My grandfather told me once that when his grandfather was young, water use to fall from the sky and replenish the earth. He said that it was what caused things to grow but that it only occurs during the deepest part of the night, when everyone was asleep.
It's a story I've held onto for years, nourishing with hope but also killing with age. Every year I think about it less and less, what does it matter if water falls from the sky? Would it stop the wars, the destruction, the razing of homes? Nothing would stop it so why spend time on a fairytale told by an old man, and yet today I ponder it once more.
What if water did fall from the sky at night? Who would know whether it was true or not? There really wasn't a way to tell. Curfews have been in effect for well over a hundred years, so anyone who had lived during the time when they weren't wasn't alive anymore. Even if you could stay up, you probably wouldn't be able to hear it over the constant stream of gunfire heard every night and you surely wouldn't want to leave your home while it was going on either. Going to the surface was dangerous during the day, no one was crazy enough to do it at night, or if they were they surely wouldn't be able to live to tell the tale. So how?
I vigorously shake my head. What am I doing? I'm sitting here wasting time when there is work that needs to be done elsewhere. If Declan finds me just sitting around, there will be hell to pay. I stand up quickly and began to move about my small room to collect my things for the day. Once I'm out the door, I'm on my way to the farm to begin the morning's planting, We've decided to try our hand at growing cabbage, hopefully it will be a success and we can began to diversify the coming harvest.
The community I live in is a rather humble one, it was built shortly after the wars began and the machines took control of the surface. While it is smaller than most, we are incredibly efficient and one of the most successful underground housing communities in operation. Declan, our current leader, is brilliant and has helped us thrive here in the Sanctuary as well as creating programs for inter-community trades with other housing facilities in the nearby area.
I arrive at work on time and begin to cultivate the beds and plant seeds for our new crop, but my mind wanders back to the story. I can't seem to shake it today, it gums up my thoughts and is almost impossible to escape. What if it was true, so what if it was! Nothing would change, we would still be down here and unable to hear or see it. No use thinking of something you can't change, it'll just make you unhappy.
I sound like my mother, saying things like that but it's true. Why make yourself unhappy thinking about things that are always going to be just as they are. I must have been thinking so long and so hard that I hadn't noticed Declan walk in and stand beside me. Not saying anything, just standing and waiting for me to finish with whatever I was obviously preoccupied with.
I about leapt into the soil when I finally noticed that I was no longer alone in the gardens though.
"I am excited to see how this harvest will turn out, no doubt it will be a success at the hands of the master gardener though. I had finished with my work earlier and thought I might offer my assistance here." Calm and cool as ever, Declan was a presence I always welcomed, the air itself seemed to quiet around her. Being no exception, I felt my own racing blood calm and settle in a way that it hadn't since last seeing her.
It wasn't uncommon, Declan could often be found here, helping with the planting and harvesting, she said the hard labor kept her honest. If I was being honest, I often thought about her in the moments before I slept and why the hard labor seemed to the trick for her but not for myself. How honest a life can one lead though, was it so bad to lie about something so small, not even to lie but to omit? Omission was definitely a smaller crime. I'm not sure why I had never told her, but I liked to think of it as my secret garden. A place I slipped into late in the night, when I could no longer think of the rain, where I thought of her. A garden filled with lilac that I cared for with a tenderness unmatched anywhere else in my life.
I'm not sure when exactly I fell in love with her, it grew so slowly that I hadn't even notice it take root. It was a feeling I had walked past often but hadn't noticed until it had fully bloomed and suddenly become something too beautiful and pure to ignore. When I really took the time to ponder on it, I knew the reason I kept it to myself was to keep it safe, people often had the habit of not knowing how to properly care for something like this. They would accidently destroy it, taint it. No, this one thing was mine and mine alone, and so I kept it.
"Well you are also welcome, you know that and the help is appreciated." I couldn't have thrown her out even if I wanted. "How was your work today?"
"It was good, productive. We have heard chatter that the machines may have almost killed each other off. I was planning on sending word to the other communities to ask if they had heard the same." A small hope, there had been talk of this since the wars began, but I nodded anyway.
We worked in silence from then on and completed turning the beds over and planting the new crop in good time. I congratulated the rest of my team on a job well down and dismissed everyone early, but Declan lingered, gazing at the fields, silent as ever.
I stood waiting for her to… do something, say something. Although I doubted either would happen. No one could beat her in the art of silence, she wielded it like a brush, the moment a canvas. I wondered if she knew the scenes I had seen her paint with it. I started away from where I had been leaning on the greenhouse door when I suddenly became the focus point of her gaze. She continued to gaze at me for several seconds before I was given a slight nod and then was left alone with my thoughts again.
