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"The seed of the prophet shall sit the throne and drown in flame the mountains of man…"
Zachary Hale Comstock
—
The Prophet
The world is desolate and barren. It is everything Joseph hoped for, and everything he feared. His eyes water as he takes his first step into the sunlight after seven long years in the concrete bowels of his salvation.
Joseph's legs are weak, they cannot hold the weight of his reality and he crumbles. His Shadow, his hair shirt, ever silent, is judging him with hard eyes; he can feel it even though he cannot see it under the carved weight of the Shadow's mask and the recesses of his hood.
Seed raises watery eyes to the man before him, looking up from where his body was forced to kneel, he pleads to the albatross like a supplicant, like all the disciples (-sinners-) who once came (-were brought-) before him.
"Take me to The Eden." The Prophet says (-pleads-) to him. "Take me to John's Gate."
For a long time the Shadow is motionless, pinning Joseph to the ground with his eyes, with the endless weight of his judgement. Until finally, he looks away, takes one step, and then another, and Joseph is pulled along in his wake.
—
The Seed
From the airwaves came a miracle. One man's voice, choppy and rough, gritty with distance. It raised something within her, an old memory long forgotten, that made the nerves in her spine buzz and the hair on her arms stand tall. It reminded her of the scent of Angel's Trumpets and fresh washed linen and the three months she found herself in the wrong man's bed.
A child had come from their entanglement, dark haired, dark eyed, but with features close enough to the father's (or even the Father's brother) that Megan thinks, 'Maybe, just maybe.'
She looks over the basement squalor she had been sharing with her son these long four years, and to the tiny emergency radio the boy was enthusiastically powering with its hand crank.
The voice of Joseph Seed stuttering through the channel. "- N- Ede- Sur- ."
New Eden . Megan stares at the road atlas and trails her fingers west. New Eden . Megan thinks as she stuffs a backpack full of food and another, smaller backpack with clothes.
"New Eden." Megan says to her son as she leads him over cracked highways to the land of his conception, to the cult she had once escaped from. "That's where your daddy is, they'll take us in. They have to."
Megan has a plan, and for the first time in years she whispers bible verses under her breath, she hums the old hymns and remembers. She remembers a time of long hair and white dresses, a time when she had Faith.
—
The Convert
She remembers the day the (-bastard-) Father returned to the Gate. She remembers the hushed awe that overtook the crowd as the heavy metal door slid open and Seed stood backlight by the light of the setting sun. She remembers Peggy Lee and Josiah Star falling to their knees at her side, tears spilling over their lashlines and down their pale cheeks. She remembers the cacophony that rose out of it, a sudden and overwhelming exaltation that sprang out of the Gate Guards mouths and settled into unhinged joy. She remembers the way it traveled, from level to level, until even the foundation was shaking.
She remembers the way the fast twitch muscles in her body said Run and how her brain, and the deep seated memory of Bliss whispered Stay.
It didn't matter though, what her body did in the end, for the Father descended into the bunker, pressing hands to shaking shoulders, blessing kisses upon the brows of babies wild-eyed mothers thrust at him to hold, until he stood in the pit of the missile silo, the walkways and doorways weighed down by his faithful until the rusting metal under their feet groaned at the excess.
"My beloved family." The Prophet spoke, his voice echoing around the concrete walls, rising and bouncing until they hit her ears in the highest part of the rafters.
"Seven long years have passed since the Reaping, since the battle of good and evil and our triumph over the demons of the world. It is time for us, once more to step into the light, to claim the earth that God has given us, to live, to grow, to thrive. It is time for us to have our paradise. It is time the Gates have opened, it is time for our New Eden!"
The screams of joy reached for new peaks, and the woman could not help but get caught up in the chaos, her voice adding decibels to the shaking roar, even as her heart pounded and her palms grew sweaty against the rough sackcloth of her skirt.
Across the long divide, on the opposite walkway across the gaping mouth of the silo stood Kitty Harris, and though her mouth was open, joining her voice to this cry to the heavens, Kitty's eyes when they met hers were full of fear.
—
The Survivors
Hope County was different without Mary May in it, Jerome thought to himself as he brought the final pull of whiskey to his lips. The bottle set down against the Spread Eagle's countertop with a hollow echo, and the sigh that passed Jerome's lips was just as empty.
"It's not the same." Kim Rye sighed, "No Casey, no Mary May, what's even going to keep this place open?"
"Memory and location." Jerome guessed, rubbing his finger along the rounded spout of the whiskey bottle as his eyes followed little Carmina Rye as she explored the shelves behind the bar.
"You think someone else will take it over?" Nick asked, fingers scratching an inch in his slowly graying beard.
Jerome nodded, "Wheaty, most likely, with how he was helping Mary May out these last few years. The place belongs to him as much as it does anyone. Our people still need a meeting space, somewhere local, somewhere known where we can pass along information, to just spend time with each other, pretend we're still a community."
"Your church-" Kim said, even as the wince of memory added a twinge to her voice.
The pastor couldn't help the bitter smile that crossed his face. "Won't do. To many memories, to much….connotation. We need normal, we need a place that can be for the community without bringing back the memories of the Reaping."
Nick nodded and sipped his drink. "We'll need to find more of the old moonshine stills, see if any are still intact enough to use, or hell, even to scrap and bring into town."
"Mary May was furious her stock had gotten so low." Kim wiped at her eyes, trying to hide the thickness clogging her voice. "She kept asking me if I managed to find enough for her wake. She kept saying she didn't want a dry funeral."
It was there that she broke, tears streaming down her face, falling onto the scratched wooden bartop, joining in with the misery of the rest of the mourners who filled the old booth seats and high topped tables, who came to say goodbye to one of the bravest women they knew.
—
The Hunter
Palme Navabi had been a Whitetail once, had joined Eli's militia back when it was more a hunting club than a group of gun enthusiasts. She stayed in it though, even when it shifted because she loved the sense of community it gave her. Loved how it helped keep her grounded after the cancer stole her grandmother, and the hospital bills stole the rest. Eli was good like that, more than willing to offer a warm meal and a safe bed, until a person could get back on their feet.
