Salvation

The post-apocalyptic eons have ensued generations into a besmirched horde of chaos and mayhem.

At the break of dawn, the smoldering blood-red sun scorches the barren nation of ashes and dust, depriving from any means of breeding life. In its wake, the air hangs heavily with the pungent stench of burnt flesh that never absconds. Thick smoke suffocates the subsistence of any presence when they suspend in the haze, while the shadows of the Reaper looms over the unravelling civilization of mankind as devastating loss marches them towards the doors of extinction.

Scarcity has pervaded every corner of the world, scourging humanity into anguish and despair. Their miseries escalate with the worth of a single grain of rice and a bead of water that surpasses the merit of pure, raw gold. Emaciated and cadaverously living, plagues and diseases urge to stalk the dystopian wastelands for innocent lives, whose cries plead and beg to the gods for a relief from their tormented souls.

In such periods of despondency, the repercussions of conquest, war, famine, and death always devour their tolls of billions. The law of the jungle persists and never ceases to engrave its essence into the minds of mankind that only the fittest will abide. Even so, those who writhe for survival have yet to encounter the clash of sheer destruction that calamity has wreaked on what is left of them.

Amidst in the purgatory, a boy stands idly by the shore, his hollow, vacant eyes staring into the void. The open waters have long remained still with an eerie, ominous pool of decay, stagnant beneath the surfaces with the underlying carnages of the past.

The boy, however, has not the ingenuity to comprehend the horror of reality.

Rufinus Fearghast is a twelve-year old, orphaned Danish boy with a brain abnormality. None of his kin are able to fathom, nor do they able to tolerate his peculiar behaviors and eccentric habit, which casted him out as the oddball, abandoned and overlooked in the streets amongst the rotting carcasses of old.

Fortunately for his fate, Rosalyn Gold— a Brit lass of his age with a benign spirit and a benevolent heart, found him as he laid in the verge of his demise. Her solicitous family did not hesitate to foster him as their own, thus since then, he has settled around the countryside where her family and a few others reside, dwelling in the silence of isolation.

“Rufinus !”

Within the distance, his honed senses perk at the familiar voice calling out to his name.

Rosalyn’s feet skid to a halt by his side, before her doe blue eyes alleviate the turbulence within, mirroring signs of relief. She asserts between gasps of air, “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Rufinus spares her not a glance, his lips locked as if they are sewn to each other and his eyes fixated across the horizons. Only several seconds later that he reacts with a succinct nod, brief and curt. Accustomed to such muted answers, Rosalyn needs not to muster up her courage once her slender hands stretch out to wrap her petite, little fingers around his resilient arms.

Her chapped lips part, “The ship is arriving any minute.”

Another blatant ignorance.

“Now, Rufinus,” she lowers the tone to an emphasis, “We should head back, now.”

With a stern tug of his arm, Rufinus tears his eyes away from the unknown. His numb feet plod against the sand compliantly as she pioneers him back into their worn out tents, away from the obscenity of the primeval aftermaths and towards where the warmth envelopes him unconditionally.

Upon the approaching sight of her children, Rosalyn’s mother springs up to her feet and greet them by the entrance.

“You forgot your gas masks,” she states with clear worry smothering her hoarsened voice, and her eyes glistening with concern, “Both of you.”

In an instant, Rosalyn’s face drops with a quiet mask of resignation. “Sorry, mother. I was in a-“

“I know you can’t help but feel uneased when Rufinus is especially close to the coastal areas, but that was hasty of you to leave them behind,” her mother interjects, afore her stance of reason. “You know how sensitive these issues are to your health.”

An austere string attached to her mother’s tenor inaugurates the guilt melting into the face of her daughter, but her son’s dawdles in the afloat of distant aloofness.

Despite his roving eyes that seem to be indulged into the explorations of the ceilings, Rufinus is fully-aware that he is a part of the main antagonist at fault. The middle-aged woman utters not a word no more, shifts her sickly body towards where the gas masks are laid, on top of a disheveled cloth, and fetches them into her tardy children’s holds.

“We are departing soon,” she says in a more composed manner, “The ship is ready by the piers.”

Rosalyn’s nimble eyes dart around in search for her father, that has yet to return home after weeks of no contact. “Where’s Papa ?”

Ushering her children towards the luggage, she imparts a short reply. “He will be waiting for us by the waterfront to secure our microchips.”

Many have plunged into the pit of abyss as they deem the infinite oblivion of death is preferable than the perpetual travails. Others with truncated, fervent zeal to subsist and persevere in these extreme living conditions are consolidating their kin to bequeath their forsaken territories and voyage into the straggling vast lands of the deserts, in order to procure shelter in the Main City Hall, where it deliberately becomes a derelict shell for refugees who seek for accommodation in the bargain of labor under the totalitarian government controlled by the powerful corporate elites.

Outside their squalid tents, the subversive situation of the nomads is dire. Bounded by no laws, the docks implode with exiles jostling and shoving ferociously in order to claim the golden ticket of their escape from this everlasting pandemonium. Riots are breaking out by the prairies as families and arbitrary individuals revoke to yield.

Meanwhile, Rufinus lingers by the sides, away from the unrestrained vehemence and pursuing Rosalyn’s and her mother’s evading footsteps toward the piers, where they remain unseen by the turmoil of the jeopardized.

“Papa !” Rosalyn cheers at the concise glimpse of her father sheathed within the shadows. With her face beaming bright and her eyes shining with sheer glee, her feet immediately fling herself into his embrace.

In the core of bedlam and peril, Rufinus witnesses the passionate family reunion. His chest squeezes at the vivid gap of separation between them. The boundary line between a biological child of their own flesh and blood, with an adopted one, is something he has not the audacity to cross.

Rufinus intends not to be expressive about it, and perches in the consternation.

He wishes not to be part of something temporary.

“I have the chips with me,” Rosalyn’s father assures with his deep voice after he lets go of his daughter. “Let’s get onboard before anyone sees us. Stay calm and do not rush,” he warns the children of the portent that might erupt in the least expected moment due to mere heedlessness.

“And keep Rufinus close to you, Rosalyn.”

Like the demure girl she is, Rosalyn nods at her father and grips Rufinus’ hands so tight, as if she fears he might just vanish into thin air. Her blanched face stiffens with the arising tension when her father leans closer to implant the chip into the nape of their necks, but she tries not to clench her dependence onto Rufinus’ hands.

Click !

Rosalyn yelps in pain when the miniscule disc slips in between her flesh. The searing agony seems excruciating as her lips quiver in attempt to contain her sobs. Rufinus, on the other hand, seems nonchalant when he receives the injection. A measly sting is all he feels, before his hand rubs the area around his neck to soothe the ache down.

“Now we’re ready to board the ship,” their father says, while gazing over to the dreadnought hovering above ground in the inhabitant skylines. The continuous humming noise emits a rumbling vibration that embeds into their chests, cultivating their hope into anticipation for their departure, just as the beats of their hearts thump with excitement and trepidation.

“Keep your heads down.”

As the group blends in with the protesting crowd, each passing second is a step closer towards the craft, and the corners of Rufinus’ lips tug to a wicked grin.

Inconspicuously they board, oblivious to the deadly cargo that tags along.

Rufinus Fearghast is a twelve-year old, orphaned Danish boy with a brain abnormality.

He is the salvation that will lead the world to its end.

Like an oppressive heat unleashed from the wraths of hell, he hosts the apocalypse into the Main City, just as he did to the rest of the world; where destruction, catastrophe, and calamity will revel in euphoria