Sophie's Song
The world was a changed place. Plunged into world war again, this time more deadly than ever before, society fell into a state of mere survival. We could not even bury our dead, for there were so many bodies we just stacked them upon giant funeral pyres, and what relatives were left gathered around and wept, if they had any tears left to shed. The men were all sent to the front, and even many healthy women were recruited, although the government was crumbling away, losing its authority to give orders. People forgot why we were fighting, and the enemy didn't seem to know either; for they did not inhabit the lands they conquered, merely aimed for maximum destruction.
In this broken world I was a Survivor; part of a loosely affiliated group who took up arms to help the people left behind. We dug people out of rubble; we protected people we came across, and we helped to gather the dead. We wandered from place to place, not wanting to become too close to anybody, starting to fear love, instead of embracing it, for the fear of losing anybody became too great.
Yet there is sometimes hope in the darkness. Sometimes we meet people along the road who remind us that humanity is not yet annihilated; that perhaps we have a chance to rebuild again, once the fighting has stopped. I met somebody who changed my life forever, and I want to write down this permanent record of events, so that perhaps one day, somebody will be inspired by it to build a better world. The world that was shown to me by this one person.
My name is Arisa; and this is my story.
***
It was a long time ago when I found my weapon of choice. Most Survivors loot guns from dead soldiers, and so look like some kind of half-baked militia themselves, but I didn't want those tainted weapons with blood on them. What if the very gun I ended up retrieving was the one that killed my parents, that fateful day so long ago? So I promised myself I would stay away from the guns and find a weapon that suited me. Many Survivors laughed at me, because having a weapon was pretty much mandatory to stay alive, but I felt that I had to have some rules left to stick to. It made things feel more concrete, you know? If I followed a code, if I tried to keep to the rules that I set for myself, then I hoped that would keep me from becoming a puppet of a government or a scavenger militia, taking part in the very crimes I was been the victim of.
Anyway, it was in the ruins of an ordinary looking apartment building that I found a sword, sticking up out of the rubble. It was a replica from some movie or television show, that I am sure of, but not one I recognize. Still, I tested it and it was sharp, and somehow, it called to me. This was the weapon for me, that I would take with me. I knew I would have to train with it; I had very little skill with my swing, but I stayed at it until I felt confident with it.
I often wondered what its owner had been like; obviously some geeky fan, back in the days when television showed more than prerecorded newsreels, propaganda statements about how we are supposedly winning the war and emergency broadcasts. I had been rather like that myself at one time, enjoying the comfortable life, taking a good meal and my own personal safety for granted. Things changed a lot since then, and I often woke and wondered if that was not just a dream, since nobody I met ever talked about it. It feels as though those times never existed, although I assume most people just found it too painful to talk about.
I still dressed like a tomboy; although that was also for my personal safety. The loose pants I wore were torn, my shirt ragged and blackened with dust and dried blood, my tatty long hair tied back and tucked into the back of my shirt to give the impression from a distance that I was a boy, although nobody could really get a decent haircut after the war began. I contemplated hacking it off in some kind of ritual when my parents died, but decided to keep it as a symbol of the fact that once upon a time, I had a life worth living, I was a part of that grand thing called civilization, where people talked about their problems sometimes and sat and watched TV and sulked at other times. Where many people's biggest worry was their outward appearance or how much money they had. I thought if I was returned to that world tomorrow, it would almost be alien to me, a whole new world seen through different eyes.
My parents died on a beautiful Spring day; I remember the crispness of the air and the way the sunlight mingled with it; I remember how utterly sharp that day was, almost surreal. The war had been going on for a little while then; I recall that even at that time, it was going badly. Dad worked for the military, he was some kind of high-ranking intelligence officer, although he never talked about it. Mom stayed at home, since there was no need for her to work. Dad had been sent home on leave, a highly suspicious move considering the state of emergency going on in the country, but he returned home anyway, thinking that perhaps it was a final gift; one last perfect day with his family before going to war.
My parents slept in but I was awake, standing at the window basking in the so-far quiet day. No bombs had fallen, and the quietness of the day was almost eerie in a world where war is a constant. I hoped in my heart that there had been a ceasefire; that world leaders had finally sorted something out, but I still dared not turn on the television because I knew my dream would be shot to hell the second I did.
It was there, standing at the window in my daydream, where they first entered my peripheral vision; it did not register at first exactly what they were, they were just moving black dots – like ants – slowly crawling into my field of vision. Only when I heard the sound of the door being broken in did I realize that they were coming for us, and by then they were swarming up the stairs like an invasion of rats. I dived under my bed, unable to do anything but just look as their standard issue boots thumped against the wooden floor. I didn't know how they had come so far into our territory, since the war was not an old one at that time and we still had word-of-mouth information from neighbors that the conquering armies had not come far enough, had not made it across the seas yet except to drop bombs. Most of the war had been carried out by remote control; with rockets doing most of the damage.
I heard a scream; my mother cried out, “Please, no, leave us alone!” and my father screamed out about betrayal and that he was innocent, that he had never spied, never sold secrets to anybody; that he would never sell out his country. I knew he was right, I knew he was a loyal servant, but I realized then that those soldiers were our soldiers, the very people who were supposed to be protecting us from invaders, and my whole perspective on good and evil shifted and melted away as I heard one gunshot, then my mother's insane screaming, babbling, pleading for her life and I knew my father was dead right then, as a sick horror filled my gut. I knew my mother was in danger too and I went to move, but I was frozen under the bed like a child who has seen a ghost, or maybe the shadow of death passing over. I could not go to help her, and I knew I could not, but it plagued me for a long time that I lost my courage when I needed it the most. I heard another shot and a sick thump as her body hit the floor, then murmuring voices, the soldiers conferring about something. It hit me then that they were deciding what to do about me, and I shrank further under the bed, trying to think about something else, blotting out all thoughts with stupid memories of school and friends and meaningless babble, like what they had eaten for dinner last week. I heard the boots again, but they clattered down the stairs, seeming eager to make their exit before their identity was discovered.
