Hey gang! Please enjoy the final challenge in the Herculean - The Story. Right? The biggest part. Kind of a big deal.
Thank you for traveling with me through Adelaide's tale (no pun intended - okay, maybe a little).
You are the best readers in the whole wide world. MUAH
Adelaide ducked down behind the gutted remains of a hover car, unused since all forms of fuel had been used in the last world war – the fifth, she'd been told. Pressing her back against the machine, Adelaide adjusted her pollution mask and searched for Seymour's signal.
An umber hand stretched toward the black sky from behind a group of plastic blue barrels, and waved from side to side, gesturing toward the supply building. Adelaide nodded, then realized Seymour couldn't see her and rolled her eyes. Adjusting her mask again – it never fit quite right – she crouched low and scampered off toward the decrepit structure.
Once several stories high, the now crumbling skyscraper held all the UnKept's vegetation, which they ate along with the humans they captured. People like Seymour and Adelaide, who refused to stoop to the level of cannibalism, were called Scroungers – named by the UnKept for their "thieving" nature.
Flattening against the building, Adelaide waited for Seymour to join her. With stealth that she'd always envied, he appeared beside her, pressed against the building as though he'd always been part of it. Together again, they slipped through a crack in the wall.
The degraded and uneven flooring still held a bit of its old nomenclature, the words "ympic alle Bank." Adelaide considered the words, as she always did, wondering what a ympic was and if the water bank of Lake Tahoe reached this far west once upon a time.
A sharp poke on her arm brought Adelaide back to the present. Despite his pollution mask covering the majority of his face, Seymour still managed to roll his eyes.
They worked at night in complete silence, when the UnKept slept and chances of being caught were in their favor.
Despite being cannibals since the fall of the world governments, the UnKept had still hoarded all the vegetation since the last of the livestock had been eaten. Seymour said the UnKept only did it to draw their enemies in to be captured and eaten.
A shiver ran down Adelaide's spine as they crept through the shadows, avoiding the spots of moonlight seeping through the holes in the ceiling above them. Seymour stopped her as they reached the final door, and Adelaide had to stop herself from bursting through into the area beyond. He almost never let her go with him for this reason, but she'd begged and pleaded until he relented.
Seymour shot her a glare as he quietly turned the handle, avoiding the tell-tale creak of an ancient knob. The door whined as he wedged it open just enough for them to squeeze through.
In their effort to maintain control of the land, the UnKept had walled in one of the last known clean water sources – Lake Tahoe. They'd used buildings like this bank, already standing nearby, and then built up structures connecting them, surrounding the lake so it and anything with it remained under their possession.
Adelaide had only entered this area once before, years previous when Seymour brought her with him on one of his raids. She'd "come unglued" as he put it, and had been forbidden to go on such a sensitive mission ever since. Apparently, shrieking like a banshee and hurtling herself into a near death situation wasn't the best use of Scrounger time.
She still dreamed about that night – the night when she slipped in and saw the body of water for the first time. Apparently, long ago, Lake Tahoe had been nearly two hundred square miles of water. When she first saw it, it'd been little more than a few hundred square feet, but that didn't stop it from being the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
The rippling blue pool called to her, singing a song she knew deep in her bones. The notes resonated inside of her, like the beat of her own heart, inviting her in. Entranced by the beauty and the melody, she forgot herself.
Abandoning all of Seymour's rules, Adelaide had hurled herself headlong toward the water despite never learning to swim, only stopping when Seymour scooped her up, dragging her away as he stifled her screams with a well-placed smack to the jaw.
Now that she'd finally returned, her heart hammered in her chest, her muscles aching to see the water again. She slithered past the door, her breathing heavy as she turned to face the sight once again...
And nearly collapsed in despair.
Even Seymour froze, his eyes widening as he stared out at the barren stretch of earth before them.
Where Tahoe's waters had once rippled and beckoned, barely a puddle remained, brown and muddy over one thousand feet below them. Crude stairways had been dug out of the earth, dropping down into the hollow below. No song sang to her, and as she strained to hear, the faintest, pitiable warble reached her ears.
The sharp pain of disappointment ripped through her, dropping her to her knees. Adelaide choked on a sob, unable to fully grasp why this moment felt like the end of her own life, why the shallow water left her with a sense of abandonment. Beside her, Seymour ripped off his mask, face scrunched as he peered into the cavern below.
"So this is what they meant," he whispered, the dark stubble on his chin like onyx stone in the moonlight. "It's done."
