The whole book in one post, with lots of errors

Introduction

   Once upon a time, a tribe resting on the coast of a large island fell under a wicked and cursed illness.

   The day before this disease took the lives of more than half the people, a few children had been playing a game called danger.

   The days were long, and with no toys to play with or stories to pretend, several of the children-released from their daily lesson with their families- would race to the beach to fill the day with fun before the sun slept and it was time to return to the forest. Their favorite game to play was to jump into the waters and all grab a hold of a wooden raft. The last to let go would be the winner.

  As simple as the rules were, this was no easy competition. Especially on this particular afternoon, the waves were rough and cold- the sun hidden behind a mist of grey clouds. When the eldest of the children, Eevia, felt the dampness of the sand under her feet, she paused to look up.

   "We shouldn't play in the ocean today," Eevia determined, "the skies advise us not to."

   No one would argue with Eevia- after all, she was the eldest. But after roaming on the safety of the shore, the eldest of the boys- named Agus- felt bored. He nudged shoulders with his best friend Jasi, who had been walking right beside him. He didn't have to say a word for Jasi to know to follow him away from the group.

   The water felt like ice around his toes. Jasi paused to double-check that the others had not watched them depart from the group. No one had, but he still waited timidly before going deeper.

   Agus was trying to hide that he was shivering. "What, are you scared?" he taunted his friend with a cheesy grin. Both of them took a few steps closer to the ocean.

   Now knee deep with goosebumps all over their arms and legs, their absence had caught the attention of a younger girl, who notified Eevia immediately.

   "Get out of there," Eevia halted right where the fizzy foam divided the waters from the sand.

   "Of course you would be scared," Agus stuck out his chin and tongue and glazed over the crowd behind her. "The weather is no match for heroes. Let's play."

   Agus's words had encouraged a few more proud children to enter the water. "The clouds aren't too thick, sister," Jasi persuaded Eevia.

  With a grimace and a grunt, Eevia retrieved the large plank. All the children started to cheer. There would be a game of danger today after all.

   Clothes were left on the shore, but the winds were so fierce that the children had to stack rocks on the cloth to keep them from flying away.

   They swam out to a distance where no one's feet could touch the ocean floor. "All hands on the perimeter!" shouted Agus,who's voice was barely heard against the crashing of distant waves.

   There was no countdown to the start- the children had begun to tire as soon as they submerged. It didn't take long for twenty hands to drop to six. Eevia, Agus and Jasi were the only ones remaining.

   Eevia dropped her arms to tread water for a moment so she could look out to the shore. "We're starting to drift away!" she cried worriedly.

   Agus was more preoccupied with what she'd done than what she'd said. "You're out!"

  "How am I out?" she snapped.

  "You let go with both hands," Agus nearly swallowed a cup of the sea on his last word.

   "We should go back anyways."

   "You're just saying that because you lost!"

   Eevia looked at Jasi gravely. "Come on brother, lets go. Let him win so we can all swim back safely."

   Agus's eyes shifted to glare at Jasi. "Go ahead, do it Jasi! You knew I was going to win anyways."

  Jasi wanted nothing more than to get out of the freezing water, but Agus had messed with his pride for the last time.

   "I can still win!" he bellowed.

   Eevia tried once more to convince her brother, but at the first crack of lightning she grew too afraid to stick around any longer. Agus and Jasi spent many more minutes on the raft. When the sky turned dark blue, Agus finally said,

   "Just give up! You can't win!"

   "You give up!" exclaimed Jasi, angered by the idea that Agus expected him to let himself lose.

   The storm grew fiercer and a large wave tossed the boys underwater. Jasi managed to keep one hand linked to the boat, while Agus reappeared fairly distant.

   "I win!" Jasi cried triumphantly. When the game was over, it was customary to have the runner-up carry the winner back while he rested on the raft- but with another massive wave, Agus was nowhere in sight. Jasi could not even spot out the shore.

    Suddenly immersed in fear, Jasi's heart beat rapidly in his chest and his head grew dizzy. He abandoned the raft and swam as fast as he could, unsure of where he was heading. The waves were crashing in all different directions.

   Exhausted, he tried to float on his back for just a moment to catch his breath- but the sea was relentless. His face sunk beneath the trembling surface.

   He felt a hand drag him underneath the blue.

  "Little land animal," a voice asked him, "what are you doing at the heart of the ocean?"

  Jasi could not respond. He was sure he was drowning. He opened his eyes and saw what had dragged him under the current, to where the water was calmer. A pair of bright glowing eyes lit the man's pale, ethereal features.

  A beam of light dangling from his finger, the man touched Jasi's lips. The young boy gasped; his lungs filled with water.

   Somehow he felt like he could breathe again.

   "There," the man spoke once Jasi seemed a little more comfortable. "Now answer me," he prodded.

  "I don't know," Jasi stuttered, "I just want to go back to the shore."

   "Your body will surely suffer on the surface, now that I've saved you."

   Jasi did not fully understand, but he knew there was something wrong. How could he be alive without breathing air for all these minutes, much less be able to talk? "What have you done to me!?" he cried in panic.

   The man's eyebrows furrowed in disgust. He gripped the boy's neck and dragged him deeper, screwing downwards in an underwater tornado. "How dare you raise your voice at me! You were just a mortal, a doomed one at that! Is this how you repay your maker?"

  Jasi was vibrating in terror, but the powerful man could no longer sympathize. "Go ahead! Get washed up on the shore and dry out like a dead fish. Maybe then you and your greedy species will learn the consequences of your foolish pride."

   The stream of water unraveled, and spat Jasi's body away. Limp and confused, he was returned to the sand on the back of the indignant waves that same night.

   A group of adults had been pacing the shores in search for the missing boy. Still barely alive, his weakened body was taken to the lodge in the center of the village.

   He was awake, but his skin was hot and pale- his breathing quick and staggered. It looked very much like the end.

   This tribe did not have a doctor; the wisdom of the chief was all Jasi's grieving family could look to for an answer to whether or not the boy would survive.

   "It was the son of the earth and the stars who has laid a curse upon this boy," the Chief explained, "his days are numbered."

    A tear splitting from her eyes, Eevia pointed her finger at Agus in rage. "It's his fault!"

    Agus had made it back to the shore safely just minutes after he'd lost sight of the raft, but he too felt somewhat sickened by the events. Ashamed, he turned away and shied his face between the bodies of his parents, who'd been part of the search team.

   An argument commenced between the families, but the chief silenced everyone with a smack of his walking stick on the dark oak floor.

   "There can be lots of discussion on who is at fault, but words of blame will not save the child! We will try to help him, and becoming pitted against one another will ruin our odds."

    Everyone's lips were pressed together tightly as the chief led a march of his people with the boy wrapped in a thick blanket carried in his arms. They journeyed back to the shore, where the thunder was booming and the rain was pouring like a violent mist.

    "Rage, God of the Seas! We accept you here on our shore. Please explain your reasons for harming this innocent boy, so we can accept if fate leaves him passed too soon!"

    A whirlwind of water swept across and the man emerged, his feed locked into the waves beneath him. He stared downward upon all the people-gathered around the body of the boy he'd sent back.

   "You are mistaken," the god speaks righteously, "I have gifted the boy, not harmed him! Your kind is rude... selfish! The other animals only care to survive, and they would have thanked me for what I did. I spared him, and he showed no gratitude." 

   The wise chief understood what had occurred now. The god had discovered Jasi when he was drowning and did all he could to save him, which meant converting him into a creature of the sea. The child was too young to acknowledge the terminal consequence of playing the danger game, and yet he was too old to cluelessly accept this wild sentence. Poor Jasi had only been too afraid to express gratitude.

   

    "He's just a child," the chief tried to reason with the god, "it is too soon for him to leave his family and adapt to a life at sea."

   The god pondered this for a moment, then gazed deep into the wide eyes of Eevia and then the face of her distraught parents.

   "Very well," he determined, "I see here a loving family. A caring community. A just leader.  But-!" He raised his arm, and thunder struck all around them, "humans! Your kind keeps me suspicious."

   "Worry not!" the chief called out victoriously, "if a rational leader and a righteous community is what you desire from out people, that is what we will continue to be."

  The god turned away without a further word. The tribe was not sure what that meant- for both the fate of the boy and for their own lives.

  The chief assured everyone that all would end well.

  But that night, Jasi's sleeping body rose from its slumber. His eyes were rolled backwards; only the white parts with their vessel-stained underbellies showed through his cold, crusted eyelids. He mindlessly roamed through the village, terrorizing the people with a hunger for their insides.

  At sunrise, the chief woke to discover what had become of his tribe. Avoiding the twitching bodies of the other children who had been infected as well, he took off for the sea, begging the god to return once more and undo what had become of his village. But even if he did had the power to reverse events and return lives, which is beyond the ability of even the divine, the god would not have taken this tragedy back. He had intended it.

   Why had the god allowed such an undeserving thing to a village he even claimed himself was rightful...? One can't truly know. The chief knew perfectly well, however, that the god he'd asked for mercy from goes by the name of Rage. And though the god did not emerge, from the water he heard a voice, "What use is a warning with no experience of the consequence?"

   And that was the day humanity was warned:

   If we lose the justice in our leadership and the empathy of our people, the sea will come back to steal our children.

  What do you think happened next?

THESE CONTENTS WERE FOUND TAPED INSIDE AN OLD THREAD-BOUND NOTEBOOK, WITH "PROPERTY OF JACE ORION" WRITTEN ON THE INNER FRONT COVER.

Chapter 1

GASOLINE

    I've been lying about my age for so long that I forgot how old I really am.

   It all began when I was about twelve I'm guessing. My family and I were living in one of the few trailer parks that still had a stable community. There were break-ins every week, if not every night, but it was the only choice we had because children my age weren't allowed inside government-created SafeZones. It was too risky. Complaining about it was selfish - just one fluke in the system and you could have a live zombie stuck inside a city with walls two stories tall. Besides, nobody really complained anymore anyways. The whole world was a nightmare.

   I still remember the first time I saw one. My father had his back pressed to the door, my mother handing him just about anything she could find to see if we could wedge the exit shut until help came. Though drops of sweat dripped down his cheek, his face showed no fear. Just pure frustration.

   He looked me between the eyes and said "I am going to do whatever it takes to get us inside a city."

   We traveled westwards for so many miserable months- sleeping in abandoned cars each night. We were told if we continue down the interstate, we might find a SafeZone that would allow me in. One morning I heard something rather unusual: the sound of engines roaring. It was impossible for cars to move on the highway; there were too many stationary ones blocking the way. however, these engines were loud- these vehicles were moving fast.

   My father threw off his shirt and waved it in the air.

   It was a gang of motorcyclists. It had never crossed our minds that motorcycles would be able to weave through the obstacles on the road. They stopped to greet us. They needed gas.

    Upon exchanging stories, we were handed a card. A man who sported a thick gray beard and a studded leather jacket told us about a Ramecha. There was a SafeZone no more than 100 miles north, and they would accept a kid my age. We were overjoyed. I watched our heroes as they stuck these strange pipe devices down the tanks of old cars to retrieve fuel for their bikes. I remember that one of them scruffed my hair as a goodbye, and I had been smiling cheek to cheek in awe and relief as we watched them disappear beyond the horizon. But the sounds of their engines had stirred the hungry children, lusting for a meal.

    The three of us were alone again. We fled, hopping inside a car. The engine would not start, and we knew that the bike gang had been a rare sight- there would be no more help for a long time.

    After an hour passed, my father darted out of the car and raced to another one. He managed to kill all the zombies by pinning them between vehicles, but had not succeeded without a grizzly bite on his arm.

   We were lucky enough to find another inhabited park along the way, and my father survived after suffering through a painful amputation. It's took many months for him to recover and many more until we decided to resume our journey to the SafeZone- except I had changed. I was taller, my jaw more angular and speckled with soft hairs. My mother joked that I would pass for an adult easier than I could pass for under 13, but it no longer became a joke when another group of people admitted that they too were on their way to Ramecha. Traveling in a larger group would make the journey much safer for us, and living in a city finally seemed possible again.

   The only way I could get in was if I lied about my age, so when we eventually arrived with the other group, that's what we did.

   All adults are required to be vaccinated, but the vaccines were proven to be ineffective on children.    An early vaccination meant that I would be penciled in the system as clear, and would never again have the opportunity to prevent the disease.

   It wasn't ideal, but it was too late by the time we reach the border's infirmary. I was trembling from the moment my father wrote me off as 19 to the second the nurse injected the needle in my skin.

   I would never be safe.

   Memories of life before the outbreak were dim until we moved into an apartment inside Central Ramecha. This place felt a lot like the town I used to live in. The only thing that was reminding me of the danger outside was the lie that got me in here; I was not allowed to go to school with other kids my age that had grown up inside of the safety zone – I was supposed to be several years past that kind of education. I join classes for other young adults that were willing to catch up, but it was obvious after just a few weeks of adult school that opportunities for citizens who missed their prime years of school were much more limited.

   Two years after our arrival I was offered a choice:

   Either I would have to find myself a paying job, or the Department of Safety would assign me one as a recruiter. I would leave the safety of Ramecha and join a team of other bodies who were currently useless to the system. We would travel around the abandoned roads of the state and hand out cards just like the one that the bike gang had given us.

   Upon this news I wondered whether or not the bikers where recruiters themselves, but after meeting some of the people who are already in this business, I knew they couldn't have been. The bikers were probably offered that card by a recruiter and denied- knowing that freedom was already ripe for their taking on the lifeless roads.

   Recruiters were all young and dumb; even though I was certain I was the youngest, I felt much more mature than some of the kids who are raised inside the SafeZone. They were all excited to finally leave the confines of the city when I knew they should be terrified. I was especially nervous, knowing that I wasn't properly vaccinated. Would I die if I was bitten, or would I turn? Which would be worse anyways?

   My mother gave me this journal when I told her my choice. We all knew it was dangerous, given that I was probably still a young teenager, but everyone knows that it's impossible to find a decent job in Ramecha. It seems there were only two professions left on our barren planet worth anything anymore. Food and produce dispensers were a difficult branch to join after the industry had become monopolized. Position openings were unheard of. Then there was becoming a doctor. Readily available? Yes... but who would let in a kid like me? I knew nothing of blood and bones except for the awful stench of it when it's fresh outside your lawn.

   We head out of the city tomorrow. Saying goodbye will be hard, but my parents have accepted that I've become an adult now. They've passed into that sighful, comforted state that parents come into when their children are no longer children anymore. Sometimes I feel like they're lying about their age too.

   One of the reasons I picked this fate was because we are all going to be given motorcycles.

   The other newly drafted recruiters and I were all driven in a large tank to a motorcycle factory a few hours south of the border. Some people attempted to converse during the trip, but we were in the belly of the machine too loud for comprehension. It left us staring at one another- or at our feet- the whole time. I found myself staring at a girl sitting a few steps in front of me, though I politely tried not to. A lot of us were staring at her though. She looked like she was only sixteen years old, but she was bigger than all of us – well, heavier. She seem to take up two seats.

   I've been trying to catch glimpses of her strange shape, for she was such an outlier to the rest of our group. But then, as the tank jostled us over another car, I saw a lock of her hair shy behind her ear. Her face was miserable, and she quickly unhooked the brown curl so it could shade her eyes from us again. She knew we were watching.

   I should've done something more, but I spent the rest of the time giving disappointed looks to the others whom were still watching.

   The structure of our training was anything but organized. There were a couple old-timers among us who were hired to teach us how to survive the roads. They mostly taunted us, prying on whether or not we were tough enough for this job. I stood before the men respectfully as their voices took up all the peace in the cavernous warehouse. "This is a commitment. This is a service to Ramecha. Are you ready?" It all felt morbidly doomed. If I wasn't feeling ready, how could these giddy fools itching to receive guns be any more ready for this than me?

   Once they quit slandering our inexperience, we were given a few tips. It did feel slightly more preparing to be taught some tricks of the road. One of them was how to extract gasoline from abandoned vehicles. I was reminded of the day we were handed a Ramecha card by the bikers. "Wishing you a safe trip," he'd chuckled. The irony stung now. Just as the memory invaded my mind once more I heard an instructor say, "...and remember to set up camp a good distance from your bikes. The sound will attract the kiddos."

   We were asked who wanted to be in the return crew in case someone got injured. I thought about raising my hand, but two things made me stop:

   If someone was bitten, and I had to carry them on my bike there was a chance I could get infected.

  Secondly, I would've thought that more people would be open to the idea, but no one was volunteering. It was the way the man had said it; his tone was condescending, as if he'd asked who was scared enough to already want a free pass back to safety. I couldn't let myself be the weakest of this crew.

   Eventually there were some volunteers, but I wasn't one of them. Neither was the chubby girl. Her chin stuck forward firmly. I couldn't tell whether she was tense because she was determined to prove herself brave too, or maybe she was trying not to cry.

   It was early in the morning when they open the warehouse's main door. My whole body stung to see the pale light of open sky.

   We were to travel in groups of ten. The girl is in my group. That made the other nine of us nervous and frustrated. How far could we get with her on our team? We would be paid depending on the area we covered. Sure we were on bikes, but how many stops would we have to make because of her?

   A boy nudged my side with his elbow and joked, "well at least if we get hungry will have a meal for the next three weeks."

   I snickered under my breath as well. It couldn't hurt if she couldn't hear it.

   The keys to my bike were pressed into my palm, and for a moment I closed my eyes and pretended like something good was happening to me.

Chapter 2

DUCT TAPE

    We've been on the road a couple hours now. I think I'm going to like this job after all. Our journey picked up slowly as we got used to the bicycles. They're fairly large and not nearly as cool as the ones I dreamed of owning back when I was just a kid- where the element of balance was involved in riding. These were easy to adapt to, therefore making the most difficult lesson how to navigate between cars. But that became pretty self-explanatory too.

   In the survival-packs we were given, one of the tools was a sharp gadget that could carve through metal like a can-opener. Our instructors stopped us at a large, overturned cargo truck and showed us how to use the tool to open up the metal siding  and retrieve more resources for our journey. After that, they turned back and left the ten of us on our own.

  I remember that moment feeling much more liberating than I'd expected. We were officially on the clock now, I guess.

   During our second stop there was nothing more to discuss regarding survival, which allowed us some time to introduce ourselves to each other. The boy who had bumped my arm to share his joke spoke his name the loudest; a greeting between him and one other seemed to be a statement to all nine of us.

   His name was Augustus, and although he may have been just a few years older than me (In actuality, on paper I was considered 22) he was tall, fit and charming. It only took a few minutes for everyone to deviate to the circle he was a part of.

   Like most of the younger recruiters, Augustus had grown up within the barriers of the SafeZone, and never really experienced the full breadth of the apocalypse devastation. He and a couple others in the group were Ramechan natives. The rest were older, and had seen -to some extent- their share of this reality. They were much more cautious, but the warm, inviting nature of Augustus's conversation persuaded them to stop peeking through the window blinds and spend a moment off guard.

   We were inside a gas station. Most everything had already been ravaged if it wasn't already well past its expiration date. There were a few products I wondered would be worth the extra weight in my bag.

   I noticed the chubby girl paying attention to an item- she wasn't interested in making small talk with the others. I wasn't sure what she was looking at because the aisle between us blocked my vision. She picked it up and slipped it in her bag, returning to gaze out the window.

   I pretended it was a coincidence that I had also decided to scope out that particular aisle. She picked up duct tape. When wasn't duct tape useful? When I was certain she wasn't looking, I too threw a roll into my bag. I didn't want her to think I was watching her.

   "The sun hasn't set yet," I heard Augustus announce, his voice filling all the space in the small building. "We should ride for a little more."

   We were all surprised by who decided to counteract his proposal. "We should stay here," spoke the girl firmly.

   Her tone was stern, enough to earn a moment of respect from Augustus. "What's your name?"

   "Eva."

   "Well... Eva. I know you might be tired. We all are. But the more distance we cover, the larger our paycheck. So I say we ride."

   She pressed her lips together as the others brushed past her, refusing to accept their condescending glares. She did look up at me.

   For the brief moment our eyes matched up, we both understood that we were in agreement. It was not a wise choice to continue at this time of day.

   Eva and I trailed in the back. The wind was too loud for much more communication than basic signals. After half an hour she pumped her fist forward twice. I wasn't sure what that meant until she began speeding ahead of the group. I followed her, dashing through more narrowly spaced vehicles in order to catch up to the front.

   She'd halted the entire group. We all took off our helmets to hear hat she had to say. Again, she suggested, "We should stop here."

   "You're wasting our time!" Augustus growled, "We've got plenty of daylight-"

    "We don't have enough to get us safely to the next stop."

    "I understand you're scared, but-"

    Suddenly she was yelling. "I am not scared, and I'm not your burden! Now all of you, get that thought out of your head and listen to me!"

   Everyone was silent. Her last words had definitely gotten the attention of us all; she'd even widened her gaze to the entire group. She didn't have to look at me to confidently explain, "We just passed a sign that said last stop for the next thirty miles. Maybe we could get there in time, but why risk it? Driving like this... weaving through cars in the dark... I don't imagine its easy, and this is our first night. We should turn back- I saw a motel just a mile off the freeway a little ways back."

    It was the voice of reason, and though none of us expected it coming so assertively from her, we knew she was right. Another girl piped up, "I saw that sign too."

   "Alright, fine," Augustus sighed.

    Our motors back to life, the team followed Eva this time.

