Awakening the Mare (Fall of Man Book 1) (3 page)

He begged her that night, his hand placed on
her swollen stomach. “Don’t do this. Our child…”

“Our child doesn’t stand a chance, Davis,”
she said. “What kind of life will he or she have? Never able to
speak? To make a sound?”

“A better life than being dead,” Davis
replied.

“Vala is what is important. She already is
alive. She…” my mother looked at me, “is special. You know it.”

My unborn brother or sister was important and
special too. Why didn’t my mother see that? She talked a lot about
the procedure of silence. When the baby was born, the doctor cuts
the umbilical cord and then cuts the vocal cord, rendering the
child forever silent.

Not everyone did it to their child. Those who
didn't usually moved on, because their crying infant endangered the
entire community.

My mother and I left Angeles City just before
dawn one morning by horseback. The first day she was fine and the
second day of travel she started getting the pains. She kept
looking over her shoulder, I guess to see if Davis was following
us. He wasn’t.

As we crossed around the Salton Sea, we found
shelter in an old shack, and there my mother squatted as if she
were passing a bad meal. Instead, she gave birth to my brother.

She didn’t cut the cord, she merely twined
it, placed him and all the matter that ejected from her body into a
sack, strapped it to her back and, after resting only briefly,
continued on our journey.

I thought my newborn brother had died, but
occasionally he whimpered. My mother stopped a few times to feed
him from her breast, to keep him strong, keep him healthy.

As night fell on the third day, we
stopped.

A long row of torches ignited brightly and a
deep voice called from the darkness, “Leave the horse.”

My mother didn’t have much strength, and she
lowered me to the ground, then climbed down.

I only saw shadows.

She held my hand and we walked a few
feet.

“You have come for what reason?” the man
asked.

“I seek rite of passage for me and my
daughter into Esperanza.”

“What do you bring to earn this passage?”

She slipped the sack with my brother from her
shoulder. “The highest gift.”

“Bring it forward. Leave the girl.”

“Stay here, Vala,” she whispered.

“Mommy.”

“Shh. Stay.”

Her hand slipped from mine and she headed
toward the torches. A large man emerged from the shadows; I was
unable to make out his features. He took the sack and brought it to
his nose.

“How old?”

“Two days.”

“The remnants of the womb?”

“It is in there.”

He nodded at her. “Get the child. You have
earned passage. Come inside. In the morning you will be brought to
Akana.”

“Thank you. Thank you.” My mother backed up,
raced back to me and grabbed my hand. The gatekeeper waved her
forward and we walked toward the line of torches.

“Look forward, do not look at them or look
back,” she instructed as we passed by them.

I was a child. Of course I was going to
look.

They were all men, large men, who I thought
looked monstrous. Their features extended and distorted, faces
pale.

As we moved by them, one lifted my brother
from the sack.

“What are they doing, Mommy?” I asked.

“Keep moving, baby, keep moving. We’re moving
forward. We’re safe.”

I peered over my shoulder once more when my
infant brother cried. It was the first full cry I had heard him
make.

After turning my head to peer forward, my
mother paused and drew me close into her, clutching me with every
emotion.

My brother cried out again, his wails
carrying in the night air.

Crying.

Screaming.

And then with a single slurping sound, my
brother cried no more.

They could not have known. If they did, they
played cautious and naïve. But I honestly believed my classmates
were truly ignorant to what the Sybaris were, and what they
did.

Our educational system was nothing more than
a brainwashing technique. Then again, were they actually
brainwashed? They had not witnessed the things I had witnessed.
They did not witness distorted beings brutally consume a seven
pound infant. That was my introduction to the so-called Promised
Land.

An impression that would last forever.

What information I did get was only minimal,
and what my mother wasn’t afraid to share. The educators told us a
history that they wanted us to believe. In a twisted way, it
coincided with what my mother had told me.

There were two types of Elders; the ones
within the limits of Esperanza and the ones that stood outside the
limits. Those were Sybaris Elders. On this Earth the longest, left
without substance for a long time, and while their minds were clear
and reasonable, they were never able to return to their once
beautiful physical form, so they became the gatekeepers.

Infants less than one week old were the
highest delicacy, reserved for the Elder Sybaris. However, the
infants only held powerful effects for the Elders if they were a
willing sacrifice from the human mother, such as my own mother did
with my brother. As if the poor infants’ bodies held some sort of
magical ability. The Sybaris believed that if enough were consumed
the Elders would regain the energy and life that the infant was
destined to have.

Infant sacrifices were not magical. My
brother was nothing but a ticket inside my family’s extended death
sentence.

The Elder Sybaris were a combination of both
species of the Sybaris race. They had the mentality and genius of
the pompous Ancients who picked through us once a month and looked
like the Savage Sybaris that ravaged and killed outside of
Esperanza. The Savages had no law and order, little reasoning or
intelligence, and they killed to survive, stalked and hunted.

They actually frightened me less than the
civilized ones because a Savage could be outsmarted.

Davis had always said that.

The Sybaris divided. When they were given the
chance to reemerge, the Savage population failed to follow the
rules. Instead of pacing their feeding, they hungrily consumed
anyone they could, as fast as they could.

It had adverse reactions and they became
beasts. Much like what happens to humans when a Sybaris takes too
much too fast from them.

Humans transform into an abomination of life,
both physically and mentally. The Ancients use them for watchdogs,
soldiers, and fighters.

We are taught in history that the Gods had
placed Sybaris, man, and animals upon this Earth tens of thousands
of years before. As animals are placed upon the Earth to feed man,
so is man placed upon this Earth to feed the Sybaris.

Thousands of years before, Sybaris had ruled
the Earth. We are told they were a peaceful species, unlike man.
They fed from man and fruit, never taking too much. The Sybaris
built cities all over, and man was their laborers and slaves.

