Chapter 1
April 30th, 2034
The sun rose brightly on the eve of Sara's 14th birthday, but she had been up long before color had spread over the gray sky. No sound could be heard in the valley except for the repetitive “click” of water deep in the hills.
Sara had woken up early that day. She wanted to scout out the entire valley, which she had never done before. The black ground was always clogged with water, making traveling nearly impossible.
As she walked outside of the Luxor- her home for as long as she could remember- she hoped that the streets wouldn't be covered with water for once. Sadly, the water seemed to be even faster and darker that day.
She looked up at the tip of the Luxor, smiling slightly to herself. It really didn't matter anyway. The trip could take a little longer if it need be.
“I'm going out.” Sara called out, “Don't worry; I'll be back before night.”
Sara remembered before leaving to go back inside. She rushed up to the top floor and opened her door. She went to her bedside and clicked open the speaker. The speaker was old, according to the Smoke. When humanity had destroyed itself, they had left many useful things behind. Sara put it on full-blast and listened to it outside.
So here you are, two steps ahead and staying on guard,
Every lesson forms a new scar,
They never thought you'd make it this far,
Sara liked this song. It had been written a year or so before human decimation. She liked the fact that it was about an underdog; at least, that's what she thought. It echoed across the valley in all directions.
Sara looked very wild. Her brown eyes, speckled with green and yellow, were always sucking up everything around her, so as not to miss anything. Her shoulder-length brown hair was choppy, because of the lack of proper barbers and mirrors. She wasn't sure where her clothes had come from, but the Smoke probably brought them in from a different part of the valley. Her shirt was a faded white, with a black ink heart in the center, and a green backpack on her back. The shoes she wore were ripped and torn, and her shorts were hardly more than strands of thread.
The valley couldn't be very big. Sara had found a map several days before and it hardly looked massive. She lived in the green part of the valley, and there were blue, orange, and white parts, too. She would walk over the valley in 12 hours, 20 at the most.
There were always things to explore in Sara's home. Some of the rooms had the neatest things. Once, she found a small, hard object with a black point at the end. At first, it hurt to touch it, but then, she found a thin piece of white material, and found that the black point made marvelous pictures, while a pink stub made them go away.
And that wasn't just in the Luxor: it was all over her home valley. There were homes that held giant stacks of the white material with strange markings. Some even had pictures of other people. Sara would study them for hours, trying to get a feel of what other people were like.
As Sara wondered the flooded streets, she had to imagine what it looked like with real people on them: pacing back and forth, going in between those- oh, what were they called again? She had seen them in one of the stacks. She assumed it was something called a car. How would a ride in one of those feel?
At that moment, Sara thought she saw something strange. In the distance, she saw a nearly invisible figure, crossing the street. When Sara got closer, it seemed to disappear in front of her. Not only there, but the whole day, the same thing was happening to her. Something urging her to wander more, not wanting her to stop at any moment.
When night finally fell, Sara had been trying to get through a large clogged up street. Remembering her promise, she quickly ran across many streets to get back home in time.
Once she finally reached the Luxor, the Smoke was already gathering at the tip of the Luxor. It didn't seem very happy, which was usually bad news for Sara.
“Sorry!” she called out to it, “I was out exploring.”
It didn't seem to respond, which meant either it was thinking, or listening for more details.
Sara tried to think of more to say. “I was exploring because I wanted to see the entire valley.”
Remembering the map, Sara was relieved to find it still sticking out of her back pocket. She opened it up.
“See,” she started, “We live in the green part that has some symbols above it. There are other parts to our valley, did you know? Right here's a yellow place, a huge orange place, and a bunch of white!”
The Smoke descended down beside her and- if smoke can look- looked at the map. It didn't bother Sara, though. The Smoke had kept her alive up until then. It was her parent. Even though she wasn't sure how the whole “smoke-to-human” worked out. Curious as she was, that was something even Sara didn't want to know.
When Sara thought the Smoke was going to let her keep it, it curled around the map faster than she thought it could move, and threw the map out of sight.
“Hey!” Sara cried, and started to go after it when the Smoke made an awful sound, somewhere between a hiss and a gurgle, stopping her in her tracks.
Sara tried to listen closely, since to Smoke rarely talked. She could make out the words, and they weren't pleasant.
“Listen,” it hissed, “don't go near that map again. Or any other map, for that matter.”
“But why?” Sara argued, “What's so important about a simple map that you don't want me to see?”
The Smoke realized its mistake, “Nothing. Nothing is important about any map. I don't want you to leave the Luxor from now on.”