    The motel was a good choice for many reasons. We were given sleeping bags, but laying on a floor somewhere would have made us all stiff and cranky for the next morning. Another pleasant surprise was that we found other people. There was an older lesbian couple- the owners- who had proudly wielded their rifles to protect anyone who came through in exchange for food and company. They welcomed us in willingly with what we had to bring.

   Currently the only occupants other than those women was a family of three- a father and his two sons of eight and fourteen.

    There was an awkward hesitation- everyone was privately wondering whether or not we should recruit them for Ramecha. We all knew that the young teen would be turned down at the door. When the father asked us who we were, however, one of the girls in our group felt obliged to explain.

   "I get more worried every day," he heaved a defeated sigh after we mentioned our age cap was thirteen. "Luckily we have Barb and Milly. I'm sure we'd be up with their mother right now if it weren't for those two angels."

   As our group began to filter into the remaining secured rooms of the motel, I noticed Eva depart. I followed her until I saw she'd stopped at the door the family of three resided in. As she knocked, I hid behind a wall.

   It was only incomprehensible mumbling at first, but after a few minutes I could hear a clear sob break from the father's chest. "Thank you," he cried, "thank you so much!"

   When the door clicked shut and I heard Eva's footsteps on the porch hallway, I tried to make a casual escape. She stopped me.

    "What's your name?"

    "Jace," I turned to look at her. I was afraid of the curious expression I might have been wearing now that I had permission to gaze upon her. "What did you tell that man?"

   "There's a way to get into Ramecha when you don't fit the age requirement. You heard about it?"

   Now I felt put on the spot in an entirely different way. I could only shake my head.

   "I noticed that the older boy has a scar on his leg. If he fakes a limp well enough, they'll let him in. They're usually lenient in evaluating disabilities if the family has more younger children involved."

   I did know that. It just never pertained to me since I was an only child. I knew it wasn't in my place to question the ethics of her statement- but to keep up with my own lie- I asked her if she truly felt that was right.

    She bowed her head. "I'm only seventeen, you know?"

    "You're not an adult yet? You don't have to serve..."

    "Eh," she shrugged, cutting me off, "I wanted to. I was sick of my family. I have two younger siblings, and we don't have a dad. I knew my mom couldn't do it anymore on the road. We came to Ramecha when I was fourteen, and they wouldn't let me in. My mom read the guidelines and figured out that obesity counts as a disability. She wasn't willing to permanently injure me to get all of us in, but after I gained all the weight I was never able to lose it, so I guess you can say it was permanent."

    It all made sense now- why she looked so young yet knew so much about survival. I felt sorry at once for ever thinking her size was caused by gluttony, when in fact it was created in pure selflessness. I wonder how she might react knowing I too was just around her age, but what had I sacrificed?

   "You must've lived outside too, she added after some silence. I nodded.

    "Let's stick together," she said, "I know what I look like. But you and I know better than anyone how to survive on these roads."

  She offered her hand, and I took it with a firm grip and a smile.

   The next morning, Eva and I led the pack.

Chapter 3

AMMO

    After a week on the road, it was pretty clear that Eva was now our leader. Every call she made was sound and agreeable. Augustus wasn't taking it well. He usually glowed, constantly cracking jokes with a sunshine grin. On day three Eva brought us to a packaging factory that had more food than we could carry. Augustus had sneered, "Of course 'Fattyva' knows where to find all the munchies, huh?" No one laughed. Augustus was shut down, like a factory in an apocalypse; he delivered rude jokes no more, and always looked like a dark cloud was hovering above his head.

    We'd been lucky with the weather up to today. The sky is grey, and bares little sun on our planet. No rain yet, but its imminent. At noon, Eva herded us to a restaurant: Doobie's Diner. The seats are glittery red under a thick layer of dust. One of the lights is somehow still working.

   She looked out the window, where a half crispen building seems to be melting around a tall redwood tree. "We shouldn't move today," she tells me, "it's going to rain."

   It's a bold decision- we’ve never paused more than a couple hours in daylight. Then again, there wasn't much daylight to call it that.

   Augustus had heard us. He took it as his chance to make some influence again. "Stop now? You've got to be kidding me." Once again, his loud voice brought everyone's attention to our conversation. They were all listening.

   "It could start pouring at any minute. That's going to be a miserable ride."

   "Since when did you become the weather girl? And since when was this job supposed to be comfortable? It's not our job to cruise around in the sun all day. We have to move." Augustus had actually made a valid argument. Some of the others were joining his side now, a chorus of head nods and excited mumbles.

   "The point of this job is to survive," Eva grumbled. "You keep acting like this is some kind of competition. Well guess what? You can't get anywhere when you're sick with a fever because you've been riding around with soppy clothes."

   "Maybe your body can't handle a little drizzle," Augustus scoffed, "but everyone else here- I'm sure of it- could take a little challenge. Besides, if it starts to rain- worst case scenario- we end up back at Doobie's. We can push ourselves, right my friends?"

    A few teammates were already settled on Augustus's decision, and the zipping of bags was all the sound that remained now. No one argued for Eva- not even me. I was one of the people who still quietly remained on the fence, wondering which of the two would compromise their plan first. Eva, slightly dejected that her merit was no longer being recognized, still seemed adamant on staying.

   "Its not worth it, Augustus. If something bad happens, it adds a whole new layer to the problem if the weather is like this."

    "Fine," Augustus raised his eyebrows, like he was suddenly struck with an idea. "If this is all about comfort levels and not about the actual job, what’s to say we can't split up? D-1..." he pointed at himself, and then to Eva, "...D-2."

   Splitting the group had never crossed any of our minds until now. We all knew there were many safety benefits to traveling together, but it wasn't always convenient to have nine other bodies to look after. Eyes were shifting around in confusion and uncertainty as Augustus and a few other boys- his closer friends from the group- heaved their bags over their shoulders and started towards the door.

   The reality of it was all the remaining people would leave with D-1 too. As great of a leader as she'd proven herself to be, Eva couldn't perform as well in an emergency situation compared to those three well-built men.

   I did what I had to do to keep the group together.

   I grabbed my bag and hurried out the door behind them.

   The cold was already biting my arms. Eva chased me outside, but she couldn't get a word in before Augustus.

   "Ah, the loyal sidekick decides to switch sides! How interesting..."

   "Jace, what are you doing!?"

   I hopped on my bike in silence. Already three more recruiters had come out as well. I was sure the other two were getting prepared to leave already. Eva lowered my arm forcefully as I tried to put my helmet on, and her aggressive action sent chills down my body, I ignored the sparkling sensation between my legs and gave her my reason. "Let's not split the group, Eva. Augustus might be right. Like he said- in the worst case we can turn back. You can say you were right."

   A girl had Eva's bag strap across her arm. "Come on Eva, you shouldn't be alone."

  She took a deep breath and gave in.

  After riding a week in the front, I was too used to the position to give it up. A few minutes into the ride I noticed that Eva was somewhere in the middle of the line. It was Augustus who was next to me this time, his two buddies close behind us. With his incredibly loud voice, he was still able to talk to me- although I couldn't say much as yes or no in return. He seemed to prefer the one way conversation anyways.

  At one point he asked, "so are you and Eva like... a thing, or something?"

  "No!" I shouted back. I wasn't sure why I sounded so defensive.

  "Oh good," he laughed, "'cause you can do so much better, man! I know there's not a lot to look at around here, but I mean, even Wilda Kenks beats oink-oink back there, am I right?"

   "She's not that bad man, come on." Being serious with him would serve no purpose, but his slandering humor was starting to annoy me. I may have thought Eva was beautiful, what was so wrong with that? Ever since she'd opened her story to me and taken charge of our group, I started to look through her physical features and see her for the courageous girl she actually was. In fact, I was starting to believe I had less of a chance with her than she did with me. She was too focused on the task of getting us through our assigned route while reaching out to as many drifters as possible; if she thought about me becoming more than a friend she didn't show it. Her indifference to me didn't make my secret attraction to her any easier.

   Augustus's laughter roared louder than his bike's motor. "You're funny, Jace. You're one of those nice guys. Every group needs to have one I guess. You should join me, Tid and Masco. We'll be unstoppable!"

   He was charming, alright, I had to give him that. I liked the sound of having a quartet of bros to depend upon in this wild recruiting game, and I was already somewhat convinced. Tid and Masco were decent men from what I'd seen. Augustus? I guess he's "one of those mean guys." Every group needs to have one, right?

   We sighted something unusual in the distance. A car had been flipped over, and the rusted metal works of its belly had some white markings on them. Augie and I halted the group.

   The spray paint had faded, and it took some time to decipher the message.

    "Port Antigone Shelter - 50 miles South"

   "That's just an hour and half," Augustus exclaimed, "we can stop there for the night, and have an early-off day! Let's push this last stretch, people!"

   His engine roared back to life before anyone could differ from his suggestion. A deep mist had already coated the atmosphere, and it didn't take long for the rain to start pouring down. My knuckles felt numb with the combination of wind and wet handles. I looked over at Augie occasionally but he kept his head forward, moving along while pretending he wasn't feeling what all of us surely were.

   Ten minutes went by and then we heard a series of honks. One of the people in the back had started to tremble so badly that they could no longer control their bike. Eva was waiting with her, as well as one other person. A third had sped up to us to stop the group.

    "What do we do?" Masco looked to Augie for a solution. Although he may have been wrong in pushing the limits, he was still the leader in the present moment.

    His eyes flickered to the distance, and then he looked at me. "I guess we should find the nearest place to take shelter."

    But there was nowhere to go. We'd been traveling along a narrow highway, only one lane to the east and one to the west. The rest was trees.

   The girl who'd fallen wasn't too badly hurt -only suffering from rashes from scratching the asphalt- but she was shivering worse than the leaves in the wind. She kept apologizing when she was Augustus and I approaching, her eyes red and framed with teardrops.

    Eva, who had been crouching next to her to comfort the girl, stood up to meet us. Though it was obvious in her face that she was frustrated her advice had not been heeded, she did not mention anything. "She needs to get somewhere warm, or she's going to be too sick to move tomorrow."

   "She can sit on the back of my bike," Augie suggested, "we can still make it to Port Antigone."

    "Penny isn't the only one struggling," Eva snapped, and a crack of thunder followed. She looked up to the sky and then sighed down at her feet. "We have to find the next place on foot, and leave our bikes here. The zombies must already be on their way because of the noise."

    Something I'd picked up from living in Ramecha was that the z-word had become as triggering as a cuss to the people who'd lived within the confines their whole life. After all, most of the natives had never even seen one in real life. Augie seemed startled by her statement, but nevertheless nodded in agreement.

   Another crash, and the rain poured even harder. Now I could barely hear anything under the sound of water droplets panging on my helmet.

   Eva led a group off the road while Augustus, Tid, Masco and I took care of everyone's bikes, parking them all where we could find them tomorrow.

   Then I heard another boom- but it wasn't thunder. It was a gunshot.

  "Look out!" Masco screamed.

   This one was large- maybe a teenager. It was so deformed I couldn't tell whether it had been a boy or a girl. Half of its skeleton crept out of its skin. It was just a few feet away from me, disguised between the trees and shadows.

   Masco had shot it once, but anyone who knew about zombies knows it's not that easy. They don't respond to pain, and their chests are useless to puncture; it was as if they didn't need their lungs. A shot to the heart could stop one, but that required precision, especially in the younger ones. Even then, they seemed to gather themselves and keep coming at you. A shot to the head would eventually kill one, but still, they could keep moving for enough time to do some damage.

   I had never used a gun before. I sure none of us had. We were given guns, not training, not training. One was useless without the other, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to even draw my gun, much less shoot it. I'd only ever had to fight a zombie when I was with my parents, and we never killed them ourselves. We did what he had to do- hit them- run them over- then we'd make a run for it.

    I shot the zombie in the head just as my mind finished racing with all these thoughts of self-doubt. It slowed, and then flopped over.

   There were several more coming from behind that one. All of them were teens.

    Unlike the tales in stories, these creatures moved just as fast as they could. Only a serious injury could stop them, and that didn't mean a hole in the leg, it meant a missing leg. All of these were mostly healthy compared to the first-comer, and they were charging.

   I knew we had to flee, but Augustus stood his ground. He had his gun raised, parallel to his face. He shot several times in a row- until he ran out of ammo. It caused some of them to fall, but three were still sprinting right at him.

    "You have to run!" I cried, but he responded too late. He kicked one of them off his leg, barely managing to scamper back to his feet.

   I'd been so preoccupied watching Augustus struggle to catch up with me that I'd forgotten to keep moving. Tid and Masco were already out of sight.

   Augie was beside me now, and we were speeding down the road as fast as we could- but running straight meant running in a random direction. We were lost.

   He slowed down and both of us looked behind. Had we shaken off our pursuers?

   We pressed our backs against a van, and both of us were trying not to breathe as hard as we were. The van began to shake. Zombies were not very intelligent at times; they tried to walk straight to the smell of their target, often mindlessly banging their bodies against solid surfaces to the point of dismembering themselves.

    Finally one had found its way around the side, and I promptly shot it in the neck. At the same time, another had climbed over the van and jumped onto my back.

   Augustus tried to help me pry it off, but it was too late. I felt teeth entering my skin.

   The first stage is absolute pain.

   The second stage is doubt. You doubt it just happened to you. You think maybe it wasn't that bad, maybe its survivable. You think of just about anything to keep from giving up. Fear kept me from allowing these things to continue eating away at my body; the thought was disturbing.

   The next stage was anger, and I used that anger like fuel. I yanked off the door to the van; it wasn't difficult since the metal hinges were already aged with rust. Wielding the door like a shield, I pressed it up against the remaining zombies and watched them sloppily tumble to the ground.

   While they fought against gravity, trying to find some way back to their feet, I managed to shoot each of the between the eyes. Four eardrum piercing bangs, and just one zombie left. Augustus was wrestling the one that had bit me. He screamed in agony as the creature sunk its teeth into his wrist. 

   I didn't have another bullet to spare, so while he continued to pin it down, I came around with the door to the van, placing the ridge across it's neck. With the energy I had left, I managed to sever the head from the body in one push. 

  

   They were all dead. Augustus and I had both been bitten. We looked at each other, completely out of breath. We wore blood all over our bodies- some of it, our own.

   Eva broke into tears when she saw us. Tid and Masco were already at the campsite they'd created, and probably had relayed the news that we might not make it. "Are you okay?" she wrapped her arms around me for a moment that felt too short. 

   "We were both bitten," Augustus spoke for me, "we'll need to be disinfected and sewn up, but the vaccine should take care of the rest."

    "Of course," she nodded her head, "come, follow me. We found a truck in the forest. Looks like someone tried and failed getting around the traffic. It's not big enough for all of us, but Penny is feeling better- you two can stay inside."

    Everyone stared as we entered the circle. They built a fire beside the truck, and I was enchanted by the flame.

   The fourth stage is wonder.

   Will I die soon? Will I turn?

   What if I turn and I infect more people? What will happen to my parents  when the world discovers that I have lied about my age? What if they can't kill me in time, and I continue to roam around and kill, fully conscious yet unable to stop myself? 

    The fire dances, taunting me to come closer. Should I save everyone the trouble and end my life now? Should I walk into the flame? 

    I try to take a step forward, but my body is stiff. My neck aches and pulses. I just realized that Eva had been calling my name multiple times. "Jace, are you-"

    The sound goes mute. The flames grows darker. My eyes close; I don't exactly feel it when my back touches the floor. 

    Just dreams now.

Chapter 4

WATER

   The next morning, a few members of the group departed for Port Antigone to see if they could bring back help. It turns out there's a quicker way to the shelter from where we saw the overturned car- by sea. It was a fisherman's town, perhaps the only one left since the outbreak. The open water was a dangerous place since contact with it was the first cause of zombification, but the people of Port Antigone continued to regularly sail fishing boats, now in search of resources and stragglers rather than edible products of the sea. No one really knows if eating a fish or a crab would infect someone- no one tried.

   The port was on the coast of a large island, and the majority of its survivors were indigenous. They were able to support themselves with the resources they found on sailing trips along the state, as well as weaponry they'd  stolen from the evacuated military base on the opposite side of the island, which is where the bridge to cross over by foot was.  

   I learned all of this with my eyes still shut.

   Despite all this knowledge I'd picked up from a conversation passed over my paralyzed body, I had no idea where I was now or how I got there. Eva and the doctor of Port Antigone had been discussing the history of his resilient town which chose to remain by the water despite its potential hazards. I heard everything they said, but I could not respond. I could barely breathe. 

   Eva pressed something cool up to my lips. It was water. I allowed it to trickle into my mouth, and then I coughed back to life. 

  

   My eyes opened. We were in a strange room, with windows placed only at the top edges of the walls. It was daytime, but I could not see much else outside other than the sky. The storm had cleared the sky back to its blue brilliance,

   I slowly tilted my head, gazing upon Eva. She was standing between me and another table with cloth draped over the wood. After inspecting a moment longer, I could see beyond Eva that Augustus was sitting with his back to mine, moaning as the doctor stitched up his arm. I'd been wondering where that occasional pig squeal was coming from. 

   "Doctor Veras, he's awake!" She smiled nervously. The doctor had a look at me. He wore a grave frown.

   "How do you feel, son?"

   It was a difficult question. The truth was, I did not feel. I did not feel anything at all. "Okay," I lied.

   "You must have been out cold. You did not flinch at all when I sewed up your neck." Just as he finished speaking, Augustus let out another sharp yelp.

   

   Another man I did not recognize entered through a door at the other end of the small room. "We're near the shore, Doctor." He wore the hat of a captain.

   "Stop the ship, We're not ready to dock."

   The captain now bore a concerned expression. "Is everything alright?"

   "Yes. We just need to have these two young men back on their feet." He stared at me again, and if I was capable of feeling panic, this is where it would have kicked in. "Can you stand, my boy?"

   I could stand, although I shouldn't have been able to. It was such an unusual state, not feeling anything. I was tired, practically drained of energy. Yet my body felt light as air. The ground below me felt like clouds. 

  Eva tried to help me walk but the doctor stopped her. "He can do it. Come, follow us up to the deck."

  The sun was so bright I couldn't see at first. Even when my eyes adjusted, everything still seemed blurry because of the intense light. The boat we were on was large, meant for many passengers. I peered over the edge as we came up the first set of stares. The waters were dark turquoise and churning pale as the vessel pushed through. Slowly the chaotic garble of white water ceased.

   I heard a loud gunshot.

   Eva screamed. I looked at her, but she was just gaping at me- the only pain she showed was in her face. 

   "Why did you shoot him?!"

   I'd been shot? I assumed she was talking about me. A couple other recruiters came to gather around me. I stared down at my body to check for wounds, and finally noticed the deep gash in my chest dripping with fresh blood. 

   "He's infected," the doctor said plainly.

   "We've all been vaccinated!" Augustus argued on my behalf, "we can't be infected, he's just recovering like me!" 

    "Look at him!" the doctor spat impatiently, "he didn't even know where he was shot!"

    The truth in that was undeniable, and everyone was staring at me now. It wasn't enough, but I'd given some time to consider the outcome of all this... lying. The secret was out now.

    The blood began to trickle on to the wooden deck. My mind felt void of choices on what to do next, but when I heard the captain say, "you ought to finish him off before he gets hungry," I didn't think twice to throw myself backwards, tumbling over the gate and splashing down into the water. 

   I could still see the boat above the surface, peering through a blue and red mosaic of ocean and blood. A couple heads peered over the edge to watch me sink deeper...

   There was some sadness as I contemplated,

   the end of my time on this world

   the faces of my parents

   I cried

   if only I knew that death would have been much easier that what I had in store for me... (reader, how do you think this journal was finished anyways? Certainly not by a corpse underwater.)

   

   My sobbing caused my to innately take a deep breath, but I knew if could not hurt me anymore than I was already harmed. Somehow, taking all the liquid in through my lungs felt reviving. I was slowly able to feel again, and yet I did not feel the pain of the bullet in my chest. 

   Then I heard a voice calling out to me.

   "Who are you?"

   I looked around, but all was dark. 

   Finally my eyes began to adjust, and I could see clearly, a jaded figure swimming towards me. 

   

Click on image to see full size
- this image was not found in Jace's journal -

   I wasn't sure how to answer. What good would my name do? Jace Orion was a dead man. The figure, although he appeared with human features, seemed supernatural. His eyes glowed and his skin was smooth and amphibious. 

  His presence did not strike me as fearful, but I remained on guard as he swirled around me a few times contemplatively. "Are you an adult..." two swirls, three swirls, "or are you a child?"

  "I'm not sure how old I am."

   "How old you are plays no role to that matter," he told me instructively, "are you an adult, or a child?

   I considered the strange question, nearly stranger than the appearance of this mysterious man himself. "I'm not an adult, but I'm not a child."

   "Then you are neither."

   With a whimsical gesture, he created a current inside the sea that sunk us deeper under the layers of water. I could no longer see the faint light of the surface. 

  "What is neither?"

   "Neither is anything but, but a bit of both," he sang, pleased with himself.

   He motioned again, and again we sunk.

   He placed his hand under my chin, observing my gaze like a scientist. "Neither," he addressed me, "would you like to live with me and the children?"

   I didn't, and that was mostly because I did not have a clue what a creepy statement like that could possibly mean. But I was even more afraid of how he might react if I refused.

   "Perhaps," I said softly.

