Author's Note: Like my "Earthling" trilogy and its other side projects, "Cataclysm" is set in that imagined timeline (an amalgamation of the Battle Story and Chaotic Century) on the day of the meteor event in ZAC 2056, as seen from my three main characters' perspectives. You don't need to have read the trilogy to read "Cataclysm," but it's strongly recommended.
This trio of stories took me four years from beginning to end to complete, and are meant to stand together instead of separately. I hope you enjoy them. Reviews, or even story seeds that you think might tickle my fancy, are all welcomed, appreciated, and responded to!
DEDICATION
For jdoug4118
Words fail me to express my gratitude
PHOENIX
Grit
"Come out to the barn when you're done with lunch, alright? Heinrich may as well come, too. We'll need your help today to finish bundling the last of the wheat. The transporter should be here in a few hours to pick it up, so we need to hurry."
Phoenix paused, the serrated knife in his hand hovering in midair from where it had been about to cut another slice of bread. "I'd help you guys out," he said casually, "but I promised Cass I would take a look at one of their sheep this afternoon. Seems to be favoring its front leg."
Mama looked sternly at her eldest son, who was maintaining an impressively neutral expression, though there was a bit of a mischievous light in his bright green eyes, too. "Is that so?"
Phoenix nodded solemnly. "It's important to be a good neighbor," he said. He then cut into the loaf of bread with gusto, carving himself a thick slice and plopping it onto his plate.
Heinrich was watching this exchange from the foot of the table with interest. His eyes, very nearly as shockingly green as his older brother's, were wide. "Can I come see the sheep?" he asked.
"Excellent idea, darling," Mama said immediately, to Phoenix's chagrin. "Take your brother along then, Phoenix. Maybe you can teach him some of your 'talents' at animal medicine." Her wry look indicated that she was only slightly buying his excuse.
Phoenix sighed. "Alright then." As he spread a healthy amount of butter on his bread, his keen mind swiftly went to work, plotting how to ditch Heinrich without getting into trouble.
Papa came into the room just then, donning his wide-brimmed hat. Such precautions were always necessary; the midday sun in summertime could be merciless, even when blotted out with cloud cover as it was today, and every member of the Standhaft family save Mama had very fair skin. "Try to leave some of that bread for the rest of us, eh?"
"I'm a growing boy," Phoenix retorted, his mouth full.
"So am I!" Heinrich added.
"Yes, yes, but there are four people in this household, not two, and Mama and I work hard at baking every loaf."
"And your efforts are duly appreciated."
Mama smacked Phoenix with her dish towel, but the expression on her face said that she wasn't all that mad. "Both of you come out to the barn when you're finished helping Cass."
"Sure thing," Phoenix agreed easily, though he had no intention of doing anything of the kind. Papa waved, and he and Mama stepped out the door and into the yard.
"Eat up." Phoenix popped the last of the bread into his mouth. "I want to get going soon, too."
"Will you teach me how to help animals?" Heinrich asked eagerly, nibbling delicately - and agonizingly slowly - at his toast. "What's the sheep's name? What will you do for its leg?"
"So many questions out of such a tiny person!"
"I'm not tiny! I'm almost as tall as you!"
"Maybe in ten years. If you're lucky."
"Not true! Mama says I'm going to be even taller than you are."
"The only chance of that ever happening is if you eat your food, little man. You'll need all the good nutrition you can get if you're going to have a chance of turning out like me." This did the trick, and the six-year old dug in, polishing off not just his bread, but his cheese and apple slices, as well.
Phoenix dropped their dishes rather messily in the sink, figuring his parents would be working in the barn for so long that he could just wash them later, before they returned. "All set?"
"Sheep time, yay! Does she have a name? If she doesn't, can I name her? What do you think is a good name for a sheep? Woolly? Fluffy? Sheepy? Daisy? Bluebell?"
"Shush just a second. You're not coming to Cass' house with me."
"I'm not?" Heinrich was crestfallen.
"No. You're going to do something even better."
"I am? Like what? What am I going to do?"
"You'll see. Get your hat and come on."
"But what about your hat?" Heinrich asked, scrambling to fetch his own.
"Oh, I don't really like hats."
"Really? Why? Don't you hate sunburns, though? You get sunburns too!" Phoenix grabbed his little brother's hand and led him firmly out the door. Together they headed towards one of the wheat fields. "What are we doing here?" the boy persisted.
"Shh. Listen."
Heinrich stopped in his tracks, listening hard. "What?"
"Don't you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
Phoenix put his hand up to his ear. "I think Klaus is calling you."
"He is?! I told him to stay put in our room today! Why is he out here?" Heinrich was clearly quite agitated to discover that his imaginary friend had disobeyed orders, but perhaps even more than this was curious as to why Klaus would have done such a thing.
In inspecting the condition of the farm's fences the prior week, Phoenix had decided a break was in order and gone exploring a bit in the forest beyond the property's edge. Not very far into the thick wood, he had discovered an enchanting little pool of water that he knew Heinrich would adore. It seemed magical even to him, which meant Heinrich, lover of all things fantastical, would be able to play happily there for hours. Phoenix had meant to bring him out to see it himself, but using it as an excuse to not bring him over to Cass' was the next best thing.
Still pretending to listen carefully to some far-off voice, Phoenix added, "It sounds like Klaus is trying to tell you that he found a little pond where fairies live."
