In Sheltered Shadows

I have run from those who hunted me for death and those that pursued me for life. Through it all, I have found myself bound in fear of being found by either side. One offers death, the other offers a fate far worse than death, a fate considerably more frightening than facing down the sword of my enemies.

My name is Senka. For as long as I have remembered, I have run. Though fear was definitely one of my strongest motivators, I have found myself slowly overcoming the rampant fear that once held me so tightly. In fact, I can almost flee without fear now, running for the sake of freedom moreso than anything else.

The earth was shaken to the very core when the war began. My mother and father fled from the invading parasites without any knowledge that I was a newly formed life deep within. By the time my mother realized it, she and my father were locked deep in the mountains with the few rebels that managed to evade capture. It was a hard birth.

After her death, my mother’s body was used strategically in the war against the invaders. My father left me to fight alongside the rebel forces, never to be seen again. I was raised by strangers.

It made it easier for them to betray me, once the truth of my heritage was revealed. It made it easier for me to flee from them as well. A two-edged sword, I guess you’d say. Thankfully, there was no immediate danger to my life until I turned fourteen, old enough to take the hand of Skyler and leave the dark, pressing depths of the mountain and run, fleetingly and haltingly, into the sunlight.

There are two groups of people: the invaders and the forsaken. The rebels joined with the forsaken at one time out of sheer desperation. We were dying out. It was the leader of the forsaken, Ebony Sha, that discovered the gift within me. It was her son that delivered me. I guess I loved him, though I do not allow myself to think on it too much. He is dead, after all.

There is no safe place for one that is hunted by the entire world. The forsaken wish me dead. They know that I will turn the tide of the war. They assume that it will be in favor of the invaders. Skyler showed me the truth, the truth his mother buried. I will turn the tide, yes, but it will be in neither favor. I will have my own army.

I find this sad and woefully ironic as I traverse the barren earth alone and wary. At any given time, a hovercraft from the invaders could fly above me. I avoid open spaces except on moonless nights and cling to shattered ruins of cities for as long as I can.

I have one companion, one that I mention only as an afterthought. I refuse to get attached to anything or anyone. When Skyler died, I died with him. I would have stayed, in fact, had he not begged me to flee. He was killed by his own mother. That is the darkness that is the forsaken. The rebels would have been better off dying and alone.

I journey earth with a dog I have named Twila. She found me one night and stayed near me, despite my rants and raves. I never threw anything at the beast. Why harm her? Eventually, we fell into an easy pattern and, in a moment of weakness, I named her. However, we both seem to be of one mind. Though we journey together, there is no love, no attachment. We are both prepared to leave the other in danger.

Or so I told myself. In truth, Twila has won me over. I look for her anxiously when I wake and I drift off to sleep with my eyes upon her. She is a dog that is blacker than night. I know this, for even on the darkest of nights, she is visible against the blackness. Some day we may be separated. One of us may witness the death of the other. I will deal with my attachment then. I have learned, to my great pain, that man was not meant to walk this world alone.

I wonder when the army will rise and join me and when I will have my revenge for the loss of my love. But, for now, I walk and I hide and I run and I slowly conquer my fears and one day, when humanity is at the brink of utter removal and all is completely hopeless, I know that my time and army will come.

Watch for me. I linger in sheltered shadows and wait.

- May 29, 2013