   

   Suddenly I felt dozens of trembling fingers touching my skin. Little hands surrounded my ankles, drawing me down to the sea floor. A few fish swam around their small, docile bodies.

   They were children.

   Real, human children... living at the bottom of the ocean. They wore empty grins. 

   The man floated behind them and petted their backs kindly. Upon each touch they seemed to tense up and vibrate, a behavior which resembled a muted giggle.  "They don't think or do much, but they are happy- this I am certain of. Soon you will be happy too."

   The fear started to set in. I shook my head, "No.... no... I can't become like this."

   The man frowned. "Well... I assume you want to walk on the shore again."

   I did, but I assumed two things; I felt fine now, but I still carried the infection. If I went back to land I would probably still turn. And the second matter was that this man carried a great pride for where he was living. Stating that I wished to leave would be offensive, and whether it was true or not, it wouldn't help to share it with him.

   "Not the shore," I explained, "I suppose my time on land is done. But these children... they're mindless... meaningless! As long as I'm still alive, my life has to mean something. I can't just be happy without reason."

   He nodded as I spoke, understanding gradually. "That is noble," he claimed. "Unfortunately, my dear friend Neither, you have adult aspiration in a child's body. I have not encountered one like you before, but you are still human. You must choose an element. Be pacified by my waters... or be maddened by the air."

   It was the final option, I realized.

   I chose peace. 

  The man's name is Naceo. and he claims he is the God of the Sea. I have no reason not to believe him. He's many centuries old, but stuck at seventeen. That was when he left the Havens to live out the rest of his days in his own creation- to be alone and far from home. 

   Naceo respected me for reminding him of himself, so he allowed me to roam from his den at the ocean floor. Occasionally I would journey to the surface and look around at the world I left behind. At first it was a way of keeping time- knowing how many days and nights had bassed through the cycles of blue and black skies- but then I realized that balancing myself between the above sea and below was keeping me sane. I never seemed to fade away into the mindless bliss that Naceo warned me of. 

  He noticed this too. 

  "You leave often, Neither," he mentioned one day while combing his fingers through the hair of a young girl as if she were a doll. 

   I was accustomed to the God's strange but peaceful nature by now. His actions worried me less than his question: "Where do you go?"

   I was honest, and I admitted that I had not quite chosen between air and water. "It's kept me well," I tried on a smile, "and I'm considering... going up... just for a day... to write a letter that I hope will reach my parents."

   Naceo was nodding, but he looked quite bitter. "Your parents? Figures... you're a child."

   "A part of maturity is loving your parents," I stood my ground, knowing Naceo would prefer me to speak my mind rather than accept his insult. But I recalled his history and reasoning for leaving Haven. This concept he did not comprehend- or refused to.

  "Well Neither... you may do as you please. You've spent a good time down here with me, and it has not satisfied you. You must own the judgement on which life you want."

    "I'll be back soon," I confirmed, "it's only for a day."

     I pushed off the bottom.

    "Do not break your promise!" he scowled, suddenly turning grim. "You humans are good at breaking promises."

    I wasn't sure what he meant, but I took it as permission to begin my adventure up.

Chapter 5

SHELTER

    A storm was brewing by the time I broke through the surface. I lost count of the days when they became weeks, but it was clear that autumn had long shifted into winder. Months of traveling through water hand transformed me into a skilled swimmer, and once I sighted Port Antigone it only took a few minutes to reach the shore. A massive wave carried me violently to the beach.

    I knew better not to approach the shelter from the ocean side, so I walked around the island for as long as I could until someone who’d been tracing the perimeter found me.

   “Are you alright?” said the woman, who was old and thin.

    I nodded, feigning that I was out of breath. “I saw the sign. I’ve been walking for days. Is this Port Antigone?”

    “You nearly missed it,” she laughed warmly, “follow me. I’ll take you to our doctor.”

   I had not forgotten that the doctor was the one who ruthlessly shot me with no warning, yet I was not afraid. Even if he recognized me, I could make up a story that would be more believable than rising from the dead. The boy could have been my twin brother. Lying was never that difficult for me anyways- as I followed the clueless old women in silence, it dawned on me that the first words I’d even spoken after emerging from the sea had been lies.

   However, the tall tales I’d been inventing in my head as the woman led me to the small house (the hospital) vanished as I came face to face with a familiar friend.

   “Jace?” Eva’s eyes bulged in disbelief.

   “Eva…” I gasped. If it were a surprise for me to see her here, I could not even imagine the shock she was experiencing. She had watched me drown.

    “You two know each other?” the woman smiled curiously.

    “Yes… he’s an old friend. Thank you for bringing him Mrs. Geets, I can help him from here.”  She grabbed my wrist and hurried me away into the next room.

    

      I was still wearing the tattered clothes I’d died in. Eva tossed me a new shirt and a fresh pair of pants as she muttered on in disbelief, “how is this possible? How are you still alive?? How are you not a zo-”

    “I am.” I cut her off before she could name it. That identity didn’t quite suit me anyways. “I turned, it’s true.”

    She stopped her pacing and met eyes with me once more. “I don’t understand.”

    “I can explain everything in a moment. First, I need you to tell me that you can get a letter back to Ramecha.”

    Her gaze shifted up as she thought. “Yes, maybe. When you… left… our group, I decided not to continue. I stayed here in Port Antigone, and became an apprentice to the doctor. Right now he’s helping a group which was on their way to Ramecha. If you need to send a letter, you can deliver it through them.

    “That’s perfect,” I already felt somewhat relieved, “Now all I need is a pen and paper.”

     My eyes trembled across the empty page as I searched inside myself for an appropriate tone.

    

   It was as honest as I could concisely be.

   When I set down the pencil, I took an extra moment to gaze at Eva. Her long hair was tied back in a  bun and her eyes seemed brighter. If she lost any weight it wasn't apparent, but she looked happier here than she was on the road.  Perhaps leaving behind all her connections to Ramecha had lessened an emotional load on her shoulders. 

  There may not have been much change to Eva, but there was certainly a change in the way I saw her. She was strangely desirable.

    She noticed I folded up the letter.  "Here," she offered her hand, "I'll do my best to get it to Ramecha." My fingers smoothed her palm as we exchanged the paper. The temperature of my skin was noticeably colder, and reminded her of the explanation I owed. "How are you still alive?" she whispered again.

   Could I tell her about Naceo? Would she even believe there was a demented god living at the bottom of the sea? I’d made an important discovery for our doomed generation, and that was related to the ocean- the entity which caused modern society to crumble into apocalypse. “The ocean,” I began, “is the root of all zombies.”

   She already knew this, but she still remained on the edge of her seat and yet perfectly patient. I admired her as I continued, “somehow, breathing ocean water stops the bloodlust. It makes the zombies passive… like living objects. I’ve seen them down there. They aren’t like the ones tormenting us on the earth… but they’re still not right.”

    Eva nodded, a sudden idea lingering excitedly in her eyes. “You must meet Zupak. He had apparently foretold the outbreak, and he also believes in sending the infected to sea… but despite his premonition, not many people believe him.”

   “If I’m to meet with anyone, you should take me soon. See, the only reason I’m still capable of thinking straight is because I was able to find a balance between living above and below the water.”

   It occurred to Eva that this meant I couldn’t stay, and the eager look on her face paled. “How much longer do you have?”

   I’d arrived on the shore earlier in the day and now the sun had just begun its descent on the horizon. I had until next sunrise until Naceo expected me back, but I’d never spent enough time treading water to know how long my sanity could last. When the curse of the sea even slightly began to subdue me, I would immediately travel to the surface and fill my lungs with sobering air. All I knew of the reverse effect was from the day I was bitten, and trying to recall the number of hours from the fight to the fall from the boat was like trying to count change slipped down a dark sewer drain.

   I’d paused long enough for Eva to accept that it was a difficult answer. She wrapped her arms around me suddenly. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Jace…” she pressed her cheek into my collarbone, sending shivers down my spine. “Whatever happened to you- it’s just such a relief knowing you’re not gone. When you threw yourself overboard…. I couldn’t believe what was going on before my eyes. Seeing you now… it’s much nicer to believe, even if it’s much more unbelievable.”

                                                                                            

   We were embracing for a while. I must have allowed her to rest upon me for a moment longer thn I should have, because she pushed away for a moment and firmly laid her hand on my heart. She was large enough that even when unhooked from each other’s grasp, her skin would still be touching mine. "Your heartbeat..." her eyebrows twinged.
   For a moment I was worried that it had been racing, proving I was nervous and overly elated to be in her presence. But I listened for a moment and realized what she'd been stunned by.
   It was missing.

  With one last look of potential flirtation, she led us out from the side door. "Zupak needs to hear your story," she looked back at me but kept moving, " I promise you can trust him." Her priorities were noble.
   "I'm sure I can," I might've been too willing to agree with anything she proposed.
  The neighborhood was large, but the homes were a great distance from each other. I kept wondering which one we'd enter, but we walked further and further until we abandon the large properties altogether. At the edge of the forest there was an ancient house composed of wood that seemed aged far beyond any of the trees beside it. It looked more like an old temple than it did at home. Eva rapped on the door.
   A young man was there to open it almost immediately. "Eva," he gasped, "is everything alright?"
  "Yes everything's fine. I know it's a bit late for a visit, but I was hoping we could speak to Zupak." I wasn't sure whether it was a mention of "we" or something entirely else to cause the man to finally noticed me -a few steps behind Eva's side. The way he was staring informed me that this man's guests where were rarely strangers.
   "You are?"
   "He's a friend," Eva filled in for me. We were allowed inside passively. He did not look at me again.

   The building seemed even older from the inside, but that was mainly because it felt full of history. There were tanned hides of animals I did not even recognize draped over archways. The seats were mostly just stumps, but all of them bore unique patterns carved into their sides. A glowing fire in the back corner was all the heating the room had. I was entranced by the flames like I'd been the night I was infected. It took a jolt of Eva's arm to peel my eyes away.
   There was a fireplace in the next room as well, but I managed to keep my focus on the thing right beside it. In a rocking chair sat a man a century old, wrapped in a fur-coated blanket. His wispy white hairs grew long down his back, and his whiskers were adorned with wooden beads. It took him a moment to summon the strength to look at me, but when he did, his foggy eyes went wide in fear. He cracked open his mouth and sputtered, "What… is… this?"
   Eva got to her knees to comfort the man, who'd begun to tremble before me. "Zupak, this is my friend Jace."
   Both Zupak and I knew what he was seeing. I wavered backwards, not wanting to threaten him. He looked to Eva. "You must know… what he is… is that why you brought him here?" She nodded with a faint smile and asked me to explain my story.

   "I… I'm only seventeen, I guess. I was infected, so I went to the ocean."
   "You found… Rage... God of the Seas." I met eyes with Eva while confirming his statement.  
   "Yes… well, he found me."
   "I still don't understand," the old man croaked, "Rage spares no one. How is it you are here?"
   "My time is short," I admitted, and for a second I felt a deep lump in my throat which demanded that my time was over, but I swallowed it down and forced it away. "I balance between land and sea in order to avoid losing my mind."
   His body still as wood, he studied me with his glassy eyes and then returned his gaze to the fire.
   "About 200 years ago, my grandfather was the chief of the Araki tribe," Zupak began to paint his story. "The day came where the Araki were attacked by their own children. Not many survived, but my grandfather was spared for an important reason: he held the responsibility… of warning the next generations to come… of the return of Rage."
   I'd always had a strong suspicion that Naceo had a major role in the fate of the human species, but I hadn't held it against him. He wasn't sane enough to be evil. "Rage caused this?"
  "Rage began it... We as people caused it. The day my grandfather met the God for the first time, he had made a promise. The deal was… As long as humanity continue to behave purely, Rage would leave us be."
   "The promise was broken," I recalled Naceo's parting words with me, "You humans are good at breaking promises."
   "Long before his return, I already sensed the end was near. Businesses served themselves more than their clients and labor. Government and law became out of common control. Change was impossible… We dehumanized every institution we created… and turned our own species against one another… I thought the end was going to come much sooner, so as a... more youthful man," a sickly cough ironically interjected his speech, "I had tried taking some action against the establishment. I was the last living member of my family, and though I had many followers, the descendants of the Araki tribe were not nearly enough to influence a new way of thinking for all of the world. I waited in fear for rage to return, and had I known that the world was under prepared for his arrival, I would've crowed louder."
   I wasn't sure if I understood his last sentence. "Underprepared?" He bowed his head. "Rage does not know what he's done to the world... the toll his punishment has taken. He intended his actions to wipe away the population like a selective tsunami." Both Eva and I perked up at this idea, curious what it could possibly mean. But Zupak had begun coughing again. "The God..." his cough intensified, "...was expecting..." he managed to sputter between one final hack of the throat that I had to avert my eyes from.
  "...a sacrifice."
   Eva and I turned to see who had finished his sentence. It was the young man, the caretaker. "Rage only wanted our children, not the whole population."
    If that was so, why would the disease kill adults? I was patient to voice this, for Zupak's voice had reentered. "He wanted was to raise a new society of humans – a better one – by taking away everyone's children and raising them in the sea. But once again humanity proved it was too selfish for its own good, and in trying to salvage our lost offspring, we lost more than half the people in our world."
   As he finished with a defeated release of air from his tired chest, I glanced at Eva– wondering if she believed all this jumbo about gods and unsettled debts– after all, I don't think I would have if I hadn't met Naceo myself. She approach the conversation with some doubt. "Jace told me that the children who live in the seat…" she trailed off, looking to me to finish my own observation.
   "He can't have been aiming for a better humanity. The children are... they're incompetent."
  "Well..." breathed the man halfheartedly, "that does not surprise me. He may be a God, that there is a reason we call him Rage."
  "He is chaos," the young man added, "aware of sentience, and yet incapable of controlling it."
   Zupak nodded with a weak grin, proud his lessons weren't forgotten but dismayed that the truth must be so grim. "Yes... life may have potential with his creations, but anything he creates is dead."  
    There was a pause of tension as Eva I struggled not to look at each other and remember the moment we shared earlier when my heart was as silent as a stone.
  "Why then do you think the cure to the apocalypse is returning the infected children to sea?" Eva wondered out loud.
   "An apocalypse has no cure," he frowned, "...only treatment. It's all we can do."

    Zupak thanked me for coming but was reluctant to shake my hand as we departed. He admitted that he was still uncertain of what I was, and seeing as neither of us were wiser to the answer, I bowed respectfully as goodbye.
    Eva, on the other hand, had no fear. As soon as we were outside she pulled me close and kissed me tenderly. Steadily we walked into the forest, and I need her back against the tree. Her curves are so pleasant to hold onto, and I gripped your sides, working my way to her chest from underneath her shirt. Suddenly I realized my teeth we are dangerously close to sinking into her neck. What was worse was that I truly wanted to pierce them in... tear the flesh... rip it out... devour her... I pulled away just before a scream could escape her lips.
   "Did I bite you?!" I cried, flustered. I cupped her cheek and inspected her neck; it was pink end, but intact. I sighed in relief, resting my head against the tree behind her. From the look on her face I regretted my panic at once. If she was about to make a sound, it would have been from pleasure, not pain.
    Frustrated with myself, I drew her in for comfort, the bridges of our noses resting upon one another's at a slight angle. "What would happen…?" she managed to speak between heavy breaths.
   "You know what would happen," I growled, "…I'm not free from this… disease. It took my body and it will take my mind if I'm not careful."
   Our fingers intertwined, she kissed my cheek and said, "come then, I'll walk you out to the shore."

    I wished so badly I could talk to her as we began our trail through the woods down to the beach, but I lost the words as soon as they crossed my mind. Insanity was verging on me. As each nerve in my body slowly faded into numbness, I watched her move from the corner of my vision. Her skin jiggled; she was slow... ripe like a fruit. I knew better not to open my mouth for certainly nothing good would come out of it in the state of mind.
   Finally she spoke to me. "So what's the god of the sea like?"
   I shook my head. "I'll tell you... later."
   "Is something wrong?"
   We kept walking. "I'm a little… irritated," was all I could say.
   The sand was a few steps ahead, so I halted our journey. "Leave me here."
   She didn't move. "It's hard," she trembled, "I really missed you when you were gone, Jace." Had I missed her? I couldn't pry my eyes from her.... or was it her meat? Was it my rotting brain that was telling me to love her? It was wrong to try and judge my feelings in a state of… unfeeling. Yet still I knew there was something more to Eva that I craved. I felt it earlier when we embraced.
   I stripped down in front of her. She caught my clothes as I tossed them towards her. "Keep these. I'll need them the next time I come back."
 "Okay, "she smiled cheerfully although my mood was clearly burning low. She was watching me as I exited the woods in the nude. "I''ll come here often, I'll let you know when your letter has made it."
  "Thank you Eva," I called back to her as I charged into the dark blue. A wave crashed over me and I dove underneath it, allowing the sea to swallow me back inside its quiet belly.

insert image (Eva's notes)

Chapter 6 

FISH

   Eva and I made a habit of meeting up at the beach. At first I would search for her beyond the shore, but I was wet and bare skinned... it was too cold and too risky for that kind of behavior. So eventually, with some convincing on her behalf, I allowed her to come to me.
  On the west side of Antigone island there was a place where land met water through and the sake of large, dark gray rocks. They seemed like the remains of a fallen cliff that now just barely towered beyond the sea like a wilting mountain. Eva laid out a blanket and framed it with stones on the flattest surface. You could still hear waves crashing below, but I wanted to be sure not a single drop could touch her, so I climbed up to meet her.

   Today the winds were mightier than usual, and I was almost completely dry before I ascended the climb up the rocky walls. The sun set quickly, painting the sky deep indigo.
   She was wearing the towel (that she usually draped over me) around her arms and shoulders. When she saw me she tried to give it to me, but I insisted she keep it. We ended up both inside of it after a few minutes, huddling together for warmth. It wasn't that new of a gesture.
    Eva I didn't have much to talk about. We can share the occasional pre-zombie era anecdote, rarely ever daring to speak of the awful things that followed our pleasant childhood. But eventually the difficult stories were told too.
   We were both eleven when the Dackville incident occurred. I was eating a bowl of cereal when I saw my father rush in from the garage, carrying a large suitcase he would only take for long trips. He tossed it on the floor, unzipped it, and then calmly looked up at me and said, "Jacy, son… When you're finished eating can you pick up all your - only your – most favorite clothes? Can you throw them in this bag for me?" I love going on trips, but I immediately sensed something was wrong.

   When we got the chance, Eva I exchanged these uncomfortable memories.
   In her household it had gone down much differently; her mother had grown obsessively fearful with the outbreak since the first account had been released. She gave her thirty days notice on the rental agreement as soon as she put down the article, and the Segwerth family set out on a "road trip to FairyTale Land," a popular theme park right outside the capital. The children were delighted summer came early.
   Eva admitted that her weight problem began long before they reached the outskirts of Ramecha. Her mother had an emotional breakdown the day the Dackville victims escaped, and the only one there to confess to was Eva, the most matured of her kin. But Eva was just eleven, and although she could keep her mother's secret- that there really was no FairyTale Land, not even a destination to this painfully long and boring road trip – she could not handle it. Stuffing herself had become the only way she could cope with the blind optimism of her younger brother and sister, who would rave about the carnival rides and unlimited shaved ice flavors during each stop for a meal.
   Despite this, Eva had only put on a mild extra layer, enough to be considered healthy in times likes these. When the Segwerths were turned away at the gates of Ramecha, her coping mechanism that night had become more apparent. Her mother had finally acknowledged her daughter's problem, yet instead of comforting Eva when she found her hovering over several chocolate wrappers, she left and returned with a packet of marshmallows, encouraging Eva to finish them all. Eva always recalled the offering as "a heartless way to show she cared."
    The family eventually staked out in the same factory Eva had brought Team D to on our third night. Eva was regularly prepared a meal twice the size of her siblings'. The only ones who ever mentioned this accretion of food were her little siblings, who sometimes complained when their dinners seemed much plainer than Eva's. Without ever coming to a verbal agreement, Eva understood the reason behind this strange ritual. Even when her mother recovered a scale and began weighing Eva nightly, the two of them would never speak of why this information was relevant, why "250" was the magic number.
   Her mother had even begun to invent reasons as to why Eva shouldn't move around too much, for "the little ones need you to look over them," even though Amy and Sam were now eight and ten. She did anyways. Much of what she learned was from escaping out at night and being on her own in the streets. She had her mother's gun and a small pack of supplies. "There wasn't much to do by myself since I had to come back in the same condition. But most of the time I would hit the mall and take clothes that actually fit me. What I was wearing back at the factory was..."
   "Too tight?" I didn't usually prod but it seemed like she couldn't finish this by herself.
   "No... it was loose, intentionally, to accommodate for my changing body. But it wasn't very stylish."
    I laughed. It never occurred to me that the dignified and brave Eva would have fashion on her mind. Smiling with me, she continued to explain how she would break into stores and try on dresses and shirts and skirts using the dim moonlight from the ceiling windows to put on her own show, in some attempt to feel beautiful in her skin. When she was finished, she returned all she had tried on to its former racks (for she had grown immensely paranoid that her mother would somehow discover her tracks) and put the loose "pillowcase of an outfit" back on. And as she turned the corner out of the store, a freshly-turned zombie stood right before her.
    "It was my first encounter on one of my late night adventures. I'd done it a hundred times and they were so rare in that town I figured it wasn't ever going to be a problem. So I let my guard down."
  The zombie chased her back into the store, and she did not have enough time to retrieve the gun from the bottom of her bag. She took an empty clothing rack and stabbed it into zombie's heart repeatedly, until it finally ceased it's rampant vibrating and fell skewered to the floor. "I was alive, but dead in another sense... my outfit was splattered with blood. I figured I had two bad options, so I went with the stylish one."
   Tossing the pillowcase was as sweet as it was sour, but when her mother saw the green button-down dress with yellow and pink floral print, Eva dared to lie. She explained that she had found it in a locker of the packaging factory. She was briefly scorned for roaming the factory alone, but the story was bought. "I should have tried it months ago," she laughed timidly.

