The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (43 page)

             
“These guys have been st
ealing water and stuff from a lot of other people?”

             
“Yes,” He nodded grimly, “People are not as civil as that man with the megaphone would have us believe.”

             
“What else has been happening?”

             
Damn me and my journalistic mind! I always had to know the gritt
y details and I always regretted learning them once they were told to me.

             
“Well, supposedly a woman got…” He trailed off and looked at me. I think, for the first time, he realized that I was a girl and he should tread carefully with what he said. But I wa
s an equal opportunist, in conversation and otherwise, so I urged him to continue truthfully.

             
“Don’t beat around the bush. I can handle it.”

             
“Well, a woman was raped two nights ago. First night, and someone was already getting assaulted.”

             
I don’t know w
hy I wasn’t surprised.
             

             
“What happened to the guy that did it?”

             
“Another woman and her husband chased him off. They didn’t get a good look at his face, though, because we had put out our fires. I don’t know why we’re supposed to put them out so early.”

             
“Supposedly, they know for sure now that there are animals out there and they don’t want them to be attracted to the light.” I almost repeated my father’s explanation verbatim.

             
“Well, this woman reported what happened to someone at the top.”

             
“At the
top.” I turned the phrase over in my mind, realizing that a hierarchy had been established and I was perched on top of it. That gave me no joy or satisfaction. The severity of the divide between people of power and the rest of us at home had been part of t
he reason for the world’s destruction. Now, the seeds were being planted here on Pangea; they were weeds growing amongst pure white flowers in those soft fields of grass.

             
It was beginning again. The thought was too heavy to contemplate in full detail at
that moment.

             
“They told her they’d make a point to try to find those men. But we haven’t seen any of them looking around.”

             
“Probably because they’re too busy congratulating themselves on being able to pull this off.” I replied bitterly before walking a l
ittle faster. “Well, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that things like what happened to that woman and to you will keep happening if they don’t do anything to stop it. My sister told me that people have always been enamored by the idea of the end of the w
orld. Well, she actually says that it’s more the end of civilization that people are fascinated with.”

             
“Why does she think people are fascinated with something so terrible?”

             
“Because after it’s over, she says there are no laws. There are no expectations.
People can get in touch with their animal natures to survive. If that means killing someone over a loaf of bread, then so be it. There’s no one to arrest you. Do you see what I’m saying?”

             
“That actually makes perfect sense. I was expecting some crackpot
religious theory when you said your sister believed that people wanted the world to end.”

             
“No. My sister runs from religion the way the rest of us run from rabid dogs. What was the exact religious theory you had in mind, though?”

             
I was curious to know if
his theory that he deemed so crazed was the same as one I held in my own mind. Of course, I believed my theory to be perfectly sane.

             
“Well, some would say that people are fascinated with the world ending because they know, that through being wiped off th
e earth by God or the Gods, depending on your religion, that at least they’re looking at you. At least God or the Gods are paying attention. Some people want to die in the apocalypse because they know that their death is a righteous one. Their death is all
part of the plan.”

             
“That’s deep,” I told him after a minute of silence, “My sister would like you. She likes opinionated, interesting people.”

             
“And you think I’m interesting?”

             
“That was an interesting theory,” I smiled slightly, “Definitely up there in
some of the crazier ones I’ve heard. But then, it’s not so crazy. I’m sure there are people like that. But yeah, if you ever run into her, tell her that one. Her name is Brynna.”

             
“And what’s your name?” He studied me with those beautiful eyes of his.

             
I
smiled even bigger now, my face flushing red. His smile was as beautiful as the rest of him. I had always had a thing for guys who wore their hair swiped across their forehead. Brynna told me that boys who wore their hair like that were experiencing a slig
ht gender crisis and would more than likely be caught wearing woman’s undergarments someday. Despite that disturbing image forever etched in my mind, I still loved that particular hairstyle.

             
To put it bluntly, the boy before me was just my type and I was
going to make that fact known.

             
“My name is Violet. Where do you live?”

             
“I live about a mile back that way.” He pointed in the direction from which I had come.

             
“I live back that way, too. Maybe we can hang sometime.”
             

             
“Maybe we can.” He smiled again, “W
e’ll trade some more crazy things we’ve heard. I’ll keep you updated on current events. If you’re living up there with the man that runs this, you won’t hear a thing.”

             
“That man is my father.” I blurted it out before I could stop myself. I covered my mout
h, thinking I had blown it.

             
“I know.” He replied, “I saw you with him on the first day. That doesn’t freak me out but I won’t say that I like him.”

             
I nodded.

             
“What’s your name?” I asked, just to break the silence.

             
“Nicklaus. Well, Nick, for short.”