Then one day man rose up against the Sybaris.
They brought plague upon the Sybaris, by substituting horse blood
for human blood. While the Sybaris declared war against man, man
retreated across the sea and far into the desert.

The Sybaris couldn’t cross the waters, and
therefore they eventually began to starve. They had to move into
the hollows of the Earth and the veins of tombs they had built for
their Elders. They avoided sunlight because the longer they went
without food the more vulnerable they were to the rays of the
sun.

For thousands of years they crept out at
night, taking only what they needed to survive. They became
folktales to the human race. Legends of undead, immortal, evil
beings. The Sybaris are not immortal. Although they are strong and
powerful, they
do
die, though they age much slower than man,
and their life span is thousands of years.

We are told the Gods freed the Sybaris from
the dark imprisonment by casting death and destruction on man. They
rose from the ashes and reclaimed what was theirs.

The Sybaris who call themselves the Ancients
supposedly began to gather man to save him from the Savages. They
weren’t saving us, they were hoarding us, rationing us for their
future use.

I don’t know what is true and what is not. I
do know I feel differently. Unlike others my age, I have seen what
the Savage Sybaris do to human beings. The Elders are mere thinking
beasts that don’t hesitate to consume a newborn life. The civilized
Sybaris are nothing more than cleaned up Savages preparing us all
for our eventual death. I know that man had his place on this Earth
for thousands of years as well. In my youngest years, I remember
David saying that man caused the events that destroyed the human
race.

The truth is out there beyond the confines of
Esperanza and I will find it. One day, I will find it.

I may have been young, but I remembered the
first day I felt not only my fear, but the sheer terror of those
around me. I was no older than four, and had a mentality of such. I
always knew we ran, were told to be still and quiet, I didn’t
understand why until that day.

There were four of us, all little girls, all
around the same age. We had found these plastic dolls. They were
replicas of beautiful women with long blonde hair and grown up
figures in plastic boxes, sealed and in perfect condition.

We were seated after dinner on the floor of
what was once a store between empty shelves. We were playing with
these dolls, pretending. I don’t remember the exact details,
because our play time was cut short.

In Angeles City, men and women carried
weapons called guns. They were loud and banged. The Sybaris tried
to collect them all, because the weapons killed them as easily as
they killed man. At one time man used them on each other, but not
after the event. When the Sybaris rose, news of our species hurting
each other was unheard of.

The bang of a gunshot caused me to drop my
doll, but it didn’t frighten me as much as the sound of Davis’
voice.

He screamed my name so loudly and with deep
conviction and urgency, I felt it. There was something terribly
wrong and I jumped up to find him.

“
Vala!
Where are you?” Davis
yelled.

I could hear the shuffling and shrill
screaming. People were hurt.

Names of my friends were called out; they
scurried away like I did. Just as I turned to run from behind the
shelf to find Davis, a Savage Sybaris leapt over the shelf and
landed on the floor before us. His distorted and gray skinned body
twitched as he eyed his victim.

The Savages didn’t stand upright, they moved
like a simian being. Arms long and narrow, fingers crooked, he
opened his mouth with a snarl showing his grotesque fangs.

With a swift swing of his arm, he snatched
one little girl by the throat and jumped high in the air with her
in his grip. She screamed for a second and then it rained blood on
me.

I was trapped in the shelving area and
another Sybaris was there, then another. While both grabbed onto a
child, jumping and racing away with their catch, I seized that
moment and took off.

Hands covering my ears, I ran as fast as I
could. No matter where I turned, I saw them.

Grabbing people, ripping into their throats
as they flew off. But like a bird stuck in a house, the Savage
Sybaris didn’t have an easy escape. They'd fly toward the ceiling
only to be shot by one of us, then they’d release their
victims.

Lifeless bodies of people I knew, children I
played with, dropped before me, as did the dead Sybaris.

I kept running, zigzagging through a maze of
horror until I found a hiding spot in the back of the store. I
cornered myself there and squatted low, bringing my knees to my
chest. I wasn’t alone. The body of my friend Liddy was there on the
ground before me lying facedown.

My eyes fixed upon her, watching the puddle
of blood around her tiny body grow wider like a river. Her neck had
been torn apart. Then she twitched. Her fingers moved and her body
jolted. She jerked and flipped seamlessly from her stomach to her
back. Her arms retracted to her body as her back arched and mouth
widened.

I believed at first she was hurt and still
alive somehow, until her head turned my way and I saw the gray of
her eyes.

She made a snarling sound, then automatically
sprang to her feet in a crouched attack position. She tilted her
head and her neck cracked.

Her face was death gray and the whites of her
eyes filled with blood.

After a single growling sound she lunged
toward me and I could only cower back and close my eyes,
screaming.

Bang!

The loud and close gunshot startled my eyes
open. Liddy was on the ground, and Davis stood there with a gun in
his hand. He reached down and lifted me quickly into his strong
arms, cradling my head against his shoulder. I clung tightly to him
with my arms and legs.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’m here. I have
you. Don’t look. Don’t look.” He carried me away.

I didn’t look. I had already seen enough. And
it wouldn’t be the last time.

Sandra stood before our class of fourteen,
reading from her essay, proud of what she had written and truly
believing the words.

“If I am chosen, I hope it to be as a
companion,” she said. “It would be an honor, and my family would be
proud. I would be there for my master at his beck and call.
Awaiting his needs, giving what I could.”

Then she shifted her eyes with a certain
seductiveness to Iry. Conveying somehow what we all knew. She was
interested in being chosen by him. Our class all knew Iry was
choosing. He too had come of age and was worthy of choice. They all
pined to be his companion or one of his servants or
competitors.