It was that same reason that had Palme living out of the back room of the old hunting lodge their club rented yearly, when the first word of the Seeds trickled its way up the mountain. She remembered being bemused at the time, hearing that a newly founded religion would be setting up shop in their neck of the woods. How odd that they would choose such a remote location, such a hard to access temple.
"It's a cuuuullllt." Will Baker sing-songed as he loaded a slice of bread with jelly.
Eli rolled his eyes and finished scooping grounds into the coffee pot, ignoring the pile up of hunters behind him. "I'm not saying it isn't and I'm not saying it is. That church bought its land fair and square, and as far as the government cares, that means they can do on it as they like." He paused then, watching a stream of liquid drop from their percolator. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep an eye on them."
The assorted hunters nodded and made their grunts of agreement.
Three weeks later, Eli met Jacob Seed on the grounds of the old Elk Jaw Lodge. It was a friendly enough meeting, Eli confided in her, for all that the man was loaded for bear.
Five weeks later, Eli made his first report to the law enforcement of Hope County, raising his concern at the fact that Jacob Seed had too many guns. Which Palme knew, coming from a man with the second amendment cross stitched on a pillow in his living room and who believed every man, woman and child should have at least two firearms, too many guns really meant too many guns, and maybe there was some basis to the steady rise of unease that swept through the hunting club whenever Eden's Gate was brought up.
Three months later Eli's little club of hunters turned into a club of preppers, then into an actual militia instead of just a pretend one, and suddenly it seemed as if they had a few too many guns as well.
They needed them though, in the end, six years after the Prophet had shown up in their mountains.
—
When the bombs fell there were a lot of Whitetails who ended up sheltered in the hollow space of John's Gate, a lot of Cougars too. It was odd, Palme had thought half a year into the lockdown, when the Platters, no longer had a hold on her every waking moment, and the memory of Jacob's rough voice no longer crawled up her spine, that even after his siblings had fallen, Joseph still snatched up the lives of those who had fallen under their sway.
He had ordered them to be secreted away in the bunker his Peggies had only just managed to pry back from the Resistance mere days before the bombs fell. For those converts to be hidden and kept safe with his true believers. In the end, when the bombs fell, they were nearly a quarter of the population. Seventy six children from infant to late teens, who had been locked safe in the bunker since the start of the Reaping, the fifty five young mothers and expectant women who did not pick up a gun, and the 213 men and women who did.
There were eighty six resistance members among those numbers at the start. Eighty six men and women who fought, and killed, and lived in fear while the Seeds toyed with their minds, poisoned them with Bliss, extracted confessions and secrets and freewill, until they were but hollow zombies chasing Bliss, or screaming YES to the sky, or fighting, fighting, always fighting just to get away from it all.
There were eighty six residents of Hope County among the Peggies at the start. That number would fall as the years wore on and the memories caught up. There were forty six when Joseph came back. Forty six when the man who stood in the preacher's shadow looked up into the bunkers rafters and recognized familiar faces.
—
The Father
It had not been easy. Traveling south to John's Gate, and then again to the land north of the Eden's Gate Compound. It had not been easy to transport a vast group of people, who had been starved of food and sun for the same seven long years that Joseph too had suffered, They had grown weak with it, the waiting, just as he had, though they had grown stronger too. Stronger in their faith, in their bonds with each other, in the number of children who ran about underfoot.
New leaders had risen through the ranks in his siblings' absence, men and women who had shown promise before the Wrath of God scorched the earth, and who had stepped into the empty spaces left behind.
Nancy Allenburg had taken over in John's absence, putting her long years of work directing the law enforcement officers of Hope County to use. She had stepped in to fill his brother's shoes, nearly as soon as word of his demise at the hands of Wrath had reached Joseph's ears.
Just as Daniel Stone had stepped forth to scrape together the remnants of Faith's Garden, and led them and what supplies they could ferry from the Henbane to the depot station in the Valley.
It was due to their leadership, and their faith, that Joseph had a congregation waiting for him when he finally breached those long shut doors to the missile silo. It was their faith and trust that fueled the strength of his speech, and drove their exodus through the wilds to the land that God had promised them.
With his hands on the helm, a new temple was erected, homes, buildings, and store rooms. All crept forth from the land, each echoing in their form the many armed stars of Eden's Cross. Around New Eden a wall was erected to protect his people from the sins of the world, and for four years they lived in peace.
But it was not enough. Even in their peace there was something lacking and well... The Lord doth hate idle hands.
The Lord had provided him with his own burning bush. The message appeared to him in a dream, as all the directives of God did, but it was different this time, purer, stronger, more demanding.
"Go North", said the tree of fire, "Find me," it insisted, as its branches stretched out across the blue watercolor sky and leaves of molten prayer sprung from its many fingers. "You must go North."
It was those words, Joseph found himself repeating, eyes flicking out to the many gathered faces who watched him with trusting eyes. It was those words that the same group cried back at him, his Faithful, scrambling on their own to find supplies and maps and to plan to venture into the irradiated Whitetail Mountains, through the rampantly growing fields of Bliss, and the monsters that lurked in those tall trees.
It was his judge who stood firm at his right shoulder, looming behind him, as his eyes flicked behind the flat white face of his mask and his breath rattled against the wood with each rough exhale.
Eleven years with Lazarus by his side and Joseph still felt the stomach-souring weight of his gaze, of the judgement in those hidden eyes.
—
It took a year for his people to clear the debris damming the river, to clear away the worst of the encroaching Bliss flowers, to create and install troughs of oil that could be lit from afar to clean up any new flower growth and to allow the pollen laden air to be purified and breathed again without any lasting detriments.
It took a year for the Faithful to reach the old McKinny Damn, the seat of Jacob's old armory, and for Joseph to look up the tall mountain cliff and know he had nearly reached it. Had nearly arrived at the place the Lord had promised him.