Some time later I realized that I was still staring at the spot I had last seen her and pushed myself to get back into motion. After finishing up my final tasks for the day, I opened the greenhouse and head into the very back to the part that was furthest from the door and hidden from anyone would happen to be walking by. Back here I kept things that did little beyond aesthetics, things that were frivolous but beautiful. Throughout my time here I had come across several tulip bulbs that I had decided to plant and tend when I had extra time. At first, when I had tried to plant them, I seemed to have a talent for killing them, but several years and tries later I had finally gotten one to sprout. They had grown rather larger since then and were maybe a week away from blooming for the first time.
I had never actually seen a real tulip, only ones that I saw drawing of in my books, and wondered what color it would turn out to be. Another thing that there was no use wondering about I suppose, you can't tell what they are until they finally open after all.
Soon after I went back to my room to sleep, today had been rather successful on the whole. I imagine I would finish everything up for tomorrow and then I would go back to working in the greenhouse full time until harvest season. In my final moments of wakefulness I couldn't help but think of her, as I did every night, in this world between wakefulness and not the moment earlier today, when we were just silent painting something together, lasted forever.
A loud crash woke me up early the next morning. It sounded like the rock around me had shrieked in agony, and then came the human screams. Before I could even think, I was running down the corridors towards the noise, in the beginning I had been an assistant in medical but death never suited my temperament, I was best at growing life and had switched to the farming sector as soon as I realized it.
The screams echoed eerily on the stone walls and only magnified as I got closer. Slowing as the noise grew louder, I walked in and assessed the scene. Part of the dining hall had collapsed and turned into rubble, luckily enough there wasn't many up at this time and it seemed that only a handful were injured. I walked up to the few that I could see and looked over them real quick. Nothing to serious, just some minor wounds, a couple of broken bones and one man with a minor concussion, it seemed that no one was seriously hurt though.
More and more people began to fill the dining room to see what had happened and then to help the injured. A woman, which I soon recognized as Declan's sister, came running in and after seeing the damage began to panic. She sprinted toward the rubble, pushing people aside when need be, and started searching through the rocks.
"Ma'am are you okay?" She was going to hurt herself if she didn't stop. I tried to reach for her but couldn't through the storm of debris that she was throwing behind her. A feeling began to rise in the pit of my stomach, something wasn't right.
"My sister! She said she was coming her early this morning. She is in here!" People lept to attention after that and the difficult task became light work as more hands started joining in on the search.
I stood frozen, unable to comprehend what was going on. Declan was down there. I stumbled toward the nearest garbage before I became sick and fell to my knees, my whole body shaking with the reality. This wasn't the first collapse that we had, they weren't uncommon but there was one thing they shared, no one had survived if they were anywhere near the avalanche.
It took them three hours to find her, it took me three seconds to know that she was dead, and it took three men to carry me to the infirmary after I had lost consciousness. What a useless reaction to grief, or was it smart? Useless because my body had been unable to handle such a strong surge of agony, smart because I could not handle it so my body took it away. My friend, who I had use to work for in medical could see nothing wrong with me so let me go back to my bunk. I said nothing, painting a vivid scene in the medical wing that day.
"All of our messengers are out, they were sent away to the farthest colony not three days ago and won't be back for months. We have to get word to the nearest colonies of what has happened. This is unprecedented I know, but we need volunteers to go to the other colonies, reachable within the day and let them know. Declan is gone and we will need their assistance to rebuild."
Five days after her death a meeting was called and the entire colony had shown up, myself included. The crowd shuffled nervously after the announcement, the sound of clothes moving against bodies deafening to my recently noise deprived ears. A few brave souls raised their hands.
"Thank you all, we need one more to travel to Benoit. I know it is farther away than the others but it is just reachable in the hours of the light." No one raised their hands. I waited a moment and was suddenly reminded of my grandfather's story of the water falling from the sky. My hand shot up, it was time to stop living my life from the sidelines, it didn't stop tragedies shadow from darkening my doorway.
A day later I was packed and ready to go before dawn, I would need to leave right as the sun rose to make it to the other colony before it set again. They had given me food and water for the day and a letter signed in the temporary council's name explaining all that had happened and asking for my safe passage. Benoit was known as the colony of rebels and actively fought the machines to try and end this war, the allegiance with other colonies was volatile at best, but Declan had been able to secure a trade agreement with them recently so making them aware of the change in government was crucial to keeping the agreement.
