After the Plague

XII. The Past

My legs are gone.

The realization struck Francis like a bolt of lightning, and threw him off a cliff, back into the world of the conscious.

The sky buzzed above him, and he could see that whatever vehicle he was on was moving quite fast by the tops of trees as they shot by. Oddly enough, he wasn’t groggy, although he sure he had been out for some time. He distinctly remembered the laser shots, his female pursuer, and then the final blow before falling into  blackness. 

He supported himself up onto his elbows and looked down to his lower body, which, much to his delight, was still intact. That delight only lasted so far, as he quickly realized that the reason he believed his legs to be missing was the intense and searing pain that filled them. It was so unbearably painful, in fact, that it was almost impossible for his mind to wrap around it. He strained his neck, wishing that he could go back to where he didn’t realize that the pain was there. Damn knees. 

Francis laid back down on the linoleum ground, and rubbed a hand through his hair, which was being whipped around by the speed of the skiff as it glided along the water. It was in that instant of rest that reality set in.

Roslin. 

Images of his dying companions suddenly flashed before his eyes. From where he had been sitting, he had been able to see the attackers come through the hole in the wall before any of the other villagers. After all the paranoid years he had spent long before Roslin, it didn’t come as much of a surprise that his reflexes kicked in immediately, despite his age. He had been able to quickly take shelter in his hut just before the laser assault had begun, and had almost been able to escape until that woman had seen him. In a way, he wished that he hadn’t been able to avoid the attack, because what had followed was the most horrific thing he had seen in his life.

Through out all of his travels and experiences, Francis considered himself a man who had seen more than the average person. From the plague to bandits and the Badlands, he had been across nearly the entire country. But to see the people he had grown to love be murdered right in front of him was too much. Jasey, Matthew, Doreen, and all of the others had been leveled without any consideration for them at all. And Ester. The thought of the beautiful young woman lying dead on the ground haunted him. She’s with Gregor now, he tried to comfort himself, but it didn’t help in the slightest. 

Just thinking about the entire ordeal churned his stomach to a point where he realized he was going to be physically sick. He turned over quick, and grabbed for the end of the railing, pulling his head out over the edge of the skiff. The feeling rocketed up from his stomach, through his throat, until it needed to escape. He heaved out, but it only retched against his insides, unable to bring anything out of his empty stomach. His mind was a blur, his legs were on fire.

Kill me, please.  “Kill me, please,” the words came out on their own, before he realized that he was even speaking. The sound of his own voice shocked him, but he didn’t have enough will power to get up. 

“Soon enough, budd-o,” said a voice to his side. Francis turned his head in time to see a man with shoulder length, golden hair and a red leather jacket chuckle as he walked from the upper level of the skiff into the lower deck.

“Who are you?” Francis shouted after him, but the bandit had already disappeared. He scanned the rest of the skiff, but it was otherwise unoccupied. He had been left alone on the deck. 

Harnessing some amount of energy, Francis hoisted himself up on both feet, grimacing against the pain in his knees. The deck completely devoid of any equipment or any sign of occupation. If he hadn’t just seen a man, Francis could have well assumed he was alone. From the look of the trees on either side of the river, he could tell that they were some distance from Roslin, as the vegetation had become scrubby and dry. The sound isn’t far from here either. Where are they taking me? He had traveled through the area once, many years ago, and didn’t know it well, except for that they were close to the coast.