Cerie

Cerie found herself outside in the wastelands, terrified by what she had just done. She had taken that old move-around machine, the hoover sand traveler, and left the safety of the Cities, speeding across a desert of broken land, stripped of resources hundreds of years before. The move around was ancient. Her family had kept it in running condition for centuries, ever since the reckoning. Everyone in her family knew how to operate a move around. But none had ever driven it. Instead, they did this all because someone long ago said someone would need it someday.

This morning she had been standing in her sister’s home arguing about her fate.

“I am not some bag of closet dung, no intellect or desires for myself, Saut. Why would you do this to me?” Cerie yelled, storming into the living quarters of her sister’s spacious conk apartment without knocking.

“You’re forcing me to go to Central. Why? Why are you locking me up, sending me away from the Edges? To Central? I will never be able to be outside there. There is no outside in Central, Saut; you know that.”

“That’s precisely why I am sending you there, Cerie. There is no outside. These dreams you have of a heart that beats in the wastelands scare me. Every day since mom and dad disappeared, you go to the dustbowl and stare out the only window open to the outside. That window is to remind us what is out there and stop us from venturing out. But not for you or mom or dad. They are lost out there, missing a year, Cerie, and still, YOU want to be out there, in the desolate lands.

Cerie hung her head in silence, not knowing how to explain to her sister her dreams that were so real. She loved the silence of the arid land. She knew there was life all around outside. Though, by the looks of it, you could not tell. Miles and miles of rocky lands with no vegetation or water within a thousand miles outside the Cities. Or so it seemed.

Like her parents, she felt there was something more than the Cities and wastelands, something past the beauty of the badlands. Something else was out there.

She dreamed of a place she had never seen before, of a family she did not know. The land, nothing she had ever seen, vibrant and alive with so many colors. Tall things that soared into the air, green stuff she could lie down on. And the smells all around, aromas she could not describe, for it was all new to her senses. This is where she longed to go. That is where she will find the heart that beats within the golden heart. She knew it.

“Saut, how can anyone breathe in here? We were trapped in the dying Cities by a people who refused to leave Rake centuries ago. Or maybe our ancestors were the ones the Elon didn’t let leave. Maybe we were the ones who destroyed our planet in the first place. Our relatives are always talking about the Elon were not our saviors, but the executioner. Did our people stay by choice or by force? What did the Elon see in a people to say they were not worth saving? Or why would our people choose to stay in dying Cities that would cease to function? And why are we content to remain in these Cities until they fall around us, Saut? Something is out there; let’s go find it,” Cerie said to her sister.

“NO. I am not going on one of your silly adventures. It was bad enough you explored every part of this decrepit City with mom and dad, and I was never able to find any of you, always afraid you were trapped below in the bowels, and the awful creatures down there had you. So no, you will go to central where you will join the journey force.”

Cerie put her head down, the anger going out of her, replaced by resolve. She looked up at Saut and said,

‘I know it hurts, Saut. Our parents went outside. They were looking for a new life. Mom said she could feel it out there calling. They left a year ago, and we haven’t seen them since. Saut, what if these dreams lead us to mom and dad? What if they are sending the dreams? You know mom said she had faery blood in her ancestry. The heartbeat, images of a glowing red stone locked in a golden heart-shaped case, small enough to wear around your neck, The Heart of Kaiya, it all means something Saut, I know it does.”

“I’m sorry, Cerie, you will not change my mind. Get ready for your journey to central. We leave in the morning.”

“We have no way to get there. What? Will you have us walk one hundred miles just to make sure I don’t go outside?” Cerie said sarcastically to Saut.

“No,” sighed Saut heavily, weighed down with the decision she had made. We will take the move around.”

“Oh,” said Cerie. “So you think our family has kept that machine in pristine condition so you could kidnap me and ride me to Central. That this is the reason, we would someday need the move around. Really, Saut?” she questioned.

“Don’t bother to answer that, Saut. I already know. This is all you and your fears.”

Saut looked away from her sister, her head down.

“That may be, Cerie. But at least I would know you were alive. I can not lose you too.”

