The fourth wave of mutated virus wiped out a quarter of the global population. Governments locked down hard and mandatory vaccines were enforced (oh no, not again!). Those who refused were forced out of cities and walls were built to keep them out. This was the purge of 2029.
Over the next few decades, a shocking natural phenomenon was observed around the world. Patches of dense fog covered vast areas of the earth, creating new micro-climates within. Scientists believe strains of the virus that killed billions have jumped to animals and plants, causing catastrophic biological and chemical mutations that led to the emergence of the fog. Bottom line is : Fogland bad! Do not enter!
2109 - Nationalities no longer exist. Only two classes exist - citizens who live within sterile megacity walls, and wildlings who survive the lawlessness and untold aberration caused by the mutating viruses beyond the walls. A systematic and mutually beneficial symbiosis between the City and wildlings have ensured a stable co-existence for many generations. But now, at the dawn of the 80th anniversary of the purge, a menacing presence is astir in the foglands, antagonising the two factions into confrontation once again, unless the (very handsome and very tall) hero gets to the bottom of what's going on...
CHAPTER 1 - FOGLAND WILDLINGS
Aure gasps, flinching as a blur of fur and long tails scuttle past her feet. Rats, she wrinkles her nose in disgust. Her little brother Jonah offers a toothy grin at her from where he's crouching, against the side of a crumbling brick wall. He looks older than six, a frayed tweed cap covering his bald-shaven head, arms crossed over his wool jacket. She crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out at him. He stifles a giggle, covering the gap in his front teeth. She presses a finger on her lips, admonishing him to stay quiet. She's glad she has Jonah. She will cling to him for as long as she can, because with Jonah she can still smile and laugh and make jokes.
She brushes aside a loose strand of her auburn hair and gingerly steps onto a ledge. Standing on tiptoes, she peeks over the wall, her breath pouring out like mist into the freezing air as she gazes up and down the length of the derelict, rubble-strewn road. Nothing stirs. It is eerie here, nothing but rows upon rows of abandoned brick houses, with overgrown front lawns, and metal vehicles turned to rust, mostly gutted and burned. Edward called this place a neighbourhood. She can't imagine this was once filled with families. Only vermin live here now, feeding off of fruit and nut trees in overgrown back gardens.
Blue and pink streaks of dawn on the horizon catch her eyes. She stares at it, mesmerised. She was born fifteen years ago in the Galloway Forest fogland. It's one of the smaller foglands in Britain, quiet and relatively tame. A wildling through and through, she'd never ventured out into the vast open expanse outside for fogland, and she'd never seen sunrises or sunsets. The first day they walked in the vast open expanse of fields, she looked up and felt giddy, like she was about the be swallowed up by the sky. In fogland, everything is enclosed by the fog, confined in smaller, more manageable spaces.
It's been nearly a week since they fled their Loch Enoch mountain home in Galloway Forest, creeping about out in the open, skirting along old railway lines at night, and hiding out during the day. Everything happened so fast. She barely had a chance to catch her breath and wrap her mind around what has happened. They lost their sister Sara and their Nan.
She tears her gaze away from the sunrise. They need to hurry back to Edward and Gaia. They've spent the last hour rooting through derelict houses in the area in the dark, scavenging whatever food they can to help them along their journey to seek safety in the city. She beckons Jonah over. As stealthily as they can, they sneak onto the street, hugging closely to garden walls as they make their way back to their hideout for the day.
She keeps a firm grip on Jonah's arm as they hurry along, Jonah leading the way. They would not be on this journey if it isn't for Jonah. Over a week ago, he overheard distress transmissions on their ham radio. The clan at Loch Balminnoch, further south were attacked by marauders on horseback and had to flee. Thirty-six men, women and children were murdered. Nan said it was because there were rumours that a seer lived among the Balminoch clan. One of the cursed.
Aure has never known a seer, but Nan said seers can sense things and events that happen far away. The cursed are few and far in between, but marauders hunt far and wide, kiling them and their entire families so their genes will never pass down. Marauders are despised among wildlings. They have no tradition and no honour. They only know brute force. Marauders believe the cursed are demons. The only demons in her eyes are the marauders themselves.
As they get closer to the hideout, Aure glances around one last time, making sure they're not being followed. Then they quickly slip into a ruined two-storey terrace house. They feel their way through a dark, cobwebbed hallway, padding softly across floorboards thick with dust, into one of the back rooms. Jonah's two-year-old dog named Goose jumps up and runs to him, wagging her tail.
Their guardian Edward glances over his shoulder from the small makeshift fire he's tending in the middle of the room. He puts a finger to his lips and nods towards the corner of the room where Gaia lay fast asleep. Aure nods and crouches by Edward handing him her bag. He takes out its contents - a dozen apples, three fat squirrels and a couple of pigeons she's gutted, cleaned and skewered on a twig.
Edward holds up the pigeons, peering at it closely. "They're well fed around here," he winks, smiling.
She smiles. She's getting better at hunting.
Edward props the skewered meats up close to the fire. "There's still some fruit leather and five pieces of smoked venison, enough for us until we reach the City tomorrow."
"How long have these homes been empty?" she asks, curious. "Where did all the people go?"
Edward brushes his hands together and sits on the dusty floor next to the fire. "Scattered all over the lands outside the cities," he says, staring into the fire, his eyes suddenly haunted. "Those who accepted the vaccines lived in the City, those who didn't were chased out by their own, neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother. People came and burnt down their houses, looted, rioted. The government just let it happen."
