Shattered Days

Lily was playing with her reflection. There was no mirror she could see - there was nothing but flowers and trees in the garden - but the image wore the same dress as her, had the same dark brown eyes, the same black curly hair - even had the exact same shade of brown skin as Lily’s. She made funny faces at her reflection and watched it laugh as it made them back.

A noise came from behind her and she turned to see a woman wearing a little heart locket come into the garden. She smiled as the woman took her hand and turned back to her reflection but frowned when she did.

Her reflection was still there but the woman had none.

“Where’s your reflection?” Lily asked, confused. Instead of answering the woman just laughed before grabbing the hand of Lily’s reflection as well.

She frowned deeper. “How-”

“YO! Buenas días! Up! Up! Up!” Raúl’s voice boomed, using his walking stick to punctuate each syllable - an effective if annoying way to wake the whole Nest up.

Lily sat up as Raja swore himself awake throwing a lump at the door where Raúl was still pounding away every few seconds. “Vamos! Vamos!”

Jenny rolled off her cot and landed with a solid thump before scuttling along the floor towards Raúl. He held the stick up out of her reach as she attacked his good leg, banging it still.

“Stop it you fucking nuisance!” Raja snapped. “Who could sleep through that?!”

“You’re not supposed to sleep through it, pendejo.” Raúl snarked back.

Lily watched in slight amusement as Raja joined Jenny in her faux assault of the sleep intruder before getting ready. There wasn’t much to do. Her clothes were still clean enough to last a few days and she had very few things to gather. A small satchel that strapped to her leg, a crank flashlight, some bandages and one half of a broken heart locket; hung from series of old string bits she’d found.

It had been broken for as long as she had had it and she had it for as long as she could remember - perhaps even before The Shattering. It was comfort to have - a touchstone.

She knew that she had been born before The Shattering but not much else about herself. She thinks she was born here. In this country. In this region. It was hard to know for sure. Lily remembered a lot of being moved around by stern faced adults and lots of driving from place to place but they had all been similar; factories or warehouses turned into shelters until finally she made it here. Perhaps she wasn’t born in the region but she didn’t think it was possible to drive to another country so she must have been born here.

Sometimes, she could remember other things - happier things - ever so faintly. Like bright laughter and warm sunshine and stickers. And sometimes she would remember a beautiful woman wearing the locket. She could never quite see the face but the aura of her beauty and kindness was strong. Lily liked to believe this woman was her mother and when she did, it made her happy that for a moment, however small, she had had a life before all this. A family.

“And why is it,” Mina scolded from the hallway as she came into view, rubbing her temples, “that Lily is the only one I can trust to not act like a child?”

The others had paused their roughhousing the moment Mina had walked in but now turned to look at Lily who waved idly back.

Raúl snorted. “Cause she’s Mom and you’re Dad and we’re the rowdy kids.” Jenny snickered into Raúl’s pant leg in agreement.

Raja sneered. “Speak for yourself. I’m not a child.”

“Sweak four yourswelf. I’m wot a cwild.” Raúl mocked him and Raja reared but Mina put her hand between them her face stern.

“I don’t want to hear it. We have shit to do today.” That sobered the room and Lily watched as they melted away to do their preassigned tasks. She clutched the half a locket in her hand tightly before putting it on, where it rested just under her neck. She may have had a family once before, in a world with warm sunshine and stickers but she had found a new family in this Shattered world and today she had to protect it.

However she could.

* * *

Lily bit her lip as she snuck through the dark building, crowbar at the ready. It had been a cannery once, turned into a shelter after The Shattering. It had long since been raided and scavenged by desperate passersby on countless occasions. She knew the building like the back of her hand - she had stayed there when it was a shelter and had picked through it enough times herself to know there was nothing valuable here anymore- nothing like food or clothes or water at least.

“I still don’t understand why here though. It doesn’t make sense.” Lily muttered behind her to Jenny.

The town itself was a honey pot. A factory town in the middle of nowhere that looked like it had been having a burst in commercialization before The Shattering. There were factories and warehouses and small strip malls - dilapidated and destroyed like the rest of the world but oddly better off; just enough for most survivors passing through to hope that maybe there might still be something worth salvaging.

More often than not, they found nothing worth the trouble and had lost more than they gained before leaving. And that’s when Lily and her band of merry little Vultures would swing through, picking up any lost items and tools from those less experienced with the area or looting the still, cold bodies of the truly unfortunate. It was a grim living but it was the kindest they could manage and still get by.

