Olivia looked up at me. She was caught between betrayal and sadness, questioning why I had to go. She didn’t understand why I had to leave her here. Olivia didn’t remember how bad it got down there. The gunshots, the blood, all the things from those early days. She blocked them out and forgot them. Even if things weren’t the same didn’t mean I was going to change my mind about bringing her now.
“Well, you know we’re more than willing to watch Olivia,” said Susan.
She turned to Kyle who was lost in a daze. Susan looked worried. Kyle probably hadn’t shared what happened at the Palmer’s, or at least hadn’t yet. I was sure Kyle would break his silence, and then she’d wish he hadn’t.
“When do you expect to be back?” Susan asked, swinging her attention back my way.
“Less than a day. Perhaps early afternoon, I really don’t want to be caught down there after sunset,” I said. There were a few gangs left Downtown dangerous enough to make me weary. Murders still happened. Apparently cannibalism was still occurring. Lucky, there was still law enforcement down there in the form of a few still trying to handle such a burden. Joey and his crew of officers tried their best to keep order in a disorderly world. Though I wondered if they know about the Palmers. Would Joey do anything about that, considering we live up here?
I stood up. I could feel the handgun’s cold metal surface brush my back in my waistband. There wasn’t a way around not being armed when going back to a place that despised me. Olivia was a melting pot of emotions. She probably believed I wouldn’t return.
“Thanks again,” I said.
Susan smiled and got up. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me deeply. She leaned in close and whispered, “You just come back whole.” She smiled again.
Kyle seemed to break his trance for a moment. He came over, grabbed me by the neck, and brought me close. He didn’t have much to say, but he had been listening, and at least expressed his own heart-felt goodbye.
“Stay safe, my friend,” Kyle whispered.
“I will. I promised someone already,” I said without having to look back at Olivia. The little girl suddenly clung to me, and wrapped her little arms around my waist. I looked down at her and knew I shouldn’t be leaving, that we should just go back home and forget about this craziness, but I couldn’t.
“It’s okay… it will be okay,” I whispered. I picked up Olivia and held her in my arms. She didn’t whine, didn’t shake or hyperventilate at my departure. She would miss me I know. She just hugged me with her arms around my neck, silently wishing for me not to leave. I put her down, and without hesitation walked straight out the door and into the world.
Walking down this familiar street, as I’d done roughly two years ago, I realized that much hadn’t changed. Everything was fragmented: the memories, the surroundings, the people, all broken and in disrepair. We lived on in the destruction that we didn’t remember happening, in another time we didn’t recall living.
There used to be a river that gushed only a short distance from the street off to the right side. With The Forgetting destroying any notion of knowing how to survive, that river brought fresh water to us and our dying thirst. It was one of the only things in this new life to celebrate and hold onto.
The fighting started only a few months after the beginning of the world. Groups argued and tried to control resources. They fought, and died over the water.
Stopping atop of a broken bridge that still hadn’t fallen from disrepair, I glanced down at the dry riverbed, seeing sharp rocks, debris, and tragic memories. It was probably a twenty foot fall from here to the rocky outcrop below.
Moving ahead, I looked left to see the dry riverbed running close by. The groups that arose over time did so for two fundamentally different reasons: to take, and to give. Those who wanted to control the waters, to control the people, were almost the greatest threat. They would extort, lie, and kill those in their way. But then again, the ones that sought to keep the waters free for everyone else were utterly terrifying too. They would do whatever needed to be done. They destroyed lives, demolished buildings, and sought to control everybody while trying to keep the waters free. It was a horrible paradox.
A lot of people died in that war. Not soon after the first stone was slung, I could recall seeing the first body floating upside down in the water. It was a bloody beginning to this tragic city. I sympathized with why they did it too, but just not how they ended it. I never wanted to get involved, but always tried to voice my concern, my voice always drowned out in the violence.
Then one day the river was simply gone, as if it never existed in the first place. No one could explain it, and I sure as hell couldn’t rationalize it. The fighting only grew worse from there. Accusations were tossed around freely, and especially toward those who could stand to gain from the river’s disappearance. More blood was spilled, and more tears were shed. Even more lives were taken. I was one of the people suspected of somehow tampering with the free-flowing water. That was just the beginning of my troubles, I suppose. I thought to the times when I held Olivia at night, when the fighting grew too close to home, when it threatened to beat down our front door.
I made my way forward. The river dipped down and swung left. From here it would drift another hundred paces or so before disappearing altogether.
I passed by several broken dwellings. These places had been incinerated at some point. Surfaces were all weather-beaten from the constant rain and the merciless glare of the sun. Paint was peeling here and there. The grass was burned in places, most of it brown and the rest simple patches of dirt. Blackened soot covered everything.
Anything that tried to grow back was sure to suffer an unhappy life. The cement on the foundations was blackened and crumbling, threatening to collapse at any moment. A strong wind could push over these weakened buildings, and often did. It was sometimes loud enough at night to hear something falling apart.
Some other houses on my right weren’t as lucky, if that was even an appropriate way to put it. Piles of ashes were just heaped on the ground. The burnt and rotted piping, and some framework, jutted out of the ground, barely suggested that a building had existed before.
Not a single piece of this broken city ever looked unscathed from whatever disaster occurred before The Forgetting. As my mind had returned piece by piece, new words and ideas became apparent. War… famine… natural disaster. But nothing fit quite right.
I came to a halt as a not-so-recent memory arose. Olivia was right here, running ahead and pointing, seeking my attention. I wanted to call out to her, to tell her to stop. But this was just my horrific fantasy, or my deepest fear. If I followed where she was pointing, I knew it would only lead me to that circling mass of evil.
This was a memory from the first day, a phantom from my past. The cliff that would drop down a hundred feet with sharp and jagged boulders below. I started moving again, keeping my eyes on my feet.
Step by step I drew ever closer to that edge. Before I knew it I was staring down at the abyss at the bottom of the gorge. The fall would take but a few seconds, and death would be instant. Several graves sat at the bottom of the ravine. Some deaths were accidental, people falling to their doom. Others chose the fall to stop their misery. I knew their plight, their need to let go of the pain and sorrow.
I’d had the urge to leap myself, to no longer worry about the fighting, the hunger, the turning, or anything else would be such a relief. Every time I thought I was ready to jump, I would hear Olivia’s voice echo in my mind. It would be foolish to fall, selfish even. I would not only be killing myself, but I’d leave Olivia alone in this corrupted world. I would never take the plunge.