Winds tug at my braids gently, and dust tickles my nose. I am standing on a rough hill, rocks eagerly clawing their way into the pads of my feet. Scanning the horizon ahead, there is a path the winds its way towards a towering, shinning ship. Men and women scurry across the ground like ants in a farm, preparing for the ship and its inhabitants for the Salvation. I turn my head to the side and see my father standing beside me, smiling down at me in excitement. My small hand slips easily into his leathery paw, and I find comfort in the feeling of that durable skin against mine.

     Laying idle, the fingers of my other hand flit to the necklace left to me by my mother. The chain is a light, thin silver, and the stone that hangs from it is perfectly smooth and cool to the touch. The stone is a deep, rich blue with lines of shimmering green crossing and colliding along the rounded plain of its surface. As I stare at it sparks of yellow seem to pop and shimmer from deep within the sea of blue, mesmerizing me. My father’s hand tightens over mine disrupting my thoughts, and, looking up at him again, I can see his eyes are shining with the threat of tears. 

     My stomach hollows, instantly making room for the pit of despair that has dug itself into its depths. Dread comes looming out of that pit, sinking its claws into my abdomen, and scraping away any trailing threads of happiness and security that lingered there. It then begins its slow and steady climb up my throat, causing my mouth to dry, and become useless. From there it fans its long tendrils down my arms, and into my hands causing my fingers to go numb with fear.

     My mother’s necklace falls limply from my useless fingers. I kick fruitlessly at a rock embedded in the parched, trampled earth sending up a puff of dirt. The wind carries it up and over, and it brushes past the nose of my father begging his attention downwards. His wet eyes bore into mine. Looking up at him, he seems as tall as a building looming over me.

     “Don’t go.” The words catch, and trip over my tongue in an impotent plea. “Don’t leave me please. I don’t want you to leave.”

     “Aurora,” he reaches out and strokes my braids, “we have talked about this many times. This is the Salvation. There is no other option, but for me to go. You cannot let selfish pride, and your own wants come before the survival of our people.”

     The weight of duty and obligation press into me mercilessly. For a moment that stretches into eternity, all is quiet and still. I can feel tears tracking their course down my face. I make no move to brush them away, and instead let them fall, creating dark divots in the light, parched ground. Swallowing hard in an attempt to choke back my shame, I open my mouth to speak. I want to tell him that I understand. That I will do my duty, and serve The Order, but as my cracked lips creak open to let loose the ideas from the shackles of my mind, I am sent reeling backwards to crash into the ground.

     Looking up, I see that where my father once stood is a great, yawning chasm. Ash and embers spew forth towards the heavens in great, hiccuping belches from where the Earth was torn apart. I am just in time to see the last of my father’s fingers slip, as he loses his grip on the edge. A scream rips through my lungs, and explodes out of my throat. Cracks begin to melt into the ground around me, and greedily devour everything in their wake with long spindled fingers.

     Pieces of earth begin to slough off in large chunks all around me, and I am left with one final safe haven. I crouch down to the ground clutching fruitlessly at the clay that comprises my final outpost as the men and women, once so purposeful, sprint in directionless fear trying to outrun their own panic. I am bowled over by the overwhelming weight of one such man as he rams into me like a battering ram. He gazes just past my eyes, and I see the moment of utter desolation as he realizes that he is running towards the edge of nothing. Strong hands clutch at me in no organized fashion, breaking the delicate chain of my necklace. 

     I am forced to watch as it slides slowly down my neck, and onto the ground. For a moment, it teeters on the edge of the cliff glowing in the horrid beauty of the fires that reach out to lick at our fingers. The stone glows red, and the green shimmers have turned vicious black. I am thrown to ground as the man scurries to escape some horror unseen by me. I turn my head away to avoid the inevitable sight of both man and necklace succumbing to the fires below.

     The scene that I am met with is no better. Across the crater of my island a man also lies on the ground. Our eyes lock, and his are pleading with me for mercy. They close in deep agony as a foot collides with his ribs, and spring open again revealing themselves to be two black coals ringed by fire. This sight is blurred by the rushing feet of people running by him, and I am left looking into a puddle of blood. I curl in on myself, making a tight little ball. I want to be out of this place. I cannot see anymore.

     As I rock myself back and forth to the lullaby of panicked screams, a cool hand brushes my braids away from the sweat riddled nape of my neck, and I hear a voice whisper “Little one” into my ear. I turn to look at the face that this ethereal voice belongs to, and joy springs its way into every fiber of my being as recognition dawns upon me. The voice is that of my mother. Or is it? Horror wraps tight fingers around the buzzing joy that I felt, slowly choking away its warmth and life.

