Birthing Warriors

I'm going to lose my shit on the next person to ask me why I don't have children. The fucking nerve of some people, asking me to have kids during the fucking apocalypse. What for? To raise warriors and bring them to their death? I wish I could have kids. Earth is so precious and beautiful, such a magical place to grow and teach a child, to have a family...but in my lifetime, it has become a horrifying place to live, unless you live in denial, which is a twisted pleasure only granted to those sick enough to serve the Moonatti. And do you really think those fucking traitors are happy?

Jireth laughed darkly, her eyes tired. She sat perched in a tree with a bow and arrow, waiting for a bird to land and volunteer itself for dinner. She picked at the skin on her arm with dirty nails.

My child, what in the world would I tell you? What justification could I have for bringing you here to be killed? I shudder to think of the day I need to explain this world to a child. I mean, just think about it! What the hell would I say?

Hello, I'm sorry to bring you into this mess. It's just, you see, I'm hoping things will get better and maybe you'll make it better by being here. That's what the elders say, anyways. You are the warrior generation. No pressure. I've done so much to make this place more presentable for your arrival. It doesn't show, I know it's a nightmare, but I was on the frontlines for years before the arrival of the Moonatti shut down all forms of rebellion. I'm sorry because I'm not really sure there is a point to any of this, really. It's all very sad and grim and we are all just trying to stay alive. We live in hiding, with broken hearts.

A siren rang out from a far away tower. Jireth shuddered and her hands scrambled to hold onto something hanging on her neck underneath her ragged sweater.

Here, put on this locket, baby. You must never take it off. There is star quartz inside and it will block the poisonous sound waves of the Moonatti. They shoot it from their eyes and heart and mouth, low frequencies that go into our brains and make us sick and crazy. They've even figured out how to shoot it from their guns and planes, the fuckers. They send it from the moon down to the towers so they can amplify it over the planet. This locket will block most of it and keep you strong. It emits very high frequencies and it comes from the meteorites that hit Earth ten years ago, in 2038, when the Moonatti came out of hiding from their control station behind the moon and proclaimed themselves rulers of Earth.

That's when everything changed. They didn't need to hide their evil anymore. It was a day just like today, baby, a Saturday in July, sun shining. People were gathered celebrating the return of the rains. And then the sky was in flames, all over the planet. They massacred most of the people in just a few weeks, hit us with hundred of meteors shot straight from the moon... catastrophic... and then swept through Earth's cities with their armies and tanks...the streets became graveyards. I haven't slept a full night since.

That's when we gave up fighting for freedom and went into hiding. You see, baby, we are not free. I'm afraid we are prisoners. I'm so sorry to tell you.

I have birthed you into a war unlike any other.

They killed the leaders, too, and poison the rest of us with the sounds. I'm afraid it's not likely that we will get our freedom, little one. We'd have to tear down all the towers and kill every last one of them, and the hybrid traitors. And how would we know where to stop? Humans can be evil, too, when they are hopeless and afraid enough. That is the saddest part of all this; many turned to the side of the Moonatti, they think it's safer to be close to the enemy. It would be a fucking massacre, just like in 2038, and we could never win. We are outnumbered and outpowered. They have biological weapons, nuclear bombs, planes and tanks, and the traitors... A.I.-human hybrids armed with electromagnetic sound guns. It's fucked up. They don't even need to use all that to control those of us that are left. The sounds they blast through the towers and the constant surveillance is enough to make you want to die... if you aren't careful. And every few months they burn the camps, so you have to stay on the move.

Our elders must be reeling in their graves. They could never have seen this coming after the pandemics in the 20s. They hoped things would go back to normal, but normal never returned, and it couldn't be farther from normal now. I hear the hybrids are keeping watch on the street corners in Belett. Not a soul passes through there now, they live underground. I'm sorry to say, we live in a world of their making, and it's a wretched, wretched world, little one.

Jireth felt her skin begin to crawl. Her eyes shot to the crimson horizon.

Look! There's a chopper now, flying low with lights searching, and the sound! Cover your ears, baby, and hold tight to your locket.

Your grandmother was given this locket of star quartz from a prayer man, Siro, who used to lead fire ceremonies after curfew in the forests. He was taken into hiding near the meteorite sites by the Ulani beings. They came from Lani, one of Earth's ally planets, during the massacres. They saved Siro and instructed him to collect as much of the star quartz that he could and hide it. His life mission was to give it out to the elders and the women, the keepers of the people's hearts. Thousands of families received star quartz from Siro, which he placed in these heart-shaped lockets so they would be undetected. Some say he was part human, part Ulani, but these are just myths and we will never know. But he was one of the final leaders to be killed by the Moonatti and his legacy lives on through all of us who survived because of the protection of his lockets. The man was so powerfully protected that they had to kill him using a giant crossbow pierced straight through his heart. The sound waves had no effect on him and no plane or machine could come near him without falling apart. He was a good man.

Siro told the other elders to pass the locket down to each generation and that it would protect their family from the frequencies of the Moonatti. And so here I am giving it to you now, child. Maybe you will have your own family one day, and you can pass it on to them…

We don’t have much. You’ll have to fight every waking second to stay alive and when you have a free moment you will be so tired and sick and miserable that you will try to escape. That’s what most of us do; we dissociate somehow. There is no real joy in living anymore. We’re all just trying to get by, waiting for it to end, really. Maybe one day our allies will be strong enough to defeat them, but for now the Moonatti have taken everything from us.

I don’t even recall what my dreams were as a youth. They seem so far and unreachable now. Every idea I have seems silly and pointless. A delusion amongst the many others. Even having you, little child, seems a delusion. Life in war is not living at all. You cannot play. And there is no room for old fashioned love. There is so much fear we have no strength left to love one another properly, we just hold each other and cry. The lockets keep us alive but our hearts are weak.

I have wished as long as I could remember that I could run to a place in the midst of trees and rivers, away from the cities full of towers that make my nervous system scream, away from this feeling of isolation that evil and apathy have created. But we would be more exposed out there all alone and they say the meteorites dried up the rivers; we are safer hidden here with the others.

Its been so long I can’t tell if this is the fall of civilization we have been waiting for or a slow trickle downwards towards infinite darkness? How much farther can we fall? I think I’ve finally accepted things will continue this way...

I don’t know how to operate in this world of evil and that is the truth of it, my child. I’m pretty sure bringing you here was a terrible idea. Sorry I don’t have better things to tell you, but you need to know the truth...this is really happening. Living here is terrifying and exhausting. You will flee from your death on a daily basis. But maybe you could make it better, like the elders say. In the future, you know. When you’re older.

Jireth aimed her arrow at a crow that landed in the tree next to her. She peered through the leaves as the bird made its way down a branch towards the trunk and slipped inside a burrow. The crow was greeted by a chorus of chicks ecstatic at the sight of their mother. Jireth froze, arms tight and focused. Her stomach growled and she felt her heart quicken.

They say having a child is an act of hope and revolution. Siro believed the lockets could protect us, that if all the children with lockets were united, and the allies came to join us, we might have a fighting chance. Maybe yours is the generation that changes it all, that finally wins back our freedom. I’m sorry, but its true. You were birthed a warrior.

Jireth lowered her arrow.

You are our only hope.