I lay there for what seemed like eternity before finally regaining the strength to move; I crawled out from under my bed. The sunshine in the room now looked pale and anemic, somewhat unreal and extremely out of place. I didn't know what to do, whether to go and look, to see if by some chance, my parents were still alive, or whether to run away and never have to lay eyes on their bloody corpses, never have to see it and admit that they were dead, never have to burn those hideous images onto my brain. I chose the latter until I got the door and a low, pained male moaning – father! - met my ears. I knew then that I would have to go in, it was my duty as a daughter to help them if I could, no matter what horrific sights I would have to see.
I opened the door, slowly at first, then threw it open to get the sick suspense over with. The sight before my eyes was too shocking to take in, there were flashes before my eyes; blood, so much blood, brains splattered against the wall like in some horror movie, a terrible smell of blood and fear and sweat. It was all too terrible to be real, so I just stood there for a minute, unable to process it at all, like seeing something in a foreign language that is totally incomprehensible to anybody but a speaker of that tongue. Then I heard my father moan and it shot me back to the fact that those were my mother's brains on the wall, that my father was leaking an ever growing circle of blood that soaked his clothes and stained the floor, that these were my parents and they were dead and dying. Still, belief was suspended and I am grateful for that, for my hours of horrific sickness came later on, after I knelt down in the pool of my father's blood and had him cough blood on my shirt, after he had reached a frail and trembling hand out and clasped mine with alarming strength before pointing to a lockbox up on a high shelf. I reached up and got it down while he coughed up more clots, as is struggling to find air to breathe, to say something. He managed to drag a key from his pocket and I unlocked the box to find his gun sitting there. I tried to hand it to him, but he was too weak to take it. He had shown me once, how it worked, how to load it; take the safety off, take aim and fire! I had been good it it, too good, an excellent shot and now it was haunting me because I knew my father too well, I knew why he had asked for his gun. This was no romantic notion of dying with his gun in his arms, or pretending that he had gone down fighting; he knew he was going to die and he wanted me to speed up the process.
He slowly reached down into the pool of his own blood with his finger and dipped in one of the pallid, trembling fingers as he coughed again. He draw it up slowly and marked a spot on his temple with the blood. One red dot, a target to kill instantly. He gripped my hand and looked at me with intense, pleading eyes and I shook so badly I put the gun down and shook my head, swore a lot, I don't remember well but I do recall him giving out the most horrendous moan I have ever heard from a human being, a cry of pure agony. I turned and picked up the gun, my hands so pale they matched his, and I took deep breaths to still my breathing. I remembered being a child, his instructions, that paper target upon the wall in the basement and I relived that moment, going through the motions, doing what I had to do.
I killed my father.
***
I remember little of what happened directly afterwards; later on some of it came back to me but events from then on are still hazy. I vomited until my stomach was empty and then some more. I left the house and wandered in a daze, covered in my father's blood and my own vomit until a police officer found me and took me to a neighbor's house. I didn't speak for days, until one day I walked into their sitting room where they were all gathered around the television news. The news was talking about how an important government agent and his wife had been murdered by assassins, and how they planned a counter-assault using a nuclear weapon as a matter of self-defense on the country who had purportedly sent the agents. They showed the photos of my parents on the TV and I found myself grabbing an ornament off the mantelpiece and throwing it at the TV, which exploded in a shower of sparks and glass. I remember screaming “LIES!! It's all lies!” and having to be restrained. They took me to the local hospital for mental evaluation but they were so inundated with wounded people that they turned me away, and my neighbors had no choice but to take me back in. I left that night and started wandering again, which was just as well, because next day the house was bombed out and my neighbors all died.
I wandered for a long time as the situation deteriorated. I begged for food, and for a while it came, before looting destroyed buildings became my only way of sourcing food. The nuclear attack worsened the situation into a full-scale war, and gradually the cities became piles of rubble where people had once lived. The survivors, dazed, confused and injured, staggered around looking for dead relatives, attending the mass funerals in hopes that somebody they knew would be there and they could pay their respects. Some massed into groups and started to migrate as refugees, looking for places less damaged by the conflict. Some just wandered around like myself, shellshocked and struggling to come to terms with their individual horrors. There were crazy people who would scream and babble in the night and would unnerve everybody else, there were the cold, stony, emotionless types who took up guns and shot those people. Militia groups formed out of these people, who often ended up causing more atrocities than they prevented.
Horrific stories started to come from refugees about small-size nuclear weapons decimating some of the bigger cities. I worried about radiation, and indeed saw people dying by the roadside with flesh peeling from their bodies, but they had traveled a long way and local people did not seem to come down with radiation sickness. Still, it was a huge fear amongst the people, and there were a lot of bodies down by the remaining tall buildings, where people had jumped to end their lives rather than face the horror.
Somehow, I just kept living, surviving. After a while, some of my mental faculties returned to me and I no longer walked around in a constant daze, shuffling towards an unknown destination. One day I saw a young man, no older than sixteen or seventeen, pulling people out of the rubble of a newly bombed house. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was part of a loose affiliation of people called the Survivors, who rescued people from the rubble and helped to treat their wounds. He taught me how to administer minor first-aid, and I spent about a week with him before he was shot by a man who was determined to “protect” his newly flattened pile of rubble, even though moans could be heard from underneath. I think his name was Alex, now that I think of it. I know that he was fond of me, but I didn't return the feeling. He was a nice person, but the world just seemed too crazy for people to be worrying about things like that. Maybe I was just too damaged at the time to even remember what feelings were, it was a lot later until those returned to me.
Time became something that was unimportant. I can only measure the following time in rough estimates, but I would say a few months passed. Some people managed to cross the border to neutral countries, but these countries became overcrowded quickly and closed their borders. Others found small towns and hamlets untouched by bombs, but these places were quickly taken over and held by the people with the most guns, so most people avoided them. I just followed the word-of-mouth, and traveled to areas where there had been moderate, non-nuclear bombings, pulling people from the wreckage of homes and businesses. A lot of them died, because I was no doctor, but I tried my best to save them, or help them on their way if they specifically requested it. Some people just wanted somebody to hold their hand when they died, so they didn't go into death alone, and I helped with that as well. I always dug through the fresh rubble and took their food and anything I could trade, I know many considered it grave robbing but I needed to survive, and I had given a service to these people.
