Awakening the Mare (Fall of Man Book 1) (5 page)

I called for my mother when I had it fully
exposed. I remember the panic on her face when she saw it, like I
had found a dead animal or something.

“A toolbox. We have to get rid of it.”

“Why?” I asked. “I haven’t even opened
it.”

“If the Ancients come and see that, we will
be cast out.”

How did she know it was a forbidden item
without even looking at it?

“What is it? We don’t even know. Don’t you
want to know?”

“It’s something from the past. Before the
Ancients built the cities.”

Then my mother’s curiosity got the best of
her. She looked around to see if anyone was watching, and after
covering the box with a cloth she carried it into the house.

I followed her, just as curious.

She was with child, my sister Sophie, and her
large stomach was in the way. She laid the box on the bed and
opened it and lifted a sheet of paper from inside. “A time
capsule,” she said.

I reached for the paper and while I could
read the words, the manner in which it was written was different. I
did, however, recognize the year. 1988. It was written by someone
named Janie Morrison.

“A time capsule,” my mother said again. “This
young woman, Janie, buried this box with items from 1988.”

“Why would she do that?”

“It was a common thing. A school project
perhaps,” my mother said. “A way for a person in the future to know
what the world was like. It is Janie’s message to the future.”

“To me, since I found it. She is showing me
what the world was like before the event?”

“Yes, in a way.”

Enthusiastically I dropped to my knees and
peeked in the box. In there were more sheets of paper, a book, a
magazine, a small square object with two holes in the middle and
what looked like spools of thick string inside. The words on it
said ‘
Best of Poison
.’ I quickly dropped it in case it was
still volatile. “Janie Morison took great care,” I said, rubbing my
hands. “She is informing us. What is all this?”

“Nothing.” My mother shut the box. “Can you
lift it?”

I tried and was able to. “Yes.”

“Then you take it. Take it fast to the ends
of Akana and leave it. Get it far away, you hear?”

“But it teaches us.”

“It teaches you of things that are forbidden.
Now go. I’ll cover the hole.”

I took hold of the box, slid from the bed,
and carried it from the house. I didn’t understand rules and I
certainly didn’t understand why this box was forbidden.

It was history. And a history of man that I
wanted to know. Our history.

In my first rebellious move, I told my mother
I had left it at the end of Akana, but I didn’t. I took it to the
stable where we kept our horses. The Ancients would never look
there because they stayed clear of horses. I kept it there and
learned from it.

Janie Morrison was sixteen years old. She
wrote a short biography and there were pictures of her in the box.
She had a mother and a father, went to school, had friends. Back
then, they used paper value to trade things. I don’t think her
family had much of that, because it was clear they couldn’t afford
a tailor. In a couple of the pictures, Janie’s clothes were torn,
and her top was so big it kept sliding from her shoulder. But Janie
always looked happy.

The human race lived a brilliant and
glamorous existence before the event. The people wore colorful and
flashy clothes, their hair was full and large.

I may not have been born in 1988, but I can
imagine it wasn’t much different than the world was before the
event. My mother probably wore those same flashy clothes, her
straight and braided hair was more than likely beautiful when she
wore it big and high.

Often I wanted to make my hair big and high
but feared if I did, someone would know I had knowledge of the
past.

That box was my secret treasure. A treasure
of knowledge of the world before Akana. Every chance I got, I read
the papers, looked at the pictures, and studied the contents.
Always though, staying clear of the poison. I didn’t know why Janie
would put that in there. I never did figure her reasons, despite
the number of times I looked in the box. Maybe she had the
information about the Sybaris and she was giving us a weapon?

I kept the box in a carrying sack hidden in
the corner of a stall. It would be there for me to take when I left
Akana.

The box made me knowledgeable of a world
before the Sybaris. I suppose my knowledge was something that did
make me different. I knew things others did not, forbidden
things.

Now I had something else that kept me apart
from the others in my tribe.

I was a Mare.

