The Reckoning

There weren’t always dragons in The Valley. And until the Reckoning, there was not even a valley in The Valley, let alone huge serpents who soared on shimmering wings. In the city, the only serpents were dingy, dripping highways that breathed exhaust rather than fire. Above them, sleek spires raced for the atmosphere, eclipsing the crumbling ruins of forgotten dreams and the dreamers buried with them. The city itself crumbled and crashed down in huge chunks, snuffing out entire communities with cold indifference. Sometimes a particularly large piece would fall and break right through the street level, a sludge-drenched canyon distantly visible below through the gaping hole. Sirens and sales pitches filled the ears of the city’s residents at all times while noxious fumes filled their noses. The city had been a machine, and like its human parts the gray thing moved without meaning. Grew without learning. Now, the city was gone. Not relocated or demolished or abandoned, but truly gone…as though it had never existed at all. In its place, a massive rift gashed the land for miles and stretched beyond the horizon in both directions. A surging river thundered along its floor, echoing against the forested slopes and earning the name this place had been calling itself for so long. There was always a valley in The Valley, the girl knew now. It had just been buried.

Zia shook as she crouched in the hollow of a grandmother oak tree, willing herself invisible and cursing the shadow her small body cast on the ground outside. It was the only refuge she could reach when, for the second time in weeks, her whole world had been blown apart. She would not open her eyes for fear that the beast would somehow see her. She longed to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe. And from the recesses of memory, familiar sounds rose up and welcomed her with soothing notes. Singing and the sizzling of oil in a rusty pan. Her mind was transported to a space not much larger than the hollow. Zia was on the floor of her one-room apartment. She clung to her mom’s leg after an awful dream about the city's rats spilling through her window and gnawing at her as she slept. Her family was in their makeshift kitchen, a generous term for the corner of the room where the camp stove and ice box lived. Her mom was making a typical breakfast of boxed oats and soy paste. And she was singing. No matter how exhausted the frail woman was from her three jobs, she found energy for fantastical, improvised songs. In silly voices and sound effects, her mom would weave stories about unicorns with peppermint hooves and horns. Or turtles with top hats who talked incessantly about the weather. Or sailing through a sunset sky in a basket suspended by a million butterflies. It worked every time, a superpower her mom could summon at will. Today’s song was about a lump of cheese who journeyed far and wide to find his true love, a box of crackers named Fredo. Even her older brother, who was on the floor tormenting cockroaches, nodded his head along with her melody. A little jingle from the TV that meant “breaking news” interrupted her mom’s song, and the anchorwoman who had been droning on absentmindedly became serious. Zia remembered how the woman fumbled over her words, paper notes shaking in her nervous hands.

“...we are advising all of our viewers to take shelter at ground level or in basements immediately. The government has not responded to our request for a statement, and our science correspondents could not be reached for their take on the situation. It could be a terrorist attack or some kind of acid rain. All we can say for certain is that something is dissolving our buildings, roads, vehic…”

The broadcast had cut off just as panicked screams erupted from the TV. The newswoman bolted up from her seat, arms scrambling to cover her bare chest. Zia was stunned by the inexplicably naked woman and the sudden shouting. Even her brother was surprised enough not to utter any immature comments. One second, the woman was simply reading her notes. The next, her striped business suit, gold necklace, and thick makeup had vanished along with the entire wall behind her. Everything on the TV except the woman herself had turned to sand. Zia’s mom went rigid, her mouth hanging open before her whole body clamped down in resolve. In a city where emergency evacuations were common, muscle memory took over. They were in the hallway in seconds, but it was already packed with their frantic neighbors, shouting over each other incomprehensibly. The family across the hall emerged at the same time as Zia’s, their youngest boy sniffling and clutching a one-eyed teddy. Zia had known this family for years, but there was no recognition in their eyes. Only fear. The father shoved past Zia’s mom without a second glance. He dragged his children after him, toward the long-broken escalators that descended 47 floors to the street. Zia’s family followed. The yelling, slamming of doors, and the blaring alarm system rattled Zia’s skull, setting her teeth on edge. She tried to cover her ears but her mom's hand was a vice, refusing to separate from her children. They were carried down the hall like gutter trash down a storm drain, piling up at the door to the stairs. As they finally managed to squeeze through the narrow doorway, Zia’s mom was pushed hard from behind and her head struck the stairwell hand railing. Blood ran from a gash opened above her eye. Zia looked from her mom to her brother, who was already wheezing. His asthmatic lungs would give out soon in such cramped quarters, and there was nothing they could do about it.