I reached one of the bigger cities as summer was starting to come to a close. I had heard that, having little strategic value, it had been pretty much left alone until then, but that bombings were coming hard and fast and all the refugees who had gone there were being hit hard along with the residents.
It was there that I found Sophie.
***
An airstrike caught me out of the blue, and I found myself being thrown to the ground by the force of an exploding building. Pulling myself up, I heard a scream coming from the burning building in front of me. I dived inside, almost without thinking, the acrid smoke filling my lungs. In the back room there was a young woman, maybe a little older than myself, wearing a bright blue dress, backed into a corner, coughing away. For some reason I found that striking as most of the people I had met had been tattered and gray, yet here she was, full of color. I used my sword to hack away at the burning furniture blocking the way, and managed to forge a path for her. She followed me, and we exited the building just before it fell in on itself.
“Father!” she cried out, “No!”
I was moved by those words, remembering my father reaching into his blood, putting the mark upon his temple. She was alone in the world because I hadn't been able to save her father, and it broke my heart to watch her scream, because I knew that pain so well, and I knew that maybe, if I hadn't been knocked back by the blast, perhaps I might have made it to the building sooner, maybe I would have been able to help him.
“I'm sorry,” I whispered, “I couldn't get there in time...”
She started to weep then, and I was moved by her tears, which fell like a gentle rain instead of the ugly wailing sobs I had seen from others. Something within me responded to it, called me to embrace her, to hold her, to comfort her. I had thought that part of me was dead, but it came to me then stronger than ever and I took her in my arms, all the while wondering how her hair was so clean, how her dress was so new, how even her tears seemed unsullied by this bloody and brutal war.
“What's happening?” she asked. “Father told me that they wouldn't come here, but here they are. How can this be?”
I drew back, uncertain. How could this girl not know what was happening in the world? Was she mentally challenged, or just hopelessly naïve? Had her father kept her hidden underneath a stone, an unsullied princess kept as a treasure in a box. There was no way she was a child, yet she almost seemed like one, and it made me pull away from her and feel distant from her, whereas a second before I had felt so close to her.
“This is a war,” I tried to explain, “It stemmed from a bunch of problems that have been going on in the world for a long time. How can you not know about it? Of course they are coming, the bombs haven't stopped for months!” I was almost exasperated by this girl's lack of knowledge.
“Oh,” she said, “I didn't know, I've been alone for months. I just sat and read books, and father lets – let - a few people in to see me if they wanted. I heard there was a war going on, but I didn't know how bad it was. We didn't have a television so all I had were stories from my school friends, and I assumed they were exaggerated. Are they really firing nuclear weapons?”
I relaxed a little then. She wasn't totally out of touch after all, she had just been sheltered by her father.
“Yes,” I said, “They've been firing some small nuclear weapons at big cities. We should probably evacuate, just in case they decide to drop one on this place, too.” I was surprised at myself at that moment, for usually I rescued people and sent them on their way after minor treatment, or turned them over to people who made makeshift hospitals if they were more seriously injured. Yet it seemed that bond was back again, and I was already referring to us as “we”.
“What's your name?” I asked, realizing that I hadn't yet asked.
“Sophie,” she said, “What about you? I know you're not a man, even if you're trying to get by as one.” She smiled, and I felt my semi-disguise was totally inadequate. I hadn't been bothered by rape gangs, yet she had seen right through me.
“I'm Arisa,” I said, “Come on, let's build a campfire.”
We sat together that night and talked. It emerged that Sophie knew more about the war then she usually let on to strangers, or even her father, who it emerged had had a lot of control over Sophie's life. She almost seemed to relax in my presence, and her inner beauty shone out when she discarded the innocent facade that her father had expected from her. She hadn't been to school for two years, but enjoyed learning from books and seemed very intelligent.
“Where do you plan on going?” She had asked me, and I honestly had to admit that I didn't know. I told her about my work with the Survivors and she said that I was brave to take on such a task in this messed up world. I shrugged, it had just been something I had to do, another rule from my book that I had to follow in order to remain myself, that civilized human being which I respected.
After eating and resting, we got on the road and started to walk. I felt the warmest I had in a long time, I felt somehow reassured by Sophie's presence. I thought she was the brave one, as she started to talk about life before the war, a place where most people would not visit because of the pain.
“To me,” she said, “all is not yet lost. If man tears it all down, man will rebuild it eventually. Perhaps war is a way of keeping the human population down, like illness or famine. It's a cruel system that nature has going, but the world is still alive, the human race is still here, so it must be working.”
“Do you really think we will rebuild?” I asked skeptically. “Many of the people who are still alive are mentally scarred by the war. Even if we physically survive, what will the next generation be like with this as its history?”
“We've survived world-spanning wars before,” Sophie said, “Sure, there were scars, many people grew up without fathers or with parents who were bitter after their experiences, but the human race is still here.”
“And we still haven't learned a thing,” I sighed.
“Maybe,” Sophie said, “Maybe not. We have to hope, otherwise what is left for us? Life is all about messing up, then trying to do better next time. It's how we grow and evolve. Sometimes we take a step back before we can take a step forward. Like for example, the Ancient Greeks had a lot of knowledge on things like drainage and hygiene, but that was lost in the Dark Ages. We eventually regained it, though, through trial and error. Lots of people fell to the Plague, which could have been solved by cleaning up the unhygienic rats that filled the cities of England at the time. I wish so many people didn't have to die. I'd like to believe that we all get another chance to be reborn as somebody else, so we get another chance to add to the world, so that we don't just have to die once in some meaningless war or virus outbreak and then be gone forever.”
“I wish that too,” I said to her. I don't know why, but I was pretty much lost for words at that point. Something about her captivated me, drew me out of the horrific world of war and into an alternate reality, where things could be different and people could have hope, where there could be a future.
For the first time in a long time that night, I was filled with a sense of wonder, and I wondered if perhaps I were the only person alive in the world at that time, barring Sophie, who was feeling that emotion.
The sun rose, and Sophie became tired. I noticed that she tired easily, probably from being cooped up in a house for so long. I let her rest by the roadside for a couple of hours, then I woke her and we continued on our way.
