Catastrophe

   The only tree in many kilometers was an island of hope for those crossing the planes. The grass grew very green but nothing else. No one else knew the reason, but other signs of life near the tree were scarce. The people that crossed the plains, looking for a better life in the east, were almost the only signs of life in the area. Sometimes bugs will swarm around the tree, sometimes a lost mammal or some small lizard. But that was it. All the rest had gone away in a blink many years ago.

 The catastrophe had occurred in one strike, one big punch against the planet. In a matter of days, most species began to die and most tress got a very serious disease that made their trunks and leaves much weaker than ever. They would fall, piece by piece, and then rot into the ground without anyone really caring. People did not realize how important that event was until, a weak later, some people started dying.

 It was especially people that lived up in the mountains. They had no oxygen to process anymore as all the trees in those areas had died and the other vegetation was also getting sick but dying much slower. Walking around forests was forbidden, as it was a very dangerous thing to do. Besides, everyone could feel the cloud of disease in the air. It had a very particular smell and it was likely it tasted strange. At first, people used masks and special suits when encountering an affected tree.

 However, in time, people realized they had no reason to worry about the disease. It only killed plant life. But that was equally bad any way, because without the correct amount of plants in the world, no one would have any oxygen to breathe. Most scientists tried to come up with a solution for the problem, some kind of antidote that would help everywhere. But that was never found. The only thing they could do was to plant grass, which seemed to be unaffected and that’s why the plains, years later, were covered in a thick layer of grass.

 The caravans crossing the region were confused, as the color in the ground was very festive, welcoming them in a way. But the truth was that everything was dead. Besides the grass, there was nothing in the plains, not even hills or mountains or anything like that. There was only a huge space covered in green and groups of people trying to overcome te strong wind in order to get to the other side.

 Hope relied on the east as the lack of oxygen had begun in the west. Some thought it was because of a weapon someone created, and they wouldn’t be any wrong. It was all a laboratory creation that had gone really wrong. But no one really cared anymore. Seeing the lonely tree in the plain, make them realized there was no reason to complain now.

 One of the groups had been walking for around a month. Their clothes, particularly their shoes, were destroyed by the effort of walking so much. They had children and elderly people with them. However, every time someone got really sick or wouldn’t move, they just kept on walking, leaving that person behind. They couldn’t be compassionate or anything like that. The more time they spent crossing the plains, the more time they gave to that weird phenomenon to make them a big part of it.

 Many feared, with reason, that the disease of the plants could somehow be transferred to a human being. It was true that most food had died because of it, there were no crops or anything like that. But those who had eaten food around the first days of the catastrophe, were really afraid they had the disease inside of them and that they would began disintegrating just like the trees.

 But that never happened. People died out of hunger or because they couldn’t breath properly. Now most people used a special mask that tried to consume the minimal amount of oxygen. At first, it was quite a challenge to live like that, every day. But after a while, it was not really noticeable. Humankind had gotten used to other things and they would adapt to less oxygen in the atmosphere. Of course, there would be a certain level of extinction, but that’s nature.

 Each group that crossed the plains knew very well they shouldn’t stop much. They only did so when everyone, every single person, was in the need of water or food. They never stopped for only one person. If there was only one individual asking for help, they normally let him or her find a solution for their problem by their own. Most times, that person would die in just a few hours.

 The plains, so green and beautiful in a way, were like a desert. The climate was harsh because there were no trees to stop the sun getting to the ground. However, beside a few yellow patches in the grass, the ground wasn’t affected at all by the heat. There were still some rivers and lagoons, were they could recharge their bottles and other containers to have water. But the taste of it was different and it wasn’t as helpful to the body as before.

 Yet, people were persistent and walked every day and every night if that was necessary. Some groups did rest at night, but it was very unsafe or so thought others. Without any other animals, it made no sense to be scared of sleeping at night in the middle of the grass, but people still had many of the characteristics of the former humans, the people that they used to be not so long ago.

