Dwindle

  Chapter One: Great Deviant

  “Myth!”

  I flipped around when I heard the deep rumble. I knew that voice, a man’s voice, and it was one I loved to hear – especially when it was saying my name.

  “What is it?” I asked, laughing as Foot jogged towards me.

  He caught up with me.

  “It’s…getting dark…” he said breathlessly, as if he ran to warn me. “We…should probably leave, you know?”

  “I’m not afraid of the dark like a baby, Foot.”

  I smiled at him as he punched my arm.

  “I’m not a baby!” he said, smiling.

  “Really?” I asked, smirking. “Could have fooled me.”

  “Well, any sane Insider would know better than me not to come out after you, but I just thought, you know, with the resurgence of the…Undead…” He shuddered at the word. “That maybe you should play it safe lately. Especially with the recent disappearances.”

  “I don’t get paid enough to play it safe,” I said, trying and succeeding to quell my discomfort at this topic.

  I did not want to talk about the recent disappearances and what they meant to me.

  “You don’t get paid at all,” Foot said. “Besides, you hate this. Let’s just go in. Come on.”

  “This is my duty,” I reminded him sternly. “Out here, I get to be away from everybody. Be alone. Considering how the others treat me, it’s kind of a welcome break. I don’t mind it.”

  His cheer faded somewhat.

  “What do you mean? You don’t want me here?”

  “No, no!” I said, recanting my tendency towards foul moods. “I don’t mind.” I felt nervous. “No, I like it. Really. It’s just thankless and dangerous and lonely, sometimes, is all I meant. But it’s what I have. It’s what I know.”

  I looked to the horizon, feeling the familiar stab of loneliness take me away for a brief moment.

  “Well…are you okay?” he asked, obviously uncomfortable.

  I swallowed my own discomfort and smiled, nodding.

  “You need not worry on my account,” I lied.

  “Don’t be lonely – I’m here.”

  I said nothing. He was with me, that was true, but he only came when it was safe, when it was convenient for him. Sometimes, because Skate and I were awful people, we spoke poorly of him behind his back because of his fear of the outside. And only after Foot began bedding girls who were not me.

  I smirked with both bitterness and amusement as I thought this, ignoring the guilt that came.

  “If you wanted to be here out with me, why didn’t you just ask your father to be an Outsider?” I asked after a moment.

  I knew why. He valued his place in the Colony too much. To be an Outsider would shame him horribly. It made me feel sick, so I tried hard to focus on his words instead of my feelings.

  “I wouldn’t be able to do it,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t have the constitution. Not many people do.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Yeah, you do, but you’re special.” He seemed to become aware of himself. “I mean, unusual. But not like…bad unusual. Just…” He stopped himself. “I’m just not like you.”

  The thought did not brace me.

  “Why did you really come out here, Foot?”

  He opened his mouth to reply when a howl, far off but close enough, ripped through the air, making us both jump and then freeze.

  “Myth,” Foot said, gravely now, “we should really just go back. Whatever you’re doing, can’t it wait until morning? Come on.” He added, “I worry for you out here.”

  “I’m almost done marking this path,” I said back, ignoring the jump in my pulse at the words.

  I glanced back. I’d been kicking the debris in the fashion I always had, to let myself know I’d been there before. To an average person, it would have just look like a pile of crumble on either side, but to me it was obviously a path.

  “But the dogs, Fisher, should we not –?”

  “I wouldn’t be worried about the dogs,” I said, shaking a chill out of the depths of my soul.

  “That’s not what Evergreen said,” Foot said, looking about with his gun. He looked suddenly grim and so were we. “She told me to look out for dogs. Told me just a few mornings ago before she left.”

  “You know she’s never liked dogs, Foot, her prejudice says little of the truth in real life.”

  I was trying to brace him, but I did a poor job.

  “I don’t know…” replied Foot seriously. “Evergreen seemed to know what she was talking about when she spoke with me this last time.”