Night fell, and we camped up further away from the roadside, where the noise of all the refugees prevented real sleep.
“Arisa?” Sophie asked, “Where exactly are we going, in the end?”
I shrugged, “We'll head to the next place, rescue some people, move on, I suppose. That what's I've been doing.”
“What happens to the people who you save?” Sophie asked.
“I send them along with the refugees,” I said.
“Why didn't you send me away?” Sophie asked.
“I don't know,” I responded honestly, “I've just enjoyed having your company.”
Sophie smiled, and it made me smile too, just to see that. In the middle of a war-torn world, to see something as simply beautiful as a smile is a treasure, and that was something I had come to realize since traveling with Sophie. She was an optimist, and she made me feel brighter, more positive about actually surviving. She was like salve on an open wound, soothing the pain of all the things I had been though.
I could feel something growing inside of me, a feeling that swelled up inside my soul, and something else, a burning want, a desire I kept on the back burner, just below the level of consciousness, but it was there nonetheless. There was something about Sophie that made me complete, but I had no idea what I was – if anything – to her. I wasn't even sure myself what it all meant, whether it was friendship, or love – and if it was love, what that said about me. My parents had never talked about it much, but I know they would have disapproved of two women falling in love.
“I think we should rescue some more people,” Sophie said, “But we should take them with us, until we find a safe place.”
“I don't know if that's a good idea,” I said. I had liked being alone before now, and now I had Sophie I enjoyed spending time with her, quiet and away from the rabble of the refugees chatting on into the night. The idea of having a ragtag bunch of people hovering around for no specific purpose except to guide them to some vague “safe place” seemed not only a waste of time, but fraudulent also, and I told Sophie that.
“I don't want to be like the priests who sold suicide to the masses in the name of the Rapture,” I said, “I only want to promise people a land of safety if I know it exists. I'm not sure it does. These people are fragile enough as it is. I'm not going to have them follow us blindly for no reason.”
“You just like your privacy,” Sophie smiled. “I do too, I just want to help these people.”
“I know,” I said, “I know, Sophie.”
The nights were beginning to get cold, and Sophie seemed to feel it very strongly. I woke up in the night to see her shivering, her breath forming clouds of vapor in the freezing night air. I was cold too, and moved closer to her, pulling my ragged blanket over hers and wrapping my arms around her.
“Arisa?” she mumbled, half asleep.
“It'll be warmer if we sleep close together,” I said, “We can share body heat.”
And somehow, it was comforting to hold her, too.
***
Sophie seemed quiet the next day, keeping very much to herself. I wondered if I had made her feel uncomfortable, and asked her so, but she told me that some days, she just felt down about the war and the whole situation, and just wanted to be alone. I wanted to help, but she assured me there was nothing I could do about her dark state. It also unnerved me, as I was so used to her optimism, and now she seemed shrouded in darkness, like a different person.
We walked along with the refugees for a few hours, but Sophie tired quickly that day and fell behind, and I stayed with her. I had wanted to cover more ground, as I had heard of a bombing raid in a city only a few miles away, but I knew the people there would just have to wait for my help; I had taken on protecting Sophie, and right then she needed my help.
We stopped in an area by some woods, hoping they would offer some protection from the wind that had started to blow, and Sophie slept while I kept watch, the weak autumn sun shining down, illuminating the rubble of a nearby farmhouse and the masses of ragged, tired, lost souls wandering down the path to nowhere.
I grew tired myself, and still Sophie did not wake, so I lay down beside her as the sun began to go down. She felt so fragile in my arms, so frail and thin that I worried for her then, and resolved to give her more of my rations.
I woke in the night, the pale, sickly moon overhead, the breeze rustling the leaves on the trees, and realized Sophie was gone. I quickly got up and threw the pack together, not wanting to leave the precious rations where they could be nabbed. Just then I heard a scream, coming from the woods, a scream that was undeniably hers, a scream that called out my name.
I abandoned the pack, grabbed my sword and dived into the trees, heading towards the sound of Sophie's scream. My lungs felt empty but I forced myself to go harder, even as my side burned in agony.
Eventually I reached the source of the scream, a small clearing with a lake. Sophie was there, and a muscled man was holding her down, tearing at her clothing. I saw rage in that moment, an anger so strong that the killer instinct came to the surface, and I charged at him with my sword. He heard my scream and turned, pulling himself off Sophie. He dodged my blow and picked up a stone from the ground. I expected him to throw it at me and I put my sword up to hopefully deflect it, but he threw it at Sophie who had just stood up. It hit her squarely in the head and knocked her back into the lake, with a shocked expression on her face. The man went to flee and I wanted to chase, the hunter within was burning to kill this man, to make him pay for hurting Sophie, but then I realized the water was quiet, too quiet, there was no struggle; Sophie had been knocked out.
I dropped my sword and dived into the water, frantically groping around for Sophie's body. I went under, and saw her floating to the bottom; I quickly swam down to reach her. I could see blood in the water and my stomach turned, but I knew if I opened my mouth to be sick I would have to go up for air and it would be all over for Sophie. I grabbed her limp body and kicked to go back up, my lungs at bursting point. I broke through the surface and gasped for air, but did not let myself refill to comfortable levels. I dragged Sophie to the edge of the lake and pulled her out; she was so ashen and pale that I feared for a moment that she was dead, until I felt her neck and a pulse beat there, but I felt no breath from her. I put my lips to her mouth, breathing in what little air I had, starving myself of oxygen and getting a dizzy head in the process, desperate to save Sophie. The third time she coughed violently, and I rolled her onto her side where she coughed out all the water and gasped for air of her own accord. I sat back in a moment of temporary relief, until she finally got her breath back and sat up. I wanted to embrace her tightly, but I laid her back down and looked at her head. The injury to her head looked mostly superficial, but I worried that she might have concussion.
“It's all right, Arisa, I'm not hurt too badly. I just have a bad headache,” she mumbled.
I looked down at her dress. The man had torn the top, exposing her breasts, and her panties lay in a heap over by the other side of the lake. Horror and fear filled my gut then, tightening it into a knot. My mind was racing, trying to remember if I had seen him... He had turned around and pulled up his pants, and those thoughts filled me with further horror.
