Chapter 2: Sürch

Sürching

I can’t believe I’ve been walking around in circles for the past three hours. My feet are getting tired and I see nothing in this wasteland. My blue eyes search the horizon but the only thing I see is the sky ablaze with the colors of the sunset. I brush my dark hair across my forehead and plop down on a broken tree stump. Just another relic from the Wipeout.

Sweat drips from my perfectly curved brow. Plunging my hand into the one sack I have, I pull out a small fragment of a mirror. Staring into it, I swear I can’t read my own eyes. Dark blue, stormy almost, going so deep I could fall into them.

SNAP!  I tear myself away from the mirror look around. At my feet is a broken branch. I look up. A large raven of some sort is eyeing me. In fact, it looks so human I am not surprised when it speaks.

“Who are you? Why have you come here?” it asks, in a raspy voice that drives my indefectible ears nuts. I didn’t see how talking to a large bird could change my current predicament, but I answer in a deep voice. A deep, unequaled voice. A voice which only could come out of my throat.

“My name, is Sürch Noriss, and I need a place to stay for the night.”

***

The raven turns around and takes flight. I don’t know how I’m going to do that, but if I sprout wings, I bet they’d be beautiful. Disappointed, or worried, I don’t know, I sit back  down on the tree stump and think about what I just saw. I think I’m going crazy. Since when do ravens talk? Or am I hallucinating? I search my pack for some kind of comfort, but all I can find is a daffodil, slightly crumpled. I breathe in its heavenly scent, but I know I don’t need to. I smell like that 24/7; even my sweat smells like that.

“You think about yourself too much.” The raven’s voice startles me, and I wonder how he can read my thoughts, and how long he’s been behind me.

“I’m an animal. I can sense emotions. You, young man, are obsessed with yourself. I’ve been behind you for about ten minutes. Even called to you a few times.”

I squint at the figures behind him in the fading light, and I make out three dark shapes. More ravens.

“Come with us. We will take you to a safe place.” And with that, two ravens clutch me by their talons and spring into the air, the contents of my pack, including the mirror, streaming behind us. I howl in protest, but they ignore me. Instead,they chit chat about the events of the day, and while I try not to listen it was quite funny. Apparently some guy named Hoss got tangled in his chair. Again.

I wonder if they were kids like me. They sure seem to be talking about school.

By the time I get over the fear of my unblemished arms being marked with the sharp talons of the ravens - I still am - I start to appreciate how beautiful everything is at sunset. Not as beautiful as me, of course, but, still. The sun pours over everything; the meadows that are now deserts, the rivers which are now valleys, and the lakes, which are now mere craters, reminders of the Wipeout. The sun gives everything a pink or purple or baby blue hue. My eyes wide open, trying to see as much as I can until it becomes too dark. I find things I haven’t seen in a long time. Barren landscapes with a lone tree, a shrub with just one shriveled up leaf on it, and I see a moon. A moon. Oh, I want to cry. The moon reminds me of the stories I heard about before the Wipeout, and I am suddenly jealous. I don’t know why or who I am jealous of, but I dislike the feeling. People have only been jealous of me, not the other way around.

I am so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I didn’t notice the ravens stopped talking. I turn my attention to the front, and gasp. It’s a country almost as beautiful as I am. Almost.

“Welcome to the country of Eirus Arc. We doubt you’ve seen anything like it before,” the ravens say in unison.

***

The ravens were right. It’s  a country washed over with rainbow hues and in harmony with the sunset, every single building sparkles. I’ve never seen anything like it. They set me down at the steps of a building with pure white slabs of marble as stairs. But I am taken by surprise as the marble begins to levitate and propels me toward a big room where a tired looking man is sitting. Finally, another human!

The slabs begin to fold themselves and the next thing I know is that the hum of electricity used to propel me forward was absent. I absentmindedly wiggle my hands, getting agitated - I want to see if I look okay. But my sack as well is my mirror is gone. So is my flower. But I see a penguin faced human wearing glasses gather up broken off petals of my flower and waddle into a lab of some sort. I wish I could wake up from this dream. I am amazed but scared, which is unlike me.

“Sit down. Welcome to Eirus Arc. My name is Nic Risch.” It took me awhile to understand that the man was talking to me, and when I did get it, I sat. The chair molded itself to suit me, making me yelp. The man had a short clipped voice, but I was sure he could talk long when he needed to.

“What is your name?” he asks

“Sürch Noriss.”

“How old are you, young man?”

“17, sir.”

“And you were doing what when my team spotted you?”

