Another Scene

She smiles gently back at me, all hair business aside. “I'm going to head to bed now. It’s late and a storms coming in, which means there’s really nothing else we can accomplish today. You should go to bed too, Iris.” She grabs a candle off the table and walks over to the staircase that leads up to our bedrooms. She slowly makes her way up the stairs, one hand on the railing beside her the other holding the candle in front of her body, so she can see where her next step will go.

I hear the faint shuffle of her feet above me as she gets ready for bed. Walking around the inside of the house, I blow out every candle that is lit, but one. Taking this candle, I grab my belt off of the kitchen chair and make my way up the staircase to my own bedroom. I open the old rustic door, its hinges creaking. Walking over to my bedside table, I place the candle down and then sit on my bed. The corners of my room are dark, still hidden in shadow. I sigh and rub my face, now aware of how exhausted I am. My goggles still remain on top of my head, so I take them off and place them on the table beside the candle. Dragging myself off the bed, I walk over to my dresser and grab my nightgown, decide the night will be too cold for it, and reach for the onesie instead. I place my leather jacket on the door handle, and strip off my jeans, t-shirt, bra and socks, leaving them all on the floor, content with picking them up in the morning. I slip on the onesie and fall backwards onto my bed, my arms outstretched beside me. I could fall asleep right here, with my legs dangling off the edge of my bed I'm so tired. I drag myself up into a sitting position, my legs crossed. I scoot backwards until my back hits the head board and then I snuggle down under the blankets, my head resting on my pillow. I roll onto my side facing the candle, and blow it out. Closing my eyes I let myself fall asleep, warm under my blankets. 

Meeting the Mother

The house immediately opens up into the kitchen, so I am greeted by a waft of warm air carrying the faint smell of the dinner that my mother and I had eaten earlier. The faint light of the candles shadows a flickering figure on the wall, dancing in and out of the darkness around it. I kick off my boots and shove them into the hallway closet to my left, my keys still in hand. I turn towards the large wooden table. Three candles stand alone on the table top, the wax dripping onto the candlesticks. There is a small pool of wax from the middle candle that has dripped onto the table. I walk over to the mess and pick away the already dried wax. I place the pieces of wax in the trash bin beside the sink and then shove my keys back into my bag. Unclipping my belt, I lean it across a chair and look up to see my mother in the doorway leading to the living room.

“You were out late.” She says. Her eyebrows are drawn together, her mouth set into a deep frown. During dinner, my mother had been in one of her moods. She had counted out each pea on her plate to make sure that she had an even number. When she was about to eat two of them, she had dropped one on the floor. She had picked it up, stared at it for a long moment and then swore. She then proceeded to toss all her food, meat, peas, and potatoes, out into the garbage, saying that it was all ruined. She then grumbled as she sat in her chair, her arms folded over her chest, her shoulders hunched. She had watched me eat my peas and potatoes, all mixed in together. She mumbled quietly, “Mixing food, that’s wrong, ruined, and wrong. Wrong. Wrong.” She continued to watch me eat, making me uncomfortable. I offered to make her some more food, but she just kept on repeating “Ruined, ruined, ruined.” After that I had quickly finished my meal and then headed out the door and went to the hill just outside of the city.

“I went out to get some fresh air. It was nice out, until just a few minutes ago.” I reply cautiously to the unasked question, unsure what mood she is in currently. I watch her as she moves towards me. She shuffles her feet, her shoulders hunched over as if protecting herself from something. Her eyes are a light grey, with large dark bags underneath them. Her lips are cracked and she licks them often. Her hair is still a dark brown, although streaks of grey are beginning to peek through. Her frame is small; she is almost as skinny as I am. She is a few inches shorter, although we would almost be the same height if she stood up straight. I walk over to her and grab her hand. “You should stand up taller, mom. You look so pretty when you straighten your back. Like a sophisticated business woman.” I poke her back gently with two fingers and she straightens up slightly. “Much better.” I give her a reassuring smile, and I see a light in her eyes that hadn't been there earlier this evening. She looks around the room and then stares at me.