 Some groups reached the east and realized there was an ocean there they had to cross. But the first real thing they noticed was that the ocean level had dropped sharply. By the coast, they were strange formations they could identify as being from the former bottom of the sea. They could still see some fish and people grabbed them and ate them, because they were hungry and they had to put their hands on anything they could.

 In order to cross the sea, people would have to work hard and that was something to think about. After all, they had no way to breathing properly and they could die constructing any vessels. So first, they looked around and finally got to what used to be a Marina. The ocean was about ten kilometers away now. There were big yachts and smaller ships but there was the huge problem of moving it towards the water.

 They had to use a truck and some rope and try to do it slowly as the ship’s hull could break and that would mean more effort that would consume even more oxygen. But, thanks to the soft ground left by the moving sea, the ship got the coast unharmed. People got it into the ocean and sailed away. That was done by the first group to successfully cross the plains. They had lost about fifty lives in there and five more moving the boat. They were only twenty-four now. But at least they were alive in order to look for a better life abroad.

 Some had hope, still, that the disease of the plants had not reached other continents but the few people that were scientists or teachers knew that to be impossible. The world had been connected by so many ways in the past, that it was not possible for a disease to just stay in one place. It would have to be a conscious disease or something like that and, thankfully, they hadn’t found out about anything like that.

The first days of sailing were fine, but by the end of the first weekend, many got sick and some more died. They began thinking the ship would never reach the other coasts, wherever than was. Maybe they could at least meet others in order to survive together or maybe there was like a safe haven for the disease or something like that. People had to dream and have hope, because they didn’t have anything else.

 When the ship hit the other coast, only nine people were still onboard that first ship. They explored the coast and realized the strangely green grass also grew there. And there were no trees or flowers or any other types of plants. No bugs, no dogs, no nothing. They were done. They decided to keep on walking just to be able to think about something, to come up with a plan. But it would never happen. It was the end.

Swimming

   The light seemed to be far away, moving far from my fingers each time I moved my arms. The space I was in seemed very open and, for a moment, I felt that would be the feeling of being floating in space, without a proper astronaut suit of course. I have no idea why I thought that at that moment. Isn’t the brain supposed to prioritize things in our bodies in order to make us live longer? However, I could almost see the ship I had come out too, floating silently in front of me, and a big planet below me. But all that didn’t matter because I was about to die.

 The thought lasted just a second but it was strong enough for me to move faster, to force my tired arms to do a little bit more work. Every single vein and nerve in my body was crying in pain, my brain hurt so much I couldn’t stand it. I had always wished to be taller in order to have bigger arms and feet, which would have helped so much in that moment. But I wasn’t.  I was just the opposite of that and I was in a position where wishing was useless.

 My last movements towards the light were desperate. It was then when my body felt like it was empty. Every single thing that had no real use, every function that didn’t serve a purpose in that moment, they all disappeared in order to focus on the fact that I was going to die if my body didn’t perform something close to a miracle. Because I had never done what I about to do. It was a triumph I would never really be aware of and that’s ok because it worked.

 It was my right hand, my main hand if you will, the first limb of my body to feel the air outside. It felt terribly cold, colder that the water in the lagoon. The air seemed to be against me too but the difference was I could breathe that. The water was different, invasive and dangerous. Before and after that, I could never understand the people that are fascinated with water and would like to spend their lives in it.

 I guess that makes me a hypocrite. Because I kind of was one of those people before that. Since the earliest age, my parents took me to the ocean, to swimming pools, lake or wherever I could swim. I took classes and even competed for prizes when I was in school. Modesty aside, I won several of those competitions because I had a serious passion about the water, about how my body moved in it and it felt like home.

 The hard time would be during my teenage years when, for reasons I shouldn’t address, I became increasingly larger in size. And it was nature doing its job; it was more like junk food and sugar doing their thing. It was then when I got depressed for the very first time. Self diagnosed, of course. I never went to any doctor or shrink to tell me how I felt. Even at that age I found the concept ridiculous.

