Where the Ashes turn to Snow

Where the ashes turn to snow, he whispered to himself.

The mechanic watched the great red line of soldiers march off into the distance, far from the colony’s protective field. He said that he needed help packing their mule, that he would need it fully charged, and that he must leave.

The wife asked where he was going, what he would do. He said that he was losing hope for this world, that the struggle was too much. A heavy silence broke his words. There were more reasons. He had to find the Saviour, a psychic hermit rumoured to have great powers. Greater than the soldiers that had come and gone. Greater than the red mutants that ravaged their world.

She had gone quiet with concern. Together they filled provision cases and strapped them to their beast. Staring at their mule now loaded with provisions, she asked where he would find this hermit. Her husband stared back at her. The forbidden lands, to where the ashes turn to snow.

Thirty years together. She said, staring off. We have made it thirty years.

The mechanic nodded. You and I are strong. His nod turned to a sad shake. But we are not enough.

Take this, the wife insisted, her shaky hands reaching for her neck. Wear this and think of me, she handed her husband her heart-shaped locket. Remember, a shaky smile upon her, remember you have this, not only our love, but true love too.

True love? The mechanic held the brass heart tight in his hand. What is the difference?

You already know, she said before turning away.

-

Long and tiresome the path was, cold, biting and harrowing. The mule now only carried itself, its supplies emptied. Only a single radiation tablet was left. The food and extra batteries, all gone. The mule walked with a withered whirr of gears.

Snowfall, thick and toxic, shrouded the mechanic’s trek from the bulbous eyes of the red mutants. It too darkened his own resolve. The mechanic’s fiery frustration turned to a chilled doubt. It was a doubt that made him look past the burning world to his own life before, realizing the warmest times were with his wife. Now amongst these frosty parts, his doubt whispered for him to go back, to return to that warmth and never leave it. All he would need, it whispered, was her. The mechanic gripped the locket tight in his hands, her love keeping him warm.

She said true love, he whispered as he recounted his wife’s words and wondered what she meant.

The blinding snowfall took a breath. Took a pause that pulled the white curtain before him as if to invite him. In that pause, something was revealed.

Just as doubt took hold, did the mechanic see the ruins. The ruins of a once great city left to atrophy before the world changed. A place whose mere silhouette bred shocked familiarity. A familiarity found in story and not of experience, of legend and tale and nothing else. What was once spoken of as fable now rose before the mechanic, high and dead and monolithic. He swallowed the lone radiation tablet and continued.

Not far did the mechanic’s cold steps take him before he found the psychic hermit. The withered man stood at the centre of the ruined road, between two towering tombs of cracked concrete and shattered glass.

The mechanic hesitated where he stood, eyes wide at the sight of the psychic, whose eyes beamed red, with skin blue and hairless.

The blue man quietly whispered out. A whisper so loud the mechanic heard it in his mind. Come, the psychic said, it is I you seek. The mechanic and his mule approached.

Amongst the frozen ruins, the mechanic told the psychic of how the world had burned. The Mechanic’s anger afire within each of his words as he spoke, recounted, and relived it all. When he was done, he fell silent, his charging thoughts taking him far away into reverie.

What, the psychic spoke from his calm, whispery tone, would you desire of me?

Liberation. The mechanic answered desperately. Help, he added. An end, he breathed with a helpless shudder. To the red mutants most, but to the bandits too, to the dying seasons. His shoulders dropped. To everything.

I know the red mutants, the psychic nodded, let me tell you of my time with them. With that, the frosty world before the mechanic’s eyes shifted to a story brought to life.

-

A story of a day long dead rose before the mechanic. A day that shifted and shimmered as memories do, like the fluttering flame between its strongest glow and its weakest. Before the mechanic, he saw red mutants battling wild boars, a hunt-ambush.

The red mutants. The psychic spoke with a whisper so loud it was heard in the mechanic’s mind. The red mutants came to these ruins just like men did long ago. They search, they hunt, they fight, they kill, they die and they take. They do what they can. They take battle or they take death or they take loot. They take whatever they can. Greed was a stench, the psychic nodded his own admission, that affected all amongst these ruins.

The mechanic said nothing. He watched the red mutants trap and coil their prey in their pack until the boars had nowhere to go. He watched as their spears came out, blades glistening like the frost all around. The blood that came glistened too like the rest.

So the red mutants came, the mechanic spoke, to find power? To take power from men and women that came to find powers themselves? They had greed just like any other?

No, the psychic turned to look at the mechanic in this memory. His eyes glowed strong with the red of a quiet storm. A storm that boomed far stronger somewhere else in the psychic’s mind, one not meant for the mechanic to know.

