Red

Red did not make Destery think of fire.

It did not make him think of blood.

It was not anger, it was not pain.

The scars that scratch and crawl all over his hands and body have always been white to him, not red.

Destery didn’t believe in needing someone else to feel whole, but there remained the fact that he felt cracked open, breaking at the seams. Every night, sleeping on the ground in the light gray scale of the fire, he was checking his scars to see if they were growing; surely they were ripping his skin open every night, tearing him open slowly. He ripped up his shirt and twisted to uncomfortable positions to be able to confirm or deny his hypothesis.

Maybe he was going crazy. He just hadn’t stayed still in so long, not even really at night. He was running. And when he wasn’t running, he was walking. And when he wasn’t walking, he was limping.

Brylee had been warm. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, it’d been years since she’d been killed. Maybe in his dreams, but dreams meant nothing. Simple musings of an unconscious mind. Destery never paid attention to his.

Maybe he should start. He remembered Brylee always would tell him her dreams, waking up in her twin size bed that was positioned diagonally to his own, rambling on and on about some chaotic mosh posh of ideas her brain came up with.

He shut his eyes.

Destery tilted his head back, watching the air coil from his mouth. It was freezing. He pulled his cloak tighter around his head. It was old now, with holes that were badly sewn back together, and was much shorter around his legs due to the growth spurt that he had suffered through the year before.

He wasn’t sure where he was. The ground was cracked up and broken, plants growing from underneath the concrete, the buildings cracking and falling in on themselves. Some cars were parked randomly over benches, walls, bodies…

He sighed. There was no way anyone was here. Except…

He couldn’t shake this. Not this time. This presence he felt was like a tether he was desperately holding on to. He had ignored presences before, but this was different. Familiar, even.

He picked at his thumb. The notch on his right thumb became callused and scarred from his constant picking at it. He even bites at the skin sometimes, chewing on the flesh between his front teeth. The small shoots of pain always cement him back to the world. The picking keeps his sanity in check.

Destery looked up at the sky. It was mostly gray, dark hues that faded into the gray skyline and gray crumbling reminders of humanity. In the gray there were streaks of white that slice through the sky.

Red, so he had been told, was only these quickly fading stripes of the early morning sky.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking through the professedly abandoned city. The presence was getting stronger and more clear in his mind. The presence was a girl. She was younger than him, for sure. She had to be younger than him. It was a strong energy, but it was also a small one.

A piece of concrete slid off. He glanced behind him, fingering one of his knives, then turned.

He started running. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe impatience, or annoyance. He just started running and couldn’t stop.

Destery felt his lungs fill with ice. It was hard to breathe, the coldness seeping inwards and excluding in his tight muscles. His feet wouldn’t stop. They were holding onto the tether, bringing an intensity Destery hasn’t felt in years. His feet were carrying him as his mind went to putty.

It was getting stronger. He wanted to find her.

She was a kilokilo. There was no doubt in his mind that she wasn’t.

He wanted to protect her.

Why? He didn’t know.

He ran. He kept running.

He was running so fast he wasn’t even thinking about it.

Destery suddenly stopped dead. His legs stopped before his brain told them to. He was standing sideways to an alley, on the other side a dilapidated park. He heard crying to the left of him. It was quiet, like the one crying was shoving their hands over their own mouth to silence the sound. He’s slept like that before, way too many nights lost to those thoughts.

Destery walked into the alley, pushing his hands into the pockets of his cloak and taking deep breaths, trying to regain his breath from running so much. The crying stopped.

So she’s perceptive.

There was a box at the end of the hallway. He was close to it now, though. As he got closer, he could see what called him here: a blob of intense color, bright, blinding, and swirling, pooling out from her hiding space under the box. Destery frowned. How had she not been taken like everyone else, with an energy like that?

He placed his hand on the box and jerked it back. A whirl of denim, winter coats, and gray flung at him. She was swinging, and Destery stumbled back. He could easily slam her against the wall or something along those lines, but he didn’t. He grabbed the girl’s shoulders and pushed her down.

“Relax,” he huffed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The girl’s breathing evened out, but her eyes were flaring with fury and he felt a mild fear he hadn’t felt in a few weeks.

Mild, mind you.

Her hair was a deep, dark shade of black he had learned to identify as red. The rest of her was indistinguishable gray. He had never met anyone with red hair before and he was staring at her with wide eyes and his mouth slightly open. The girl with red hair squirmed.

He slowly let go of her and kneeled on one knee. He took off his hood and smiled at her to look less intimidating than he knew that he did, but his face muscles were sore from the action.

When was the last time his face made such an expression?

“I’m not scary,” he said. Destery knew she was unconvinced; hell, he was unconvinced.

The girl sat up and scooted away slightly in a backwards crab walk. “You’re kind of scary.”

He laughed. He hadn’t laughed in so long that he almost forgot how to. It hurt. “I’m not. I promise. I’m here to help you.”

The girl’s facial emotion changed quickly and without notice. “You are?” she asked, almost squeaked.

He nodded, but couldn’t help but be worried all over again. She was so young, so naive. If she had any sense she would have ran away. But, he supposed, this world destroys reason.

