The earth is so empty in their absence.
"Are you...?" I whisper, unable to articulate my thoughts.
Could it be that the Presence I feel is in actuality the collective spirit of all the creatures who once lived in this world, those for whom the planet was first created? Could it be that they've never left us? That the bioweapons and bombs were never able to completely destroy them? Do they continue to live on...as this brooding life force?
An explosive blast thunders from the bunker, and the ground trembles. I catch my breath, my heart lurching, even though I knew it was coming. Plato has done it.
My fingers tingle strangely, and I look down at them. Sharp claws slowly retract through holes torn in each of my gloved fingertips.
Time stops.
In the silence, I stare at my gloves. I turn them over in between heartbeats and swallow. I wiggle my fingers and see each one through its hole—both hands, both gloves. I exhale in a short burst and grit my teeth.
The dream...
What's happening to me?
Men are shouting and running, all of them moving en masse across the plateau, down the hill.
"Luther—the bunker!" One of them grabs at my shoulder as he rushes by.
I turn slowly, moving as I do in dreams. But as I look down the hill, I know this is no dream. Smoke, dark and thick, billows upward from the bunker's blackened blast door. The rock face around it has caved inward, large chunks of earth lying on top of one another against the sealed door. There is no way it can be opened again, either from within or without. The mechanisms have been destroyed, and even if Holmes wants to dig through the rock face around the door, he'll be unable to penetrate the reinforced steel to enter the shaft below.
The deed is done. There is no going back now, not for any of us.
I look at my gloves again, my feet rooted. A cacophony of shouts echoes below me, and there may be fighting. I can barely hear it though, as all my senses are overwhelmed by one question.
I flex my fingers, and the claws, long and sharp like an eagle's talons, extend outward, gleaming under the sun.
What am I?
3 DaiynaFour Weeks after All-Clear
We've been changed.
I don't know when or how it happened—maybe during that first dust storm that came upon us in the night as we traveled—but something has turned us into more than we were. I try to accept it as Mother has advised us, that this is our new reality.
It's in the evenings like this when I'm alone that these thoughts return. I have to do something to pass the time and keep my mind alert; otherwise I'll surrender to the sleep that lurks in the shadows, and my sisters will be left in danger. Only a couple hours more, then my watch will be over. One of the others will pace across the width of this cave with a makeshift spear, holding the hungry daemons at bay.
The only way we've managed to stay alive is by outwitting them with our gifts, as Mother Lairen calls our new abilities. The daemons don't seem very intelligent, even though they're the ones with the vehicles and real firepower. We have only what we were able to piece together after we stripped the bunker bare and headed up to these caves in the mountains. My weapon is an ingenious combination of a two-meter long PVC pipe, some duct tape, and a serrated scrap of steel. I've yet to use it in battle. None of our weapons have been put to the test. Our gifts alone have kept us alive.
Mother Lairen—the oldest and wisest among us—believes the Creator in her infinite wisdom bestowed these abilities upon us as an act of divine mercy, knowing we would need them to survive in a strange new world.
She might be right. But I have my own ideas.
We're mutants.
Something in the air we're breathing—or in the contaminated dust at our feet that has a bizarre tendency to move at will—has gotten inside our lungs and changed us. I don't know how, but the results are clear to see. Some of the women can hear sounds from great distances. Others can see farther than humanly possible. A few now have the strength to move large boulders. Most of us can see in the dark, which is obviously helpful during these night watches. Everything I see, from the barren land below to the ridge of the mountainside, is cast in a bright blue monochrome by my gifted eyes.
I'm sure there are sisters in our midst who have yet to become aware of their abilities. That's the funny thing about these gifts—they tend to emerge without warning, right when we need them most. Perhaps they do come from the Creator as part of her provision.
But from the start, it's felt like something else.
I sensed it the moment we stepped out of the bunker a month ago and looked out across this lifeless world. Yes, it was empty, missing every living creature that used to thrive on its surface. But even in the desolation, I instantly felt a Presence, one I couldn't name or describe.
We weren't alone—that much I knew for certain.
Maybe it was some sort of intuition, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be long until this Presence—or life force, or energy, as I struggled to give it an identity—manifested itself, either benignly or malevolently. Many of the others, including Mother Lairen, dismissed the idea as medieval superstition. They believed in the Creator as the one and only supernatural force to be reckoned with.
But some of us have come to believe this