As Zia’s family descended, she could see people flooding out of each lower level. Before they had made it down three floors, progress halted entirely. There were just too many people in too small a space. She felt like an ant in a collapsed colony tunnel. One of a thousand writhing bodies all on top of one another with nowhere to go. And the ants were getting violent in their desperation. Tears burst from Zia’s eyes as she took a knee to the stomach. Her mom stooped down to embrace both children, whispering lullabies as she held their heads protectively against her chest. They were being buried alive by their own neighbors. Her chest would no longer expand. Her brother was already unconscious. The stairwell darkened with bodies, and Zia could hear vomiting and smell its acrid odor. Sunlight suddenly burst into the stairwell, like the merciful dawn after a night of torturous dreams. The brief respite accompanied by sounds of shearing metal and crashing concrete. She could not see, could not guess what had let in the light and caused the deafening sounds above. Her leg slipped into a hole that was not there a second before. Her arm jerked downward as her brother fell through. She held him as others began to fall all around her. She managed to turn her head just enough to glimpse her mom’s terrified eyes boring into hers through a blood-soaked face. Then the floor gave way and all three fell into darkness.

Zia awoke gasping, choking. Her chest was crushed under an extreme weight. Was she still in the stairwell? She still felt bodies all around her. But where were her mom’s arms? Her brother’s shoulder that had been pressed against her own? She opened her eyes but only colored light popped across her vision. Everywhere a tangle of naked arms and legs writhed. Blood and excrement overwhelmed her with nausea. The previous night’s meager dinner crawled back up and out her throat, splattering with nowhere to go. Her nose and mouth choked on the bile as she tried to orient herself. Her body reacted by swimming, like she had seen on TV. Her arms speared forward, legs kicking and kicking, bare feet stepping on unknown faces, as she squeezed through the wretched sea of limbs. After a lifetime her hands broke through and a torrent of air rushed into her throat. She pulled her shoulders and hips through after, tumbling down to rest on the ground beside the tangled mass. Her whole world was ragged breath and dry heaving. A hand grabbed her ankle and she screamed, jumping up to wrench it free, and ran. Her body throbbed but if anything was broken, fear did not let it slow her. Unknown objects whipped her face and torso as she ran, stinging her skin. She slammed whole bodied into something hard and spun sideways to the ground, breath ripped from her again. She opened her eyes wide as she tried to suck oxygen back in but a new, slicing pain engulfed her side. Assessing the damage would have to wait as her uncomprehending brain caught up with her eyes. Flat on her back, she stared up at something tall and deeply wrinkled with a hundred arms and bristly, green fur.

No, not fur. Zia shook her head, blinking in disbelief. Leaves. It was…a tree. A real tree. At her school’s library, which was little more than a few, tattered books beneath a caved-in ceiling, she remembered a book. It had faded pictures of small, green spaces in a city that may or may not have been hers. The “parks” in those pictures were full of trees. She came back into her body and saw another tree shooting upwards next to the one that had knocked her down. Zia could not remember the last growing thing she had seen. Her senses slowed, attuning to her surroundings. Each inhalation was richly perfumed, leaves and bark and flowers swimming inside her head, displacing the sickly smells from before. The soil was cool beneath her heels. Zia’s feet had never touched anything so soft. Her toes rejoiced, frolicking like worms as they wriggled into the dark, loamy earth. Birdsong of a hundred melodies wove together into a divine tapestry, lifting Zia’s heart until her ears locked onto more familiar sounds. Agonized cries rang out and she winced as she sat up for a better look, holding her side. The forest floor was littered with bodies, piled high against the large trees like a trash truck had rumbled through the clouds above, dumping human garbage into huge heaps. They bulged as those who survived the fall struggled to free themselves as Zia had. A few people staggered between the heaps, nursing gruesome wounds and calling out in despair for loved ones. Some were missing arms or legs. One man held his intestines in his hand, confusion rather than horror evident by his furrowed brow and cocked head. It was a hellscape. When Zia turned her head away in disgust, her eyes met those of a dog with a savagely torn leg. The miserable animal whimpered as it nuzzled the unresponsive shoulder of a small girl about Zia’s age.

