Light from Darkness

Chapter 7- Rebuilding

Larana had never expected an easy ride when she'd volunteered as leader of the rebirth of London but she'd also never expected the constant whining of fully grown adults about such trivial matters. There was the obvious stuff like stealing and so forth which in itslef was difficult enough to deal with without her having to give council to the hundreds who would crowd her commons asking guidance to whether they should leave and find relatives or not. That was probably the most relevant question in her opinion but she got asked so many others. How should I run my shop Larana? What's going to happen if I can't get my dog injected larana? Where can I get water to hydrate my house plants Larana? She could understand the people wanting food, family, water but why did these idiots not seem to grasp the exact gravity of the situation? There was no electricty, therefore a lot of other systems were not working. Ergo their shop no longer mattered as this wasn't a society in need of a corner shop, ergo their dog was close to the least of their concerns, ergo it no longer mattered if Ms.Dilinger's didn't get any goddamn water before the rest of them. Speaking of which it had been a month and they still hadn't worked out a reliable method between the council that she had gathered and herself. The river Thames was useless as it was due to the dumping of human waste in the last millennia and not to mention everything else being thrown in right to the current day. For now they were lasting on bottled water raided from supermarkets and the aforementioned corner shops but Larana held no illusions that sooner or later the supply would run dry, bone dry. The temporary peace that everyone had maintained would disappear from underneath her and it would be back to square one. At the same time she had a numerous other concerns like food, which was again temporary, and very possibly the lack of a proper justice system. She hated the power she had in some ways but now she at least had a large say in how things were run and one thing that would change after the witch off would be the way the system worked. Power had to be equal among the community, as stupid as they sometimes were, they had to vote on every action and law as well as keep voting on those they wanted to reform. In the old world it would have been ideal to use the internet to get everyone's opinion at one time but she had to choose the best speakers to talk for the majority, those who felt strongest who were also wisest. There would be no racism, no hierarchy (to an extent) and most definitely no one screwing over the masses. This would be as fair as she could make it. It was just a matter of deciding on those who should be on the council, a few seats would already be filled by her elite council she had gathered made up of honest workers who knew what they were doing but it was finding the other three quarters of her council. Larana struck lucky.

Many times there had been rumours of weird stuff happening since the loss of electricity, tales of conspiracy amongst the more paranoid of Larana's subjects that the politicians and rich men of the world had done this to let commoners rip themselves to pieces in a dystopian world, some rumours of horrible warrior tribes set up by crazed farmers and these were but some of the many crazy ideas that spread virulently throughout New London. However one important theory in fact came true when a girl of fifteen walked into Larana's council seeking help. She stumbled into the cream hall with holes pierced in her clothing at regular intervals sobbing uncontrollably. She had dull red hair tied up in a ponytail and a long fringe that stuck to her face where it crossed the stream of tears making their way down her cheeks. A couple of ladies on the council instantly rushed over to steady the poor teenager as she walked to Larana's chair and began spurting out words about her parents being dead. Sensing something was wrong Larana got one of her more faithful allies, Ren, to usher everyone out as she dealt with the girl. Asking only of her name and her problem Larana found out that the girl was called Christell, an emigrant from Denmark who moved with her parents and sister Rebecca from almost nine years ago. The days of late had been harsh on Christell after being exiled from her home in Manchester when there was a mass culling of all people of different nationalities by racist extremists there. They had eventually reached here and were taking part in the gathering of supplies across the city. Then her sister developed a virus but a month ago and apparently died a week later . From there it only got worse with constant fights between her mother and father dividing her family even further, she drew up and hid away from them whenever she could, avoided them. She couldn't take the conflict of others around her, of the world so she became conflicted herself, blaming herself for everything that had gone wrong from the failure's in school to not standing up to the racist cull to the very fighting going on in front of her eyes. She hated everything but no matter how much she despised all the stupidity and futile disputes she could never come to harm or fight anyone but herself. Cutting herself made her feel better, it allowed her to vent frustration and most importantly it showed her that no matter how much she thought she was inhuman and a freak she still bled the same as anyone else. If only the world and her parents could see it that way. When they found out they took anything she could use to harm her away from her and kept constant watch over their daughter. Larana thought it was ironic that while death had driven the family apart, the threat of more brought them back together in a wrong and sick way. Christell only wanted their help in the end but they never seemed to understand. They thought it was selfish of her, that she could consider death good. It offended them that she thought about leaving them so easily, that she didn't think of them. Christell began to clutch her head when she began telling the next part. She said over and over again that Larana had to promise she wouldn't hurt her because she would never know how much this hurt, how confused this made her, how broken she felt. Larana promised without hesitation telling her that this wasn't her fault. The girl shook her head, muttered words, then she shouted.