Chapter 25 – Into the Light
A second or two tick by as I cry. I wish I knew what he was doing. I wish I knew why.
There has to be some way to get the lift door open.
“Rotter!” a voice calls.
I turn back to the level I’m on, wiping the salty tears from my eyes, and suddenly Dylan’s plan unfolds. I’m in the cave garden. Dylan is going to do something, create some kind of diversion, while I escape through the crack in the wall. I will never see him again. He’s going to his death. He’s going to sacrifice himself.
Rotter, the parrot, is perched precariously on the branch of a tree near the lift. He’s looking down at me, his head wobbling up and down as he tries to digest what I’m doing. He’s probably never seen a human cry before.
“Ben?” Rotter asks.
I had never told the parrot my name, had I? I don’t think I had. So how does it know who I am? Perhaps Skye’s told him. Still, that doesn’t make sense either.
I steel myself for what I have to do. I look around me, and see nobody in my immediate vicinity. That doesn’t mean the place is empty. The gardener is always here, and the farm is tended, and there could be anybody walking about. I have to be careful, but still I need to hurry. When Dylan does whatever he’s going to do on the surface, I need to be climbing inside that crack in the cave wall and out of here.
I slip into the trees, feeling leaves and branches swipe at my face. I creep swiftly through the thick wooded area of the gardens, eyes on alert, always watching. I use my training when catching wild animals, instead putting myself in the position of prey. I have to keep out of sight, and not make any noise.
I hear voices as I pass what I take to be a small oak tree. I press my back up against it, feeling the rough bark push against my skin. I slow my breathing down to its bare minimum and wait.
“I can’t believe the previous hosts were married,” says Sister Artemis. “Marriage is such an antiquated tradition.”
Brother China groans. “We do have a baby on the way.”
I peer around the tree, and watch Brian and Lottie walking together down a small paved pathway between the trees. Their hands aren’t touching and they are at least a meter apart, almost as if the mere touch of their bodies against each other is something filthy.
“A lovely child who will be a great Brother,” says Sister Artemis.
“A great Brother, yes,” Brother China agrees. “He won’t be that unique soon, though. After the crusade, all babies born will be raised as a Brother or Sister. It will be glorious.”
They walk away as I watch the back of Brian’s head. Even now I admire the shape of his ears and the way his buttocks fit into his trousers. He is so beautiful on the outside.
I’ll miss you so much, Brian, but it’s time to move on now.
When I see they’ve gone further into the woods, away from my sight, away from my life, I creep out from behind the juvenile oak tree. I start to panic, suddenly afraid I’ve lost my bearing. I seriously consider retracing my steps when Rotter gives an annoyed squawk.
“Ben!” the parrot shouts. “This way!”
“Rotter?”
I find the bird and grin, knowing he’s showing me the way.
I mentally thank the bird and continue, all the while waiting for something to happen. It’s been at least five minutes since Dylan left me. He must have gotten to the surface by now, but I haven’t heard a single thing, not a siren or shouts from Brothers and Sisters; nothing. I hope he hasn’t been caught already. They’d surely kill him.
BOOM!
The explosion almost rocks me off my feet. Rotter screams and takes off into the ceiling of stalagmites, leaving a wave of feathers behind him in his haste. The lights blink out, every single one. The ceiling trembles slightly and several smaller stalagmites drop loose and plummet to the ground. I put my hands over my head, fearful the whole cave is about to tumble down and crush me to death.
Dylan must have set off a bomb. I hope and pray that he hasn’t killed himself in the process. He had had the face of a man about to face his death when he’d left me.
No. I have to believe he has survived this. I will be reunited with Dylan.
I make my way to the crack in the cave wall. Rotter the parrot makes mad squawks all the time in his bid to guide me there. Now the lights are off, the cave is dark as tar and I need his guidance. Still, something about Rotter unnerves me. He acts different than before.
“Get in mineshaft, rotter!” the parrot screeches.
“I’m coming.” The parrot reminds me somewhat of Skye, which is absurd.
I stare back at the cave garden one last time. Even though I can’t see it I know it’s there. I think about Brian and Lottie, lost to me. I think about the beauty of the garden and how it’s wasted on the Order of Power. I think about Father’s body, lying in the operating room next to a pile of machinery covered in piss. I hope that this place falls to ruin when I have left. I hope it crumbles and falls apart.
“Hurry up, idiot,” says the parrot rudely. I make a swipe at it with my hand as it clambers through the crack in the wall, its talons clacking away. I follow, slipping through into blackness darker than the cave garden. I have to calm my breathing as I start to panic.
I berate myself. I’m not buried alive. Think this through carefully. I’m in a tiny crack in a cave wall, certainly, but I’m not buried alive. I’ll never let that happen to me again for as long as I live.