Before Adelaide could ask what was done, Seymour shifted his attention to the rest of the enclosure. Adelaide followed his gaze, her stomach twisting for a second time.
Part of the purpose for the lake had been to keep the vegetation alive. Without water, neither people nor plants could survive. Adelaide closed her eyes against the sight of the barren fields, once teaming with different flora. The crops she and Seymour needed to survive lay dead, burned by the heat of the sun with no water to support them.
"We have to go," Seymour said, his mask still hanging at his side. "We can't stay any longer."
"How could they do this?" Adelaide asked, her words echoing around in her own cover. "How could they use up that much water?"
Something flashed in Seymour's eyes, but he shook his head. "We have to go." He slipped a hand under her arm and yanked her to her feet, dragging her back the way they'd come. As they reached the still cracked door, voices echoed from beyond.
"...door's open. I'll check inside. Go get the others."
Before Adelaide could even register it, Seymour slammed her up against the wall, shoving her behind a dilapidated lean-to, eyes wild as he crouched low beside her.
With a reverberating screech, the door opened and a figure stepped inside. Moonlight fell on his dark features, his black eyes and deep ochre skin. The only thing out of place was his shocking white hair, which fell across his brow, uneven and jagged like it'd been cut with a sharpened rock or a dull knife. In another world, Adelaide would have found him handsome, with his strong, straight nose and square jaw, but the faintest smudge of blood hung to his cheek, churning her insides.
The UnKept turned from his right to his left, his black eyes narrowed as he searched the area. With tentative steps, he moved to the edge of the barren lake, peering down into the vastness below.
He doesn't deserve the lake. None of them do. Emboldened by her disgust, Adelaide rushed from her hiding place and shoved the young man with all her might.
Yelping in surprise, he crashed forward, but not far enough. He rolled against the ground, clinging to the earth to keep from plummeting into the cavern below. With a snarl of rage, he pulled himself to his feet, bull rushing her, shouting all the while.
"Intruders! Scroungers! In the reservoir! Now, now, now!"
With fluid motion, he ripped the mask from her face and bared his teeth. His fingers curled around her neck, squeezing the air from her lungs. Black spots dotted the edges of her vision as she clawed at his hands to no avail. His teeth bared down at her, his eyes searched her face. She felt his fingers slacken as a look of surprise crossed his features.
Voices echoed from beyond the door.
"Ro!"
"Ro needs our help."
"The door's jammed! The other way – the other way!"
A large, dark mass slammed against Ro, knocking him sideways. Seymour's hands were under Adelaide's armpits within seconds, pulling her to her feet as Ro scrambled once again to keep from sliding into Pit Tahoe.
Seymour didn't let go of Adelaide's hand as he dragged her along the edge of the quarry, not waiting for her to catch her footing as he ran full speed.
They crashed through a doorway to one of the other structures, tumbling into a group of sleeping UnKept. Shouts of surprise and groans of pain followed them as Seymour heaved her forward, their momentum carrying them just out of the reach of their followers.
"Don't look back. Keep running!"
Adelaide wheezed, her chest burning, but she heeded Seymour's words, her focus on the gate not forty feet away. Screams of rage and shouts of capture followed them as the sprinted across the campgrounds.
"Hold your breath!" Seymour commanded, letting her go to allow them both the use of their arms as they reached the edge.
At the base of the gate, the UnKept lay stacked the dead carcasses of their victims – stripped of all flesh and muscle, left to rot in the heat of the sun. Her pollution mask kept her from breathing in the disease and decay.
Adelaide sucked in a breath, pumping her arms faster, spurning her legs to go just a little bit farther.
They reached the gate, and Adelaide let out her held breath, unable to hold it any longer. Her lungs on fire, she risked a second intake as Seymour laced his fingers together and she stuck her foot in his grip, allowing him to launch her up and over. He followed behind, his lanky arms and long legs aiding him. From the top of the gate, Adelaide savored her split second view of the ocean, just west of them on the other side of a rusty barbwire fence.
Adelaide dropped down onto the ground, the ocean disappearing out of view. As Seymour landed beside her they continued their sprint back to their hideout – east, away from the ocean. Adelaide now sucked at the air, her heart hammering. No matter how much of the night air she pulled into her lungs, she couldn't shake the horrible disgust welling inside her at the smell of the bodies. It hadn't been what she'd expected. She felt no desire to wretch or cut her nose off. Instead she felt...
Hungry.
(word count 1800)