Although I still didn’t fully understand what
that meant, I soon would.

I walked aside Casey to the ends of the Akana
town limits. I could have ridden him but I promised my mother that
I would look tired for the monthly ceremony. The best way to do
that was to stay in the heat and keep moving, not taking in any
water.

Very few ever went to the edge of Akana.
Mainly because it was dismal. While the event had not touched our
pocket of the world, time took its toll and the civilized Sybaris
concentrated on creating our communities out of places that once
were thriving small towns, leaving the rest of the world to decay,
fall apart, or turn to waste at the hands of the Savage Sybaris and
rebels.

I don’t know what it looked like before it
became Akana since they removed many of the buildings. The farmland
was kept thriving, and the older roadways remained intact, unlike
the ones of the former world that had set on the end of Akana just
before the Salton Sea. Those roads were still there. They were
barren, desolate, and mere remnants of a world that once was.

The road was wide, and made of smooth stone.
Nature had reclaimed it, and weeds, grass, and other growth poked
through, and some of the road had broken. It was marked by a faded
sign that had fallen from a metal post. I never knew what it meant,
just what it said.

The number ‘86’ was on top, then the sign
read with faded lettering ‘
Next Exit, Awly
– 2.

The sign meant the end of the line to me, the
end of the protected civilized world, the end of life under the
thumb of the Sybaris.

I walked a good distance along the edge of
the ‘ends’. A strong wind from the west brought in a mighty stench
of the Elder Sybaris that waited hungrily and impatiently at the
gates.

It was time to feed and feast.

I wonder how they fed them? The way they
devoured my brother told me they were ravenous. It has been told to
us that, unlike the Savage Sybaris, the civilized ones use machines
and tools to take a small amount of the human blood every few days.
They dare not mix their saliva into our bloodstream, or they run
the risk of turning us into one of them or allowing their appetites
to get ahead of them, making us into creatures.

Instead, the Civilized feast on fruit and
ration our blood like they did thousands of years before.

We are taught that our sacrifice is small. In
my opinion, one drop of my blood to feed
them
is too
much.

After a long walk, I heard the bell. It rang
from the town square signaling the high and mightiest of the
Sybaris were entering our town limits.

I was in perfect condition. My hair was
messy, and I was so thirsty and dehydrated, that I wasn’t even
perspiring.

I hurried without stopping to the center of
town, where everyone lined up in a single file. The sound of their
motorized vehicles drifted over and shortly after, the sun
reflected from the shiny black vehicles.

I found my mother and Sophie and took my
place next to them. My mother looked bad, worse than she had in the
morning. Sophie appeared dreadful and pale. I knew for a fact that
my mother had given her that syrup that caused her to expel the
contents of her stomach. The entire day before I could hear my
sister retching.

After the Sybaris had made their selections,
Sophie would be fed and cared for. Until then, so she wasn’t
selected, my mother kept her ill while the Sybaris did their
adoption process, and Sophie looked as if she was knocking on
death’s door.

“Perfect,” my mother told me, then
straightened my blouse so I didn’t look too intentionally
messy.

I hated what was happening. Were we the only
family to not look their best? Everyone stood proud and
anxious.

Across the road Iry emerged from the school
building. He too looked anxious, probably because this was his last
ceremony to witness. He would move in a month from the outskirts of
Akana to the City for the Ancients and then he’d start choosing
himself.

He tried to make eye contact with me and I
turned my head.

“Why is your educator coming this way?” my
mother asked.

I lifted my head to see Iry walking our way.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I wish he wouldn’t.”

Iry approached, making his stand near me. My
hand shot to my nose.

“Vala, concentrate,” he said in a whisper.
“It will cease. Concentrate.”

It couldn’t, it was time for the ceremony to
begin.

The Civilized Sybaris emerged from their
vehicles, walking pompously and wearing their best clothing.

Tutano was a leader, older, but fit, and he
stepped to the center opening where the Sybaris would browse. He
spoke up as he did every month. “It is time to reward the Elders of
your race with peace and prosperity. May they step forward.”

