I walk the Silver City alone. The moonlight shimmers off the tall buildings, devoid of life and cold in their beauty. Everybody is asleep but me. I want to go to sleep too, and wake up when all this is over, but I can’t. It is too cold to sleep. It wraps its cold fingers around me and makes it hard to breathe.
...
Abigail woke first. The voice of the Lost Sister rang in her head, and she could barely think for the sad voice crying out repeatedly, airing its helplessness. Her wings quivered agitatedly, the black feathers glinting in the moonlight.
She stretched them cautiously, making sure all thirty-five feet of them could extend to their full length before bringing them back in. The last time she’d stretched them without looking, one wing had rammed straight into a brick wall. Fortunately she’d only suffered a bruise, and not broken one of the finer wing bones that connected the framework of muscles essential for flight. She cradled her head in her hands, wondering where the Lost Sister may be.
“So you heard her,” said Kaito, uncurling from his place on the park bench and looking up at her dim form, perched on one of the lamps. Abigail always struck a rather impressive figure. She was tall and dark to begin with, and the wings that stretched out from her shoulders, attached with large strips of muscle and sinew, made her look almost unreal.
“Yes,” replied Abigail. “Didn’t you? It was so loud.” She shivered. It was winter in Beirut – not that it made the temperature any warmer. Nights had always been colder since the Night of Dreams – the day when all the people in the world had fallen asleep. A wave of small white spiders had came along soon after, and wrapped them from head to toe in thin, silvery ice-cold thread that was stronger than steel and kept the people preserved, like exhibits in some freakish street-side museum.
Abigail had been in Dublin on the Night of Dreams. She’d been caught and dragged away by the spiders – when she woke up, she wasn’t the same anymore. She could fly. Her wings ached and shed feathers and burnt up her energy like a Hummer guzzles fuel but she was grateful, even if she didn’t show it. The feathers were warm and soft and kept her warm when she needed it. Flying wasn’t natural for human beings, but she could fly and fly she did, like she’d been born to it.
Pretty much the same thing had happened to Kaito. The Night of Dreams caught him on a plane to London, and had left him in Heathrow International’s arrival lounge with the bizarre ability to breathe underwater. True, the gills on his neck and face itched to high heaven, and the scales on his forearms and calves stood out when they were dry. His toes were webbed and the fins along his sides and back enlarged in the water and ripped through his clothes but he could swim better than ever before. He was equally at home in the water as well as on land.
They were curious gifts, and they sometimes wondered why they, of all people, had been gifted. They were not very clever, or very strong, and weren’t very beautiful, but they’d been chosen, for some odd reason. And they had to find the third one, their Lost Sister.
This was the first time they had heard her voice this clearly, and they knew it was her. Nobody else could tap into their thoughts like that. And only their Lost Sister could still be awake, among all these sleeping people. It was Kaito’s idea to call her the Lost Sister. He thought it sounded poetic. Abigail thought it sounded sad, even if it was the truth. But the name had stuck.
Before this day, all they had heard were indistinct wails and mumbling. The sound had grown stronger with the closer they had traveled to the Middle East. And, this night in one of Beirut’s public parks, the wail was loud enough to haunt them even in their waking hours.
Abigail jumped off the streetlamp, landing quietly on the ground by the park bench. She stood and stared into the darkness. There was nobody there, then why did it all feel so… wrong? There were forces stirring that were older than anything they had seen before, perhaps as old as Nature itself. And this oldness had festered in the deep for millennia – what would it do if let free?
“We need to find her,” said Abigail.
“Yes,” said Kaito. “But how?” The sun’s rays could be seen in the distance, milky tendrils scything through the darkness. It was beautiful, but once you’ve seen a desert sunrise, you’ve more or less seen them all.
“First, we eat.” Abigail pointed to someplace above the park gates. “I think I saw a supermarket somewhere around there.” Kaito got off the bench and headed for the park entrance.
Ever since the Night of Dreams, they had lived on supermarket scraps. They took things directly off the shelves, helping themselves to items that wouldn’t rot or whatever, like tinned food and biscuits. They burned energy faster than they would have before the Night, so they were careful to eat stuff high in calories. This was perhaps one of the nicer parts of being a… mutant, as Abigail put it.
“Look what I found!” exclaimed Kaito, running to where Abigail stood glaring at cereal boxes. “Chocolate ice-cream!”
“It’ll probably have melted,” she said.
“No, it isn’t. All the freezers are still cold!”
Abigail turned to him. “Really?” This problem had been plaguing them for the last week. There was nobody to run the turbines, and the power had failed in a month after the Night. But since last Saturday the electricity had come back. Everywhere they went, all the electrical appliances that had been switched on during the Night had come back on. This wasn’t just strange, it was unnerving.
“Can we have ice cream, just for today?”
“I don’t see why not.” And they did, straight out of the tub. It always tasted better that way.
After that, of course, Abigail insisted on having a bowl of boring blobby cereal. Kaito wasn’t very enthusiastic about that, naturally, but a compromise for an ice cream dessert was reached, and they finished an entire box of Froot Loops between them.
After breakfast, Abigail took off from the roof of the supermarket, launching herself into the air. She caught the morning breeze under her feathers and soared upwards, laughing as the wind blew her hair back and tickled the downy patch of skin between her wings.
Kaito watched her fly, then walked into the parking lot and chose a truck. One of them still had a cobwebbed driver inside. The key was still in the ignition, so he dragged the driver out and got in, starting the engine. The truck harrumphed as he drove it to the nearest petrol station. All vehicles needed a fueling, even if their gauges showed near-full levels. After five-odd months of neglect, bits and pieces often fell off.