"Fairies?!" Heinrich's face lit up. "Where? How do I get to it? What is Klaus saying now?"
Phoenix "listened" again. "He says if you go that way through the wheat to the fence, keep going into the woods, then turn left at the crooked pine tree, you'll find it."
"Yay!" Heinrich darted off in the indicated direction.
"Have fun!" Phoenix called. Heinrich raised a hand in acknowledgment and was soon lost in the tall wheat stalks, their heads nodding lightly in the breeze.
The farm was quiet now. Phoenix smiled to himself, appraising with satisfaction the motion of the cloud cover above; perhaps the sky was going to clear this afternoon, after all. Better yet, there were no witnesses to be found in the still farm around him to spot him departing sans pesky brother. He ran a hand through his attractively mussed russet hair, and set off down the dirt road to the Lindens'.
-.-.-.-
Cass was waiting for him.
"Hey, Phoenix," she said, all soft limbs and shy smiles.
"Hey, you," he replied affectionately.
The Lindens' sheep were fine. Phoenix was not here to help the sheep.
He studied her familiar, heart-shaped face: the pale gray eyes, the glossy black hair. She hadn't changed much since childhood, except to become even prettier. She and Phoenix had been friends since they were toddlers.
Just friends.
Today, he was hoping that would change.
Phoenix had never lacked for girls who were interested in him; the puppy love crushes had begun in year three or so, and continued on in number and seriousness as time had gone by. He had always been tall for his age, something the females around him seemed to appreciate, and both his flaming red hair and ethereally green eyes were unusual traits not often found in the Zoidian population at large. His family's facial marking, too, was unique: most others had linear marks on their chins or a cheek or below an eye, but his, a red semicircle with rays extending out of it like a rising sun, was positioned just above his right eyebrow. No small number of girls in Schönberg had gotten into their parents' face paints at one time or another and dreamily drawn a similar marking above their own eyebrows, just to see how it would look.
It wasn't that Phoenix had never been interested in any of them. He'd exhibited mild curiosity in others from time to time, and had been caught behind a barn or in a secluded corner of a field more than once with whomever had temporarily caught his fancy. But these dalliances did not last. Always, in the end, he found himself drawn once more to Cass. The two were dear friends, yes, but so much of her was still shrouded in mystery, and he longed to peel back those layers of who she was. It wasn't just hormones driving him, then, but a fascination with that which he had not yet had the opportunity to discover.
Over the last few months, he had been consciously cultivating his friendship with Cass, subtly preparing it for, he hoped, a step forward. More young women had been disappointed as Phoenix had single-mindedly devoted himself to this task, and today he was going to find out once and for all if Cass shared his feelings.
She had been expecting him; they had arranged to see one another today specifically because her parents and older brother were out of town. Phoenix had not dwelled on this point too much so as not to arouse her suspicions, but perhaps she was more on the same page than he'd thought. She seemed unusually awkward today, in fact, and he took this as a promising sign.
"Want to see our new lamb?" Cass asked him, interrupting his ruminations. "Bluebell is usually very protective, but you're around so much I bet she'll feel comfortable with you."
So he had come here for ovine matters, after all. He made a mental note to tell Heinrich later that the Lindens did, in fact, have a sheep named Bluebell.
"Sure."
He followed Cass to a small grassy area near the barn with several animal pens. Inside one with a three-sided shelter in its corner were Bluebell and her newborn.
"Aren't you a lovely wee thing?" Phoenix cooed at the shaky, knobby-kneed youngster. It looked over at him and gave a tiny, happy bleat. Bluebell nudged it with her nose.
"He likes you!" Cass was beaming.
"Your lamb's got good taste."
"Yes, yes he does," she agreed with a playful smile.
"He obviously knows a quality man when he sees one," Phoenix continued imperiously. "In fact, he may even be wondering how his mistress could possibly do any better."
"Phoenix!" she laughed.
"Cass." Something in his tone made her turn to him. He was regarding her seriously now, and her gray eyes widened slightly, perhaps in recognition of the shift that had just occurred. He paused a beat. "Do you think you might...would you ever..."
He stopped talking then, because she was slowly raising her chin to him and closing her eyes, and he understood this for the obvious cue that it was. He lowered his head to kiss her softly on her beautiful lips.
It was perfect. Everything was perfect. She was kissing him back, she was placing her hands on his shoulders, she was standing on her tiptoes, she seemed to be enjoying this as much as he was.
He broke off after a moment, to give them both time to breathe.
"Cass." There was so much happiness in that one word. He was grinning so widely his cheeks hurt.
She was smiling back at him, her face bright and joyous and perhaps a little bit lusty, too.
He leaned forward to kiss her again, but before he got there, her face had suddenly contorted into abject terror. Her mouth gaped open in a silent scream.
He jerked backwards, deeply startled by this turn of events. Had he done something wrong?
And now she was screaming, her eyes focused somewhere above and far past him. She raised a trembling finger to point. Phoenix swung around. His breath died in his throat.
The clouds had cleared enough to reveal not just the sun but, opposite it, the moons, pale little droplets lingering stubbornly in the gray sky well past their bedtimes.
The moons.
There were only two.
Streaming out from where the third, De, ordinarily would have been was an impossibly massive, deadly blossom of debris, its vast arms stretching nearly all the way across the sky. Even as Phoenix and Cass stood there, staring and dumbstruck, the lunar remnants were catching fire in Zi's upper atmosphere and hurtling towards the ground. Towards them.