  “Since when are you and Evergreen such good friends?” I asked defensively. I felt rancorous. “How did you even approach her without her shouting at you?”

  “She’s not too bad – once you get her talking.” He glanced at me. “She likes you, you know.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said, laughing bitterly. “She doesn’t like anybody – awful witch.”

  He drifted close to me.

  “You shouldn’t speak ill of her in her absence.”

  “Why?” I asked harshly. “You think I speak ill of the dead? Have you decided that for her?”

  He said nothing.

  “She could last out here for weeks if she stayed away from certain places. She may be aged, but she is not stupid.”

  He hesitated before whispering,

  “You shouldn’t be so harsh about these things. People don’t like it.”

  “Do you think people would like me if I chose not to speak this way?” I snapped, harsher than I’d meant to. “I’m more of an Outsider than just in title, and you know it.”

  I kicked a rock sullenly.

  I thought of Skate. He was the only one to keep me in high spirits, the only solid, unbreakable connection I fostered between myself and our Colony. Skate was my beginning, really. He was what started my waking up to what was. Skate is the beginning of this story.

  “You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Foot asked softly.

  I nodded grimly, determined not to look at him.

  “How long has it been?”

  “Two weeks…” I whispered, my voice hard to prevent tears.

  He heard it.

  “And what of your aunt?”

  “Crabby Gabby?” I snapped, sneering. “I don’t care for her any more than I’m sure she cares for me.”

  “Myth…” Foot admonished half-heartedly.

  “She is always speaking poorly of me. The only person who stops it is…”

  “…Skate,” he finished for me.

  His voice hardened me.

  “You know, you could help me too. I know it would damage your perfect reputation, but I might get a few less bruises here and there when Rhyme beats me.”

  I felt more than saw him stiffen next to me.

  “You know that I want to.”

  “Do I?” I asked.

  He stopped me now with a gentle hand on the shoulder. I turned to look into his breathtakingly handsome eyes.

  “What’s wrong with you today?” he asked. “Did you see something?”

  I shuddered as her removed his hand.

  “No,” I finally said, turning back to my path-making. “Just the opposite. No sign of them.”

  My voice began to crack, and he noticed.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” he suggested.

  “Hey – how’s Iris?” I asked suddenly, if for nothing else than to change the subject from myself.

  But the new topic wasn’t much better for my emotional well-being. I thought of how beautiful she was, if he thought she was as beautiful as he used to think I was – if he loved her as much as he had once loved me. A sickness curled around inside of me at the thought of the two of them, and I could hardly look at him for knowing that he had everything that I wasn’t – a beautiful, appealing woman.

  He blinked awkwardly next to me, and I found that I suddenly couldn’t look away.

  “Uh…
good, I guess. She’s good. We’re good.”

  Jealousy coursed through me as he said this, but I kept my voice expertly level, saying,

  “Oh. Well, that’s good. I’m…I’m really happy for the two of you.”

  “Yeah…yeah.”

  He nodded slightly, distantly. We’d never talked about her before.

  I cursed my stream of consciousness inwardly, wishing with all my soul for a lock on my tongue. But I was already dug into the hole, I thought, so I might as well probe a little. Just to see how he felt. Sate my burning curiosity to curb my jealousy.

  “You love her?” I asked, trying to sound playful.

  I failed. Miserably.

  And silly Foot was always so honest. Honest to a fault to everybody except to himself.

  “Yeah,” he said fairly, nodding his head. “Yeah, I think so.”

  I felt regret, hate, jealousy – and respect, which was worst of all. For everything I’d done, he was still friends with me, after I’d rejected him, after I’d excluded him. He was a good man. That was the worst. I couldn’t hate him for being who he was.

  And I wanted to. But I would be in love with him, in either case, so it didn’t really matter.

  “Do you know how hard it is to love somebody that’s not there?” I whispered out loud to myself.

  But he heard, of course, and became flustered almost instantly.