    From the curious way she spoke about herself, it was evident Eva had never really shared her life story with anyone before. It was as if externalizing her memories was helping her see how much she's grown… how far she'd come despite all the odds. And if I reminded her how beautiful I found her to be, sometimes I could see all traces of regret washed from her face.
    I'm in love with Eva. If it's because she is my only option, or slow insanity is driving my lust for her body, I do not want to know. She keeps me happy.
   I think Eva loves me too, although this idea grows more and more surprising each day. She may be an obese teen living in a humbly populated shelter on an island, but she is still human. Her social freedom is infinitely more available than mine.
   My only other companion these days has been nice, but any chat with him is a sad excuse for a conversation. He's either speaking nonsense or renting to himself. After I learned of his purpose on our planet I begin to view him as a plague, and consequentially avoided him like one. I decided it would be best not to bring up my encounter with the lone descendant of the Araki chief, and though – through messages from Eva – Zupak had expressed further curiosity on the god's temperament, I had nothing more to say. Rage, as he was called, was an interestingly suitable way to sum up his being. He had two emotions, neutrality and wrath, and every interaction I had with him felt like tip-toeing around a sleeping beast, trying to find the right words to avoid stirring his angered half.

   In this fashion, my life was simple. Becoming aquatic and loving Eva were the only two ways left to improve myself.
   But on this windy day, I was introduced to a new dilemma.

   Eva had been struggling to find a way to mention it. Finally she spoke, "I've been here for a while."
   "You came early?"
    She nodded. "I had to get away from the hospital. We had a lot of visitors."
   Eva wouldn't be one to run away just when her help was most needed, nor would she become queasy at the sight of any gore. This issue had another layer. "Who were the visitors...?"
   "Team D."
    Of all our conversations, we'd never bothered to discuss our thoughts on other members of our recruiting team. I knew Eva resented most of them, and I hadn't really attached myself to any of them except the one she resented most. It was never worth bringing up., so we didn't.
   "They're on their way back to Ramecha?"
   "Yeah, but they're taking it easy. They have several families with them, so ts tricky to move."
    For a moment I was thrown back into the recruiter mindset, and I puzzled over how that journey would have to be played out... what would become of the motorcycles, and how would they deal with zombies? But then I was reminded of something else. "My note," I blurted, "...did my parents get my note?"
   She shook her head. The answer was no.
   Not "I haven't heard yet," or "I'm not sure," ...it was no.

   My brain twinged as I started to investigate. "Why?"
   "We reported the causalities....we had to. We didn't know you were lying about your age, and we didn't even say that in the report..."
I was suddenly aware of what had occurred- maybe it was the way she was dancing around the words:
   Once news of my death had gotten back to Ramecha, the government revisited our house to interrogate. My parents were exiled from the SafeZone for lying about my age.
 
   How long had it been? Winter was nearly over! Months had passed... all this time I thought my parents were coping with my absence under the safety of the city, when really they were actually being punished and left for dead because of my apparent death. It stung like razors in my heart to think of what they had to endure without me, and hurt even worse to try to imagine where they were now.
   "Has anyone heard from them?!" I gasped, not bothering to fathom how unlikely that would be.
   "I'm sorry," Eva whispered, "they left the address you wrote on the letter months ago." They'd been evicted, rather- but Eva spared me the dark language. "They probably didn't go too far! Maybe they found a home right beside the zone. I know there are a lot of families who live against the wall, waiting for their teenagers to..." she trailed off, knowing what she was about to say would have triggered a memory of what could have been done to protect my family.

   My parents had adored Ramecha. All of their neighbors became close friends. My father had pleased everyone with his ability to fix anything with a minimal amount of tools. My mother created many gathers from her activist knowledge and social charm. They hosted events and turned everyone's houses into homes. Parents whom had lost their children early into the pandemic, people who hadn't smiled in years, were happy because of the community work my parents had accomplished. We barely made it into that damn place, and though my parents were somewhat adapted to a life of survival, they were built for a life of intellectual and social challenges.
  To even think of the devastation that followed... being shoved right back out the door that killed their only son...

   I hadn't been paying any attention to what I was doing until I noticed how woozy I'd begun to feel. I was breathing too heavily; my throat felt dry as ashes and my head was spinning. "They didn't deserve to be exiled!" I cried into Eva's shoulder. She shuddered as a broken sob escaped my lungs.
   I was in the wrong setting to be this way. Misery accompanied by air was a recipe for evoking the worst side of me.
   I kisssed Eva as gently as I could manage. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be like this in front of you. I have to go... think."
   Eva grabbed my hand. "Wait. There's one more thing I have to say."
  It was more displeasing news, I could already tell.
   "I turn eighteen in a week," she looked away from me. "I was offered to return with the team so I can get vaccinated."
   I paused, trying to wrap my head around what this meant. "Will you?"
   "Yeah," she sighed, "...it will be good! For us. You won't have to worry about infecting me anymore." It was an issue we'd discussed many times before. I was reluctant to do anything more than kiss and cuddle her for fear that she'd somehow absorb my coldblooded curse.
   But I was hesitant. "How are you so sure that when you get there... you'll want to come back?"
   "Jace," she spoke with a comforting smile, "of course I'll come back for you."
    After all I'd had to decompress today, the though of Eva forgetting about me was beyond my ability to digest. That wasn't the most pressing issue anyways.
   "How are you so sure..." I repeated mystically, "...that you'll make it back?"
   Ramecha was over a week's distance from Port Antigone as I recalled. From the look on Eva's face, she hadn't given the return journey much thought until now. With a layer of coolness glazed over her grin, she promised me that she would make it back- no problems.

   It was harder to say goodbye now, but she told me she'd be back once more before her final departure. "I won't leave you like this."
    Could she see it in my eyes? Eva always understood when the pain arrived... when I needed to return. Sometimes I wonder if it shows on my face in some sort of physical way. Do my lips go pale? Do the whites of my eyes taint pink with irritated vessels? She always hides this look of concern and disgust under a placid smile when I start craving the water.

  As I broke through the surface and little bubbles pluck off my skin, new troubles began to form in my mind. If Eva goes back... if she leaves me... me? I'd be torn apart. Heartbroken. Lonely for a very long time. But...  it would be good for her to be in a safe place. She could live normally; meet someone... normal. I would have to feel okay with those god awful thoughts because it was better for her. I didn't want her to leave, but if she did, I didn't want her to return. Getting back could not be as simple as she'd made it sound.
   I didn't want to believe anything she'd told me today, but the thoughts flooded my head as water flooded my lungs. I began to pay attention to the strange way this felt- the overall bizarre anomaly of the activity. Breathing water. Like a fish.
   "Hello Neither."
   I spun around to find Naceo floating a few feet behind me. I could not pull off a decent conversation with him now, but I could tell from the tone he approached me with that he already knew my emotions were aflutter.
   "I apologize for meddling into...personal business." It all seemed very theatrical, though he wore a serious gaze. "I couldn't help but overhear."
   "Have you been stalking me?!" I spat,
    "Well," he circled me, "it would be unfair to say I was stalking you. If you wanted privacy, you should have chosen somewhere far from my sea."
   I lacked the energy to counteract his point, and he may as well be right. He was unusually patient with me as I stormed off, swimming deeper and farther from the shore. "You seem tense, Neither."
  "I'm just thinking about what I have left," I grumbled, "The disease... its flipped my life upside down... ruined my world... caused so much suffering!" I was so frustrated I hardly cared that Naceo and I had traded roles of aggressive ranter and attentive listener.
    When I expected him to retort with the same anger, I was surprises to hear him hum softly, "you could let it all go."
   "...what?"
    He came beside me as we traveled. "I hear you have lost. You are thinking about how much you have left. It's not a lot, hm? not enough to try and pick up the pieces and build up again. Ow, just thinking about it hurts! Just thinking hurts!"
   He wasn't wrong.
   "Leave it all behind. Your life has flipped upside down. Your world is ruined. There's nothing more to go back to. The game is done... the hurting stops now."
 
    Keep breathing water.

    It was obvious that was what he was trying to tell me. It also wasn't the first time he'd try casually making the suggestion, like losing my mind was supposed to be an easy "yes."
   But in this moment in had the potential to make sense.
   I could probably never see my parents again. They already thought I was dead. Perhaps that was an easier concept to swallow than "your son is a fish, walking a dangerous line between empty and violent insanity." And it would free Eva to do whatever she wanted in life. She would have to feel bad for abandoning me, and I wouldn't have to feel bad for being abandoned. I'd be trapped in mindless bliss.
    Naceo was practically salivating with the idea that for once I might consider his offer. I suppose to him I was just one more child, yet his most difficult client. If he could get me- the boy who'd balanced his life for months just to stay sane- to give in...
   "Why do you want me do five up on myself so badly?!"
    I hated the smile he wore, but my question hardly wiped it off his face. "It'll be good for you," he sighed, "I really don't enjoy watching you suffer."
   "You don't make any sense," I snapped, "you don't enjoy watching people suffer, and yet you unleashed a terrifying illness upon the wo-"
   "People were suffering long before I came back to this stupid planet," he growled. I'd never bothered to push him this far, and now I began to tremble at what may come out of that mistake.
   My silence did no healing to his wrath. "Just when I think I'm starting to understand you humans, you start wanting more of this and less of that.. if eternal happiness doesn't satisfy you, what will?!"
   I'd put myself in the ring. I knew I had to fight back. Yet- upon the demand for instant feedback on quite a philosophical question- I felt months of living in this cage had prepared me for a response.
   "Humans want freedom," I answered plainly.
   He was baffled, almost enough so to extinguish the flame was burning inside of him. "Freedom? Freedom from what?"
   "Not free from... free to! Free to be able to design your own fate... to make unique choices. And yes... the freedom from being locked to the sea! As long as we're living, humans will strive for their freedom! And I'm stuck in this goddamn ocean and I want my freedom!"
   If I'd put out a fire before, it was certainly reignited now. I'd never seen Naceo so furious. He clenched his hand around my neck and propelled us down deeper like a bullet. My back collided with the sandy floor; schools of startled fish scattered in all different directions.
 
   His eyes glowed so brightly they were blinding. "Stop it!" he bellowed, "stop ruining yourselves! You kill yourselves... you kill each other... and maybe that wouldn't be so bad if you weren't killing the planet along with all your murderous nonsense!"
   He wasn't speaking to me... he was speaking to all of humanity. I was dumbfounded, and unprepared to argue on behalf of my entire species. Even if I had something more to say, it was impossible to get a word out. Naceo was choking me, pinching my neck with more intensity each passing second.
   Since we'd come to the ocean floor, there were some children present. Hovering with their toes lightly dragging through the weeds, they gathered around to watch me perish.
   "L-ook..." I managed to utter.
   Naceo looked at the children, letting go of me. "What?!" His voice was everywhere.
   "Look at them..." I explained as I slowly gained back my breath, "...they didn't help me."
   "So?"
   "A human would have helped me."
   Naceo was skeptical. "Why?"
   "Because... most humans value the right... for other humans to be free."
    Naceo snorted. Once, then again. He burst into maniacal laughter. "IMPOSSIBLE!"
    I couldn't speak over his noise. He cackled like a devil. I was scared and confused... what was so hard to understand about freedom? What was so impossible about valuing another humans rights? Perhaps what was impossible was actually getting this narcissistic god to see my side.
   "Neither, Neither, Neither..." hr may have composed himself to be able to speak again, but the madness was still present. "You've been neither for too long. Pick a side, won't you?"
   My chest heaved up and down. I was still parallel to the ground, gazing up at him. His finger began to glow at the very tip of the nail. He leaned over me, the light dangling over my nose.
   My perception became fuzzy.

                                 My thoughts


                                                     fled like
                                                          fish

   "Stop!" I grabbed his wrist and tossed him to the floor beside me. The children were motionless spectators.
    Now Naceo was below me, looking up. He laughed again. "Perhaps you have already lost your mind- thinking you could beat me in combat!"
   He'd let me flip him over? I knew it had been too easy.
   "No," I sighed, "I can't beat you. Nor this disease you brought upon me. But I'm not ready yet. Please, let me see my love one last time. Then you can steal my sanity."
   Once wearing the grin of a crazed jester, Naceo's expression suddenly softened. It must've been the mention of love, for now his eyes bared a hint of past regret.
   "Yes, okay." he swallowed, looking horrifically guilty. "Goodnight."

   He is aware of sentience, yet incapable of controlling it.

   As I watched him swim away, the children trailing him like driftwood caught in a stream, I recalled what insight Zupak's caretaker had to share about the god.
   It had just occurred to me how human-like his condition really was.

Chapter 7

SPEED

   By the time I was finished explaining my endgame to Eva, it seemed she'd run dry of tears.

   "Don't cry anymore sweet Eva," I embraced her, coiling my arms around her back and neck against her head. "It had to come to this."

   "I won't go," she kept on saying, "please Jace, I won't go."

   "You should go," I shook my head. We both knew that it would be foolish not to.

   She continued to sob in a quiet fashion now, taking several stuttered inhales at a time. I couldn't leave her like that, and maybe she knew I couldn't- why she wasn't trying to be strong for us. She didn't even know it, for I hadn't bothered to share, but I was partially dreading my return to the sea now. What Naceo had done to me yesterday was painless, but it still left a scar of paranoia lashed onto my mind, conditioning me to fear this reentry. Maybe I wasn't ready for life to end for me after all. 

   "When I came here," Eva whimpered," I was ready to say goodbye. The same goodbye I told my mom and my brother and sister. Not this kind of goodbye."

   I suppose I hadn't fully grasped the depth of this farewell until she'd phrased it that way... and my goodbye would mean much more than never seeing my love again. I'd never see the light of day again. I'd never feel again. I recalled how my thoughts had been purged from my head... how I'd been left an empty vessel of complacent observation as Naceo cackled over me. Life would no longer be about playing the game... about telling a story. It couldn't be colorful anymore. It would only be one color... dark blue.

   I had to pull myself together.

   What I also hadn't told Eva was that this wasn't as much of a personal choice as I'd made it sound. Naceo owned the sea, and he would not allow me to continue making journeys back and forth. Resistance would probably result in something much more terrifying. 

   "When do you leave?" I asked Eva with calm composure. 

   "Tomorrow... sunrise," she trembled.

   "Go," I said, "get ready for your trip. I won't go back in yet. I'll be right here at our normal time. Is that going to be enough to prepare for a- different type- of goodbye?"

    "No! it's never enough, noth-"

    "GO!" I shouted now, "before I change my mind and return now!" She wasn't moving, so I got up and began towards the path where I would descend the rocky plateau. Finally she took off for the forest.

    I climbed down anyways, standing ankle deep and staring off into the endless blue sky. My mind was racing, flipping through possibilities of things I could do with my last moments. Yet I was frozen in my steps. As a gentle wave receded, I felt something tickling my toes. A small crab – the size of my thumb- had trailed over my foot. I bent down to pick it up, holding it by its stiff scarlet shell. Its legs slowly danced through the air as it searched for ground.
   "Where do you live?" I casually inquired while resting the little guy on my palm. It obviously had no response. It raised a claw over its head and clipped it, which I allowed myself to interpret as a hello.
    I was suddenly struck with a pathetic idea; I would allow the crab to choose my fate. If it runs onto the sand, I would fight another day, perhaps even just to deny Naceo the satisfaction of the fulfilling our deal. But if the creature allowed the waves to carry him in, so would I. I picked up the little guy up as I had before, and carefully, not to dissuade him from either option, placed him right where the phone divided the water, facing parallel to the shore.
    At first, it didn't move. The anticipation had me biting the inside of my cheeks. I was a second away from encouraging it with the tip of my foot when suddenly it took off at full speed. It went up the sand, then down again into the water, swerving along the shore like an energetic drunk. Following its path with my eyes quickly became difficult, and I began to stumble after the creature, racing behind it along the shore.

   The pursuit lasted four hours. Not all of it was spent running – the crab rested occasionally and looked up at me, curious about it's satiated predator. I, the stalker, remained fixated on the animal. It was a little red button that would show me the way. One thing remained constant: the crab did not leave the shore. It too, chose neither.
   I had time to kill and I knew eventually the guy – who's indecisive behavior was annoying me to the point where I couldn't quit – would eventually pick one of the first two. But when I became distracted by a massive shadow hiding beyond the fog of sea in the distance, I finally lost sight of where the crab had run off to. No more red button of destiny.
   Somehow it was even more curious that my ten-legged friend had led me to this eerie structure.

   As I drew closer, the steam rising off the water gradually dispersed and the picture became clear: I was looking at a ship. My memory couldn't serve me well enough for an exact answer, but it was quite possibly the same ship I've been shot on months ago. Feeling adventurous after having chased a crab miles away from familiar territory, I decided to explore. I swam to the edge of the vessel, taking shameless gulps of water to ease my headache. Between the metal siding and the barnacle-plagued wooden pillar of the dock, I was able to climb aboard.
   Several minutes of creeping around in dripping wet clothes was not only drying me off, but informed me the boat was free of any people. I was safely alone.
    I stripped and hung my clothes to dry, and begin sifting through the drawers and boxes in the indoor portions of the boat. I was trying to discover the function of each room through the items within it, but it was hardly organized. Almost everything seemed like useless junk that hadn't been tossed since it was in service.
   Eventually I made my way up to the captain's cabin. Of all the rooms this one was by far the most full of junk. Every corner was packed with storage containers which either held equipment I didn't understand or stacks upon stacks of paper which seems even more foreign.
   I knew I was heading for the wheel. Of course I was going to touch it... to pretend I was the captain of the ship guiding my pride and glory skillfully over the fearsome seas. But before my hand reached the wood-carved shape, I was distracted by a word.
   Ramecha.
   The letters popped right out at me and it was like everything else in the room grew a shade dinner. My fingers traced over the map; part of it had been damaged and ripped by water, but I could still read it. I hadn't seen a map like this since the day we took off on our bikes.

   I began to think about the road Eva would be taking to get back to Ramecha. She'd be traveling alongside Team D to finish the route and return... how long would it take them to reach the SafeZone? The way we had gotten down to Port Antigone, we'd taken as many exits as we could to scan through abandoned cities via their outskirts. But now the team was just focused on making it back, and as soon as possible. They would trek up the highway parallel to but east of the coastal road we'd taken. It was the fastest, safest route.
   Or was it?
   The map still pinched between finger and thumb, I rested my hands on the wheel, gazed beyond the window, and realized I was standing up on the answer to my own question.

 I hurried back to our meeting point, although I knew I'd be waiting for Eva for another few hours. To my surprise, she showed up much sooner than I'd expected

   "Eva!" I embraced her with excitement, "I have a brilliant idea..." But then I saw someone approaching from a few feet beyond her.

   I quickly dove behind the rocks, scraping my elbows badly as I prepared for a softer landing. 

   "I'm sorry," I heard Eva call out. "I couldn't stop him from following."

   Who was that? My heart was racing and my skin burned. Before I could react again, I heard a familiar voice asking the same question.

   Augustus's face appeared from above the rocks I'd slipped on. "Oh my god," he breathed, "she wasn't kidding. You're really here."

    "You told him?" I grimaced up at Eva.

   "He wouldn't leave me alone after I came back to the hospital in that shape. He followed me out here, so I told him on the way to shore."

   Augustus was still a stuttering mess. But I had no desire to waste the little time I had left explaining my condition to him."Help me up," I asked of them after realizing my arms had been weakened, "I have something to show both of you." 

   I laid out the map, drawing my finger up from Port Antigone to the coast west of Dimon. "Instead of taking all the families by land, borrow a ship. On sea, not only will you move faster, but you'll move safer."

   There was silence for a few seconds, only a crackling ocean in the distance. "Its not a bad idea," sighed Eva, "but you know how many people are going to be opposed to it."

   Augustus was one of them. "By sea? Did you forget the sea is the reason we even have zombies in the first place?"

   Eva came to my defense. "The sea may be toxic, but it will be safe to sail on. I haven't seen what recruiting with a couple families tagged on looks like, but I have an idea."

   It was obvious that the pace had been slowed quite a lot, and the responsibility had overwhelmed them. Augustus even seemed much more mature from the last time I'd known him. "It wasn't easy. No thanks to you, quitter."

   Eva raised her fist at Augie and for a moment I thought I was going to witness her knocking out the pearly whites of his cheesy grin.

   "Eva, don't!" I exclaimed, grabbing hold of her meaty wrist and pulling her into me. She was breathing unevenly as her back landed between my knees. 

   Our posture was intimate. Augustus had crab-walked a few feet back and was now eyeing us peculiarly. "Ohhh..." he sung lowly, "I think I get it. You faked your death... so that you and Eva could live in Port Antigone together, huh? Is that what this is?"