“Got it ready?” asked Abigail, landing on the roof of the truck. She folded in her wings. They were too large to fold in completely, and she practiced every morning, but she was still clumsy. Perhaps she’d been focusing more on savoring the sensation of flying than actually trying to fly properly.
“As ready as it’ll ever be,” said Kaito. He usually handled stuff like this, being good with machines. It was a quality they found especially useful these days. Right then he was standing with his head and arms in the engine, wiping away excess oil and grease. “This hunk o’ junk’s been through worse.”
Abigail smiled to herself, and then said, “Shall I get the food?”
“Please. I won’t be done for quite some time.” He surfaced, and Abigail winced. His jet-black hair was covered in grease, as were his face and arms.
“You’re taking a bath before we leave.”
“Pft.” But he would. Nobody enjoyed smelling like a garage.
She headed back to the supermarket, grabbing a cart from the lines arrayed outside. She walked through the aisles, piling in everything she considered useful. A couple of torches, batteries – they needed plenty of those, cereal, tin cans of corned beef, olive oil, more cereal, and chocolate and so on.
She wheeled the cart outside and heaved the contents inside the truck’s open-air cargo compartment. Along with everything else she’d also snagged a mattress and a bunch of blankets. Winters on the road weren’t kind. She sat in the middle of the clutter, twitching and fidgeting till she felt perfectly comfortable. Kaito would be driving, as always, because her wings wouldn’t fit into the driver’s compartment. They were a big nuisance, in a way, but she didn’t complain.
…
At two in the afternoon, they were ready to leave. They would’ve been able to leave earlier if it wasn’t for Kaito, who made a fuss about bathing. “The truck’s going to break down on the way, and I’ll have to fix it, so what is the point in bathing now when I’ll only get dirty later?”
Abigail wasn’t going to stand for such a dumb argument. “Either you wash or I wash it for you.” She pointed at a ladies’ salon and snapped a towel at him in what she hoped was a mildly threatening manner. “They’ve got taps in there, and enough lotions to keep you smelling like fruit salad for the rest of your life.” That had got him. He scrambled off and came back only when he was visibly grease-free. Abigail knew she’d have to stick his head under a drinking fountain the next chance she got, but she didn’t press it.
“I hope you brought some chocolate,” he said above the cranky grumbling of the truck as he started the engine.
“I did,” she answered, equally loudly.
“Can I have some?”
“No.” Not yet. “I’ll let you have some in the evening.”
“You’re mean.”
“I know.” If she let Kaito have his way all the chocolate in Beirut would’ve finished by now. It wasn’t healthy, besides, she wanted some too.
…
At 7, they stopped. They were out of the city now, and even if they passed smaller cities and towns now and then, they didn’t stop. Kaito drove the truck at a speed that would’ve given any traffic policeman a coronary. He was no expert, besides. They didn’t give traffic licenses to fourteen year-olds.
He got out of the seat, stretching. Abigail tossed him a bar of Cadbury’s, which he caught. He carefully unwrapped the bar and bit into it. “That’s good stuff,” he said through a mouthful of half-chewed chocolate.
Abigail didn’t say anything. She was too busy helping herself to a box of dried figs.
They set up some sort of camp on the truck. They didn’t have a fire, naturally, but Abigail had brought along a rechargeable LED lantern with her. The bright white light threw their surrounding into harsh relief. They sat on either side of it and tried not to freeze. They could feel the chill even through the blankets, and it wasn’t kind.
“Do you think we’ll hear her again?” asked Kaito, wrapping his arms around himself.
“Probably. I wish she would give us more clues!” Abigail scowled, and then brought her wings closer in around her for warmth. Kaito looked at her with some envy, scratching absent-mindedly at the scales on his forearms.
“Do you mind if I share?” he asked.
Abigail wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself. “Of course not.”
Kaito scooted closer, and Abigail wrapped one large wing around him. It was warmer than a feather quilt, and only a little itchier.
…
Why doesn’t anybody come? It is so cold, so cold. Am I dead? Then I wouldn’t be wandering the palm tree. The grey tower was dead for weeks, and now it comes alive again, lights spiraling into the clouds. I must be hallucinating. Nobody switched on the lights. But they are shining. I must still be dreaming. But who will wake me up?
…
“You’re choking me!” hollered Kaito, and Abigail woke. He rolled away, coughing out feathers. “What is wrong with you?” he asked, looking slightly sick.
“Nothing,” answered Abigail, truthfully. “I was just startled.” She inclined her head, as if to say, “You know what I’m talking about.”
That sent Kaito off the topic. “Wonder where the grey tower is.”
“Wonder what it is,” corrected Abigail. “And how can you wander a palm tree?”
“Maybe she’s a bug, or something.”
“Not possible. And how do you know it’s a she, anyway?”
“Only girls talk like that. Trust me, I know.” Kaito dodged a retaliatory swipe at his head, grinning. “Missed.” He slid off the truck and out of range before Abigail could aim another one.
She looked around. There was a town in the distance, hazy through the morning mist. “There’s probably a library or something there,” she said. “Let’s check.”
“Or it could be some village settlement,” said Kaito, very helpfully, “where the only maps are found in school textbooks.”
“You can’t say that without seeing for yourself,” retorted Abigail.
“Actually,” interrupted a thin, reedy voice that wasn’t either of theirs, “he’s correct.” Both of them looked to its source – a manhole in the road. Looking up at them from the manhole was, quite unmistakably but rather impossibly, what seemed like a short, squat, grey-skinned child.
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