Dwindle

  ***

  I wasn’t doing my job as I should have, but there was no longer a need to scrounge for food or medicine. There were so few of us that we could sustain for at least a month. Probably more. The people looked to me then. The government was gone. I was the leader, and the hypocrisy of those rodents astounded me.

  They’d rejected me my whole life, and still I helped them more.

  I was tired and I yawned as I thought this. It was early in the morning, and I was walking about, still disturbed by my own little life.

  I fought with my mind, saying that there had to be a purpose for everything. Purpose was the one thing that my mom had left behind. The prospect that everything had to happen as a catalyst for something else. It was my motto. It was my driving force. Everything, no matter how awful, happened for some sort of higher reason. I remembered she had held the gun to her head, sobbing, telling me,

  “Everything happens…for a reason, Ellie.”

  It was my name, though I wouldn’t have known it then.

  “Everything happens for a purpose.”

  She did it then, and I winced painfully, remembering the way her head was in one place in one moment and several in the next. Almost like it wasn’t there anymore. Why had that happened? There was no purpose in that but to save me. If I didn’t exist or wasn’t a real human…why was I worth saving?

  I had to kill Evergreen. She was old and had had a good long life. But I had to kill her. She had chosen to risk Undeath to get that book to me. I had to kill Skate. There was no purpose in that but to save the people of Hand, the useless things Ollie called Lower Deviants…Ollie. I felt pain at his name. What was his purpose? He came into my life, needing help. I gave it to him. He lived. He hated me for it because he hated my kind and he hated owing me. He hated me.

  And then…then he told me of what he had done. His hands had strangled things. His hands had been on other people not to love or hold or comfort but to torture and to bend. What was the purpose in that?

  What was the purpose in Foot’s death? What was the purpose of my relationship with Chess? He had slept with Fade…but I wondered all the same. I wondered, most of all, why he had told me he loved me – if he had really meant it. I couldn’t understand why. Why was he alive? Why had he chosen me, if I was so worthless? If he was human and I was Deviant, how had he chosen me? Why were the colonists alive? Why was I? Why had Fade ever been born? Why was such an awful person alive?

  The speculation was endless but the answer was eventually simple. She was alive because she had to be. It was because it was said to be so. It was because, without Fade, there wouldn’t be great people. It was because, without Foot, there would be no Chess counter-part. It was because, without Ollie, I would have been ignorant for the rest of my life. It was a paradoxical truth. In order to have greatness there had to be strife or there would be no opportunity to be great. It was unsatisfying, and I wanted another one, but I knew there was no other.

  As I thought more and more of the night that had ruined the rest of mine, as I passed the occasional wanderer, I realized they had killed themselves and my friends. I had warned them repeatedly; I had always been right. They did not heed my words.

  It was foolish for us to consider it our duty to die for those pathetic souls who dared call themselves Dwin. They weren’t Dwin. I was Dwin. Foot, Chess, and Evergreen were Dwin. The weak people that limped by me to exchange a sympathetic glance were not Dwin. They were Hands. Hands to be bent and shaped by a leader who they followed blindly. I was different than them.

  Ollie was right. I was different because they’d rejected me. I didn’t think the same as they did. They had admitted defeat. They had kept themselves as quiet as possible to move through history like the dust carried by the wind. I had worked every day of every second of my life to earn the respect that I had never gotten to see.

  They were humans. If that was what a human was like, I didn’t want to be human, anyway. The Outlanders were humans, too, and I saw their flaws. Paige was condescending and Ali was mean. Pierce was cruel. Ollie was confusing and complicated and mysterious…

  I liked to think he didn’t hate me as much after what he said. He wouldn’t have said it to me if he didn’t care. He needed me to know. It was strange. It made me…respect him more. I had to respect him more. I wouldn’t have been able to do what he did in telling me. I wouldn’t even be able to write it down, if I could write. It was brave of him…It touched me, a little. He cared enough about me to want me to absolve him of his crimes. Though I couldn’t, I realized it was enough to temporarily satisfy my conscience.

  “Myth!”