“What?” Sara yelled in anger.
“That's an order.”
Sara knew she was beaten. As she marched back into the Luxor, she couldn't help but feel blind fury. The Smoke had never told her to stay inside the Luxor: ever. Why now? Sara clearly had found something the Smoke didn't want her to find. For the first time in her life, she felt a twinge of rebellion.
As she looked out her bedroom window, Sara wondered if the Smoke would let her out for her birthday. Fourteen was important in her mind, and she didn't want to squander it inside a dark room. She shivered, and wrapped herself in a blanket. The night was getting old, and she needed sleep.
Once Sara fell asleep, she had a dream, which didn't happen very often for her. In an unfamiliar place, she found herself standing at the edge of a dried out field. There were a few trees around it, but other than that, nothing. There was no noise either. Sara felt the need to call out, but the words seemed to become stuck in her throat.
Then, a large pack of very hairy coyotes appeared out of the brush. Suddenly, Sara wasn't sure that they were coyotes at all. Maybe a wolf. They scanned the field carefully, clearly looking for someone, or something.
A moment later, Sara was rattled by a new and terrifying sound. It sounded like, well, Sara didn't know how to think of it. Then, out of the blue, the sound revealed itself as- a human? Sara wondered if she was still dreaming, but something seemed very real about this one.
The boy, who couldn't be more than 15, was pulling the trigger, and several dozen wolves fell. Behind him, a girl with wild, frizzy black hair about the same age ran out carrying an ax and easily knocked out ten or twenty more in mere seconds.
Just when most of the wolves had fallen still, dozens more came running out of the trees.
The two cried out, “Fall back!”
More teenagers became visible as they went back some. But another, older boy said something inaudible that clearly changed their minds, and they rushed forward again to attack.
Sara became breath-taken at the boy who spoke out at the others (which must have only numbered around 15-20). He had wavy, very light brown hair. From her distance, Sara couldn't make out his eyes. But wow, did he know how to swing a bat well.
One wolf that lunged at him was the one with the most painful fate. When he jumped at the boy, he got a face full of metal. As he lay on the ground, Sara could tell that brains were leaking out of his cracked skull, and blood dripped out of
his fanged mouth onto the ground.
He looked over at Sara, and she felt her heart skip a beat. Or two. Maybe thirty. Then she realized that it couldn't be a dream if he was running towards her. But that didn't explain the fact that she couldn't talk or hardly move.
Once he got within a few feet of her, a wolf lunged at him. Sara couldn't warn him, but she watched in awe as he delivered a nasty blow to his head. If she could talk, she wouldn't be making actual words anyway: more like extreme stuttering.
When he got to Sara, the boy grasped her shoulders and cried, “Wake up! Do you hear me? Please, wake up!”
At once, more wolves began to swarm him, and a deep, howling wind blocked out his voice. His lips moved, but his voice was hardly a whisper. The boy let her go and tried to fight off the wolves.
Suddenly, Sara felt something crawl up her leg ever so slowly. Something extremely hot and it burned. When she looked down, she didn't see anything, but the pain was still there.
“Come on,” Sara thought, “wake up!”
She finally managed to move her arm and pinched herself. Nothing happened. The painful burn kept climbing up her body, and the field was still there.
Horribly frustrated with herself, she raised her arm and somehow cried, “Wake up, damn it!”
Sara delivered a hard blow to her forearm. At last, she found herself sitting up in her bed. But she found out what was making her so hot in her dream. She almost wanted to go back to sleep and keep dreaming about hot guys.
All over her room, flames licked at the walls and floor. Gray smoke made it nearly impossible to see and even harder to breathe. Sara coughed, and looked around for a possible way out.
The window was out instantly. Sara was on the top floor, thanks to the Smoke's request. Jumping from that height would be assured suicide. Perhaps the door? No, it was blocked by a wall of fire. But there was no other way out.
Sara got out of bed and found her backpack still lying next to her bed. She didn't have time to check it. All Sara did was sling it over her shoulder and got ready to run through the flames.
Before she had the chance, something else jumped into the room. It was an old coyote. So ancient, Sara wondered how he managed to walk. She didn't move, and neither did it. Finally, Sara ran full-speed and made it through the fire wall with hardly a burn. Behind her, the old animal came through and stopped several feet in front of her.
That's when Sara noticed something strange: nothing else had been touched by the sudden fire outburst. Then she began to wonder why her room was an oven to begin with. It wasn't right.
The aged coyote stared blankly at Sara, recognizing her scent from all those years ago...
Chapter 2