"I must go alone." Joseph said to his followers, the most faithful of them all, who had fought through Bliss and darkness to deliver him to the base of the dam. Who had labored with him for twelve long months where Joseph, to his shame, had left behind the heavy gaze of his penance, and forged north without his Shadow by his side. Where he will be forging north again, ever so slightly, without the scour of that judging gaze.
For three days he labored, climbing rough deer paths, hauling himself up sheer cliff walls, tearing the skin of his hands until the beds of his fingernails were as bloody as the skin of his palms.
When Joseph reached the top of the mountain he could see the crystal clear waters of the dammed lake sprawl out before him, hear the gentle buzz of a passing dragonfly, the echoing crash of the water overflowing through the dams cracked lip. He turned and to his right was a tree wreathed in a fiery crown, the sun so perfect in its position that the scraggy branches of the tree aligned with its rounded edges, silhouetting the tree within that flame-hued burn.
Joseph took one step, and then another, stumbling on blistered feet as prayers fell from his cracked mouth. "My God!" He cried, "I have found it, I have found you, I pray, tell me! Tell me what you sent me here for?"
But the world remained silent. No voice spoke to him as it would in his dream, no angels appeared from on high to deliver further messages. Joseph stepped forward, struggling to balance on the rough terrain of the tree's visible roots, the thick interwoven wood grasping at the leaf mulch of its own shedding.
The sun burned Joseph's eyes, and with his hand against the dry bark he was forced to blink away the sunspots until finally his vision was clear and he could see -
Death.
The tree bark was dessicated and brittle. Its branches were little more than kindling awaiting a spark. The highest bows to the lowest branch were empty of leaves even in midsummer.
But this was the tree. This was the tree the Lord had promised. Had he taken too long? Was he not supposed to clear a path between New Eden and the tree? Was this a message meant for him and him alone, but by trying to bring New Eden with him had he missed it?
Tears bit at his eyes, stinging saltily at the wind chapped skin of his cheeks. His knees crumbled beneath him and he fell, landing heavily on his wrists. His hands clasped together and he prayed.
He prayed on bended knee until his joints went numb and then hurt and then numb again, until his mouth became paper dry and the words creaked from his lips like the wind through the dead branches above him. He prayed until his eyes went dark, and then, only then, did the Lord speak back.
A single image. A mask laid at the base of the tree.
—
Joseph returned to New Eden, silent to the questions and pleading of his Faithful. He stepped from the boat into the water and from there into the town. He ignored all voices calling his name, he ignored his son as the boy stepped up to his side, he ignored everything until he reached the southernmost gate and the hunters that crowded around it.
He stepped up to them, hand reaching out, splaying flat, his eyes skated up until they reached the carved black holes of a face he has never forgotten and the word that trickled from his mouth was as strong as he could make it. "Come." Joseph demanded.
He turned and walked. His Shadow followed.
—
It was just the two of them who returned North. Just the two of them, as it should have been from the start.
Though, the reason why Joseph had not brought the Judge along at the start soon made itself quickly known.
The Bliss, though burned back from the edges of the river, is still heavy in the air. At midsummer, the flowers shed pollen in thick blankets. Yellow spores touched down on the fast moving current of the river and were swept into it. Those which hit a solid surface, clung to it until it too was painted a buttery yellow.
Joseph had long been immune to the plant, had Faith inoculate him and his brothers until even the most potent of exposures left them with little more than a pleasant buzz. The same could not be said for his Shadow.
The man had been lost beneath the flower's potent hold since they passed the southernmost watergate. Curled in the bottom of the boat, still and quiet, not even twitching when Joseph spoke to him, or prodded at his shoulder with the soft leather of his boot.
It proved...difficult, to ascend the dam. Near impossible at some points, to convince the man to climb the sheer cliffs even with the complacency the Bliss produced. Not that Joseph could blame him, not really. Twelve years gone, and the man was still wearing the damages of the past. They all are, though each in his own way.
They rested at the crest, watching the last traces of sunlight fade beneath the peak of a distant mountain. Joseph scooped up water from the lake's edge and drank it down before taking a second handful and dousing his face. When he wiped away the remaining water, he spotted a looming reflection, a form ever over his shoulder. His eternal penance. He forced himself to his feet, joints protesting after hard days of travel and he crossed the short distance to where the man waited at the shoreline. He reached for his Shadow, hands pulling away the layers of leather and cotton until the man stood naked but for the painted wooden mask.
"The Lord has marked you for great things." Joseph said to him, voice calm and gentle, like one would use to speak to an animal, a fearful child. The same tone of voice that Faith swore worked best when breeding complacency within her Angels.
He placed his fingers upon the mask and curled them under it so that the skin on the back of his knuckles brushed against the stubble of the other man's jaw. He lifted the shaped wood with care, baring a pale chin, the start of a scar, the darker red of lip-
NO.
No, he can't.
He can't do this, can't peel away the final barrier between himself and his sins. Joseph's hands stuttered and shook and he flinched away, hands pulling in tight to his chest.
"C-come with me, child." Joseph said instead, as he stepped on the lattice roots of the tree until he was standing beside the girth of its trunk. Bliss drunk, the man followed, swaying as he stopped, head tilted slightly to watch the Father, as soft and gentle in countenance as he ever was deep within the grasp of Bliss during those long months in the bunker.
Joseph swallowed, steeled himself, and reached out, pulling the mask down until it sat properly on the other man's face, and then placed his left hand on the man's shoulder, turning him slightly and pushing him backwards so that his spine rested against the tree.
"Just one more time, my Lazarus, I need you one more time."
The man doesn't see the knife in Joseph's hand. Doesn't know what struck him as the blade is pulled free of his spine, and his body fell backwards and then down against the tree trunk.
He knew it though, when he was left to bleed out, to water the roots of the great tree.
The Shadow knows it when he dies.
—
The hours of the night passed at a snail's pace, there was little beyond the muffled slap of water against the shoreline and the high pitched buzz of a mosquito. Joseph had spent endless hours kneeling before the great tree, knees soggy with the blood damp dirt at its roots, mouth moving endlessly in a series of prayers with no basis, just words spilling forth from his lips as though his tongue has been given a mind of its own.