I left that morning like a ghost, no family or friends to wish me well off. My remaining family had died several years before when a virus had come into the colony and killed many, all my living relatives included. Much of my recent life had been in solitude, most of my time spent with the plants, only ever craving the company of one. The air still held the chill from the night previous as I left, settling into a light jog as the sun began to rise.
Throughout the day I kept a close lookout for anything that would mean a machine was nearby but saw none, instead I saw signs of life beginning again. It looked as if the earth had not been tread on in months and things were sprouting everywhere. The day was a beautiful one and easily surpassed the handful I had seen before, when it had been deemed necessary and safe to travel to the surface. The light took away some of the darkening skies around my spirit and I became thankful that I had decided to take this trip after all.
The route was an easy one to the other colony, not difficult at all to follow, just long. I made good time and just as I was a mile from the colony I heard it, a machine. The clank of metal on metal was unmistakable, and I dove behind the nearest cover I could fine, my heart hammering louder than the pistons that drove the thing into movement. I pressed my back carefully against the rock I had ducked behind and tried to calm my breathing, machines while not actively seeking humans would still kill any that it came across.
I checked the sky and noticed that it had begun to darken, half because of the sun falling and half because of it becoming covered in some kind of soft dark blanket that seemed to hover high above me. I needed to get to safety before it became darker and more machines came out. Taking a look around I noticed a path, away from the cameras of the machine and headed toward it, taking care that I wasn't seen. Ten minutes into this process I heard the sound of another machine coming from my other side. I was now pinned between two of the things but was only another half mile away from the entrance to the colony. I knew as soon as the machines became aware of each other the gunfire would start and I would be as good as gone.
The sky began to darken further and loud bang could be heard come from somewhere around me as soon as I heard it I took off toward the entrance to the facility and several things happened at once, in that moment the machines finally noticed each other and opened fire, destroying the place I had just been in an explosion of destruction and the sky seemed to open up and water began to fall from the dark blanket above me. As I ran I looked up and marveled at having survived that encounter and the fact that it was true, water really did fall from the sky. The sounds of explosions followed closely behind me as I sprinted for my destination, slipping in the suddenly slick earth, the machines slowly killing each other.
I crazy grin lit up my face and I began to laugh in huffs at the insanity that had suddenly become my life in the last few days. I would make it to the colony and then back home in time for my tulip to bloom, I would finally know its color. A loud bang sounded directly in front of me and I finally took a closer look at my surroundings, directly in front of me stood a young man with a look of horror on his face and a gun in his hand. I had made it to the entrance of the colony, soaked to the bone from the water, sweat, and fear that I had found myself in. He was staring directly at my chest, mouth agape, hands slightly shaking, I followed his gaze and noticed a bloom of red. A coldness I had never known seeped down to my bones as I watched it grown. I looked back up to meet his eyes but the ground was suddenly the only thing I could see. Next thing I know I'm looking at the sky and watching the water fall. The young man's distraught face the only thing breaking my view of it. I close my eyes and let the water drop onto my face as I slip into my garden where I keep her.
Three days after she had died and the rubble had been cleaned up, a burial service was held for her. I of all people knew something about soil, but that day I couldn't watch her body be settled into it knowing that it was the promise of an end and not the beginning to new life. In medical we would call people to come and collect the bodies off of our tables after they had passed, lost to our capable hands, but the ground was always ready and more able to complete its task then we.
I woke up that night in a sweaty panic, my body on fire. I threw the covers off and ran for my green house, I couldn't let this be her end. The door crashed and shattered against my haste to get through it and the wooden raised beds behind it. The ground cool against my bare feet as I ran for the very back, for the one thing that would give me comfort, my one surviving love, my tulip. It had not sprouted yet as I delicately uprooted it and carried it to where she was laid. Through the corridors and maze of a place I called home, I saw nothing but the delicate sprout, thought nothing beyond how beautiful it would be and how much she wouldn't have said about it but instead painted with her silence. My feet, always true, led me to where she was, the soil was freshly tilled, her grave marked with nothing else besides her name. Right where I imagined her chest would be, I pulled up the soil once more and placed the careful grown flower. I wanted something to once more live inside of her, breath for her. To live on having had her touch it's life. I cried myself to sleep on top of her grave that night.
Weeks later, when my body had finally made it home, they would carry it to the same place they had carried hers and notice a blood red tulip planted on top of her grave, in full bloom. They would bury me next to her, months later the war would end and the colonies would decide to move above ground and it would be years before someone came back to this spot. They would walk in and the entire room would be filled to the brim with blood red tulips.