  It took me several moments to turn around as I felt unmotivated to do anything but walk and look about at the remnants of our city. There were but twelve of us left. We wouldn’t last long. They, the people, dared to want me to be their leader. I would sooner kill myself or jump into a hive of Undead than be the leader of the people who, I considered, were the scum of the City. They had ruined my life.

  “MYTH!”

  I looked about. It was always my name being called somewhere. As I looked I saw it was a man named Fudge. He had always sort of rebuked Rhyme for being so harsh with me. He wasn’t as bad as the others, I always thought. He gave me extra food after my parents had died.

  He was the one exception. There was always exceptions to the rule.

  “You need to look out there,” Fudge said.

  I observed that the gate was closed, but he was pointing that way. He must have wandered too close. I’d ordered everyone from wandering even near it. The Outlanders had managed to shut it and keep it shut during my comatose state, but it wasn’t so useful. There was a giant hole in it where the fires had eaten through.

  “You shouldn’t have gone out there,” I said quickly, running up the slope to the edge of the Skyway.

  I brought him back by the shoulder.

  “Here, get away from there! What are you doing?”

  I felt nervousness and fear again, but it was dim. It felt as if the emotion had to travel a huge distance to attack at my heart (where a new and wonderful knowledge was growing. It was a courage that stemmed from nothingness, and it was glorious).

  Most of them were eaten but there were still a few who were taken from us. It was impossible to tell through the blood what had happened to whom. I told myself that they couldn’t have been eaten. I would have heard them…I would have made myself listen.

  I cleared my throat painfully.

  “What is it? Are they coming?” I asked, my voice tight

  “I don’t think you’re gonna like it,” Fudge said.

  He moved next to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

  I looked out slowly and could not breathe for fear it would be stripped from me forever by an unseen force. Chess and Foot were there, yes. Moving and breathing, they were, but barely at that. Their skin was a yellowish, nearly a greenish, tinge and was so thin that all of their contorted muscles and bones were refined. Their backs were hunched over some kind of newly slaughtered prey, and crunching noises resounded through the silence as they chewed on the raw meat, bones and all. There was no hair on either of them and the morph of their hands and backs was evident. They were suffering. Human behavior was entirely absent…but I had to call them anyway. They were my life, and they had returned to me.

  “Foot!”

  It was Ollie from across the clearing who called first. I heard him sprint up behind me. He put a hand to my shoulder.

  “NO!”

  “FOOT!” I started to scream. “Foot, Chess! Foot!”

  Ollie tried to pull me back. I ignored him and ventured forward. I slid out of his grasp, running from him.

  They looked up after I had yelled for several minutes, like they’d just heard me even after what felt like hours of trying to get through to them for me. My voice was considerably sore and people were beginning to look up nervously from their wanderings. I cared not for them and could only focus on the bloo
died faces of my old friend and my first lover.

  They stared with their black eyes and shifted in confusion. They knew not why I was calling to them and painful, fiery tears filled my eyes. I had to see that they knew me. The Undead could remember, couldn’t they? I climbed up to the framework of a building to get a closer look at them. This led me through the hole of the Skyway and then to the outside, to higher ground. I climbed above and into the balcony where Chess had held me that first night I’d met the Outlanders.

  I wanted to reach out and touch them. I saw Foot’s square chin, his tall forehead where his once dark black hair had been. I saw the legs that I knew, though twisted, with the scars I was familiar with and helped make. I saw the burn on the back of his neck. It was him. He was there.

  And Chess was there too. His body was feasting more hungrily than Foot’s was, but he still glanced up at me occasionally like the animal he was. I saw they were eating a dog, a huge one, and they ripped and bit pieces off in mass quantities, gnawing at it with powerful jaws.

  I found myself clutching my heart. Chess had the blond hair still, despite the Undeath. Some of them got like that, kept their hair. His pale skin was sickly looking. But when he glanced up to see what I was doing, he held my gaze just like in the times of old. His eyes didn’t move, and I suddenly couldn’t see them as tears formed in mine. They did not know me.