Joseph does not see the sunrise, though he can feel the warmth of it on his face, as the celestial rays chase away the chill of a summer night. He remained kneeling, praying, until the tone of his eyelids changed from black to grey to red, and then finally, with great effort, he opened them.
A crumpled body, slumped against the trunk of the tree. Joseph raised his eyes higher, over the bowed head of the slumped figure, and looked up up up into the branches and the budding hints of pink flower, where not even a day ago was nothing more than dead wood.
"Thank you, Father." Joseph's words come out as a sigh, as a sense of relief so profound moves through his body it was like his joints collapsed upon themselves and he was unable to move, unable to pull his eyes away from the gently swaying branches, and the slowly growing buds, until the sun is high in the air.
On the second day, the body remained motionless at the tree's roots. The small buds had bursted into full grown flowers, bees had been making their drunk meanderings around the vibrant pink petals, lemon yellow pollen collecting on their long legs and black stripes, until the bees too, are nothing more than flying puffs of yellow dust darting between flowers and hive.
Joseph broke his observance only twice, to stumble to the edge of the lake and take in clear handfuls of water. Even then, when his mouth was full of sustaining liquid, his mind could not break from the endless chant of prayer.
Lazarus rose on the third day, coming to with a gasping breath as the sun breached the horizon. He stood on shaking legs, half leaning against the tree his sacrifice gave life, and he stared at Joseph, who waited, in supplication, on his knees.
"On the third day, he rose again." Joseph muttered, face raising from the clasp of his hands towards the body stumbling for him. "You have fulfilled God's purpose."
Joseph rose, hands clasping at Lazarus's arms, holding the taller man captive, pulling him towards him in the frenzy of his speech. They came to a halt intertwined, Joseph's hands sneaking around the man's neck and pulling down until their foreheads touch, skin against smooth wood. "You have delivered unto us our salvation."
Joseph held the man until, with a grunt and a rattling breath, the Shadow managed to pull away. Stumbling past the preacher towards the shore line, he crumpled in the shallows, mask tilting up to bare scarred lips that sucked down mouthful after mouthful of water, until he sat up suddenly, gasping roughly, in a spreading cloud of pink water that carried away the dried blood of his last death.
The masked face turned towards Joseph, hollow and blank, breath rattling raggedly against the polished wood. Joseph swallowed back his own disgust, hid the tremor in his hands as those eyes turned and met his with scrutiny.
"I did what I had to do, my Child." Joseph said, voice placating, case weak outside of the court of God.
A chest deep rumble, like the growl of a wolf, escaped the boundaries of the mask and Joseph subsided, arms held wide, palms flat, begging forgiveness, promising peace, and demonstrating defenseless hands.
"The world is harsh, and we are imperfect people. The Lord, He spoke to me, He showed me the way to make our people strong, to ensure our path on this earth. Look! Look!" Joseph flung a hand toward the tree, where the flowers had gone to seed, and the smallest forms of rounded fruit grew in their absence. "Your sacrifice was never in vain! You rose again, just as you always have, my Child, please! Judge me as you like, if you must judge me at all, but know why I did it, for whom!"
The man rose from the shallows and stood in knee-deep water. Even now, skin and scar bared to the world, the man remained an intimidating form, though in ways so much lesser than the first time Joseph had laid eyes on him, across the creaking floorboards of the old white church where he held the final sermon before the End. The one called Lazarus raised a hand to the white plane of the mask and he tilted it up off his face, slowly revealing the mistakes of Joseph's pasts and the dead, hard eyes Joseph prefered hidden from the world.
This Shadow looked at him, judged him, and Joseph was found wanting.
—
The Resistance
One would think, twelve years after a cataclysm that more would change in the world. That society would alter itself, would shrug off the trappings of the old and work to come together, to be more than the petty squabbles of the past. One would think, one would hope, and one would be disappointed.
Palme Navabi, one time Whitetail, unwilling graduate of the school of Jacob Seed, and over a decade long resident of New Eden, couldn't find it within herself to be surprised by the rift that had formed within New Eden upon the Father's return from the North.
A part of her was surprised really, that it took so long, that rebellion had not gained traction in the Father's seven year absence, nor in the face of his return, nor upon the arrival of the woman, Megan, who claimed to have borne the bastard son of the Father.
But no, it wasn't any of those things. It wasn't any of that at all.
The Father returned from the North with his shadow in tow, seven days after the two had made their journey up the mountain and in his hand the Father came bearing a single rose hued apple. As soon as the whole of New Eden had managed to gather, Joseph stood before the pulpit from which he delivered his sermons and he spoke unto the crowd, holding the apple high, "This Apple! This Apple of Eden will help lead us into the future, a future where those who have been able to partake of its flesh, shall know they have been blessed by God himself! They are the rightful chosen, who will stand before the gates of Eden and keep her gardens safe!"
It is at this point within Joseph's speech, that Palme finds her attention wavering, that even the sheer passion, and incitement of the crowd cannot keep her eyes from roving. They pass over the woman, Megan, thin and ailing, overtaken by radiation and mere days from the grave. She looks at the son, Ethan, fourteen and hungry in the way of a youth. The boy cannot pull his eyes from the mottled red and yellow fruit in his father's hand. Cannot hide the desire and longing in his eyes.
She looks to the Father's Shadow, even now lurking behind Seed's back, everwatching. She sees the mask tilt, sun breaking through the deep holes and glinting over the eyes beneath. She can tell he is watching the crowd, not Joseph, as the gathering before him turns into a mass of joy at the Father's proclamations. The Faithful fawning at his words, the Faithful who sing out "praise be!" and "blessed day" from ruby lips.
Palme can tell when he sees the others, the ones like her, who stand tight mouthed at the edge of the crowd with twitching fingers and shuttered eyes.
She can tell the moment he decides it is time to test their faith.