“Oh god, Sophie,” I said, “What did he do to you?”
“He... he only touched me,” Sophie said. “He was going to do more, but then you arrived. You came just in time, Arisa, thank you, thank you so much...” The relief was evident in her voice, but rage still burned in me at the thought that that brute had laid his hands on Sophie. She wrapped her arms around me, nestling her head into my chest, and we just sat there for a while, like that, gasping for air, coming down from the adrenaline, filling with relief and eventually, the tears came and we clung to each other in the night, soaking wet and sobbing.
Eventually we returned to the camp and picked up our pack, which thankfully was still there, and went back into the forest to change clothes, one keeping watch while the other changed.
I felt embarrassed then, because there was a part of me that wanted to look, and a part of me that hated myself for that. I kept my sword steady and concentrated on my surroundings, so much so that I jumped when Sophie tapped me on the shoulder.
I had told her that it might be safer if she dressed like me and pretended to be male, but she liked to be feminine and I knew in all honesty that the disguise would be far less effective on her; she had wide eyes and feminine features that would be a giveaway at anything but quite a distance. Thankfully, she was practical, and dressed in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt that accentuated her body shape and made me feel even more embarrassed. I simply dressed in a pair of men's cargo pants and an oversized t-shirt that showed off absolutely nothing, which was the way I liked it.
We rested well into the day, until Sophie woke me to complain that my body heat was making her too hot. I realized that I had been holding on tightly all through the rest of the night, afraid that somebody might take her away again. I apologized, and we got on our way, joining the throng of people and overcrowded trucks on the road south.
“So why did you go into the forest alone?” I asked while we were walking.
“I like nature. I like to listen to the trees and feel the breeze on my face in quiet places,” she said, “I thought I would go for a walk, but I didn't realize that somebody was following me. I'm sorry that I caused you so much trouble.”
“Don't worry,” I said, “I'm just glad you're OK.”
“I always feel at peace when I'm in the forest,” Sophie said, “If I could, I'd like to live there. I just to like reading fantasy books where elves lived in the forest and needed nothing else. This land is full of forests, swathes of them, that have been untouched by man and are left alone by the bombings. Sometimes, I imagine that we could go away, build a house from the wood, live off the land, get away from all this mess and stop wandering. We could live together, we could bring other refugees in and build villages, start again, have a world within a world that nobody else knows exists. While the government carried on fighting this useless war, we could be living outside of it, make our own government, our own country.”
“That sounds beautiful,” I said. It sounded fanciful, but also like music to my ears, an idea that just might work, if we could get far enough away from the towns and cities to be safe.
“Sophie, stop,” I said, and I pulled her off to the edge of the road. She looked down like she had said something wrong, but I lifted her chin.
“What is it?” she said.
“There's a huge forest about 100 miles from here, and it goes on forever. It's actually a national park, but who's going to mind in this day and age? We could try and loot a truck, get up there, and at least try to settle there. I'm tired of wandering, tired of going to city after city, with no destination in mind. I know you may just have been throwing out thoughts, but I think it's a good idea.” I felt hope growing at the thought that this idea might work. It was so simple, but it could work.
“What about wildfires, though?” Sophie said, “I know that the bombs started some, and I wouldn't want to get caught up in one.”
“I think it's a risk we'll just have to take,” I said, “We can at least scout out the area. If it looks too dangerous, we can go somewhere else. There's really nothing to lose at this point.”
Our spirits were high as we entered the next town. Most of the refugees just walked right through the town, but we turned off and looked for parking garages that were still standing. I was hoping that if we found one with cars in, that somebody would have been just like my dad, leaving the doors unlocked and the keys inside the sun visor or glove compartment.
We checked all day, and were just about to give up when Sophie called out, “I've got one!” I rushed over. It was not quite what I was hoping for, because it was an old, rusty and damaged car, but it tended to be the people who had old cars who were flippant about potential theft.
Sophie was sitting in the driver's seat. “You can drive?” I asked.
“I'm still learning,” she said, “but I have the basics down. I'll do my best, anyway.”
We were relieved to find it still had plenty of fuel in the tank, and began our trip, onward to hope.
~~~
After losing our way several times, and being slowed down a lot by refugees on the main roads, I rooted around in the crap on the back seat and found a road map. We plotted a route and a couple of alternates in case the roads had been destroyed, and set on our way.
Sophie reminded me along the way that we would need some supplies if we were going to do this, so we stopped at a ruined garage where we found a bunch of tools, nails, hammers, saws and a couple of axes, which we threw in the trunk. We also found a freshly flattened convenience store at the edge of the city and joined other people in digging lots of provisions out of the rubble in return for taking a couple of them a little way in the car. We dropped them off where their relatives were supposed to live, and got on our way. They were worn out and didn't talk much, but they were grateful.
Sophie seemed in her element, and we were happy when we realized the car had a tape player and a pile of cassettes. It turned out Sophie had similar tastes as myself, and we sat on the drive talking more about every day things, such as interests and favorites. I found out that Sophie loved reading and writing, and was very much into fantasy books – an interest we shared. We liked the same music, but she didn't watch much television.
At one point she started singing, and we were so happy it was as if the war had never happened. Life seemed normal for a little while, as though it were a fine autumn day and we were just going for a country drive. We drove through country areas less damaged by the conflict, and eventually left habitation behind completely, driving up mountain roads rarely used by anybody.
Night fell as we came down the mountain, and we pulled into a wooded rest stop that might once have been used by tourists. We locked the doors and slept in the car, me in the back seat, and Sophie in the front, but we never heard a sound all night.
We woke to see the sunlight filtering through the trees, and Sophie stood in the light, arms outstretched, laughing. I just watched her standing there, she looked almost holy in the light. I walked down to her from behind, and wrapped my arms around her, holding her close. She didn't move or pull away, but settled into my embrace until the sunlight moved and the mood changed. When I pulled away she looked almost somber, but she would not elaborate on the reasons, just shook her said and said, “let's move on.”
“I think we're done with the car,” I said, “We need to move inland, off the road, find a place to settle, hopefully near water.”