  “Oh, I…” He trailed off.

  “Skate, I mean,” I lied, shrugging nonchalantly. “My mom and dad. All of them.”

  But it was a lie. I meant Foot. I meant to tell him how hard it was, and I knew it. I reaped all of the detriments of the relationship and none of the benefits. I was in love and told to wait, to hold on, while he thought or moved on. There was no time to wait and think. Our lives were too short. It was such a waste.

  “Watch out,” he said, catching me as I tripped.

  “Yeah – sorry…”

  I chopped at the low feeling silently, knowing it was insignificant to all but me. It was my fault he and I were the way we were, and I had to live with those consequences. I had to live with having nothing and no one. I had to live with the fact that only Chess, the Inventor, could cope with me now.

  Suddenly, there was a crunch. I stopped. Foot bumped into me. Our breath was noisy, too noisy. My heart began to pump. He obviously hadn’t heard it, but I had. My ears were prone to the noises of a predator’s steps.

  I could see the edge of the crater that we lived in, the fallen, underground array of flooring that was Hand. We were close to the Skyway, a gate named because of its facing the sky. It was fenced in by a line of debris and toppled cars that my First Mother and First Father played a part in creating. I could hear people talking. I could hear life within that hall.

  Dogs never came that close. They knew to stay away from me. They knew to stay away from the noises of life, mostly because that was where I lived.

  So it was not an animal. It was something far, far worse.

  “What –?”

  “Sh,” I said.

  “Myth –!”

  “Shut up!”

  I squeezed his wrist. He stopped at the contact. The impulses of anxiety were flowing from my fingertips to his. I sensed his panic.

  The shuffle came again, unsteadily. I flipped around. Foot shouted and swore, drawing his little handgun instantly, where mine was already cocked and loaded.

  There was a woman, or what had once been a woman, standing before us. Her skin was pale. She gasped every few moments, as if chills ran through her constantly. Her face was distorted and flaking. Skin peeled from there in vast quantities. She was soaked through with sweat and grease, almost gray. Blood dripped from her face, wounds formed in the shape of a jaw, a bite-mark. A single bite-mark. It was a dark, dark greenish black with foam forming around the outside, white dots appearing all around it and moving out from there.

  “That’s Evergreen,” I said without realizing it.

  My eyes wouldn’t believe.

  “What?” I heard Foot ask, far off.

  Tears began to enter my eyes, aching at what they were seeing.

  “That’s Evergreen.”

  He said nothing. Maybe it was shock.

  “That’s Evergreen,” I said a third time, looking her up and down through my blinding tears. “I can’t believe it.”

  “She’s Undead?” Foot asked himself. “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered, feeling tears. “I don’t understand.”

  All thoughts of action were jammed.

  “Myth, let’s go!” Foot said, tugging my elbow. He was incredibly urgent. Fear became his driving force, and he tugged at my arm harder. “Let’s go. Come on – let’s go now. Now! Right now! Myth, she’s an –!”

  “I know,” I whispered softly.

  He didn’t let go of my arm, like I was his light in the dark, but my voice stilled his fear.

  I stared at her unseeing eyes. They searched wildly for something, tears pouring out of her in gallons. Her chest heaved with sobs. Her hands stretched outwards desperately, twitching occasionally. She muttered continually, gibberish. She shouted every few moments, like she couldn’t control it, like something was trying to get at her.

  “Evergreen!” I shouted to her. “Evergreen, can you hear me?”

  “What is hap – what is, oh…” She shouted again, as if in pain. “Something is hap – something…” She shouted again, sobbing. “I need you – tell me – what’s going on…”

  Blood poured from her eyes – blackish and purple. The eyes themselves were yellow. The irises were an unnatural, sickly green. Her tongue was a disgusting purple. Sick white foam poured from her mouth like water. She shook entirely. Her weak hands flailed out for me in her darkness. She screamed and screamed, trying to find me, shuffling around for me. I saw the fury behind her eyes, the hunger, even if she couldn’t see anything else. Undeath made you blind for the duration of its gestation, and when Undeath was complete, that was when the eyes were granted again to the individual.