   Eva and I looked at each other. Should we tell him what I'd become? She shrugged, placing her hand on my leg. It was my choice. And I couldn't lie anymore.

   "I really did die, Augie. Well... I was shot. You don't remember?" No, Augie had been rceovering as well when that incident occurred. Even if he remembered what happened, it was easier to admit that the medication could have tricked his eye than to even try to comprehend that I could still be alive.

   After we explained to hum the mechanism of my mortality, Augie couldn't wipe the twinge of his eyebrows. "You live... in the ocean?" 

  "It's as boring as it sounds," I scoffed, "but I've been able to maintain myself. And Eva... is my happiness."

  He was to busy processing the fact that I was technically a living zombie to comment on our relationship, though he did offer a quick roll of the eyes. 

   Augustus stood up quickly. "I'm going to talk to Captain Krev about this ship idea. It would be a lot smarter to have the families on a boat with a few recruiters while the rest of the team gets the bikes back." He saluted me with an enlightened grin and charged off into the forest.

   "If this works out," I told Eva, "I will get on the boat with you. I can retrieve all the water I'll need from aboard."

   Tears of joy began to spill from the corners of her eyes. She grabbed my hair and pulled our lips together for a brief, passionate smooch, and then scrambled to her feet and began hurrying away.

   "Where are you going?" I called to her.

   "To help Augie!"

Chapter 8

DISTANCE

   With some convincing, Krev approved our plan. Augie and Eva were to supervise the boat while the rest of D arranged to meet us at Dimon. Luckily for me, the captain did not recognize my face, nor recount that only two members of the team were aboard from the start. I'd climbed on halfway into the boarding process. 

   Augie shared with Eva and I the stories of the families. Recruiters weren't required or even encouraged to add strangers to the party, but when a few more members were injured in an attack and a family aided them, they felt obliged to continue with them at a slowed pace. 

   The Garcias were a strong family of four. Mr. and Mrs. Garcia were a compassionate couple, bent on getting the best future for their last remaining son, only months old. With them was Garcia Senior, Mr. Garcia's father, who spoke little English yet always knew ten steps ahead of what was going on. The family have been traveling by a cart contraption that Garcia Senior had begun inventing long before the outbreak and only finished one it's usage became much more significant than a hobby. 

   When they came across Prencess and Bitty, the team could not afford another burden. But Prencess and Bitty happen to be gorgeous, tall and lean twenty-something twins that were quite close to giving up on survival. Augie, who'd grown infatuated with both of them within hours of their meeting, agreed that their team's new mission would have to mean more than handing out little cards with tiny amounts on them; they had to save people, too. 

   It was a noble notion, and the team simply hope their leader could take on that responsibility as enthusiastically as he made it sound. But when the team discovered two more families with children not too much larger than the little Garcia boy, their ambitious quota started looking a whole lot more difficult. Unfortunately for the team, Bitty and Prencess adored children, and Augustus couldn't abandon his heroic reputation.

  "We've been traveling with all four groups for nearly ninety percent of the trip since we last left Port Antigone. Tid, Masco and I trailed. Our engines were always attracting the zombies , and we weren't moving fast enough to outrun them. So we started killing ever last one we saw, 'cuz we expected them all the time, and there they were. Stopping at gun stores became second priority to finding food and shelter. And we got good. We never ran into serious trouble because we never missed a shot." He smirked and looked beyond us, childish pride resurfacing in his expression. 

   Eva was appalled. "You killed them?! Augie, the children are still alive... they still have a chance..."

   "I didn't know that...!" Augie suddenly scanned me with regret in his eyes. "I didn't know there was a cure before yesterday night."

   "There is no cure," I grumbled, setting unease to the air around us, "I know the disease. Once it has you... it has you. It's been chasing me for months but I haven't let it take me. One thing I can tell you is that this is no way to live, and that I'm closer to the grave than I'm willing to accept. That's not a cure by any definition.

   She was looking down. I thought about the way she could've been peering down her cleavage at the same time.

  The thought made me hungry...

                                          hungry...

                                             thirsty...

   "Thirsty..." I repeated aloud as I struggled upwards into a standing position. Eva was by my side, supporting me. Augustus reaching for a cup of water and brought it to my lips. 

   The next thing I knew, it was in a puddle on the floor. I couldn't breathe something of this purity. 

    "Hey," Augie frowned, "I thought you said you were thirsty...."

   "He needs the ocean water." Eva lead us down the stairs. It was nighttime so no one was roaming the boat. I gasped when I could see the pure black mirage of the darkened sea beyond the rail. Eva dragged my arm down another set of stairs and stood watch with Augie as I got down on my knees beside the lifeboat. I didn't just cup the water to my face, I stuck my whole head inside, using my hands to splash around my neck and back like moisturizer to desert skin.

    But then I saw a figure emerging from the water.... two glowing eyes growing rapidly.

    I jumped up and stumbled backwards into the rail that protected passengers from nearing the water. Eva and Augie had been waiting for me a few steps behind it, but after witnessing my strange reaction they too put distance between themselves and the sea.

   Naceo appeared upon a tornado of water.

   He wore a terrifying grin; it bore no joy.

   "How dare you!!!" he screamed, his voice like a siren "You lied to me!"

    "I didn't lie!" I cried, succumbing my bravery to his ominous presence, "I didn't... I really was going to stay..."

    "You humans... all of you are liars! Promise breakers! You're full of shit and you only care for yourselves!"

    Suddenly I was in a chokehold. Using a thick stream of water from his whirling platform, Naceo had commanded his element to form a massive, snakelike arm around his own. It lifted me into the air and I was useless to kick free. If I tried pulling away the water, it would split itself and worm around me. I gasped for breath.

"I could take down this entire ship right now it I wanted," he laughed madly, "but why bother? In a few days, you will have transformed into a killing machine. Sadly for your friends, there will be nowhere to run. You really doomed everyone, you worthless coward! You better hope they at least have the decency to kill you now!"

   I didn't see him go. I was tossed onto the deck like dice. 

   All the noise had stirred the Captain from his den. He hadn't seen Naceo and his ruthless power, but when he saw me- soaked and trembling on the floor- he had the sense something was drastically amiss.
   "Wait a second..." his finger shook to point at me, "I remember you! You were the other boy who'd been bitten from the SafeZone people... you....you were turned!"
   The three of them surrounded me from a safe distance. I had enough water dripping from my clothes and skin to infect Eva, kill Krev, and Augustus...
   He was too frightened to come forth and aid me. "Who... what was that guy?"
   "What guy? What- how the hell are you still alive??"
   "Stop!" Eva commanded, "please, Augie, you're the only one that can touch him. Help him up. I'll answer all your questions."
   Bless Eva.
 
   Augie had reluctantly offered his hand. Krev too was hesitant to come near me, but he trusted Eva, having known her as a local girl and the apprentice to the town's sole doctor.  He allowed us to enter the main room on the top floor of the ship. By the time I was dry, Eva had kept to her promise. Of course there were many more questions to follow the first.
   "The god of the sea...?" Augie wasn't convinced, although he'd seen Naceo's power with his own two eyes.
   Krev nodded. "It's true. He is Rage. My father was an Araki tribesman. We were warned about him."
   "He said Jace is going to turn completely in a few days..." Augie was on the edge of his seat, trying not to look at me.
   "We won't let that happen." Eva's enthusiasmwas hardly comforting now.
   "Well, he won't let me touch the sea again." I growled blatantly. "I think 'a few days' was an understatement."
    They were staring at my skin. There must've been something wrong with it. I couldn't tell. I was ust looking at Eva.
   "You need seawater to survive?" Krev stepped between us, "...there's places on this boat where you don't have to go near open water to get seawater."

    Underneath a large metal hatch, we were led down rusted metal stairs into a steamy chamber. Krev placed a large plastic cup to the side of a strange device that turned like a wheel. Slowly but surely he was able to collect enough water to make it full.
    He offered it to me, his hand protected in a yellow latex glove. I tried it.
    It worked, but it was so awful I coughed as I breathed it, and brownish gunk began to trickle from my nostrils.
   "What's this water for?"
 Krev took a deep breath. "Maybe it's best you don't know."
    I swallowed in disgust, nodded, then drank again.

   From that moment on, our trip was no longer a pleasant cruise.
   Augustus got sick again from touching the water from my skin, but it only lasted a day and a half. Krev vowed to keep our secret but insisted – for the safety of everyone on the boat – I was always accompanied by an armed friend. Since he claimed to be the sharpest shooter in all the west coast, that person was usually Augie, The ones he was feeling better he made it he'd rather be spending all this free time leisuring around on the moving vessel with the twins. As friendly as she was, somehow Eva did not get along with those girls. Whenever Augustus suggested the five of us stay together so that he could fulfill his responsibility and be around the girls at the same time, Eva volunteered to hold onto his gun and assume the duty alone. Neither of us had the will to deny this. As for me, I lacked the energy- the energy to do anything. All my life-force had to be put towards restraining myself, to hold back my angst. My mind ached, my skin itched, and my throat always tasted of decay. I never touched anyone and I rarely spoke.
    When Eva handed me the plastic cup again, I had half a mind to slap it to the floor.
   "Drink," she ordered when I hesitated to take it from her.
   I was in the mood for picking a fight.
   "Why don't you like Prencess and Bitty?" I asked dully.
   "They're shallow," she huffed, setting the cup on top of a metallic crate. She was lying. Sure the twins were conventionally beautiful and simple-minded, but they were still kindhearted- and Eva wasn't blind. My silence spoke for me, and Eva reframed her response with a tired sigh, "I don't like the way Bitty looks at you."
    "Ha," I scoffed, "Eva... I might still be breathing, but I'm a zombie. What could possibly interest Bitty?"
   She gave me a look like a worried mother. "...the same things that interest me," she answered, he voice shrinking back into her chest.
   "You ought to give up on whatever you liked about me. I'm not the same person."
   "I don't believe that."
   "It doesn't matter!" Next thing I know my knuckles are embedded into a fresh dent on the wall. "I can't go back to the sea anymore. What's supposed to happen when we reach shore? Naceo was right... I should have hoped you would kill me..."
    "Naceo?" I hadn't shared his name before. Eva had picked up my hand by the wrist and was inspecting the wound I had just created from my burst of anger earlier, but I didn't realize it until I looked up and saw her standing hust inches away from me.
   "I couldn't even feel you..." I choked, "I'm going numb!"
   She embraced me, and slowly, like a song fading in from silence, I recognized her touch. She was stroking my back in soft circles. My body loosened, melting comfortably against her form.
   "You feel that?" she whispered. I nodded.
   She let go, offering me the cup again. This time I took it.
 
  She was resting on the crate, swinging her legs up and down and bumping the side nervously as she spoke. "As much as I've wanted to ignore it, I know I can't... I've been thinking about what's going to happen when we dock too. But I have an idea."
   I was desperate for ideas. Even though it was my own survival at stake, I hadn't been able to come up with anything.
   "What is it?"
   "The first night we were on the ship... the night that Rage came for you... he said 'all humans are promise-breakers.'"
    "Yeah, he says that a lot," I groaned, refilling the cup.
    "He's talking about the first promise humanity ever made for him- like Zupak told- to remain pure." I had made that connection myself when listening to Zupak's tale, but hadn't thought much else of it. Eva continued, "If we confront him with a plan to mend this promise, maybe he'll let you back in.
   "Oh," I rolled my eyes, "so the solution is to cleanse the entire world of its impurities. That sounds so much easier than suicide." It was dark, but I got a laugh out her anyway.
   "I've been thinking on this for a long time. The world population is less than half of what it used to be, and all production and services have become for survival, not luxuries or for the sake of consumerism..." she seized her leg kicking and slipped down from the crate. "Zupak said the gods favor smaller tribes over government and state... and now we have places like Port Antigone shelter- dotted all over the globe! Maybe the argument won't be that difficult to make! If we can convince him we're already on our way to reform, maybe we can convince him that not all humans break their promises."

Chapter 9

COURAGE

    Everyone on the boat was ecstatic today except me. I was full of dread. Whatever was coming for me, whether it was death or resolve, would not be painless.
   "How much longer?" Prencess ran up to the captain, a bright smile pasted between her cheeks.

   "Just twenty five minutes- five minutes less than when you asked me five minutes ago," he muttered as she brushed past her. "Now will you please stop asking me?"

   "Sorry," she giggled, returning to Augustus's side as he peered over the edge of the ship. "I'm just excited to be on land again.
    Eva glanced at me, a look of annoyance spread all across her face. If there was any reason not to like the twins, it would be the impatient, giddy behavior they'd been displaying since this morning. Everyone else had been too similarly happy to notice.

    Krev barely had a moment to spare in preparation for docking, but he paused to give me an apologetic mention. "What's your plan, kid?"
   "First we get everyone safely off the boat."
    He gave me a firm nod and was on his way.
    Augie approached me with a sheepish frown. "So..." he mumbled, "what is your plan?"
    I looked over at Eva. "I have to confront Naceo- the god. Its all I can do."
 
    The only pleasant thing about an empty boat was the quiet. All I could hear were the waves caressing the sides of the ship, then briefly a lone seagull cawing overhead.
    It wasn'y completely empty; I knew Eva and Augie were still helping the last few heads cross the plank over to safety, and Krev had no interest in abandoning his vessel while I was still aboard. "I know what this  means for you," he sighed, "but I can't afford a stowaway- not one like you."
   "I understand," I bowed me head, "I'll be gone soon."

   Each of them took their turn to say half a goodbye, for it was not certain if I would ever resurface  resurface once I took the plunge. Captain Krev, a solid handshake; Augustus took my hand too but went in for a quick, awkward hug. "Good luck Jace."
    Eva kissed my forehead. "I believe in you."
    I stood on the edge, wavering in the air as I balanced upon the railing. Then I dove.

   The pure water felt so good, I nearly forgot the demon I was about to encounter. It didn't take long for him to arrive before me.
   He was calmer now. Even just a week can suppress a grudge in god-years, I suppose. "It's impressive you'd lasted this long," he grinned knowingly.
   I went straight to the plan, disinterested in making meaningless conversation to appease him.  "I was thinking maybe we could cut a deal."
   He crossed his legs, floating with his chin in his palm. "This interests me."
   I took a deep breath. Clarity of mind was definitely making this task less daunting. "Hundreds of years ago, a tribe made you a promise... and their descendants have not honored that. As you can tell, I am a pretty persistent human. Let me live on land, and I will restore the conditions of their promise."
   Naceo seemed like he was considering the idea, but I wondered if his quiet contemplation was all just an act of intimidation when he suddenly blurted, "No."
    ""N-no...?" I shivered, "can I... can I at least know why?"
   "Fine," he shrugged, "but you'll forget everything I told you within a few minutes, so I don't really see..."
   "Please..." I couldn't be sure, but I felt tears bleeding from my eyes.
   "Persistent indeed." he smirked. "That promise from long ago is none of your concern, for you are no longer living in a human-dominated world. What humanity does with itself is inferior to me. I solved your problems by ending them."
   "Do you honestly believe that humans aren't going to make a comeback? We are already repopulating... regrowing... the cycle will continue!"
    There was an undertone of disgust as he spoke, "why do you keep saying we like you're still one of them?" 
  To hear this stung my heart... he really was just taunting me now.
   "I was one. But I'm not not yours either... not a zombie."
   "You're Neither," he smiled. "Alright, I have a better deal." He swam in circles around me. "I was never as careful as my mother, the stars... I was never as powerful as my father, the earth. But I am still a god... a creator. Let's see what I can do with you." His fingers twiddled, each of them sparking wih a brief burst of light sporadically.
   "What are you doing...?" I tried backing away, but resistance would be futile underwater.
   "Making our deal."
   I didn't bother to try telling him that the point of a deal was to have both sides in agreement. Compromise wasn't a word in Naceo's vocabulary. His touch was intensely electric, and his fingers burned my skin as they dragged across it. I screamed, cringing as his hand came across my chest and up my neck. "STOP!" I couldn't help but cry out, but I hear his voice respond, surrounding me like the water, a chorrus of "ahh... but this is what you wanted...!"
   Did I really want this? How could I have asked for something so painful? My body trembled, my eyes twitched. He was transforming me into something else. Something new.
   After a a few minutes of this torture I could finally bear to open my eyes. I noticed that whatever Naceo was doing to me was also making him weak. His eyes were winced and he was biting down on his lip, gradually losing control of his finger movement.
   I summoned all the strength inside me to raise my knee up to my chest, and I kicked him away. To my surprise, he flew. He was at least twenty feet under me now, and slowly coming to. I hadn't expected such power, and starting a fight was not my intention. Yet when he zipped back up to have at me again, I was able to block him with a quick jab of my elbow.

Not only did our battle last for a few long minutes, but it was equal. I tended to have the upper-hand just as much as he did, and we both ended up on the sandy ocean floor, laying on our backs and exhausted. I knew the fight would continue, but something didn’t feel right. It was fair- unfairly fair. Why would the god let this happen if he was only looking out for himself?

    “I don’t want to fight you,” I was breathing hard.

   “Then why’d you kick me?” He was like a child when his anger took him, and luckily he was too worn out for a physical comeback now.

   “What did you do to me?”

   He rolled over. I could see he was bruised all over his back. I wondered what I looked like.

   I made you stronger,” he was crawling to his knees now. “Your skin is tougher. Your reflexes, keener.”

   It didn’t make any sense. Why would he want to make me more powerful? I looked down at my arms and watched as all the freshly made scrapes and slashes healed before my eyes. Even my knuckles, which had been blistering up from when I’d punched the boat, sealed back into fresh skin.

   “You are right, Neither…” Naceo spat, “as long as the world has humans, humans will dominate. I’m tire of being the bad guy. So you’re the bad guy now.”

   I was confused, but I knew Naceo wouldn’t say something like that if he didn’t truly intend for it to happen.

   “What was the deal?!” I growled.

   “You’ll figure it out soon enough…” I couldn’t watch his lips form the words, for he had vanished into the darkness beyond me.

    I was left alone, puzzled and terrified.

   What did this mean? I boggled over it for some time. He was allowing me to stay in the sea for now. If I left, there was a chance he would not let me return. But we were equal in combat now. I could fight to stay, even for just a few breaths. No… he would let me return. I was baffled- yet something about what he said stuck with me. He didn’t want to be bad anymore? Even Zupak had foretold that the god’s intentions weren’t worse than society’s.

   Reflecting on my encounter with Zupak, I wondered if perhaps someone else’s wisdom could settle my confusion.

   Krev’s ship was still there when I was drifted ashore by a passing wave. I heard them calling out to me from on the deck.

   “Don’t touch…” I reminded Eva gently as she ran towards me. She stopped shore in the dry sand.

   “What happened in there?” Augie exclaimed, “For a minute the waves got huge! Our whole boat almost fell on its side.”

   “We… made the deal.” What was wrong with me? Why did I cover up the truth once again? I looked at Eva. She was smiling cheek to cheek. She hugged Augie to cope with her own excitement.

   “I knew it would work!”

   Did I not have the heart to tell Eva what had really happened? Or could this actually be what we wanted?

   I didn’t want to think about it just yet. Right now I was just glad I had another moment to spend with the people around me.

   Augie had assured us that everyone was already started on the trail which would lead from the waterside to the cityscape, but he was mistaken.

   The twins had straggled behind, curious as to why it was taking so long for us to “help Krev dock the boat.” They had witnessed the enormous tide that resulted from my fight, and had seen me emerge from the water. We caught them hiding behind the withered remains of a surfing equipment rental shack.

 “How much did you see?!” Eva had snapped, and they came clean. Even if they hadn’t seen anything, they could see me now. I was dripping wet. I stripped down to my underwear and hung my clothes on the broken plank that once had “welcome” painted on it, now just “ome” with half its c. I was paying extra attention to Bitty. Eva was right… she did look at me differently.

   “Are you going to be okay?” she reached out to me tenderly.

   “Don’t touch him!” both Eva and Augie swatted her hand away, though it seemed Eva enjoyed it more.

   “What happened? Why were you in the water?”

“I thought I saw Eva fall in.” Augie and Eva were surprised to hear me lie. “It’s ok, I have my vaccine. I might get sick like Augie did when he accidently got wet, but I’ll be okay soon.”

   “You’re very brave,” the girls gasped in unison.

   I winked at Eva, and for once in a long time there was delight in her eyes.

   Krev handed the SafeZone route map back to Augustus, trading it for another map we’d found stashed under the register of the old rental shack. “There’s an outlet right off the trail. I can grab what I need for the way back, and so can y’all for your journey.”

   “It’s not exactly on our way, but we’ll need to stop anyways. The group isn’t used to moving again yet.” He folded it and tucked it into his back pocket. “Come on, let’s catch up with the others.”

   I was reluctant to continue with them, for it had been many months since I had last traveled from the shore. When Krev gave me a suspicious look as I trailed behind Augie’s lead, I added, “I could think of a few things hat would be useful for our trip.”

   What was I thinking of? Immediately the idea of a container crossed my mind. Maybe I could travel with them the whole way if I was able to keep enough ocean water inside some type of large jar. I’d grown accustomed to smaller doses because of the awful boat trip and this time I would be fueling on clean water. Yes… I would be able to stay with Eva for longer! And even if the amount wasn’t sustainable, I could turn back and travel alone once I’d taken a sip past what I could afford for a pleasant return.

