WHAT HATE DESTROYED, LOVE WILL REMAKE

Ryla hit the ground with a hard thud as dust flew up all around. Without a second thought, her body flowed flawlessly through her oft-trained sequence of motions, kicking her feet in a circular motion as her body created momentum to spin her upright once more. In the process, her feet struck the assailant, and knocked him over.

As she rose to face her unannounced opponent who had surprised her with his attack, he was sprawled before her. Confused, he peered up at her towering over him. But within a moment the look of confusion was replaced with a sneer pulled tight across his face once more and he flailed wildly trying to strike her again.

She dodged and weaved between his punches and kicks, watching him. Such anger and rage… Has he ever known love?

The thought hardly made it into her mind before the boy’s eyes went suddenly wide in shock. A moment later, gurgling, he collapsed to the ground, face first. A large spear protruded from his back made it obvious what ended his life.

Ryla’s eyes immediately rose to scan the landscape to see if her liberator from this fight was friend or foe.

“Ryyy-lllaaaaa…” a feminine voice playfully called to her from the distance. “I’ve missed you! I saw you, and then you ran to the shoreline, but then you walked inland and through the sea of grass, and now you’re here… and I just don’t know what to do to keep up with you!” The exasperated voice grew higher in pitch and faster in speed as it continued through run-on thoughts that tumbled into each other. The climax of it all was a smiling face appearing from behind a rock formation that seemed too small to conceal a human, but somehow had.

“Creysa.” Ryla deadpanne. “I’d almost forgotten you were still with us.”

“You shouldn’t have! You know I’m always following you! -- Look! I brought you something!” Creysa opened her small hand and offered something that shimmered in the sun. It was a simple silver heart-shaped locket with something etched into the back of it. ‘What hate destroyed, love will remake.’

“Yeah, this did the first world so much good, didn’t it Creysa? It’s a lie. There is nothing that love can bring us that will remake the world we’ve lost…”

Creysa sighed dramatically and looked down at the dusty ground. “You always were a pessimist, Ryla.”

“…And you were always a pain in my butt little sister.”

“Hey! I just saved your life from that crazy boy!” Creysa pointed back toward the lifeless boy with a spear in his back.

“The locket holds the key for us, Ryla. Mom wouldn’t have given it to us if it didn’t!”

Ryla looked at the locket and sighed. “So, we’re going back to find father at work?”

“It’s our QUEST!” Creysa smiled and pointed into the distance like an over-exaggerated anime character brought to life.

These names you gave us are our “destiny” too? Ryla playfully poked at Creysa. “I can understand that Ryla is easier to say than ‘Alaryssa’ and with your dyslexia, it makes sense you got it wrong when you were younger, but I still don’t understand how you came up with ‘Creysa” out of ‘Jennifer Anne.”

Creysa scrunched her nose in response, “When did you ever hear about a Jennifer or an Anne saving the world or having any amazing adventures? We needed names that fit our new world. It’s like the games I played online… adventure everywhere, and not many people to interfere.”

Ryla sighed in defeat as they made their way slowly toward their father’s office, again.

* * * * * * *

When they arrived, the doors were still propped open. The city was a little earie without other human movement and sounds around them… even three years did not change this truth.

After the girls made their way to their father’s office in the laboratory, they walked in and saw his body still sitting at his desk chair. The smell was getting worse. The virus had gone airborne, and it killed almost all the people in the world. The gibberish on the paper that sat on his desk talked about genome types and how they determined how well subjects responded to the introduction of the virus, but it said something about less than 1% of the world’s population could survive if the virus ever got out. Ryla had read it too many times before and had nearly memorized it all.

It always struck her as odd that her father died, but she and her sister lived after the outbreak.

Her thoughts were cut short as a metal container clattered to the floor somewhere in the building. They were not alone.

The girls moved as quietly as they could in the echoing lab environment, to investigate their intruder.

When they found an office with a metal penholder on the floor, they slowly entered. Ryla made it in, as the door slammed shut on Creysa and locked. Before Ryla could respond, she was flat on her back with someone pinning her down. They were bigger than she was, and it was not until her eyes adjusted that she could make out much detail.

He was handsome. His eyes looked cautious, but his face didn’t appear to be menacing, only… upset? She tilted her head, which to the boy only looked like her shifting her head on the ground.

“Do I know you?” Ryla asked, trying to think clearly, “My father – he used to run this lab.”

The boy sighed and looked down at her again, “Alaryssa?” He looked very confused. “You’ve really changed in the past three years!”

Ryla squinted her eyes a little, “…and you are…” She left the question lingering on purpose, hoping he would tell her something that mattered.

“Alaryssa…”

“Ryla.” She corrected him without hesitation.