—
They have never hid themselves, the Survivors of the Resistance; Whitetails and Cougars and those out of Holland Valley, it's hard to, when they are the ones who watch the world with wary eyes, with caution and distrust, the ones who had violence written into the marrow of their bones in musical notes.
They had been taught to distrust the world and the word of the Faithful, for all that they are part of New Eden too. For all that a part of them wishes to desert, to go to the survivors who made their way through the apocalypse without Eden's Gate, it is hard to return to a world that no longer exists, to return to a group and a place you no longer belong to. Sometimes, it is easier to just let some things play out to their natural end. To the death of them, as it were.
The Father's Shadow seemed to know this, for all that they were a blank form beneath the mask and swaddling leather. They were one of them once, Palme thinks, Resistance. Before they got worn down by time and Bliss and whichever Seed had their hand on them.
It is why, at the end of the day, when Joseph calls out to the remaining Chosen who once served his brothers and sister and to his own most trusted Faithful, that the Shadow collects the Survivors to his side. He does so without resistance, sliding effortlessly through the crowd that parts for him like air around a plane's wing, he calls them, the men and women with hollow eyes, by simply crooking his fingers, until in the same thoughtless way that a pond grows algae, slowly and then all at once, they have collected by his side.
The Shadow leads them away from the worshiping masses, from the cries of joy and surprise that start up as soon as the Father tells them to plan a trip North, to partake in the apples and become beings of the divine.
The Shadow leads them from New Eden, into the deep forests, where the wood is marred with old memories of fire and their building projects have not yet logged the timber. He leads them to a wooden longhouse, the walls half built, but the firepit well used, and it is there that he presses rough carved bows into their hands, presses a hand to the center of their backs, firmly between the blades of their shoulders, and presses them forward, presses them out, presses them back into the wilds of Hope County, that Jacob, Faith, John, and Joseph, that all the Seeds had stolen from them.
It was The Shadow who gave them back their freedom, and for that, they gave him their loyalty in return.
—
The Faithful
Before the bombs fell and before the long seven years, Enoch had been Joseph's most trusted Chosen. That hasn't changed really, even when Joseph returned to the flock with a snake hidden in his shadow.
Enoch knew the man hiding in the Father's light, knew the man who hid bloodied hands under a white mask. Had seen him tear through the ranks of the Faithful enough times to know him viscerally by the line of his shoulders, his imposing height.
So when Enoch asked Joseph what happened on his second trip North and got a truthful answer on return, one not colored by the religious jargon used to keep the masses of Faithful in check, well, Enoch couldn't find it within himself to be surprised when the Apples of Eden offered change, and that change made monsters out of men.
The Eden Tree bore poisoned fruit after all. How could it not when it was weaned on the blood of the Heretic?
—
It is not long before the people of New Eden start to call him the Judge. They had seen the way the Shadow had stared down the Father and the few returning Chosen upon their arrival from the North. They had heard the whispered stories that those same Chosen had shared, of the monster hiding in their souls, of the wrath-filled being who contested their way to the Apple's Gifts. Of the pale faced beast with hollow eyes who drug the unworthy from the path of righteousness.
They can't call him the Shadow, not any longer, not since he and the Father returned from the Miracle in the North. Not since Joseph has taken his Chosen to sup on the fruit and only a few of them returned.
They can't call the Shadow a shadow, when he stops fulfilling his one designation, when he starts to move against the body he followed.
—
The Child
Something is wrong with Father, that much is obvious, even to Ethan's young eyes. The Judge is no help, the few times Ethan manages to track him down, seemingly uncaring to the changes in the prophet, simply shrugging and waving off any attempts the boy makes to speak to him about it. To bring attention to the dullness in the Father's eye, the listlessness, the missing sense of purpose. The Judge does not care that the nightly sermons fall flat, that whispers have been making their way through the compound, whispers that the Father is sick, that the Father is dying . That the Father will be leaving them all ( alone).
Ethan can't stand it. Can't stand it at all, the disloyalty and the rising fear of the unknown, of his people untethered. He cannot stand the waver in the faces of his brethren as they look out into the vast wilderness and see the horrors lurking within it, nor the rising fear that without the Father to guide (to guard) that they will be abandoned to it.
Ethan is eighteen when he realizes adults, even God touched ones, do not always see the world through unclouded eyes.
He is eighteen when his father ascends the pulpit and delivers one last sermon unto his people. He is eighteen when his father leaves them, no - deserts them for the North.
In one day he is eighteen and a child, and then he is eighteen trying to be a man.
—
"I am worried," Ethan confesses to the Judge twenty eight days later and the first time the man has returned to New Eden's embrace since the Father left. "We are losing cohesion, our people- without Father- without his guidance- there have been disagreements. And I - if they get too heated, if they cannot be solved, I fear New Eden may start to splinter."
The Judge merely tilted his head, white plane of the mask catching the orange light of the fire, the two stood side by side in the early evening. After a long moment, after the long silence did not prompt Ethan to say more, The Judge flicked his hand through the air dismissively.
"No." The boy said, reading the intention behind the motion through long years of practice. He could not help the concern welling up like sour fruit in his stomach, "I fear they won't be able to solve it themselves. I think there will come a time when they need a firmer hand to guide them to the right solution."
The Judge sighed, the air hitting the mask in an aggressive sounding rumble.
Ethan took a breath and tried again. "Father left you in charge, he trusted you to lead the Faithful in his stead, we need you here not out in the woods!"
The Judge shook his head and brought his hand to press to the center of his chest before flicking that same hand dismissively across his chest towards his left shoulder.
Ethan froze, for a long moment he could not comprehend what the Judge was telling him, even as his brain replayed the action over and over again in his mind.
"You do not want it?" Ethan repeated incredulously. "You don't have a choice, Father named you leader! He trusted you to see our people to glory in his stead…"
The Judge held up a quelling hand, turning to look down on the smaller man, he raised one gloved hand and pressed a single finger to the boy's chest.
You. The Judge said, if you want it, then you do it.
