Visions and Memories

We'll start this off with my most recent chain of works. I've been writing stories for the setting of Fallen Earth since May '09. This is the first one I wrote. The main character is Naomi Quinn, a woman who woke up several years ago in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Grand Canyon Province as a clone.

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It was happening again. It was always a little different each time but she’d grown to recognize it when it started. Tonight she found herself in an old, long since looted house miles and miles away from the nearest town or settlement. It used to be a farmhouse back when anyone cared. Now, however, the fields were overgrown with weeds and grass, broken stalks swaying in the evening breeze. The blackened shell of a long-since burnt out barn sat a hundred yards from the dilapidated house.

The farmhouse had, over the years, lost all of its paint. Now it was just the color of old, dry wood. Half of the second floor had caved in long ago and each stiff wind brought a creak through the house that spoke of a rotten and threatening foundation. There weren’t windows anymore, simply holes in the mottled exterior, a few boards placed over them here and there from past occupants. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Naomi found it somewhat amusing that people would board up the windows before they’d try to stabilize the ceiling, which definitely shouldn’t be sagging like it was.

Tonight she found herself sitting back in a chair, if one could call it that. It was a chair in function alone, otherwise it was just a bunch of scrap wood that past scavengers had hammered together with a relatively flat bit in the center and along the back. The table that accompanied it was stuck to the wall, someone having decided once that it was easier just to nail it to the wall and use only one leg than try to find four sturdy, even legs. Along the table she had arranged a few of her belongings and tonight’s supper. A slice of dried meat sat on an unfolded cloth, a beaten old thermos full of what she convinced herself with every tasteless gulp was water beside it.

Along with her meal rest a journal she’d picked up at one of the last towns she passed through, a long, wide scrap of tough leather with a toggle and a throng on either end to lash it closed. Ragged, dog-eared bits of paper peeked out every which way from the depths of the journal with a newly made ‘pencil’ resting atop. She wanted to get an entry in before sundown. There was no way she’d build a fire in this building, it’d probably go up in smoke at the very idea.

Naomi looked over her shoulder towards the other side of the house, blocked off by the collapsed stairway and makeshift door that tried in vain to block the way. She heard running water falling onto stone, or perhaps tile. It was hard to tell. Just like every other time it happened, she knew it wasn’t real but that didn’t stop her from looking and wanting to investigate. With a sigh, she took a bite out of her meat and pushed out of her chair. It wouldn’t hurt to go take a look.

Her boots thudded hollowly on the floorboards, long since dried and curling. She’d given some Tech more chips than she’d admit for these boots, a replica of the pre-Fall ‘work boot’, complete with steel toe. Damn if it wasn’t worth every chip. Tugging at her jacket, a rugged thing of dark brown leather that was well made if aged, she slowly approached the door. Apprehension built up in the forefront of her mind each time she approached one of the sounds she heard, a desire to turn back, a longing to proceed. With a deep breath she placed her covered hands, adorned in dark brown leather fingerless gloves, against the door and gave it a shove. The accumulation of planks and combined debris fell back with a loud clatter made even louder by the dead silence all around. Dead silence save for the water, of course.

A strong gust of hot air rushed across her face, tugging at her loosely curly blonde ponytail as if trying to guide her back from where she came. It was humid and heavy with the scent of tap water, a strong familiarity tugging at her mind. Naomi stepped past the threshold, sharp violet-blue eyes intent on tile work all around her. It was a soothing mosaic of greens and blues amidst a sea of white, the same linear patterns repeating again and again. Benches lined the oblong room on either side of her, a foot and a half away from rows of dark gray lockers. There were no windows in the room, the light came from the florescent tubes along a ceiling covered with large, white faux-wood paneling.

The sound of running water from the far end of the room drew her attention once more, the warm and humid air starting to tease sweat from her and making her wish she hadn’t changed into the dark blue turtleneck already. Her off-black cargo pants rustled with each step, the contents of her pockets objecting to a silent approach. It wasn’t as though she was trying too hard to keep silent anyhow, her right hand reached under her jacket as she began to draw closer to the far room, her view blocked off by a tile covered wall with an opening on either side. The sound of running water came from right behind that wall, she knew.

Slowly Naomi drew closer to the enclosed space, her glasses beginning to fog up the slightest bit from the faint steam roiling across the ceiling as it searched for an exit. She kept her hand at her hip under her jacket, palm hovering over the handle to her pistol, thumb caressing its back. As she came closer, she could make out two sets of metallic objects in regular intervals along the far wall in the next room, one about six feet off the floor, the other about four. The one up top looked like a dispenser of sorts, the term ‘shower head’ blossoming in the back of her mind. Finally she reached the doorway to the room, the sound of running water loud and to her left, just past the wall. She paused for a moment and took a deep breath before quickly stepping in, pulling her pistol from its holster and bringing it to bare before her with her other hand cupping the grip.

She saw an old fireplace. There was no running water. There was no steam, no tile, no benches, no lockers. The evening sunlight illuminated the other room of the farmhouse in its weak light, displaying decades worth of debris scattered about. Plenty of people had used this room as a shelter before her. From the smell of it, someone hadn’t been here too long ago. She heaved a small sigh and slipped her gun away, turning back to move towards the door.

According to Madam Chloe, a woman who called herself a psychic that she tracked down months ago, these were memories resurfacing. The Madam had told her that it was part of being a clone, the memories of old rising to the surface like the detritus at the bottom of a stagnant pool after it’s been stirred up. Usually they only occurred while people were asleep, coming as dreams and little more, but to some they came in waking dreams as well. They usually came when she was the most relaxed, Madam Chloe called it a waking sleep state, a state when the mind is relaxed and let go.

Naomi made her way back to the pieced together chair and sat heavily, ignoring the groans and faint cracking that resulted from the sudden seat. She didn’t like the waking dreams, they always seemed to end right before she actually learned anything. One time she found herself following the sound of someone she recognized talking leading to a door with the words ‘Journalism’ and ‘Mrs. Chalker’ just below it. When she opened the door, however, the dream vanished like always. She didn’t understand what it meant at first but now she was slowly starting to piece things together.

She peered out the window to look at the sun, noting it’s inevitable collision with the horizon soon. Madam Chloe had suggested she write down each of her dreams so that maybe, one day, she could look them over and understand what it was that was resurfacing. Taking a bite of her meat, Naomi pulled her journal over, drew her pencil, and opened the case. Time to make another entry and see if she couldn’t make some sense out of any of it this time.