One meteorite slammed into a nearby tree, knocking it clear over and setting it on fire; another landed about thirty feet away, kicking up a huge plume of dirt and clods of grass.
More were coming. More meteorites than there were stars in an endless night.
There was no time left.
"Run!" Phoenix yelled, grabbing Cass' arm. There were no other hiding places within short sprinting distance but Bluebell's shelter, and so together they ran towards it, vaulting the pen's fence and then diving under the flimsy structure. They crouched there breathlessly, as Bluebell pranced and snorted with terror, herding her lamb into the furthest corner as though this, this action of all things, would protect her youngster from the horror plunging from the ashen sky.
Countless shuddering impacts shook the ground beneath their trembling limbs. Phoenix kept his face close to Bluebell and her lamb, breathing in their warm, clean animal smell as the air around them all darkened and became choked with flying dirt and dust. He pulled Cass closer to him - purposelessly, for he could not shield her any more than Bluebell could her baby - and struggled to think of a plan. Where would they be safe from the meteorites? What structure or geographical feature could possibly provide sanctuary from the violent hell raining down upon Zi? His brain sputtered along, nearly short-circuiting on the flood of adrenaline and the surrounding roar of collisions, collapsing edifices, snapping trunks, hungry flames. A cave? That was all he could think of: a cave, and even though he knew full well there weren't any caves for miles around, this was the very best his shock-addled mind could muster. For no water could safeguard them, no cliff, no forest -
His breath ceased completely.
Heinrich.
Heinrich was all alone in the woods outside of their family's farm.
Infinitely worse than the knowledge that Phoenix's own fiery death could come at any moment, with absolutely no warning, was the icy knot of fear for his brother's safety.
He didn't know what he could do to help, to keep Heinrich safe - no caves - but Phoenix knew that he couldn't stay here. He had to try to find Heinrich, try to keep him alive even though Zi itself seemed to be breaking apart and it was unlikely Phoenix would even be able to make it home.
Cass had been screaming almost non-stop since they'd gotten under the shelter, her eyes squeezed shut, but now she was simply sobbing from sheer terror, clinging to Bluebell for some dim vestige of comfort. Phoenix squeezed her shoulder and she jumped, startling the sheep, who bleated fearfully and would have bolted had Cass not had her arms wrapped around the frightened creature's leg.
"I need to go!" Phoenix shouted, but he was drowned out by a particularly apocalyptic-sounding thundering in the distance.
"What?" she cried back, swiping tears from her eyes. Her face was already covered in dirt, and her nose was running profusely.
"I have to find my brother!"
"You can't go out there! You're crazy! You'll die!"
He shook his head, gesturing to the world out beyond the low roof of Bluebell's shelter. It was getting harder and harder to see anything at all, so thick and choking was the flying dust. "We're going to die here, too, if a meteorite hits. You think this little roof is going to keep us safe?"
A meteorite the size of an apple smashed into the ground some hundred feet away just then as if to emphasize his point, its diminutive size belying the enormous wave of dirt and grass it sent flying through the air. The lamb let out a squeal of terror as he dashed away over a now-broken section of fence and into the brown fog. Bluebell bleated immediately, fruitlessly summoning him, and finally broke free of Cass' grasp to run off, too. Her distressed calls, further and further away, could be heard in the short moments when the thundering crash of meteorites ceased.
Phoenix gave Cass one quick, tight hug - a wordless farewell, for he didn't know if either would ever see the other again - scanned the sky beyond the shelter in hopes of finding a clear path back to the road home, and darted out.
He found his way to the opposite side of the pen, using its far corner to orient himself towards the front of the property and the road beyond. His eyes roamed endlessly: up, down, sideways, seeking dangers in all directions, but he simply couldn't spot every potential threat in time.
The next meteorite couldn't have been any larger than a corn kernel, but its sheer velocity gave it tremendous power. Phoenix only just raised his arms in time to shield his face as the fence beams he had been about to vault over were obliterated by the tiny projectile, exploding into a shower of splintered wood. Hot shards bit into his flesh but there was no time to stop; scarcely had the battering of his forearms ceased when he was already looking upwards again, seeking the next hazard: what it would hit and where it would land.
In chaotic fashion, he eventually made his way to the road. It was nearly impossible to see ahead of him beyond a few feet, and there was much to stumble over: holes, rocks, fallen trees, and a mess of debris. It was only the familiar sensation of the dirt path beneath his boots that proved to him he was in a well-known locale at all: much of the elegant rows of namesake linden trees that normally shaded the road leading from Cass' farm to Phoenix's and from there on to the rest of the village had been bludgeoned to bits, the trees' fallen, fractured trunks slowing his progress as he picked his way through the remnants of their once-resplendent branches. Fires dotted the area all around him, the ground quaked so viciously at times that he lost his balance, and the crashing, the shattering, the very violence of the onslaught assaulted his ears relentlessly.
He journeyed on for what seemed like hours; with the sky obscured by clouds of kicked-up dust through which only the feeblest gleams of sunlight could pass, it was impossible to tell what time of day it was anymore. He could do naught but wearily soldier on - arms bleeding, eyes flying in every direction, dirt on his tongue, crouching to survive a nearby collison, or being knocked off his feet by Zi's convulsions - and was sustained by an endless, sickening flood of adrenaline alone.