“You didn't bring a hat when you went out did you? You know that the weather is unpredictable, Iris. Look at you. You look like you got run over by a street car.” She pulled at my hair as she tries to comb out the knots. “There could be animals living in here and you wouldn't even know.” She tugs hard, and I wince as she nearly pulls the hairs out of my head.

“Mom, stop it! It’s just hair!” I grab her hands and push them away from my head where she can do less damage. I keep a firm grip on them to make sure she doesn't make another beeline for my hair again.

“Tsk. At least brush it out before going to bed, otherwise you’re going to have a hell of a rats nest in the morning!” She raises an eyebrow at me, waiting for a response. I nod my head in compliance and place her hands back at her sides. 

Journey Home

The streets are empty of people as they are preparing for the possible blizzard coming through. I walk in the middle of the old cracked road, where weeds are peeking through. Grass can’t grow in this type of environment, but somehow weeds can. How the hell does that work? I kick at a loose piece of pavement and send it flying ahead of me, its echo bouncing off the walls of buildings around me. I shove my fingerless gloved hands into my jacket pockets. Within just a few minutes the temperature has dropped dramatically. I reach an intersection and turn left onto another street. The farther I walk up this street, the nicer the houses seem to get. Nearing the end of the street, I turn right. This street slopes up dramatically, a hill seemingly forming from nowhere. I walk up the steep hill, and at the top I stop. The road continues on, remaining flat for a while before sloping down again. To the right of me is a big, old stone house. The door is made from old wood with a large brass handle. The windows are boarded up, which I assume is for the storm coming. As I get closer, I can see a few candles flicker in between the gaps between the boards on the windows. My mother is still up then. When I reach the door, I pull out my keys from one of the bags hanging from my belt. I slide the key into the lock, and swing open the door. 

Some Character Detail and City Descriptions

A light breeze blows and tickles my chin. It’s getting cooler out. I look out over the horizon and see the sun is already being swallowed by the Earth’s edge. Grabbing my leather jacket that I had earlier thrown onto the ground, I turn and start walking towards the city, putting on my jacket as I go. My golden brown hair lightly caresses the collar of my jacket. It is starting to grow out, last I had noticed, it had been chin length.  

I kick at the dirt on the ground beneath weather-worn combat boots, the dust flying up around me caught in the ever quickening breeze. My sand goggles remain atop my head and I realize that if this wind picks up even more before I get home, I may have to use them. A small flashlight and flair gun sway on my belt around my hips as I walk. I look to my jeans and see that they are more worn out than my boots. The wind teases the old and newly formed holes in my jeans and threatens to pull the seams apart. I feel tiny grains of sand against my exposed skin on my legs and face. I reach up and slide the goggles down over my eyes before it gets worse out. The last thing I want is grains of sand stuck in my eyes. Not pleasant.

I pick up my pace as I reach the outskirts of the city, the buildings becoming more visible with each step. The houses are all made from the foundations from an old city. The attempts that were made to make the city look new failed miserably. Northern Pass lacks the funds and therefore we pay the price by having to use old cement blocks and bricks for walls, and for those who can’t afford it, use scrap metal for doors. Glass is rare, and many people took scavenged pieces of glass and melted it down to make windows. The result is yellow-brown windows that you can’t see out of, and very little light is let in. My house is one of the nicer houses. My mother married wealthy, or wealthy enough that we could afford windows that may be yellow, but they had the ability to open so we could get fresh air into the house. The best part about our house is that we are attached to the electrical system that runs through the city. There are only a few dozen houses that have this luxury. We can have a total of two lights on at once, any more and their light fades so much that they don’t even make a difference in brightness, even in the tiniest of rooms.We could get more power if the city didn't spend so much of it for the gates and other areas that "concern our safety" as the mayor put it.  As for water, we have a natural hot spring located underneath the city that everyone gets hot water from. The cold water comes from the nearby lake which has to be filtered and cleaned. Mother boils that water and lets it cool before she drinks it. My father always joked that she was paranoid. I've seen the way they filter the water here, and I'd say my father was right because they do a good job keeping our water clean. Father said that in the Ancient Days, the cities had huge systems to clean the water, and that the cities had so much light, that you could see some of them from space. The city now seems so old and tired, merely the phantom of a great city that once was. Northern Pass may be the remains of an old city that existed before the New World, but it does have one thing it can be proud of. The fences and barricades are new, keeping the dangerous animals and unwanted people out. The one area that Northern Pass has spent most of its people’s money on.  

