farms. Richard would bring articles or tell me what was happening, he let me keep a small TV down here to stay informed.”
“He didn’t count on the black market demand for his product. People were kidnapping elite and draining them for elixir, a drop of which was worth its weight in gold. Foreign corporations, espionage, he couldn’t contain it or control it.”
“The only thing that kept the elite at bay was the sun; the sensitivity was almost unbearable, it made them weak, blister up, rashes. Regular humans started locking their doors at night, letting elite roam the streets. Some of them enjoyed hunting, and gave into the blood lust.”
“Until the race wars,” I said. “And the Culling. When the bombs fell and the sky was shrouded in poisonous ash.”
“You poor Dear,” she croaked. “Is that what he’s been telling you?”
My skin prickled, before she continued.
“The truth is, the elite knew to survive, they had to turn off the sun and make the world less hospitable for humans.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Richard said we could block out the skies and live openly outside; that it was the only way for our kind. He’d build giant furnaces, that spew out a million metric tons of ash a day, like giant, raging volcanoes.”
She leaned close, pushing her face between the bars until her eyes bulged, displaying her black teeth and the rat bones stuck in her tangled hair.
“I called him crazy and foolish. I vowed to stop him. So he left me here to rot. But when the first flakes of burning ash fell, I knew he’d succeeded.”
I thought by this point, I would have been immune to surprises, but I wasn’t. This one knocked my feet out from under me.
He created the ash.
Just days ago, I’d stopped rebels from destroying the purification engines, because I thought they were absolutely necessary to the compounds.
But this truth was so much more insidious. The elite created the ash to force us into compounds. They were still creating it. Poisoning the whole world, just to maintain control; to make sure humanity couldn’t expand, grow independent, and become a reckoning force again. My mind spun as I tried to grapple with this new information. This truth shattered everything.
I stumbled backward, leaning heavily against the rough brick, the remains of the basement. The glamour I’d been under was almost completely gone now and I could see clearly. The basement was damp, covered with green moss and grass, apart from the deep red stain under the grate. A mound of small white bones gleamed from the corner, most rats or squirrels, with a few cats.
I shuddered thinking about it. She’d been down here like this for a century; pinned beneath the building, unable to die – luring innocents to her and corrupting their minds.
I’d never seen an elite so powerful, and yet so tragic.
“You’d leave me here?” she asked, as I stumbled towards the door.
“If I open the gate, you’ll just kill me.”
“Now why would I do that? You’re the only one who can save me, who’s ever broken through my spell. I can’t reach all of them, can’t convince them, but nobody has ever found their way down here before – and if they did, they’d never set me free. You though, you’re different. Special. I can tell. Who’s to say, you weren’t chosen for this? That this isn’t your destiny? Who’s to say Damien didn’t choose you for me, to save his long-lost mother. It does seem rather appropriate, don’t you think, like a fairytale.”
I could feel her pushing her way into my mind, saying the things she thought I needed to hear. She rose to her feet, a monstrous black figure of slime and filth, growing like a cancer out of the earth.
“I can sense the blood pumping through your body, faster and faster, as your terror grows. Free me, and I can remove all your pain. I am not a threatful creature, I do not mean to scare. I merely want the freedom I deserve, that I’m owed.”
I couldn’t trust her, I couldn’t trust myself. Not now, when I was still so weak. Not when my friends were still in danger.
“I swear, I’ll find Damien and tell him. I’ll tell someone. Someone will come for you – or I’ll come back for you myself.”
“You have walked into my residence, and I’ve told you the truth. We are bound together now. If you run, I will always find you, and I will drain the life