IN HER HONOUR

They were so close.

So close.

An intrepid team of three leaving the clinical safety of their bunker, BELLONA, nestled deep in the old civilizations of man, now decimated and reduced to lost memories and rubble. It wasn’t the first time people had left. Some had broken free, seeking those long forsaken, claiming they could hear their loved ones' voices carried by the toxic air in the world above. Most had only gotten a few meters before perishing, some a little further. Skin and muscle papery and pallid from years of indoor isolation was no match for the noxious zephyrs, but even as their body rotted and eyes went milky with blindness, they were mute. Soundless.

Their remnants still stood, bones petrified into white crystalline statues, some reaching skyward. Others with heads in their hands, few stood upright, eerily expressionless. A macabre goodbye for those tasked with finding the only other safe abode nearby: MINERVA. Once upon a time, both bunkers had communicated when the powers that be damned the world into eternal catastrophe, only on their 10th year their sister bunkers line went dark. Ever since, the only communications between the two supposed havens had been unwelcome static. Except now, the forty citizens of BELLONA were gradually asphyxiating, lips and fingers turning blue. MINERVA was their last hope. Within was enough stored oxygen to last them another hundred years, perhaps enough time to somehow rectify this world and begin anew. And it was Najia and her team’s objective to deliver that hope, prized and packaged.

The auspicious endeavors of man - or what remained of it - began crossing the wastelands of their old world. Not that you would know it. No structures stood, no skeletal buildings in the distance, all razed to the ground and buried beneath fine particles of glass and plastic that had rained down upon them in the aftermath of their cataclysm.

It was a four hour walk stifled by a mournful silence. Only occasionally did Najia’s gaze turn outward, away from the two people in front of her, to peer into the vast emptiness. A harrowing graveyard miles and miles long, so far that she couldn’t even see the end of it. Polluted, sepia skies swallowed them in a syrupy film of fog so dense that it felt as though they were wading through shallow waters. It was thick enough to clog the airways of any breathing thing in seconds. If the glass blizzards didn’t turn you to ribbons or if the unhindered winds of smoldering miasma didn’t rot your corpse and turn your bones to crystals first. Occasionally, the atmosphere groaned and streaks of red lightning illuminated the molten heavens. In its wake, the heat from them made the air erupt into belching flame. Too high to hurt them, but hot enough that they felt it.

Najia could feel the pollution trying to kill her. BELLONA didn’t have the right equipment for exploration. They had no rebreathers or proper air filters fitted into their thick suits of Kevlar, metal, and plastic. When they left, she hadn’t thought about what poison trying to ravage her insides would feel like. It was only thanks to the implants that she wasn’t dead already. You see, all three of them were more machine than human now. As a babe, her dying mother offered her mind and body to the mission, all in the name of necessary sacrifice. Each of them had been. Hida, the one leading at the front, had been the eldest at three. Alexander had been a newborn. All named in honor of what they would soon hopefully become: warriors, protectors, saviors.

In reminiscence, Najia’s hand reached up to the silk sewn badge on her shoulder. Each gifted an animal of their choosing. For her, an owl, wings folded but head peering upward. It was the same sigil that was stamped on her metal breastplate beneath her skin, where her mechanical lungs and esophagus fought against the nox.

“Who knew metal joints would creak so much,” was the only words Alexander uttered, the sole words said at all as they crossed the expanse.

What was once a stiff, palpable silence eased as they approached the precipice of the great beyond, where the churning pollution of the once-city thinned and the ground sloped gently upwards. Hida lingered near the back, replaced by Alexander who took the front, though they didn’t stray more than a few meters away from one another. Though Najia couldn’t see their faces beyond their masks and visors, somehow travelling with them felt intimate. A joint, desperate step into the unknown, their communications with BELLONA crackling and waning as they broke through the membrane of smog and into the hollowness before them.