   I brought up the idea to Augie once we had made it to the outlet. Everyone was now resting on the abandoned merchandise of a furniture store. He was standing guard by a shattered window.

   Augie’s bike had been transported with us in the ship. He left it on- the plan was to accompany Krev back tonight after collecting resources for the way back. “Let me go with him,” I offered, “I can be the one to get your bike back. I want to find a container… fill it with ocean water. I can make it last.”

   “Are you sure a container is going to be enough? I mean… how big are we talking?”

   I peered beyond the broken glass and spotted a sporting goods store. “I could carry at least five canteens in a backpack. If I’m running low by the third one, I could turn back sooner.”

   He gave me a worried look.

   “I know,” I sighed, “I’m really pushing my limits. But I really want to protect Eva, and-”

 “Protect?” Augie snorted, “If anything, it’s Eva who is protecting you! Are you scared she won’t come back for you?”

   Was I? No… I was afraid of being alone. I didn’t want to leave the group. Moving with them felt confirming to my humanity.

   It was too complicated to explain, especially to someone like Augustus. So I left it at that. “Please let me do this,” I grit my teeth, “I just want to be with her.”

   Augustus was eventually understanding, overwon by the idea of passion for a girl. During the ferry ride, he and Prencess had become more exclusive. I knew he had a soft spot for love.

   But the plan was shut down immediately by Krev.

   “No offense kid,” he looked me up and down with a bitter frown, “but you make me nervous. I’m not going anywhere with you if it’s not without him.”

   He was pointing at Augustus.

   I gave Augie the same pout as I had before. “I can ride on the back. Please, Augie.”

    Krev wasn’t very thrilled by Augie’s final choice.

   We started at the supermarket. It was peculiar to be inside a building again, much less a remnant of the pre-apocalyptic era. This grocery store had hardly been touched. At first it seemed we should be delighted by the surplus of food and supplies, but then a dark thought dawned on us: towns nearby the ocean were probably invaded by the disease too rapidly to escape it. 

   Which must mean this city was crawling with children.

   Just as the realization had hit all three of us, a dank scent of death filled the air. We stumbled backward as soon as we’d entered the aisle. Two dead bodies were strewn in pieces across the floor.

    Before any of us could inspect further if they were freshly killed or just a tragedy of the pat, we heard a metal clank, and a can of soup rolled slowly across the floor.

   We stood terribly still. Whatever it was… or were…

   They were small, like kindergartners. There were twelve of them and they looked like skeletons. They were far too malnourished. Zombies wouldn’t die of starvation, but it affected their appearance. There wasn’t a trace of human left inside of them.

   Augie didn’t hesitate to shoot, but we were outnumbered. They weren’t particularly fast creatures, but running wouldn’t do any good. They had ambushed us from the exit.

    I grabbed the nearest thing, which happened to be a small box of salt. I hurled it at one of the children, and the package exploded upon the impact of its chest. I continued forward; flight shifting to flight.

   I slaughtered all of the children within the same minute we sighted them. Blood all over my arms and legs, I looked back and growled at Augustus, “I must need extra protection, huh?”

    He was quiet.

    Krev concluded his sour attitude towards me after I’d saved them in the supermarket. Next we raided the sports store. I took a backpack, four canteens, and their heaviest baseball bat. Krev took one too.

   But when we made it back out to the shore, we were in for a horrible surprise.

  

   The ocean was gone.

Chapter 10

SALT

   “What the…” Krev ran up to his ship, touching the dry metal. It was slightly leaning over, the hull weighing into the compacted sand. He continued to mutter as we paced around the beached structure. The sky had grown darker, but it was plain to see that the water had shrunk many miles farther from where we stood, if it wasn’t completely evaporated.

   Could this be possible? Suddenly my final conversation with Naceo came back to mind. “I’m tired of being the bad guy,” He vanished, and took the sea with him.

   So you’re the bad guy now.

   Naceo was gone, and he was no longer the strongest force upon this planet He left that job to me. No more water meant no more choices- and this time it would be the less pleasant type of insanity. This insanity… this beast I would become… would be unstoppable.

   They were looking for answers from me. I simply shook my head. “I don’t know what this means.”

   “It means…” snarled Krev, “Rage has taken his anger for you to the next level! He wanted us to kill you on the boat, now he hasn’t given us a choice.”

   “Wait…” I cried as Augie timidly pointed his gun at me. “Let me see Eva again…”

    Augie nearly lowered the weapon, but another shout from Krev and he was back in his uncertain yet readied stance. “You’re really playing with fire here, you idiots! Augustus, we can’t even get your bike off the ship anymore. How long do you suppose it will take us to walk back now?”

   He was trembling like a flag in a storm.

   Before I could argue anything on more on my behalf, he made his choice. The gun fell to the floor, cracking an already broken shell beneath it. Both Krev and I had an equal opportunity of seizing the weapon, but I let him make the first move. He did not hesitate to reach down and grab it.

   Now the barrel was facing me from between Krev’s eyes. He narrowed them guiltily. “It’s not the first life I’ve taken, but it’s the hardest. You’re a good kid, Jace. If there’s anything you want me to do for you—to send a message- it would be my honor.”

    I was considering Krev’s kindness more than I was his ultimatum. A few minutes passed in complete silence. There was no rush, and they would not pull the trigger without fair warning.

   Would I die? No- I was more certain of this than I ever was before with a gun aimed at me. Naceo wanted me to fall prey to some version of his disease. Dying now would mean…. Neither.

   “I want to see Eva…” I whimpered.

    “I’m sorry,” he sighed, “even with his gun to your head, I can’t take you near the group. You’re too dangerous.”

   He was more correct than he even knew, but I played his ignorance to my advantage. “Dangerous? What’s dangerous is leaving behind twenty helpless people in an area we know has a bad infestation… away from the two people capable of protecting them.”” They knew which two I was speaking of after having witnessed me fighting. “Look, I know I’m running out of time. But I still have time. If you can’t bring me to the group, bring Eva to me. I’ll wait here.”

    “Let him come with us,” Augie whined, obviously not a fan of having to make the trip three more times. “I trust him.”

    The guilt began to sink in.

   We agreed that I should stay at the trail’s exit while waiting for Eva to meet up. It was just another reminder of how wild I’d become; forbidden to enter an establishment of humanity, doomed to reside in a creation of nature. When all of this was over, every piece of me that was once human would be gone. I would be nothing but a ravenous animal. I pondered these thoughts as we walked in silence, but nothing about it seemed to bother me. After all, what was I before if not just a fish?

   We encountered a few more zombies on the trail, and though they were all thin and easy to take down, the darkening night made the job more difficult. Since Krev was wielding Augie’s gun, it was me working to protect them, nothing but a baseball bat between my fingers. It seemed ironic that the bullet he was reserving was for the man who was defending them, but we chose a different concern to discuss. “There’s been too many,” Augie gasped as I took down the last couple- two teens that looked like they’d been eating away at each other to satisfy their cravings. “I’m worried about our group. We’ve been gone for a while.”

    “What if we get there and there is trouble? We won’t have time for this ‘last goodbye’ bullshit. I’m sorry…” Krev halted to place the gun back up to my ear, “but this is what’s best for everyone.”

   We had just finished the trail, and I could see the town rising beyond the hills between us. Emerging from the silent tension was the shrill scream of a young girl.

   “Something is going on down there!” I cried, “What’s best for everyone is if you let me help them!”

   The scream repeated. The three of us took off running in its direction.

   When we made it to the furniture store, everyone was gone. I noted that some things had been left behind. “They fled,” my eyes scoped for more clues, but I couldn’t come to a precise conclusion. If it were planned, Eva would have left a note. She would always leave notes for me to find.

   Standing within the frames of the broken sliding doors with the store to our backs, we searched for another sign of our group’s whereabouts.  The outlet had a grocery market- which we had already visited, a toy store, a shoe repair shop, and a laundromat. Just beyond the cluster of restaurants was the sports shop we raided earlier, with a pet store attacked to its side. The logo red “Fish and Friends.”

   Suddenly two things became clear.

    “Salt,” I muttered inquisitively.

    Augie looked at me nervously. “…salt?”

    “I threw a packet of salt at the little zombie boy, remember? Maybe they went to the supermarket and saw that bloody mess. Maybe that’s why we heard screaming.”

   There was no one in the supermarket. We were back in the aisle, standing over the ruins of fallen food cans, spilled guts, broken bones and baby skulls. Krev was annoyed. “I should have known… nobody screams like that just seeing something like this.” He turned away from the scene, inhaling deeply from the opposite end of the wretched smell.

   “Prencess might’ve…” Augie tried generously, taking one last look at the mess.

   So I was wrong. But I had a feeling my second thought wasn’t. This one would be more difficult to explain, and a whole day of breathing warm, dry air was starting to work its way up to my head. “What if salt water could replace sea water?” I licked my finger, dipping it into the spilled white crystals along the floor I must’ve forgotten that wasn’t exactly normal behavior, especially in the midst of all the other gore. Yet I only recalled my mistake when I saw the uncomfortable stares upon me.

    The salt tasted awful. I tried scraping it off my tongue against my teeth. They were still staring. There was something off about my face again.

   Krev was alert, the weapon back at my head. He began murmuring a chant.

           “Once a seed and now a life,

               I rest this beast upon my knife.

                  The wind, it blows, the river flows,

                      this is how our cycle goes….”

   He winced and gripped the trigger.

   It was a clean shot to the head. Though I was mostly numb, I could feel it when the metal drilled into my skull, sloshing against my brain.

 The world scattered before me, little pieces of meaning less images coming and going in my eyes. Even though I couldn’t hold my focus on an idea for more than a second, I somehow still had the good sense to wedge my finger into the golf ball-sized hole over my right eyebrow to scoop out the bullet.

   In a few moments I was nearly back to normal. Except for a strange glaze of red that coated my vision, I could plainly see the bewildered faces of Krev and Augie, gaping as I flicked the soiled chunk of metal to the floor. This was not normal. Not even for a zombie. A headshot was usually game over for the monster, even if it still continued to yelp and garble. I’d brushed this wound off as if Krev had sling-shot a cotton ball at my face.

    Then there was the scream again, except this time it was certainly coming from inside the building we were in. A little girl- one of the children of the traveling families- was all alone. She recognized Augie and ran into his arms, delirious.

   “Help me, help me!”

    “What’s the matter…?” said Augustus, fear still present in his tone.

    “I left… I went to go pee… when I came back everyone was gone! I think they hid! There’s zombies everywhere! You have to help me- they’ve been chasing me… you…”

“You’re safe now,” Augustus stroked her back, “don’t worry…”

   She screamed again, the shrill siren scraping inside of my brain worse than the bullet had. She’d seen me.

   There was no time to console, suddenly a large preteen zombie swung through the aisle and collided with a mountain of canned food, toppling over. Though he landed on his knees and palms, it did not slow him; he charged like a bull in the ring and dove back to his feet quickly. I didn’t hesitate to lunge back at him and pin him down to the floor, this time on his back. I planted my hand around his neck and pulled his throat out.,

   My head spun to meet eyes with the girl. I remained calm. “Are there more?”

   She nodded. “I counted four.”

   It wouldn’t be a problem to take out three more- unless they all came at me at once. I wasn’t sure how long I would last like this anyways. My mind was already slipping. Krev continued to stare at me in terror. My last thoughts were trying to scramble together the last of my reasoning together, only to reason that I would probably eat Krev first.

   We were running out of the market. I wasn’t chasing them yet, although it felt like I could be. Something about the way they trusted me was keeping me on their side for now. I looked to both sides and my eyes fixed on the Fish and Friends sign.

 “Krev… I have my one last request for you.” I halted midway through the parking lot. He turned and stopped, and the others copied as I breathed, “lock me in that pet shop. Board the doors. I need to check if there’s one last way to save myself.”

 He nodded firmly- but on our way to the doors, we heard snarling from the distance. I looked back and realized that the other three zombies the young girl was talking about were surrounding us now.  

   The red veil over my eyes began pulsing louder. Flesh was flying… bones were crunching… I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my own roar, burning the skin of my vocal chords.

    I moved less passionately towards the next body that was coming for me. It reminded me of an old friend.

   Though he patted me with a bat and chanted my name accompanied with the occasional, “please, stop!” I could not find the rage in me to add him to the pile of carcasses I would dine upon tonight. But then I realized I was being herded into a doorway. I hissed- but he and his partner now continued to provoke me, fighting against me as I attempted to open the door.

   They succeeded in trapping me. Alone in the shop, I banged at the glass, screaming.

SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION - More coming soon!

Part 2 - The Final Storm

Chapter 11

TIME

    There was a lot of blank space between then and here. 

    I remember many days of looking up at Eva's twinkling eyes. She stroked my hair and asked me questions I could not respond to. There were no memories left to use as a reply. But slowly I began to remember, and writing helped me. I picked back up the journal my mother had gifted me and continue from where I'd stopped... see, before I was bitten, Eva saved all my things when I was presumed dead. When I had enough of my memory to be able to read and write again, she offered me my own journal as a way of recounting memories. The pencil wouldn't stop moving, telling me the story of my own past.
    Well here I am now, caught up with myself. What happened next makes more sense through Eva's eyes than mine...

   When Krev and Augustus returned to the furniture store, they found the little girl's father, on guard and searching for a lead to where his daughter could be. Reunited at last, the man explained that those four zombies nearly ambushed the group, and everyone fled into the manager's office. Cramming into the one room that had a working door, there had been so many people in that small space that her family had first believed the little girl was lost in the mix. Once they realized she was actually lost on the other side of the door, they sent her father alone to search for her.
   Though panic was disarmed for one sweet moment, it was now Eva who realized something beloved of hers was missing. The captain admitted how I had lost my mind already, so they pushed me into the pet store and blockaded the exit. The sea was gone and it had been my idea to try breathing aquarium formula water, but by the time they managed to trap me in, I was too focused on getting outside to recall my own plan.
    Eva did not pause a second longer to mourn; though I can't say I was there to see into that detail, I know if she had waited, I would've been too far gone. Though I was right at the door, clawing at the glass like a rabid animal, she burst through and allowed me to chase her through the aisles of long-starved fish tanks. When the chase pursued for too long, she gave up and gripped bat she'd stolen from Krev, whacking my head from the side like a softball. I crashed into their miniature shark tank and rolled over on a broken edge, slitting my throat on the glass. I landed- impaled- with my nose still in the water.
   Of course she thought she had killed me, and as my body made its last twitch, she screamed in defeat, sliding to her knees while the floors began to flood from the cracks in the glass. But I was still alive... and the water was working on me! I trembled back to life- beginning to gain my senses once again- and that's when I felt the glass on my skin, splicing into the muscle. I screamed and thrashed, and Eva jumped back to her feet to help me.
   That's where she went wrong, though I understand why she would feel the urge. She should've left me- let me suffer just a little while longer on the glass- so that at least I would satisfy my thirst. When she took me out of the tank, I lost myself again. I bit her as soon as she extracted the last shard from my neck. She persisted, offering me her arm like a dog toy while she scooped water from the floor onto my face. She did this for a minute, until I let go of her skin, and then for another hour, until she was certain I was stabilized enough to leave for a moment and retrieve help from the others.

    Because I had saved their lives- sacrificing my chance to cure myself to turn around and slay the last three zombies- Augustus and Krev agreed to let Eva take me with her... just a breathing corpse, I was. They carried me to the furniture store, along with the salt formula for aquatic creatures. They introduced my true nature to the group, explaining how saltwater was the remedy to the contagious madness. Repeating this information gave Eva one last idea, and she drank from my cup as well. She took very ill for that night, but recovered the next morning, never craving the salty mixture again. We still don't know how or why.

   Moving me in the same type of wagon that carried the youngest children, we all made it back to Ramecha. I was put in a hospital to rest. Eva was certain I would return to my body, for my recovery occurred long before our arrival at the iron gates. I spoke a few more words each day.
   Terrified by the half-demon half-vegetable patient occupying their workplace, the doctors of West Border Hospital requested I'd be moved to a larger hospital– a new establishment created to research the zombification disease- as soon as possible.

   And I was finally strong enough to make that trip today.

   Ramecha is celebrating its fifteenth birthday. It's strange for me to watch people freely parading in open air. They wave banners- some the color of our former nation, but mostly red and yellow- the colors of Ramecha. I have so much spite for this place that I have a lot of trouble feeling the same positivism of the colorful citizens. This place gave them a home, health and happiness. This place banished my parents and gave me a disease.
   Eva urges me not to look at it that way. After all, Ramecha was the reason we met.
  We were sitting together in the back of a police car, which was transporting me to the research center. I close my eyes and escape into my mind for the rest of the journey, for it pains me to realize that it is neither in this vehicle nor out of it that I would prefer to be.
   I've truly lost sense of what I would wish to call home.
   But when we arrive at the research center I am pleasantly surprised. The metal walls glisten with a refreshing newness. I am greeted from the car by a group of smartly dressed young adults who actually look elated to see me. The doctors at West Border Hospital had always worn a look of concealed terror in their eyes, for I was something unknown and unpredictable. This group understands the same, but I have come to them as a pinnacle of curiosity.

    As much as I hated to be someone's scientific discovery, its comforting to be met with enthusiasm for once.

     "Welcome, Mr. Orion." A short man with almost all of his hair growing at his eyebrows shook my hand. "My name is Dr. Crowley. I'm the founder of this research institution."

    All I could think was Ramecha has sure come a long way. I returned his grip ambivalently.

    As we walked through the long halls of the massive building, Dr. Crowley began explaining all he knows about the disease. At first he's talking about hydrogen bonds and complex proteins, and it doesn't take long for me to lose hope of ever understanding. But we reach a door and the doctor turned to me specifically to say, "give up some time Jace, and we will find a cure for you."

   My eyes were wide with excitement and disbelief.

   "How?"

    "The vaccine wasn't all that difficult to find... once we had more information. Because the ocean was the initial cause of zombification, we studied its properties in order to find the cure.  And it was this."

   He opened the door, and I found myself face to face with an enormous turtle. Though thick metal bars divide us, I can't help but feel threatened by an ominous presence. The animal is perhaps the size of a sofa chair and wears the wrinkles of centuries of living. Its dark grey eyes locked onto mine.

    "Meet Shelly, the blueback tortoise. Her kind is a unique species, which lives most of its life above water, yet spends its entire youth in the sea. Shelly's DNA actually makes up a part of the vaccine."

   The beast gives me a dull look at then turns around. Her shimmering blue shell is revealed. Eva clutched my hand. "What a beautiful creature."

    "Indeed she is... and I'm not generally supportive of cooping up wildlife- or any life for that matter..." He sent an apologetic glance my way, "but Shelly's captivity is the reason Ramecha has a million citizens and counting today. And she's treated well- as will you, Mr. Orion. I made sure you will be living in the utmost comfort!"

    I was shown through another door; behind this one was a room the size of a movie theater, with a staircase going down one floor. Just beyond that was a large pool.

   I could smell the water already. "Please," the doctor offered kindly, "you may jump in whenever you like."

    I had just finished unbuttoning my shirt when a woman came up from the bottom of the stairs  with a wet-suit on a hanger. "We tried to get your measurements right, but the West Border Hospital was.... unfortunate in their communicating."
    I finished the last button and revealed my skin. Every inch of it was flaky and peeling. "I don't want to wear anything, if that's alright. My body wants the water as much as my lungs do."
    "Interesting..." Dr. Crowley hummed. I wasted no more time, shedding my pants and underpants too just before diving in.

     The pool was big, like its own room. The water was perfect- a decent temperature and an added silkiness to its texture. I felt like I could scrape off all my dry skin and be completely new, but I soon realized flakes of dead skin were drifting off my body anyways. I wasn't too thrilled about the resulting cloud of flakes around me, so I tried to hold still until at least Eva left.
    They all followed me, taking the stairs instead. The room beyond the glass wall was just a blur to me now, but somehow I could hear them.
    "We were going to ask him a few questions, but they said you might know just enough."
    "Sure," I could just barely hear Eva mumble timidly.
     "How long can he go without the water?"
     She hesitated. "Comfortably? Several hours. But not more than a day."
     "What happens after a day?"
     I swam up to the glass and pressed both hands to it. Eva came over to me and did the same.
    "Please," she looked over her shoulder, "just don't let that happen."

Chapter 12

BLOOD

   My arm broke out of the water's surface and I rested my elbow on the pool deck. For the hundreth time in just a few weeks, I watched the nurse prepare the needle.

   They were taking samples daily, sometimes hourly. Granted they were replenishing all that Iwas losing and more with a healthy, thick diet and plenty of means of exercise. But constantly having my blood extracted was beginning to verge on more than annoying.

    "Sorry Jace," the nurse said once again as she put the needle to my skin. But on this particular day, I wasn't feeling the sincerity of her apology. I was about to accompany the jjerk of my arm with a demand for explanation as to why these tets had to occur so frequently, but my choice came hald a moment too late. The thin metal rod dragged across my flesh, splicing my skin into a thick, red line. 

 The resulting cut was far less gruesome than witnessing its creation, but my nurse shomehow refused to t her eyes off my arm. She was watching my wound heal right before her... my cells fusing back into each other with fantastical speed. The remaining redness could be peel off like a wet sticker.

   "Your body- you- it..." Neither of us could fathrom how to begin this conversation. She got to her feet and went straight for the door.