“Yes, probably a good idea,” Sophie said, “I like it here.”
We took our packs and headed into the forest. The trees were dense, and I was starting to wonder if we would ever find the kind of place we needed. Could we make this work at all? Even if we did find a place, would we really have the strength and tools to cut down a tree and make a cabin of some sort? I worried that it might have been a wasted trip, that we might have to return to the city and wander along hopelessly with the refugees until the day when a peace declaration was finally made.
I think Sophie sensed my doubts, because she took my hand in hers and whispered, “Don't give up.” There was comfort and warmth in her touch, and I held her hand as we walked through the forest. We walked for a while longer, before I stopped her.
“Hush” I whispered, “Do you hear that, Sophie?”
“It sounds like... running water?” Sophie said.
We hurried through the trees, following the sound until we broke out into a clearing in the trees, where a waterfall poured into a small lake. I knelt down by the water and cupped some in my hand, and it tasted clean to drink. We hugged and whooped in delight, and ate lunch before talking about building our shelter.
We decided that it would be a good idea to build a tree house, in order to keep safe from predators such as bears who were feeding up for the winter months. We chose a tree on the edge of the clearing, with good strong branches to hold up a tree house, and with a good view of the clearing, in case anything came.
Next we chose a tree to cut down. We wanted to use something strong, but we knew there was no way we would manage to fell a huge tree with the tools we had, so we chose something with a mid size trunk and set to work.
We were forced to spend a few nights sleeping on the ground in the clearing, so one of us would keep watch while the other slept. How I would have fought off a bear I'm not quite sure, but we were lucky enough to survive those first few nights.
Eventually we managed to cut the tree down, and we removed all the branches. These were the main source of wood for our tree house, as the trunk proved to be too thick to cut into anything usable with the tools we had. Luckily it knocked down some other trees too, and the combined branches were enough to build a good, sturdy tree house when we tied them together with rope and tied them to the tree. We made a little window, which we covered with plastic sheeting that we'd found in the trunk of the car, and even some rudimentary furniture. We made a rope ladder to get to the bottom of the tree more easily, and finally, after about a week's work, we were able to say that we had built our home.
I left Sophie downstairs the first night, as she was brooding and wanted some time alone, and climbed up into the tree house. I was so proud of all our work, yet I was worried about Sophie's quietness. Sometimes she would go from being happy to miserable in just a matter of minutes, and it concerned me greatly. When I heard her crying later on in the night, I climbed down to see if she was all right.
The campfire was out, and she was standing by the water, the moon shining on her and on the surface of the lake. I could hear her sobs as I walked over to her.
“What's the matter?” I asked, gently holding her shoulders, “Do you want to go back to the city?”
“No,” she cried, “I'm happy here. I just... it's just...”
“Please tell me,” I said, “I'm worried about you, and I want to help.”
“I can't,” she said, “I can't tell you.”
“Please,” I pleaded, “Don't leave me worrying like this. I want to know. I don't mind, I just want you to be honest with me. We're in this together.”
She moved closer to me, and pulled my hair tie undone, letting my hair fall across my back. I had washed myself in the lake, and felt much better for it, but it was nice to have my hair down like that.
“I like it that way,” Sophie said, “You look beautiful with your hair like that.”
She always took my breath away, and now was no exception. Somehow the tears in her eyes only served to make her prettier, and I found myself desperately wanting to kiss her, to kiss away her tears and take away whatever pain she was suffering. I knew that I would do anything for her, anything she asked me to do. I knew I would move Heaven and Earth for her.
“You know that I told you that I stayed inside with my father a lot?” Sophie asked.
“Yes,” I said. I worried then, what terrible things he might have done to her, what scars he might of left on her... and then that man, oh, how I hated myself for not being able to get to her sooner!
“I stayed inside and missed school because I have cancer,” she said simply, “It was hard to get my treatment before the war, but now, I haven't had any treatment in months. I know it's too late for me, Arisa. I know I'm going to die. It could be tomorrow or it could be in six months, but eventually, it's going to take me.”
The words hit me like a thunderbolt, sending ice plummeting into my stomach, into the depths of my very soul. How could it be? How could she die? How could we have come so far and then I have to lose her. I stood there, stunned.
“I thought I was ready,” she continued, “I thought I had come to terms with death, but then I met you and everything's changed. Suddenly I want to live so much, but there's nothing that can be done now! I feel so weak, every day I want more and more sleep and it hurts badly sometimes, in the back and stomach and I know it's spreading...” she broke off, crying, and my heart was breaking in every conceivable way. If I had any small belief in a god it was gone at that moment, when I knew I was to lose her forever.
I broke into tears, and held her close, “You can't die,” I said, “You just can't. I need you in my life, I love you Sophie. I think I've always loved you since the moment I met you, but I was so confused and I didn't understand it until now.”
She pulled away and I wondered if I had screwed it up, if my confession of love would only serve to alienate me from her, if she now might die alone because I was too busy thinking of my feelings instead of hers, but then she caressed my face with her hand, wiping away my fresh tears which sprang anew. She moved forward and took me in her arms and kissed me, tenderly and then more passionately, as fire and ice and love burned within me. I kissed back, longing to give all I had to give, in case there would never be another night, in case the cancer was so advanced that even now it was killing her vital organs and taking her away from me.
Obviously she was thinking the same, as her hands cupped my breasts through my shirt and her kisses became more desperate. I was so nervous, but she eased me with her gentle touch and inside I could see she was nervous too.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked, in a half-whisper.
“Yes,” she said, “I've never been so sure of anything in my entire life.”
I didn't need to ask again. I lifted her light body and climbed the tree house ladder with her over my shoulder. She giggled and laughed and some of my pain fell away. We still had that moment, and hopefully many others, and we wanted to make the most of every second.
I laid her down on the blankets and lay atop her, kissing her and massaging her breasts. Her nipples grew hard and I could feel them through the shirt as she moaned gently. I took off her shirt and took a nipple at a time in my mouth, teasing them with my tongue and making her squeal with delight. She had such soft, rounded breasts and I felt inadequate and embarrassed, but she peeled my shirt off anyway, and licked and sucked on my small breasts with pure delight.
