A Cold and Heartless Lullaby -Chapter 7-

Spear in hand, Leper perched atop a tower he had been avoiding for weeks. He surveyed the desolate city landscape below as gloom choked the skies. With his hearing cranked and his shutters closed, he listened carefully, waiting. Somewhere between the whistling winds and groaning structures, Leper expected signs of life.

Weeks ago, he had been on the hunt, seeking thrill in a stretch of apathy but while he was tracking he had heard something unexpected from an old residential stack near his hideout. Someone had coughed. Stopping to listen, Leper had heard shuffling steps and labored breathing and he knew there was a scavenger inside. Out of principle, Leper had steered clear. 

Those without a faction roamed the world alone, scavenging anything they could find. If any two met, both would pretend the other didn’t exist, it was an unwritten rule. But this time, the circumstances were different. Leper needed food, and where there were scavengers, there was always something.

With the wind drowning out all other sounds, it was impossible to tell if anyone was inside. Regardless, Leper turned down his hearing, dropped through a gap in the roof, and switched on his light. Countless barren corridors and half-crumbled concrete rooms populated every floor. Anything that might have once been organic had turned to dust long ago. The sounds of his metal footsteps were loud in Leper’s ears, echoing endlessly in the barren halls. Somewhere in that building, a scavenger had taken refuge. Whether he remained was still unknown.

Several floors down Leper noticed something odd about some of the rubble. Following instinct he investigated, entering a dark narrow hallway. The other end had been plugged up with debris and the only light came from an open doorway near it. Ordinarily, an orange glow would have turned Leper away, but then he looked at the rubble on the floor. It was unmistakable; a path had been cleared.

Signs of a burrow were often slim, but Leper knew them well. In a world of chaos, one only needed to find signs of order. Without a doubt, the scavenger had been there. Leper flicked off his light, stepping forward as quietly as he could. Within him, his soul pulsed, anxiety building. Cornered scavengers were dangerous but he needed the food. I don’t have a choice. 

Leper almost didn’t see it in time. His apertures open wide in the dim light, he glimpsed a thin cord stretched taut across the hall by his feet. He had nearly tripped it. 

Tracing the line with his gaze, Leper found that it was rigged to drop empty cans if disturbed, a rudimentary alarm. The scavenger has definitely been here. Careful, Leper stepped over and continued down the hall, silent as a shadow. 

The doorway was closer, and the orange light gave Leper a sense of unease. Something was wrong. He approached with caution, flattening himself against the adjacent wall as he peeked inside. The scavenger was still there alright.

His mutilated corpse was propped up in the corner, lying in a stain of blood. Above him, clustered up the walls and along the ceiling, were thirty throbbing beetle eggs, each the size of Leper’s head. The glowing orange orbs drooled with translucent ooze, hideous larvae wriggling audibly inside. Leper clutched his spear a little tighter. The stakes had just changed.

Glancing in all directions, Leper found no sign of the mother. His soul pounded. There has to be something. He stepped inside.

Belongings were strewn across the tall room. A small cylindrical burner puck had been turned upside down in the corner, with a pot, can opener, and utensils scattered around it. There had been a struggle. Leper gathered what he could in his arms. 

A ratty bed roll lay crumpled in the opposite corner, soiled with beetle slime. Aha! Leper spotted a ration kit. It was the type the reverants distributed, a square black duffle bag with food and cooking supplies. He could have guessed. The reverants were probably the only ones who had food anymore. 

The only problem was that the bag was sitting in a pool of the scavenger’s blood. Leper had been giving the eggs a wide berth, but he had to risk it. He crouched low and stretched towards it, the strap just out of reach. The eggs wriggled above him, and for once, Leper was glad he couldn’t smell.

 Just as he snagged the strap a wretched squelch sounded above him. Ooze splattered down on the floor, raining from the ceiling. Ration bag in hand, Leper jumped back, only to witness the birth of three more larvae. They were bloated and pink, with tiny hard black heads and sharp pincers. All at once, eggs popped open, and in seconds, the Larvae were wriggling over each other to get at the corpse their mother had provided. 

