Gabban followed the path West of his village, minding nests of gebes, godwits and white faced ibis along the way. Itโd been some years since his people left the roads to the shrubs and the surviving shorebirds. Rightfully concerned by the appearance of red clouds on the far horizon, as if the skies bled over their sister desert, wounded there by some unnamable force. Theyโd never believed in an โend to thingsโ, had never conceived of anything so powerful as to strip the world of sunlight. But the mists, and the people who emerged from them, had worked to change all of that in a short amount of time. Now they acted with unprecedented caution, isolating themselves within walls and the sulfuric air of the Great Salt Lake. Warded from everything they once considered part of the Spirit. Alone and cut off from the other tribes, excepting a single thread running East, theyโd chosen, against every one of their tenets, to abandon the world to its fortune.
Yet all things remained connected by earth, wind and water. Nature would someday take its course, and death would soon befall them as it had for hundreds of other souls. After all, they were already at risk of being poisoned by the metal laden lakebed and the airborne bacteria clustered on the banks. One way or another,and whether they were conscious of it or not, they would share in the fate of all things. Until then, he hoped to be spared from the savage derangement made common among the outsiders, and that his brothers would be of the few to escape to better pastures.
To clear, blue skies and perfume windโฆLet it be so.
Darkness brewed over his heart as he passed some of the guardian statues offroad. Mournful and ashamed, Gabban could barely glance at the eyes that watched, the ears that listened, and the smiles that never waned in their unspoilt serenity. A host of sculpted animal and human bodies which merged together into spirals, blending into one another like water. These were the remnants of a better past, back when his parents first began their courtship and built the home he would prematurely inherit. When it was still feasible to bear children without the fear of their swift undoing. If they could both see their triplets as they were then, would they be disappointed? Would they lament their peopleโs fall from grace? He turned from their joyous expressions and their outstretched hands, inviting him to be a part of the family of things (, to become as one), unable to cope with the desires of his heart and the realities around him. What did it even mean to be one anymore? He wondered blearily as he trudged further and further away from his village, hoping to get as far away as possible from the smell of saline.
The moment he reached a pocket of odorless air, however, he heard the rustling of something large set in his path. Gabban reached into his holster, squinting through the dimness and focusing on the vague silhouette of a creature writhing in front of him. He pushed forward with his pistol aimed at the shadow, until the moonlight shone over its crumpled form and revealed to him the black smears painted across their trousers. Instinct took over his better senses then, and rushed him to kneel beside the stranger without a second thought.
The man laid broken on the ground, numb and sunken in a pool of his own sweat. He stared back into Gabbanโs eyes with little recognition, with little of the spark of life, unable to break free from the pain that welled up inside him. Gently, the healer began searching for any clear signs of injury, or of anything else that might clue him onto their condition.
โCan you still hear me? Can you understand me?โ He placed a palm flat over their brow and instantly felt the hellish fever burn through the pads of his fingers. โWhat did this to you?โ
