Fury

Her calloused fingers wound around the delicate metalwork of the locket. She traced the familiar heart shape with ease. The lock of hair safely stowed away inside brought her peace. He had been her world and the others had ripped him from her arms.

It was better, they said, for him to be placed into a loving home. Raised with other children. Safe, they said. The Guides had sent her to die. But death did not come easily to Ophelia.

The Wilderness was how they, The Guides, described what was left of the world. Nature it seemed had finally had enough of the human plague and decided to take back the Earth. Despite man's best efforts, the great mother of all had raged at the tiny specks infesting her soul and sent them floods, droughts, winds and plagues.

Ophelia shuddered. The mice were the worst, she thought. She could remember them as a small child climbing in her bed, biting her face, hands and feet. Opening cupboards for food to find nothing left. She could remember her parents crying and praying. Forts were made out of water to try and stop the little teeth. Even her bed legs were placed in buckets of water-the goal to drown them. All it seemed to do was take out the less intelligent, leaving the survivors to breed and learn. Mice still terrified her. After all, it was the clever mice who spread the diseases that took the lives of so many.

Unconsciously she moved closer to her little fire. Ophelia had made a rough shelter out of the fallen branches and leaves she’d found around her and sat with her back towards the dark. Fire was both a help and a hindrance. It would keep her warm, but it might also attract unwanted visitors. Other humans are looking for peace. Or vengeance. Most animals still had the instinct to keep away from the smoke of man-especially now it was less common.

Humanity was cursed, she decided. After the last plague-the mice-what was left of the population banded together. It seemed so positive that people banded together to survive. As the governments collapsed everyday people rose up. The Guides were formed as a way to provide stability in a time of panic. Different Guides took over running different parts of the country. Each Guide focused on a particular trait. Farmers Guide, Creative Guide, Workers Guide, Academic Guide and Nature’s Guide. It all seemed like such a good idea.

However, humanity being the self-destructive beast it is, each guide wanted more power than the other and deemed themselves more worthy. Fighting ensued and those that survived were collected by the One Guide. Self-proclaimed men who decided on everyone's fate.

The best thing for humanity, The One Guide decided, was for various colonies to be constructed under their rule. Men were given various roles based on their attributes. This was to establish humanity as the ruling power once again. Nature had to be tamed. The greatest strength of humanity, they ruled, was this ability to breed and spread.

Women, therefore, were given the role of having children. This was their purpose. Men would work the fields, defend the homes, create and learn. If a woman was unable to breed, she was put out to work. If a woman defied the One Guide in any way, she was left to the Wilderness.

And this is how Ophelia found herself in the forest that was once a city. The remnants of the old days were hidden under green growth. It was beautiful, she noted. She didn’t really remember how the old days sounded but she assumed it was noisy. Now all she could hear was the sound of the earth sighing in peace. Most women would have perished out here. Unable to fend for themselves. Knowledge was not given freely in the Guide Settlements, especially for a breeder. However, she was unusual in that she was raised in the Wilderness by a stranger who she would come to regard as her father.

Memory was becoming more difficult to recall the older she grew, but one memory would stay with her till her last breath.

It was early morning and she had fallen into a deep sleep in the early hours of the morning after keeping watch for the mice. The breeze had the sickening smell of mouse faeces and urine. The rotting smell that infested her lungs. She could taste the revolution in her mouth. Searching the house for her parents the panic had set in. Calling and calling for them with nothing but whispers on the wind. She had no neighbours. She knew no other humans. She had been born on the run from the mice and raised in this small farmhouse. It felt hot and dry. The big rains hadn’t arrived yet and the earth was cracked and dusty. With hesitation she ventured into the large open shed. It’s corrugated roof caving in, heaving it seemed from the weight of the sun. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden dark, she could see hunched figures. Relieved to have found her parents, her security, she walked over. She remembered babbling about the dream she’d had. She stopped. Looking around the dark she noticed the floor moving. Her young brain could not comprehend. The floor couldn’t be moving.

‘Mum’ she whispered hesitantly.

Reaching out her hand towards her mother she stopped at the voice.

‘Ophelia’

Her father loomed out from the shadows, the shotgun in his hands.

‘I’m sorry’ his voice cracked. It was harsh and burnt like the parched earth outside. ‘It’s better this way’.

She remembered him lifting the barrel up to face her. The sunlight glinted on the black. It looked pretty, she thought in a moment of absurdity. Then she looked at her mother’s face. It was clear the mice had spent the night feasting. Backing away in horror she looked up at her father. He was crying. ‘I had too. I had no choice. Forgive me’. As if in slow motion she turned and ran. The booming sound of the shotgun close by her ears. Fuelled by betrayal and fear she fled. She didn’t stop running. She had collapsed and been found by a stranger. This stranger then taught her the ways of survival in the Wilderness.

It had come at a cost, however. The stranger saved her life, raised her, loved her and yet he demanded her body as payment. It wasn’t until she fell pregnant that the stranger realised he needed help. And so, he took them to a Guide settlement. There she was revered. She was a pregnant woman and so given the best of everything. Ophelia finally had found peace. When the delivery day came, the other women helped, and all rejoiced in the safe birth of her son. She had held him in her arms and cried. She had never seen anything so fragile, so tiny, so perfect.

And then they came.

The Men in power. In cloaks of purple. They spoke words of joy. Congratulated her on being such a woman. So powerful, so strong. Every day they visited and offered her thanks. Ophelia had wanted to call her son Fury. The men laughed at her and said he would be known as Henry, named after a great king of long ago.

Ophelia was guarded constantly. She was unable to move freely. When she spoke of leaving and going back into the Wilderness the other women shuddered.

‘What about the others?’ they whispered. ‘The other humans who only seek to destroy. They eat children! ' the Women cried.

Ophelia ignored their wailing.

‘There is only nature out there.’ she spoke truthfully. ‘And it will provide for me and my son’.

But the Women did not understand and so told the men in the purple cloaks.

Ophelia wiped away the tears as they made their way down her rough cheeks. It was painful to think back. To think how differently it could have been. Oh, how she wished she’d kept her mouth closed. To think she might have slipped away with her son.

But it was not to be. The Men in purple cloaks came early in the morning and took him. She fought them, scratched them with her nails, bit them with her teeth. Yelled. Screamed. Yowled. But they took him and dumped her outside the walls. When she refused to leave and tried to climb the walls, they shot at her with their guns.

Ophelia’s fingers held the locket tightly. She was not done. Her son would be with her again. She made the silent promise to him. Her love for him would fuel her onwards. Soon she would have her Fury. And watch the Guides burn.