Epic sat upon a chair next to the bed of the unconscious girl his brother and Beach had returned with earlier that afternoon. Occasionally she would mumble deliriously and thrash around as if she was trying to fight off an assailant, Epic gently brushed a strand of pink hair away from her clammy forehead, he began to speak to her in a soothing tone of voice as he try to calm her, because he couldn't think of what to say he told her the story of how the tribe he belonged to had formed.
"When the virus had struck Flint had known that he would have to find a safe place amidst the chaos and decay for himself and his stepsister China. Fortunately Flint knew of a place where they would both be safe from the outside world. Before the virus his father, a world famous zoologist had been conducting some research in an remote and uninhabited valley hidden amongst the grey, razor like rocks of the Islands largest mountain range, accessible only via helicopter or a maze of underground caves that seemed to go on for miles. So the day after his father died Flint packed a few meagre belongings for himself and China and he, China and Ghost began the arduous trek to the hidden valley they named Paradise.
It took them a little more than a week to make the long and dangerous journey as they were forced to seek refuge during daylight from the rioting and fighting which had broken out between the newly formed tribes and travel during the night. When they finally reached their destination they were weak with exhaustion but Flint knew that every weary step they had taken had been one step closer to safety and self-sufficiency, to him the valley in which they had arrived was indeed paradise.
Our Tribe only trade for luxuries, clothes, make-up, books all things that the people starving outside will eagerly trade for a little fruit or milk. The valley and the store at the camp provide us with everything we need to live, we have a small herd of goats and some chickens, there are fish in the river that runs through the valley and underneath the mountains, birds and small mammals which we can kill and eat, as well as berries, flowers, roots, fruit, leaves and the rice which we grow ourselves in the field we cleared behind what was once the zoologists camp.
I can see why Flint came here because as long as we are not greedy and take care of our environment we will never run out of fuel or grow hungry. We even have a little electric as the roofs of the cluster of wooden huts where we live have solar panels and the sun is nearly always shining even in the rainy season. We collect rain water, sleep in the warm and dry in beds or hammocks, we have tools to work and hunt with, tinned and packet food, flour, gas bottles, matches, linen, cutlery, pots and pans, toiletries and probably most importantly medical supplies, all left over from before the virus.
I believe that this is the most beautiful place left on earth, an oasis of tranquillity in a world consumed with destruction, hate and chaos. Here the trees and grass are always
green, there are brightly coloured exotic plants and flowers, the water is crystal clear and the only sounds apart from our own voices are the birds singing and monkeys calling in the tree tops.
We take care of one another because without each other we wouldn't have made it this far, life since the virus is all about survival and our tribe is made up of those who would never have had a chance.
Here is the place we came or were brought to so that our scars would heal, so that we would forget the past, the hatred and the evilness of humanity. We were given a second chance to live, to look to the future, a new life, new home and a new name.
There are eleven of us now if I count you because I will always include Flint because without him our tribe would never have existed.
Flint, everything about the boy who had no choice but to become a man overnight is a strong and sharp as the rock Ghost named him after. Our leader, our saviour, one good man among many thousands of evil ones, a man without whom none of us would be alive. He sacrificed what he could have been in the outside for China and became a better man than I will ever be.
China would have been killed or worse the minute the riots started and the tribes took over the Island. She never stood a chance of making it on her own. Although she is the most beautiful person I have ever met. She looks just like a doll, flowers in her black bob, dressed in a floaty pink skirt and a cropped off-the-shoulder pink top with her porcelain skin, dark eyes, and petit frame. In the old world she would have been considered the most damaged of us all, here she is happy, she cannot see, hear or speak and communicates with the rest of us by touch and simple sign language that she can feel rather than see or hear but out of all of us she is the one who copes with post-virus life the best.
Ghost, Flints friend from way back, I can never decide if he wants to be here or not. We have never judged him because of his deformities, but still and even more so now he is like a tall, dark and silent shadow lingering just outside the tribe. Yet without the knowledge he gained, as a volunteer paramedic the rest of us would probably have died.
Then came Rage, short, blonde, muscle-bound with a pentagram tattoo on one shoulder and a legendary violent temper, he reminds me of a bull in a china shop. Rage was the former champion of the Islands underground fight club until one day one of his rivals unexpectedly doused him in petrol, lit a match and left him to die. He ran wildly through the streets full of people too frightened to help him, howling with pain and anger as the flames consumed his flesh burning one half of his body beyond recognition. Flint was the only one who helped him, rolling him over and over in thedirt until the fire went out and then bringing him back to Paradise so that Ghost could treat his wounds and his anger at the world could diminish.