“Yeah. My name is Destery.” Destery brushed some hair from his face and looked down at the little girl again. His mind, his reader, was scanning her even though he told it not to. She was 11 years old. She was scared, and didn’t trust the strange teenager who randomly approached her in the middle of an abandoned city.

Maybe she has some sense after all.

He sighed, letting his breath circle out in front of him. “You’re going to have to trust me, alright,” he grinned flatly and slid one of his hands in his pocket, wrapping his nimble fingers around the crystal handle. The girl’s downturned eyes watched him carefully.

“This is a dagger.” Destery pulled out the dagger and held it in front of him. The handle itself was clear, pure crystal. The blade was shiny and sharp metal. She couldn’t see that, however, because the dagger was held tightly in its holder. The holder was gorgeous–pearly white and smooth, hand drawn, painted gold and black from people in the village who passed it onto the next. Brylee’s doodles of the sun, intricate and elaborate but small to save room for others, gleamed brightly on the bottom side of the case.

“Do you know what a dagger is?” The girl nodded, though he suspected she was lying and explained anyway.

“Daggers are only for the bravest and speediest of fighters,” he told her, gingerly handing it to her and the girl grabbed it, slipping it out and studying it. He had to restrain himself from telling her to stop. “They don’t have the distance or power of a gun, but they’re easy to hide. They can find weak spots in whoever is trying to take you. It takes a very smart person to use a knife. You seem pretty smart.”

She beamed. “I am smart!”

Destery laughed, more genuine than last time. “What’s your name, keiki?”

“Tawny.”

He smiled. “What a pretty name.” He hadn't heard that as a name before, but it seemed to suit her.

He stood, and Tawny did, too. She stopped. “Um. . .”

“Hmm?” Destery pulled his hood over his ears again.

“My family. . .they’re gone. Everyone’s gone. . .I-I,” her small eyes filled with tears and he quickly grabbed her hands. He hated when people cried, especially when girls did. He had no idea how to handle it.

“Hey, hey, don’t cry, okay? Everything is going to be okay. You’re part of my family now, Tawny, okay?”

She sniffled. “Promise?”

“Yeah.”

Tawny frowned. “You have to say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you promise.”

“I promise.”

She grinned and jumped up. “Yay!” She was laughing. Destery smiled.

“There’s a safe haven for people like us a state or so over. Do you mind walking?”

She shook her head, red waves falling from her face. “N-no! Of course not!”

Destery smiled.

This could be nice.

“My dad, before he died, told me that the world was separated into three groups,” Tawny was explaining. They had been walking for a very, very long time. Tawny was a good walker, turns out. A little too good, actually. He had to force the two of them to camp at night or when he was tired. If he was tired, then this poor kid was, too.

Sometimes he had to remind himself that he was a kid, too. He thinks he probably was 17 at this point.

“Oh yeah?” He asked. He fiddled with the straps of his backpack to make them tighter.

“Mmhmmm. He called them the ignores, settlers, and the runners. He said the runners tried to run from New York–hey, where are you from?”

“A little village in Hawaii.”

“Oh, that’s cool! Well, yeah, I’m from New York and saw a bunch of runners. I remember my best friend Cia had come home from Mexico a few days before everyone died. She turned to me on the playground and asked, ‘Where are you guys going?’ and I said ‘no where.’ I think her family was going somewhere South.”

Destery glanced around as she continued.

“The settlers were the people like the people in our apartment complex. They bought a bunch of cans and food like that and boarded up the windows and locked the door. I think they might have died there.”

He nodded. They were walking along an abandoned highway, every now and then stopping at cars that had been abandoned if they looked worth the stop. He bet most of the cars had been abandoned years before when this all started.

“And the ignorers–I think that was me. I didn’t understand what everyone was saying at school, or the scientists my parents would talk about the disease–,”

“The virus,” Destery corrected.

“Right, yeah, the virus. I didn’t get it.”

“I still don’t really get it.”

Tawny threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t either!”

The adults went out first. The virus, so the scientists claim, has been lying dormant in all humans living in North and South America. It was caused by an extensive and historical contaminant in food supplies throughout America. Global warming just made it worse, and quicker to spread. Everyone had it, and everyone was convinced it was going to kill everyone. And it did, practically. Most people did die. Most of the adults dropped dead in their cars, on the street, at work. Those of the adults who survived banded together to combat the rising threat: the kids who survived, and their bodies that adapted.

Tawny’s mutation was very different from Destery’s. She was scared to use it at first, but Destery coaxed her into exploring the extent to it. She was terrified. She told Destery that her brother had been taken because of his usage of his mutation. Destery said that his twin, Brylee, had also been taken because of her mutation. The only way to survive in this world is to use the virus for their own adaptation.

The virus left Brylee with a fascinating adaptation: the ability to control and effect technology. He was sure she was dead, but maybe with a mutation like that, she was still alive. Somewhere. His own adaptation was easily hideable and, Destery suspected, the main reason why he was still alive right now. He could latch onto people’s presences, their energies, and scan them for information. He noticed the scanning comes before, often, he can make a move to stop it. He collects dangerous information, information that can be used for his own survival. He managed to avoid the government officials trying to throw him into a camp that way; avoided snipers and looters.