 Of course, I stopped my swimming. I was too big for the bathing suit and too sad to move my arms that fast. It was like that for years and I had to put away any remainder of who I had been before because it hurt too hard. Somehow, I had become a disappointment for myself. Is there anything more pathetic than that? I have no idea. The point is my attention shifted from one thing to the next. You can blame puberty for that. I just had to survive high school so, as when I swam, my body had to get its priorities straight.

 It was only in my last years of college, more than ten years after I had dropped out of the swim team in school, that I came back to the water. It’s amazing to think about it, but in that time I never really swam. Yes, I went to the beach or to houses with pools. But I would only be in the water for a moment, if at all. Maybe surprising but true. I felt I didn’t belong there anymore so why overstay my welcome?

 Aged twenty-three years old, I discovered a gym close to my house that had a swimming pool. The best part was you could reserve one of the swimming lanes for an hour and didn’t put anyone to tell you how to do anything. It was absolutely free of that. So I decided to go and, at first, I felt as drowned as in the lagoon. But I decided I would not ask for help and, slowly, it all came back to me.

 After my first week, the people that worked there congratulated me for my style, my technique. Although one of them reminded me, as if I didn’t know, that I was too short and that could be a problem. I know what he meant: being short in a pool is a problem because you take longer to reach the other side, even if it is by a few centimeters. Those can be decisive in a competition and they were certainly decisive in the lagoon. If I had been taller, the sense of terror would have been less powerful.

 When I had two arms outside of the water, the only thing I could do was taking a big breath. I felt alive, although barely. My legs hurt so much but they kept on moving until I reached the shore, which was obscured by the shadow caster over by the rocky structure above the lagoon. It was like a vault that enclosed the whole system. Why would I ever think it was a good idea to swim in a flooded cave?

 But as the soon got higher in the sky, the place seemed to get larger and the water revealed itself as so transparent and perfect. The sky was evenly reflected on its surface. It was so well done, the surface of the water, that had calmed down fast after I had gotten out of it, seemed like a huge mirror where God could check himself out.

 I lay down in my back, conscious I would have to swim back to the exit. Before I got comfortable, I checked for animals, bugs and others. After all, it was an arid place and little animals are known to live through the cracks of rocks and such. But when I was down, looking at the sky through the opening before me, I realized that was, again, my first time swimming in a very long time.

 The pool in the gymnasium was great. After some time, I got a proper job wearing a tie and a suit, which I’ve always hated, so I had to move my swimming hours to a later time. I would go the moment work finished, around six or seven in the afternoon. I would stay there for an hour, not stopping for more that a few seconds. I got new fans, new people that told me they were really surprised by me. I can’t tell you how much I loved that attention, which I had never gotten for anything else.

 However, I caught the eye of one particular person and from then on, I only cared about his comments and his smiles. I had learned not to let opportunities go by, so after a week of random looks, I decided to approach him after I was done swimming. It was weird because it was in the locker room, where people grabbed their stuff to have a shower or changed their clothes. He was wearing his bathing suit, like me, when I asked him if he would like to have a drink in a bar close to there.

 That was our first date. We considered it our first date a year later, when we celebrated the anniversary of our relationship. We didn’t really celebrate, we just got together and did the things we both like: we went swimming to a beautiful lake, we had a picnic with many delicious things to eat and we kissed and made love in my car, which was incredibly comfortable for such a vehicle.

 Our relationship lasted for almost three years. One month shy of our relationship turning three years old, he was assaulted in the street by some guy that wanted to steal his money. The guy had a gun and shot him with it, once. The bullet hit his spine. We all got to the hospital in time to say a few words. Then, he was gone. As if he had never existed. We had so many plans, a life of plans. This city is crazy.

 I came to the desert because of what happened. I needed to escape from everyone and everything. I still think about him, date and night. I cry for him and I also have wet dreams with him. But it’s in the water I feel him the most. I guess that’s why I challenged myself to swim through the flooded cave. And that’s why I’m challenging myself to go back. For him but also for me. I need to feel alive again.

