The End is Upon Us

The horizon was just starting to glow orange when Yumi slipped out of her house and into the field behind. The grass was just tall enough to tickle the tips of her fingers as she waded into it; early morning dew soaking through her cotton trousers in just moments. All remnants of the warmth she’d retained from her bed left her as a chilly wind gusted around her, finding every hole and worn patch of her threadbare jacket. The grass flattened down in the weather, exposing twisted and rusted metal waste leftover from The War to End All Wars, which did not end all wars. Not at all. In fact, it triggered such violence and chaos that the reign of humans over the continent of Asia came to a swift end. Weapons of mass destruction fell from the skies more frequently than rain, destroying all they touched and wrecking havoc with the atmosphere above.

The rich and powerful departed these shores over a thousand sunsets ago now, leaving the poor and helpless to either attempt to thrive on the dying lands or admit defeat and close their eyes forever.

Of course, some thrived with minimal effort – their natural instinct to rule finally allowed to be set free and cause terror for the humble among us. Naturally, some tried to fight them off, but they did not succeed. If anything, they added fuel to the fire, and The Harpies became our unappointed government.

Yumi came to the end of the field, her clothes now heavy with damp from the grass and the cold was seeping through her body. She allowed herself to shiver, but clamped down hard when her teeth started chattering. She must not show weakness in such an exposed situation. The train line ran across the bottom of the field which she’d just crossed, having turned sharply out of her town’s station just a few hundred meters behind her. At this point on the train’s travels, it was still moving slow enough that an able-bodied person could climb aboard, raid the supplies bound for Harpy HQ at Old Town Docks, and disembark before the machine gained too much speed - the soft tall grass offering some protection from the ground so long as you avoided the war debris.

A group of men hovered around the track’s edge, talking in hush voices to their raid comrades and avoiding rival groups. Yumi approached a lone figure who stood in the shade of an ancient old oak tree, the largest structure for miles around that had miraculously avoided being blown up or chopped down so humans could pillage it for firewood. The figure stood up taller upon Yumi’s approach before stepping out of the shadows to reveal his face. He must have been in his early twenties, possibly younger as the local living conditions aged all inhabitants prematurely, but his face was kind and his eyes warm as he watched his oldest friend walk towards him.

“Good morning my friend.”

“Is it not still good night? I rise every day before even the sun, maybe I should have been born as owl!” Yumi replies to Kenji, a smile on both their faces. Any further conversation was stopped before it began as the echo of a bell ringing swept across the field to the group, signalling the trains’ imminent departure from the platform. Without another word spoken, the group of men and Yumi arranged themselves along the edge of the track, stances ready for the task ahead.

The train rumbled slowly towards them, going slower than an old lady shuffling with her shopping, making for an easy assent into the food carriages. One larger townsman went first and pulled the giant sliding door open, allowing every other person access to the wealth inside.

Being several inches taller than Yumi, it made sense for Kenji to go first and offer Yumi a hand up. Once they were both on board they went about their usual routine of opening crates and hessian sacks of provisions, looking for basics such as flour, potatoes and rice. Yumi was decanting several cups of flour into her rucksack when a fight between two men broke out just beside her. They both wanted first dibs on a box of oranges.

Yumi herself would have loved an orange, just one to share with Kenji would have been a feast in her eyes, but she scurried towards the back of the carriage out of harm’s way, leaving the two men fist fighting and another group of men trying to separate them. She couldn’t spot Kenji in the crowd, but she had confidence in his ability to look after himself, so she went back to raiding.

Down at this end of the carriage, Yumi was disappointed to find mainly piles of building materials and sacks of flour. She pulled some of the smaller sacks out of the way to check underneath them when one more raggedy bag caught a nail in the floorboards and burst, consuming Yumi in a cloud of flour and triggering a coughing fit so intense she fell onto her hands and knees. Gasping for breath and trying to spit flour from her mouth, she crawled away from the worst of the mess aiming for the open doors and fresh air, but in her blinded state ended up right at the back of the carriage, by the door into the next one down the train.  

She took a moment to breathe flour free air when suddenly the train lurched beneath her, her heart skipped a beat in panic as she scanned the area around her for her bag as the train started to gather speed. The townsmen were leaping off together with their scavenged treasures, and Kenji was still not to be seen. Yumi fell to her knees, pushing mounds of spilled flour aside to search for her rucksack. Her heart rate was picking up speed as the machine beneath her did the same. Relief flooded her as her hand found the strap and, grasping it tightly, she ran to the front of the carriage and leapt into the field, landing with a roll and thankfully avoiding any rusted metal death traps lurking in the sea of grass.

Yumi lay on her back gasping for air, the last few carriages whizzing by and disappearing down the track. Her heart was still racing a mile a minute when a shadow fell over her, causing it to skip another beat. Her panic was short-lived when she found herself looking up into Kenji’s angry face and couldn’t help grinning, adrenaline coursing through her body, making her lightheaded and giddy. He tried to maintain his stern expression, but soon lost the battle and broke into laughter as he knelt beside Yumi in the grass.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes, well, I think so,” Yumi replied whilst sitting up. She reached for her rucksack, only to find another bag in its place.

“This is not my bag,” she said.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Kenji replied with an eye roll. Yumi smacked his arm playfully and pulled the mystery bag closer, wiping the excess flour off it to reveal a simple tan leather exterior with a cherry blossom tree embroidered into the front. It was child sized rather than for an adult and was so light in weight Yumi assumed it was empty. But when she opened it, she found it contained one small item. She pulled the green velvet jewellery bag out and found a simple heart-shaped locket inside. It was quite large, half the size of the palm of her hand, with a small clasp lock on one side of it. She looked up and met Kenji’s eyes. He nodded in answer to her unasked question, and Yumi opened the locket.

It contained a folded-up ticket and a piece of paper. It read:

This ticket admits one family unit on board the vessel ‘Last Hope’, destination The New Lands. Departure time: dawn on the first day of summer. Please make your way to Old Town Docks in an orderly fashion.

The friends sat in silence staring at the paper. Kenji broke first, hysterical laughter bursting out of him whilst tears of joy ran down his face. Yumi remained sat down as too much hope for her to wrap her head around flooded her body.

“It’s, it’s a lottery ticket.” Yumi murmured to herself, “I thought they were a myth, an urban legend told to children on the long dark nights to give them hope.” She looked up at Kenji to see him openly crying with happiness.

“The first day of Summer, that’s tomorrow Yumi!”

Yumi climbed to her feet, picked up her new bag and hung the heart-shaped locket around her neck, taking time to assure the clasp was fastened fully to keep the precious cargo safe.

“Well Kenji, now I will say good morning! Let’s go!” Yumi took Kenji’s hand, and they turned together, walking down the train track towards their second chance at life.