—
The Hopeful
Her name was Carmina Rye and she was born on the day the world ended. Not that she realized this, of course, as an infant in warm arms, cradled safe and close to her mother's chest as the woman ran to their bomb shelter and screamed curses at God and fate and pleaded to the ether for her husband to return before the fallout reached them. He did, barely, with clothes stained with blood, scent thick with Bliss, and blue eyes haunted.
Carmina wouldn't know that she was born on the day the world ended until she was five years old and she overheard her parents talking about grass and sun and one more year, and she forced them through sheer childhood tenacity to finally answer her questions about the door they could not open, and the mysterious unknown that lay beyond it.
That would be a defining memory for her, the first time her parents talked to her about The Deputy, their Rook, who delivered them safely to the doctor after a harrowing car chase and protected them with all his might and would have been her Godfather, were it not for the bombs that stole him away (just like everybody else).
At five years old, Carmina didn't have a world for the uneasy feeling that story gave her. The knowledge that her birthday aligned with the day everything broke, the day people died by the millions, and life on the planet changed beyond all recollection. She didn't have a word for it at five, but she did at fifteen. She had a word and twelve years of birthday memories, and she knew that day was cursed.
You see, the earliest memory Carmina has is that of her mother crying behind a closed bathroom door, while small twists of paper burned down, scattering ashes on the small cupcake her father had made her for her third birthday. She remembers the strain in her father's smile, the unnerving sorrow in his eyes that had nothing to do with memories of the life before the bunker, before Carmina, before now and everything to do with the rush of blood down her mother's leg, and the knowledge that there would be no baby to join them in six months time.
Her birthday was no better at eight, when her parents spent the night screaming at each other. Blaming the other for something Carmina felt deeply, but never fully understood. Or at twelve when her birthday coincided with the news that Mary May had finally succumbed to the cancer that had been dwelling inside her for years. Or at fifteen when the Highwaymen came and stole away both her home and her father.
Her birthday is still a cursed day now at seventeen when Carmina steps out of the walls of Prosperity, with an assault rifle on her back and the promise of salvation, a piece of paper burning, folded tight and kept carefully in the pocket of her jeans.
At seventeen, Carmina Rye leaves the safe embrace of Hope County and goes in search of a savior.
—
The Promised
The bombs fell when she was eight. Falling up and down the coast like the sparks off a sparkler on the fourth of July. Leaving poison and death in their wake. She was lucky to live where she did, in a tiny seaside vacation trap outside of San Francisco.
The bombs boxed them in, but didn't wipe them out.
She remembered that it was a Wednesday because her parents were at work in the city, and she had gone to stay with the neighbors after school until her parents came home. Which was fine, really, since her neighbor Mila was her very best friend in the whole entire world, and Mila's abuelita made the best after-school snacks, and they could play until the streetlamps came on and her parents drove down the darkening streets after a long day away.
Everything was normal and safe and so so forgettable that Wednesday until sirens pierced the air and Mila's dad was rushing out the back door to grab them both into his arms and run just as fast back into the house, to the basement, where he tucked them against a concrete wall, draped blankets over their forms and wrapped himself tight around them until the ground stopped shaking and the world had gone silent, but for the shaking breaths of abuelita.
The girls did not leave that basement until the sun had risen and set and risen again, and Mr. Rush had taken careful steps out into the street and down the debris strewn roads to see the damage for himself.
Sequoia's parents never came back. They died like all the others, in a city they never called home. It took her a long time to believe it, to stop looking out the front window into the street outside the Rushs' house and accept that her parents would not be driving down it, apologetic and full of so much love.
The bombs stole from everyone, she never forgets that, even when it would be easier to blame people for their cruelty without knowing its source.
The bombs stole normalcy, stole innocence, stole family and friends, and livelihoods. It gave livelihoods too, to those who were willing to work for it, to fight for it. People like her, like Thomas Rush, like little Carmina Rye.
It made her angry when the vultures came out and came to prey on the hard working communities who eked out a living from irradiated soil. It made her hate gangs like the Highwaymen long before she ever met them, long before they ever attacked her family, her way of life. Hating is so easy, it's living that's hard.
—
The Highwaymen attack the train because of course they do. The bombs go off and then there is fire and bodies and bodies and bodies. Bodies and wreckage and Sequoia can do nothing because she is trapped under the weight of it all, and she needs to get free, she needs to do her job, she can't lose her family (-again.-)
And it's her family who saves her, Rush and Garret, shoving the heavy weight of metal shelving and stocked containers off of her legs and pulling her to her feet. It's Rush who presses a split scissor shank into her hands and presses one warm hand to the back of her neck. Affirmation, a physical check up, and iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou in one five fingered press of a hand.
He arms her up and sends her forth, and Sequoia Matthews cuts a swath of red through a mass of pink and black.
It's payback, it's vengeance, it's everything her abuela warned her against, it's everything the bodies of her family, scattered through wreckage, deserve and everything short of what they need.
It comes to a stop though, as all things will, with her back pressed to the edge of a cliff, Rush at her side, Garret at his. It comes to a face off, with her and some twins, the leaders of this particular band of Highwaymen, the blond haired and braided Mickeykey and Lou.
They bark like dogs, even as Garret begs and Rush negotiates and Sequoia waits, spring coiled with blood crusting under her fingernails. All that talk means nothing though. Garret still takes a bullet to the head, Rush a gun stock to the face, and Sequoia ends up going over that cliff at her back.
Two hands pull her out of the water, but all she can think of is the man who pushed her in.
—
Judgment
The first time Sequoia meets New Eden the moon is but a sliver in the sky, barely reflecting enough light to brighten the space between the trees enough for them to navigate. Or well, enough for Carmina to navigate, her hand clasped around Sequoia's, pulling her noisily through the underbrush.
It's late enough at night for them to be feeling the strong desire for bed, for their thick soled boots to feel heavy, and the effort of stepping carefully and quietly to have deserted all but the staunchest woodsman.
Which is why it surprises them so when a deer comes bounding straight through their path, the pale pelted animal passes within feet of them, an arrow pinned to its flank.