Jonah frowns as he sits against the wall. He takes out a dog-eared copy of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' from his satchel. The antique book once belonged to their great-grandfather. "Is it true they don't have books in the City?" he asks, flipping through the worn-out pages.
Edward shakes his head, "Only digital books. Everything else is illegal in IGCs."
Jonah glances up from his book, "What's IGC stand for again?"
"International Government City," Edward says, stoking the embers of the fire.
Aure notices the hint of distaste in his tone. Sometimes when Edward spoke about IGC Carlisle, she can sense his disapproval. It makes her wonder again why he insists that they go there. It doesn't make sense to her. Their neighbours - Gabrielle and her son Callum, the Braithewits and their five children, Daisy and Earnest the newlyweds, and old mother Ellsworth - all headed north with the two hunters of their clan, Lucius and Medea. She bites her tongue, careful not to get into another argument with Edward.
Goose trots up to Jonah. He picks her up and cradles her in the crook of his arm. Jonah will have to give up two of his most prized possessions if they get invited into the City - his book and Goose. Jonah found Goose as a pup, left behind by gypsies in the woods near their hideout. Gaia said gypsies don't often abandon their dogs, let alone a good hunting breed like Goose. A jack-russel. Jonah didn't care whether the pup was a good breed or not. The two are inseparable.
"Maybe they've got all the kids they need this season," Jonah mumbles, burying his face in Goose's soft ear. "Maybe the season for invitations has finished and they've already closed the City gates."
Aure walks over and sits next to him and snakes her arm around his shoulders. This is the first time Jonah ever voiced his doubt.
"Well, if we don't try then we'll never know, will we?" Edward points out, turning the skewers over the fire. Aure notices the worry in Edward's eyes.
"And if it doesn't happen, we'll go straight up North and find the others," Edward adds with a forced smile.
Aure shivers. She'd rather not have to go back out on the open road, not after what they've seen. Three days ago, they walked past one of the aftermaths marauders have left in their wake. They smelled the caravan of dead bodies before they saw it lying in the middle of the road some distance away. They skirted around it as far as they could, but the smell of decaying bodies carried in the wind still made them gag.
Death. She suddenly thinks of Sara. "Sara said those who chose to leave the City can never return, and neither can their descendants. When they check our blood, won't they know who we are?" she asks. She regrets her question the moment she sees the look in Edward's eyes. Guilt twists deep in her belly. She drops her gaze, staring into the embers of their little fire.
"That law was made long ago," Edward's voice draws her attention. His voice is thick with emotion. "When they expelled those who refused the vaccine. They've abolished that law since then. Your grandfather was only a few days old when they left the City. He never got vaccinated. Great-grandfather didn't believe in vaccines. He said it interferes with God's will." He throws another piece of wood into the fire, his gnarled fingers curled around a long branch he uses to poke at the fire.
Aure nods absently, only half listening. They all miss Sara and Nan terribly. They've not spoken about Sara or Nan since the night they left Galloway. Gaia has not uttered a word, consumed by grief. She stares at the embers. She still can't believe they're dead. She wonders what happens after you die. What is on the other side of death? Do you just sleep? Do you dream? Or have nightmares you can never wake up from? Do you find peace on the other side? Or just an infinite nothing? What happens to the part of you that is not your body? The spirit, where are Sara and Nan's spirits now?
Clan elders used to say it is important for the young to watch the burning of the dead. It reminds them that every life has a beginning and an end. Memento Mori, they said. But when marauders burned the bodies of members of their clan, there was no ceremony, no mourning. Just carnage. She closes her eyes and grasps tightly in her hand the only thing she has left of Sara; a chain and pendant left in the ashes of the bonfire. A wave of grief rises inside her. It should have been her. She was supposed to go foraging for clams in the mudflat that day, but Sara offered to go instead. They were caught and killed while foraging in the mudflats two miles south of their settlement. Their bodies carelessly thrown onto a bonfire, burning hotter than she's seen any bonfire burn. In the end, nothing was left but ashes and whatever the fire could not consume. They saw it from afar. She remembers the blaze that razed the dead bodies, strange shades of blue and white flames licking up into the night sky. She remembers the stench of burning flesh. Sara's body was in that pile. Not her. Sara.
The others who escaped said Sara distracted the marauders so they could make their getaway. They caught her and killed her. No amount of reasoning can justify Sara's death and no amount of mourning will make up for Sara's sacrifice.
"What if they don't pick us?" Jonah's question breaks her train of thought
She glances at Jonah. What he means to say is, what if the City rejects her? A nervous flutter forms in her belly at the thought of what might happen once they get to the City. Jonah is the right age for the invitation, but she is probably too old at fifteen. By this time tomorrow, they'll be at the City gate. Rejection suddenly seems a real possibility for her. But as long as Jonah stands a chance, it is worth the risk. She pulls Jonah close, hugging him tight, suddenly afraid she will lose him too.
"Let's not worry about that right now," Edward says. "One thing at a time and the first thing we need to do is-" he pauses, pointing expectantly at Jonah to complete his sentence.
Jonah nods reluctantly, "- get to the City."
Edward smiles.
This has been their mantra since they left Galloway forest. Get to the City. Preferably alive.
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