Leper stood, locked in place as they tore the body to shreds. He dared not make a sound. All too quickly, the last of the eggs had released their captives and a cacophony of wet chittering noises filled the room.   

The ravenous grubs made quick work of the corpse, and Leper stepped backward as slowly as he could, feeling blindly for the doorway. He froze as six of them turned towards him, their fronts coated in viscera. Blood dripped from Leper’s bag. 

Larvae advanced. Leper made a break for it. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he sprinted down the hall, but he didn’t get far. Leper tripped and slammed into the concrete. A cord snapped and empty cans clattered across the ground in a deafening cacophony. The chittering swelled. 

In a panic, Leper scrambled to collect the cooking supplies he had spilled and shoved them into the bag, a wary eye over his shoulder. The larvae swarmed from the doorway, crowding the walls and clambering across the ceiling with surprising speed. Leper had only just snatched a can opener from the ground when they were upon him. He had to leave a few things behind. Leper ran.

In the adjacent hallway, most rooms were dark, but the rest glowed orange. Leper had a sickening realization. This is a nest. He rounded the corner and found a corridor coated with eggs, even across the floor. The larvae were catching up. Eggs were hatching. With a running start, Leper slammed his spear into the concrete and vaulted through, the glowing orbs on all sides before he hit dry ground. The grubs were relentless. Leper picked himself up and kept moving. Larvae were wriggling in through cracks in the ceiling. There must have been hundreds. One latched on to the bag. There wasn’t time to stop.

Leper gained ground, a fat grub dragging behind him as it nibbled the duffle bag. Sunlight gleamed ahead and he made a break for it. The light grew closer and the larvae held on tight. When Leper arrived his soul shrank. Dead end.

The outer wall had crumbled away, leaving a wide-open view of the adjacent building and blowing snow. Leper skidded to a stop, grabbing his parasite by its horrible bloated flesh and tearing it from the bag. Fabric ripped. Cans rolled out onto the floor as the larvae writhed in his grip. He tossed it as hard as he could down the hall. It curled into a ball and bounced. Without a moment to lose, Leper bent over to snatch up as many of the wayward cans as he could but more spilled out. The swarm rounded the corner and he was out of time. Leper, turning towards the light, did the only thing he could.

He sailed through the air, arms and legs flailing, as he left the sixteenth story and plummeted towards the building across the street. With a soul-shaking crash, Leper fell through the window of the next building and hit the cement, phantom pain flashing across his body. 

Gathering his strength, he sat up slowly, making sure his limbs were still attached and functional. The beetle grubs in the other building picked hungrily at the cans that were left behind.

 Still dazed, Leper attempted to take inventory of what had survived. There was a pot, some rice, beans, non-perishable loaves, a burner puck, and some water. It was barely a third of what he had started with, but he was lucky he had kept anything at all. Leper stood shakily. His legs felt like rubber, and his side was on fire. He knew better than anyone; there weren’t many benefits to having a soul.

…

Kia didn’t acknowledge Leper when he returned, she simply turned over in her blanket, deliberately facing away. All she had for a bed was a section of dirt floor, slightly softer than the rest. Leper had spent hours digging for the pod, but it was buried too deep.

“Kia,” Leper said, “I found some food for you.” She didn’t respond.

Leper set the bag down on his workbench and sorted the contents, estimating that it would last her a few days, assuming he could even get her to eat it. Somehow, he would have to find her more. She must have been starving. She hadn’t eaten at all yet. It was her own stubbornness that kept her from complaining. She had refused to talk to him ever since he left her in the dark. 

 Regardless, Leper set himself to work, cooking her a meal. He took the flat cylindrical burner puck and twisted the crank at the bottom, watching the liquid bubble through the transparent underside. Turning it over he realized the top of the puck had turned from opaque black to red hot as the liquid boiled. Burning pain flared out in his fingers and he dropped it hastily. Kicking himself internally, Leper set it back upright with a stick of rebar he had lying around, don’t hold it while it’s boiling, idiot. 