  “Can you see me?” I wondered aloud.

  Shaking overtook me. What did it matter? I thought. I knew what was to come. I just had never needed to perform the rite on someone I had personally known. They had always been bodies. It was always sad, true, but bodies were never faces. Never names and memories and histories.

  “Evergreen,” I whispered desolately.

  “GET AWAY FROM ME!” she screamed abruptly. “GET AWAY!”

  I instinctively shoved Foot behind me even further, and he lost his footing. He recovered well enough to shoot the ground near her feet, just barely, and she withdrew.

  “Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me…”

  Foot readied his gun again, a sidearm only, but I shook my head.

  “Don’t shoot her…” I put my hand to his raised gun and lowered it.

  “Myth…” he whispered, as if he knew what I was feeling.

  “Shut up, Foot!” I took a breath without taking my eyes off the woman. She came at me, slowly, and I was afraid.

  “Myth,” he said firmly, but all I heard was, “Do it!”

  “Don’t kill me,” she pleaded, dropping to her knees in supplication. “Please, don’t kill me, don’t kill me, please, I’m begging you! Please!”

  “You know what you have to do, Myth,” Foot told me with a shaking voice.

  “Hold – wait!” I shouted back. “Just – just wait a second!”

  “Don’t kill me,” she pleaded. “I can help you, I can help you…please, I can help you…”

  “Myth!” Foot snapped, anger penetrating his fear.

  “Shut up!” There was instant silence. “Just – shut up, okay?”

  I tried hard to think of what else I could do, knowing what I had to do. There was only one solution. I knew it. Foot knew it. Even Evergreen knew it. I released the safety on my gun, a small clicking noise, and Evergreen heard it. Her face gave away her knowledge, and her lips upturned in despair. That was t
he worst.

  It broke me to see her broken.

  “No…” the woman said.

  She shook her head emphatically.

  “I’m immune. I’m immune. I’m immune.”

  She said it over and over again. She began to laugh hysterically and her neck twitched too. I felt terrible that she was so lost, and confused as to why she was at all. Then, I thought of our stories that had been ignored, of the evolution of the Undeath sickness.

  If it began killing the Outsiders, we would need miracles to save us.

  “I can’t!” she mumbled to herself. “I’m immune! I’m immune!”

  “You’re not immune, Evergreen,” I whispered.

  “But I am!” she shouted back fiercely, with anger that didn’t make sense.

  Her mouth began to slur her words. It wasn’t her mouth to speak with anymore. It was the mouth of an Undead.

  “Find Myth. Find Myth. Find Myth.” She began to chant this instead, rocking forward and back. “Myth?” She looked around blindly, as if just waking from a reverie. “MYTH!”

  “I’m here!” I called. “I’m right here.”

  “I have to find Myth. I have to find Myth. She’s a Cartographer, you know!”

  “That’s true, Evergreen,” I replied, feeling a sad smile tighten on my face. “What do you need?”

  She suddenly reached into her clothes. She pulled out a worn box – one of the smallest I had ever seen. It had a small, thin white box on the inside. There were symbols on the dark, outer box. Maybe the inside was paper. It looked rare, whatever it was, and surprisingly well preserved. Most things were burned or destroyed. This looked fresh. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

  “I have a book for Myth. Myth. Myth.” She laughed again and her eyes began to twitch involuntarily. She arched her back and howled ferociously before speaking again. “It was from the Gallery. The Gallery. My Gallery – the place I keep my things. All my things. Nice things. Shiny, nice things. I keep them there.”

  She laughed maniacally. I narrowed my eyes.

  “You’ve never shown me your Gallery,” I replied gently.

  “It was a secret!” she snapped viciously, like an animal defending food.

