Cold Ashes

Chapter 18 - Confession

Ryan did not dream.

There was a gap, large and completely dark. A void which was terrifying; with the ghosts who all judged him, reminded him of who and what he was. He hated them. Because every word that rang in his ears was right - the cold blackness that repeated the same words. The same memories. The same crimes.

Was this to be his new world? He saw shadows and shapes that were lined with bright white light. Demons who whispered to him in his ear. Mumbles of illiterate words that echoed through his mind like distant whispers from a faraway shore. He didn't know whether to follow them or not. He didn't know where he was. He could barely remember anything.

But he knew Leah was there.

It wasn't something he could entirely explain, because there was nothing to say. He just had her smell, the odour that lingered with him throughout the daze. He could hear her words, her sweet voice blessing him like a golden angel in the darkness.

Sometimes he tried to reach for it - but his arms would not obey him; even if they did, he wouldn't know where to hold out his hand. But it was a comfort. Someone as a guide in the new world he'd trapped himself within.

****

One of the doctors paused by the bed, looking at the boy who now slept. It had been hours since the strange occurrences of his resurrection, and still she couldn't understand what had happened.

The injection was doomed to fail. She had been told that many times even before the procedure - it was never supposed to work on humans. It was just a test. One that nobody expected to succeed, especially her.

And yet there she stood - looking at the impossible.

Her name was Yvonne. Although that name had rarely been spoken in years, only ever by her sister now. Her sister who spent most of her time with her own family, caring and nurturing them elsewhere in the city. She didn't know where anymore. It was safer that she didn't know for everybody, safer for her research.

Her sister was, after all, a wanted criminal. One that, sooner or later, was bound to be found by Boss' private police. In some ways, she thought it would be better for her little sister to spend some time in the dungeons.

Learning how to obey. Just like she did.

Their relationship had never been that simple. It was a fact that Yvonne had always accepted as inevitable; they had differing opinions, and although sometimes it brought them closer, it was more often that it tore them apart.

She was always attracted to science - qualifying as an advanced biologist before she was twenty, now more or less entirely in charge of her own facility and helping to design half the machines that kept the entire city going.

Then there was her sister, attracted to the younger generation. Training to become a teacher, succeeding and being shoved in some god-awful school. Falling in love with a foolish boy and running away with him in equal foolishness to get married. For the first time in a very long while, Yvonne actually agreed with her parents. The marriage was never going to work.

In a way she was correct - the apocalypse came. They lost their parents. They lost their entire lives in the 30 Day Blaze, their home gone in minutes, yet they still lived. The world under ruins, every continent bathed in the blood of millions - billions, even. Yet she had found Boss and his resources of plenty, she found a new life to live, she had a new purpose to live for.

And where was her baby sister? Where was she after ten years of scrounging? After losing that pathetic man of hers? Running an illegal orphanage somewhere in the city. Still looking after snot-nosed brats who don't pay their own way in this world. Never to see the light of day, never to even sleep for comfort.