“Umm, Ryla… I’m Hunter. I found these letters in my mother’s desk, after I found her dead.” He paused briefly. “My mom wrote that she created something that was put into my formula as a baby. I read her papers about it. She was a genius according to the people that used to talk with her when I was growing up… but I think they knew that something, something bad, was going to happen. Your dad must have given it to you too because the papers said that ‘when the time is right, our children will open their lockets and love will replace hate.’ That was the end of the letter.

“It’s like they knew it would happen…”

Ryla looked at him. “Our lockets?”

Hunter lifted a locket from under his shirt, identical except for color to the one Ryla wore around her neck since Creysa gave it back to her, again. He flipped his over and read the inscription, “What hate destroyed, love will remake.”

“Our parents worked for the government. The government hated other governments, and they released a weapon to destroy all others. I don’t think they meant to when it happened, or more people would have survived, but they did it. It was hate that destroyed the world.”

“Love makes families and children… they remake the world…” Hunter looked down to Ryla, “I think this was their plan, in case it ever released. The concept makes sense with the inscription.”

“It could mean something else!” Ryla said, looking at Hunter like he had lost his mind. “I mean, how are we just supposed to love each other and let everything be right with the world, when the world is broken and dying all around us?”

Hunter laughed. “We start a family, or we kill each other… who would stop us? The world is ours to do with as we please… our lives are ours to do what we want.”

Ryla looked up at Hunter, even with his ridiculous impromptu speech, he remained handsome.

The noises from the door handle stopped, and a moment later, the door came flying open with a loud crash. “I’ll save you Ryla!” Creysa jumped and tackled Hunter off her sister and to the ground. She had reared up, ready to pummel the shocked boy when she heard her sister’s voice.

“Hunter, show me the letters.”

Creysa stopped and looked confused. “What letters?”

Hunter got up and walked to the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled the letters out. The one on top, he handed to Ryla, the next one he handed to Creysa. They stood there reading in silence. The last sentence of the first letter gave instructions: “If ever the lockets should be brought together, they are each a key for the other to reveal the secret within.”

“Come here Hunter.” Ryla said, grabbing at his locket.

Using the slight pattern on the lockets, Ryla managed to put the faces together, and turn the lockets in opposite directions before hearing a small click. Both lockets hinged open to reveal what they had protected within.

Hunter’s golden locket had a picture of a much younger Alaryssa on one side and Hunter on the other. Ryla’s silver locket had the same pictures, but on opposite sides. – They looked at each other. The only other piece in both their lockets was a folded sheet of paper in each. They carefully unfolded them to read what was said on each sheet.

“Love always.” And “I do.”

“So, they meant for us to get married?” Ryla asked incredulously.

Hunter pulled at his picture that had a folded edge to it in his locket, and it came out to reveal a picture behind it… Alaryssa’s father. His eyebrows creased and he pulled at the picture of Alaryssa in the locket too, and when it finally came out, there was a picture of his mother on the other side.

“Ryla… does your locket have our parents behind our pictures too?”

Ryla looked at what Hunter had found and began to do the same with her locket. The results were identical.

“We weren’t two single families missing a mom and a dad… we were a single family. Why wouldn’t they tell us?” Hunter looked at the locket and shook his head in disbelief.

“I can sort of see it…” Creysa said, looking back and forth between Ryla and Hunter.

“But what did it mean ‘What hate destroyed, love will remake.’ Love for family can’t undo all this mess. I didn’t like the whole marriage idea, but it made more sense!” Ryla huffed, exasperated that her mind could not make sense of it all.

They all returned to their father’s office.

When they got to his office, Hunter went to a safe behind a painting, as if he knew it was there. “It needs a combination. What’s your birthday?”

Hunter entered each of their birthdays, then each of their parent’s birthdays. None of them worked.

“Look!” Creysa pointed up to two picture frames that held family photos for them both: Alaryssa and Jennifer with their dad, and Hunter with his mom. “They have numbers on them.”

The girls’ family photo had a small placard with ‘19-0’ and Hunter’s family photo had a small placard with ‘1-17’ on it. Hunter entered the numbers in that order, and the safe clicked open.

There was a small pile of cash, and a telephone number scribbled on a sheet of paper, “In case of end of world, call me!”

Hunter shrugged and walked over to the desk phone. When he picked it up, Creysa looked at him like he had utterly lost his mind. “Phones haven’t worked for years!”

Hunter smiled and exaggerated his dialing. After a moment, he said, “Hello? Yes, It’s the end of the worl…”

His joke faded into silence as a secret door opened in the wall of the office, revealing a staircase.

The trio began their descent into the darkness, certain they would find the meaning of their adventures in this new world they were meant to save together…