             
“C
ool. It’s been nice to meet you. Seriously, come find me. I need some people my own age to hang out with.”

             
“I do, too. We could hang out right now, if you like.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I could help you find this James Maxwell. Who is he, exactly?”

             
“
He’s my sister’s…” I tried several different words, including “boyfriend”, “friend”, “acquaintance”, before just settling on “person.” It was so very smooth of me. Thank you, Brynna, for being so complicated that I have to stutter over my words in order to
put a status to your relationship with a man. Now Nick probably thought I was insane.

             
When I looked up at him, though, he was laughing softly.

             
“Alright. Let’s go find her person, then.”

XXX

             
It was while we were walking through the rows of different
campsites that I began to see the discord that would eventually shake the foundation of our lives. When Dad had warned the people that they were to claim their rations by sunrise or else, he had neglected to mention that those who failed to appear would go
hungry that day. I couldn’t fathom why he was allowing people to starve but I knew that in time, the people would grow tired of it.

             
“Did he mention why he is refusing to give people food?” Nick asked me angrily as we watched a little girl take a huge gul
p of water from a bottle the man in the campsite next to hers had handed over.

             
“No.” I answered vaguely. I knew that I would be asking him later that night.

             
The answer was clear to me. My father was ruthless and he knew that by denying these people food,
eventually they would begin to die out. I had overheard him telling one of his minions, as Brynna called them, that we were overpopulated. Enough food hadn’t been packed for every survivor
             
“Nature has to take its course, I suppose.” Dad had told that man
who worked for him. There was a grimness to his voice that I was unfamiliar with. Though allowing people to starve was a necessity in his opinion, he took no pleasure in seeing them die.

             
I didn’t relate that to Nick, though, because I knew that by being m
y father’s daughter, he would begin to see me as being just as cruel. I vowed to change my dad’s mind on the subject. I would make him feed everyone, regardless of whether they showed up on time or not.

             
Some would argue that what he was doing was the only
option. But I didn’t see why we couldn’t all have food for the duration of time it took us to find our own on Pangea. By the time the rations ran out, we would know what was safe to eat and what wasn’t. However, eating unknown plants would surely yield a
few casualties, so that option wasn’t the kindest, either.

             
Surviving was going to get tougher as the weeks wore on. We were fools because we had not planned out solutions to any of the most vital challenges.

             
“Excuse me...” I approached a woman who was kn
eeling beside her daughter. I pulled my water bottle out of my bag and handed it to her.

             
“You’re his daughter, aren’t you?” The woman asked with a fury in her voice that scared me. “This is the second day he’s kept our food. We were there on time, too!”

             
“I’m sorry.” I said uselessly.

             
“Well, you shouldn’t be. But he should.”

             
“I know.”

             
“Thank you for the water.” She was abrupt with her gratitude, but I could understand. Her daughter was trembling on the cot, crying softly but making no tears. Dehydration
was beginning to take its toll on her small body.

             
I wanted to loathe him. I wanted to see him through the glare of hatred the same way Brynna did. But I couldn’t discount him. Perhaps if I pleaded with him, he would loosen up on those people. I would mak
e him walk down to the end of the campsite and see the horrors they were beginning to experience. It would take some convincing, but I believed that I could get him to reconsider.

             
“Naïve.” Brynna’s voice said in my mind. I shook my head slightly to force
her cold cynicism from my thoughts.

             
“Do you know who James Maxwell is?” I asked the woman. She turned to me in irritation, having thought our conversation was over.

             
“I don’t know if his last name is Maxwell. But a guy named James came through here just t
his morning. He was tall, muscular, brown hair, goatee and beard, nasty attitude...”

             
“That would be him.” I said grimly.

             
“Well, he left.”

             
“Left?” Nick asked in utter bewilderment. “Left to go
where
?”
             

             
“I don’t know. He took a tent and everything. He
took some water and a rations box that he had stolen from someone.”

             
“He said that he had stolen it?”

             
I don’t know why that surprised me so much. Our father wouldn’t give him a rations box while he was on his own. The preservation of our supplies was part
of the reason why but the other part was far darker: He wanted James to die slowly for engaging in a relationship, even one that was not physical, with Brynna.

             
“That’s what he said.” The woman huffed and I could see that her aggravation was growing. “Any
way, we don’t need thieves in this camp. We don’t need rapists, either, but your father made it clear that he doesn’t care about that. All he cares about is a few people surviving.”

             
Dad had no set group of people that he wanted to survive. He was just
trying to make the numbers dwindle down to a manageable figure. The woman had no idea exactly whose lifespan my father was trying to elongate, she just knew that there was a set group. She was wrong.