A valley, surely once green and teeming, now scarred by the battling weather and left lifeless by humanity. Two steep inclines protected them from the howling winds, the rock carved almost concave on either side. Rocks the size of houses littered the bottom of the valley, but ‘twas not that that caught the breath in Najia’s throat. It was the remnants of mankind that enveloped the ground. All their remnants. Bits of cars, tools, old signs, warped out of shape, blown here from the gusts of the city, and right beside them: bodies.

People. Some crystallized. Some charred and blackened. Skulls with their mouths agape, others jawless and fractured. Decomposed and mummified in the slog that belched out of small holes in the ground where she was sure streams once trickled. Bodies piled high against uprooted trees whose roots reached upwards like dead fingers, heaped against one another up the rocky valley side and strewn across the floor. Alexander continued onward, stepping tentatively as though he didn’t want to disturb the corpses he trod upon. Hida and Najia paused. Perhaps in utter terror, maybe in grief.

“Some people think owls are heralds of death, their twilight call an unlucky omen” Najia choked, “but that’s not why I have that animal branded on me. Their symbol of wisdom and independence, that’s why – I thought it would give me courage.”

Hida’s velvet voice responded and anchored Najia back to reality, “do you want to know why I chose a salmon for my sigil? I remember all of you laughing at me, saying what a weird animal to choose. A fish!”

Their hands found one another as they plunged their waypoint marker into the ground. An owl, a fish and a bear all illuminated into holographs at the checkpoint. In a life before this where they were allowed to do more than just be saviors, Najia was sure they were the greatest of friends. Fingers woven tightly together, they took one, bereft step onto the mummified cadaver remains of a city. A biblical, open catacomb of their own doing.

After a quiet sigh broke free, Hida finally said, “because a salmon always returns home.”

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As three moons rose and passed, they still did not stop. Metal spines and hips, reinforced with cogs and rubber, urged them onward against the most human of instincts to stop and recover. They stayed close to one another as the mass graveyard of millions faded behind them, each knowing what leg of the journey was to come. The only part that had truly struck cold fear into Najia. Not breathing poisonous air, not wading through toxic sludge, not being the only living thing for miles and miles. But instead what was to come as the sun broke the horizon with glimmering sheens of orange and yellow.

It was time to split up.

MINERVA resided somewhere beyond the expanse of the frozen tundra, aptly named the White Expanse. No one had seen beyond it. No one could tell them which way to go. But their only hope was somewhere past the White Expanse that guarded that very hope with fierce duty.

Before they left they had decided which route each would take. Not tactically, not analyzing what pathetic intel they already had, but by drawing straws while far too intoxicated to make logical decisions. For at least one of them, it was guaranteed a one way trip. The likelihood of them all surviving was slim, but none of them had ever voiced it. Chance could perhaps still be on their side, willing them onward in their pursuit of survival, surely? Either way, Alexander, Hida and Najia had not once mentioned it.

Not until they arrived at their waypoint, at least.

Throttled by a sobering realization that they might not ever see one another again, all three of them stood in momentary silence. Beyond them rested something so opulent and deadly that it was difficult for Najia to even believe it was real. She even checked her visor to make sure it wasn’t malfunctioning, and she was sure she heard Alexander choke on tears.

The White Expanse was well named. For what lay ahead them was just that. Frozen waters stretched and stretched before vanishing behind thin fog that cascaded and curled in weak, spiraling wind funnels. Yet overhead was a sky so clear and blue that it was breathtaking. They had only ever seen pictures of the sky and what once flew around up there. It had been concealed behind layers of pollutants for so many-a year, even before humanity descended into their bunkers and slept through the destruction of mankind. However the frozen sea was not flat, but instead had frozen in swells and tides. Ivory crested waves now perpetually suspended before they could crash against shore or rise to their full height, frozen solid, forming North-facing statues of the once lively sea.

“We should go,” Alexander said, interrupting their awe with the understanding that they were here for a reason, “we can stop and gawk on the way back, can’t we? Do both of your comms work?”