Were they that stupid? At least seven people
from our town over the age of sixty stepped from the pick and
choose line and made their way to the vehicles of the Sybaris.
There they entered a larger vehicle.

Promised a better life, a free life, after
years of never being chosen, they, I believed were the food for the
gatekeepers. Still flesh, but not as fresh. Use them before they go
to waste. That’s what I thought.

People cheered them as they walked out,
wishing them luck and happiness.

Me, I didn’t believe they made it far.

“That will be me one day,” my mother said in
a wistful voice.

“No,” I replied, “it will not.”

The choosing ceremony began and the Sybaris
browsed each one of us. A mated pair chose an infant, lifted it
with adoration, and embraced the child. The baby’s natural mother
rejoiced and thanked them.

Thanked them for taking her baby? Families
aren’t even rewarded when they give a child.

The Sybaris came and took what they wanted. I
didn’t understand or get it. When picked, people screamed with joy.
I would scream in horror.

“This is absurd,” I said.

“Vala!” Iry scolded me in a whisper.
“Cease.”

I shifted my eyes to him, then I noticed he
looked in another direction.

Nito
.

Her age was hard to tell. She painted her
face with blue above her eyes, and her lips as red as blood. She
stared at me and walked in our direction.

Her mate was at her side. I wondered if he
was a chosen companion at one time and she had turned him. His eyes
were not deep like a Sybaris.

“Such attitude little one.” She walked my way
then stood before me. “You’re not even trying any longer to look as
if you didn’t wear down.”

Her stench was unbearable. I never recalled
her smelling so badly.

“I’m waiting on you,” she said.

“Then you will always have to wait.”

“If chosen you will go. That is law.” She
lowered her gaze to Sophie and smiled. “Perhaps I need a child in
my life. Would you like to wear the prettiest dresses, feast on the
richest food, have items of play?” she asked Sophie. “Perhaps I
shall choose you as my own.” She reached out her hand to my
sister.

“No!” I barked. “Don’t touch her.”

The corner of Nito’s mouth raised in a snide
smile and she glided closer. “Then I choose you.”

“You can’t,” Iry quickly interjected. “She
isn’t ready. She has one more month of education.”

“Teacher, please,” Nito scoffed at him. “I
can finish her education.” She turned her head and raised her
voice. “I place bid on this one. Anyone else?”

“Me,” Iry stated.

“You can’t.” She laughed at him. “You have
another month, so you have no choice.” Again she shouted to the
other Sybaris. “Any bids?”

No one said anything.

“Then I guess…” Nito reached out, “you are
mine.”

No sooner did her hand touch me, and the
breath of her final word seeped into my nostrils when I was hit
with a sickening wave of nausea. Her foul breath made me gag
uncontrollably and my mouth filled with saliva.

“Come now.” She tugged my arm.

She yanked me forward and everything that had
built up in my mouth, involuntarily shot out, landing on her arm,
and when it touched her, Nito screamed in pain.

The fluid from my mouth was a watery fire
that burned her skin upon contact. She released me and cried out
over and over. It was so shill it hurt my ears.

While I was trying to register all that was
happening, Iry looked at me seriously and told me in a stern voice,
“Run.”

I backed up.

“Run, Vala, run!”

In my turn, my hand grazed across my sister,
I glanced at my mother and gushed out, “I’m sorry, Mother.” Then I
took off.

The moment I ran, Nito ordered, “Get
her!’

I couldn’t look back or wonder if they were
chasing me. I knew they were and I headed to the safest place I
could think of.

Running as fast as my feet would carry me, I
headed to the stables. Once inside I made it to Casey’s stall, and
tried to catch my breath. What did I do? How did I do that?

I reached down to Casey’s water bucket,
splashed my face, then brought some of his water into my mouth. As
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, I heard the motor
sounds. Peeking out through the planks of the barn I saw the
Sybaris vehicles surround the stables.