Prizrak

They all wear heart-shaped lockets. That’s the difference between me and them. Inside their lockets is a code, this code signifies blood type, and only the Regs have them. When the world went to pot it was because of the sun. The sun got too hot and one-third of the planet’s water evaporated, so, the sciencey-sort got together and decided that people needed to need less water and so the cure was born.

Then the mutations started. The most common blood type was the A blood types. Some science yaddi-yadda turned them into thirst-crazed vampires-sorts that were immune to sunlight. Instead of wanting blood for blood, they want the seventy percent water that’s in the body.

Those with the rarest blood type, AB negative with RH negative (whatever that means), became super strong and fast and require less water than your average Reg to survive. They call us Negs and they made us slaves. Since there aren’t that many people left, there are even fewer of us, and we’re made to be the protectors of the Regs against the Thirsters. They give us abnormal names to mark us as different and they don’t give us the heart-shaped lockets with our blood type inside. They force us to stand out so they can keep us underfoot, but our compound, Harmony, is moving. Three hundred and forty-three Regs to seven Negs across a rocky wasteland to the neighboring compound where the water hasn’t soured. They won’t all make it, and when one of them drops, that locket is going to be mine.

“Prizrak!” I was staring at the milling Regs wondering which of them I’d be getting a locket from, but now a voice has broken my concentration.

“What?” I ask, finally looking to the owner of the voice. He is Gully.

“We should be ready within the hour, the last of the Regs are getting their crap together,” he huffs in a voice just as grizzled as his face.

“Bother me when the hour is up,” I say, and he nods before taking off. I turn my attention back to the Regs, perhaps that old woman or the young girl beside her…

….

“Where are we going, Gran?” I ask, hefting my pack higher up my shoulders.

Gran squeezes my hand tighter, “To Neveah, Rose. The water there is enough for everyone here and it hasn’t gone sour.”

“What about the Thirsters?” I ask, unconvinced of our journey.

“The Negs will protect us,” Gran says, but her voice wavers, and her eyes shift around as they have done so many times since the news of our leaving Harmony, as if she’s counting everyone to make sure they’re all still here. I don’t feel reassured.

Our leaders have asked everyone to gather around the entrance when we’re ready to leave, so we take our place amongst the others and wait. I stand beside Gran, tightly grasping her hand, and feeling her tremble. She should be resting, not standing.

Soon, the leader of the Negs comes into view on a stage, she is tanned from the sun, as we all are, but her hair is pale blond, almost white, and her blue eye are bright and piercing even from here. They named her Prizrak, but I don’t know why. I don’t know why any of the Negs have such weird names and when I ask, no one will tell me. They just say “Negs don’t have names like you or I, that’s just how it is.”

“Hello everyone, we will begin our trek momentarily. I suggest you all put on your sun-goggles, don’t need anyone going blind. Before we leave, if you have packed anything other than what was specified by your leaders, now is the time to discard it. It will only slow you down when we are attacked by Thirsters.” Her voice is smooth and cold.

“Don’t you mean if we’re attacked?” Someone scoffs.

Prizrak turns her blue gaze on him, “I said “when” for a reason, and with that attitude, you’ll be the first to go.”

“Prizrak!” Alexander, one of our leaders, scolds harshly.

Prizrak ducks her head respectfully but I watch her face, it’s contorted in anger.

Alexander takes Prizrak's place on the stage and begins giving out more instructions, but I'm not listening, his voice is as oily as his hair and I think I like him about as much as Prizrak does. Finally, Alexander gives the stage back to Prizrak who tells us all to move out, and we do. I hold tight to Gran, not because I’m scared, but because she seems to be trembling even harder now.

We step out into the daylight and the sun is scorching. If it weren’t for the sun-goggles it would hurt to look around, but I take in the barren world outside of Harmony. Everything is golden and there are no trees, only dirt. The Negs don’t wear sun-goggles, they don’t need them. Everything about them is stronger than us. They surround us, like old sheepdogs used to do, herding us in the right direction.

We walk on for hours and the sun beats down on us. Sweat has soaked through all my clothes and drips onto the sand as I march on, holding onto Gran for her life. That’s when the screaming starts. It begins in the back of our group and moves through us like a wave. I turn to see why people are screaming, only to find them running and some are flying, but they land with sickening thuds. Prizrak was right, it wasn’t an “if” it was a “when.”

Then I see one, a Thirster. It looks like a human, only it’s skin is pale white and it’s bald, it’s clothes are tattered, but it doesn’t seem to care about that as it sinks it’s teeth into the closest person it can get it’s claws onto, my neighbor, Miss Maryann. I don’t hear her scream above everyone else’s, it blends right into the horrid sounds filling my ears. The Thirsters growl. Their growls and our screams mix in a symphony of music I never want to hear again. I can’t move. Something digs into my shoulders and fear grips me, I claw at the hand that has me in its grasp, but when I turn around, I only find Gran.