“Does it matter,” Hida retorted, and began marching West.

“Of course it matters. Who else will I sing to when I’m bored? And besides, I want to gloat when I find MINERVA before either of you. They’ll call me Alexander the Bear after my sigil. The Owl and the Salmon will be long forgotten,” he quipped, and surely cracked a sly smirk behind the filtered screen on his helmet.

Najia didn’t respond. Neither did Hida. But as Alexander turned East and Najia faced North, all three of them stopped. Only for the briefest of moments. A silent thanks. A silent good luck. Maybe even a silent goodbye. What felt like seconds but was surely for longer, the three parted ways and headed into the wispy fog of the White Expanse. Occasionally Najia was sure she could see a shadow of one of them not too far away, but perhaps it was just a trick of the light.

It was difficult to tell whether it was night or day at first. The haze had become thick and unruly, shifting and whipping in random directions with each frigid breath of wind. Back on the BELLONA, their sense of touch had been diminished in the procedure to strengthen their bodies to withstand the outside world, but even then she could feel the cold deep in her bones. Ice had crept up her visor in brambly veins of frost, creeping closer and closer together until a cloudy film covered it entirely. It didn’t matter too much; Najia didn’t really know where she was going. Just North.

Her hand clasped against her shoulder, holding tight her owl sigil as though it would urge her onwards. Only she knew her body was slowly failing her. The metal joints and mechanics within them weren’t meant to be permanent, after all. The more time went by, the heavier she felt, weighed down by the enhancing technology her body was surely soon to reject in a fit of instinct. But there was no time to think about that, not yet.

The monotony of walking without being able to see was interrupted - though she wasn’t sure how long it had been - by a sudden gleam of light that broke through white dust. Her heart palpitated and her skin prickled, blurry forked shapes emerging with each aching step. Desperately clawing at her helmet's screen to clean it of frost, she battled the ice below to stay upright to no avail. As though wings were clipped, she tumbled and fell head first, sliding free from the snowy mist to be confronted by something so spectacular that a sobbing groan escaped from parted lips as she stood upright once more.

Mountains. Undisturbed. Unmarred by war and tragedy. Unbothered about the downfall of man.

There they stood, in all their ominous glory.

Forlorn peaks with crowns of untouched ice, capped by icy clouds that appeared suspended and frozen in place. The sky seemed even more blue here, tawny rays of sun eclipsed only by snow capped summits but still they were blinding. The mountain range spanned either side of her, unceasing and breathtaking, while she stood alone in the frozen waters that parted them. Crystal ice spanned before her, shaped into vast, frosted crop circle-like patterns made from the branches of snowfall and ice. As though drawn by the most detailed of artists, each snowflake glistened and shone in unison with that of those beside it. Each ripple of building wind made the fallen snow shudder, and in one spectral dance fall into another almost symmetrical pattern. If only Hida and Alexander could see this, she thought, words too knotted in her throat to speak aloud.

Slowly, Najia fell to her knees. Not because she wanted to, but because the hoarfrost had begun to permeate through the small unsealed gaps in her suit. Her legs told her no more, blood vessels thrumming and burning as her calves and thighs seized. Feet numb and hips stinging, she tried to heave herself onward. If anything, so she could see more of the mountains scattering the horizon. But something beneath her caught her eye. Where the ice was mostly whites and pale blues, peppered with frozen bubbles, a deep streak of crimson could be seen far below. Appearing disjointed, her gloved hand swiped away some of the clouded frost so that she might see what it was.

And was met with a face.

Stifled by shock, Najia tried to jerk backwards but her limbs didn’t respond to the command and instead she fell to one side. Throbbing pain wound its cruel fingers up her spine while her toes and feet spasmed, each breath becoming ragged but not from the agony, but instead the shock. While her body tried to restart, the crunching of mechanisms whirring in her limbs, her brain could still not process what she saw.