He did not know how long he had been traveling thusly, exhausted nearly to the point of collapse, nearer still to the point of an indistinct sort of apathy towards his own survival, when the thudding impacts of meteorites around him seemed to slow, and then, after another long and unknown interval of time, finally ceased.
All of Schönberg fell silent at once and Phoenix stopped. His ears rang with the cacophony they had endured for the last several hours, days, years, who could know? He realized dully that his chest was heaving, that his mouth was choked with grit, that his arms had finally stopped bleeding, perhaps because their wounds were so stuffed up with dirt that they had effectively already been clotted. The skin over his left torso burned; why? He must have hurt himself somewhere along the way. He didn't have the energy to look down and deal with that particular concern at the moment.
Breathing came with difficulty. The unnatural brown fog of airborne debris was still thick around him, clogging his needful lungs. He rubbed his stinging eyes; this just made them hurt more. Were they watering from all the irritants or was he weeping with sheer terror and exhaustion? He knew not.
He stood there, gasping deep and ragged breaths, dazed with all that he had just somehow survived, unsure of what to do. Though a strange wind had picked up, blowing yet more detritus into the flesh of his legs and arms like tiny needles, the air was weighty and uncomfortably hot. Were his parents alright? Was his house still standing? Could Heinrich have possibly lived through a moon falling? Where should he even begin looking when he could barely see, barely move his deadened limbs, barely breathe?
Was he the last living being on Zi? Was there anything left that hadn't been destroyed?
He could not dwell on such possibilities right now.
Phoenix sat down. He was tired, so very tired, and this space he now found himself in, cozily tucked between the fallen trunks of two linden trees, was the perfect place to curl up and rest until he could decide...decide...something...what did he need to decide? He stupidly licked his lips; they were covered in grime and he reflexively spat this bitter filth onto the ground. His saliva was dark brown, just like everything else he could see in the small bubble of ominous fog within which he was ensconced.
He rested his head against the lifeless bark of one of the trees and tried to close his dirt-crusted eyes, to let the weariness take over for awhile, but ironically it was above all the abnormal silence that would not allow him any rest. The silvery linden leaves should have been whispering their thanks to the zephyrs ruffling through them. Cows in distant fields should have been lowing greetings to one another; countless birds should have been hidden in a shaded canopy overhead, warbling tunes that would dance in the dappled sunlight.
But there was nothing, nothing but a hot, fell wind faintly blowing, bearing with it a miasma of fear and suffering and violent ends.
Phoenix shakily returned to his feet. He needed to find Heinrich and go home, to whatever was left of it, because Mama and Papa had surely already thought to do the same and were out of their minds with worry for their sons, and because remaining in this hellish, sightless limbo was more than his burdened mind could bear.
He shuffled forwards once more, slowly and carefully picking his way through the tree limbs, fence posts, shingles, bricks, stones, and everything else that littered what had once been a peaceful, shaded path. His every nerve, utterly spent, nevertheless tingled with urgency to find his family and get back to the familiar safety of his home. But he remained mindful and deliberate, knowing that injuring himself further would only delay what he most desired.
The wind blew, and his ragged breath, as well as hope for what he would soon find, kept him going, kept him alive, and he made his way through the swirling darkness. How strange and distant his earlier fanciful thoughts from when he had last traveled along this country lane seemed now! Once upon a time, he had strolled through the shade, hoping to win a girl's heart. Had life ever been so normal, ever been anything but this strange fog? Had sunshine and blue skies and green-clad trees ever existed outside of some long-ago and fondly-remembered dream? The ringing in his ears slowly subsided as he numbly contemplated these questions and ventured through the rubble.
Duck under the uprooted tree listing dangerously overhead.
Climb over the rock.
Detour around the crater with the fire burning in its center.
He was on autopilot, so far lost in his own ruminations that the silence melted away entirely.
And that was when the screaming began.
Phoenix jerked his head upright at this sudden injection of sound. Someone else was alive! And not very far ahead.
"No!" That single, shrieked syllable was the most powerful statement of agony he had ever heard. He hastened forward, towards the sound, stumbling and scraping his knees and palms for his troubles.
"No, no, no! Come back! Please, come back!"
A dim form clad in white came into focus through the fog as he approached: a woman with long, royal blue hair. She was kneeling on the ground, holding...something. Phoenix drew closer.
It was another woman being cradled in the sobbing stranger's arms - or what was left of one. Massive amounts of blood stained the already-darkened earth around them. The figure's right arm and leg were shorn clean off.
Gone.
Phoenix nearly wretched at the ghastly sight of exposed sinew and bone. However, it wasn't so much disgust at the gore that affected him as it was sheer horror at how casually and randomly the poor woman's life had been snuffed out. The utterly indiscriminate nature of this death, of the deaths that had surely occurred for miles and miles around, was mind-boggling. He knew hers was not the last corpse he would find in the days and weeks to come. He closed his eyes as tears clustered hot in his eyes again.
The woman who yet lived must have noticed Phoenix approaching just then, for she cried out to him. "You! Please help! My wife, she...she..." She evidently could not finish her sentence, and all that she was able to utter any further was a strangled sob.