  I always thought there was something there she didn’t want me to see, but I learned later that she was right to keep me away. I wouldn’t have been ready for what I might have found there.

  She coughed again.

  “Myth’s mom is dead.” I felt pain. Evergreen threw the box down, as if its noise solidified this declaration. “But not in here. Her mom is always alive in here – nice and safe and warm.”

  She was speaking in crazy tongues. My mom was dead. That was that. She didn’t exist anywhere. Not anymore. Not in the way I needed her to, anyway.

  “Books have stories,” Evergreen continued conversationally. Her words were insane. But she seemed oddly lucid. “It’s Myth’s. She is now keeper of…secrets. All kinds, dark secrets. And she’s alone!”

  She screamed and lurched within herself, like something wanted to get out. The more she spoke, the more obvious it was that it was next to impossible for her to speak.

  “There are Deviants and people. Myth is a –” She shook her head and screamed to the sky, her genuine nature slipping through. “HELP ME!”

  “Who is it from?” I asked. “Evergreen? I need you to stay with me. What’s in that book?”

  Perhaps, I thought with excitement, there were magics only she knew of that could bring my mom back. I had heard, back in the Before Time, that people had ways of making others appear before them without them being truly there through strange metal portals.

  But this was the stuff of science, and science and the magic it spawned was universally scorned. I felt hesitation and guilt as much as hope that these forbidden arts might give me a chance to see my family again.

  “Is my mom in there, Evergreen?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Words!” she shouted. “Words only! But memories! Hidden memories! Secrets, hidden…hidden from you!” She laughed again. “Mommy, mommy, had to hide, mommy, mommy, went and died!”

  She laughed hysterically. I felt a world of pain as I asked,

  “What secrets, Evergreen?”

  “Secret of you – of we! All of we here to keep the secrets of the few! The big secret!”

  “What secret?”

  Abruptly, Evergreen threw her hand across her face and her knuckles slammed into her cheekbone. The force was sickening, and I heard something inside of her crack as she howled like a feral animal.

  “I’m not sick!” she shrieked in every direction, foaming at the mouth. “Not sick! I’m immune. I’m immune…”

  I had to remain collected. Evergreen was deteriorating, and in a moment of clarity, I realized she’d likely gone to retrieve whatever this “book” was exclusively for me – and she was dying for it. I had to ask the good and necessary things fast, or I would lose my chance forever.

  “What’s a book, Evergreen?” I asked softly.

  “War,” she answered simply, giggling maniacally.

  I furrowed my brow but couldn’t resist a shudder. I’d only ever heard of war, and its remnants were all around me.

  “Will it bring war?”

  “No, you are war.”

  I retracted now, thoroughly insulted.

  “I am not!”

  “The book has war,” she explained. “Your family is war. It’s Myth’s war now, her book. Only when ready, mommy says, only when old. Myth’s though, that be…” She nodded, like making a valid point. “Myth’s…”

  “Yes, I know, Evergreen – the book’s mine. Okay. What do you mean my family is war? What does that mean?”

  “You are,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “No, what does that mean?” I asked louder.

  “Great Deviant!” She twitched again, and her laughter became all the more disturbing. Then, the laughter faded into something sinister.

  “That is why we hate you!” she growled. “That is why you’ll BURN!”

  She lunged forward blindly, missing us by many feet. She screamed out in frustration and tears came out of her eyes as her chest heaved up and down with the fervor of her hatred.

  “But what is it? Evergreen?” I grunted with frustration and fear, but she lashed out again.

  “YOU ARE GREAT!” she screamed. “AND YOU WILL BURN IN A THOUSAND HELLS FOR IT! YOU ARE THE VILEST, MOST IMPURE SCUM IN EXISTENCE AND I HID IT FOR YOU! AND NOW I’LL DIE FOR YOU, DEVIANT SCUM!”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “YOU AIOS HAD BAD BLOOD, AND DON’T DESERVE TO LIVE! BUT WE ALL DIE FOR YOU JUST TO KEEP YOUR LEGACY ALIVE SO YOU CAN ESCAPE AND RUIN THE REST OF THE WORLD!”