I feel my way along in the darkness. Rock scratches my skin and tugs at my clothes. Drops of water drip onto my face. All the while, I hear Rotter in the distance, mumbling to himself, the clacking of his claws and the rustling of his feathers made loud.
“How much longer?” I call out. My voice seems muffled, like I’m covered in a blanket.
“No complain!” says Rotter.
After a while, Rotter begins to make excited noises. I still can’t see him, or anything else for that matter, but his clattering seems to indicate a change. I push myself quicker onwards, ignoring a sharp piece of rock that digs into my shoulder. I have to get out of this tight corridor.
In my haste, I fall forward. For a second, I imagine myself falling down a deep dark chasm, a bottomless pit. I can’t die like this, down here in the dark.
My chin hits rock, and I bite my tongue. I cry out. It’s then that I notice I can stretch my arms around me a lot more. The cave tunnel has finally widened out!
“Rotter?” I call.
There is no answer.
“Rotter?”
All around me is yet more darkness. The air is ice cold and it’s hard to breathe. I really need to take a rest.
I feel around the wall, hoping it could somehow lead me out of here. Maybe I can feel my way to the exit through the darkness.
I’m hungry. How long has it been since I last ate? That meal Dylan brought me, the one I didn’t eat... I should have eaten it.
Wherever this tunnel or mineshaft leads to it is somewhere near to where Skye is living. She’s alive, so therefore she has to have something to eat.
I walk faster, my hands feeling along the wall. I notice that I’m going up a slight incline and, every now and again, I’d come across large pieces of wood by the rock. I assume the wood is what holds the mine roof up. So this is a mineshaft, and a mineshaft has to have an exit.
I start to hear things. It’s a banging noise, like a hammer hitting something hard and unyielding. It’s in the direction I’m heading anyway but I start to become nervous. What’s making the noise?
And then I see the light. It’s faint at first, so faint I think that maybe my mind is conjuring up the image to torture me, but it’s no mirage. It’s the first signs of daylight. I’m nearing the end.
I move away from the wall and start to run. I’m tired, hungry and thirsty and I can still feel Brother Willow’s blood drying on my face but I don’t care. I have to get out of this damn mineshaft! I’m sick of the dark.
The sunlight strikes my face and
I realize I had missed it badly. The air may be cold, and there is thick snow on the ground, but the sky is clear and the sun is shining and I’m finally free of the Order of Power.
I smile and breathe in the glorious fresh air. Where’s that parrot? No wonder Skye had called it Rotter.
A funnel of deep black smoke is coming up from over the top of the hill I have just emerged from. Curious, I trudge through the snow, making my way up steep rock until I stand at the summit. I look down a wide valley covered in a white blanket of snow. There are fields, houses and a small village with a church in its center.
“Dylan...”
Near the village, standing on its own like an anomaly is a metallic monolith of a building. It’s on its side like a collapsed windmill, spewing out fire and gallons of black smoke. Tiny stick figures are running around, trying to put out the flames. Dylan had done this. He must have set off a bomb and destroyed the aboveground facility. There’s no way he could’ve survived such an explosion. Only a god could have survived such devastation.
So this is it, they’re all gone now; my parents and my siblings, my aunts and uncles and cousins. At least a serious blow has been dealt against the Order of Power. They wouldn’t be able to get into their underground complex now, and even if they could they couldn’t repurpose anyone anymore. I’m proud of Dylan for what he’s done.
But what if he planted the bomb and managed to get away? He told me he’d meet me somewhere he knew I’d go. He knew I was going to Skye, so that meant he knew where Skye was.
I turn away from the vista of destruction and climb back down the rocky hillside. I stand by the entrance to the mineshaft, constructed out of wood, and contemplate going back inside. Instead I sit down in a tuft of grass and rest my head against the hillside. I’m so tired.
The hammering noise thunders back, waking me up. I look at the sky and notice I’ve been asleep maybe half an hour.
The hammering intensifies. It piques my curiosity and I find myself actively looking around for where the sound is coming from. There is nothing down this side of the hill apart from more fields. No, wait; there is something. I go forward and look down, past another cliff face. Down at the side of the cliff is a small dwelling made of wood and plastic sheets. Its roof is covered in a fine layer of snow and there is even a well further out.
There is a man. He has a large hammer in his hands and is hitting a sheet of metal that rests on an anvil. The man is tall, with curly blonde hair, simple brown clothes and a serious look on his face. Rotter the parrot is perched on a fence post watching him.
The man stops and looks straight at me. I pull back away from the edge of the cliff and turn and run... straight into someone I thought I’d never see again in a million years.
Brother Willow.