I was the next one Flint rescued from the jaws of death. Cross and I had been living on the streets since one of the tribes had looted and then burnt down our families business, a pizza restaurant in the city centre. We were homeless and starving forced to sleep in doorways and scavenge amongst the rubbish for food. The city had been taken over by many tribes; they were territorial and extremely unpleasant to strangers.
We were so hungry, so desperate for any morsel of food we could find that we ventured into the market place where the tribes meet to trade. It was very busy literally heaving with people and temptation became too much for me, I stole a loaf of bread from the nearest stall thinking that no one would notice because they were so busy and that I would be able to slip it under my jacket and blend back into the crowd without being caught. As I made a break for it with the bread a girl saw me and started shouting that I was a thief. Cross and I tried to run but the marketplace was too crowded and the people soon turned on someone who had not fairly traded for a loaf of much sought after bread. So we were captured and dragged to the centre of the market place. I knew what was coming next because I'd seen people be punished for stealing before. The city is not a nice place to live but many people have nowhere else to go, it has returned to an archaic medieval place where only the powerful prosper and those with no tribe and no possessions are worthless and might as well be dead.
They led me up and onto the platform where the hanging and executions take place. The crowd were roaring that I should be punished and the leader of the Knights who control the market place decided that Cross and I would be thrown into prison to prevent us from doing further harm to the city and it's populace, no sentence was given and we would suffer at the hands of our captors until we died. In addition to this it was decided that I was to have my hand chopped off as a warning to others tempted to steal from the traders in the market place.
The crowd shouted in delight as he placed my hand upon a blood soaked barrel and an axe was brought forward, a guard held me tightly so that I could not draw my arm away. I shut my eyes and looked away as he raised the axe high above his head and then swiftly lowered it severing my right hand clean off from just below the wrist as the crowd cheered in approval.
Cross and I were led meekly out of the marketplace and down the winding mass or dark, dingy and rank smelling alleyways towards the dungeons by two of the guards. I was determined that Cross and I would not spend the remainder of our lives rotting away in prison so I summoned all of my remaining strength and walloped the unsuspecting guard in the stomach. He fell almost instantly to the ground, Cross wrenched his arm away from the other guard and elbowed him smartly on the nose and we ran for our lives, I gasped for breath, my heart pounding as if it were going to explode and as I thought I was going to collapse and could run no further I heard the pounding of feet and shouting as the guards who had been pursuing us drew ever closer.
We needed to split up, Cross told me. He promised to meet me just outside the city gates before nightfall. Then he turned and ran out of sight in the opposite direction.
I was about to turn and run myself when someone caught my throat in a vicelike grip and dragged me into a darkened doorway and out of sight from the approaching guards.
I don't remember much for a couple of weeks after that, I know that Flint and Rage brought me back here and that Ghost nursed me whilst I was too sick to remember. Flint told me that a contact of his had informed him that Cross had been captured later that day and taken back to the dungeons, he promised me that as soon as I was strong enough and the wound on the stump where my hand had once been had healed up the three of us would return to the city and rescue my brother.
On my first venture into the city things did not go exactly as planned instead of rescuing Cross I came to the aid of someone else. Her name is Scald, she had been a prostitute in one of the cities many brothels but when she found out she was pregnant and refused to perform her duties in an effort to protect her unborn child, her enraged pimp through boiling water in her face nearly blinding her and beat her before throwing her out onto the streets. She was haemorrhaging badly when we found her groping her way blindly down one of the alleyways near the city dungeons and had I not brought her back to Paradise she would surely have died from blood loss as she miscarried.
Flint and Rage managed to rescued my brother, he was easy to spot being a taller thinner version of me with the same style, colouring, eyes and same spiky black hair although I have a blonde streak in mine. He had a fever and the cross like slashes on his face and chest that the guards had inflicted upon him when he stood up for himself were inflamed and infected but at least he was safe.
In case you haven't guessed Rage named me Epic as I talk all the time and because of the stories I tell them of mythical creatures, brave warriors and futuristic adventures.
Next to join us was Snow, daughter of the Islands most notorious gangster; Ghost rescued her from being mugged for the stash of drugs she was peddling. She left her privileged life outside to come to Paradise. Ghost named her Snow after the cocaine she had became hooked on and although she is no longer an addict she suffers from flash backs, insomnia, convulsions and poor co-ordination as a result of the brain damage she sustained from her drug habit.