“If you ship me to central, it will be as if you lose me. I will never see you again, Saut. Please don’t do this. You heard the rumors, Saut. They are taking the kids from journey classes and making them dive into the dark waters below the bowels. They are looking for the same thing mom and dad were, Laiya’s portal. I can’t go down there, Saut, not again,” Cerie said and shuddered. “Even mom and dad never went back down there again. In fact, days later, we moved to ground level. Dad spoke to the council the moment we got back. The council immediately ordered all ways in to and from the lower levels to be destroyed. You don’t remember that terror because you did not go down there with mom and dad. I did; I remember Saut. Whatever is down there is better left alone. You better hope it don’t come up.”

Saut did not believe her. Cerie looked at her sister and understood how easy it was to let the darkness in when you are afraid.

“I will go to my room and ready for the journey,” Cerie said. “I am not happy, Saut, but I hear you. I prefer to be alone until the evening meal. you can explain in detail the plans you wish to enforce upon me then.”

Cerie turned and walked out of her sister’s home before she could object. She needed to get away and quickly. Saut reminded her of the perfect way to travel outside, the move around.

“Well, You are right about one thing Saut, I’m that someone,” Cerie said out loud, “I am the one this family has been keeping the silly traveler ready to go for centuries; it’s me.”

Cerie ran down the hall past the abandoned conk apartments and area shops, making a quick stop at her place to grab the pack she had prepared three days earlier when she first realized she was going outside. She slipped on the bio-suit her parents had fitted her for last year and ran back out the door.

“I am going. I am going outside. I am going to find that heart.” Cerie said with the force of her resolve, fleeing Saut’s decision.

As Cerie ran, she noticed the dimming of the directional lights.

“It has started here now,” she said, remembering the bowels. Her determination to leave made stronger, her steps quicker, knowing what was coming from below. She had to go, find a safe place for her and Saut.

“Hundreds of years ago, you left your mess for me to live in,” Cerie berated her ancestors as she sped across the hangar to the waiting vehicle.

She started the hoover and completed the checkpoints required by the machine. If you were not family, you could not operate it. She adjusted her bio-suit, fitting it to perfection around her body and head, opened the only door to the outside she knew of, and rode out of the Cities into the empty lands early in the morning.

Cerie had spent hours each day for a year studying the wastelands. She learned one thing, Don’t take the badlands lightly. It was not a land to doddle in. There were things out here that use to be human three hundred years ago. Not anymore, she thought as she fled the cities. She did not know what they were, and she wasn’t stopping to find out.

She was following a feeling, destination unknown, drawn to a place she had only seen in her dreams.

She hated the Cities where she lived with Saut, all of its decay and disrepair. She wanted out. Eighty billion had lived in the Cities at one time. They had destroyed their environment hundreds of years before the reckoning of 2330, the dispersion of the Rakian population to other planets by the Elon. They left only those humans they saw as dangerous and those who did not want to go—about a million. Now centuries after the reckoning, only five hundred thousand humans lived in the Cities built for eighty billion. They were a dying breed, soon to be extinct on Rake.

Cerie was far from the Cities. The light she had followed started in front of her and was now sinking behind her. She had never thought about day and night before. That had always been a function of the Cities. But, darkness was coming to the outside, and she had not prepared for this possibility.

What was I thinking? Fear started to set in, as well as fatigue. I am tired, what do I do?

Stop and brave the possibilities of nightlife on the wastelands? Or continue, fall asleep on this contraption and fall off, only to face the possibility of being in the wastelands without a ride? That decision was taken from her in the next moment. She heard growling behind her in several different spots.

More than one of them, she thought and pushed the move around faster, watching something loom in front of her out of the darkness soring into the air.

“It’s one of those things in my dream,” she said.

“It’s real,” she laughed, gaping at the thing from her dream as the move around veered to miss the first tree and threw her into the second.

I’m dead, she thought, as she soared through the air, striking the ground hard and losing consciousness.

“Is she dead?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Who is she?”

“How would I know? I saw her fly through the air, same as you. She does favor Kasor, though.”

Am I dreaming, Cerie thought? Or is this real? Please don’t let me wake up if this is a dream. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself staring at two perfectly formed slender humans. She loved them already.

“I made it. The heart of Kaiya calls me,” she said, unaware she had spoken

She knew, whatever happened from this point on, she was where she was supposed to be. For the heartbeat she had been hearing was no longer frantic. It held her and rocked her peacefully.

”Rest Cerie, you are home,” the heart of Kaiya told her.

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