"Jesus!" Sequoia curses, her tongue turning the word into something exotic, even as she startles backwards, taking Carmina with her.
In the time it takes for them to settle their feet, a figure bursts through the brush, bow and arrow in hand, and bowstring pulled back before releasing forward with a vibrating twang . The deer cries out, far to their right hand side, falls hard to the ground and lays silent.
The figure turns to them, nods once, and steps off the deer path to follow his quarry.
"New Eden." Carmina whispers to Sequoia, hand clasping tight with fading fear at the sudden shock.
The other woman lets out a shuddering breath, before releasing the younger girl's hand and shaking the tension out of her arms. "Wait a second, okay?"
She steps off the path and follows the hunter into the woods, following the near glowing beacon of his pale hooded shirt.
"Excuse me, hi," She says, as she steps around the kneeling man, and pauses at the other side of the fallen deer, where they can each see the other without having to crane their necks. "I'm Sequoia, I have a question or two if you don't mind me-"
"Go ahead," the man says, pulling a knife from his belt to slice the deer's jugular. Sequoia winces and looks away, focusing over his shoulder as he works.
"I-uh, I was part of a group coming to Hope County on a train, there was an explosion about four days ago...and I - the Highwaymen that is."
The man looks up and nods once, solemnly. "I am sorry about your people. Their loss was unnecessary."
"Thank you," The Captain swallows, "I know there were some survivors, taken by the Highwaymen who ambushed us….Have you, or any of your people seen where they might have been taken?"
The man pauses long enough to take a breath, the kind of breath, Sequoia knows that one takes before delivering bad news. "I'm sorry, no. My people don't travel that far west, and the Highwaymen haven't established themselves northwards enough to have outposts near The Eden."
He wipes his knife clean and pulls a length of rope from his belt, starting to weave it between the deer's hooves. "I can ask the other Hunter's to keep an eye out. Give them your name and your description so that if we find anything we can deliver the news."
"Thank you, I appreciate that."
The man nods, flicking a blood wet finger towards the white expanse of his shoulder. Embroidered into the rough cloth, is the dark outline of a lioness' head, sharp and minimalist like the mascots she could remember from school.
"Look for this mark or anyone wearing a buck in the same place." He says, "They won't mind speaking to a sinner like you."
It's the way he says sinner that takes Sequoia aback, less like an accusation than a joke that's lost its humor.
He stands then, pulling the trussed deer up over his shoulders and settling the bow in his hands. He nods once at Sequoia, then steps away into the woods and darkness.
—
Prosperity smells of bitter smoke and gasoline. The yard is littered with bullet casings and spots in the grass where mud bloomed from the introduction of blood. Somewhere, back towards the grand entryway to the lodge, a child is crying.
Sequoia feels cold. Feels cold in a way that had become familiar to her since the crash of the train. Feels the cold in her hands, in the adrenaline shake of her fingers, in the tight lock on her throat that steals away her words and replaces them with silence and fear.
Fear. Fear for herself. For Rush, newly returned to her side. For Carmina and Kim. Fear for the people of Prosperity, who were through kindness and decency, winning her heart in a way she had never allowed the other communities they had helped.
Sequoia feels cold, and for the first time, she feels like maybe she is in over her head.
"When I retired from being a soldier," Grace Armstrong says as she takes careful steps around the overturned grille, avoiding the charcoal briquettes that hid hot embers beneath white crusts, "I told myself I would never have to see a town laid to siege again. That returning to America would put an end to that kind of violence, that I would leave it all behind me in Afghanistan."
Grace snakes an arm out and squeezes the Captain's elbow in a firm grip. "I didn't realize I was lying to myself. I thought that I was safe, that the government and the old soldiers like me wouldn't allow things to ever fall so far in our own country…"
Her lips purse and she turns, eyes a milky white from cataracts but still good enough to find Sequoia's face. "It was foolish, I suppose, but we were all fools back then."
"You couldn't have known." Sequoia says, the words strained as they squeeze from her too-tight throat.
"True." The woman sighs, "We didn't know then, but we do know now. We have to destroy the Highwaymen, Captain. We have to burn them out at the root so that they can never come back. We have to do it to them, before they manage to do it to us."
The old woman squeezes her elbow one more time, to ground or to persuade, the young woman can't tell.
"Tell your father that we can't just rely on tall walls."
The woman walks away before Sequoia can deny her.
—
"What about that group in the North." Rush says, his eyes finding Sequoia's even as Kim jumps to her feet to deny him. To put a stop to that line of thought with a vehement "No!"
"Who else is there?" Rush says, voice calm to an unfamiliar ear, but the Captain can hear the stressed waver beneath his words. He takes a step closer to draw the group together, to keep this exchange of words from being heard by unwanted ears. He is limping slightly, no blood to be seen, so it must have be the wound from the mine acting up.
"I've seen them." He says, "they attacked the camp I was being held at one night. Just two of 'em. They tore the place apart, took enough bullets between the two to slaughter a whole squad. They were unstoppable, must have been doped to tge fucking gills, but they were unstoppable, Kim."
A hand swiped across his mustache, a sure sign that he was about to say something distasteful. "We need what they have."
"We know what they have!" Kim hisses. "Joseph Seed terrorized our people with it long before the world went to shit! I won't have him, and I won't have his Bliss near my family. Not again. Not ever."
"Bliss? Like those flower-" Sequoia starts to say, but Carmina jumps in over her.
"The Captain met one of the Hunters, he seemed okay."
Kim's head snaps towards her daughter, her mouth pulling down into a deep from. "When? Where?"
"A month ago or so?" Sequoia pipes up, placing her hand on Carmina's shoulders and giving a girl a fortifying squeeze. "We were on our way back from the old Baptist church where the bear guy was holed up."
"That's too far south." Kim mutters, hands crossing tight across her chest. "They don't come that far south!"
"They do now." Rush jumps in, "They've moved south, and they've moved against the Highwaymen. We need allies, and they are able, hell, they may even be willing. We have to take the chance."