After Snow came Beach the impulsive deaf boy who was being mercilessly taunted and pushed around by a group of tribes people because of his slurred speech along one of the roads upon which we sometimes travel. Cross and I stepped in and rescued him from getting his arse kicked when he yelled "Fk you" quite distinctly at one of his tormentors, sending the rest of the tribe into a frenzy of abuse. In time we were able to understand his speech and learnt he taught us to sign and lip-read. Snow named him Beach because of his sandy hair, tanned skin and blue eyes.
Our next and most daring rescue was a life-altering event for us all. The girl we rescued was a crazy gypsy like waif with dyed blue flyaway hair, Beach named her Fox because the look in her eyes reminded him of the look in the fox's eyes when it is about to be ripped apart by hounds. That's why we brought her here because she is literally crazy or mentally ill or whatever you want to call it, anyway the villagers decided that she was a witch and witches are traditionally burnt at the stake so that was what they were going to do. Flint heard about this plan to punish Fox and decided that we should rescue her, so we prepared ourselves for battle with the villagers and that was what we did.
However they surprised us as they were well armed, fit and fought us ferociously but eventually we managed to rescue Fox soon after they lit the fire beneath her. That night turned out to be one of the worst nights of our lives, not only did we have the blood of a number of the villagers upon our hands but we were battered and bruised ourselves. We slowly made our way back to our secret valley helping each other along with Ghost and Beach carrying the hysterically wailing Fox between them.
We arrived just after the sun had risen over the mountain peaks and it wasn't until that moment when we were finally safe that I realised something was terribly wrong.
Flint slumped exhaustedly against the wall of the hut and as he did so I noticed that he had streaked the wall he leant on bright red with his own blood. His face went an strange grey colour as I gently removed his hand from his side and I could she the blood oozing through his t-shirt were he had been stabbed. Panicking I stood up to shout for assistance but as I did so Flint grabbed my hand and yanked me back down so that I was kneeling next to him once more. I have to get help I told him as I tried to free myself from his grip. But he shook his head and told me that it was over, he looked up and behind me to the spot where Rage had just appeared and their eyes met for the briefest of moments as Flint asked him to take care of China for him and as Rage nodded unable to speak Flint shut his eyes and took one final shuddering breath".
Epic paused as he felt the teardrops prick his eyes and a lump of despair well up in his throat.
He looked up and away from the motionless girl, just outside the door Rage and China stood completely wrapped up in each other and totally oblivious to everything else. Rage reaches out to cup her delicate face with his hands China gently bites his thumb in a gesture that is both innocent and yet passionate. Epic looks away as they kiss reminded of another time not so long ago…
"The hardest thing wasn't burying Flint or even acknowledging that he was dead it was explaining what and happened to China and because Rage couldn't make her understand or believe what he had told her he did the only thing he could think to do. He led her over to the place where we had laid Flint and made her kneel down next to him and then he took her hand in his own and held it as she touched his now cold body, running her hands lightly over his familiar face and finally resting her head upon his bloody chest to see if she could feel his heart beating or the vibration of his rib cage as he breathed, it was the only way, it was also the most tragically moving thing I have ever witnessed.
For a while it seemed as if our grief would tare us apart, but together and each of us in our own way we made it through our darkest, most despairing hours. We consoled ourselves in any way we could, Ghost slept by Flints grave each night, Rage and China became inseparable each too afraid to let go of the other in case something else terrible should happen. Beach, Snow and my brother poured all of their energy into helping Fox, the girl we had killed for, whom Flint had died for and me I found solace and comfort in Scalds arms, in her bed although our passion was fuelled by our grief and desperation.
Today was the first time any of us have left our secret paradise since that fateful night. Cross and Beach needed to escape, to forget, to move on. We had this strange goodbye, all of us a little afraid of what lay outside. As Scald hugged them both I became suddenly afraid that they were leaving for good. China paused after hugging my brother and slid her hand gently inside the hood of the sweatshirt he always wears to cover up his scared face and chest, she took down his hood before kissing his scarred cheek and stepping out of his way so that he could leave. Before he and Beach entered the caves he turned, looked back at us and covering his face once more stepped into the darkness.
I knew the minute they returned with you that they had killed again I didn't need to see the haunted look in Cross's eyes or the blood upon Beaches face. Seeing the sores and the braces upon your legs I know that you were this way before the virus and it makes me wonder why they fought for you, why they brought you here and who or what they saved you from.
But most of all" Epic finished quietly. "I wonder who you were and who you are going to be".
THE END