Nukledeus

Like every morning for the past ten years, Olek sat back at his usual place on top of the hill. He liked to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin before the hot hours of the afternoon. Sitting on his favorite rock, facing east, he was listening to the song of a chickadee escaped from the reserve collections of Ark City.

Hearing a familiar noise, he turned his face toward the path and gave his visitor a warm and welcoming smile. His guest spoke first :

"You forgot the birdseed for your birdies."

"Thank you. As it happens, a chickadee is eagerly awaiting its meal. Please, put the birdseed there, in the shade, high up on these big stones", he replied.

Olek waited quietly and patiently. He could hear other birds approaching, probably sparrows hardly bothered by his presence.

"It's been so quiet since yesterday, they all went over there."

"Yeah, it's almost the anniversary day of the fall of Ark City and it's a long ride to get there."

Olek turned his face to the east again, as if he could see the city in the distance.

"Daddy doesn't want to go back. That's why we stayed here. Today is my birthday and I'm bored."

"Happy birthday, then. Come and sit down, if you stay close to the birdseed, the birds won't eat."

"Why didn't you leave with Nikodem and his family?"

"You want to know the truth? I didn't feel like babysitting: my nieces are a little too energetic and never sit still..."

"Lila and Capucine. It seems that these were names of flowers but no one knows what they looked like."

"Flora was the one who chose their names. I believe that their grandmother Mathilde was working in an arkian greenhouse before joining the rebels. Flora often thinks of her... If you ask Fergus, he will surely find you a picture of flowers in one of his grandfather's books... I mean, in his books, the ones he inherited."

"Fergus also went there this time around. Last time, I went with him and he stayed the whole time on an old stone bridge over a dried-up pond. When we got home, Daddy told to me that this is where my mom is buried. He said that Fergus scattered Aunt Chloé's ashes in the same place", the child pouted.

"That's true, but your father is right to stay here. It's dangerous to go back to Ark City. There's probably still radiation due to the meteorite's explosion."

"But I like to visit the city. Flora used to show me a lot of things there but she no longer has time now that she takes care of the little ones."

Olek couldn't help but smile at the thought of Clara calling the twins "little ones". He remembered holding her in his arms to lull her while Doctor Nicolas treated the survivors when Ark City fell. She was barely a few days old. Ten years later, she looked a lot like her mother, or so they said, and like her Aunt Chloé too, only with an additional shock of hair. Just like the both of them, she could hardly handle being contradicted, but thanks to her persistence, there was no obstacle she couldn't overcome. She also got along very well with Lana, who was now a wise and influential leader for the survivors while raising her own noisy gang of kids.

"I wish I'd known the city before its fall. I would have joined the Shadow Girls, like my Mom... Or maybe I would have learned how to care for the animals. Nikodem always describes the wonders he saw in the huge aquariums and animal pens. I also wish I'd helped Colette at the Materna, in the nursery. I'm pretty good with babies, like my Mom, I think."

Olek felt a pang of anguish hearing all of Clara's dreams that could never be fulfilled. Ark City was a ruin, a dangerous wreck, an empty shell.

"What a mess ! And to think it's all my fault...", he mumbled.

"Why would you say that?"

Olek had not realized that he had spoken aloud and immediately wished he could take his words back. Clara's curiosity wouldn't leave him alone until he gave her some answers. He took a deep breath and started his speech off. For years, he had repeated and refined his tale over and over again just like a mantra that would relentlessly cross his mind against his will and rekindle his feeling of guilt.

"I'm the one who told the Outcasts how to get into the city. I wanted to follow your Aunt Chloé into Ark City with Fergus but the three of us were captured and I had to run away by myself. And that's when I met Sam, Lana's brother. Together, we eventually reunited with Torgny, Sumai, Lana and the others... all but Nikodem, Fergus and Chloé. We wanted to go and look for them, but Sam said we needed an army. Lana had cautioned us not to trust him, but we didn't heed her warning. At first, Torgny and I merely followed Sam into the Outcasts' camps in order to recruit. He told them that the arkians had slaughtered his group of fellow Outcasts but that was a lie! Sam himself had poisoned the others and even eaten their hearts. Upon seeing this, we left him and got back to Lana and Sumai while Sam and his army were launching their attack on Ark City. I shouldn't have shown him how to get into the city", he lamented.

Clara heaved a sigh dramatically. Olek could guess she was shrugging her small shoulders and rolling her eyes. They had been holding this discussion for years, Olek was not easily swayed but Clara never gave up, it was not in her nature. She always listened to him as he kept harping on about his own faults like a senile old man without ever turning away from him. For her, those events were long past, it was history and Fergus would one day write them down in a new book.

"You had nothing to do with it. There's no way you could have known his plans."

"I had witnessed what he was capable of, in his bigoted madness. Had it been information about our tribe, I wouldn't have told him anything, but at that time, the arkians were my enemies as well. Sam was smooth-tongued and manipulative, he easily coaxed me, saying he only wished to help me. Without Lana's warnings, I might have followed the Outcasts with their plan of invasion and no one knows what would have happened to me." Olek felt so ashamed and regretful and couldn't help but sound like a whining child.

As always, the memories haunting him were overwhelming to the point of inducing hallucination. He could almost feel the heat and smell the smoke of the nearby blaze, could almost hear the screams and the gunshots. Following Lana's orders, they had set up a camp near the river to tend to the wounded and the refugees. The sight of the burning city had both fascinated and frightened him. He felt powerless while going through this tragic event again, so crucial and traumatic for all those who had experienced it. Then, in his mind's eye, he saw once again the blast and the unbearably bright flare that made him go blind and plunged him into darkness for the rest of his life.

He felt a small cold hand touching his arm. Lost in thought, he had almost forgotten the present, as well as little Clara who was worried by his side. Relieved, he regained his composure. It was not the first time that the mere presence of the little girl had helped him escape from a panic attack, bringing him back to reality. Here and now.

He could not change the past. The visions of desolation and distress in his very last memories before his blindness were gnawing at him. He knew he was showing his most pathetic and shameful side to the little girl and, trying to make amends, he adopted a brighter mood for Clara's birthday. He tried to find something to talk about but his mind was stuck in Ark City ten years earlier. It seemed to him that his life had stopped after that event. He had been struggling with his handicap and his depression and a decade had already passed without him realizing it. It was high time for him to start living again.

"I've never been told how you managed not to be irradiated, unlike the others who were trapped inside the city."

"Daddy told me it was thanks to Doctor Colette. Because she had explained to him how to disable the Materna's anti-intrusion security or whatever, and then, he managed to hide in there when the fire reached the clinic. He told me that the Materna had been built to protect children and keep the ingredients and facilities to produce babies in the arkian style, with their strange recipe."

"That's where Fergus was being held, I believe. It seems that it's the only building left standing even though it's been abandoned."

"Yes, and rumor has it that at night, light can be seen through the windows even though electricity had been shut off, however, no one's ever dared to enter. Some say that Shadow Girls have been hiding there in order to use the facilities and produce babies..."

They talked for a long time, sharing memories of the past ten years as if they had just met. Olek felt like he was waking up from a long sleep. It had taken this long, and Clara's support, for him to find the will to live again. Others still struggled to surmount their difficulties and overcome their grief for the Nukledeus, for Ark City and a whole Nature and Civilization that it had kept within.