Light, Glorious Light

The Hungry Darkness

Akiva did the best she could, using the stars and the moon to guide their way.  The night was full of infected and daybreak was quite a way off.  They traveled north by northwest closer and closer towards the mountains.  Jagged rocks, impassable ravines, and sheer cliffs waited for them at the top, but somewhere on the other side Phalanx awaited.

Maira brought up the rear, scanning for incoming infected.  Foxy carried the bulk of their pilfered stuff in the middle.  They never had time to find Akiva's pack or her scouting and scavenging supplies.  What Foxy had was mostly junk, but junk which might prove useful if they made it to the right patch of mountainside.  The old valkyrie who'd once used Sector 1 for field training had carved a small passage through the rock.  It was narrow, hard to find, but provided their quickest path to safety.  Akiva felt the urgency of the task before her.  Time was working against her.  She was infected.

The rush of adrenaline during their escape had counteracted the headache and the shaking.  The rash had already started on her arm, but no one else had yet to notice.  Her vision swam, and she would have been sick if her stomach wasn't already painfully empty.  The cool night air was a blessing from The Great Mother, soothing her burning skin.  She struggled against dizziness with every step.

Akiva couldn't gauge how far she'd gotten before she stumbled.  An hour felt just as likely as twenty minutes.  As she picked herself up off the floor thinking seemed harder and harder.

"Kiva, you're shivering," May put Akiva's arm over her shoulder to lend support, "and you're covered in sweat."

"You look strange."  Foxy moved into her personal space and sniffed.  The face she made was one of disgust.  "Stink."

Akiva opened her mouth to answer and regurgitated the dregs sitting in her gut.  Pain filled her belly and danced along her spine.  The acrid stench of her own bile clogged her nostrils.  She gagged, tried to take a breath, and choked on her own stomach acids.  Akiva fell to her knees, weak and sucking air down a raw throat.

She sent up a silent prayer to The Great Mother.  The goddess had pulled womankind out of a darkness of their own creation and showed them a way to the light.  Phalanx's way was not the only way.  Akiva had glimpsed the truth while in Cavalry with Mother Ophelia.  They'd spoken to a strange hermit called Lazarus whose maps showed places beyond the waste, many many places.  But Akiva'd known the truth before that, when she saw the people from beyond the waste trudging through the sands in the dead of night.  She knew then that Phalanx was but one of The Great Mother's sanctuaries.  She knew there was a world outside of the reaver clans, wasters, and the House of Saxon.  She knew.  She knew.  She knew.  She knew...

Akiva wandered in a darkness birthed of her own fevered mind.  She was walking, dragging one foot in front of the other through dirt and brush.  A daughter of Phalanx and a reaver of The Yellow Sun, a traitor.  She was what Mother Ophelia needed her to be.  Akiva Raheem, following in the footsteps of her mother, at least that's what Lazarus whispered to Ophelia that night when the three stood atop Cavalry's barrier wall.  Much of that night had eluded Akiva's recollections.  Maira had just confessed her undying love.  An irrational fear had taken hold, spurred Akiva to run.  She'd never stopped running.

Akiva tripped and stumbled.  Helpful hands pulled her to her feet, and out of the mire that was her thoughts.

"Master, stay awake."

"Don't call me that.  My name is Akiva."  Her words were slurred, her vision blurry.  She barely recognized the face staring at her.

"Never see infection this bad.  She's not gonna make it."

"She has to make it!"  May moved into view.  She was bleeding.  "You hear me, Akiva?  You can sleep once we're home."

Akiva thought of Phalanx.  Its massive doors covered in ancient rust had always seemed oppressive.  They didn't just keep out the waste, they also trapped its daughters inside.  Akiva wanted to explore, wanted to see as much as she could.  She'd been to the south where cannibals road boats along the coastline in search of food.  To the east where the bones of the old world jutted out of the sands and three of the nine clans waged bloody war over useless relics of the Usa people.  She'd been west with its thick jungle ruled by wild and bizarre creatures.  She'd never gone north of Phalanx, never seen what was on the other side of the mountains, not with her own eyes.  Akiva thought of Phalanx, but only saw how it kept her from the rest of the world.