The Edenian

Ka Decides She Will Never Be Alone

A few months earlier, near the third agglomeration, Ka decided she would never be alone again. And when Ka decided something, she stubbornly, with her nose in the air and her lips tightly pressed together, carried out her decision from beginning to end.

Now too, looking at the ruins of the city at sunset, Ka felt that she would show everyone, that everyone would see.

She remembered how her ears rang when the warehouse exploded. It wasn't her fault. The Guard just got too close, and she had to push him. She didn't know he would fall onto a barrel, that it would ignite, that the fire would start. Ka also didn't know there were so many explosives at the dump.

And she didn't know that when she ran outside, the blast wave would throw her to the ground. And that she would be saved by a small wall she kept tripping over while carrying sorted junk under the watchful eyes of the Guards.

Before Ka's mother fell ill, they had such a wonderful life. Yes, they wandered from settlement to settlement. Her mother's healing skills meant everyone treated them kindly. They welcomed her with food (and Ka loved to eat), they let her play with their children (and Ka always came up with the best games).

But then the Guards came. And they set up a sorting facility, and then made everyone work in the ruins of abandoned cities. They were always looking for something. Some old machines. And her mother was also sick. They had to stay in one of the larger settlements, on the edge of the ruins.

And then her mother disappeared.

Ka was completely alone, even though there were many people around.

Some rebelled against the Guards, but it never ended well. Most worked in the sorting facility or on small farms. The Guards provided them with missing food and ensured no one wasted time. If a person could hold their tongue, they could live.

But Ka couldn't hold her tongue. Her mother always argued with her, and sometimes even admitted she was right with a laugh, and Ka was taught that she had the right to speak up. But this wasn't a world for outspoken girls.

In the evenings, Ka read old books by candlelight, so as not to waste electricity. There were handsome counts and very outspoken girls in them. She had only three books, but each was a little treasure to her.

And suddenly Ka was 17, and the Guards began to look at her differently. Ka didn't like that look.

But that didn't matter anymore. That look stayed there, in the ruins of the warehouse. Now Ka would walk among the crumbling buildings and find Jon's gang. The gang that supposedly was always escaping the Guards.

Ka would walk straight among them, even though Jon had a real revolver. And Ka would tell Jon to take her into the gang. Because she is the fearless Ka. She is the Ka who burned the warehouse, who pushed the Guard.

And no one would look for her, because everyone thought Ka was in the warehouse when it exploded.

Ka would be a girl from the gang. She would escape the Guards and be very, very dangerous. Because Ka doesn't want to be alone! Ka wants to invent games for others again. And she won't be stopped by the fact that the whole world is one big ruin.

She raised her chin even higher than usual and set off among the collapsed apartment blocks. Somewhere there, among the ruins, was her future.

Before she disappeared into the shadows, she tightened her singed hair.