My hand rubbed between her legs and her back arched in pleasure. She ground against my hand, wanting me to take her pants off, and I obliged, and her panties soon followed, followed by mine as she desperately wanted to touch more of me. She rolled over and got me on the bottom and wasted no time in probing me with her long, slender fingers. I moaned deeply and she removed her fingers, licking off the wetness that coated them and making me shiver with delight.
“You're making me crazy,” I moaned, and she giggled, silencing me with a hard kiss, her tongue probing into my mouth as her fingers massaged my clitoris, making me cry out into her kiss. I reached for her and felt her wetness, desperate for me, wanting me. I broke the kiss and beckoned her to come forward. I moved under her and licked her, marveling at the beauty of her spread legs and how wonderful she tasted. I moved my hands around and squeezed the tight globes of her ass while she near screamed from the ministrations of my tongue.
She made an effort to pull away, but she did, and she lay on top of me, positioning herself so we could both lick each other out at the same time. We were both intensely aroused and licked each other fiercely, moaning into each other. I was lost in heaven, I felt so bound to her that it felt like we were one person, lost in perfection and that we were discovering the entire universe, all the wonders of everything. Her tongue massaged my clitoris perfectly and I came, crying out into her and speeding up my tongue until she screamed and came too, her body jerking against mine.
We curled up together then, wrapped up in each other's arms, safe and warm, high on the wonders we had just experienced, and I remember we cried then.
“If I died tonight,” Sophie said, “I wouldn't mind, because I would die having experienced you like this, I would die feeling like I touched the stars and saw the beginning of all life.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” I said, and held her closer, but I felt her twinge under me, with a flash of pain she did not tell me about, but which I felt through her, a reminder of the sorrow that was to come.
A sorrow that could wait for another day.
***
We woke naked, still wrapped in each other's arms, the sun pouring in. Sophie smiled over at me and I squeezed her tightly, the dark memory of the fact that Sophie would die stabbing through my first moments of semi-awake bliss like a knife. I wanted to put it out of my mind, but I had the feeling that it would never leave me.
On that bright and beautiful morning, though, I didn't want to ask Sophie about chemotherapy or ask her if it would be too late if we found a doctor now. I pretty much knew the answers anyway – if she thought there was any possibility, she would have asked for my help and we would have tore the world down looking for a doctor who could help her. She knew it was too late. Perhaps it had already been too late when I had rescued her from the house, that fateful day.
Even knowing what would happen, I did not wish to take anything back.
We spent the day in contented companionship. I tried several kinds of berries that we found – no doubt some would make me ill and I would be able to isolate which ones did, but I wasn't having Sophie take the risk.
“Please,” she pleaded with me, “I want to take the same risks as you,” but I refused to let her.
“It's crazy,” she said, “I'm going to die anyway, so let me take the risks!”
“Don't say that!” I yelled, “Just because you're ill, your life is still valuable! I won't let you give up!” and then we cried again, together, still struggling to come to terms with the fact that she would be going.
There were many sweet times, though, unfettered by illness or the feeling of impending doom. On many days, Sophie made me forget that she was ill at all. It was hard to know she was ill, unless you really looked closely for the occasional expression of pain or she needed to go to bed early and get some extra rest, and some days she had me fooled completely. I always wondered how she managed it, how she managed not to make a drama out of it or even not let it show that it got to her much. I don't think I could have been that strong, and many days I was the one crying by myself while Sophie slept, thinking that the loneliness was how it would be, that the emptiness that pervaded each place when Sophie wasn't around would be set in permanently.
On the practical side, we managed to find food and mix it with the food that we had salvaged. There was quite a bit of fruit growing in the forest, and that complemented our diet. One could have lived on the diet alone, but I felt it was more sensible for Sophie to have the most varied diet she could.
“I love living here,” Sophie said to me one day, “It's just so peaceful, so far away from the world and its problems. There's just me and you, here in the Garden of Eden, together always. I'm sure that we'll find a place like this, on the other side.”
“I thought you said you wanted to be reborn?” I said.
“That's true. I'd love to live this life over and over again, always finding you every time. That way, we'd never have to be apart.” She lay back in the carpet of leaves and smiled.
“You'd get bored of me,” I joked.
“That could never happen!” she said, throwing leaves at me. I threw leaves back and soon we were having a mock fight, rolling over and over in the leaves with each other until we started kissing, groping and making love outside in the leaves, with nobody to see or care except us. She always longed for my touches, and I always begged for hers, and whenever we made love it was perfect, even if we were clumsy.
Winter came, with cold air and falling snow, and we spent most of our time inside. There was no food outside and so we had to rely on the dwindling supplies we had brought up from the town, although Sophie was eating less and less anyway. She suggested going back to a town and trying to look for some, but I was reticent to leave our little world and venture back into the past, where death and destruction awaited. I gave the best of the food to Sophie, but she ate so little that I rebuked her for trying to save some for me without even thinking that it could just be that her life was dwindling away. She smiled and took it, but I cried that night, out by the waterfall, hoping the sound would cover my sobs, at least partially. She heard anyway, and came down to me, kissing away my tears like that first night.
She became weaker as the winter wore on, and I did contemplate leaving to find a doctor, but I feared she might die alone if I did, and she was too sick to take with me. She would often shiver, even when she was warm, but she would always reassure me that “everything was going to be fine.” I'm not sure if she was reassuring me, or herself.
“You know what?” she said one day, as I lay cuddled up in her arms.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I love you so much,” she whispered, and fell asleep before I could choke back the tears to tell her that I loved her too, more than anybody could ever love anybody else, and that if I could have traded places with her, I would have done it in a heartbeat.
Around midwinter, we had a rudimentary Christmas. Neither of us was particularly religious, but we'd never had the chance to give gifts to each other in a normal, healthy society, and she said she wanted to give me something. I didn't know what it was she would have to give that she hadn't already given, but on the day we called Christmas she pulled out a woodcarving of two roughly feminine shapes and gave it to me, chuckling.
“It was supposed to be a carving of us,” she said, “but I'm absolutely terrible at it,” and then she laughed, a laugh that turned into a hacking cough, a cough that had become deeper and more common as of late.