I reach the outer gate of the city and am greeted by two night patrols who are on guard for anyone who does not have a pass into the city or papers to that will let them through.
“Pass or papers, please.” The man who spoke was tall and dark, his features barely visible in the dwindling light. From his voice he sounded tired and bored, and was probably nearing the end of his shift. I shove my hand into the small bag that I keep attached to the side of my belt that carry keys and my crumpled, overused pass. I grab the pass and hand it to the man. He smooths it out and gives me a quick one-over. He glances at the picture on the pass, and then at me again. “Iryssia Velde?” I nod my head and give him a quick smile, bouncing on my feet and folding my arms around my chest as the cold breeze begins to creep beneath my jacket. He eyes me one last time before handing my pass back to me. The patrol that is standing beside him turns and heads toward the entrance of the gate. He pulls a small card out of his pant pocket and swipes it in front of a tiny red light that is located where you would normally expect to see a key hole. The gate beeps, and I hear a  faint click. The patrol men both grab one gate and swing them open wide enough for me to walk through. I shove my pass into my belt bag and walk quickly through, the doors closing behind me with another faint click.

More World and Character Building! Woo.

Cracked concrete lies within the neglected city behind me, with rusting buildings and chipped, peeling paint. I live in one of the more northern cities, where the sun has less strength during the day than it does in the south. The days can still be blistering hot, but we can also get severe winters. When you do see grass, it is in balding patches which die almost as quickly as they come. They die easily in the unpredictable weather. One day may be sunny and warm, the next a blizzard. This prevents wildlife from venturing so far north. Birds are seen occasionally, but they rarely stay for long. Most of the animals that we do have are vicious and sickly. If you go farther east you reach the oceans. There is an abundance of wildlife there. My father used to travel there from time to time. He said that the buildings were being choked by vines, and the people had to carry machetes with them to create paths in the every-growing grasses. He told stories of large animals that could wipe out entire armies, you wouldn't even be able to see them coming because they could hide so well in the grasses. That’s not the case here. It’s flat, so on a sunny day you can see for miles. The only time you can’t see anything is either when it’s a blizzard, or when there is a sand storm.

My city is called the Northern Pass. We get a lot of travellers through these parts because it’s based off the main road that travels from the south to the north. There is another main road south of here, just two days walk. It heads from east to west. I've travelled to that road a couple of times when I was younger when my father was leaving or when he came back from a long business trip. I haven’t really left Northern Pass since he died. Ma says that it’s too dangerous for a girl to go off on her own. I fought with her for a while, but honestly I don’t know what I would do outside of the city anyway. At least here I have a warm bed and food. I think I only fought her about it just for the sake of fighting.

A Bit of Character and World Introduction

With each turn the world takes, it moves towards darkness and death –falling away from the sun and towards the depths of Hell. They call this the New World. People say that back in the Ancient Days the new world would be one of peace and that illness would be no more. They weren't even close.

I spin around; my head held high towards the sky, my arms open wide. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, feeling the world spin beneath my feet. When I was young I used to think that if I spun really fast and closed my eyes tight enough, I could go back to the Ancient Days. Go back to the time when the grass was green and the sky was blue. Each time I tried I would spin faster and faster until I would fall down hard onto the ground, dust picking up beneath me. I would cough and open my eyes to find that the sky was still grey and the grass still dirt. One time, I even went home and cried to my mother about how unfair it was. She told me that dreams were for fools. You won’t make it in a world like this with thoughts like that. That was the last time I fell down while spinning. Now I always stop myself before I fall, before I can crush my dream, and to convince myself that mother was wrong. I think there is some small part of me that still believes that if I can just spin fast enough, I can go back. But still, I stop myself and look up at the grey sky, and the dust that flies through the air carried by the wind. I realize it seems silly for someone who is nearly eighteen to have dreams that obviously can never happen. But for some reason, I just can’t stop doing something that I believed in so heartily when I was younger. Without the spinning, I feel like I will get dragged into the world that my mother has been consumed by. My father didn't even want to live in this world any more, a man who always tried to see the positive in any situation.