She had cried then. Great, wracking sobs shuddered through her as the immensity of the past few hours flowed from her unrestrained. As she cradled her small body, she became aware of her own nakedness. Pulling herself against a tree, she tried to shield her body from view. Where was her mom? Her brother? How far had she run? She looked around for a landmark. No Amazon Everything spire towering over even her tall apartment building. No bodega on the corner of her block where her mother would spoil Zia and her brother on their birthdays with real bread sandwiches. Nothing but the same, grizzly view everywhere she looked. Nothing but trees and battered bodies.

Zia had searched the heaps of the dead and dying without sleep, food, or water. Already undernourished, she was further drained by cuts and bruises that rang through fading adrenaline. Zia bore her physical suffering stubbornly for three days, but never found her family. She gave up only when, throat croaking with dehydration, she followed the downward curve of the land to the river at the valley floor. She drank greedily, barely aware of the swift current threatening to pluck her from the shore and carry her downstream. Water was far too scarce in the city to permit wastefulness like swimming lessons. She followed the example of others taking solace in the simple gift of water, washing herself at a calm crook in the river. But jealousy pierced her heart as she saw mothers washing daughters or siblings embracing. She spoke to no one and one spoke to her, absorbed as they were in their own troubles. Her only company was the dull throb of loss.

Zia had been terrified for her life at first, with so many exposed, desperate-looking men about. If even one decided to harm her, she would be helpless. So she hid. Avoided their eyes. The city taught her this reaction many times, escaping cat calls before they became something worse. But it seemed lust was a luxury, and there was no luxury here. Food, water, warmth, and shelter were the only treasures. To Zia’s amazement, food was everywhere. Some plants and mushrooms she knew would be harmful, but she chose cautiously. She followed in secret behind others, watching for diarrhea or even death after they ate. It was slow, hungry work but her patience paid off. Some people attempted to trap or bludgeon small animals, but Zia did not. Why expend that kind of energy with so many other edible things that did not run away? She made only one serious foraging error, violently purging the remains of some innocent-looking ferns over an excruciatingly long night. After a few days, she could reliably identify three kinds of plants, two mushroom varieties, and various slugs and snails that her body accepted with minimal protest. The river water was cleaner than any she had tasted in the city, but she learned by watching others to avoid stagnant pools or areas just downstream of dead bodies. She decided not to make fires. She had no meat to cook and the weather was warm. Sometimes when she slept, disembodied howls and screeches in the dark would make her wish for firelight, but nothing ever came to hurt her. Shelter was trickier, as all the best hollows in trees and rock mounds tended to be packed full of huddled groups already. Many nights, she was forced to burrow under pine needles in the open, though she only caught cold when it rained.

Zia spent most of her time crouched behind boulders and inside thick bushes, listening to her fellow wanderers for anything that might keep her alive or offer a clue to her family’s whereabouts. Mostly, people traded theories about what had become known as the Reckoning.

“It was a Sino-Soviet chemical attack to steal our liberty!” Zia never understood her life to be one of liberty, with school children molded for competition and obedience by pledging allegiance to a flag; clashing for glory in violent sports; and sitting still for hours as teachers fawned over wars and the proud men who started them. The adults she knew in the city didn’t seem any more free than she was. Anxious, depressed, and distracted, all they did was complain that they could not get or do what they wanted. What liberty was there to steal?

“It was a failed attempt by government elites to turn us into lizard people!” Zia knew from the news that the government could not even agree on simple things like what could be called food, whether people should get medicine when they were sick, or whether guns made things safer or more dangerous. How could they agree to carry out such a dramatic plan in secret when they could not agree on anything else? And why on Earth would that plan be lizard people?