   That night I am haunted by a thought in the form of a  a nightmare. I am in chains; the rust gathered thick on he metal, itching away at the skin on my wrists restlessly. My pool now more closely resembles a cubish glass dunk-tank, where I have been put on display as a spectacle for al humanity to view. My next two visitors are an older couple. The woman puts her hand t the glass, and I recognize the agely pattern of my mother's palm. Her voice comes as a gentle whisper into my mind:

    "We're coming to find you, Jace."

   I awaken, not exactly breathless but paranoia pulsing through my veins. I push myself off the pool floor and launch to the surface, crawl onto the deck, and laid flat on my back there until I had nearly dripped myself dry. With an extra shake to release the last few droplets off my skin, I get to my feet and begin my escape.

   It's not a very thought-through plan... nor am I certain I will actually gor through with it. In that  moment I wasn't thinking of the consequences of running away nor the rarity of places that would cater to my unique situation. No- all I could think about was how I was once offered the entire ocean as my home, and instead I chose a small pool and a career as a lab rat to be the preferale destiny. 

I recalled another caged creature as I quietytly and cautionsly slipped through the  drakened halls, so I decided to pay her a visit.

  Only somewhat startled to find herself not alone at this late an hour, Shelly timidly croaked her head out of her shell to look at me. 

I needed to know: given te option, would the animal choose freedom? I unlatched the metal gate that divided us, and- half expecting she would waste no time to charge through- positioned myself out of her path. But Shelly showed little interest in  escaping. 

   After a few minutes of waiting, I found my way to the floor, sitting directly across  from her so I could study her form. This time I was looking beyond her inticate ptterns and antique texture. I was looking right into the globes of her eyes, searching for her reason not to leave. 

She seemed to be analyzing me too, perhaps wondering why I gazed upon her with such emotion. I couldn't help but draw a smile on my face when she stretched her jaw open for a satisfied yawn, her purplish gums revealed, guarding the deep abyss of her throat. It was only when she  retreated back into her shell that I had my answer.

 The anima who doesn't seek escape carries her home wherever she goes.

 "I wish I could be rock solid like you," were my parting words with the turtle I was sobbing the moment I slipped back into the water.

  Dr. Crowley approached me curiously this morning. I was out of the pool, which wasn't unusual. I tended to spend a few hours sitting out on the deck on a daily basis. 

   "Am I interrupting anything...?" he mentioned out of courtesy. I lacked the energy to respond with the same patience, so I kept my mouth shut.

   From the couple of weeks I'd gotten to know the man, I understood that Dr. Crowley was extremely motivated by discovery. I knew he would not let scientific knowledge go unyielded due to a difficult question. 

    "The nurse reported something interesting to me yesterday." Still, the most polite thing I was capable of was remaining silent. "I was hoping you would permit me to try something."

    I was decided on silence until my emotional well-being was in question, which was naturally his second concern. "Jace, are you alright?"

    I shook my head. "No, doctor. I'm not." 

    Psychology, it seemed, was a department of science Dr. Crowley had never dared to touch. He stood behind me nervously.

    "What's wrong?"

    "When I came to Ramecha five years ago, I was forced to tell a dangerous lie. It was so that my parents and I could be safe. Now I'm here, and they've been banished from the zone."

    Dr. Crowley cleared his throat. "I don't know what to say... as a scientific man, honoring the rules is the only way to make progress. In your parents eyes it must've seemed right to lie, but..."

   "But what!?" I snarled, "but the 'right' decision was to wait another five years in the park, where people were dropping like flies everyday? You're a doctor, you're supposed to help people!"

   "I'm a researcher," he retorted, though I could sense discomfort in his tone. I'd never shown him this much rage before. "And I'm not saying I believe the world to be fair, but there's a reason we call this place a SafeZone. We have rules like the one your parents disobeyed in order to protect ourselves."

    "Well it didn't protect my family." 

    The doctor's impatient grunt implied that f it wasn't about him or his family, it wasn't his problem. But I was about to make it his.

    "I won't consent to any more studies until I'm reunited with my parents."

    That had his attention. "What...?"

    "You heard me."

    "J-Jace," the doctor stuttered, "your parents could be anywhere!"

    I glanced downward, attempting to hide my dejection under a look of contemplation. But my dream last night had already inspired a dark idea. "How under-wraps is my case, anyways? Eva isn't exactly the only one who knows about me, and she never had to sign a confidentiality agreement." My eyes narrowed as I turned to make contact with his. "My guess? The boy who lived over a year with the disease is almost a little too unbelievable... one of those things you really have to see to believe. So as long as my existence wasn't made public, it's just hushed between the gossip of all those who have known me."

   "What are you suggesting?"

    "Public fascination was never something I wanted. But if my name is out, it will spread beyond Ramecha. It might even get to my parents. Its the only way I can find them."

    He was thinking about it; I could see his brain churning from the deep lines casted on his forehead. "A little publicity could always help the institution, but privacy is the most effective way of assuring nothing can go wrong." 

     "Please," I sighed, "its my last wish to see them again."

    "So be it," he grumbled. "I'm going to make some calls. When I come back, you better answer my questions."

    

    I felt victorious, , excited, and dreadfully nervousness. Now I wondered how Ev would feel about it when I told her during her visit today.


   She was much more irritated than I'd expected. "Why didn't you talk to me before you said anything!?"
   "Because..." I didn't want to unleash myself in front of Eva, but I could feel anger itching my throat, my decision would have been the same. I need to find my parents. Wherever my family is... that's where home is."
   Eva frowned, looking as fragile as a glass chandelier hanging from a threat. "I'm not family?"
  My natural reaction would usually be to comfort her with what she wanted to hear, but I took a moment to assess how I truly felt. Since I was put into care at the research center, Eva's visits dwindled  from once a day to just a couple hours each week.
  I'd thought too long about it, and Eva did not want to wait around for whatever hurtful thing I had to say.
   "I'm leaving. But not without warning you- as someone who lives on the outside- that you're making a bad choice."
   Watching her go wasn't quiet as entertaining now that I was I was under control of my sanity. I was so angered by her last retort that for the first time, I felt eager to be left alone after her company. "...well at least you get to live outside!" I called out to her as she reached to door.
   "You think it's easier?" she spun around, shouting at me with the whole room between us. "The last you saw of Ramecha was a phony parade. Now you're fed and sheltered everyday!"
     "Don't you are tell me its at no cost..."  I could feel it boiling inside of me.
     "You would have been dead-"
     "I'm already dead!"
      Dr. Crowley entered. From the look on his face, I could tell he'd heard enough of our argument from beyond the walls. I hadn't yelled this loud since my last encounter with Naceo. "May I come in?"
   "I was just going," Eva did not look at me again as she left.
   The doctor approached me again. "I notified the Protector's Council. They're eager to meet you."
   The sound of it churned my stomach, but I accepted it was just a part of what had to be done to get my parents back.
 He wasn't finished. "I'll do everything you instruct me to, but I ask that you allow our testing to continue in the meantime."
    In one part of my mind it seemed like a fair deduction. But revoking my power was not something the demon inside me could allow, and it had been growing since last night.
"Don't you want to be cured by the time you see your parents again?"
MI saw right through him.  "That's not what you're even testing for anymore... is it..."
  Several of Crowley's minions entered now. I hadn't seen so many of them in the same place since my arrival. One of them was  the nurse who'd cut me. She looked especially terrified to be in my presence again.
 "We're still working on it, Jace. We haven't found anything too helpful yet, but failure is progress in the eyes of science! However... today there is another matter we wish to observe."
   "Well I refuse."
   Dr. Crowley narrowed his eyes. With a jerk of his wrist, he signaled one of his team members to hand him a device. I steadied my stance for a fight, then quickly realized he was only wielding a recorder.
   He clicked the button. "Day- thirty six. Time- ten forty seven. Patient is incoherent. Must have spent night outside of water. Refuses to cooperate with simple requests."
   Before I could react, I had a man on each of my arms. "Stop... where are you taking me!" I growled, trying to thrash free of their gasp without reveling the power Naceo gifted me on our last goodbye.
   "Showing signs of aggressive behavior," he muttered into the device again. "Gentlemen, have him against that wall. Ruby- turn the electricity in the pool to 1000 volts. We don't want him running to where he can't get him."
   "You're monsters!" I snarled as they pinned me to the wall. Extracting a chillingly shiny silver knife from his front pocket, the doctor drew a line across my chest. I was too bothered by the pain and betrayal to pay attention to their bewildered reactions.
   "We're monsters...?" Dr. Crowley laughed.
    The air was so silent, all i could hear was the plip and plop of my blood on the floor. After the last drop, they began to discuss, chattering excitedly. My mind was numb... brainded... overdosed on empty reason to keep living. Then one things becomes clear:
    It isn't just my blood which will shed on this floor today.

 
   

Chapter 13

MONEY

     They humiliated me.

     Eva is backing away at the door, staring at what I have done. She isn't sure if I've yet snapped out of the mindset that created this bloody mess.

  I'm mostly back to normal. "They were cutting me Eva!" I try to explain, but there's not even a scratch on my body to prove it. 

    She looks me dead in the eye. "You're not going to hurt me, are you?"

    "Never!" I start crying, "why would you say that Eva, why would you think it?!" I run Dr. Crowley's sparkling blade against my throat. 

    Eva screams, running to me with tears flying behind her. She punches my arm and the knife goes flying into the pool, landing with a "zzt" noise caused by the electric current.
    "Wow," I'm somehow laughing, "that was actually really impressive."
    She took off her shirt and pressed it to my neck, using both hands to steady my head. "Jace, how could you!"
   I was smiling at her with wide, wild eyes, and she couldn't even look at me. Finally my sense of sympathy kicks back in. "Eva, darling..." I wrap my arms around her, "I'm going to be ok. It didn't do anything. Look..." I pry off her arms, which had been clamped like laundry pins around me. The skin was fresh.
   But her shirt was half red.
   She gave me a doubtful look, and then recalled we were standing in the middle of a homicide. The murderous guilt began to set in. I was staring at the bodies. Eva was now calmer about it than me. "It's okay Jace. I'll get us out of this. Let's leave... now."

    "Why did you come back for me?" I asked her as we rolled out of the laboratory garage.
     She was twiddling her thumb on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead as she softly spoke, "because I love you."
     I didn't ask any more questions. We drove in silence together. My attention was directed to out the window. Blue sky... green leaves... grey cement. It's hard to believe there ever was an apocalypse looking at these streets. I was even wearing normal clothes, riding shotgun with my girl. I was relieving to pretend like everything was okay for just a moment.
     I noticed an old man peeking out from between two buildings. His beard was greyed and overgrown, and almost everything he wore had holes in it. "Is that man homeless?"
    "Correct," said Eva. "Two years ago, Ramecha reached its population capacity."
     "No," I argued, "it couldn't have. Less than two years ago, you and I were sent out to recruit more people to Ramecha. And it didn't feel like we were the last batch they sent off either."
     "Also correct," she frowned. "Somehow the government still finds recruiting precedent above expanding the walls. I suppose the logic is to let the least useful to the system go out and find the most useful to the system... or die trying."
     I nodded my head. "I guess that makes sense."
     "Sense?!" Eva laughed with an undertone of disgust, "you of all people should understand what this heartless cycle does to people! They say anyone can be a recruiter, but who can, really? The young, the strong... not the old and weak." Though the man was long behind us, I saw her gazing melancholily through the rearview. "The law says only the working citizens can have homes."
     "Couldn't he have found another job?"  I tried weakly, although I felt I already knew what answer was coming.
     "We're already overpopulated. The Protector's Council reserves jobs for its families and for the incoming citizens who score high on the Potential Services Exam."
     I briefly recalled taking that test- it was just moments after my vaccination. I was certain I did horribly; no wonder I never received any calls from this mysterious council. In fact, I'd never heard of this "protector's council" before, and now it was spoken to me twice in one day. "The Protector's Council?"
     "It's what the government really is, Jace. Our government is not a network of people exchanging agreements for the good of everyone. It's a council of a few dozen people who are making decisions for their own good that affect all of us. They're the ones who invented recruiting. If just anyone told you to hold this gun and go risk your life outside the SafeZone, you'd call them crazy. But the Protector's Council built a whole station and promised jobs for everyone, and we call it an opportunity."
      "Why would they do that?" I shuddered.
      "Money," Eva said plainly. "Recruiting is a franchise. To the government, it creates profit. To the country, it creates space. To the people, it creates jobs. We've viewed recruiting as heroism for a long time, but what happens to recruiters, really? You serve three seasons for five years... then you come back and the government expects you to either have a family to go back to, or a job lined up as soon as you return. The other half die on the job. I don't expect it gets any easier the next four years."
     I'd never considered pinning my frustrations on the Ramechan establishment, but Eva had just enlightened be to the fact that I was wounded on the job... my illness was a product of enlisting as a recruiter.
      Yet what would I have done, if not enlist? Hide in my parent's house all day? I didn't disagree with the idea that our government wanted every citizen working. But as Eva made clear, recruiting was a deadly last resort. And if the Protector's Council really was preventing simple kids like myself from having any work at all... this cycle truly is vicious. None of us recruiters knew what we were getting into when we began, and the journey itself was a lesson that willed us all back to the SafeZone. Nobody would want to stay on the road long... or would they?
     I remembered again the bike gang. Were they rebel recruiters who decided to never come home...?
     "Now that I think about it... recruiting is the perfect ticket out of here. They give you a bike!"
     Eva smiled. "That was my thinking- well, after I met you. I was never attached to Ramecha... not even my family. I wanted to run away with you."
    I looked at her, and it was as if I could feel her all around me. Her smile, he voice, even her name.
    "I love you too," I said.

     She pulled into a large, empty lot, next to a small metal complex. There were no signs and no other buildings around. "Where are we?"
    "This is where I live, with other ex-recruiters. When we came back, we couldn't find jobs and we didn't want to go out again."
     It went deep, like a metro station. Our footsteps began to echo, and then I saw the tunnels. On one side, an old cart now served as a multi-room home. People inside were seated as if they were on their morning commute, and yet between them was a slanted table with a deck of cards. On the other tracks, groups were surrounding small fires; some roasting rats on sticks.
    "All this time... I was living in some big fancy research center, and you were here?"
    "It's a lot nicer than the way we lived on the road. I don't mind it, really. You know some people here actually."
    I then realized faces had been recognizing me before I recognized them. The Garcia family... some members of Team D... even Augustus was down here.
    "Jace...?" he looked at Eva. "What's going on?"
    This was dangerous. To strangers, I could appear to be just another person... at least for several hours until my symptoms of turning began to show. But nearly everyone here already knew what I was. Worse was what it was doing to my ego to be in the presence of all who had seen me in a mentally vacant state; I felt the size of a mouse as I walked now, following Eva while avoiding the gazes of even my former friends.
    "He shouldn't be here," I heard Mr. Garcia growl. His father chimed in with a string of hisses I could not understand. Prencess was clutching onto Augie's arm fearfully. Bitty watched warily with wide eyes. The last time I'd seen all these people, they treated me like just another recruiter- heroic and approachable for aid. Too see them glaring at me in fear was difficult to swallow.
   With a touch, Eva grounded me back to reality. "You don't have much time, Jace." She urged me to sit on the platform.

   There was a man sitting, facing the miles of darkness down the tunnel. We were face to face now. "Mr. Orion," he croaked humbly, "I've heard lots about you."
   He wasn't old, but he wasn't young. Blue and purple veins traveled up his skinny neck to his bald head. He wore old clothes and faded tattoos.
   As Eva helped him up, he bellowed through the tunnel, "calm now, Everyone! Jace's presence is a good omen for ERA!"
   The only uncertain one was me now. "...how so?"
   "The ex-recruiter's association has been waiting for a moment to strike, and you are our key!"
    "Strike? Against what?" I feared his answer would be the god of the sea, or the zombies. It was a pointless battle- a suicide mission- and I would not involve myself in any more madness.
    But instead he pronounced, "Ramecha!"

    "Humans are the only creatures who must pay to live on this planet."
    I wasn't sure how many followers trailed behind us as the blind man led us slowly down the tunnel he'd been facing. Eva was next to me, holding a burning torch which lit up the crooked brick walls.  She kept a steady eye on the man, whose bare feet traced the path between the railings. I wondered why I was not introduced- why his name was obsolete- and yet everyone was quietly listening for his next words like their lives depended on it.
     But I felt a strange truth in his speech.
     "There is no utopia! There is no world where everything survives and everyone belongs! No one can achieve this- not even a God! When He unleashed his curse, he meant for us to return to a life of animals... to gather food... avoid predators! But we are not animals!"
   "NO!" Everyone shouted in unison, echoing through the tunnel and sending chills down my spine.
   "We are sophisticated! Conscious! Why did He do this to us?"
    Oh no, I thought, don't try to put a reason behind anything Naceo does.
    Yet still I found truth to his words:
    "...because he felt the sadness... the destruction... the inequality! Ramecha and the SafeZones are only reflections of the world he burned down. The people found comfort in them and flocked to them because they are familiar, but the God is asking for a New Order! If we do not want to live like animals, nor like slaves to our safety. it is our duty to make certain we do not slip back into the destruction and the inequality. It is our duty to destroy the heart of Ramecha!"
    I was startled to hear Eva shout alone, "It is not our duty to create a world where everything belongs, it is not our duty to govern!"
    "NO!" they yelled again, and everyone chanted altogether, "it is our duty to set humanity free! To restore our ancestor's promise to the divine! To thrive in anarchy!"

   

Chapter 14

ACID

   I had to pull Eva aside. "Remember when we got off the boat and I told you I made the deal with Naceo? We never actually made that deal. He wasn't interested in renewing the promise."

   Her expression was grave, but she remained calm. "Why did you lie about it then?"

    "I wanted to make you happy,.... I know it was wrong, but we're running out of time so don't waste it reprimanding me The deal he made was much worse. He left, took the ocean with him, and now he wants me to turn and slaughter everyone. His 'anarchy' isn't freedom from rules and government, its chaos and death."

    "Are you sure?" the question had come from the blind man. I hadn't even noticed him come up to us. It was as if he read my mind when he oked, "bad eyes, good ears, light feet."

    "What does this mean, Ty?" asked Eva.

   "It means nothing. Do not trouble yourself with the words He may have used, Jace. Intentions are not spoken... they are discovered."

"You don't understand," I was beginning to tremble, "he did something to me. He wanted me to become the bad guy."

    "Oh," Ty shed his all-knowing smile and replaced it with a serious frown. "Well.... will you?"

   "N-no," I stuttered; I was beginning to lose the patience to take this man seriously. "I don't want to, but..."

    "They you won't. This one has a strong soul, do you think so?" He was asking Eva. She nodeded her head, and he somehow understood. "I knew it," he smiled again. "Come now, we're almost to our destination."

   It was a lone subway car, slightly derailed. The group formed a circle around me. I made eye contact  with Augustus., and recognized the pitiful guilt I'd encountered once before when he was holding the gun to my head on Krev's demand. My hair was on end now.

   "What's going on?!" I cried.

    "This will not be easy for you Jace," Ty called to me from the circle, "...and though we are firm believers of choice, all of us know your condition already limits you."

   My heart was racing. I turned around and gazed at Eva. She wouldn't have brought m here if this wouldn't end well for me. But she too wore a face that anticipated suffering.

   "Unfortunately my friend, the only choice left to make is to get inside the car, or to have all of us force you."

   I did not resist. Ty, Augustus, Eva and Mr. Garcia were close behind me.  The place smelled of dust and decay. 

   "I hate that I must do this to you, my son," Ty bowed his head. "Although I have the utmost faith you will come out of this peacefully, I cannot risk the lives of these people."

  "II understand," I answered quietly s Mr. Garcia  pushed me down into a seat. The sound of chains dragging across the floor made me twitch in fear.  Augustus cuffed one wrist in silence, and Eva did the other, kissing my head gently as she returned to standing straight up.

   "Now, my son..." the all stood before me, "I'm going to  give you something I wish I could give you under clear skies and a warm sun. Please understand that these chains to not mean that we are holding you down... that we are plotting against you. You agreed and showed patience a moment before, but before I can give this to you, you must show me you believe it."

    The chains were heavy. I got the sense the man already knew about the strength Naceo had givenn me. I looked at Eva and said, "in a couple hours, I might have the will to rip the one thing I love into pieces. So yes... I truly believe the chains are not here for me, they are here for you all."

   "Excellent," Ty breathed, "and from the brilliant way you answered, I believe you'll have the will to resist that urge."

  From his pocket he extracted a small case. A gentle pince caused it to come open. "Are you familiar with this, Jace?"

   It was a small square of paper, no bigger than the head of a screw. 

    "No, I'm not," my voice shivered.

   "Yes... you were very young when the world became complicated. Had the tragedy occured a bit later, you may have encountered it out of curiousity. Many young adults choose to expieremnt with this power to learn about the world, and about themselves! Again, I would wish to intridduce it to you in a setting of love and care, but I supppose it iwill be up to you to find those feelings within you and your memories."

   I scanned the people in fron to me once more, and allowed Eva to place the paper on my tongue. After swallowing with some hesitation, Ty explained that I would be visited often and given another dose by nightfall to continue the process. I imagined that would be a much more difficult task at that point.

   The three men exited. Eva stayed behind for a moment, holding me tight.

   "Do you trust this?" I wondered. She must have, to be letting it all happen before her eyes submissively.

   "I tried the paper too. I can't say if it will stop your madness, but it helped me., and maybe it will help you." She kissed me again and followed them out. The door locked with a loud click.