Men & Monsters

   The chains did a horrible sound, indicating that Genke was now a slave. He had fought bravely and had resisted for many days in the jungle, but the Wataku tribe had attacked with everything they had. They had burned down every single tree in the jungle, killing every animal that lived in it and making every former free man run for their lives. They put men on all sides of the jungle in order to capture the escaping men. They would beat them up with sticks that damaged the skin and then throw one of those stink bombs they used to render people unconscious.

 Genke had been the victim of one of those bombs and had woken up in a cell on top of a cart. He had been sleeping in a corner, as there were at least five other men with him inside the cage. The cart advanced through the wilderness very slowly and it was then when they all realized the jungle was burning, very far in the distance. It was something very difficult to see, as the forest had provided food and shelter for a long time and now it has fallen with them

 They wanted to ask where they were taking them but there was no way they would answer them. Any sound they made was answered with the crack from a whip. It always scared them despite the fact that it never it them. They were too scared and tired to fight nay longer and decided to let things happen however they had to happen. They stayed in silence and tried not to annoy the Wataku.

 The night passed and when the first light of morning appeared in the horizon, their new masters made them step down the cart and start walking behind it. They did not know why they had to do that but they did it without question. They had no intention of crossing any of the slavers. The man with the whip was on a horse and looked at them like a hawk. Any wrong move would be enough for him to react.

 That wrong move was when the youngest of the new slaves fell to the floor, possibly because of dehydration. The man whipped him with an uncanny ability and the kid’s flesh opened horribly, making wounds that would never properly heal, much less in the new conditions that they were living in. He had to be helped up in order to resume the walk, which he almost didn’t finish. The following morning, they entered a small village.

 It was called Sihoku and it was a settlement created by the Wataku that lived from capturing other tribes’ men. There was something like a jail there, where the five men were put in. There were lots of other slaves, possibly twenty more. Genke thought, for a moment, that they could rise and destroy the enemy but that wasn’t possible. Everyone was either too tired or had been beat up horribly by their new owner.

 Later, a tall member of the Wataku came and pushed every single man to the corner of the cage where they were being held. As he did that, two others carried a big metal deposit that worked as a feeding device for the animals. There were two of them. The big soldier pushed and kicked them, calling them names in his language and then left, doing some kind of a grin that they thought was very strange.

 As soon as he left the cage, every man except Genke and the boy that had been beaten up, ran to the metal deposits in order to eat and drink. They looked like pigs or cows feeding as if they had never eaten in their lives. Some pass over others to get food, some others hit their fellow men in order to get a handful of the food, some kind of mashed product that smells like it had gone bad recently.

 Genke did not even try to get closer. He thought they had to be better than that, he thought it was better if they showed the enemy that couldn’t be broken so easily. They had their houses burnt, their wives and children skinned alive or burned and now they were behaving just like the enemy wanted. They seemed to have forgotten every single thing that had happened recently and, the worst part, was that their new owners realized how easy it was to tame them and to convert them in the nice little slaves they wanted them to be.

 However, they had also seen how Genke had not even tried to eat or drink and they had already decided to make an example out of him. During the night, the cage was open and the big soldier entered again but this time he was careful no to be so loud or violent. He was there to grab only one of them and it was easy to stop who he wanted as he was apart from the group: Genke had separated from them because he couldn’t stand them anymore.

 The man grabbed Genke, woke him up and took him out of the cage. They tied a rope from every extremity and tensed the ropes from poles in order to cause him extreme pain. This was done over a wooden table were he was lying down, although there were moments when his body didn’t even touched the table. That was how much they stretched his body.

 Genke screamed all night. The guys in the cage realized what was happening and were sad for him but they had understood that there was no way to win to the masters. They were stronger and simply hand the upper hand. When morning arrived again, Genke was not thrown into the cell again but into the one in a cart. Others joined him there and then the transport began to move. The journey would be much shorter.