  “Come on!” I whispered.

  I wanted to go stand near them, but I was afraid. Tears of joy and sorrow mixed on my face and skin. I was so, so afraid. And then I found myself thinking that surely, they could remember me. That they wouldn’t attack me. They knew me, after all. I had a gun in my hand, a forever presence that I didn’t know I had until I needed it, and I flipped it fast around my back. It was the pistol in my hand that mattered.

  “Myth?” Fudge asked suddenly from within the clearing.

  I began to descend.

  “What are you doing? You can’t do that! MYTH!”

  “Myth, stop it!”

  The voice was Ollie’s now. I remembered that he was leaving, and I felt pain at having nothing and no one. Even if he had killed my kind, hated them even, he still cared if I lived or died. He would be the last person in that life to care.

  “What are you doing?” he asked loudly, with concern and fear.

  “Shut up,” I said, almost to myself. “I’m immune!”

  “So was Skate!” he shouted.

  But I didn’t listen. I approached evermore, and my breath caught. Even while they were Undead, they had come back for me. They wanted to see me again. They were going to see me and recognize me. I would make them, if they wouldn’t by themselves. I could help them. I had to. It wasn’t in me not to.

  I was on the ground in one swing and in another few steps I would be able to touch them both. My steps were silent compared to the ravenous chewing, but they felt loud to me. Blood touched the edge of my shoes and it made my steps stickier than usual. I decided to stop. They smelled horrible, roasted and rotting, and they didn’t notice my presence. They would recognize me when they did see me though. I knew that they would. They had to. I was their best friend.

  So, for what felt like the first time in my life, I was brave.

  “F – Foot?”

  Chess, who was the nearer, vaulted on top of me. My breath caught, and he screamed in frustration as my gun hindered his eating my face. It was pressed hard to his chest. He was snapping his jaws so heavily that they made his own tongue bleed. I shook my head. I was afraid again. There had been too many Undead; they were too smart; they knew too much for me not to be. Chess would eat and kill me. He was the fastest, strongest, and most intelligent predator on the face of the planet; he would eat me if he had the chance…and he was my best friend.

  “CHESS! It’s me, Chess! Chess!”

  I turned my gun a quarter of an inch, knowing my course of action. It had to hit his heart. If it didn’t, he would suffer. I wouldn’t let him suffer.

  He wasn’t letting up. His eyes were beyond me, barely looking, and the saliva that dripped onto me was thicker than any human’s could have been. I pushed him up slightly. He fell back for a split second, and he was there.

  My Chess was there.

  In that moment, I fired.

  Chess writhed towards me slower and slower until his eyes glazed over with the liberation of a painful death. My method had failed. His body was limp on mine, and I felt the blood spill towards my clothing. I pushed him off with a little effort and a grunt of more than physical pain. I looked down at him for a moment. I wanted to cry, but I had no more tears left.

  My eyes moved to Foot, who I knew would not know me by name or face. I turned my head a little, and he looked up. His eyes stared into mine, more than Chess’s had. He had a chunk of red, dripping flesh in his hands. His mouth was covered in horrible blackness. He was absolutely still, apart from his gaping mouth, (which twitched occasionally,) and his raggedy breath.

  I could hardly breathe as I looked to him, and I stared imploringly into his eyes. I was waiting, watching for anything that could constitute for human intelligence. I could see the battle in his eyes, the terrible war going on in his brain. He knew not whether to attack or to watch in wonder. He almost knew me. He was almost mine. I cleared my throat slightly, and he barked threateningly.

  “Foot?”

  Almost before I could dodge from his path, he lunged and screamed at me. Almost. But I had ascended back to the frame of the building. He looked up at me for a moment, into the absolute fear and distress in my eyes, and for a moment, for a second, he was mine. I knew what he was, he knew what he was, and he knew who I was. And in that moment I saw pain and suffering beyond his years or mine. The contact passed, as if it hadn’t happened, besides the confusion on his part. He looked back up at me to try it again, and he remembered, though the pain seemed to only increase. It wasn’t all physical pain.