“I love it,” I said, “Thank you, Sophie.” and I kissed her and held her until the coughing wore down. “I didn't get you anything,” I said, “I'm sorry.”
“You already gave me everything I ever wanted,” she said, and exhausted from the coughing, she dozed.
When I slept, it was a troubled sleep. I remembered my family, dead in that room, but in the dream, Sophie was there too, her body broken, blood everywhere. The man who had nearly raped her was the gunman, and I woke in a puddle of sweat, reaching for Sophie, feeling the reassuring beat of her pulse, and hearing her draw breath.
The next day was one of the worst days of my life. Sophie was in constant pain, and the few painkillers I'd found in the car glove compartment and saved until now only helped for a while. She was so frail and skinny, and yet I felt cruel because I wanted her to hang onto life, to stay with me longer.
That was the last night we made love, and we both struggled to care, because she was too ill, and I was too worried about her. We were clumsy and we cried and we stopped and gave up, but I was still grateful to have held her intimately that one final time, to feel the warmth of her body against mine, a memory to keep for eternity.
She was sicker the next day, and did not move at all from her bed. She ate nothing, and I knew the end was near. I held her hand and stayed by her side constantly. The snow was thick on the ground, if she had been well we might have been able to build snowmen and throw snowballs and do all the silly things that people in love do to each other, but instead I held her hand and watched the brightest star in my universe slowly fade away.
I didn't sleep that night, because my intuition told me it would be soon, and sure enough she woke with a start early in the morning and squeezed my hand tightly.
“What is it, love?” I asked softly.
“I think this is it,” she whispered, so faintly that I could barely hear it, “Arisa, I love you,” she gasped for air more, “I promise... some day... we'll meet again. I'll come... back here... wait... wait for...”
“I'll wait for you,” I promised, and she slipped away from me, into a long, eternal, dreamless sleep.
The day was cold, but I cared not. I took a shovel from the car and walked back to the camp, seeing a car passing through the road on the way but not caring at all. I dug in the cold and the ice and did not stop to drink or eat, such was the need to dig, to concentrate on that motion, to keep busy and not think that Sophie was dead, gone forever, that I would never hear her voice again or her laugh.
I had told her not to, but she had made some arrangements, which she detailed in a letter with my name on it which I found in her possessions. I skipped over the love parts, I could not bear to read them at that moment, and simply took on board that two clearings away, there was a tree marked with an X, and propped up against it was a crude coffin she had built for herself, back when she had started to get worse. I had wondered where she had kept going, but figured she had needed some time to herself. Her wishes were to be buried under the tree where their home was, and I painstakingly battled with the huge far-reaching roots to fulfill her wish. It was a shallower grave than I would have liked, but I could see no way to lower the coffin into a huge hole alone.
She had always liked my hair, and so I tied it back and hacked it off with my sword, just as I had thought of doing when my parents died. I put it in her coffin, so it would be with her always. She looked so peaceful lying there, I wondered if she would just wake up and tell me it was all a big, sick joke, that she was having me on all that time. If she had, I would have forgiven her right then, but I knew that was not the case. I got to burying her before I started to go mad and get obsessed with the notion that she might wake. I didn't know any prayers, so I tried to sing, and broke down crying instead. I filled in the hole and left a mound there, and planted a small sapling I had seen pushing through the winter snow. Finally, I took my sword and stabbed it into the grave, so it would remain as a marker. I had no further use for it, I already knew I could never kill anybody, because I had let that man go, I had been able to do that for Sophie, to save Sophie. I tied a ribbon to it, so it frittered in the wind, a feminine touch she would have appreciated.
I packed my things up; the letter, the woodcarving, our clothes and what remained of the food and trekked back to the car. I knew I could not stay any longer, in that place where our dreams had lived and died. I would come back, to keep my promise to Sophie and to see her grave, but for now, I had to return to the broken world, to see what remained, if anything. I lamented the fact that we had never brought others, that we had never made a little village like Sophie had dreamed, but so many things had gotten in the way, and the incident with the man who had nearly raped Sophie had made me wary of outsiders.
I got in the car, remembering how Sophie had driven it. It did not start the first time I turned the key, or the second, and I realized that it had sat there too long. Still, I kept trying, frantic to leave, to go, and eventually it spluttered into life, and I started to drive.
I didn't go far before I realized things had changed. There were cars on the road again, and the main roads were free of refugees. Towns were being cleared with heavy lifting equipment and I never heard any air raid sirens. We had been too far out to hear them in the forest, but I knew I would hear them out here if an attack was imminent.
I finally reached my home city, where a market was milling about, with people wearing ordinary clothing, buying ordinary goods and going about their daily business. A newsstand had set up.
“What's going on?” I asked him, “I've been away for a while, what's the update on the war?”
“The war's been over for a month, dear. How did you not hear about that? An unconditional ceasefire, finally. Now we're rebuilding. Where have you been, anyway, to not hear that?” The man asked.
I contemplated telling him the whole story, but then remembered this was society, back to its old usual self, and few would accept the fact that she had loved another woman and lived in the forest with her until her death. No, that was their little secret, to be kept between them forever.
“I was out in a small hamlet, taking care of a sick relative,” I said. “She died, so I came back to the city.” It wasn't quite a lie, but nor was it the truth, “My parents are dead, and I have nowhere to go. What do I do now?” I asked him.
“Go to that building over there,” he said, “There's a lot of displaced people around. They'll set you up in the community shelter for a while, help you find a job until you can get out on your own and find somewhere else to live.”
“Thanks,” I said, and made off toward the building.
I received basic civilian clothing, and had a place to sleep at the center. Still, something seemed wrong about it all, everybody was a little cold, everything was a bit too stark, it felt like everybody was just a number. Well, what did I expect, these people had been through war and lost everything, and in some ways the coldness was a good match for the hollow emptiness I felt inside. Everything was empty in a world without Sophie, so what did it matter if the world was empty anyway?
I also struggled with a horrendous guilt which I sought to put down. The ceasefire had been in effect for a month... perhaps if I had been able to take Sophie to the hospital, she would have been able to receive help, even if it was just to ease the pain at her end. That
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