 The Wataku were sending them to the ocean. There, they saw some kind of event happening in the beach and also immense boats floating on the ocean. They understood what was happening just as the cart stopped and they had to walk, in chains, to make a line behind many other men that were been auctioned to a public of foreigners. They were dressed in funny clothes and look very different from one another. Genke even noticed that they all preferred to raise their hand and show fingers than actually speak during the auction.

 When they finished with the group that was there when they arrived, it was their turn. Genke felt sick, not only because of his torture, but because he was very hungry and thirsty. He walked in front of the foreigners making his best effort not to faint and then waited for their Wataku master to release them from the chains. But that didn’t happen. The Wataku were merciless and never forgive any misbehavior.

 All the slaves in their group were kept in chains and the foreigners had a chance to approach before they began the auction. Genke found it humiliating, as the foreigners checked every slave’s hair, their teeth, their skin and even their overall size, including the size of their feet. They didn’t understood why so many measurements and detailing. What had the mouth anything to do with working in a field?

 The auction began some time after that. One by one, the men that had been captured the same day as Genke were being sold to different foreigners. Other men from beyond the sea would come and take them directly to the ships. They didn’t wait or let anyone say anything. They just dragged the slave if they had to do it.

 The younger boy that had been badly beaten up by the Wataku was sold to a man with a mustache but when he was being taken to the ship, he started fighting his new owner, trashing about and yelling in their tongue. Somehow, he thought they would all suddenly rise and defend him from being taken away. The truth was much more sad: he was punched and kicked in the ground and carried unconscious into the boat. No one knew if he ever survived the journey.

 Genke was sold to a tall man, the tallest he had ever seen. His eyes were cold and his skin was the one of a ghost. He didn’t fight them as he was taken to the ship. He didn’t say anything when he had to sleep with dozen of others inside that boat. And he didn’t talked once he was sold again, in a port far away from his homeland, which he would never see again. He rarely spoke again, hoping he would eventually die and, at least, have some peace in his grave. That was his only wish.

Purple eyes

   The knight in shining armor was running through the hallways, make a clanking noise that was very hard to miss. He had entered the castle through the back, by a courtyard that had never been seen by eyes different than the ones of the cooks and maids that had worked there when the castle lived its golden age. Now, it building was empty and some areas were ruins, crumbling slowly into the ground.

 When he arrived at the end of one of the hallways, he took out a map from his pocket. It wasn’t very easy to take anything out of there with that costume on, so he decided to remove the leg parts in order to be faster. He wasn’t as big and powerful as one would guess so for a charming prince, but that’s what he was. He checked the map and then ran towards the left, down a very long corridor that connected the main part of the building with the south tower of the complex.

 He finally found the door that lead to the second tower. With one it of his sword, he was able to make the door collapse to the ground. He stepped on the remains of the door and started climbing the stairs, step by step. He got tired after the first fifty. He had to stop running so he sat down by a small opening to the side of the tower and saw the world from there. He could see the former gardens and the courtyard below but he was still too close to the ground to see any fantastic views.

 After a while, he kept on climbing, his armor was still making the clinking sound, with every single step he made. He stopped again after climbing for a long time and he saw, through another window, that he was close to his goal. He could see the road from the window and also the forest that existed between the castle and the rest of the civilized world. Some said the forest was created to keep everyone away from the castle but that hadn’t stopped many men from risking their lives and go there.

 Many died in the forest, attacked by packs of hungry wolves or by some huge bears that lived around. There were also rumors of ghosts and various monsters that only rose when the fog was thick or it was very late at night. But the biggest legend surrounding the area was that a dragon protected the building and it had burned knights to their deaths when they had tried to enter the castle without permission.

As he walked the few steps that distanced him from the room in the upper level of the tower, the knight celebrated the fact that he had wore the full armor to defend himself on his way to the top. He had killed a few wild animals with his sword but that was it. That’s why he felt that something was wrong. It had been too busy, not according to the legend that everyone knew by heart.