Petrified in ice, paused in time, the face of a human man with eyes wide and fearful rested just below the frozen water. One of his hands had clutched at his chest, presumably as he tried hopelessly for one more breath of air. Around his neck were two dog tags that had lifted up to his jaw right before he was frozen. One read ‘A. PANCHAL’. The other… ‘MINERVA STATION 4’. Another whimper escaped Najia’s lips. Hot tears pricking her eyes in both joy and grief. She had to be close to her objective, but now she knew: the MINERVA had succumbed to the wintry tide. A cruel but quick end, she hoped, no, prayed for.

Betwixt trembling lips, blood bubbled while quaking arms heaved herself upright once more. One leg unresponsive and the other burning in pain, Najia struck the ice in fury. Once, then again, and again. Her and death had become close acquaintances over the years, but never had she thought that it would show her something to damning as someone's final moments of terror forever painted across their face.

“How could I get so close, why would you let me get so close?!” she cried to the crest of mountains before her.

She was answered by a pitched harmony of something breaking and the sudden sound of snapping cable. It took her only a few moments to realize that it was the ice beneath her that began to splinter. Wind billowed down the mountainside as the glacier ice shifted and fractured, all the while Najia unable to run. Fumbling in her belt, with what strength she had left, the explorer launched a small waypoint as far as she could. Maybe one day someone would find it and know she had been here. Maybe Hida would, maybe Alexander would. Only the faint glow of her owl sigil didn’t illuminate as she and it was swallowed by the opening maw of the glacier, down into the pits below.

Najia didn’t feel most of the thunks and crashes she made on her way down the narrow crevice. Yanked from side to side as her skin and suit tore from jagged ice, she briefly thought she would be falling forever as sunlight became slim the more she descended. Tumbling and tumbling and tumbling. Sunlight vanished entirely when her head cracked against something hard and her world went dark.

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Awoken by the dulcet cacophony of the disturbed glacier, Najia jolted and choked. Brain foggy, she tried to comprehend where she was and what had happened, but she only remembered falling. But where was she now?

Awareness struck her like a hot blade burrowing deep into her chest. Fearfully, she tried to move her limbs but found them stuck, much like the rest of her. Wedged at the bottom of the glacial split that she was sure was at least 100m deep. One arm pinned against her side, the other the only body part she could properly move though her legs were free, they had stopped responding. Slowly, she adjusted her head and peered down at herself to inspect the damage. Her suit had been ripped and dented, bloodied injuries frozen at the wound where blackened flesh had succumbed to frostbite. It was only then did she realize her helmet had all but been torn into two halves. Now nothing stopped the poisons from infecting her once armored lungs and panic gripped her.

However as her gaze lifted, she saw the opal eye of the moon peer down at her. That meant she had been stuck for hours. It meant she had been inhaling the blight for it long enough to kill her, but it hadn’t. Mustering up the strength, Najia lifted her one free arm to peer at the screen attached to her vambrace. It had shattered, but behind one of the cracks she could just about make out digitized green words.

POLLUTANT: MINIMAL.

AIR QUALITY: HIGH.

One haggard breath was crippled by her broken metal ribs, but it did not stop her from the joy of tasting clean air. Unfiltered and sweet, even while wedged tight in the fracture, it felt so good. Fresh air. Fresh air! The first time anyone had inhaled it in almost 103 years, even while choking and spluttering on her own frothing blood it was divine. Part of her was envious that she couldn’t feel it with her own lungs instead of the ones implanted within her. Nonetheless, each bloodied and windswept breath was her greatest of all. It tasted of hope.