“So, what could your brother do?” Destery asked, taking his hood down. The sun was beating down. He furrowed his brow. He really could not get used to the rapid change of weather around these parts.

“Oh,” Tawny thought. She floated towards one of the cars and tried her way at a deserted car door. She opened it easily, grinned nervously, then ducked her head in. “Timmy could control friction, or something. It was really cool. He could climb walls and make us cooler or hotter with his body. He could also use it to protect us.”

Destry floated over, glancing around as he did so. “How?”

“I’m not sure.” She pulled out a fanny pack from under the seat and smiled. “Look at this!”

“Not a bad find, keiki,” Destery said, resting a hand on her shoulder and guiding her away from the car.

“What about Brylee?”

“She could control computers and stuff.”

“Oh, that’s really cool!”

This highway seemed to stretch for a very long time. The sun was starting to dip along the curve of the sky, the light grays turning darker and deeper in spotage. He glanced around, looking for a potential camping site.

“I didn’t know highways could be this long,” Tawny mumbled, kicking a pebble off into the brush.

“Highways can be thousands of miles. It’s a pretty effective means of travel.”

Tawny whistled. “Is this one?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“Where is it leading?”

“Maryland, hopefully. That’s where the safe haven is.”

Tawny kicked another pebble. It rattled against a car and bounced off.

“Are you tired, keiki?” He asked, dropping his backpack on the ground.

“No,” she lied. She set her bag on the ground, too.

Destery plopped down next to his backpack, rummaging in it to find one of his oranges. The two of them had managed to find a vendor a few days before, pitching up shop for a few hours.

“You’re selling fruit?” Tawny asked, awed, standing on her toes.

“Not for long,” the vendor said, peering down the stretch. They bought five oranges, two apples (as Tawny said she didn’t like red apples and refused to eat them) and a few strips of turkey jerky.

He peeled the orange, and as he did, Tawny sat down next to him, dragging her legs to her chest and resting his head on her knees. He split the orange in half, giving half of it to Tawny and keeping the other half for himself.

“Have you ever been to Maryland?” Tawny asked.

Destery shook his head, sucking the juice out of the fruit slice. “I never even left Hawaii before all this happened.”

“There could be worse places to spend your whole life,” Tawny mused, watching the sun go behind the horizon.

“I suppose, yeah.”

“Do you want to go back?”

Destery sighed. He couldn’t help it. “I do. But I can’t now, you know?”

Tawny picked at her nails. She pulled the white strands off her orange and sighed. “I wanna go to Hawaii.”

He smiled. “I’d love to show you.”

Tawny opened her mouth to say something, but Destery jumped to his feet suddenly. She sucked her breath against her teeth.

“What’s wrong?” She whispered. Destery held his hand up to her and she didn’t say anything else. She slowly raised to her feet.

He felt a deep, dark lump in the bottom of his stomach. There was something–someone, rather–around. And judging by the prickles that speckled all over his shoulders and neck and made his fingers fidget with nerves, it was not a presence who wanted to help them. They were coming closer; the pit in his stomach was falling deeper and heavier, spinning downward. The ringing started in his ears; low, and humming, but getting sharper as the pit sank to his feet.

Destery unsheathed his gun, shifted his body to cover Tawny, then shot off into the woods. He heard someone yelp, Tawny yelled then covered her mouth, then two bullets were shot in their direction. It missed by a lot: one shot the car next to them, and the other shot a tree in the distance.

“Where are they?” Tawny demanded, grabbing her bag and fumbling with her knife. She hasn’t had to use it yet, and Destery couldn’t help but cryptically think that she could use the practice.

“Show yourself!” A deep voice boomed from the woods.

“Um, no,” Destery mumbled. Tawny laughed, and he jumped. He was used to making these comments to himself, and it still unsettled him a bit to have someone being so receptive to his jokes.

He squinted in the darkness, pointed his gun where the pit seemed to be guiding him towards. And then–there! A swarming, tilting prism turning in of itself in a swarm of colors that reminded him of how the ocean made him feel. 42, male. Hostile.

Government official? Destery doubted it. They always come with backup. Probably some poor adult who survived outside of all of this.

“Are you a mutant?” He yelled. Interrogated, really. Destery shot again. This time, he felt the pit in his stomach shatter a bit and reform. Destery himself stumbled. The man shot wildly at them, and Destery ducked instinctively. But the bullets didn’t hit.

Tawny held both hands in front of her. He could see in the feigning sunlight, the bullets shaking in sustained air. He glanced at Tawny, who stood with her arms extended towards it. The bullets shook a but more, before she pushed her palms out, twisting her arms. The bullets flew back at the man, and the pit sinking to the soles of his feet dissipated, like when you cover a candle and it has no choice but to whish out. Destery sighed.

“Good job.” He patted her head. Tawny beamed.

“We should get going. It’s probably not all too safe in the open.”

Tawny was already walking off the highway.

They had to continue their walk, but they would have to continue it through the woods for a while.