This Mockery of Light || A Collection of Stories

The Ones Who Can't Leave

"Come with me," I begged.

The rust of the ruined city and the rising sun behind him painted his Dust-covered skin red. Once, steam would have risen from those chimneys and golden lights would have lit the windows. Now, a chimney was lucky to stand. The only lights inside were desperate fires children huddled around to keep warm.

He tucked his hands in tattered pockets, and I worried at how his pants sagged on his waist. Before the Dusting, we'd joked that if he was going to spend all day inventing, maybe he needed to invent himself a standing table. He'd had all the pudgy exuberance of a well-fed pup, a ruddy round face and the near-need for new pants. And if this was any other year, I'd just have said that he'd grown out of his baby fat.

This year, we weren't growing as much as starving.

He shook his head. "I told you, Coalette. I wanted to see you off, but city's edge is as far as I can go."

I stepped forward, taking his hands. "But what's left of the city? The gadgets don't work anymore, Maven."

He squeezed. "I'm not staying for the gadgets."

"What, you think you're going to be the city's savior?"

"No." His head shook, and his bangs drifted just over his eyes. He looked so much older than sixteen.

"Then why stay?" I demanded, stepping closer. "There's no future here, hardly any food. Please. Come north with me. They say the Dust isn't so bad there."

"I'm not staying for myself, Coalette. I'm staying for the ones who can't leave." His hands dropped, the faintest, softest tip of a smile begging me to understand.

I bit my lip, trying to force away any tears. "They're going to kill you."

"The kids?" His eyebrow quirked.

"The gangs, Maven." His levity only weighed on me more. "And yes, kids too once they get recruited. They're not innocent angels when they don't have any food to—"

"And why do you think I'm staying, huh?" His arms shot out to the side. "So that maybe there's a place they can go where they do have food, where they have a safe place to lay their heads down at night, where they don't have to kill and steal to survi—"

"They're not your responsibility!"

"They became our responsibility when the Dust killed all the adults!" Face red, he drug a hand through his hair. "Blazing boilers, Coalette, why can't you get that?"

My voice dropped. "I am not their mother."

"No, because their mother died!"

"So did mine!"

His lips screwed to the side. "That doesn't make you special, Coalette. That doesn't mean you get to act like you're the only one in the world that matters."

I stepped forward and grabbed his wrist. "Would I be here arguing with you if I thought I was the only one that matters?" Anger made my voice growling and sharp, but that wasn't what those words meant. In another world, where my stomach didn't grumble and the sun wasn't ticking time away and we hadn't had this argument over and over—in that world my voice was soft and tender and he listened to me because he knew I cared.

He peeled my fingers back. Levelly, he said, "I'm not begging you to stay. Don't beg me to come."

My heart grinded to a heaving halt like cogs clogged with Dust.

"I hope you find what you're looking for in the north." He started to turn, then paused, digging in his pocket. He drew out something on a chain, tossed it to me. "Stay safe, Coalette."

He left. I stared at the smooth metal in my hand, pressed the button to release the clasp. It caught, the Dust not giving it much room to slide. I tugged it open.

The face of a compass stared back at me, its needle frozen due south. My stomach twisted—it would never work again, not at least until it was cleaned out somewhere free of the Dust that wound its way into every crack. This was one of Maven's first devices he ever built. As simple as it was, I remember the excitement shining on his face when he came over to show it to me. "I'm going to be a famous inventor one day!" he'd said, and I'd believed him.

The Dust stole that from us too.

Tears blurred my vision, and when I looked up, Maven had already disappeared into the city. Swallowing, I turned away, hoisted my pack onto my shoulder, and set my course perpendicular to the sun.

The journey north wasn't easy, especially not alone. But what was worse, after all the freezing nights and Dusty days, the days with no food, the weeks on a sprained ankle, the months scared and alone and wondering if there were any humans actually left at this latitude—

What was worse was arriving. The Dust hadn't hit here as badly; most of their adults had survived. Some of their trains and factories even still ran, and when it snowed, they said the Dust would settle even more. It wasn't an apocalypse here; it was an inconvenience. Someone picked me up from a doorway where I collapsed half-dead, and I spent the first night in over a year warm with a full stomach.

It was everything I had looked for.

But that night, delirious with exhaustion, I popped open Maven's compass and stared at the frozen needle. Tucked into a bed, my heart ached for home like it never had before. How was Maven right now? In the trials of finding my way here, I'd had little time to think of him, but now I couldn't get him out of my mind. Was he alive? Had he helped anyone by staying? Were there children in his now-useless workshop, huddled together and hoping to make it through life by sticking to each other's sides? The fight had gone out of me. Did they still fight? I had saved myself. Could they save each other?

I spent weeks in that bed, recovering at their insistence. When I mentioned my city, they gently shushed me. "You barely made it here alive. No need to think about what you left behind when there's no going back for it."

I spent most of that time staring at a compass that didn't work.

When winter came, I thought about cleaning it out and returning it to its former glory. But as I sat at the table, tools spread around me, I couldn't find the will to pop it open. It was broken; the only logical thing was to fix it. But I couldn't.

If I did, it wouldn't point south anymore.