She peered upwards, mouth open in a perfect ‘O’ shape like hungry fish and accepted the refreshing clarity it brought. Eyes searched for some way to tell the BELLONA, but instead cast upon the brilliance of the two walls of ice that trapped her. Instead of being clear and blue, it shone dark purples and greens in giant oil spill circles while refracting the pearl glow of the moon. In Najia’s awe, the little scintillating smears of amethyst reflected her, and almost made her jump from how little she recognized her own mirror image. Once olive complexion now streaked red from her own blood, lips dried and cracked and turned inwards from dehydration. She left with rounded features, sagging slightly from age, but now she was met with gaunt cheekbones, emaciated due to malnutrition. Each etched wrinkle, from her smile lines to her scowl lines, had now turned a grey purple and left little starved scars across her face.

While she looked at herself, she pondered if anyone would know that she came so close. Surely the MINERVA was nearby, just behind the mountains perhaps. Maybe Hida had gotten closer, Alexander the closest. Two aged eyes of bronze searched for the answers in the ice, but instead saw a distant dim glow of clinical white light. Maybe she was imagining it – or maybe it was a reflection of the moon? No. No! That was light. The glacier shuddered once more, and Najia’s suspicions became as illuminated and obvious as the lights that suddenly erupted.

Frozen in front of her, she saw the corpse of the MINERVA. Lines of round windows slowly brightened as it hummed with power, the giant glowing title of “MNRVA-STAT. 4” far above her turned the oily ice bright yellow and white. Only Najia could not see it all, body twisted and gnarled at the bottom of the abyss, she looked only forward at her reflection.

Until she saw something peer back. Not frozen fear or the icy cadaver remains of those once living here, but instead something… moving. A circular window a few meters away in the glacier began to brighten, Flashes of bulbs turning on crept closer and closer to slowly reveal the inside of the MINERVA, though distorted through the thick ice. Yet two peering, black eyes could not be mistaken. Not as madness nor delirium. Najia was certain. As certain as she had been since she stepped foot from the BELLONA. It wasn't a human gaze that looked back, instead a feathered face with a small white beak could just be made out behind the frost.

The curious gaze of an owl. Fawn hued feathers framed milky ones in a heart shape around its face, two cinnamon smears reached from its inner eyes down to the tip of its beak as though it had been crying. The distinctive features of a barn owl, trapped within this frozen capsule. The omen animal of death that had ironically survived, somehow the descendent of other barn owls that had managed to thrive in their unexpected captivity.

Conflicted tears cut through the dried dirt on her cheeks and fell into the pooling blood beneath her. The anguish of being so, so close, a breath away from MINERVA but being unable to reach her far outweighed the physical pain she was experiencing. Yet the jubilance of knowing life had managed to endure elsewhere was so vividly exciting that the dissonance couldn’t outweigh one another. Najia wondered what else lived in the cold catacombs of the MINERVA, and if they had survived alongside this little owl, so could the inhabitants of the BELLONA. They could even go outside. Whimpers turned to heavy sobs, and sobs turned to lamented whines as her mechanized insides began to break.

But were interrupted by one, distant beep.

“Najia– the– …command.”

“Do – come in.. – signal!”

“Reading –... BELLONA.”

The owl ahead turned its head 90 degrees, inspecting this dying creature ahead of him. One that convulsed and shook as she tried to lift her arm to speak into her vambrace.

“I hear-– you BELLONA!” breathless words fell muted as the crackle of her radio faded in and out. Somewhere, her waypoint marker activated, “I–... I see an owl.”

“We– can’t–”, the hiss and pop of broken voices made it impossible to make out.

Najia’s vision frayed at the edges. Her jaw went slack as her limbs went limp and her heart slowed. The pain that once ebbed from her faded, surrendering to warm numbness. The barn owl stretched out his wings as though to make her envious he could still move, but Najia’s blue lips could only lift up at the corners with a weak, pure smile. The familiar embrace of approaching oblivion was not something that scared her. Maybe now she welcomed it, knowing that she had achieved their hope-filled venture.

“Can live here… owls live here,” spent breath unwound from the burrows of her chest in one grave gasp, her free hand gently placed against the ice where she could still see the winged creature watching her, “owls live here.”

…

“We read you, Najia.”