No, the psychic said again as he stared at the mechanic. This is not the lesson, too obvious it is, and too obvious to take.

The world shimmered and changed.

This time the world shifted to a storm of snow, where before there was only the resting snow and the hunt. Yet even then, it was not only the snow that stormed, but the very beings amongst it. Beings, the mechanic saw, seen first as only charging and slashing shadows amongst the white. Dark beings, large ones, small ones, all massing and splitting together in a violent dance.

Look closer, the psychic spoke.

And look closer the mechanic did. There he saw the red mutants, spears and drones and snarls out. There too he saw the rabbits, large as boulders and white as the snow that stormed. Where the red mutants once coiled and entrapped their prey, here the red mutants fought for survival as much as they hunted. This, the mechanic realized, was prey against prey as much as it was predator versus predator.

The red mutants are fighting the rabbits, the mechanic said the obvious.

Look closer, the psychic only said.

And so the mechanic did. Only then did he see that one of the big forms was not a rabbit, but a red mutant. A giant of red mutants, that fought with the same pounding fists and guttural bellows as did the creatures.

There, the psychic said, that is where the understanding is.

The red mutants have giant fighters? The mechanic offered all he could.

No, the blue psychic’s eyes still glowed strongly with red. This is not the lesson, too obvious it is, and too obvious to take.

Again the world shimmered and changed.

Where before the mechanic saw a storm of snow, he now saw something else. The storm of blood and frost softened to a harsh quiet sharpened with suspicion and dire goals. Two enemy packs, the mechanic saw, first standing far and safely apart, then slowly stepping forward with a brewing violence.

Look closer, the psychic spoke. What do you see now?

The two groups stood before each other, one of red mutants, the other of the blue psychic and his followers. Followers that were people. Yet these people seemed all cloaked and hidden, their identities shrouded and set with the patience of an executioner awaiting the start of their work. The mechanic could not tell if this was predator and prey, or predator versus predator, or something else. Yet as he watched, he began to see the two sides as one.

There, the psychic said, that is where the understanding is. Do you see it now?

Yes, something inside the mechanic said and spoke aloud. Yes, he said again, I see now what was so hard to see before.

What is it, asked the psychic.

The mechanic watched the two groups hold their pistols and shields at each other so much the same. The red mutants, the mechanic gulped as he took it all in, the cloaked ones, he gulped once more, all of you are the same.

And what can you take from this? The psychic asked with a nod.

The red mutants, the mechanic put together, they do as we do. They are learning.

Yes mechanic, they do as we do. They have learned to be predators rather than prey. Always learning from their predators. And now mechanic, you find red mutants attacking your homeland.

Shock swung the mechanic’s head to stare at the psychic before him. There his shock held that red, quiet storm stare. We attacked them first?

Yes mechanic, the psychic nodded back, we are no different. This is the lesson to learn.

The world shimmered and changed. It shimmered from a world of frost to one of flame. Of fire and ruin and the sound of booming hooves. Falling ash had replaced snow once again.

The mechanic looked up with fearful eyes. There they were, soldiers, in the familiar red and black of his colony. They charged with the same fierceness found in the fires all around, the ones that stained the sky orange and burnt the heavens black.

Halt. The charging soldier at the front barked static through the grill of his mask. You there, halt. The soldier hammered static again, giving the mechanic just enough time to breath. The hooves and their riders stopped mere steps from the mechanic and glared down. You there, the same soldier looked down at him, what brings you here.

I do not know. The mechanic had to admit. I am returning home.

The soldiers and their horses before and above the mechanic looked at him with glares. Glares galvanized with the glow of hateful suspicion, of their bulbous glassy goggles, of the fire reflected red in them. Then a dismissive shrug. Fine then mechanic, the same soldier said, go home and see what still survives of it. The soldiers galloped off.

-

The mechanic felt relieved to see his home where he left it. One tall and thin of steel, a design of more-roof-than-wall, as many homes were. His wife looked out the only window. The mechanic gripped tight the brass heart in his hands as she came out.

Did you find your saviour? The wife asked as she inspected the mule.

I met the psychic, the mechanic paused as a sad sigh came, but I found no saviour.

This was my worry. His wife said as she closed the lid of the mule.

I know now, the mechanic smiled at his wife until she looked at him, I know now what you meant by true love.

Tell me, her eyes matched his smile but kept her lips straight.

The mechanic smiled with sadness at the edges. True love, he said as better memories went between them. True love, he continued, is struggle.

The wife’s lips smiled back, where his smile was edged with sadness, hers was edged with hope. She hugged him tight and whispered, our struggle.