There was no real damage to his hand, but his soul was convinced there was. Pain came with the soul, and no matter how much Leper tried, he could never get over the instinct to flinch. For a time he had attempted to overcome it, and the pain had eventually lessened, but he could never fully convince his soul that it belonged to a metal body incapable of sensation.

Next, he grabbed the small cooking pot and—filling it with water— he set it on the puck. He waited for it to boil before emptying a bag of rice into it. It felt strange to be cooking food, Leper was surprised he could still remember how. 

The smell of the rice eventually reached Kia and, as Leper had suspected, she came shuffling across the room, blanket wrapped around her and Jerby poking out the top. She wandered over to the pot and took a seat on the floor across from Leper, watching him remove the pot from the puck to let the rice cool.

“Rice,” Leper said. “Just be careful, I don’t have any bowls and the pot will be hot.”

“I don’t like rice…” 

Leper stopped, what did she just say? Does she not realize the situation we’re in? 

“You need to eat,” Leper said. 

“Can’t you make something else?” she whined.

“I already made you rice,” Leper was getting angry. “If I make you something else the rice will go to waste.”

“That’s okay…” Kia said. 

Are you kidding me? Leper thought. He stood, towering over her, “No, it is not okay. You saw what it is like out there. You have no idea what I went through to get you this food.”

“Why can’t you just go to the market?” Kia asked, furrowing her brow.

“Give me my cloak,” Leper commanded. 

“What?” Kia brought it closer around her.

“I’ll give it back, I only need it for a second.”

Kia stared at him blankly. Leper stepped closer and she held it out, cowering under it. With a sigh, he grabbed it, rolling it into a cylinder and bending it into a donut. 

“This is the world you grew up in,” he said, “Do you understand? This was Torus.”

Kia nodded. Leper took the blanket and crumpled it violently into a ball. 

“And this is what happened to it, understand?” 

Kia stared at him, unblinking. He tossed the blanket back to her. 

“That means there is no market, no city streets for them to meet on and unless you want to starve, we cannot waste a single grain of rice!” Leper sighed, sitting back down and rubbing uselessly at his throbbing temples. He had let himself get angry. For a minute, there was silence and Kia stared absently at the rice before she could bring words to her lips.

“How long was I asleep?” 

Leper looked up at her. She hadn’t wrapped the blanket back around herself. She was simply hugging it in front of her, her eyes wide. She was scared. 

Leper looked her in the eye. 

“Kia… I want you to understand that there was no other way to heal you.”

“How long was I asleep?” she asked, tears welling up in her eyes. It seemed the scope of the situation was finally catching up with her.

“I lost count along the way…” Leper mumbled, “But it’s been… close to two hundred years.”

Kia nodded silently, still staring at the rice with teary eyes. She had probably already guessed. She was a smart kid, like her mother in many ways. 

“Is that why I’m… different?” She lifted her albino arms to examine them.

“I can’t say for sure what that pod did to you, but you were in there for a while. It was meant to alter your biology, but I guess we didn’t know how much it would.”

“Bye-ologee?” She tilted her head, sounding out the unfamiliar word. 

“Biology,” Leper explained, “It’s what you’re made of, the state of your being. Like how I am made of metal and glass.”

She nodded.

“Kia, look at me.” Kia looked reluctantly up at him. “The liquid in my hydraulic lines, can you see it?” Leper lifted his palms upwards, indicating the hydraulic line that ran down his arm. “It’s my blood. These pistons are my muscles. These lenses are my eyes, and their shutters, my eyelids. My skeleton is a metal frame. Although we’re made of different things you can see that we are the same.” 

Kia looked on, and Leper could almost see the gears turning behind her inquisitive gaze.

 “I know you don’t trust me,” Leper continued, “I know you’re scared and disoriented. Just know I am here to help you and I am the only one who can. A misstep in the Afterworld can cost you your life. Take everything I say from now on, as law. Do you understand?”

Kia nodded again.

“Kia, I want you to say it.”

“I understand,” Kia mumbled.

“Good, now eat your rice.”