“It was god punishing us for our sins, just like in the book of revelations!” In the city, Zia had heard the ravings of devotees still clinging to the long-debunked cult which used to rule the world. If there were gods, why would they punish everyone equally when the most powerful people were so sinful that everyone else was just trying to eat?

“It was Mother Earth saving her home from its ungrateful human destroyers!” Zia liked this explanation the best, comforted by the idea of a mother figure in the absence of her own. Ultimately though, she did not care why the Reckoning happened. Surviving was hard enough, and that is what she focused on. Still, eavesdropping was an antidote for both boredom and loneliness, and subjects ranged from the practical – like how to make fire – to the philosophical – like what could be learned from suffering. Zia found that those who shouted their ideas were usually wrong. They got the attention they demanded, but did not live long enough to enjoy their celebrity. Loud leaders were always replaced by quiet ones. When a quiet person spoke, it was usually in questions, and based on observation or experience rather than opinion. Zia observed with satisfaction that in the forest, unlike the city, actions spoke louder than words.

After 12 days along the river, few people remained. The forest did not come with instructions, and fatal mistakes were common. However, the forest was not openly hostile either. Perhaps by its example, the people were rarely hostile to each other either. To the contrary. Zia was inspired by many acts of kindness between apparent strangers. Although she avoided such interactions, she regularly witnessed the sharing of food, clothing, tools, shelter, fire, and comfort. It was as if these were entirely different people than the dejected masses glued to their screens. In the city, her mom had the news on at all times, the reporting of which fell into two categories. “Good news” was championship games, royal weddings, rescue dogs, philanthropic trillionaires, and politics the news anchor liked. “Bad news” was suicide, hate crime, pollution, refugees, and politics the news anchor did not like. Zia felt that most news was “bad,” with “good” bits thrown in here and there as filler. She learned to expect this ratio of behavior from her fellow city dwellers, who seemed to always be one wrong turn away from going to pieces, often with violent results. In the forest, she kept expecting to be assaulted, abducted, or robbed, but it never happened. Sickness, injury, and death were frequent enough, but cruelty had practically disappeared. Without the systems of the city – jobs that stole the peoples’ energy and passion, infrastructure that stole their views of the trees and the night sky, hierarchy that demanded obedience above and below – everyone just…lived. And after eating, drinking, and resting, there was still so much time. So there was singing and dancing. Laughing and crying. Storytelling and craftsharing. For the first time, Zia understood the word “community.”

She experienced beautiful moments utterly alien to her. The delightful smell of wildflowers as two boys sat in a field, braiding each other’s hair. The pulsing vibrations and rapturous hoots as a large group playing simple wooden instruments sang about “paving paradise and building a parking lot.” An elderly woman draping her deerskin blanket over the shivering shoulders of a younger woman as the evening chill set in. All of this Zia observed as an outsider, each precious moment catching in her chest and drawing tears, a confusing mashup of joy and grief. She was still saving herself for the only community she knew. The only two people who had ever mattered to her were either dead or missing her somewhere in this vast wilderness. She would not take comfort in the arms of another woman while her mom might still be alive. She would not subject herself to the torments of another boy, or even the odd kindnesses, while she could still see the terror in her brother’s eyes as he fell through the dissolving stairwell.

But as day gave way to day, her hope faded and her loneliness grew. Three weeks after the Reckoning, she felt she could no longer exist on her own. Perhaps her body could survive on luck and caution, but each day without anyone to hold or listen to her sapped her strength. It was like the Reckoning was happening inside her too, eating a hole in her gut. To survive in this forest, did people need each other just as much as they needed the food, water, and materials it provided? If her family was alive, insisting on solitude would not reveal them any faster. If they were dead, it would not honor them for her to die alone. She resolved to find a group within the week and seek the warmth of their embrace. People trusted children far more easily than they trusted adults. She would be welcomed by a group eventually, if she wanted to be.

Zia emerged from behind a large sycamore into a meadow to introduce herself to a small group that seemed particularly kind. They attended fondly when their children were in distress, allowing them freedom to play and explore when they were not. They revered their elders, caring for their physical needs while listening respectfully as they spoke. When something important had to be done, like hauling water or gathering firewood, everyone helped and the work was finished quickly. Selfishness was met with calm reminders of collective need. Selflessness was encouraged and heartfelt thanks were offered in reply. As Zia shyly tiptoed closer to the group, screams rang out from the forest. She froze, images of melting staircases and raining bodies flooding her mind, tortured moaning echoing in her ears. She felt the ghost of her brother’s hand slipping out of hers.

