10.2
The blue sky reflected in the lenses of Skye's gunmetal glasses as she stood on the one thin patch of grass in an otherwise brown and dead strip of land, looking up at the clouds.
She was in the middle of a small town that had been long-abandoned until the Bone Creek group took it as their temporary shelter. They were far north of Hoodsdale now, positioned near the only major road that was currently active–the one cities used for shipping resources.
From here, it wasn't difficult to reach several cities by car. It was around an hour drive to Great Heights, Blackpool, and Russon. Ilwaco was farther but still manageable.
The real difficulty with travel was securing functional vehicles, but the Bone Creek army had successfully hijacked a dozen or so, in addition to a few large gasoline tanks, without causing any major incidents.
It had been nearly a month since they were turned away at Hoodsdale's gate, but despite the isolation they were facing, they had found ways to take action.
Warriors had been deployed to go undercover in the cities. They wanted to know where Blake had taken hold and what sort of power he commanded. Surprisingly, signs of change were sparse.
Attitudes in the Bone Creek group, on the other hand, were growing increasingly unstable.
Jelani had never returned, and the rebels who knew him could never keep him out of their thoughts for long. Echo and Eve, at least, had come back, but they weren't the same. They had yet to show any enthusiasm to help.
As for Bone Creek's warriors, they were finally beginning to question if there was any need for this operation to save the world. A war had been promised, but nothing had progressed. By most standards, Blake appeared to be who he claimed he was: a man simply encouraging humanity to take a step forward.
The warriors were doubting their purpose. They even began to doubt Skye.
So, as Skye stood there and stared at the clouds rolling across an empty blue horizon, her face was tense and her mind was racing.
Her thoughts were constantly scrambled now. She couldn't sleep, and she could hardly bear to look anyone in the eyes. The only thing she could do to achieve any clarity was to stare at the sky.
It took a long time. Sometimes, hours would pass before she could make any sense of the world inside her head.
Today was one of those days, but she was finally now latching onto a logical progression, putting one thing after another.
Blake, she thought for the thousandth time. What are you doing?
All Bone Creek's army had been able to confirm was that Blake was in Blackpool, his element research had resumed, and he had stationed members of his "XI" in several cities.
They'd known all of those things for weeks.
"What do you want?" Skye muttered to the heavens.
She thought about her brother, always thirsting for knowledge. She'd only known him as a kid, but she knew him better than anyone else did.
What could he want?
He was always curious, but what was he curious about? He always wanted to meet new people, but why?
She furrowed her brow and closed her eyes, replacing her view of the sky with her earliest thoughts and memories.
He was fascinated by the elements as soon as the apocalypse hit. Even though everyone was dead, he wasn't traumatized or afraid of what they could do.
The aftermath of the apocalypse was a time she remembered more clearly than any other. For days, it was just her and Blake in the woods, a pair of wounded little kids being hunted by rogues, surviving only thanks to Skye's intuition and one-in-a-million luck.
Finally, they reached the few other survivors in the area, who'd begun barricading a tiny town that would eventually be built up into Blackpool.
Those weeks and months were dark, always starving and always on the brink of death. Many did die, but still, as if they were favored by nature, Skye and Blake lived on.
She shuddered at the thought of howling rogues from 30 years ago, but what scared her even more was the thought of Blake, who had been seemingly unaffected by any terror.
Instead, it had intrigued him.
Skye could clearly picture glaring down at his boyish face and screaming at him to get a grip.
"You're starving!" she'd yelled through her tears. "You're going to die! We're all going to die!"
The memory of her own cruelty made her cringe, but she had only been a kid, and he should have been afraid.
Although the two had remained close, Skye didn't know much of what he thought about in the years to follow. In fact, she had intentionally avoided getting anywhere close to what was happening inside of his head.
Suddenly, a scene of the past, one she hadn't thought about in years, appeared.
She and Blake were sitting on the floor of their room, a tiny, half-built apartment, and he was talking to her about… the elements.
He didn't share his thoughts with her often–she'd probably repressed this particular memory intentionally.
"People should use the elements, don't you think?" he said, his face barely lit by the thin sliver of light coming in through a crack in the wall.
She agreed. Even now, she agreed.
"We have a chance to improve," he continued. "Humans are the best species because we've made the most of our opportunities, but now we're ignoring the greatest chance we've ever had."
"Imagine what humanity could become. Imagine what humans could be."
Skye's eyes flew open. The clouds above her didn't look the same.
"Imagine what humans could be."
She repeated the line out loud, eyes wide as she stared blankly upwards.
Something was off about those words. She had the feeling that by "humans," Blake had meant "carcasses."
Carcasses that could be bent and twisted, shaped into some form that the word "human" would no longer apply to.
Skye's hands twitched at her sides. Her lower lip trembled.
Blake… What do you want?
– – – – –
On the other side of town, on another dying patch of grass, a thin girl was lying on her stomach. The blank page of a book was lying in front of her, and a jet-black ink pen was in her hand.
She licked her lips. Silver-blue strands of hair fell around the yellowed paper. For once, her glasses were on straight.
Faye dipped her black pen into her black inkwell, and she pressed the silver point into the page.
~
The sky is cold, the wind is silent
Your hand is held, we all survive
This sun is kind, but clouds come back
Water flows down and man can't turn around
Hand, no hand
We all have to drown