Phoenix hurried over and didn't so much kneel down beside her as awkwardly collapse to the bloody ground when his tired legs gave out. "I don't think she's..." he began in a rasping voice, but he found he, too, could not finish a sentence. Nevertheless, he gamely applied two fingertips to the injured woman's neck, below her jawline. He was not surprised to find that there was no pulse to detect. "I'm sorry," was all he could think of to say. In the face of the enormity of the stranger's suffering, of the suffering happening everywhere, those two small words seemed almost impossibly meaningless.
"No," the stranger whispered, her whole body shuddering with grief. She started rocking back and forth as though her dead wife were a baby being lulled to sleep. "Please, no." She rested her forehead against her wife's temple and wept quietly.
Phoenix longed desperately to return home. Before, he had somehow managed to ignore the possibility of what he might find there. Surely, Heinrich had found someplace safe in the forest to hide and was now making his way back to the farmhouse. Surely, Mama and Papa had cleverly avoided the meteorites as he himself had done, and were eagerly awaiting welcoming their two sons back. But faced as he was now with what was left of this stranger's wife, he was no longer so sure. Every part of his body would protest, but he simply had to get back home and see for himself what the meteorites had wrought.
Still...
He creakily lurched to his feet and looked down at the stranger bent over her spouse, tarrying with indecision over what he should do. That was when he noticed the enormous gash on her shin. It was not only the dead woman's blood seeping into the dust. "You're hurt!" he exclaimed.
The blue-haired woman looked down at the copious amounts of blood issuing forth from her own wound. "Oh..." was all she managed to say. She seemed utterly dazed.
Phoenix yanked the tattered remains of his shirt off and clumsily returned to the ground once more. "Let me see," he said, but he didn't wait for her reaction; he simply drew her leg out from where it had been tucked beside her, and examined the cut. It was quite large, running more than half the length of her lower leg, but thankfully not especially deep. There was, of course, quite a lot of dirt clotted in it already, but not enough to stanch the blood. He bunched up his shirt and pressed it down on the cut, applying as much pressure as he could without hurting her. "This should help for now, but we need to get you someplace safe where we can clean it up and have you elevate it."
The woman blinked at him silently, as if only now genuinely registering his presence for the first time. Her face was as filthy as he imagined his was, aside from the tracks of tears that had meandered down her cheeks. Beneath her left eye, he could just make out a facial marking in a cobalt blue as bright as her hair.
"Do you have someplace safe to go?" he prompted gently. "Can I help in some way?"
"My Gustav," she said cryptically, turning her head, seeking it through the fog.
"Is it still functioning?" Phoenix asked, although he was far from certain even such a famously hardy Zoid could have survived the meteorites. And even if it had, its tracks would be insufficient to navigate the waste-strewn path the road had become.
"I - I don't..." Her voice faded.
Phoenix tied his shirt tightly around her shin. "Come on," he said, standing again and holding his hand out to her. "Let's go see."
She seemed reluctant to let go of her wife's body, but eventually she placed her gently on the ground and allowed him to help her up.
She was wobbly on her feet and could barely stand. Phoenix put her arm around his shoulders - thankfully she was only a couple of inches shorter than he himself was - but even walking with her injured leg favored, she was even slower than he had been in his state of abject exhaustion, and groaned in pain after traveling only about fifteen feet. They had gone far enough, though, for her nearby Gustav to have come into view through the endless swirling eddies of dusty fog.
Phoenix did not need perfect atmospheric clarity to see that the poor creature had not fared much better than the stranger's wife had. He stopped and allowed his companion to take in the crumpled shell and painfully dented metal, although, he noticed, the cockpit had miraculously escaped the destruction almost completely unscathed. As with the one tree he had passed earlier, still standing tall and healthy amid great numbers of its downed comrades, the utterly capricious nature of the meteorites' trajectories was on display once again. But sadly, an intact cockpit was not enough: telltale glimmering shards spilled silver over the earth near the Zoid's left tracks, leaving no doubt that the unfortunate snail had already perished. The woman's vivid blue eyes took in the scene without a word, her lips pressed together into a thin line.
"I left it for only a moment when I saw Küste get hit," she finally said after several seconds' silent appraisal.
"A moment was all it took, really." Phoenix looked down at her leg. His shirt was drenched with enough blood that it didn't look like it would be able to absorb much more. "Do you live nearby? Your wound needs better treatment than I can give you out here in this...this..." He was at a loss for words to describe their fog-choked wasteland.
"I'm a transporter," she said. "I was here to make a pickup. I don't really know anyone in this area."
He had figured as much. "Why don't you come with me, then? My home isn't far from here and I can help you with your leg." But she was already shaking her head.
"I can't leave Küste. I just can't." Her arm slipped from around Phoenix's shoulders and she slid back down to the earth. Phoenix couldn't tell if it was from pain and exhaustion, or perhaps from giving up entirely.
He crouched down beside this sad stranger and put his hand on her shoulder. There was substantial muscle beneath her warm skin. Strength.
"I think Küste would want for you to get through," he told the woman softly. In truth, he was saying this as much to her as to himself. For some reason, no meteorite had ever fallen where he had been currently standing. He had made it through the disaster alive for a reason. It was his responsibility now to survive.
She looked at him with tear-filled eyes and then wiped them all away with one filthy hand, leaving a small streak of clean skin beside each eye. "You're right," she said at length. "I think that is what she would want. But I can hardly walk. I'll only slow you down."
