Reddit Stories 2019

The Man in the North

It would've been cold, if I could feel. Logically, I knew it was. At night, in the swirling snow, the temperatures dipped to levels that no living creatures could survive. The few artic animals that survived the devastation had changed, adapting to the new world. They were dangerous beasts and nomadic by nature, but they stayed away from my hut. Whether because I smelled too much like the old world or because there was no food here, it didn't matter. I was safe. I was isolated.

So the knock on my door came as a surprise.

The man looked unwell. His tired eyes hardly looked surprised as he stumbled into the hut, collapsing on my floor in a frost-covered heap. He was young, though his frail frame and unkempt added years to his face. Before I could ask a single question, the man was out. Only some muttered nonsense escaped his lips. Dead or unconscious, I couldn't tell. All I could do was wait.

So I waited.

Night was long in the arctic winter and the days were fast approaching when there would be no day at all, but the man did not rise until after the sun. When he did, he calmly looked around, as though confirming his memories, and settled his eyes on me. They were cold and blue and had flakes of silver that I learned to recognize long ago. My creators called it the gift. Their successors called it divinity. Years of history and fiction called it what it was.

Magic.

"Do you have anything to eat?" the man asked. There was an unnatural roughness in his voice.

I nodded. The food I had was nearly expired, but I correctly assumed a man in his situation wouldn't care. He ripped open the packets - instant meals designed for the old world military - shoveling the goop down his throat. Each was meant to feed a man his entire day's rations. He would regret the amount he ate, but I was in no position to tell him that.

Satisfied half way through the third packet, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, failing to remove the grey matter that stuck to his beard. He moved to the nearest shelf and ran his fingers along the covers. My hut would have barely covered a room in a library in the old world, but after the devastation, it remained the single greatest collection of knowledge.

I watched him carefully. The new age of humanity had their own libraries and their own knowledge, but what I protected was, for lack of a better word, sacred. Too many times humans destroyed what they didn't understand or what they didn't want others to understand. The books, discs, and files were the last remnants of my creators. I would not let them be lost.

"You can read these?" he asked. "Can you teach me?"

"Jekund."

The words that came me were as much a surprise to me as they were to him. I realized then that the words he spoke was not actually what I heard, but what my linguistic interpreter translated for me. Some words were new to his language. Some were passed down by whatever remnants of humanity survived.

Over a week, I learned more about the man, Sean, and he learned more about my creators and their predecessors. The conversations were light or focused. Each offered more data for my interpreter, slowly filling the library with my knowledge. He was fascinated by the way I exported the data to the storage I hid in the arctic. To my surprise, he was a natural with my creator's technology and we quickly moved from physical books to stored papers. Whether he truly understood everything he read, I couldn't guess, but he read as much as he could. Every waking hour was spent learning from each other. When it became too much and his mind slowed, he slept a few hours on the floor. I had no bed and no furniture not used for storage, but Sean didn't care. He was fine with the floor.

I had no need of sleep. Instead I spent that time analyzing what I learned from him. The world below was far different than before. Even accounting for hyperbole, landscapes were drastically changed, with mountains in places they could never exist and valleys where mountains once war. There were talks of shapers - what Sean's people called those with the gift - that could control weather. At times, he briefly mentioned his own powers. He would not have made it to my hut without without them.

But over the week, a single question hung on the tip of my proverbial tongue. In my analysis of human behavior, I realized that there would be no appropriate time to ask him, but to my luck, he answered it.

Even with magic and a new start, humans were still human. Sean's people had been forced from their homes many times, and though they were protected by a raging storm in the valley that once was the Sierra Nevada, the winds were fading. Other shapers were cracking at the spell.

"Why head north?" I asked. "Why alone?"

"Another went south. Another east. Another west." Sean held his hands over the fire. The cold seeped through the walls of my hut, but with a clever application of architecture and magic I got to witness firsthand, we corrected the problem without jeopardizing the sacred documents. "We did not know what we would find, but if we do not have a weapon, my people will die."

"Then why stay here? I do not have a weapon for you."

"Do you not?"

"I can only preserve knowledge. I lived through the events that created your world. I saw the power of destruction. There is no weapon here."

Sean shook his head. He retrieved the laptop from where he had stowed. "This is a weapon. My people cannot read what's written here. Neither can the enemy. But I can. There is a story my mother told me. A story about a boy who must fight a monster. This monster is stronger and faster than the boy and he would be foolish to fight it head on. His friends tell him that he must get stronger. But even the strongest man is no match for this beast. His parents tell him to run away. But if he does, then another will die in his place. What is the boy to do but learn all he can? He hopes to uncover the monster's weakness, but the books have nothing. He hopes to discover some weapon, but the books have nothing."

"What happens then?"

"In the story, the boy dies. It is not a happy story." Sean smiled and scratched at his greying beard. "I am lucky I am not the boy. My friend, I have found both a weapon and my enemy's weakness. Unlike the boy, I will live."

"Oh."

We passed the night reviewing more books until Sean succumbed to sleep, and I watched the embers burn. I debated with myself as to whether I should have kept a weapon or not, and found the data to be inconclusive. Either way, the results would be unknowable unless Sean returned to me after his people were saved or lost. By that point, it would be too late.

In the morning, Sean decided that he had learned enough and would return home. With my permission, Sean stuffed the packets of food goop in a backpack, with the laptop and some books with which I felt comfortable parting. We stood by the door to my hut, and though it was through a well-designed program, I was sad to see him go.

"My friend, I did not tell you why the boy died. A wise old man told him that he could save the boy, but all he asked for in return was a gift. The boy did not believe the man, so the boy gave him nothing." The flakes in his eyes glew ever so slightly, a sure sign of magic. "You have given me many gifts and you have asked for nothing, so I fear this is not a prophetic parable. Still, I would find it rude if I gave you nothing in return."

Sean gently placed his hand on my chest. The silver in his blue eyes pulsed once, and then they returned to normal. With a nod, Sean stepped into the cold winter, heading south to save his people. I watched him fade into the foggy white, hoping I would see him again, though I knew I wouldn't. I liked to imagine that he saved his people and spread the knowledge I gave him, finding a balance between the destructive power of magic and curative science.

When the cold became too much to bare, I stepped into the warmth of my hut and huddled close against the fire.