There were only five of them - Lily included. Jenny and Raja had been with Lily since the day after the shelter had first been raided. After running from building to shattered building and hiding by herself through the night, she had bumped into them the next day, one after another and the three of them had decided to take their chances on their own, together. Mina had run away from a different group of raiders that had taken the shelter over a year after that and at first they meant to just show her the ropes to get by on her own but ended up taking her in. Raúl was the most recent, having joined a few months ago, after they found him just barely still alive at the bottom of an empty elevator shaft. He’d only fallen two flights but he broke a leg and passed out so he couldn’t call out to his friends who were long gone by the time they found him. He didn’t know where they were heading and couldn’t try to find them with a bum leg so he stayed.

And so they spent their days keeping out of sight, except to barter, whenever people passed through. Most days the town was completely theirs and there were was nothing to do but set traps for the occasional wildlife and mapping the best loot spots - places where people were most likely to run into some kind of hazard and lose or abandon things - like the shaft they had found Raúl in.

But recently, there were some new additions to the old shelter. A couple jury rigged bits of solar panels strapped to the east side of the building. A strange vehicle that looked like a cage on wheels made out of more strapped together junk that somehow worked. The occasional look out. Raúl had noticed them first, hopeful that his old gang had swung back for him but it wasn’t. It was a new unknown group that had set up camp - with no intention to leave. An outpost.

“Doesn’t matter, Lily.” Jenny reminded her, as she handed Lily a charge. “We’re getting rid of it.”

It had been one hell of fight when they first decided - Mina and Raja had actually thrown hands over it. This wasn’t the way they lived. They didn’t attack and sabotage other survivors. But, an outpost would number their scavenger days. It would deter people from poking around the ‘claimed’ area - slimming the pickings considerably. Those who did pass through would do so quickly and it was only a matter of time before raiders started trying their hand at it. This would change the entire landscape of their survival.

They could try to join them but they’d be going in blind - Did they raid? Were they going to demand resources from people to pass through the area safely? Or were they the kind of people that took outsiders hostage and forced them into slavery? There were too many bad options and ultimately it was deemed too big of a risk to take.

Lily looked down at the explosive - a scavenge from when the last clash between rival raider gangs had ended in a lethal tie. They didn’t have a lot but a few would be enough to turn the already damaged building into a completely worthless scrap heap - not fitting for anyone but a Vulture.

She took a breath and moved forward only for Jenny to yank her back by the shirt, just in time to miss the spiked baseball bat swinging straight for her nose. They both stumbled out of the way as the figure swinging the bat came forward. A lookout.

Jenny wasted no time, scuttling low along the floor, startling them with how she approached. They tried to swing the bat down on her back but she had already caught them by the knees and pulled them down to the floor. She tried to disarm them as the two of them struggled on ground, but the stranger was proficient with the bat and twisted it out of her grip before using it to pin Jenny down.

Lily had been circling the encounter waiting for the best time to intervene and moved forward as soon as Jenny was pinned. She lifted the crowbar in the air, ready to bring it down on the attacker’s head but for some reason -

“Lily?!” Jenny cried out in confusion as her eyes darting between the lookout and Lily, giving her position away.

The lookout was quick to react and brought the bat up with enormous force, catching Lily in the throat with the top of it, making her cough up a bit of blood before falling back on the ground. They moved off of Jenny, who was suddenly unnaturally still, and straddled Lily instead, raising the bat in the air, ready to bring it down on her face.

Lily wanted to be brave and defiant - to stare in the eyes of death as it came but her throat was still seizing from the pain and she was choking up spittle. She turned her head to the side as she gagged onto the floor and turned backed surprised, not only that she was still alive, but that for some reason her attacker had frozen above her, their eyes darting between Lily’s face and her neck.

Now that there was a moment, however brief, Lily could make out little things about the person trying to kill her. Like that it was a girl her age. Her clothes were different - of course they were different - but she had dark brown eyes and black curly hair and skin that was the exact same shade of brown as Lily’s.

And there, hanging from a chain off the pommel of the bat - like a macabre good luck charm - was half of a broken heart locket.

Just like Lily’s.

————

Language Key

Buenas dias - Good Morning

Vamos - Let’s Go

Pendejo - Stupid