Before Phoenix could respond, the terrible noise of screams, far in the distance, came to them on the scorching breeze. They both turned toward the sound. The screaming continued until the staccato of several gunshots punctuated the air, then all fell silent once again.
Phoenix stood and helped the woman up. "We'll make do," he said. "It doesn't seem like it's very safe out here anymore. Come on."
Despite all evidence to the contrary, his endurance had not yet been exhausted. Energized by the new unspoken dangers, he scooped the stranger up in his arms as he set off once more. "I don't think we're far from my home. Hopefully we'll get there before any unfriendly folks do."
The woman nodded, looking dazedly off into the distance at nothing and resting her head against his shoulder as he bore her along. Several minutes passed before she said, "Thank you...um..."
He grunted as he worked to right his balance after awkwardly stepping over a large branch. "Phoenix," he gasped.
"Hafen."
He nodded once in acknowledgment and she leaned her head back against his shoulder.
-.-.-.-
There was a specific tulip tree at the front of Phoenix's yard that he had been looking at through his bedroom window ever since he was a toddler. He would know its branches anywhere, and it was their particular contours, looming spookily out of the darkness many feet overhead, that told him they had made it back at last.
"We're here," he said, setting Hafen down and wiping sweat off of his forehead. His biceps were so far gone he could barely feel them anymore. It had been a long walk, at least as far as the passing of time was concerned.
They ventured carefully forward through the haze - as thick here as it had been on the path to the Lindens' - and Phoenix's eyes darted about, assessing the location and severity of the damage as each new tableaux came into view. He spotted nothing moving aside from a handful of localized fires, and heard no voices, but he pushed the meaning of such frightening omens aside. First things first: if the house was still standing, he had to get Hafen inside and tend to her leg.
He knew that the house was not especially far from the tulip tree, but as with all other travel since the meteorites had begun falling, it seemed to take ages to cover a short distance. But momentarily he was able to discern a large shape through the swirling fog, and knew that, somehow, by some miracle, the Standhafts' simple farmhouse had made it, too.
"Thank the stars and moons and heavens," he breathed. "Come on," he encouraged Hafen, who was wincing with pain as she limped along at his side, his blood-saturated shirt flapping wetly against her leg with each step. "We're nearly there. My parents will be able to help, too." He nudged open the front door and stepped into the kitchen. "Mama! Papa! Is Heinrich here? I'm back!" Turning to Hafen, he added with a small smile, "They'll have you good as new in no time. I can't tell you how many times my brother and I have gotten busted up, slicing ourselves to ribbons on fence wire, falling out of trees..." He trailed off.
The house was oddly silent.
"Mama? Papa?"
There was no response.
Hafen sat down heavily in the chair that Heinrich had occupied the last time Phoenix had been in this room, her face white.
"Mama!" Phoenix called again. "Is anybody here?"
There was nothing to be heard save the wind outside, its moans amplified by the windows that had already been open at lunchtime.
"They must be outside looking for Heinrich," he declared confidently, shutting and locking the windows against the dust they were blowing inside. "Alright then, let's take care of your leg here and then I'll go find them."
Hafen watched him silently as he moved about the kitchen, fetching a couple of dish towels from a drawer and some antibacterial ointment and dressings from a very high cupboard. "Phoenix," she said.
He paid her no mind and went to the sink with one of the towels to wet it. No water came from the tap when he turned the handle, however. "Pipe's probably busted. That'll take some doing to fix, but at least we still have the well in the yard." The pitcher of water from lunchtime was still on the table, so he dipped the towel in that, instead, then sat down on a chair beside the one Hafen had propped her hurt leg on and undid his bloodied shirt from her shin.
Despite his being shirtless this entire time, now was the first opportunity she'd even had to lay eyes on the enormous scrape on his left side, still dappled with a rash of gravel and grit. It covered at least half his torso, with an angry flush of inflammation spreading well beyond that she could see through the covering of grime. "You're hurt."
He looked down briefly. "Oh, this little scratch? I'm fine."
His tongue stuck out a little bit as he worked, Hafen noticed. As he wiped the blood from the wound, dried it, applied ointment, pressed two large gauze pads against it, and wrapped tape around her leg to keep the pads in place, she watched him, her heart heavy. It would not be long until he found out, and as he assisted her, his hands gentle and caring, she knew to the very depths of her soul that he did not deserve what he was about to discover.
"Phoenix," she said again, to no avail.
"Right then, that's looking a lot better. Let's get you to the sitting room so you can relax a little, and then I'll head out to find my parents and brother."
Hafen allowed herself to be helped to her feet, and he patiently led her down the hall to a small, cozy room with a fireplace, a comfortable-looking chair and loveseat set, and a tidy bookshelf stuffed full with volumes. Had it been any other day that day, one would have been able to view the fields of wheat rippling in light breezes through the windows, but now there was only the wall of brown fog and the glow of distant fires to be seen.
"There now, you just rest. I'll be back in a tick."
Hafen watched him go. When the kitchen door slammed shut again, all the events of the day seemed to suddenly close in on her at once, and she crumpled to the side of the chair, sobbing so hard she couldn't breathe.