“I was searching for survivors of the Wipeout.”

“Why?”

The questions drone on and on, and I try to answer as much as I can before I pass out from exhaustion. After about an hour, Mr. Risch nods curtly and tells me to wait outside.

I walk out and a marble slab zooms over to me. I sit on it, willing it not to go to the other side. Thankfully, it stays put and I am able to see my reflection in the brightly polished floor. My cheeks are blotchy, my eyes have a red tinge to it, and my arms are covered in grooves made by the ravens’ talons. Groaning, I wish I could retrieve my pack and make myself handsome again.

Mr. Risch comes out in a couple of minutes. “You have permission to stay at the guest home on my estate.” I thank him, shake his hand. With that, he puts on a bowler hat and slips into a coat. I follow him across the hovering bridge and down three flights of escalators that could fly.

At the bottom, there is a big purple circle in the middle of the room, like an art exhibit. Its label reads: “For Mr. Risch and authorized personnel only.” He beckons me in front of him, gives me a slip of hard paper.

“Slide this into the card reader when you are inside.”

“Inside what, sir?”

In answer, he pushes me into the center of the circle and says “Happy Trip.”

I hold in a yell as I feel myself turning in circles. The giant building is disappearing from sight, and I feel the heat of a fireplace and smell toasted marshmallows. A metallic voice says, “Enter, visitor. Please insert card into reader.” Following directions, a purple screen slides open and I step out of the teleporter into the biggest house I’ve ever seen.

***

Looking around, I see that two girls are near the fireplace, toasting marshmallows. But as I  shake the dizzy feeling off I realize that one has red and gray striped cat ears and the other has long dog ears. Ok. Now I know I'm going crazy. They are both talking animatedly about something.

Mr. Risch enters the room and nods at me. Very quietly, I take a seat and Mr. Risch whispers in Long Ears’ ear. She gasps very quietly and slightly turns her head. She gasps at the same time I do. Her eyes are so light blue they are almost gray. But the rest of her head is a dog’s head - black snout and caramel and black ears. She is probably the oddest thing that I have ever seen. Everything about her is perfectly normal until you reach her head, and she also appears to have a tail sticking out from her moss green pants. She has that same dazed expression on her face that every other girl I meet has - she, like so many others, adores me. But there's no way I could ever love her; she is literally a dog. On the other hand, the girl next to her isn’t that hard on the eyes. She has dainty features with a small little nose and red and gray striped cat ears sticking out from the top of her head. She looks like she dressed up in a costume. She even has the same colored tail peeking out from her sapphire blue jeans. The girl smiles at me and I find myself giving them each a hard look. No one can love me except for me. It is the way of life.

“Cassie, meet Sürch Noriss, the...” Mr. Risch hesitates for some reason.

“May I go to sleep?” I probably sound rude, but I am so tired I could slump down here and not move until I get my full eleven hours worth of beauty sleep. Mr. Risch looks grateful for the distraction and leads the way to the guest house, which is almost a kilometer from the main house, so I am extremely tired when we get there. . But for some reason, once I lie in bed, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m forgetting something. “Yeep!” I squeal, remembering it at last. I leap out of bed and burst into the bathroom. An entire wall is a mirror. I yell with happiness and everything I could use to make myself pretty again appears in a cup - rather, cups - on a shelf that pushes itself through a slit in the mirror, which I swear wasn’t there a second ago.

I jump into the shower and a bar of jonquil soap appears by my side. As I scrub myself clean, I think about the strangers in this society. Why are there dogs and cats and penguins and ravens who look human? By now, my mind is bursting with thoughts and we can’t have that, can we? I shake my head and shift my thoughts to food. Oh, darn. Now I’m hungry. I wrap myself in a green towel and proceed back to the mirror, where a blow dryer from the ceiling dries my hair in a matter of seconds and even shifts it into the right place. One less thing to be done!

A knock sound on the door. I pull on some clean clothes that have magically appeared on the giant countertop and open the door. Oh. It’s the girl who looks like a cat.

“Hi. I’m Erissa.” I step out of the bathroom and nod.

“Sürch.”

“Ok, buster. Playing nice is over. I swear, if you hurt my best friend I will punch you and ruin your amazing face!” I nod vigorously and she smiles sweetly. “Goodbye! See you in the morning! Sleep well, Sürch.” It almost sounds like a challenge. And with that, she steps out into the cool air.

I am already trying to think of a plan to see if she will really hurt me.

© Copyright Roopal Kondepudi, Erin Hearne. All rights reserved.