  “What is an Aio?” I shouted back, full of tears.

  Foot had put a hand on my shoulder. It seemed he could tell the effect her words had on me. So much loathing.

  “ALPHA AND OMEGA, YOU IGNORANT SLUT!” she snarled. “YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ARE! HOW LONG OUTSIDERS HAVE EXISTED TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR FILTH ARE PAIRED TOGETHER WITH COMPATIBLE HUMANS – LIKE ANIMALS THAT ARE BRED TO TRY TO CREATE AN OUTSIDER WHO IS ALSO IMMUNE!”

  “I’m so sorry, Evergreen!” I finally sobbed. “I’m so sorry for what I’ve done!”

  “IT IS NOT WHAT YOU’VE DONE, IT IS WHAT YOU ARE!” she shrieked. “AND I AM GOING TO DIE FOR IT!”

  “Why are you going to die for it?”

  “Because I have to warn you!” she snapped, quieter now. “Outsiders exist also to serve people…”

  “How does your death serve the people?”

  “Run through a hive…” she whispered. “Got to Gallery, ran through hive, and I saw.”

  “What did you see?”

  “They are coming!”

  “Who?”

  “THEY ARE”

  “Who?”

  “Your destroyers…the death of all things…the end of our world.”

  My blood turned cold.

  “The
Outlanders,” she explained, twitching. “They will see. They will find the hidden people with their science and they will destroy us all!”

  “What?”

  “The Bad People! The Gate exists for the Bad People.”

  “Are they Bad People?” I asked, feeling faint.

  She began to laugh.

  “No…” She laughed harder. “No! They will see you and kill us all! Deviant scum…”

  “What is Deviant, Evergreen?”

  It was important to me. It sounded familiar in so many ways.

  “Deviant is an Aio…the start…”

  “I am?” I asked. “I’m the start of what? War?”

  “You are an Aio. A child of a Deviant.”

  “I don’t understand – explain it to me…please, I don’t – where’s my mom alive?”

  “Myth is the beginning…” Evergreen stared up at me finally, seeing me for the first time with new, Undead eyes. “And Myth… she is the end.” She laughed. “Alpha and Omega. Aio. Beginning and the End.”

  Her body stopped shaking. All in a moment, she looked healthy – but she was suddenly far, far from human. It was time for her to leave our world. I raised my gun with bated breath and held it there, trying hard to see my friend. I couldn’t find her. Her mouth was sunk, her eyes milky, her pupils growing larger and smaller every second. Her hands were claws, long, long double jointed stubs. She bent over onto them, like this was the position she was born standing with. It was the position of an animal. Not my once mentor. Not Evergreen.

  I closed my eyes as she began to run at us. She was so close I could smell her when my finger pressed the trigger. I heard a wail, a mixture of beast and friend, and I clenched my eyes closed even more. I waited for her to get up…and I heard nothing. My eyes remained closed.

  I waited. And waited. I heard the echo of the single shot ring through all the land to create instant and ultimate silence. The noise stayed away for a long time.

  “Myth,” Foot said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “She’s dead. Come on – let’s go.”

  I opened my eyes. A pool of blackish blood was spreading about her body from a hole in her brain. It poured out there like a faucet of deep crimson. Pink flesh fell about her, slabs of meat that looked like raw food – not a human. Not my mentor. Not Evergreen.

  I stared at the hole for a long time, unable to move. I remember wondering why she was dead on the ground. I remember feeling pain and weakness. My hands and arms both shook and I blinked hard to rid my entire soul of chills.

  But I couldn’t fight the inevitable. A sob swept through me as I stared down at her face. I didn’t even know her that well, didn’t even like her really, but she was alive. She was supposed to always be alive.

  Because now…now, the fate of the rest of the Colony rested solely on my shoulders.