-.-.-.-
It was difficult to tell, but the day of the cataclysm was, indeed, passing. The sky had been darkened by all of the earth and debris that had been dislodged by each of the countless meteorite impacts, of course, but as night fell, the impenetrable gloom that had lain heavily over the land now shifted, changed character. No moons nor friendly stars could reach their light through it to that troubled planet, and Zi descended into a total darkness.
Hafen's dreamless, restless half-sleep dissipated with the sound of the kitchen door opening and closing, and two deadbolts being thrown home. Phoenix stepped into the sitting room momentarily and she looked up.
Even in the dim illumination of the room's old-fashioned lamp, she could see that everything about him had changed. His face was ashen, his shockingly green eyes seemed almost gray, and his lips were pressed together so tightly it was as though he were trying to keep something inside from escaping. In the lamp's pale glow, he seemed to have aged twenty years in the hour that he'd been gone. A deadly seriousness had fallen over him, with no trace left of what had constituted levity in his aspect earlier.
"Did you -" she started to ask.
"How's your leg?" he inquired, interrupting. "Can I get you anything?"
"I'm - it's..." She swallowed hard. "The bleeding stopped."
"Good." He ran a hand through his dirt-flecked hair absently. "Let me get you a change of clothes. I'd offer you a bath but without plumbing I'll need to get water from the well, and it's too dark to really see outside anymore." Hafen nodded just as another series of staccato gunshots rang out in the distance. "I know getting around room to room will be tough, but I think for safety's sake we should put out the light. I don't want to call attention to the fact that our house is still standing and probably contains food and other necessities."
Hafen nodded again. "The screaming and gunshots we heard earlier were probably someone trying to defend their home from looters."
"Yeah. Our best bet is to lie low and hope no one sees the house if they're passing through the farm. I imagine it's everyone for themselves out there." He looked sharply out the windows as if expecting to catch sight of the hordes that were surely already descending upon them.
"Phoenix, you don't have to do all of this for me. I'm a complete stranger, I'm a nobod -"
But he simply interrupted her again: "Let me go see what I can find for you to change into."
-.-.-.-
The total darkness wrought a strange kind of blindness, where sounds were crystal clear, and halls and rooms through which Phoenix had trod his entire life became deceptively elastic, stretching and shrinking as the furniture and objects they contained shifted position and proportion. Phoenix bumped his wearied limbs a few times before learning his lesson and slowing down as he padded softly towards his parents' bedroom.
It was a simple enough task - retrieve clean pants and a shirt from Mama's dresser - and Phoenix tended to it with a single-minded, almost reverent devotion. But it was not easy, and not just because there was no light to see by and his body teetered on the edge of collapse. In truth, he was being hunted, and it took a keen level of alertness to keep himself hidden. For the moment his thoughts wandered, the instant his attention freed itself from the tethers of the present, the merciless visions found him again.
A hand, palm up, still attached to the rest of a body that was buried in debris and wooden beams that had once been the bones of the barn. The fingers curled slightly upwards as though reaching for some salvation. Phoenix had wordlessly taken them in his own fingers and held on, cherishing the final vestiges of warmth that remained. The callouses across the palm and fingertips spoke of hard work on behalf of others: choices and sacrifices made, dreams deferred or realized, all for the love of family.
Mama's face, too, hovered unbidden in his mind's eye like a stubborn spectre, her skin bearing an unnatural pallor she had never had while alive. Her green eyes, wide open and staring, mouth ajar in what had probably been a scream. But no sound issued forth from those lips that had kissed Phoenix's forehead a thousand times; she was dead, horridly crushed under debris, mere feet from her husband, a small fire burning between them both.
Phoenix selected what felt like a shirt from the drawer and knew that the memory in his mind's eye of his mother's face and his father's hand would accompany him to the grave. They couldn't possibly be gone - gone forever - when here were Mama's clothes, clean and neatly folded, ready to accompany her out on another day of hard work in the fields. Hadn't they all had lunch together only a short time ago?
Heinrich, too.
Phoenix closed his eyes and took a slow breath in. The world looked just as inky black whether his eyes were open or shut. Was it the dust and debris and the nighttime? Or was it only so hopelessly dark because Heinrich was still out there somewhere, alive or dead? Phoenix was afraid to nurture even a shred of hope that his brother had survived the meteorites, but hope endured in his heart nevertheless, a tiny flicker of light shining bravely through the darkness and dread. He didn't know which would be worse: the unknowing he suffered now, buoyed by hope yet sinking with fear, or the certainty of finding Heinrich's small mangled body somewhere out there in that unnatural, infinite gloaming.
These were questions he did not need to answer right now.
Phoenix retrieved what he assumed, from the hefty feel of the material, were his mother's pants she wore when working out in the fields, and tucked both them and the shirt under his arm. Thirty seconds' tentative steps brought him back to the top of the stairs, where his left hand managed to find the decorative wooden globe at the top of the bannister just before he would have gone tumbling down.
Instead, he sat down on the top step, resting his elbows on his knees and staring off into the nothingness. He did not want to go downstairs just yet, clumsily or otherwise. Somehow, the very act of handing Hafen his mother's clothes felt weighted with too much meaning: a meaning far too heavy for him to bear, much less bear alone. It brought a finality to all that had happened in the last who-knew-how-many hours. Time had been irrevocably split by the disaster into a Before and an After, and Phoenix didn't yet feel ready to face the world of After. He wasn't sure he ever would be.
Gunshots rang out again. They sounded a good deal closer than they had earlier.