 When he got to the upper room, he knocked gently and presented himself as Knight of Vals and Dam, sir Tristane Deschamps. But even speaking loudly wasn’t good enough to make anyone open the door from inside. So he pushed the door opened and looked around to see if the rest of the legend was true. If there really was a very beautiful woman sleeping in the tower, waiting for someone to rescue her from imprisonment. He looked around but so no one.

 He entered the room and walked to what appeared to be a bed and checked, in order to know if the person that had lay there had left a moment ago or many years ago. He put his hand covered in metal on the bed and realized it was warm. There had been someone sleeping in it. Out of nowhere, a young woman appeared behind him and held him tightly with a knife to his throat. The knight felt hard to the floor. He couldn’t move there.

 The woman asked who he was and he repeated his name. Then she asked what he was doing there and he just looked at her a bit confused. He asked her if she wasn’t the beautiful lady that lived inside a castle waiting for a knight in shining armor to save her and take care of her for the rest of her life. She looked at him as if he had just heard someone speak in a strange language. The woman released him from her grip but told him to stay down.

 - You don’t need to rescue me.

 The knight was about to ask something else but then a sound was heard very loudly and appeared to come from the first floor. The knight had never heard anything like it, like a thousand lions roaring at the same time or many pieces of silverware falling to the ground. It was very unsettling and that’s why he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything more that advise the woman to live the castle with her as she was in mortal danger if that was the dragon.

 She didn’t appear to listen, instead helping him getting up. She seemed to be thinking about something else or was at least too distracted by other thought in her mind. The knight insisted she should go with him in order to fulfill the legend. He knew that she would be very well received in his towns and that everyone would love her.

 That apparently convinced the young woman. She stopped walking around and told the knight she would go with him. They went out of the door and slowly walked back down, each step being easier as they headed to freedom and civilization. The knight was happy about it because he had never thought he would be able to fulfill such a difficult task.

 When they arrived to the back courtyard, through which the knight had arrived, the woman stopped running behind the man. She just stood there, like frozen in time. Her heart was racing but none of her limbs could move. He got near her and tried to determine what was wrong with her and he couldn’t point it out. The roaring of the dragon seemed to grow closer so he decided he would carry the princess to the backdoor but that didn’t work because, somehow, she was very heavy.

 He doubted that was something natural. It had to be some kind of black magic in order not to take the woman out of the castle without fighting the dragon. Probably, whoever put her there, had left very specific instructions in order to safe her and killing the dragon was probably one of those. So he let her where she was and he stepped into the grass patch of the courtyard and looked up.

 The dragon wasn’t flying, as he had thought. He appeared from the opposite side of the courtyard, tearing down a wall with its enormous paws. It was very big, just like a gigantic lizard with blackish wings and a sickening greenish skin. The dragon pushed the wall, launching several stones towards the knight. He avoided them easily. He decided to grab his sword and run towards the dragon. He had to fulfill his destiny.

 But his arms were almost broken when the sword hit the dragon’s skin and it did absolutely no damage. Not only that, but the body of the creature seemed so big and resistant, that the blow had actually affected the knight more than the dragon. The creature did nothing. He just watched him trying to feel his arms again and grabbing his sword to try again with same results.

 He then realized there was no way of killing the creature, so he ran towards the princess in order to wake her up from her trance. The dragon was only looking at him so he thought it was a safe thing to do. When he reached the woman, he realized she was very cold, her hands almost feeling like ice. The dragon watched as the knight tried like a fool to “wake” her up fro whatever was happening to her.

 But then the dragon just grew closer and ate the knight in one gulp. The girl was then able to move but her eyes were not the same as before. They were purple, just like the eyes of the dragon. She blinked and the dragon blinked. She thought about tearing down the wall and the dragon did exactly that with ease. The princess was the monster everyone was afraid of. That’s why she couldn’t leave her castle. Because she shouldn’t. There was no way in trying to prevent evil from pouring out of her. So she kept herself locked away, even if sometimes she needed to breath like anyone else, to run away.