   

    The first hour seemed to drive me insane simple with boredom. I memorized the scenery

  . Mr. Garcia left behind his battery powered lantern; the idol sat on the metro floor and illuminated the fading colors of graffiti on the walls and ceiling. I could stand and walk over to the lamp if I wanted to, for the length of my chains allowed me to walk everywhere in the cabin except ea few feet from the door. I picked it up and counted abandonned cobwebs, poster ads, and even the patterns in the fabric seats. The patterns eventually cught my eye once more, for I was certain I saw them moving.

   They were  moving. Everything was moving...breathing. I rubbed my eyes, but the effect would not go away. 

   I was suddenly paralyzed in fear, yet I could not identify the source. 

  My father was peering at me through the window. I understood it was my reflection on some level, but another part of me knew it was also my father. I carried him with me all this time, and yet I'd never thought to use his presence for strength? 

   My mind felt heavier. Who else was I carrying inside of me? I began to hear voices emerging from the silence. Childhood friends. The families of the trailer park who had helped us without question. The bike gang, the nurses at the infirmary, the chatter of the recruiters, the screams of the zombies...

   I stumbled over my own chain and fell on the floor. The whole car shook. I wondered if someone would enter, but as I waited with my cheek still pressed to the filthy floor, no one did.

   I must have been lying on the floor for a while because when I eventually did get up, I felt quite dizzy.

    Yet not hungry. Why was this? Was the drug curing me? No... it couldn't be that simple. I recalled that Ty assured me I would be visited often, and though I could no longer keep account of time, I had a feeling it was moving much sower. What had I done alone in this car anyways, besides stumbling upon a hundred realizations?

  Soon came a hundred more. This time I was contemplating Naceo's intentions. "Intentions are not spoken, they are discovered," the blind man had said. I wondered whether or not Ty had  had known Naceo. For a moment I could believe Ty was Naceo! Paranoia began to fill my heart. No, it couldn't be... it couldn't be...

   Then the first wave of hunger hit. I crossed my arms and rubbed my palms quickly back and fort over my skin. What would I give for a gulp of water?! I'd tear off my fingers one by one if I had to! I wondered if I had the strength to do this, but I soon loosened the gri I'd had on my pinky and reminded myself that would not work to satiate me regardless.

    And just like that, I was aboard another train of thought. A gulp of water was... utopia. Ripping off my fingers was my idea of a soution. There was no sense in this, just as there was no sense in curing the world. "It is not our duty to create a world where everything belongs!" her voice echoed in my mind.

   The second wave of hunger... but god... what would I give to be back in that pool? I closed my eyes and pictured myself floating on my back, spitting water from my teeth like a fountain. I flipped over and noticed my imaginary water was deep red. Around me were the bodies of the scientists, freshly slaughtered and slowly sinking.

   "Ah!" I cried out loud. I was a killer! How come it hadn't registered until now? Perhaps it was the state of mind I was in as I killed that disconnected me from culpability. These thoughts brought in emotions too strong to describe with words. I was pacing, kicking walls, inflicting pain on myself in the strangest of ways. Maybe you should rip off a finger or two, anyways! the demon inside me roared, and there I was, gripping the skin again, when suddenly I heard the door unlocking.

    It was just Augustus. "Jace?" I was lying across three seats on my back. He spotted me and sat in the one parallel to my head on the opposite side of the car. "How've you been?"

   "Miserable," I muttered. 

   "It was hard for me, too. Well... obviously I didn't go through the same thing you're going through. But for the longest time, I wasn't okay with the way I was feeling and thinking."

   "Then why did you let them do this to me??"

   "Because, I learned that the things...? The awful things that I was feeling and thinking? It wasn't the paper that put those there. They were always there. The paper just brings them out."

   I'd been chewing on his words, but then I noticed he was leaving. "Wait... Can you stay longer?"

 "Ty said it would be better for you to do these first few hours on your own. Someone else will come in an hour, and then you'll have visitors as frequently as you want. Sound okay?"

   "Why do I have to be alone?"!" I moaned, clutching my head. My chains dragged loudly across the floor.

 "You're not alone, Jace." Augustus smiled, and it was bewildering to find wisdom in his gaze. He had matured already from when we first met to our reunion, but this was a new Augustus for sure. He was admitting to weakness, something I never expected the proud Augustus to share. I only listened now; footsteps, a creak, the weighty click.

   

   The effects were growing much wilder. I cried for no reason, I lay still as a corpse and saw colors flash before my eyes. Though I had Augustus's words to contemplate and was mostly content being by myself, the hunger felt like needles in my stomach, and I craved another companion for distraction. "This 'hour' is taking centuries!" I sung at the top of my lungs  in case someone was waiting outside.

    With no sound of the door, I was somehow approached by another visitor.

   "Hello, Neither." 

Chapter 15

PAIN

   My first instinct was to lunge myself at him., but he quickly reappeared at the other end of the car, where my chains would not allow me to reach. "Sad," he chuckled, "after all this spiritual learning and self discovery, your first reaction is violence."

   "I'm thirsty!" I screamed, and I HATE YOU!"

   "It's not good to self loathe, Neither." He was hanging for a bar playfully now. It was strange to see him out of the water; he even wore pants- bright blue fabric that was designed wide around the ankles. 

   "We are not the same."

   "Nor are we different. Everything is connected, don't you feel it?" I did feel it. Those three words seemed to sum up all my thoughts since the drug kicked in.

   "Imagine a train..." he snickered at his own joke, "the train is a billion cars long, and it carries every person on the planet. This is who we are. Every living thing, even me."

   Could this really be Naceo? He was so calm, so sincere. I allowed myself to give in to his kindness. "Why are you here?"

   "I missed you," he admitted. "I went back up to see my parents after we fought. I hadn't seen them in over a thousand years. I told them I was done tormenting your planet. They didn't believe me. I didn't believe me! I don't enjoy this game, Neither, But your planet needs to be taught a lesson."

   I was listening quietly. The suffering and the madness overpowered my ability to respond, but I was comprehensive enough to contemplate.

   "Despre my evils, my family welcomed me. It reminded me my soul isn't far from human. I began to regret certain choices I made..." He smiled at me and laughed, "No, not the zombies. That was most definitely called for. But perhaps I should have helped you more. You were my only friend."

    My sympathy was lingering by a thin hair.

   "If you really want to help me," I wheezed, "let me drink." I rolled off the seat and onto my knees. "The... dry... is... killing... me..."

   "Yes," he looked me up and down, "you look quite unwell."

   The lock on the door clicked undone and Naceo disappeared with a wink and a grin.

  I screeched in agony, even though it was Eva who came to me.

  "Jace!" she started towards me quickly, slowing as she realized the potential hazard.

  "Leave me Eva," I was frightened by the dark growl in my own voice. She shook her head, and I released a lion-like snarl as I tightened my chains.

   The shadows on her face circulated in all different directions. Her expression- still and calm like untouched waters- was focused on me. 

   We stared into each other's eyes for a lasting moment. 

  My brain was churning again. Eva was persistent, a persistent captive of my curse. I didn't want her to go. I wished I could stay and talk to her... make her feel better... feel loved. But I was so full of anger and the energy to destroy, I could only think to push her away.

   "Now you know exactly how I felt..." Naceos voice came from the inside of my ear.

    Could it be? Eva was my Neither?

    A mystical force had tied me to the sea one fateful day, the same way love had tied Eva to me. Naceo was a beast who had forgotten how to love, and he was turning me into one too. I understood why he'd tried to force me away. He wasn't capable of showing me kindness.
  Her stare was still locked onto mine. She must have known what I was thinking; her face read a message of rock solid tenacity. How could I love and respect yet loathe and disgust her at the same time? No wonder nNaceo had so badly wanted me to turn to one of his complacent dolls. The idea of something so muc h weaker than yourself asking you for strength wa overwhelmingly parasitic to the ego.
My memories were wiped for the next few hours.
   Nect thing I saw was Ty arrpraocing me with another paper. I was as close to the door as I coul be, the weight of my body against the tension of my chains keeping me leaning upright towards the eit. "Whaat happened?" I panicked under my breath, "I forgot everything after Ev-"
    'She's alright," Ty smiled, offering he dose upon his palm. He was not going to force me this time.
   I was still worried about  my blackout, "What did I do?"
   "Nothing. You did't make a sound or a move. You were calm, but unresponsive. So eventually she left."
   I stared at him strangely, then stuck out my tongue to his hand to pick up the paper.

   This time I had company. Ty, Augustus, a team D recruiter who's name I could barely remember, and a middle aged couple whom I'd never seen before today were all sitting in the four sears that faced each other. Augustus was standing, lingering on the bar quite like Naceo had done. I watched him curiously.
   They were talking about a storm. Apparently a vicious one had begun since I'd been brought here, and it had only worsened since. It seemed strange to me because the skies were cleared while Eva and I were driving.
   "Citizens will not be able to leave their homes for days if this keeps up," said the woman, whose silver hair bled into a pale auburn towards the tips. The day was sunny, last I recalled.
   “It is no ordinary storm either,” said the recruiter, “Augie and I checked outside the station and the rain is melting away the buildings. There’s crazy ditches in the ground that are being flooded with rainwater, and they’re flowing fast.”

   Just as he finished his sentence, we heard a loud crack of thunder, and the bricks of the tunnel shook for a few seconds. Everyone- even I- looked up for a brief moment in fear, and then back to each other.

   I had a feeling they were going to ask me if I knew anything about it, which was naturally the next question. I tried to croak an “I don’t know,” but my throat was like chalk, my mind like a cloud.

   “Think my son,” Ty came over to me and help my wrists with his cool hands, easing the scratches on my skin caused by my leaning against the chains. My eyelids lowered and I tilted back my head as he spoke, “why would the God burn wide rivers all over the land?”

    I pictured what outside must look like by now. Gray and blue skies… misshapen mirrors on the concrete. Trees flickering in the wind, all accompanied by a symphony of booms and the unstopping rhythm of rain.

   Then the idea hit me. “He’s returning the sea!” I gasped.

    “Good, good,” Ty massaged my hands harder, pressing his thumbs into the bridge of my wrist an palm. “What else?”

   There was more. I imagined again… the zombies. They craned their frail necks back and tasted the rain. Bodies, floating on their bellies down the river. “He’s… removing all the zombies.” Their backs to the sky, they drained into the sea.

    This statement had their attention. The woman rose to her feet abruptly. They were surrounding me. “Is that all, my son?!” Ty’s voice was madly excited.

The visions weren’t done. Now I saw a large stone wall, slowly being eroded to grains of sand.  “He’s… destroying the walls of Ramecha.”

    Ty was choking- no, crying… laughing! He dropped to his knees and clasped my hands, pressing them to his forehead. “Praised be the Gods! They have heard humanity’s cries for freedom! We are forgiven! We are forgiven!”

   The couple burst into tears of joy. Augustus smiled at me with wide, eager eyes. I nodded understandingly, signaling him to follow the others in celebrating this news with the rest of ERA.

    I aided the blind man- weakened with age and emotion- back to his feet. “How are you, my son…” he addressed me kindly, “are you in pain anymore?”

    “Its bearable now.” I could somehow admit.

   “I’m so proud of you. Here, let me unchain you.”

   The earth over the tunnel crumbled slightly as we made our way back. At one point I even had to jerk the blind man backwards so he wouldn’t walk right into a deadly rock shower.

   Eva’s first instinct was to run to me when she saw me, but we both stared at each other from across the tracks knowingly, and remained professional while everyone was still fretting about the earthquakes. The crowd was echoing with a jumble of “should we get out of here?”s and “is it safe?”s. When the tunnel shook violently again, I called everyone to follow me towards the station’s center, and they took shelter on the stairs under the roofing. I ascended, letting the rain wash my dry skin.

   I was right. This was not usual rain- this was seawater. As soon as I was out of sight- a little beyond the top step of the station- Naceo appeared.

   We did not exchange words. I wanted to know whether or not he would stop the storm, and his glowing blue eyes told me yes, he would allow humans to restart the world with freedom soon enough.

   The water all around me was euphoric. I could feel no pain, no loss, no resistance. Naceo approached me, holding my fingers loosely as he gave me a tender kiss on the cheek. The sensation left sparkles on the inside of my skin. “Take care of her for me,” were his last words as he sunk upwards into the sky.

     CLOSURE

   The next day, citizens of Ramecha crept out of their homes curiously to witness what had become of the wall. At first, they were terrified. But ERA had organized a distribution of hopeful flyers, and when the citizens realized what this meant, most of them decided to travel back to their old homes. There, they encountered a few other souls whom they may not have known or recognized at all, but still shared the memories of what their town had once been. And from that mutual feeling of heritage and belongingness, their cities began to prosper.

    I was not cured. Even after all I had been through, Naceo would not give me the satisfaction. Luckily, the rivers he created to transport the zombies to the ocean were still present long after the storm’s end. Their existence allowed me to dwell in any city I desired, as well as reinforcing new borders between areas. This kept the land small enough for tribal societies rather than mass-production based ones. Even Ramecha had been divided into several different Islands, and the request for bridges had all the remaining citizens working together on a new, self-directed project.

  

    Eva and I chose to live in Port Antigone. By the time we got there, we received the unfortunate news that Zupak had passed. It relieved us to learn that his death had not come before the storm. “He knew you two were behind it,” the young man who had been Zupak’s caretaker smiled with a tear in his eye. “He was very certain… very proud.”

    My endurance without water had dramatically improved since the day Ty blessed me with the experience. I could resist turning for several days, though the world’s new geography never subjected to me to it.

   One day I told Eva that I needed to be on the move again. “I have to find my parents,” I explained, “I need to know if they are alright.”

    She offered to come with me, but I insisted she stay. Her medical skills were important to have back at the port. I promised that if I could not find them within six months, I would return and settle with ignorance. I left on foot.

    I met a surprising amount of people along the way. They offered me food and shelter for the night once I explained the purpose of my journey.

    One morning, when I was waking up in the guest bedroom of a humble family of four, I heard one of the children screaming. I ran downstairs and discovered a mountain lion was clawing at their front door. After the human species ceased to dominate the world, large predators like this lion were allowed to flourish in nature.

   I urged the children to stay back as I threw the door open and pushed the beast to the ground. Right before I could finish the creature off, the children’s parents had arrived back from the farm- fresh greens in a canvas bag. They would have been killed if I wasn’t there, and the children were likely next.

    Naturally they were both grateful and confused. I figured there was no harm in explaining to them who I was and how I became this way. I spilled my whole story. It made sense now how I was a “traveler” (one would have to carry a boat everywhere they went to pursue a straight path, for many cities still did not have bridges.) They thanked me again, and I continued north.

    I began to show off my strength and tell my story more frequently as I traveled. It wasn’t for the ego boost- although that was a bonus I felt I deserved anyways after all I’d been through- it was the easiest way to get my name in circulation.

    Ramecha wasn’t the only civilization which found it necessary to build bridges, and though cities were still staying small and self-governing, the bridges allowed for trade of unique goods, borrowing during shortages, and most importantly for me: the exchange of stories.

   So it was quite satisfactory to hear one day as I helped a group of men struggling under the weight of a freshly chopped tree, “hey, you’re Jace Orion, aren’t you?”

    These men did not know where my parents were, but I was confident that I would stumble into the right people soon enough.

     Yet four months had passed already, and no one had any hint on where the Orions could be. My father, who only had one arm, couldn’t be mistaken. I began to fear they were dead.

   I hadn’t felt so much spire since I was locked up in the metro car. It drove me weeks over my time limit I’d promised to Eva, all the way back to Ramecha. I broke through the rotting doors of the capital building and demanded the first person I saw to search for the paperwork on the Orion’s exile. The young woman trembled before me- she was just a bookkeeper with an interest in Ramechan history. “I might be able to find it, but I’m not sure!” she whimpered helplessly.

   I took a deep breath, recalling the patience I had to exercise when slipping into this mood.

   As we walked through the ruins, the bookkeeper, who went by the name of Pim, shared what information she’d gathered absorbing all the text she’d sifted through. Apparently the Protector’s Council was sitting on a lot of dark secrets, one which included the murder of Debra Crowley- the wife of my very own Dr. Crowley- who tried to expose the ingredients to the vaccination so that even people outside of SafeZones could have it.

    I admired Pim’s will to learn without seeking certification. She’d also heard of me, but little records were made about my existence, so it thrilled her to hear my story through my own perspective.

   When we eventually got to the files on the Orions, we could find nothing- except for the letter I had written years ago. I tucked it in my pocket and thanked her with a sigh. Before departing, she leaned in to kiss me, but I stopped her. “I’m sorry,” I shook my head, “I can’t.”

    “You said you’ve been on your own for months…” she lowered her head bashfully, “I just… I thought you-”

    “I have someone waiting for me back at home…”  I was reminded again of the extra month I’d added to my trip. She nodded understandingly. I knew then my search ended here, in Ramecha. It was time to go home.

    My journey back took even more months. I kept running into people in trouble! Predators, dry-spells, famine, all kinds of conflict. At one point I even found myself in a fight between two halves of a larger city. The northern side had snuck in and taken crops from the southern side, but they were caught. Now the south wanted revenge.

    “Stop it!” I ran between the men, charging with weapons of stick and stone in their hands. “If a poor man comes into your house starving, what do you do? You feed him! Sure, it is not easy to keep a whole other town fed, but we are not each other’s enemies!”

    “It’s not fair,” a southerner spat, “we work and they take it all?”

    “It was also not fair that the norther soil happened to be less fertile,” I reasoned, “but that’s just nature. We are nature too, and it may be in your blood to fight for what is yours, but we aren’t animals.”

   The mob wasn’t pleased. The man that I had to force back physically was not shoving me aside. I rolled my eyes, grabbed the back of his shirt with my fist, and whisked him to the floor five feet away like a ragdoll. “If you all don’t cooperate with each other, I’ll kill you all, hm?! How’s that for animal behavior!?”

   My strength bewitched them, and they began to chatter frightfully. “I guess we could make some sort of deal…”

   As they muttered, I was revisited by an important lesson: It is not our duty to create a world where everything belongs. It is not our duty to govern! My threat of power against these villagers was no better than tyranny.

   “I’m sorry,” I rubbed my head regretfully, casually roaming off the battlefield. “Forget what I said. Do whatever you think is best.” I dove into a nearby river, and let its current swallow me for a ride all the way back home. No more stops… no more interference… let humanity be…

    I was worried Eva would be angry at me for nearly doubling the amount of days I said I would be gone, so I approached our front door with caution. I was startled to see a small child by Eva’s foot. I thought it about it for only a moment before reasoning that the child was at least a couple years old to be toddling like he was.

   Then I heard my name, coming from my mother’s voice. “Jace? Is that you?”

    Both of them were there- at my dinner table- alive and well! I ran into their arms and cried with joy. I couldn’t find them, but just like the prophecy of my strange dream had predicted, they were searching for me!

    They’d been staying here with Eva for a couple weeks now. My original idea had actually aided them in discovering my whereabouts. News of a powerful young man from Port Antigone scouring the land for his parents eventually found its way to the city they were living in. “You made me glad for once that I have a missing arm,” my father joked, “it really was a crucial part of the story…!”

 

   After a brief reunion, I met my little brother, Niko. He had ruffled brown hair and hazel eyes like mine. I picked him up and raised him over my head, laughing with him in delight. “You’re my little brother!” I breathed in amazement, to which he responded “yay!”

    At nightfall I crawled into bed with Eva. In the midst of excitement, we hadn’t yet a chance to talk in private. “I’m sorry I took so long,” I sighed as she rolled over, her back to my face. “I was caught up in an anger spell. I lost hope… I thought they were dead.”

    She hit me with an unexpected issue. “You’re not growing older, Jace.”

    The world was quiet.

    “I love you, Jace… but after meeting your family, I realized… I need a life like that.”

    My heart felt stiff at first, but I considered her words in silence. I loved Eva- deeply enough to resist the temptation of the bookkeeper even after months of loneliness. Yet since the storm ended, I realized we never had the same chemistry. If she needed to move on, I was prepared for that. Spending more than half a year without her helped me realize the person I could be while on my own.  If I really was going to be young forever, solitude would have to be something I could accept.

    There was another thing on my mind. I wasn’t exactly okay with the shape I’d left those arguing villagers in. I wasn’t trying to avoid giving a response to Eva’s decision, but I instead asked her if she could offer some wisdom. Eva’s advice is valuable.

    “Of course, Jace.” I heard joy in her tone.

    “When I was searching for my family, I found trouble in every other city I crossed through. It was hard not to try and control their problems from an outsider’s perspective. But then I remembered the ERA chant… the idea that we shouldn’t meddle into each other’s affairs… the idea that everyone is free to do as they want.”

    In the middle of my first sentence, Eva rolled over to face me. She listened thoughtfully with her lips tightly pressed together for some time.

    “If you trust your own judgement,” she formed her words carefully, “and you believe in freedom… it may be worth it to at least bring your ideas to surface. There’s a lot of people out there who don’t understand their own freedom!”

    “Seriously…” I sighed loudly, my mind flashing with the hundreds of faced I’d met over the past three seasons.

   She smiled, kissing my cheek. I was reminded of Naceo’s parting display of affection, and though this was softer and warmer, it carried the same love and honor.

    “Alright,” I smirked back, “what better to do with the rest of eternity…?”

THE END