"This chance ," Kim snarls, "is going to ruin us. You'll have no support from any of the old guard if you go that route. Keep it in mind."
She pushes past them, stormy faced, and Carmina cuts a worried glance towards the older girl before following after her mother.
Rush sighs out. Hand rising to wipe away the gleam of sweat on his forehead. Sequoia steps towards him, hovering at his side, waiting for the decision she knew he would have to make.
"I don't think we have a choice, chica ."
Sequoia nods. "There's bad blood between these people, Rush. And I don't….I don't think we really understand it. Carmina's tried to explain it to me, Grace hinted at it, but…I don't know if i'll ever really get it."
"You're right." He sighs, wrapping his arm across her shoulders and drawing her close." You're right, and that's the problem. But it doesn't stop the fact that we need them. That we need what they have. Can you… can you head North? See if you can treat with them? Find out if you think they'd be willing to fight together, or at least provide us with whatever drug they've got that turns them into Rambo?"
Sequoia nods and steps away. She walks until she finds the old Pastor, She waits until he has finished blessing the bodies of the dead and steps back to wipe the oils from his hands.
"Jerome," She says, and her voice doesn't waver, doesn't finch at the sight of five faces that will be joining the others in her dreams. "Do you know where to find New Eden?
—
To the Captain's surprise, Jerome accompanies her north. Helps her straddle his old motor cycle then climbs on in front of her, pulling her arms to wrap tight around his bullet proof chest and guns the engine so that they are racing down old mountain roads with the green of leaves and the yellow of grass flashing by her eyes.
The Pastor drives for hours, past the burnt-out husks of rusted automobiles, past roadblocks and sniper perches, past the pink-tagged walls of Broken Forge and The Pantry, until he brings his bike to a halt at the edge of the Henbane River.
"I don't like this." Jerome says as he eases the key fob back, and the bike's engines fall quiet.
For a long moment Sequoia's ears ring with the sudden silence. The man likely babied the bike for years, but it still shows its age in the avalanche-like rumble, and the squealing way the brakes sound when pressed.
Sequoia stumbles as she swings herself off the seat, butt and legs gone numb from the endless vibration of the motor. "Everyone keeps saying that. Like repetition is going to make Rush change his mind. Trust me, I've known him since I was four. It won't." She says wryly in return even as she tries to shake the feeling back into her lower half.
"I mean it, Sequoia." Jerome says, voice firm and steady it always is, whether he was asking for the salt shaker or telling someone they would be bleeding out before long. She can't help but admire his consistency.
"Joseph Seed is a snake." Jerome says, even as he cuts his eyes across the tree line, looking for a place to stash his bike. "He takes, and he takes, and he will keep taking until there is nothing left of you."
He swallows and pauses in his search, before turning to her and pointedly catching her eyes. "We've lost so many. I don't want him taking you too."
That's the thing about the world now. Everyone is missing someone and missing them profoundly, like a hole bored deep that will never be filled in, gathering misery like dust until it is a quicksand-crater of grief. No matter what settlement, no matter what people, anyone who was old enough to remember the Time Before carries a pitted soul.
Jerome's soul is more pitted than most. For all his steady cadence and smoothed edges, he carries the memories of who he lost in the silence that follows after his words. As if every press of consonants and vowels is wasted without each of those missing ears to hear them.
"I don't know if I'll ever understand it, this- this history between Prosperity and New Eden." Sequoia says with a sigh, her fingers rising to brush wind blown hair from her brown eyes.
"Honestly, I'm not even sure if I want to. And that's not - that's not to say that whatever grief you have isn't valid. I'm sure it was, - is even. But Jerome." Sequoia reaches out, taking his hand in her own and squeezing it tight, so that she can feel the grain of his calluses through her thin gloves, and the warmth of him, palm to palm. "New Eden isn't your enemy anymore. Mickey and Lou, all their pink-clad assholes...Those are the people we need to fight. That's who our enemy is."
Jerome presses his lips together, so hard that they turn pale and bloodless. He stares at her for a long oppressive beat. "Alright." He says finally, "Alright." And then he turns from her, dragging his bike back into the woods and stashing it under the boughs of a great pine tree before stepping back to her side, shotgun in hand, red incendiary rounds shining brightly from the loops of his ammo belt.
"Lead the way."
He has never called her Captain. She can feel the hollow, missing space of it at the end of every sentence.
—
Once Jerome and Sequoia cross the river, it is an easy trek to New Eden. The dirt roads carefully maintained as if to speed their pilgrimage. Even with the weight of Jerome's warning, there is a sense of safety that comes with being on New Eden's land. A sudden, and startling lack of Highwaymen presence; there are no graffitied cars, no distant thump of music, no spray painted white eyes to regard their every move.
For the first time since the attack, Sequoia feels like she can breathe without fear choking back her lungs.
Yet there are eyes on them. There is no doubt about that. Jerome had signaled her, not ten minutes past the water's edge that he had spotted movement in the woods. Following his gaze, Sequoia saw them too, the quick flashes of white hooded shadows that track their progress from the woods. The bow hunters who follow them down the well kept roads to the high wooden walls of their township. Sequoia can feel the weight of their gaze upon her back, as she approaches the great walled city of New eden and raises her fist to knock.
A viewport in the door slides open, revealing a white masked face. In the dying light of the setting sun, Sequoia does not realize that it is not her that those hidden eyes fall upon. It is not her face which sends the being's mind into a sudden, stuttering denial. It is not her, but the pastor at her side, who causes the Judge to slam the viewport shut.
Sorry for the absolutely abysmal turn around time of this fic you guys, it was a struggle from start to finish. I completely scrapped the first attempt at a chapter and had to reevaluate how I wanted to handle things. That first attempt at a chapter, will be poster shortly, as a stand alone, incomplete fic, titled Carmina & The Captain, for all it didn't end up working as the opening chapter to Forged, it still is a great look at what the two girls got up to in the meantime, and does count as aSitV cannon.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and those to come. I can't wait to hear your thoughts, so please drop a line!
You can also follow this story on A03. Find me under the name Pavuvu