and Lenka stand up once they see the horses approaching. Magda can see the frightened looks on their faces. She brings her horse to a halt and jumps off, running towards them.

  They look as tired as her, as sun burnt as her. It looks as if they tore their sleeves and their pants so they wouldn't overheat.

  Magda hugs them tightly, she can feel Joe's tears dripping onto her shoulder. She'd give anything to open the door, to return back to what they know. But Magda knows that's not an option, she knows soon enough nobody will be able to live down there.

  "It is nice to see you, my friends," Maon approaches them "Magda was worried about you".
"Have you tried banging on the doors?" Magda asks them.
  "Everything," Lenka throws her hands up "they're not gonna hear anything".

  Magda turns to Joe, his eyes are bloodshot, his lips are chapped, he looks like a completely different person to when Magda saw him last.
"At least we have each other now," Magda puts her hand on Joe's shoulder.

  "What about Fionn?" Joe asks.
"He ran in front of me," Magda says "I couldn't keep up with him. I'm sure he's still out there somewhere".

"I would hate to ruin this moment but we are here for a reason," Maon begins.
"We need your help," Dolag continues as she walks towards them "we are not the only leaders above ground, there is some more that are not happy with the bunker opening".

"Why?" Lenka frowns.
  "Well, our families worked hard to have the lands they have today," Dolag says, the annoyance evident in her tone "some are sacred ground to us, other soils grow the food we eat".
"And also you rich bastards got to live a comfortable life down there, while half of us burnt, and those who did not had to rebuild civilisation," Maon adds.

  Lenka and Joe look at each other, unsure of how to respond. Magda knows this is a lot to take in, they don't need two people throwing jabs at them.

"We need to get in contact with our people," Magda says.
Lenka frowns "how will we do that?".

Joe runs over to the bunker door and picks up his bag. He takes out a small electric component, and holds it up "This is allow me to reach the bunker, Hayes gave it to me to make contact with them once we have found good land".

"How long will it take you throw all of this shit together?" Maon asks.
"If I start now, hopefully by the morning," Joe says.
Maon looks at Dolag, who nods. He says something to his men and they dismount their horses.
"We shall stay the night," he says "so this thing will work and you will not be out of range".

Dolag

The night has fallen. The tents are set up against the bunker door, they are small and not ideal but they will do for one night.

Dolag watches as Lenka and Magda sit with Joe as he works hard on making a radio. He hasn't stopped since the tents were put up.

"Why don't you speak to them?" Dolag watches as Dextro approaches.
"I have nothing to say to them," he walks into the tent "don't want them to get suspicious".

Dolag sits next to him on the sleeping bag, she brings her knees up to her chin and allows her bare feet to dig into the warm sand.
"The bunker door is quite impressive," she says.
"Well it's kept all of you out".
She smiles "I guess that was always their plan".

"How come?" He asks.
"The governments owned these bunkers, they hand selected people. They truly believed they could wipe the Earth of humans and build the world how they thought would be best," she watches as he grows uncomfortable "what's the matter?".

"Who dropped the bombs?".
"Well they did," she looks at him as if he's stupid "of course they never told any of you that. The world was at brink of war, another war across the world. It started in one country, where the people wanted to reclaim their land, some countries took the side of the country and the others took the side of the ones that wanted their freedom. All that resulted was mass genocide, murder, starvation. Then all of the countries attended a meeting, it was broadcasted there was no conclusion from this meeting. But all of a sudden bunkers were being built. It has been told that each country decided that there will never be an outcome of war, once this on ends, another one begins, and on and on it goes, a continuous cycle. Like a virus that keeps mutating. And what do you do to rid a virus? You kill the host. The common people were seen as the host, we were the problem. Hundreds of bunkers were built across the world, enough for each government figure and the rich. All bombs were dropped on the same date at the same time, nobody was warned".

Dextro nods slowly, as if putting pieces of a puzzle together "they told us it was the Middle East. Terrorists. And the bunkers were only built as a precaution".
"We were never the hosts, it was them, it has always been them," she says.
"We never thought about above ground, about what ye could be going through, we were never even sure there was still life. But ye rebuilt life better than they ever could".
"I'm glad you see it that way," she smiles.

Her smile fades, she feels a heaviness in her heart, as if something is grabbing it. It's similar to the feeling she gets when her brother's are close but this feels unknown. As if she doesn't know what's trying to communicate with her.

"What's wrong?" Dextro asks.

Magda gets up and leaves the tent. She looks around the mountains that surround her but there is nothing.

The others begin to leave their tents, trying to see what she's seeing. And then they appear on the higher ground.

Their clothes tattered, their skin melted, they've no weapons, no armour, nothing. They stand all in a line, Magda can make out more standing behind them. She raises her hand slowly. They're Marbhs. Just as her father had described.

They begin to disappear again. Dolag lowers her hand, the unknown feelings becomes known, as if she's connected to every single one of them.
"What were they?" Magda asks.
"My people," Magda replies.