“Rose, you have to run,” she says, her gray eyes searching mine through her goggles. I know she’s right. She can’t run but I can’t make myself move. I shake my head. “Go, child,” she says urgently. Tears spill over my eyes, blurring the goggles, and a cry comes raking out of my throat as I throw myself around her waist. She shoves me away, thrusts something into my hand, and forces me to go forward. She begins moving as quickly as she can, but I’m moving faster, everyone is moving faster. Then I see her, Prizrak, moving through the terrified crowd of people racing toward her, heading toward the Thirsters at the back, tearing us apart.

“My Gran,” I shout to her.

She looks at me, “Keep moving kid.”

I do as I’m told and keep running, but my heart aches.

…

The Regs are running for their pathetic lives. Their eyes light up with hope as they pass me. I hope the Thirsters get the lot of them. I keep a machete strapped to my back for just these kinds of situations, I pull it loose now.

At the back, the Thirsters are tearing the Regs to shreds, drinking every drop of them dry. I cut the head off one as I pass, it wasn’t paying me any mind. They never do. We Negs can walk among the Thirsters like lions among lions, they don’t see us as prey, only equals. I see them as vampiric garbage. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be a slave. So, I kill as many as possible. Slashing and slicing my way through them, rescuing a few Regs along the way.

Alexander throws out an arm for me to help him, I consider cutting it off, but as I do, another of the Regs’ leaders, Cornelius, comes running up to help. This one has always been kind to me, and I can’t do something dirty in front of him, so I grab Alexander’s arm and pull the rest of him with me. By now the Thirsters have formed a hoard around a third of our group. Their screams pierce the air.

“Do something!” Alexander shouts.

“What would you have us do, Cap’?” Whiskey, another Neg, asks.

“There’s nothing to be done for them now, there’s too many,” I say. They don’t know we can walk among the Thirsters and they never will. That’s our out. “We have to get out of here.”

…

Night has fallen and the Regs are all sleeping nervously in their tents while us Negs sit around a fire, eating our dinner. It’s quiet, after all, what do we have to talk about? Then I hear a snap, I twist around, machete drawn, only to find the young girl who asked me about her Gran earlier standing near our encampment.

“What do you want?” I incline my chin toward her.

“Could I sit with all of you?” She asks timidly.

Got to serve them and protect them and now she wants to interrupt the only peace and quiet we get? “Fine.” Is all I say, but I grind my teeth, nonetheless.

She sits and wraps her arms around her knees, she’s quite small with dingy brown hair and a round face that’s gotten dirty from our journey. For a while she sits in silence, when she speaks it’s barely above a whisper, “My Gran didn’t make it, did she?” she asks.

“I doubt it,” I try to say it in a tone that isn’t entirely harsh, but I’m not known for my softness, and she winces.

“I’m sorry,” I try again, and she nods.

“Why did they name you Prizrak?” She asks suddenly.

“What?” I ask and this time my tone is a temperature much colder than she’s ever felt.

“No one will tell me why they name the Negs such funny things,” she says.

I look among my fellow Negs and we all share looks of befuddlement. “It means “ghost” in Russian, they named me for my hair,” I say, keeping my tone even.

“That’s so mean.” If I was expecting a response, it certainly wasn’t that.

“Yes, it is.” I swallow. What is she up to?

“Tell me about the Negs,” she says, and I again look at my colleagues in confusion. Why does this girl care about us? “Please, no one will tell me anything about you.”

I huff, and we all share a look, but in the end, we tell her. We tell her about our enslavement and our powers, except the one of course, and when we’re finished, she’s furious.

“You mean, you don’t do this willingly? And the only thing separating you from us are these stupid lockets?” She demands, stomping around the fire in an outrage. We all just shrug. “You could take them from the ones that died today then and get your freedom at Neveah,” she exclaims as though she’s had the best idea ever.

“Not that easy, kid, the Thirsters dragged all their bodies away,” Tango pipes up from across the fire.

She furrows her brow for a moment and then digs into her pocket, she thrusts her hand out towards me and says, “Here.”

“What’s this?” I ask, taking her offering.

“A start.”

I open my hand, with the others gathered around me, to see a heart-shaped locket in my palm. My head snaps up to her, “Where did you find this?”

“It was my Gran’s, she gave it to me and told me to run, and Prizrak?”

“Yes?” I ask, meeting her eyes, the flames are dancing in them now.

“We’ll get more.”