Phoenix was on his feet again immediately. With a bit more sureness of direction this time, he returned to his parents' bedroom. His eyes were by now so fully adjusted to the darkness that the window on the wall opposite was visible as a dim rectangle just scarcely brighter than the rest of the room. Using this marker to orient himself, he made straight for the tall armoire in the far corner, his hand reaching to touch and then grasp the cold object stored on top: his father's rifle.
Now at the top of the stairs once more, he was about to begin carefully feeling his way down when he heard, "Phoenix?" It was a whisper-yell.
"Coming," he whisper-yelled back.
He got himself and the three items he was carrying to the first floor safely. "I'm here," he said to Hafen in a low voice as he placed the rifle on the floor next to the doorway and entered the sitting room. "Are you alright?"
"They sound so close," Hafen said softly. "Do you think they'll find your house? Do we have any way of defending ourselves if they mean us harm?"
"Yes. Don't worry. We'll be alright." He squeezed his left hand once, feeling the two pieces of clothing he held there. A quiet shudder ran through his body, and then he stilled. "Here. Take these."
Hafen accepted the proffered shirt and pants silently. "Phoenix," she murmured. At last, in this empty house enrobed in whirling shadow, she knew she had his attention. There was nowhere else to run anymore. "Are you alright?"
A long pause.
"No," he whispered finally. The word felt magnified in the stillness.
"You - you found them, didn't you?" He didn't, couldn't answer, and that was how she knew for certain. "Oh, love. Oh, love. Come here."
Ever since the clouds had cleared and the apocalypse about to rain down upon Zi had been revealed in all its terrible glory, Phoenix had not stopped. His focus had simply transferred directly from one critical task to the next - get Cass under the shelter, find the road home without getting killed, travel along the road home without getting killed, carry Hafen along the road home without harming her, clean her wound, find her some clothes, find a means to defend his home from thieves and looters - and it was only right at this moment, in a darkness far heavier than the mere absence of light, in an unnatural near-silence broken only by the sound of hot breezes and gunfire, that Phoenix finally turned and looked the devastating truth of After in the eye, accepting his fate.
And it was only right at this moment, finally, that the tears of all that he had seen and endured and lost were unleashed, and he collapsed weeping into the filthy arms of a person he barely knew, but who was nevertheless, right now, all he had left in the world.
"I'm so sorry, love. I'm so sorry," Hafen crooned into his freckled ear, her own voice wavering and buckling under the weight of sorrow, too. Without conscious thought they moved together to the loveseat, sat down entwined in the other's arms, and cried until their tears ran dry and sheer exhaustion overtook them.
-.-.-.-
Phoenix awoke suddenly in the world of After a short time later. Hafen's dirty face was just beside his own, as she leaned heavily against him, sound asleep. Why had he woken up? Then he heard it again: more gunshots. More screams.
He shifted slowly and gently - every muscle, joint, and tendon in his body shrieking in protest - and settled Hafen onto the back of the couch. The easiest and most obvious means of ingress to the house was the kitchen: its door was the most easily noticed, and its windows were invitingly accessible from outside, thanks to the porch. The kitchen was where he needed to stay.
Phoenix sat down heavily into the nearest chair, Papa's rifle coldly recumbent across his lap. He propped his elbows on the table and rested his head in his palms. Even with his eyes closed, even if he covered his ears to block out the moaning wind, there was no escaping After. It would be with him forevermore.
Tears ran down his filthy cheeks and he took no notice of them. Nothing seemed to matter in the After.
He set down his head in his folded arms and, hunched forward, fell asleep again almost immediately, the rifle impossibly heavy over his legs.
-.-.-.-
Phoenix was again awoken by a noise. He lifted his head groggily and looked around. Dawn seemed to have broken, for the windows had lightened slightly, and the darkness no longer felt quite so oppressive. How astonishing: Zi still turned. Even with all of these losses. Even After.
Phoenix sat up slowly, the pain in his stiff, weary joints almost unbearable, and listened intently. Perhaps whatever had awoken him would -
There it was again, outside. Was that...bleating?
Wary of some sort of trick, Phoenix readied Papa's rifle against his shoulder. Slowly and silently, he undid the locks, then swung the door open abruptly, taking dead aim at anyone standing on the other side.
There was no one there.
The dense brown fog still spun in serene whorls through patches of weak morning sunbeams fighting their way through from high above. Then he saw them. Leaning against the porch railing just a few feet away were two fluffy tan blobs shifting nervously about, one larger, one smaller. When the larger one opened its mouth and bleated, Phoenix nearly dropped his rifle in shock. Sheep? Could it be? He stepped closer. It was! Bluebell and her lamb were indeed standing on his front porch, anxious and absolutely covered in filth, but apparently no worse for the wear after what must have been a grueling journey.
There was something curled up at their feet.
Phoenix carefully set the rifle down and went over to them.
Bluebell gave him a small headbutt of greeting, and he patted her head tenderly.
"Heinrich," he whispered, crouching down beside the tiny prone form. Even all the dirt and detritus of the apocalypse could not completely conceal the flaming red hair of the Standhaft family.
"Mm?" Heinrich replied drowsily. He yawned, then sat bolt upright, bright eyes wide. "Phoenix! You're alive!"
Without a word, Phoenix gathered his younger brother into his arms and held on tight, unsure if he would ever be able to let go again.