A child from the nearby group yelled “Dad” at the top of his lungs and Zia spun to see one of the group’s adults disappear before her eyes. Reduced to sand, just like the city. His companions collapsed into shrieking grief. They reached pleadingly for the place where he had stood, drumming on a rock with a pair of carved sticks, only seconds before. Then, the sand stirred and began to swirl in midair. Grain by grain it coalesced, forming the head of a huge bird. More sand streamed to the spot. It whirled together into the elegant silver curve of a throat and breast, suspended seven feet off the ground and bristling with shining feathers. Wings unfolded, stretching wide as if from sleep to fill the small meadow. Feathered thighs rippled as they approached the ground, abruptly giving way to hairless, golden legs anchored by fierce talons. The group stumbled outward, scattering for cover as the great bird’s body took shape. Zia edged back behind the sycamore but continued watching, momentarily forgetting the vanished man in her fascination. She expected a feathered tail to round out the huge animal, but to her amazement, the torso kept extending and the feathers thinned and frayed into rich, golden fur. A tail with a regal tuft at its end sprang from the creature’s rear end. Two powerfully-muscled hind legs with razor paws consumed the remainder of the churning sand.

Within the broken circle of humans before her, a wondrous being stood proudly surveying the meadow. From its beak roared two voices at once. The sharp, air-splitting cry of an eagle given deep resonance by a lion’s thunderous bellow. Muscles tensed and wings arched high above its noble head. Then the wings thrust downward and the griffin burst into the sky like a bullet. The resulting gust knocked the still-grieving and dumbstruck companions back to the ground. Zia ran out from behind the sycamore and into the meadow, abandoning caution in her reverence. The griffin climbed higher and higher, wings pumping majestically. Its legs bounded through the air like it was solid ground. It was joined by other flying creatures, some Zia knew from TV. She recognized harpies, hippogriffs, wyverns, and rocs, but there were too many, moving too rapidly to count. The ground shook beneath her feet as three brilliant white unicorns galloped past, their manes and tails cascading delicately over muscles knotted like steel cables. Zia dodged backwards just in time to avoid being trampled, and she saw that they were accompanied by a will-o-wisp. The little ball was wreathed in a purple flame and bounced playfully through the air, seeming to enjoy the high speed tear through the trees. The forest began to spin and Zia stumbled, almost tripping over something small and squishy. She looked down to see a gnome standing no higher than her knees. It frowned up at her from under a pointy red hat, arms crossed over a long, white beard.

Zia reeled and fell to her knees. Terror, exhilaration, and awe flooded her body all at once. As she struggled to make sense of these sudden manifestations, a horrible blast wrent the air. She threw herself to the ground beside the gnome, clasping her hands tightly over ringing ears. She cast about frantically for someplace to hide and spotted a knotted old oak tree at the edge of the meadow. At its base was a hollow perhaps big enough for her to wedge inside. She crawled as fast as she could, catching glimpses of faeries, gremlins, and jackalopes zooming amongst trees. Once in shelter, she managed a few steady breaths as another blast rocked the meadow. Something very large moved at the edge of Zia’s vision, and her eyes were drawn to it as if by gravity. Titanic wings and a severely horned head emerged above the treetops, as large as a building. The creature was jet black. A great shadow flanked by hundreds of other creatures who flew, fluttered, and floated. Its body rose to blot out the sun, a monarch establishing its reign over this strange new land. Zia grasped for anything to still her trembling fear. Maybe it was better this way, she willed herself to believe. There weren’t always dragons in the valley. This was a human place once, and she knew how that story ended. As she waited in the hollow she wondered if the Reckoning would claim her too, wondered what she would become. Whether her scales or feathers or fur would retain the memories of her sad life in the city or these brutal, but often richer weeks after its fall. And most of all, she wondered if she might find a new, very different kind of family, adrift like her on silent wings of sand.