     The hand at the back of my neck is not the soothing, cool hand of a mother’s on a fevered brow. The fingers are like icicles, and, instead of a loving caress, it is clutching hunger that greets me. The hand reaching to brush my cheek, instead of being sure and strong, is nearly shaking. As the hand draws nearer, I can see that it is not shaking, but rather vibrating. The once bright blue veins have gone a deep purple, and hum with black specks swarming and crawling throughout them. 

     They seem to shift and dance under her skin, which has gone a cool sickly grey rather than the milky white it once was. Traveling up her hands and arms, my eyes make the agonizing journey towards her own. They find their target, and deep red fire blazes out to greet me. These are not the same soft moss green eyes filled with kindness that I used to know. They are a pool of circling, swirling black rimmed in fire red that threatens to drown me in horror and sorrow.

     As though in a tractor beam, those pools of terror draw themselves towards me, and it is with encroaching horror that I realize that she is leaning in to reenact some horrific pantomime of a mother’s kiss. The long icicles that were once fingers now grapple both sides of my face as cracked and bleeding lips make their way towards me. Unable to move, I am locked into the role of accepting daughter in this awful scene playing out before me. In reflex, I squeeze my eyes shut hoping to block the event from my senses. It does not work though. I cannot shut out the smell of rot that blossoms out to envelope me. Rather than the cold sticky kiss I was expecting, I am met with a puff of hot breath on my ear as she whispers through a dry, thick tongue “Run little one. Run.”

     My eyes spring open in time to see her hands lift from my head, and up to the heavens. The wind whips her untamable, unchanged sunset red hair that dances around her head, and twines around her fingers reaching up and out in a desperate plea. The embers and ash that have been banished from the bowels of the earth swirl in and around her hair while they caress her battered, broken body. Head tilted back, and mouth opened wide, she releases a shriek that is felt more than heard. The shock of this feeling causes me to bolt upright from my crouched position.

     I am awoken by a shocking stab of pain as my body slams into the hard ground below my bed. I grip my ribs tightly, and curl in on myself in a ball of pain. Cool, smooth ground presses into my hot cheek that burns with the fever of the dream I have been expelled from. Sweat clings to the tip of my nose, and I watch as a single drop releases its grasp to fall to the floor. The room around me is grey with the pale light of an early sun creeping in through the tiny window on the curved wall of my pod. I close my eyes, hoping to shut out the dampening sight of my bare surroundings, only to be met by the searing image of the screaming creature that was once my mother. A shuddering breath rakes its way through my lungs. Fresh salt stings at my nose as tears mix with the scent of sweat, and I shake my head to be rid of the smell and the image.

     I push my way up towards a kneeling position, and, hands on thighs, pause a moment. The room is silent, and still. I can hear the blood rushing in my ears, and the pounding of my heart. I breathe slowly and deeply in through my nose, releasing the breath through pursed lips. Tears slip down my cheeks, following the inevitable course predetermined by the curves and crevices outlined in my face. They fall silently onto my lap, collecting at the base where my palms meet my thighs, and forming tiny pools of grief. Sliding my hands along my skin, I spread the tears along the length of my thighs, exposing them to the uncaring whim of the air around me. They quickly evaporate from my skin, leaving behind the residue of fear and loneliness. Sighing deeply, I tuck the rough, thick pads of my feet under the weight of my body, and, with great effort, push myself up.

     Finally standing, I look around the room that is my residence. A drawer hangs open directly over the head of my bead. I have found the explanation for my lovely greeting on this fine morning by the hard floor. Attempting a shrug, I grab my uniform for the day from the drawer, and press my palm gently into its smooth face until it closes. 

     It fades into the wall seamlessly, leaving behind nothing but a blank space. I toss the uniform onto the bed, and air sighs out from the mattress as the clothing slides along the smooth surface of the slick covering. My freed hands reach upwards, fingers brushing against the low ceiling, and then fall back down towards the floor. Hands pulling shoulders and head down with them until I am bent over cradling my ankles. I hug myself for a moment, enjoying the embrace. Then, with a whoosh of air, I stand back up quickly. I have to get dressed. Being late for call will do nothing to improve my day.

I am tripping delicately along a razor edge. The brink of the howling mass of screaming madness. Dark, hungry fingers reach to me. Bidding me forth. Each one leaving a burning lash on my raw, new skin. I climb down further into the depths of my mind to seek escape, but the echos of those screams reverberate through the infinity of my consciousness. I sit alone, smile on my face, a silent, screaming inferno.