(no subject)
Eveolution: the quickening
The visions danced over and over in the fog ,.the last conscious things I saw and heard looping before my disembodied awareness,....
I argued about the stupidity of what we were doing with James while I was willingly playing accomplice,... To hold and sight down that precious rifle that belonged to the family, was a treat to a young man with little real claim to such a potent symbol of power, which belonged to the hierarchy of which I would always be pretty low on the ladder , the ammo we carried was something James and I had found and cached half of before taking the rest to the family, it was our secret, as was this trip to the Shambles,... The forbidden place of the Harpies, where legend had it that, from the coast one could see the lights of their abode, but this seemed to be stories as well since no one reportedly had ever seen one of them up close and lights that weren't fire were yet another thing of tales for most,..
Unless of course, you believed the ramblings of the old Colonel who claimed that the harpies abducted young virile men for breeding purposes, claiming he knew this because it had happened to him, naturally there are those who don't believe he's really a colonel either, some think he got the uniform off a dead Militant , and since he usually hid with the young men when they came through “recruiting” there was no real way to deny or confirm his story,... Aside from telling a good yarn, he carried his weight so was tolerated in the family, every able hand kept the group alive.
A Family existed in function if not so much in blood, it was often composed of as many stragglers, rovers they were called,... The healthy were taken in,and put to work, even such as my mother and myself, an infant at the time,... There were too few people left from the Collapse, or the Purge, as some called it, to turn any healthy body aside,... even after 300 years civilization was still crawling from the rubble, a fragmented and broken thing looking more like a hydra with many heads than something that was at one time or so they say, a cohesive collaboration of mankind,.. some even say the harpies were human once,...
I keep trying to clear my mind of the fog, perhaps if I could break this loop of a nightmare I could pull myself awake, but it keeps winding along, the sighting of the girl searching amongst the rubble, the memory of giving in to Jame's hissed argument that she had to be a harpy, because who else would be wandering the Shambles almost naked and alone, quietly following at a distance till we got a good profile of her against the moonlit sky,
James took aim after whispered assurances that he would only wound her, because a captive live harpy was worth a thousand times what a body would be worth, though to anyones knowledge none in either state had ever been reported and since both the Enclave and the Militants had made it clear they would pay very well for such, it would have not remained too quiet an event,.. James saw it as the way for the family to gain a place in the Enclave , a city situated in a protected valley with it's own army that obviously was strong enough to keep the militants at bay , it was the dream of every rover and family to buy it's way into the embrace of this sanctuary,.
My mind cringed trying to avoid when the shot rang instantaneously followed by the slap of the slug and cry of the girl echoed as one,.. then silence for several heartbeats as James and I looked on to she if she would rise, the wild scramble to keep up with James as he dashed to secure his prize, I would have been right behind him except for a snarl of cable that I ran afoul of in my path,... falling with the wind only slightly knocked from me I peripherally saw James reach the crest where the girl had fallen and lurch as a hand grabbed his ankle, he twisted and to my view melted from a tall youth to a waxen falling manikin in the breath he tried to draw to scream, then the wings that blocked the sky and the strong blow from a clawed fist that set the dream upon the black break before it started all over again,..
Only this time I was able to see a distant flicker of light and while I swam through the murk toward it I was further guided by the beacon of a sweet bell-like voice as it proclaimed,,” Maya!, I think he's coming to,..”
The visions danced over and over in the fog ,.the last conscious things I saw and heard looping before my disembodied awareness,....
I argued about the stupidity of what we were doing with James while I was willingly playing accomplice,... To hold and sight down that precious rifle that belonged to the family, was a treat to a young man with little real claim to such a potent symbol of power, which belonged to the hierarchy of which I would always be pretty low on the ladder , the ammo we carried was something James and I had found and cached half of before taking the rest to the family, it was our secret, as was this trip to the Shambles,... The forbidden place of the Harpies, where legend had it that, from the coast one could see the lights of their abode, but this seemed to be stories as well since no one reportedly had ever seen one of them up close and lights that weren't fire were yet another thing of tales for most,..
Unless of course, you believed the ramblings of the old Colonel who claimed that the harpies abducted young virile men for breeding purposes, claiming he knew this because it had happened to him, naturally there are those who don't believe he's really a colonel either, some think he got the uniform off a dead Militant , and since he usually hid with the young men when they came through “recruiting” there was no real way to deny or confirm his story,... Aside from telling a good yarn, he carried his weight so was tolerated in the family, every able hand kept the group alive.
A Family existed in function if not so much in blood, it was often composed of as many stragglers, rovers they were called,... The healthy were taken in,and put to work, even such as my mother and myself, an infant at the time,... There were too few people left from the Collapse, or the Purge, as some called it, to turn any healthy body aside,... even after 300 years civilization was still crawling from the rubble, a fragmented and broken thing looking more like a hydra with many heads than something that was at one time or so they say, a cohesive collaboration of mankind,.. some even say the harpies were human once,...
I keep trying to clear my mind of the fog, perhaps if I could break this loop of a nightmare I could pull myself awake, but it keeps winding along, the sighting of the girl searching amongst the rubble, the memory of giving in to Jame's hissed argument that she had to be a harpy, because who else would be wandering the Shambles almost naked and alone, quietly following at a distance till we got a good profile of her against the moonlit sky,
James took aim after whispered assurances that he would only wound her, because a captive live harpy was worth a thousand times what a body would be worth, though to anyones knowledge none in either state had ever been reported and since both the Enclave and the Militants had made it clear they would pay very well for such, it would have not remained too quiet an event,.. James saw it as the way for the family to gain a place in the Enclave , a city situated in a protected valley with it's own army that obviously was strong enough to keep the militants at bay , it was the dream of every rover and family to buy it's way into the embrace of this sanctuary,.
My mind cringed trying to avoid when the shot rang instantaneously followed by the slap of the slug and cry of the girl echoed as one,.. then silence for several heartbeats as James and I looked on to she if she would rise, the wild scramble to keep up with James as he dashed to secure his prize, I would have been right behind him except for a snarl of cable that I ran afoul of in my path,... falling with the wind only slightly knocked from me I peripherally saw James reach the crest where the girl had fallen and lurch as a hand grabbed his ankle, he twisted and to my view melted from a tall youth to a waxen falling manikin in the breath he tried to draw to scream, then the wings that blocked the sky and the strong blow from a clawed fist that set the dream upon the black break before it started all over again,..
Only this time I was able to see a distant flicker of light and while I swam through the murk toward it I was further guided by the beacon of a sweet bell-like voice as it proclaimed,,” Maya!, I think he's coming to,..”